Ancient China Simplified

by Edward Harper Parker

Produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Page images courtesy of Case Western Reserve University Library -
Preservation Department

ANCIENT CHINA SIMPLIFIED

[Illustration: Tripod of the Chou dynasty, date 812 B.C. In 1565 A.D. it was placed by the owner for safety in a temple on Silver Island (near Chinkiang), where it may be seen now. Taken (by kind permission of the author) from Dr. S. W. Bushell's "Chinese Art," vol. i. p. 82.]

ANCIENT CHINA SIMPLIFIED

BY EDWARD HARPER PARKER, M.A., (Manc.)

PROFESSOR OF CHINESE AT THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER LONDON

PREFACE

Boswell once remarked to Dr. Johnson that "the history of England is so strange that, if it were not well vouched as it is, it would be hardly credible." To which Johnson replied in his usual style: "Sir, if it were told as shortly, and with as little preparation for introducing the different events, as the history of the Jewish kings, it would be equally liable to objections of improbability." Dr. Johnson went on to illustrate what he meant, by specific allusion to the concessions to Parliament made by Charles I. "If," he said, "these had been related nakedly, without any detail of the circumstances which generally led to them, they would not have been believed."