Mr. Davis on the Poetry of the Chinese. 439 



of its cruelty, and gave away tlie lady in marriage to a noble. On making 

 war against the state called Tsin, the new Emperor was opposed by a for- 

 midable leader ; but he dreamed at night that he saw the deceased father 

 of the lady he had saved from death, who told him that in return for the 

 life granted to his daughter, he would assist Iiim against the enemy. The 

 result proved the vision to be prophetic — the hostile leader was defeated, 

 and some invisible agent so twisted the long grass which impeded his flight, 

 as to cause his capture. 2. A person who saw a bird fall to the earth, 

 wounded by an arrow, had the humanity to draw out the weapon, and re- 

 store the bird to liberty as soon as it recovered. Being soon afterwards sick 

 and in danger of his life, the bird appeared to him, bearing in its bill some 

 yellow flowers, which the patient was advised to try, and which presently 

 restored him to health. 



The poetry of China is not unsupplied with mythological aids : every 

 element of nature, — with all the phenomena that these exhibit, — each hill, 

 stream, and wood, has its presiding spirit. There is Hwuyloo, the monarch 

 of fire ; Lttykoong, the thunder god ; Liihshin, the spirit of the autumnal 

 wave, — and others innumerable. An interesting divinity, called Yuelaou, 

 ' the old man of the moon,' deserves some notice. It is his peculiar busi- 

 ness to tie together at their birth, with an invisible silken cord, all youths 

 and maidens who are predestined for each other, after which the most 

 distant separation, and apparently insurmountable obstacles, cannot prevent 

 their ultimate union. This is what is called ye-wyuen, ' having a connection 

 in fate.' With such a variety of imaginative resources, and with some of 

 the brightest leaves of the book of nature, displayed to them in an immense 

 tract of counti-y, surpassed by none in natural advantages, this people would 

 be dull indeed if they could not turn to some account the materials which 

 they possess. 



The muse, too, may call to her assistance the smaller race of fairies or 

 sprites, who are supposed to haunt the recesses of hills and woods, and to 

 exercise either a benign or a malicious influence over mortals. Possessing 

 but a vague notion of the ideas which the Chinese really entertained of 

 these imaginary persons, the writer of this applied for information to his 

 Seenseng (or pundit, as such a character would be called less far to the 

 east), and the reply was to this eflfect. " They are mysterious beings who 

 convert themselves at will into the semblance, sometimes of beautiful wo- 



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