Under his auspices a great revival of letters took place, and it again became the proudest privilege of a Chinese subject to be ranked among the literati of the country. In nothing was the moderation of Wenti more clearly shown than by the edict which he issued abrogating the law which had been passed by the great Hwangti, forbidding any one to criticize the form of government. As Wenti very truly said in this "glorious edict," to maintain such a law was to deprive the sovereign of one of the most valuable sources of his information, and to keep him in ignorance of the true mind of his people. The significance of this act is but little enhanced by the fact, remarkable though it be, that at a later period he reprimanded his officials because in the public prayers they asked for his exclusive happiness rather than for that of his subjects. His efforts for the improvement of agriculture and for the reclamation of waste lands were equally strenuous, and crowned with the success they deserved. He gave no encouragement to any in his Empire to lead either an idle or a useless life, and he set an example which he expected the highest and the meanest of his officials to imitate. Among his other acts it only remains to say that he permitted throughout the Empire the coinage of money, which had hitherto been the monopoly of the capital, thus placing great facilities in the way of those engaged in

commerce.

The manner in which justice was dispensed under his supervision would furnish a theme as much to his praise as any of his other acts. It was a maxim of his reign that punishment was awarded under laws common to both subject and prince, and that to vary them in deference to the power of the ruler would be to introduce confusion into the state, and to instigate many to violate them—a maxim worthy, it may be said, of our Chief Justice Gascoigne. At the same time Wenti was not wholly free from some of the severity of the national character, and when a culprit violated his father's tomb and was condemned to death, Wenti did not consider that the execution of the offender atoned for the wrong done to the family honour. He wished that his family should be destroyed; but on the remonstrance of a minister

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he decreed that only the wrong-doer should receive punishment. At a later period he abolished mutilation, which had been the most common sentence in China's criminal code, and it was found that the execution of the laws was quite as effectual, although the punishments had been deprived of much of their terror. It was the peculiar boast of Wenti's life that, after he had been on the throne for a few years, there were not "four hundred criminals" in all the gaols of the realm.

The death of the Tartar king Mehe, who has already been mentioned as having had relations with the Chinese government, revived the questions connected with the far west. His son Lao Chang succeeded to his authority, and one of his first acts was to propose the renewal of the truce with China, and to ask for a Chinese princess in marriage. Wenti, ever desirous of treading the pleasant paths of peace, willingly complied, and for a brief space it seemed as if Lao Chang would prove as well-behaved a neighbour as Mehe had latterly been. But this anticipation was soon found to be a vain hope. The Tartars showed no inclination to conform with the terms of the truce, and began to renew their raids within the Chinese frontier. Even then Wenti was loth to declare war upon them, and it was only after the tribes of the desert had wrought much mischief that he could be induced to take up the sword for their chastisement. It would be a mistake to suppose from this that Wenti was a pusillanimous prince. He well knew the difficulty of conducting a war with the Tartars to a successful conclusion, and wished to avoid by all the means in his power a collision with a people whom he could not subdue, and yet whom, unsubdued, he knew would always remain a bitter and perhaps an irreclaimable foe. At length, however, the Tartars proceeded so far in their hostility that Wenti gave orders for an army to be sent against them.

At a grand council of war held for the purpose the various modes of carrying on operations against the Tartars were discussed, and prominent among them was a propositionafterwards carried into practice-of raising a force from those Tartars who had become Chinese subjects for the special

service of protecting the western frontier. This scheme was found to answer admirably, and may be considered the first occasion on which the Chinese government incorporated in its army a military force composed of an alien race. Some few years after this decree (about the year B.C. 166) the Tartar king headed a great expedition into China. The invaders. were computed to number nearly one hundred and fifty thousand horsemen, and for a considerable distance within the frontier they carried everything before them. On the approach of an army sent by the Emperor they adopted sound tactics and retreated with their booty. Eight years later they renewed the attempt, on two occasions, with equal success, but in the meantime Lao Chang, their chief, had died. He was succeeded by his son Kiunchin. The Chinese forces appear to have been ill-suited for coping with them and the Tartars harried the country almost to the gates of the capital.

The chagrin produced by these disasters told heavily on the health of an Emperor always desirous of his people's happiness and welfare. After ruling the Empire wisely and with beneficial results to his subjects during twenty-three years, Wenti died (B.C. 156) at the early age of forty-six, leaving to his son who succeeded him a brilliant example of a prince who set the public weal high above the gratification of his own personal pleasure. If there had been any doubt as to the triumph of the Hans proving permanent or ephemeral, the virtue of Wenti decided the point, and the later Emperors of his House following very much in his footsteps, the Han dynasty took its place as one of the most popular which ever ruled the Chinese nation.

Wenti's son on ascending the throne assumed the name of Hiaokingti, or Kingti, and in his first acts he closely imitated his father. Probably this must be attributed as much to the advice of his experienced ministers as to his own disposition. It is certain that while in the first days of his reign he remitted taxes, and extended the merciful consideration of new sovereigns to criminals undergoing the penalty of the laws, he very shortly afterwards imposed a fresh tax, and one, moreover, which had been waived by

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Wenti. This caused some discontent; but, on the other hand, his moderation in the dispensation of the law, and the further alleviation of the penalty of flogging, which Wenti had substituted for mutilation, secured him the favourable opinion of the mass of his subjects. On the whole, Kingti proved himself a weak if an amiable prince. On one occasion, however, his irresolution cost the life of one of his most devoted and skilful ministers. A league of princes had been formed for the purpose of advancing private ends that need not be particularized, and Chaotsou, the wisest of the Emperor's ministers, had been selected as the special object of their enmity. It was said that, were Chaotsou executed, the rebels would disperse, and in a weak moment Kingti sacrificed Chaotsou, just as Charles the First abandoned Strafford. Of course the rebels were only encouraged by this unwise concession to their illegal action, and raised their demands because of this evidence of the weakness of the king.

Kingti then sent a large army against them, and attacked the forces of the rebel princes from three sides; and his commander succeeded by a series of skilful manœuvres in shutting them up in their camp. In the struggle which then took place craft met craft, and at length the rebels, fighting with all the courage of despair, strove to cut their way through the ring of enemies around them. At first their onset was successful, but the Chinese reserves coming up, the whole army was destroyed. All the princes, save one, were either slain or sent as prisoners to Changnan, where they were executed. The remaining years of Kingti's reign were uneventful. The Tartars did not greatly disturb the border, and when Kingti died (in B.C. 141) he left the record of sixteen more years of almost unvaried tranquillity to the history of the period. The Chinese nation had turned these years of peace to the best use, and were at this time in a high state of prosperity and material strength. By the successful intrigues of his mother, Lieouchi had been, some years before Kingti's death, proclaimed heir-apparent in preference to his elder brother, Lieouyong, and now on his father's decease he became Emperor by the name of Hanwouti, or Vouti.

When Vouti began his reign he was only sixteen years of age, but one of his first resolutions was to raise his country to a higher point of splendour than it had yet reached, and he took the opportunity of inviting the opinion of the ministers and other learned men as to the means to be employed for the attainment of his object. The gist of their observations may be taken as expressed in the line that "the principles of Government did not consist in fine words or studied speeches, but in actions." Vouti's efforts towards consolidating his government were retarded and thrown back by the intrigues of his mother, who was a patron and supporter of the Taouist sect, and several of his foremost ministers, having incurred her resentment, were either executed or dismissed the service of the state. Five years afterwards the Empress-mother died in consequence, it would appear, of injuries received during a great fire at the palace, and then Vouti reinstated some of these ministers in their former offices.

Vouti's first anxiety was caused by the outbreak of a war between two Chinese princes, and, when the weaker appealed to him for assistance against the aggressive neighbour, his ministers gave opposite counsel as to whether the request should be complied with or refused. One minister, dwelling on the well-known turbulence of the people of Yuei-the modern Fuhkien-insisted that it would be foolish for the Emperor to take part in a quarrel from which he could reap no advantage. Another, Chwangtsou, took, however, the opposite view, and pointed out that the Emperor could not be considered the father of his people if he turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of the weaker of his subjects. Convinced by this latter argument Vouti resolved to extend his protection to the afflicted, and entrusted the operation to Chwangtsou in person. On the approach of the Imperial troops the aggressors retired into the difficult country behind the marshes and lagoons of Fuhkien, where Chwangtsou conceived it to be prudent to leave them undisturbed. The campaign could only be considered in the light of a failure were it to conclude without securing permanent safety for those who had suffered from the incursions of the men of Yuei, and Chwangtsou accordingly obtained the sanction of the Emperor to their