The Supreme Ruler Possesses The Same Attributes And Discharges The Same Functions; The Governing Classes Are Chosen In The Same Manner; The People Are Bound In The Same State Of Servitude, And Enjoy The Same Practical Liberty; All Is Now As It Was.

Neither under the Tangs nor the Sungs, under the Yuens nor the Mings, was there any change in national character or in political institutions to be noted or chronicled.

The history of the empire has always been the fortunes of the dynasty, which has depended, in the first place, on the passive content of the subjects, and, in the second, on the success or failure of its external and internal wars. This condition of things may be disappointing to those who pride themselves on tracing the origin of a constitution and the growth of civil rights, and also would have a history of China a history of the Chinese people; although the fact is undoubted that there is no history of the Chinese people apart from that of their country to be recorded. The national institutions and character were formed, and had attained in all essentials their present state, more than two thousand years ago, or before the destruction of all trustworthy materials for the task by the burning of the ancient literature and chronicles of China. Without them we must fain content ourselves with the history of the country and the empire.

Chitsong was engaged in three serious operations beyond his frontier, one with a Tartar chief named Yenta, another with the Japanese, and the third in Cochin China.

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Words from 54663 to 54925 of 191255