Historic China, and other sketches - University of Macau Library

THE HANS. 33
to search for some mysterious islands off the coast of
China ; and this expedition has since been connected
seriously with the colonisation of Japan. He built the
Great Wall, which is nearly 1,400 miles in length,
twenty-two feet in height, and twenty feet in thickness,
forming the most prominent artificial object on the
surface of the earth. His copper coinage was so uni-
formly good that the cowry disappeared altogether from
commerce with this reign. According to some, the
modern hair-pencil, employed by the Chinese as a pen,
was invented about this time, to be used for writing on
silk ; while the characters themselves underwent certain
modifications and orthographical improvements. The
' First Emperor ' desired above all things to impart a
fresh stimulus to literary effort; but he adopted singu-
larly unfortunate means to secure this desirable end.
For, listening to the insidious flattery of courtiers, he
determined that literature should begin anew with his
reign. He therefore issued orders for the destruction
of all existing books, with the exception of works treating
of medicine, agriculture, and divination, and the annals
of his own house ; and he actually put to death many
hundreds of the literati who refused to comply with
these commands. Numbers of valuable wpyks thus
perished in a general literary conflagration, popularly
known as the ' Burning of the Books ; ' and it is partly
to accident and partly to the pious efforts of the scholars
of the age that posterity is indebted for the preservation
of the most precious relics of ancient Chinese literature.
But the ' First Emperor ' went the way of all flesh ; and
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