dealing with this time,--one not unworthy, it is said, of
Scott,--remains to be translated. Then, by way of reaction, came
another half-cycle (roughly) of reunion: an unwarlike period of
timid politics and a super-refined effeminate court; it was,
says Professor Harper Parker, "a great age of calligraphy, belles
lettres, fans, chess, wine-bibbing and poetry-making." Then,
early in the fourth century, China split up again: crafty
ladylike Chinese houses ruling in the South; and in the north a
wild medley of dynasties, Turkish, Tungus, Tatar, and Tibetan,--
even some relics of the Huns: sometimes one at a time, sometimes
half a dozen all together. Each barbarian race took on hastily
something of Chinese culture, and in turn imparted to it certain
wild vigorous qualities which one sees very well in the northern
art of the period: strong, fierce, dramatic landscapes: Nature
painted in her sudden and terrific moods. China was still in
manvantara, though under obscuration; she still drew her moiety
of Crest-Wave souls: there were great men, but through a lack of
co-ordination, they failed to make a great empire or nation. So
here we may take leave of her for a couple of centuries.
Just why the vigor of the Crest-Wave was called off in the
two-twenties, causing her to split then, we shall see presently.
Back now to Rome, at the time of the death of Pan Chow the
Hun-expeller and the end of the one glorious half-cycle of the
Eastern Hans.

As China went down, Rome came up. Pan Chow died early in the
reign of Trajan, the first great Roman conqueror since Julius
Caesar; and only the Caspian Sea, and perhaps a few years,
divided Trajan's eastern outposts from the western outposts of
the Hans. We need not stay with this Spaniard longer than to
note that here was a case where grand military abilities were of
practical value: Trajan used his to subserve the greatness of
his statesmanship; only a general of the first water could have
brought the army under the new constitutional regime. The
soldiers had been setting up Caesars ever since the night they
pitched on old Claudius in his litter; now came a Caesar who
could set the soldiers down.--His nineteen years of sovereignty
were followed by the twenty-one of Hadrian: a very great emperor
indeed; a master statesman, and queer mass of contradictions
whose private life is much better uninquired into. He was a
mighty builder and splendid adorner of cities; all that rem