One of these is the huge illustrated encyclopaedia in which everything which has ever been said upon each of a vast array of subjects is brought into a systematized book of reference, running to many hundred volumes, and being almost a complete library in itself.

It was printed, after the death of K`ang Hsi, from movable copper types.

The other is, if anything, a still more extraordinary though not such a voluminous work.
It is a concordance to all literature; not of words, but of phrases.

A student meeting with an unfamiliar combination of characters can turn to its pages and find every passage given, in sufficient fullness, where the phrase in question has been used by poet, historian, or essayist.
The last years of K`ang Hsi were beclouded by family troubles.

For some kind of intrigue, in which magic played a prominent part, he had been compelled to degrade the Heir Apparent, and to appoint another son to the vacant post; but a year or two later, this son was found to be mentally deranged, and was placed under restraint.