IN the third chapter of the Prolegomena the author has endeavoured to state clearly the principles on which the metrical version of the Book of China's ancient poetry, published in the present volume, has been made, and will only repeat here that his readers will find in it, in an English dress, the Chinese poems themselves, and not others composed by paraphrase from them. It remains for him to relate how he came to undertake the work, and the assistance that he has received in completing it.