Li Ling by Atsushi Nakajima: “When it came to the Zuo Zhuan and the Guoyu, there were certainly facts, and the skill of narration in the Zuo Zhuan could only be admired; but there was no inquiry into the individual people who made those events. [auto-translated]”
The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi by Fukuzawa Yukichi: “Afterwards I attended lectures on other Chinese texts, and then studied alone, history first; I was especially fond of the Zuo Zhuan, and while most students quit after three or four of its fifteen volumes, I read it all, about eleven times, and memorized the interesting parts. [auto-translated]”