Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/149

130 afterwards a plot was laid to secure vengeance. A Magistrate, named 鄭虎臣 Chêng Hu-chên, whose family he had injured, was sent after him, and he was slain at a temple near Chang-chou in Fuhkien. Another account says that he anticipated his fate by taking poison.

  Chia Tao 賈島 (T. 浪山). A.D. 777—841. A native of Fan-yang in Chihli. He began life as a Buddhist priest under the style 无本 Wu Pên, and proceeded to Lo-yang, where the Governor had forbidden priests to be seen after noon. He was noted for his love of poetry, which he would compose while walking through the streets. One day, riding along on a donkey, he was considering whether "push" or "knock" would be more suitable in the following verse: 鳥宿池邊樹，僧推 (or 敲) 月下門; and he was "pushing" and "knocking" in the air with his hands, when he ran up against the great Han Yü, then Governor of the Metropolitan District. The latter, on learning what was the matter, at once declared for "knock"; and forthwith taking the priest under his protection, caused him to quit religious life, and enter upon an official career. He failed repeatedly, however, to take his chin shih degree. Under the Emperor Wên Tsung, A.D. 827—841, he was banished to 長江 Ch'ang-chiang in Ssŭch'uan for indulging in lampoons; but shortly before his death he was restored to favour and appointed to posts which he never took up. He used to write some poetry every day without fail; and at the end of each year he put all these poems together and sacrificed to them with meat and wine, in order, as he said, to repair the loss they had caused to his mental powers.

  Chia Yü 賈郁 (T. 正文). 10th cent. A.D. Magistrate at 仙遊 Hsien-yu in Fuhkien under the first Emperor of the Later T'ang dynasty, noted for his probity. On handing over his 