Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/700

Rh in 1069 he received an appointment as Magistrate; but he soon made an open enemy of Wang An-shih, whose innovations he opposed, and applied to be sent to Hangchow. After being transferred to several similar posts, a plot was formed against him by a couple of Censors whom he had lampooned in verse, and in 1072 he was dismissed to Huang-chou. There he built himself a hut on the Tung-p'o "eastern slope" of the hill, and afterwards took these two words as his hao or fancy name. The Emperor Shên Tsung had a great partiality for him and was often on the point of recalling him, but his numerous enemies always found some means of preventing this. At length, when the young Emperor Chê Tsung mounted the throne, A.D. 1086, he was summoned to return to Court, and subsequently filled a number of high posts, rising by 1091 to be President of the Board of Rites. The Empress Dowager was present at his appointment to the Han-lin College; and after telling him how the late Emperor had always admired his genius, she caused him to be served with tea and sent home in a sedan-chair, escorted by ladies of the palace with torches. He was obliged however to go once more into the provinces; and in 1094 he was accused of having spoken disrespectfully of the late Emperor, and was banished, first to Hui-chou in Kuangtung, and afterwards to the island of Hainan, regions which in those days were utterly barbarous and unknown. In 1101 he was recalled by the Emperor Hui Tsung and restored to honour, but died soon afterwards at 常 Ch'ang-chou in Kiangsu. As a poet and essay-writer he stands in the very first rank, and numerous editions of his complete works, under the title of 東坡全集, have been issued, from the time of the Sung dynasty down to the present day. In 1285 his tablet was placed in the Confucian Temple; and although he had never advanced Confucianism in the sense necessary to merit this honour, it was not until 1845 that the tablet was removed. He is better