Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/343

 Altogether, this poem is clearly a patchwork, of which some parts may have come from Hsieh Chin's pen. Here is a short poem of his in defence of official venality, about which there is no doubt :

" In vain hands bent on sacrifice

or clasped in prayer we see; The ways of God are not exactly

what those ways should be. The swindler and the ruffian

lead pleasant lives enough, While judgments overtake the good

and many a sharp rebuff. The swaggering bully stalks along

as blithely as you please ', While those who never miss their prayers

are martyrs to disease. And if great God Almighty fails

to keep the balance true, What can we hope that paltry

mortal magistrates will do?"

The writer came to a tragic end. By supporting the claim of the eldest prince to be named heir apparent, he made a lasting enemy of another son, who succeeded in getting him banished on one charge, and then im- prisoned on a further charge. After four years' con- finement he was made drunk, probably without much difficulty, and was buried under a heap of snow.

The Emperor who reigned between 1522 and 1566 as the eleventh of his line was not a very estimable person- age, especially in the latter years of his life, when he spent vast sums over palaces and temples, and wasted most of his time in seeking after the elixir of life. In 1539 he despatched General Mao to put down a rising in Annam, and gave him an autograph poem as a send-off.

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