Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/161

Rh vice-president of the Board of Ceremonies and a reader in the Hanlin Academy. When the question of the appointment of a Grand Secretary arose (see under ), Ch'ien was accused by Wên T'i-jên (see under ) of connection with a bribery case which occurred in the provincial examination of Chekiang in 1621 when Ch'ien was examiner. Consequently he was dismissed (1629) and retired to his home in Ch'ang-shu.

In the following year (1630) he built a studio, named Ou-kêng t'ang 耦耕堂, in the country villa, Fu-shui Shan-chuang 拂水山莊, where he resided until 1637 when a charge was lodged against him by a native of Ch'ang-shu which resulted in Ch'ien's imprisonment (see under ). But Ch'ien was released in the following year (July 5, 1638) after the accuser was put to death. In the same year, then aged fifteen (sui), came to study under Ch'ien who gave him the appellation Ta-mu 大木. In 1640 Ch'ien shifted his abode to the hall called Pan-yeh t'ang 半野堂, and at the close of that year made the acquaintance of the famous singing girl,, who in the following year (July 14, 1641) became his consort. Ch'ien gave her the sobriquet, Ju-shih 如是, taken from the conventional phrase which introduces so many Buddhist sutras, 如是我聞 "I heard it said." Her residence he similarly named Wo-wên shih 我聞室. For her he built in 1643 the studio known as Chiang-yün lou (see under ) where Ch'ien kept his great collection of books. It was partially destroyed by fire in 1650—most of the rare editions that were saved from the catastrophe going later to his relative,.

When the house of Ming collapsed in 1644 Liu Shih is said to have implored her lover to sacrifice his life, but he would not. He became president of the Board of Ceremonies (July 11, 1644) under the Prince of Fu (see under ) in Nanking, but when the victorious Manchu prince,, arrived at the gates of Nanking (June 8, 1645), Ch'ien is said to have been one of the first to declare his allegiance. He proceeded to Peking and there, early in 1646, became a senior vice-president of the Board of Ceremonies, but by the middle of the same year he begged leave to retire. In 1647 he was accused of giving aid to a plot against the new regime and was imprisoned in Nanking, but protested his innocence and was permitted to return home in the spring of the following year. For the next sixteen years he sought release through travel and writing and in Buddhistic studies to which he was inspired, it is said, by a Buddhist image that he saved from the burning Chiang-yün lou in 1650.

Ch'ien Ch'ien-i compiled an anthology of Ming verse entitled 列朝詩集 Lieh-ch'ao shih-chi, 81 chüan, printed by in 1649. He was one of the most popular poets and essayists of his day, and is still considered, as Mr. Lin Yutang 林語堂 says, "a beautiful writer." Ch'ien criticized adversely all the poetry of the Ming period, but was not able to create a new school as was done by who followed him. Ch'ien was in some respects a bibliographer and a historian, his great library giving him in this field an unrivalled opportunity. A catalogue of his collection of books, entitled Chiang-yün-lou shu-mu (書目) appears in the Yüeh-ya t'ang ts'ung-shu (see under ) and a supplement to it, edited by Yeh Tê-hui (see under ), was printed in 1902 in the Kuan-ku t'ang shu-mu ts'ung-k'o (see under ). Several manuscript copies of the catalogue are extant. Ch'ien Ch'ien-i compiled a history of the Ming dynasty under the title 明史稿 Ming-shih kao, 100 chüan, but it was destroyed when the Chiang-yün-lou was burned. He was the first to point out the significance of travel diary, and was likewise one of the first Chinese scholars to study the Nestorianism and Manichaeism of the T'ang period. There are two collections of his works in verse and prose, entitled 牧齋初學集 Mu-chai ch'u-hsüeh-chi, 110 chüan, printed by Ch'ü Shih-ssŭ in 1643 (original edition in the Library of Congress), and Mu-chai yu (有) hsüeh chi, 50 chüan, printed in 1664 (also in the Library of Congress). Several selections of his works were later edited by his admirers, and a supplement to these collections was edited by. Owing to his interest in Buddhism, Ch'ien in his later years edited several Buddhist works. Despite the popularity of his writings in the early Ch'ing period, Emperor Kao-tsung violently opposed them when he found that they contained scornful and antagonistic remarks about the Manchus. In edict after edict he fulminated against them, but his efforts at complete destruction were not wholly successful, though they did cause Ch'ien to be unpopular for more than a century. His writings regained popularity as resistance to Ch'ing authority increased, so that by 1910, just before the fall of the dynasty, there ap- 149