Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/219

 was honored with the posthumous title of Grand Preceptor.

[M.3/228/1a; MS Ming History in Library of Congress, 221/1a; Hsin-ch'êng hsien-chih (1933) 24/9a–37b; Tsinan fu-chih (1841) 51/19a.]

2em

 WANG Hsiang-chin 王象晉, 1561–1653, grandfather of , was a native of Hsin-ch'êng, Shantung. His elder brother,, was one of the governor-generals in command of Ming troops who resisted the Manchus. Wang Hsiang-chin became a chin-shih in 1604 and was appointed a secretary of the Grand Secretariat. In 1613 he was transferred to a secretaryship in the Board of Ceremonies. In the following year he asked for sick leave but in 1617, while still at home, he was degraded for offending several censors. Interested in botany and gardening, he was content to remain in retirement and compile, largely from earlier sources, a botanical work, 羣芳譜 Ch'ün-fang pu, in 30 chüan, which was first printed in the T'ien-ch'i period (1621–28) and reprinted by about 1630. In the K'ang-hsi period four Hanlin compilers, including Wang Hao (see under ), and Chang I-shao (see under ), expanded it by imperial command to 100 chüan, and in 1708 this enlarged edition was printed under the title, Kuang (廣) Ch'ün-fang p'u.

Early in the sixteen-twenties Wang Hsiangchin was appointed an assistant commissioner in the Office for the Transmission of Imperial Messages (行人司), and after several promotions was, in 1628, made intendant of the Huai-an and Yangchow circuit of Kiangnan. Six years later he became provincial judge of Honan where he cleared a number of persons who had unjust charges brought against them. In 1635 he was made financial commissioner of Chekiang. Two years later he retired, and despite the years of chaos following the Manchu conquest of China, lived quietly at his home till his death at the age of ninety-three (sui).

Mao Chin printed, in addition to the Ch'ün fang-p'u, several of Wang's minor works, some of which were reprinted in the Yü-yang san-shih-liu chung (see under ). The Hsin-ch'êng hsien-chih of 1933 lists a number of his works, mostly no longer extant. One of his cousins, Wang Hsiang-ch'un 王象春, a chin-shih of 1610, left a collection of poems, 問山亭遺詩 Wên-shan t'ing i-shih, which was reprinted in 1928 in the Hsi-yung hsüan ts'ung-shu (see under ).

[Hsin-ch'êng hsien-chih (1693) 7/31b; M.2/348/12b; M.3/228/6a; M.40/59/22a; Wylie, Notes, p. 152;, Yü-yang shan-jên nien-p'u, shang 4a, 7a, 8a, 11b; , Mu-chai ch'u-hsüeh chi, 66/3b.]

2em

 WANG Hsien 汪憲, 1721–1771, Sept. 17, bibliophile, was a native of Hangchow, Chekiang. Though he obtained his chin-shih degree in 1745, it was not until 1758 that he entered government service as a second-class secretary in the Board of Punishments. During that interval he and his younger brother stayed at home with their parents, and thus he became widely known for his filial piety. He did not hold his official post long, for, on the plea that his parents were aging, he retired from government service in the following year in order to look after them. Upon the death of his father in 1770, and of his mother in 1771, he ate nothing but plain food and dressed only in coarse fabrics. Being himself never in robust health, these successive bereavements apparently undermined his constitution so that he took ill and died in 1771 in his fifty-first year.

Many of Wang Hsien's forebears were scholars of note, and he himself was an inveterate book-lover. Coming as he did from a family of means, he was wont to acquire rare items, almost irrespective of cost. He would pore over his acquisitions and engage indefatigably on the collation of the various editions. His collection, comprising some 10,000 chüan, was housed in a studio, called Chên-ch'i t'ang 振綺堂, which became for nearly half a century a symbol of conscientious and intelligent book-collecting. He generously opened his library to fellow-scholars in Hangchow and the vicinity; and a section of his home, called Ching-chi tung-hsüan 靜寄東軒 and noted for its beauty, was the rendezvous of the élite of Hangchow. There he entertained distinguished guests who joined him in composing poems and collating books.

Among his fellow bibliophiles who shared the facilities which his library afforded, were Chao Yü (see under ),, , Sun Tsung-lien (see under ), and many others. These schol- 821