Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/235

 shu (1933). It disclosed Wang Tao as a rebel of a kind particularly offensive to the imperialists. Hence after the Taipings retired, his life was in danger. When he came out of hiding he went to Shanghai on invitation of William Muirhead who had obtained from the intendant of the Shanghai district assurance that no ill would befall him in that city. But on Wang's arrival in Shanghai he barely escaped arrest at the hands of the intendant, being saved only through the help of Muirhead and Walter Henry Medhurst (1823–1885), son of the aforementioned Medhurst and acting British Consul at Shanghai. For at least four and a half months he was a refugee in the British Consulate. In the meantime notes were exchanged in Peking between Prince Kung (see under ), head of the Foreign Office, and Sir Frederick Bruce (1814–1867), the British Minister, concerning the extradition of Wang. Bruce refused to instruct Medhurst to deliver Wang to the intendant and accused that official of deliberately misleading Muirhead to believe that Wang would come to no harm. Though the case was probably still unsettled when Wang embarked for Hong Kong, it was never re-opened by the Chinese authorities. However, it was more thenthan [sic] twenty-one years before he again made his home in Shanghai.

On October 4, 1862 Wang Tao left for Hong Kong where he began his long and intimate association with James Legge 理雅各 (1815–1897), whom he assisted for more than ten years in the translation of the Chinese Classics. In the beginning he was paid twenty dollars a month, Hong Kong currency. Legge had already published (1861) his translation of the Analects, the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean, and Mencius, so that Wang's aid began with the Shoo King, or Classic of History, printed in 1865 as Volume III of The Chinese Classics. As for the Odes (She-King, Vol. IV of The Chinese Classics, printed in 1871), Legge mentions in his bibliography a manuscript by Wang Tao which he had used. This is the 毛詩集釋 Mao-shih chi-shin, 30 chüan, of which the original draft, presented to Legge with an accompanying letter written about 1864, is now in the New York Public Library, which possesses many of Legge's books. Wang wrote five treatises for Legge's use in translating the Ch'un-ch'iu and T'so-chuan (Vol. V, printed in 1872). Three of these, all printed about the year 1889, and dealing with the eclipses and the calendar of the Ch'un-ch'iu period, were prepared under the influence of John Chalmers 湛約翰 (1825–1899), a missionary at Canton. The three works are entitled 春秋朔閏考辨 Chun-ch'iu shuo-jun k'ao-pien, 3 chüan; Chun-ch'iu chih-shuo piao (至朔表); and Ch'un-ch'iu jih-shih t'u-shuo (日食圖說), each in 1 chüan.

Early in 1867 the translation work at Hong Kong was interrupted by Legge's return to his family in Great Britain, Wang received an invitation from Legge, however, to join him in Scotland, and in the company of European friends he sailed from Hong Kong on December 15, 1867, via Suez, Cairo, Alexandria and Marseilles. During his two years in Great Britain he stayed most of the time with Legge's family at Dollar, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, where he assisted him in the translation of the Odes, the Book of Changes (Yi King, being Vol. 26 of The Sacred Books of the East, 1882) and the Rites (Li Ki, being Vols. 27 and 28 of the same series, 1885). Wang again prepared various commentaries on the Rites and the Changes, entitled respectively 禮記集釋 Li-chi chi-shih, and Chou-i (周易) chi-shih; both manuscripts are preserved in the New York Public Library. The former title is mentioned by Legge in the preface to the Li Ki, but the latter, being shorter and inferior to Wang's previous compilations for Legge, is not referred to in the Yi King.

It seems that Wang Tao, though homesick, greatly enjoyed his sojourn abroad. In the account of his travels, entitled 漫游隨錄 Man-yu sui-lu, he mentions frequent trips to various places in Scotland where he invariably met with hospitality, especially from former friends in China, particularly William Muirhead. In Bedford he again met Mrs. Medhurst. In Paris he made the acquaintance of the French sinologist, Stanislas Julien 儒蓮 (1799–1873), and subsequently he published biographical sketches of both Julien and Legge. Once (1868) he lectured at Oxford University, speaking in Chinese, probably with Legge as interpreter. He notes that when he had concluded the lecture the students clapped their hands and stamped their feet. On leaving England, he presented his collection of Chinese books, numbering 11,000 chüan, to a museum.

Wang T'ao and Legge returned to Hong Kong in 1870 and continued for some time the work of translation. But in 1873 Legge returned to England and three years later assumed the chair of Chinese at Oxford, never again to return to China. By this time Wang was already launched on his publishing career. About the year 1871 he and Huang Shêng (Wong Shing) 黃勝, one of the first three Chinese students to 837