Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/46

 inability to secure a higher position, and because of the advanced age of his parents, he returned to his home in Kiangsu, without entering into the duties of his office. Shên loved the mountains and rivers, especially those of antiquarian interest, and travelled in Shantung, Honan, Anhwei and other places. It is said of him that when he was on expeditions of this sort he would forget to return home. He was particularly noted for his filial piety and fraternal love. Having no son of his own, he adopted a nephew, Shên P'ei-ying 沈培英, who followed his foster-father as a student of the Classics. Shên was fortunate in the quality of his friends and associates. Among these were such notables as, , (who wrote his epitaph) and , who invited him to his home to educate his sons. After his death his disciples gave him privately the posthumous name Wên-hsiao 文孝.

Shên's specialty was the study of ancient ceremonials. His best work, according to the judgment of the Ssŭ-k'u (see under ), is the 周官祿田考 Chou kuan lu t'ien k'ao, 3 chüan, which he wrote in the winter of 1751. His next best work is the 儀禮小疏 I-li hsiao shu, one chüan, unfinished—a collection of annotations to five chapters of the Decorum Ritual. Quotations from it appear in the I-li i-shu (see under ). There is a collection of his shorter works under the title: 果堂集 Kuo-t'ang chi, 12 chüan, of which two prefaces by a relative,, are dated 1749 and 1754. One essay in this collection is physiologico-lexicographical, the 釋骨 Shih-ku, or "Treatise on Bones". Shên was the author of two other physiological or medical books, the 內經本論 Nei-ching pên lun and the 氣穴考略 Ch'i hsüeh k'ao lüeh, 5 chüan, neither of which was published. He took part in the compilation of gazetteers for the Wu-chiang and Chên-ts'ê districts, Kiangsu, 59 and 38 chüan respectively, both completed in 1746.

Shên's work is commended for his simple, unadorned style, and for his criticism of those who stressed form at the expense of meaning, and of those who spent their energies on minute textual analysis for fear of not being exhaustive.

[1/487/13b; 3/409/34a; Ssŭ-k'u 19/9a, 20/9a; Shên Tê-ch'ien, biography of Shên T'ung in Kuo t'ang chi.]

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 SHÊNG-an Huang-ti. Posthumous name of.

 SHÊNG-tsu. Template name of.

 SHÊNG-yü 盛昱, Apr. 11, 1850–1900, Jan. 20, scholar, was a member of the Imperial Clan, his family belonging to the Bordered White Banner. His great-grandfather, Yung-hsi 永錫 (d. 1821. posthumous name 恭), was the sixth Prince Su (see under ). Yung-hsi's fourth son, Ching-chêng 敬徵 (1785–1851, posthumous name 文愨), who served as Assistant Grand Secretary (1842–45), did not have a son and adopted his younger brother's son, Hêng-ên 恆恩. The latter rose in his official career to the senior vice-presidency of the Censorate (1864–66). Shêng-yü was the second son of Hêng-ên. His mother, Na-hsün-lan-pao 那遜蘭保, came from the Borjigit clan of the Khalkha Mongols. She was an accomplished lady and left a collection of verse. entitled 芸香館遺詩 Yün-hsiang kuan i-shih, 2 chüan, which was published by Shêng-yü in 1874. To her, Shêng-yü owed much of his early education. His ancestral residence, styled I-yüan 意園, was in the eastern part of Peking and was noted for its peony garden.

At the age of twenty-one sui Shêng-yü passed (1870) the Shun-t'ien provincial examination with highest honors. The chief examiner was whose Sung philosophy seems to have inspired Shêng-yü. In 1877 Shêng-yü graduated as chin-shih and was made a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy. Three years later (1880) he was made a compiler in the same office, and after serving as secretary of the Supervisorate of Imperial Instruction (1881) and as sub-expositor of the Hanlin Academy (1881–83) was promoted in 1883 to the post of sub-reader of the Hanlin Academy. During these years he distinguished himself by his memorials to the throne in which he denounced the unfair actions of several high officials, among them,, who in 1879 concluded his humiliating treaty with Russia, and Wu Ch'ang-ch'ing (see under ), who in 1882 forced the father of the Korean emperor to accompany him to China.

In 1883 Shêng-yü was given the privilege of memorializing the throne directly. Late in the same year he was transferred to the post of deputy supervisor of Imperial Instruction, and in the following year (1884) was made libationer of the Imperial Academy, a position he held for five years. During this period he repaired the 648