Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/47

 He was a person named Chou Tsing-chên, who held some office under government at Pu-yeh; and who doubtless owed his rise in life to the successful policy of his master. "If," said this man, "the whole country is now placed under a single sway, accorded the blessings of internal peace, and defended from the incursions of the Tartars, it is simply the result of your Majesty's bravery, foresight, wisdom, and good government. What more do we want, or what more can any one give us? All the virtues and achievements of all the ancient kings together do not reach the sum of those of your Majesty; for you surpass every monarch who ever went before you, from the most ancient down to the present times."

This speech was greeted with immense applause, and the Emperor sat brimming over with self-complacency and delight. But his transports were soon moderated. A certain scholar of rank, named Shun Yu-yueh, indignant at this adulation of one whom he looked upon as a barbarous and uncultured tyrant, and exasperated at the reflection cast upon his beloved antiquity, rose from his seat and denounced the speaker as a sycophant and a flatterer. "The person who has just had the impudence to praise your Majesty in such terms," he said, "does not deserve the title of a Grandee of the Empire, with which he is honoured. He is nothing but a base courtier, a vile flatterer, who, meanly attached to the good fortune to which he has no claim, has no other object than to give you pleasure at the expense of the public weal and your Majesty's own fame. I shall in no way imitate his example;" and then went on to give the Emperor perhaps the severest scolding he had ever received from any of the lettered class, drawing the most invidious comparisons