Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/141

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A Chinese Biographical Dictionary

specially noted for his acquaintance with the views of the Han scholars on many vexed questions connected with the Canon of Changes; but he published little beyond the results of his labours upon the catalogue of the Imperial Library. In fact, he openly declared that everything worth saying would be found, if one only knew where to look, to have been said already. A collection of miscellaneous jottings from his pen appeared under the title of 閱徽草堂筆記, and he contributed a considerable portion of the 提要. Canonised as 文達.

302 Ch'i Ch'ao 郄超 (T. 景 or 嘉興). A.D. 335-377. As a youth he was self-willed and original, and a clever talker. His father, who was a Taoist, he himself being a Buddhist, let him take what he liked from his vast fortune; and Ch'i Ch'ao is said to have given away several millions in a single day! Huan Wên took him into his service as military secretary, and he and 王珣 Wang Hsün soon gained the entire confidence of their chief. The two were popularly called the Bearded Secretary and the Dumpy Registrar. On one occasion Huan had placed Ch'i Ch'ao behind a blind in order that he might overhear a consultation with Hsieh An and Wang T'an-chih. During the interview a puff of wind blew aside the blind, whereupon Hsieh An jokingly remarked that Huan Wên evidently reposed a blind confidence in his secretary. Ch'i Ch'ao protested against the war which in 369 resulted in the defeat of Huan at 枋頭 Fang-t'ou in Honan. When the news came of a subsequent victory, Huan, who had felt greatly mortified, asked him if this was enough to wipe out the shame of Fang-t'ou. He replied, "You have not stultified my estimate of you." He had a lifelong feud with Hsieh An, but kept his treason secret from his father. On his deathbed, however, he entrusted a box full of correspondence with Huan Wên to one of his retainers, with orders to give it to his father,