Qīnghuì jí 清惠集
Pure-Kindness Collection by 劉麟 (撰)
About the work
The writings of Liú Lín 劉麟 (1475–1561), zì Yuánruì 元瑞 / Zǐzhèn 子振, late-life hào Tǎnwēng 坦翁, shì Qīnghuì 清惠 — Gōngbù shàngshū, native of Ānrén (Jiāngxī) but resident in Chángxīng 長興 (Húzhōu, Zhèjiāng) by adoption-marriage. 12 juǎn: 2 poetry + 9 zòushū / záwén + 1 fùlù. Compiled by his great-grandson Liú Bì 劉陛; printed in Wànlì bǐngwǔ (1606) by Húzhōu prefect Chén Yòuxué 陳幼學 of Wúxī; preface by Zhū Fèngxiáng 朱鳳翔 of Chángxīng. Liú is one of the two Jiā-jìng-era exemplary clean officials whose image Shìzōng had inscribed on his imperial-screen — bīngqīng yùjié (ice-clear, jade-pure) — the other being Chén Kè 陳恪 of Guīān (the Jǔqí xiānshēng 矩齋先生).
Tiyao
Qīnghuì jí in 12 juǎn — by Liú Lín of the Míng. Lín, zì Yuánruì, also zì Zǐzhèn, of Jiāngxī Ānrén; later liúyù (drifted-residence) at Chángxīng; children and grandchildren attached themselves to its register. Hóngzhì bǐngchén (1496) jìnshì; office reached Gōngbù shàngshū. At first Lín as Gōngbù probationer joined with classmate Lù Kūn in submitting memorial contesting the imprisonment of remonstrators; as Shàoxīngfǔ zhīfǔ also offended Liú Jǐn and was stripped of office; later as shàngshū finally with contention over SūSōng zhīzào (silk-tribute), pushed-out by inner-eunuchs and dismissed. Surely shǐzhōng jièjiè zìlì zhě (from-start-to-finish, separately-standing-alone). After his return from Shàoxīng, leaned on his marriage-house Wú Chōng at Chángxīng; with Sūn Yīyuán, Wén Zhēngmíng etc. went-back-and-forth singing-and-replying; the world transmits Zhēngmíng’s Shénlóu tú 神樓圖 was painted precisely for Lín. This collection has: 2 juǎn of poetry; zòushū and záwén together 9 juǎn; fùlù 1 juǎn. Compiled by Lín’s great-grandson Bì; Wànlì bǐngwǔ (1606) Húzhōu zhīfǔ Chén Yòuxué of Wúxī cut it; Zhū Fèngxiáng of Chángxīng wrote the preface, saying his prose chūrù QínHàn, poetry jīnjīn Wéi Dù (galloping toward Wéi Yìngwù and Dù Fǔ) — praising-him certainly not avoiding excess. As for saying his biāogé gāo rù yúnxiāo, xiōngzhōng wú yīháo jièdì (banner-rank high entering cloud-clear-sky, in chest no one-hair of obstruction-bottom) — therefore what comes out is all àngrán tiānqù (overflowing-naturally with natural-charm) — dú zhī zú xiāo bǐlìn (reading it suffices to dissolve mean-pettiness) — then he caught the substance. This is also literature relating to person-character verification. Compiled and presented in the fourth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Compilers as usual.
Abstract
Liú Lín’s Qīnghuì jí is the principal documentary anchor for the ChángxīngHúzhōu literary-loyalist circle of late Zhèngdé–early Jiājìng — Liú as the post-retirement Chángxīng host of Sūn Yīyuán (KR4e0167) and Wén Zhēngmíng, with Wén Zhēngmíng’s Shénlóu tú painted explicitly for him. The collection’s documentary cluster — Liú + Sūn Yīyuán + Wén Zhēngmíng + their host Wú Chōng — is one of the cleaner mid-Míng retirement-circle records in this division.
The political-loyalty record is three-stage: (i) early-career Probation-period (as Gōngbù probationer with Lù Kūn) memorial against the imprisonment of jiànguān; (ii) middle-career Shàoxīngfǔ zhīfǔ offence to Liú Jǐn and dismissal; (iii) late-career Gōngbù shàngshū contention against SūSōng zhīzào (silk-tribute eunuch-collection) and forced retirement. The collection’s shǐzhōng jièjiè zìlì (from-start-to-finish separately-standing) shape is the Sìkù’s editorial reading of these three stages as a single character-arc.
The famous Shénlóu tú episode — Liú living in mountains and wishing to build a lóu (tower) but unable to; Wén Zhēngmíng painting it for him in lieu — is one of the cleaner Wú-school cross-references in this division to a non-Sū-zhōu literary patron.
CBDB id 34637 gives 1475 for the birth year, against the catalog meta’s 1474 — CBDB date is followed here.
Translations and research
- L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography 1368–1644. New York: Columbia UP, 1976: notice of Liú Lín.
- Míng shǐ j. 194 — Liú Lín biography.
- Anne Burkus-Chasson, The Gallery of Eccentrics: Imagining the Fortunes of a Painting at the End of the Ming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2010) — for the Wú-school painting tradition and the Shén-lóu tú.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §28 (Míng bié-jí) and §27.1 (Míng political history).
Other points of interest
The Shénlóu tú (Spirit-Tower Painting) by Wén Zhēngmíng — commissioned by Liú Lín during retirement as a virtual replacement for an actual lóu he could not afford — is one of the cleanest cases in Wú-school painting tradition of image-as-architecture-substitute, and the Sìkù preservation of the anecdote in Zhū Fèngxiáng’s preface is a documentary anchor for the painting’s circulation. The bīngqīng yùjié (ice-clear, jade-pure) imperial-screen inscription by Shìzōng is the locus classicus for the Jiājìng image of Liú as a clean official.