178 Boundaries and Beyond
name the pavilion. In Sinclair’s view, this literary work was produced for
the consumption of “a greedy and biased reading public”. In particular,
the inclusion of “political poetry” was calculated “to excite the animosity
of the people against the English in particular and Foreigners generally”.
Sinclair pointed out that the compiler was related to the late Imperial
Commissioner Lin Zexu, whose hostile policy toward the English had
contributed to the outbreak of the Anglo-Chinese war, and blamed the
late Lin Zexu for a revival of bitter, inimical anti-foreign feelings in the
minds of his political and patriotic friends and adherents in Fuzhou.^10
Lin Changyi and His Works
Lin Changyi (1803‒76) was a native of Houguan district, Fuzhou
prefecture, Fujian province. His father Lin Gaohan had traded overseas.^11
Lin Changyi derived great beneβits from his teacher Chen Shouqi
(1771‒1834), who was a Compiler in the Halin Academy and the
Editor-in-Chief of Fujian tongzhi (The general gazetteer of Fujian). Chen
permitted his disciple access to his private library containing works
totaling some 80 thousand juan (volumes).
In 1839, Lin passed his imperial provincial examination and became
a juren. However, although he took the metropolitan examinations
six times between 1840 and 1850, he was unsuccessful. He did not
succeed in two more subsequent attempts. During his trips to and from
the capital to take the examinations, he traveled widely in many parts
of the country and saw the general conditions of the people, on which
he commented in his works. Also during his journeys he made new
acquaintances among the literati. Despite his repeated failures in the
metropolitan examinations, Lin Changyi’s contemporaries acclaimed his
literary achievements and deemed him to be in the same class of literary
laureates such as Gu Yanwu (1613‒82) and Zhu Yizun (1629‒1709),
leading scholars in the early Qing.^12
- Ibid., e nclosure.
- Lin Changyi, Lin Changyi shiwenji 林昌彝詩文集 (hereafter LCYSWJ) [A
collection of poems and essays composed by Lin Changyi] (reprint; Shanghai:
Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1989), “Foreword”, p. 1. - “Qing shi liezhuan: Lin Changyi zhuan” 清史列傳: 林昌彝傳 [Biographies in
the Dynastic history of the Qing: The biography of Lin Changyi], reproduced in
LCYSWJ, pp. 381‒2. For Gu’s and Zhu’s biographies, see Eminent Chinese of the
Ch ‘ing Period (1644‒1912), ed. Arthur W. Hummel (reprint; Taipei: Ch’eng Wen,
1970; orig. Washington: Government Printing Ofβice, 1943), pp. 182‒5, 421‒6.
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