Wang Zhong

Life

His grandfather was Wang Gaojing (汪鎬京, 1634–1702), and his father was Wang Yiyuan (汪一元). His son was Wang Xisun (汪喜孫, 1786–1847), while Liang Lanyi (梁蘭漪, 1727–1796) is listed among his 伯叔母 relatives.

Orphaned and poor in childhood, he was taught to read by his mother. As he grew older, he visited bookshops, borrowed histories, classics, and works of the various schools, and acquired a reputation for learning by memorizing what he read at a glance.

At the age of twenty-one he passed the xiucai examination; in the forty-second year of the Qianlong reign (1777), he was selected as a bagong. Because his mother was old, he did not sit the metropolitan examination. His life remained difficult: he supported himself by serving as a mufu, selling prose, and teaching, and spent much of his life travelling.

He accepted an appointment from Bi Yuan, the governor-general of Huguang, and served as a mufu, writing such pieces as the Inscription on the Yellow Crane Tower, which circulated widely. In the fifty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign, he was recommended to join the collation of the Siku Quanshu at the Wenzong and Wenlan Pavilions; the work lasted four years, after which he went to the Wenlan Pavilion in Hangzhou to supervise the Siku Quanshu and died soon afterward. One account attributes his death to a sudden attack of heart disease; his place of death was Hangzhou Prefecture.

Scholarship and associations

His circle consisted largely of scholars. He was an intimate friend of Wang Niansun and Liu Taigong, and associated with Qian Daxin, Cheng Yaotian, Ling Tingkan, Sun Xingyan, Bi Yuan, and Zhang Xuecheng; other friends included Hong Liangji, Jiang Fan, Wang Duanguang, Sun Yuanxiang, Zhu Bin, and Li Dun.

He studied under Wang Chang and served as an aide to Feng Tingcheng; Xie Yong esteemed his learning, and he also visited Zhu Gui. He wrote biographies of Ba Weizu and a Wang woman identified as the mother of Ye Tianci, supplied a title inscription for a book by Yang Qionghua, and had Hang Shijun write a preface to his prose piece Ai Yanchuan.

His prose took the Han and Six Dynasties as its models and was praised for its elegance; he is regarded as a leading literary figure of the mid-Qing period and a representative of the Yangzhou school. Devoted to classical learning, he was particularly versed in the Zhouguan and Zuozhuan, also studied the various pre-Qin schools, revered Gu Yanwu, and regarded himself as Gu’s private disciple.

In the preface to Shuxue, Wang Niansun wrote that the two men had sharpened one another through ancient learning and modestly acknowledged that his own learning was not as broad as Wang Zhong’s.

Works and writings

His principal works include 《述學》 in inner and outer parts, 《春秋述義》, 《春秋後傳》, 《廣陵通典》, 《荀卿子通傳》, and 《小學》. Other associated titles include 《荀卿子通論》, 《荀子通論年表》, 《春秋列國官名異同考》, 《舊學蓄疑》, 《經義知新記》, and 《大戴禮正誤》.

Titles in classical and xiaoxue textual studies include 《大戴禮記補注》, 《儀禮注正言為》, 《周官徵文》, 《國語校文》, 《國語正言為》, 《小學說文求端》, 《尚書考異》, 《左氏春秋釋疑》, 《爾雅補注》, and 《舊學釋疑》. His historical and miscellaneous writings include 《廣陵對》, 《楊行密本事》, 《秦蠶食六國表》, 《墨子序》, 《墨子後序》, 《賈誼新書序年表》, 《問禮堂書目》, and 《金陵地圖考》.

His poetry and prose collections and individual pieces include 《容甫先生遺詩》, 《汪容甫先生詩集》 and its appendices, 《汪容甫遺詩遺詩》 and its appendices, 《傷心集》, 《哀鹽船文》, 《漢上琴台銘》, and 《黃鶴樓銘》.

Wang Zhong wrote the Inscription and Preface to the Yellow Crane Tower for Bi Yuan, describing the date and approximate form of its reconstruction. Cheng Yaotian, a recommended upright scholar from Shexian, wrote the inscription on stone, and Qian Dian, a prefectural judge of Jiading, engraved the title in seal script; contemporaries called the monument a “triple masterpiece” of prose, calligraphy, and stone carving.