He Menggui (1229–?), a Southern Song scholar of the Classics and government official. His childhood name was Yingqi (應祈); he used the courtesy name Shenfu (申甫), later changed his name to Menggui and his courtesy name to Yansou (巖叟), also written 岩叟 and 嚴叟, and adopted the studio name Qianzhai (潛齋). He was a native of Chun’an in Yanzhou, in present-day western Chun’an, Zhejiang.
Life
His uncle was He Yi (1210–1262); He Jingwen and He Yu were his nephews. He passed the jinshi examination in the first year of the Xianchun reign of Emperor Duzong (1265), receiving the rank of Wenlin Lang and appointment as military judge in Taizhou. He was subsequently made registrar of the Imperial Academy, promoted to a doctoral post, and appointed assistant prefect of Jizhou; recalled as an erudite of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, he later served as an Imperial Academy erudite and Investigating Censor before being promoted to Director of Military Armaments. When Emperor Bing acceded, he served as Grand Minister of the Imperial Treasury and Grand Judge of the Court of Judicial Review; judging that the situation was beyond remedy, he withdrew on grounds of illness. After the Song fell, he refused office; under the Yuan, he repeatedly declined summonses. In the early Zhiyuan era, he was appointed Director of Confucian Education for Jiangxi but did not take up the post, devoting himself to writing.
Learning and writings
He was a specialist in the Classic of Changes. His works include Yiyan (《易衍》), Daxue shuo (《大學說》), Zhongyong zhiyong (《中庸致用》), and Qianzai wenji (《潛齋文集》); Qianzai ji (《潛齋集》) is in eleven juan. His poems are included in Complete Song Poetry; the base text is the photographic reproduction of the Wenyuange Complete Library of the Four Branches, collated against He Lingfan’s revised edition from the sixteenth year of the Shunzhi era, with poems outside the collection appended at the end.
Associations and prose
Wu Panlong was among his friends. He wrote prefaces for works by Wen Tianxiang, Xie Ao, Lin Jingxi, and others, and composed a funerary inscription for his uncle He Yi. His writing also encompassed prefaces, funerary inscriptions, sacrificial texts, farewell poems and prefaces, birthday poems, elegies, portrait eulogies, postscripts to books and paintings, postscripts to poetry and prose, writings that commemorated or named buildings, and pieces praising official achievements.
References
- CBDB He Menggui (27826)
- 搜韵 何夢桂 (25312)
- Wikidata He Menggui (Q10886102)