OU-YANG HSIU.
a.d. 1017-1072
[A leading statesman, historian, poet, and essayist of the Sung dynasty. His tablet is to be found in the Confucian temple; an honour reserved for those alone who have contributed towards the elucidation or dissemination of Confucian truth.]
IMPERIAL EXTRAVAGANCE.
MAY it please your Majesty,
I am informed that in consequence of the recent birth of a princess, a demand has been made on the Treasury for no less than 8,000 pieces of silk.
Now the rigour of winter is just at its height, and the wretched workmen of the Dyeing Department, forced to break ice before they can get water, will suffer unspeakable hardships in supplying the amount required. And judging by your Majesty's known sentiments of humanity and thrift, I cannot believe that this wasteful corvée is to be imposed, though rumour indeed has it that the dyers are already at work.
I have also noticed that the relatives of the Lady Chang have of late participated too frequently in the Imperial bounty. I am, it is true, but a poor Censor; yet whenever I see anything calculated to impair the prestige of the Son of Heaven, it becomes my duty to speak, that the divine wrath may be averted in time.
It is a noticeable fact in our annals that those favoured ladies who modestly and thriftily availed themselves of their connexion with the Throne, always prospered; while those, on the other hand, who gave themselves up to extravagance and nepotism, invariably ended in ruin. I will not cite instances from remote antiquity: I will confine myself to the more recent condition of affairs within the palace. Where, I would ask, are those proud spendthrift ladies who basked but just now in the imperial smiles? In their stead we have the Lady Chang, but yesterday blushing unseen in her quiet home,―to-day, the synosure of every eye. Report declares her to be of quite another mould, and well qualified
