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is in itself a weighty argument in favour of the equal originality of the thoughts which that versification is the means of expressing. In all the instances known to us of a people borrowing its inspiration from abroad, the foreign poetical form has been the first thing to be adopted. The Latins submitted without a groan to the heavy yoke of Greek prosody; the semi-barbarians of Northern Europe adopted the rhymes, as they did the religion, of their Southern neighbours; while in our own days, in like manner, English stanzaic arrangement and English prosodial conventions are following the missionaries into the homes of the numerous uncultured tribes to whom they bring an extraneous civilisation. To this rule Japan shows us a complete contrast, by far the simplest explanation of which is, that her poetry is, in every respect, a plant of native growth. That its substance is very peculiar is by no means what is meant to be asserted. On the contrary, the reader can hardly fail to be struck with its generality and want of local colouring. When, therefore, originality is claimed for this product of Japanese thought, it is merely originality in the sense of spontaneous invention, not originality in the sense of uniqueness.

II.

The classical poetry of the Japanese is contained in the "Mañyefushifu," or "Collection of a Myriad Leaves," and in a large number of collections made by imperial order during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth,

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fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, and commonly known as the "Collections of the One-and-Twenty Reigns." To these may be added, as quasi-classical, the lyric dramas known by the name of "Utahi."

The "Myriad Leaves," a selection from which forms the chief portion of the following work, are not, indeed, the very oldest lyric compositions of the Japanese; or, to speak more correctly, they were not brought together at quite so early a period as that belonging to the historical books called "Kozhiki," or "Notices of Antiquity," dating from the year 712 of our era, and "Nihongi," or "Records of Japan," dating from 720, both containing a considerable number of poems attributed to divine and other legendary personages. These are not, however, commonly included by the Japanese themselves in the cycle of their classical poetry; and, moreover, a complete and literal version of the books in question is so earnestly to be looked for in the interests of Japanese archæology, that it has been thought best not here to trench on ground which would have to be gone over again in a more critical spirit.

*

The exact date of the bringing together in the twenty volumes of the "Myriad Leaves" of the productions of the most esteemed poets that had appeared up to that time, though not known with certainty, is referred by the best native critics to the reign of the Mikado Shiyaumu (died A.D. 756). The compiler was a favourite of that monarch, Prince

• Originally twenty small scrolls of a size convenient for rolling and unrolling. As now published, however, with superincumbent masses of commentary, the volumes are tomes indeed.

Moroye (died A.D. 757), to whom some would add as coadjutor the court noble Yakamochi (died A.D. 785), a number of whose poems are contained in the latter volumes of the collection. It has, however, been suggested that only the volumes now bearing the numbers , I., II., XI., XII., XIII., and XIV. should be regarded as forming the original compilation, the remaining fourteen having been added a few years later from various private sources. Those to whom Japanese is familiar, will find the whole matter treated in extenso, in Mabuchi's edition of tlie "Myriad Leaves;" but to the general reader, and, indeed, to the main question of authenticity and antiquity, it matters little what decision be arrived at on this and other minor points. There are no grounds for placing the composition of any of the poems later than A.D. 760, while from the beginning of the tenth century onwards, that is, from less than a hundred and fifty years after that date, we have constant and unimpeachable reference to the collection as a body, and to its appearance during the period when Nara was the capital of the country, viz. (including temporary migrations of the court to other towns in the neighbourhood), from A.D. 710 to 784. Knowing, moreover, as we do, the language of the tenth century, the linguistic test alone would suffice to throw back a century or two the composition of the most modern of the " Mañyefushifu" odes, while for by far the greater number a much higher antiquity may, on the same grounds, be claimed.

The "Kokinshifu," or "Collection of Odes Ancient and Modern," the first of the "Collections of the Oneand-Twenty Reigns," was compiled in the year 905

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by the high-born poet Tsurayuki and three coadjutors. It consists almost entirely of the short thirty-onesyllable stanzas, of which a specimen was given in the footnote to page 4. This stanza, after having, during the ages that witnessed the production of the poems contained in the old histories and in the "Myriad Leaves," struggled against the longer form which was then also in common use, drove the latter out of the field, and has ever since remained the favourite metre of a people, who, in every species of composition, consider brevity to be the soul of wit. The many thousands of stanzas forming this collection, are arranged, according to their subjects, under the headings of Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Congratulations, Parting, Travelling, Acrostics, Love, Elegies, Various, Conceits, and one or two minor ones, several of these headings being themselves subdivided for the sake of convenience of reference. Thus, Love is broken up into five parts, commencing with Love Unconfessed, and ending with Love Unrequited and Forgotten. Such a conceit is highly characteristic of the downward tendency of the Japanese mind since the simpler and healthier early days, and of the substitution of hair-splitting puerilities for the true spirit of poetry. So far as they go, however, the "Odes Ancient and Modern" are not without manifold charms, and are decidedly superior to the twenty imperial collections that succeeded them, for which reason a small selection of representative short stanzas has been made from them alone.

Though fading, the poetical spirit of the country did not, however, yet wither completely away. Indeed, some may think that, like the forests of the land that

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gave it birth, it was fairer in its autumn tints than in its summer or in its spring. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, in the hands of the Buddhist priesthood, who during that troublous epoch had become almost the sole repositaries of taste and learning, arose the lyric drama, at first but an adaptation of the old religious dances, the choric songs accompanying which were expanded and improved. The next step was the introduction of individual personages, which led to the adoption of a dramatic unity in the plot, though the supreme importance still assigned to the chorus, left to the performance its mainly lyric character, till, at a somewhat later period, the theatrical tendency became supreme, and the romantic melodrama of the modern Japanese stage was evolved. The last of the four plays translated in this work is a specimen of Japanese classical poetry just before this final step was taken, when the new spirit was already struggling within the old forms. The analogy of the course of development here sketched out with that of the Greek drama is too obvious to need any remark. Great doubt hangs over the precise date and authorship of most of the dramatic pieces, on account of the Japanese custom of attributing to the head of the house of lyric actors at any given time, all the plays brought out under his auspices. But before the end of the sixteenth century their production had ceased, and with them the torch of Japanese inspiration finally became extinct.

Then during the long peace of more than two centuries that preceded the arrival of the American menof-war in Uraga Bay arose the critical and antiquarian school. Every monastery, every noble's mansion,

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