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 the "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

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

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,

The

was ransacked for the written relics that had survived the chances of so many ages of feudal warfare. pioneers of this Japanese renaissance inoculated the educated classes with that passion for the literary and religious features of antiquity, which, afterwards extending into the political domain, so greatly contributed to the overthrow of the usurped authority of the Shogunate, and to the re-establishment of the old imperial régime. The ancient language was elucidated, the ancient poets commented on, the ancient style imitated, by men to whom Old Japan was all in all. What might have been the final result had the native mind been left to itself, it is hard to conjecture. Would this small far - Eastern renaissance, after expending its first natural antiquarian energy, have resulted in any new flowering forth of the national genius, or had every possible vein been exhausted, and would the intellect of the country, artificially walled in from the fresh air of the world at large, have revolved for ever in the circle of an arid scholasticism? History, as we know, took an altogether unexpected turn. The sudden influx of Western ideas, checked the natural course of events by introducing a potent novel factor; and the Japanese, at no time given to idealism, have, during the last few years, attached themselves to the pursuit of the advantages of the material side of European civilisation, with an eagerness amounting to disdain for everything poetical, or even literary, in any branch. Some stray volumes of poetry may,

* The names of Mabuchi, Motowori, and others of lesser note, will occur o every student of Japanese literature who is at the same time a lover of purity of style.

indeed, occasionally issue from the press. But they are mostly copies of copies,-imitations either of the mediæval courtly versifiers, who themselves looked to the "Odes Ancient and Modern" for their models, or of the réchauffé productions of the last-century revival school. Ancient Japanese verses are now written just as our schoolboys write Latin verses; even the popular songs for the singing and dancing girls being composed in what is, in reality, a dead language mechanically reproduced. Of course this cannot go on for ever. Poetry and belles lettres must either perish utterly, or they must adapt themselves to the changed circumstances of the times. But these things are ever harder to alter than are political systems and ways of life, and as yet there is not the slightest indication of what the Japanese poetry of the future will be like; the only thing that may be predicted of it with tolerable certainty is, that its outward form will probably receive less modification than its inward essence.

III.

It is with the past, however, and not with the future, that we are concerned. What were the characteristics, and what is the value of the old standard. poetry of Japan?

The answers to these questions may best be found by those who, without any foregone conclusions or special personal interest, will be at the trouble of perusing a sufficient number of representative specimens of the productions of the Japanese Muse. The