SOME JAPANESE NOTES.

THouem this book is the production of one of the most learned of Japanese scholars, it makes no pretension to be a work of scholarship. It is, indeed, in great measure, a com- pilation of variorum opinions on Japanese matters, the matters themselves often important enough, but the notes upon them somewhat of the slightest. The book, however, is not intended for the scholar, but for the more intelligent general reader who wants to know something authentic about Japan, and especially, we should suppose, for the " globe- trotter" who intends to print his impressions, and is desirous of avoiding the ridiculous errors into which most of the fraternity tumble. To such the volume is indispensable.

Among its other merits, not the least is the sort of authori- tative condemnation it involves of the curious japonolatiy which is current in some literary and artistic circles where better judgment would be looked for. The truth is, as might have been surmised a priori, that the Japanese, like other nations, have virtues and vices of their own. Under the title " Japanese People "—the contents are arranged alpha-

• Things Japanese: being Notes on Various Subjects connected with Japan. By Basil Hall Chamberlain, Professor of Japanese and Philology in the Imperial University of Japan. London: Kogan Panl, Trench, TrDbner, and Co.; Tokyo: The Hakatnnslus Ginza. 1890.

betically—the opinion of a host of writers on the national character are quoted, and are by no means all favour- able. Perhaps the most eulogistic is that of the Rev. W. E. Griffis, who writes that "in moral character the average Japanese is frank, honest, faithful, kind, gentle, courteous, confiding, affectionate, filial, loyal." All this is true ; but are Frenchmen, or Gepkans, or Italians not also honest, kind, affectionate, 8(4. Plse of this kind is of a common-form character, and yak ens. Sir Rutherford Alcock is the only writer quoted by Mr. Chamberlain who has seized upon the true differentia of the Japanese mind. " In nothing," he says in the preface to his Two Years in the Capital of the Tycoon, still one of the best of the very few really good modern books on Japan, "are the Japanese to be more admired than for the wonderful genius they display in arriving at the greatest possible results with the simplest means, and the smallest possible expenditure of time or labour and material."

In preferring the works of the Ukiyo, or popular school, best represented by Hokusai, to the laboured imitations of Chinese art, the conventional pictures of Buddhist legends, and the dexterous but merely decorative bird-and-flower compositions which delight most European collectors, Mr. Chamberlain is, we think, perfectly justified. But fully to appreciate Hokusai, one must not only have lived in Japan, but have lived there under the Bakufu, when you could not have walked ten yards along a Yedo street, or a mile along the Tokaido without wit- nessing various dramas of actual life that bore witness to the fidelity, the humour, and the pathos of his fertile and inde- fatigable pencil,—he lived to the age of nearly ninety, and drawings of his are extant, executed only a year or two before his death, that show no trace of failure in his powers.

The theatre in Japan has a double interest. It is the one thing in the country that has remained practically un- changed amidst the political topsy-turvydom of the last thirty years. And, as Mr. Chamberlain justly remarks, it is the only place where the life of Old Nippon can be now studied,—or, at all events, a fairly accurate semblance of it. Some of the articles in the volume we would willingly have sacrificed for a more adequate treatment than is actually vouch- safed of such a subject as this. The no, or lyrical dramas of mediaeval times, still occasionally performed, were in many respects strikingly similar to the old Greek drama. They strictly preserved the three unities, and they were unaided by any kind of scenic adjunct whatever. The performances took place in the open air (the very word for " theatre," Shiba-i means sitting amid the grass), the actors often wore masks, and a pious thought ran through them all. It was not until the sixteenth century that comedies and tragedies like those of the present day were put on the stage. Curiously enough, though under the Bakufu women were not allowed to act, it was to two women, 0 Kuni and 0 Tail, that the modern Japanese theatre owes its existence. Of plays there are two categories,—historical pieces, mostly of a tragical cast, and sews-mono, or " world-talk " pieces, comedies. Of the former, the most famous is Chiushingura, founded on the story of the Forty-seven Ronins ; and another based on the adventures of Kokusen-ya, who expelled the Dutch from Formosa in the latter half of the seventeenth century. For both tragedies and comedies, the Japanese stage is well supplied with scenery and properties, though the scenery is often rudimentary,—a door standing for a house, a tree for a forest, and so forth. The acting is often, especially in the comedies, extremely good. Up to the restoration almost, the actors were held in a contempt greater even than what the wearers of the buskin had to put up with in the days of Moliere. In official censuses, they were enumerated, not as ten actors, twenty actors, and so on, but as ten beasts of actors, twenty beasts of actors ; and no " gentleman " would have condescended to attend these performances unless naibun —i.e., incognito—a device doubtless often resorted to.

Whatever may be the virtues of the Japanese, courtesy to women is not one of them. No one can have resided in Japan without having been frequently shocked by the entire lack of consideration with which women are treated. According to Mr. Chamberlain, no great improvement has taken place so far in the behaviour of men to the weaker sex. Girl, wife, sister, mother, she is always under tutelage, slavishly subject to father, husband, brother, even to her own son,—worst of all, to her mother-in-law. A crowd of duties are diligently inculcated upon her, but all have reference to the comfort

and glory of the man ; while he is taught to regard her merely as a toy or a drudge, to be put aside when done with, if he likes. The adoption to some extent of European dress hea- led to a slight improvement in her lot : when dressed a la

japonaise, she must enter a room humbly after her husband ; but when in European costume, she enjoys the precedence naturally due to her weakness and grace.

Among the many crazes of young Japan—an amusing list of them is given under the title " Fashionable Crazes "—is the desire to write English poetry. The following specimen seems to show, however, that English is found to be but an imper- fect means of expression by the macs sacer of New Japan. It appeared in September, 1886, in a magazine published at Tokyo by some Japanese students, and rivals the best efforts of the Anglicised babu :-

" Han GLEE.

The purest flame, the hottest heat, Is Woman's Power over earth ;

Which mighty black and pale down beat

And made the Eden, place of birth.

Of what ? of what ? can thou tell me ?

A birth of Noble, High, Value— The station He destined for thee—

Of woman, mother, Social Glue."

It would spoil the effect to quote the remainder. We wish we had space to give an account of the next article, on " Porce-

lain and Pottery," by Captain Brinkley, R.A., by far the most learned authority on the subject, as Mr. Chamberlain justly terms him. Collectors must turn to the book itself, but it may be worth while mentioning here that Japanese keramic art dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century, and that its period of finest production was from 1750 to 1830.