UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 >r. Ernest Carroll Moore
 
 \
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 AND OTHER PAPERS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 TALES OF OLD JAPAN 
 THE BAMBOO GARDEN 
 THE ATTACHE AT PEKING 
 THE GARTER MISSION TO JAPAN
 
 TRAGEDY IN 
 STONE AND 
 OTHER PAPERS 
 BY LORD REDESDALE 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY :MCMXIII
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 THE BALLANTYNE PRESS TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CUSTOM and the publisher demand an intro- 
 duction to this little book : modesty and 
 the author would prefer to let it go forth 
 and take its chance unheralded. And yet he who 
 has wares to offer must not lack the boldness to cry 
 their quality, and I have been encouraged by high 
 authority to hope that these papers may yet have 
 an interest for a generation that was not born 
 when some of them first appeared. Moreover, 
 even the authorities which I have consulted are 
 not all of them easily accessible. Stow's " Survey," 
 Bailey's " History of the Tower of London," and 
 Doyne Bell's masterly monograph on the Chapel 
 of St. Peter are books already scarcely to be found 
 except in some few public libraries and on the 
 <^ shelves of professed antiquaries. On the other 
 hand the discovery of the remains of Queen Anne 
 Boleyn, and of the other victims of the block, is 
 0$ an episode of which the interest can never die. 
 \ Pregnant with pathos, the story is one which should 
 ^ be recorded. I have added it to a portion of a 
 ,> general, perhaps rather dryasdust, article on the 
 /T Tower, which I wrote in 1882 at the request of 
 the late Sir James Knowles. 
 
 The character of Leonardo da Vinci was like a 
 precious stone with many facets. That most of 
 these should remain dark to the multitude is no 
 matter of surprise. Had he lived to gather to- 
 gether, as he was minded to, all his discoveries, all 
 his philosophy, and all his prophecies into one 
 encyclopaedic volume, the world would have been 
 
 v 
 
 193916
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 compelled to hail him as the most universal genius 
 of any age, and science would have been advanced 
 by some decades I had almost written centuries ! 
 As it is, of all the workings of his mighty brain 
 there remain only scattered parcels, mere inter- 
 ruptions jotted down as they occurred among the 
 schemes and sketches of his artistic work. There 
 they lie in cryptic form, only revealed by the 
 microscopic labour of a few keen scholars such as 
 Ravaisson, Mollien, Govio, Uzielli, Richter, and 
 others. To place before the reader some account 
 of thoughts which excited awe and admiration in 
 a Goethe is surely a pious endeavour. Here again 
 is a case where we have to delve in books which 
 are not ready to every man's hand. 
 
 The learned works of the two great Viennese pro- 
 fessors as to the history of paper deal with matter 
 so interesting both as regards the past and the 
 present that I feel justified in serving up their results 
 for English consumption. 
 
 The papers on Japanese subjects, memories of a 
 great time now vanished like a dream, are, 
 perhaps, worth repetition. Some, indeed, have not 
 before been published. The nineteenth century has 
 been called " the Century of Inventions " ; it seems 
 to me as if the twentieth were bidding fair to be 
 known as " the Century of Surprises." It is hardly 
 twelve years old and it has seen Japan annihilate 
 a Russian fleet, wrest a whole province from the 
 Russian army, and capture a fortress which, manned 
 by European troops, was held to be impregnable. 
 Within the last twelve months it has seen the 
 oldest and most august senate in the world shorn 
 vi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 of its powers the oldest Empire in the world 
 converted into a Republic. It has seen trial by 
 jury instituted in China (what, by the by, must the 
 old mandarins of the Hsing-Pu fa-Men, the Board 
 of Punishments at Peking, think of that ?). It has 
 seen Corea wiped out, and an army of Chinese 
 women at Nanking demanding the suffrage and 
 breaking windows with all the enthusiasm of Regent 
 Street. These are surprises. But none of them is 
 greater than the deeds of chivalry and self-sacrifice 
 by which Japan has earned her laurels. 
 
 As the Spectator of to-day (March 23, 1912) 
 puts it : " History has no parallel to the rise of 
 Japan in scarcely more than fifty years from a 
 hermit kingdom, whose secrets were known only 
 to a few Dutch sailors, to the position of conqueror 
 of one of the greatest military powers in the world." 
 Already the Japanese themselves talk of the days 
 previous to 1878^5 mukashi, " the olden time," and 
 they speak dubiously of what took place then, 
 much as we might talk of the events of the period 
 of the Heptarchy. It was strange indeed, when I 
 returned to Japan six years ago with Prince 
 Arthur's Garter Mission, to be more than once 
 cross-examined as to what did or did not take 
 place mukashi. When the Mayor of Tokyo got 
 up a representation of one of the old DaimyO 
 processions for the Prince's benefit, one of the 
 Princesses turned round to me, a foreigner, and 
 said : " You must often have seen such sights 
 mukashi ; is all this correct ? " * Many books 
 are being written about Japan old and new : 
 
 * See my " Garter Mission to Japan " (Macmillan, 1906). 
 
 A vii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 every tourist writes his impressions or those of 
 his native guide, mostly illiterate and uninformed ; 
 and so I have felt the less hesitation in endeavour- 
 ing to crystallise some particles of truth as a 
 set-off against all this Dolmetscherei interpreter's 
 fribble. Even a trip among the fairy-haunted 
 mountains of Hakone, in days when there were no 
 railroads, no telegraphs, no hotels, and when we 
 travelled with an armed escort for there were not 
 a few ronin about, desperadoes whose blades were 
 athirst to drink the blood of the hated foreigner 
 may be of some amusement to the myriad journeyers 
 who now have at their command all the comforts 
 and something more than the security of the West. 
 But for these I must say that they pay a price in 
 the sacrifice of much that was original, much that 
 was picturesque, and old-world, and unforeseen. 
 
 I feel that I need hardly make excuses for telling 
 once more the story of Will Adams ; surely one of 
 the most romantic and curious episodes in the rela- 
 tions between East and West a Kentish seadog 
 of Queen Elizabeth's time transformed into a petty 
 Japanese Daimyo ! 
 
 I have been much criticised of late years very 
 kindly I must gratefully admit in regard to my 
 views on landscape gardening, which has been with 
 me a passion. I have been told that I have made 
 a Japanese garden indeed, more than one 
 whereas I have no such claim, no such ambition. 
 A Japanese garden can only be planned by a native 
 artist, who must be a master of his craft, and in 
 obedience to rules which are sacrosanct, canons 
 quite beyond the comprehension of the Western 
 viii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 mind. I have simply followed certain ideas which 
 have forced themselves upon me in the course of 
 travels through many countries, and have en- 
 deavoured to apply them as fittingly as I could to 
 the surroundings of an English country home. 
 Hence the reproduction of my chapter on that 
 subject. 
 
 My thanks are due to Mr. Guy Laking, the 
 distinguished and learned Keeper of the King's 
 Armour, for his most interesting note on the Tower 
 armoury ; and to the editors of the Nineteenth 
 Century and the Cornhill ^Magazine for permission to 
 reprint portions of articles from those periodicals. 
 
 IX
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 3 
 ART AND THE EXACT SCIENCES : LEONARDO DA 
 
 VINCI 45 
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 79 
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 105 
 
 AN ADDRESS AT THE CAMPDEN SCHOOL OF ART 125 
 A SECOND ADDRESS AT THE CAMPDEN SCHOOL 
 
 OF ART 137 
 
 A TALE OF OLD AND NEW JAPAN 151 
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 189 
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 217 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN NEARLY FIFTY YEARS AGO 
 
 PART I 237 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN NEARLY FIFTY YEARS AGO 
 
 PART II 275
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE* 
 
 1 CANNOT remember the time when the 
 Tower of London, that " proudest monument 
 of antiquity," did not hold over me the most 
 enthralling fascination. As quite small children, 
 my brothers and I used to gloat over George Cruik- 
 shank's somewhat gruesome illustrations to Harrison 
 Ainsworth's romance then a new work until the 
 three giants with Xit the dwarf, wedded to that 
 unholy bride " the scavenger's daughter," Mauger 
 the headsman, Wolfytt the sworn torturer, the Hot 
 Gospeller and others, were to us very real personages. 
 For many years my dreams were haunted by the 
 murder of Nightgall the gaoler, the glare of Simon 
 Renard's eyes, and the discovery of Alexia's corpse; 
 and I loved to listen with bated breath to an old 
 officer of the Coldstream Guards who used to tell 
 us how the nightly wanderings of Anne Boleyn's 
 shade round the site of the scaffold on Tower Green 
 were an article of faith with the sentries of his 
 regiment. The very names of the old buildings 
 were instinct with tragedy and mystery. Traitor's 
 Gate, the Bloody Tower, the Devilin Tower, Little 
 Ease, the Pit all telling tales of plots and murders, 
 the horrors of the Torture Chamber and the scaffold. 
 If those walls could speak ! 
 
 Small wonder that such a Tragedy in Stone should 
 appeal to the imagination of a child, and that the 
 reverent awe which it excited should grow with 
 the years. In schoolboy days, when I was old 
 enough to wander alone, I was never so happy as 
 
 * Part of this paper was published in the Nineteenth Century of 1882. 
 
 3
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 when I could go and travel back for centuries 
 among the open spaces round GundulPs great 
 White Tower, filling them my fancy much helped 
 by the old-world dresses of the beefeaters with 
 kings and queens and courtiers and men-at-arms, 
 all the motley pageant of a boy's restless brain. 
 Then came the time of the Crimean War, when 
 Regiment succeeding Regiment went forth from 
 the gates, marching to the tune of " The Girl I left 
 behind Me," and I almost lived in the old Fortress, 
 bidding good-bye to relations and schoolfellows, 
 many of whom I was never to see again bright 
 lads, resplendent in the glittering bravery of new 
 uniforms, whose luck in going to the wars we who 
 must needs stay at home all envied. 
 
 Long years rolled by years during which in 
 the Far East I saw in living reality something akin 
 to the mediaeval visions of my youth and then, 
 coming home, I was once more linked with the 
 Tower, this time officially ; for the buildings are 
 under the charge of the Office of Works, of which 
 in 1874 I was appointed Secretary. I found that 
 there was much that absolutely needed to be put in 
 hand for the preservation of the various structures. 
 The Prince Consort, with Mr. Salvin, a great 
 authority on ancient castles, as architectural 
 adviser, had done good work about the Tower ; 
 but the Prince's early death in 1861 put a stop to 
 this undertaking, and for thirteen years decay, 
 which for centuries had been eating into the old 
 walls, held sway unchecked. The delay was be- 
 coming fatal. 
 
 In 1876 I represented to the Government the 
 4
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 urgent necessity of taking matters in hand. My 
 chief, Mr. Gerard Noel, who had recently been ap- 
 pointed First Commissioner of Works, and Mr. 
 W. H. Smith, who as Secretary to the Treasury was 
 all-powerful in finance, were most encouraging, and 
 recognised with enthusiasm the necessity of pre- 
 serving for posterity so precious a relic of the past. 
 Mr. Salvin, wise and learned, gave us his advice, and 
 the necessary plans were prepared with great skill, 
 judgment, and reverence for the historic past by 
 Mr. (now Sir John) Taylor. 
 
 Before telling what we did and what we found, 
 it may be well to give a slight sketch of the 
 Tower's story. 
 
 The history of the Tower of London may almost 
 be said to be the history of England : for eight 
 hundred years as fortress, palace, and prison it has 
 been continuously inhabited. Modern discoveries 
 have shown that Roman buildings of considerable 
 importance stood upon the same site ; tradition and 
 the poets went so far as to attribute the existing 
 Tower to Julius Caesar.* We know that it was 
 
 * This is the way 
 To Julius Caesar's ill-erected Tower. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, " Richard II," Act v, Sc, i. 
 
 Again in " Richard III," Act lii, Sc. i : 
 
 P. OF WALES. I do not like the Tower, of any place. 
 
 Did Julius Caesar build that place, my Lord ? 
 BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious Lord, begin that place, 
 
 Which since succeeding ages have re-edified. 
 P. OF WALES. Is it upon record ? or else reported 
 
 Successively from age to age he built it ? 
 BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious Lord, 
 
 In more modern times Gray sings : 
 
 Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, 
 By many a foul and midnight murder fed.
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 built by William the Conqueror, but it adds to the 
 interest with which the old Tower teems when 
 we reflect that it was a Roman stronghold a 
 thousand years or more before the Norman king 
 caused one stone of the great White Tower to be 
 laid upon another. 
 
 It was not until twelve years after the Conquest 
 that William turned his attention to fortifying the 
 river approach to London. He summoned as his 
 architect Gundulf, the weeping monk of Bee in 
 Normandy, a Benedictine of considerable acquire- 
 ments, whom travel had made familiar not only 
 with the best specimens of architecture in his own 
 country, but even with the more ornate school of 
 the East. He is said to have been a pupil of 
 Lanfranc and the friend of Anselm, and it is evident 
 that he had acquired no little fame as an artist 
 before he was called away from his cloister to 
 become the chief builder to King William. " But," 
 says Hepworth Dixon, "he was chiefly known in 
 the convent as a weeper. No monk at Bee could 
 cry so often and so much as Gundulf. He could 
 weep with those who wept ; nay, he could weep 
 with those who sported ; for his tears welled forth 
 from what seemed to be an unfailing source." 
 This melancholy man was made Bishop of Rochester, 
 the cathedral and castle of which city were designed 
 and built by him the castle much after the pattern 
 of the White Tower and it is in "a fair Register 
 Book of the Acts of the Bishop of Rochester, set 
 down by Edmund of Hadenham," that story finds 
 it recorded that "William I., surnamed the Con- 
 queror, builded the Tower of London, to wit, the 
 6
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 great white and square Tower there, about the year 
 1078, appointing Gundulf, the Bishop of Rochester, 
 to be principal surveyor and overseer of that work, 
 who was from that time lodged in the house of 
 Edmere, a burgess of London." 
 
 So Gundulf wept and built, and Ralph Flambard, 
 Bishop of Durham, found the money, little wotting 
 that he was taxing and robbing the people to erect 
 a prison for himself. Probably the earliest descrip- 
 tion of the Tower of London is that quoted by 
 Stow of Fitzstephen, who lived in the twelfth 
 century: "The City of London hath in the east a 
 very great and most strong palatine tower, whose 
 turrets and walls do rise from a deep foundation, 
 the mortar thereof being tempered with the blood 
 of beasts." The citizens of London thrilled with 
 horror at this uncanny sight. The Tower was an 
 attack upon their liberties, a standing menace of 
 the tyrant's wrath ; and this fearsome blood-coloured 
 cement ! perhaps Gundulf ground up the old red 
 tiles and bricks of the Romans to mix his mortar ; 
 and so the people, only too ready to surround 
 with new glamour the sinister threat that was arising 
 in their midst, accounted for the colour in this 
 way. As a later chronicler put it, nothing could 
 be more meet, proper and fitting than that the 
 fortress that was fated to be the scene of so many 
 tragedies and horrors "should be cemented with 
 blood and watered by the tears of its architect." 
 
 Tears do not appear to have hurt Gundulfs 
 health, for he went on weeping to the ripe age of 
 eighty, having lived to see the carrying into execu- 
 tion of all the works which he designed about the 
 
 7
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 Tower, including the original church dedicated to 
 St. Peter, which stood on the site of the present 
 chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. 
 
 William Rufus actively pushed on the work which 
 had been begun under the auspices of his father : 
 "He challenged the investiture of prelates ; he 
 pilled and shaved the people with tribute, especially 
 to spend about the Tower of London and the 
 Great Hall at Westminster." There is consider- 
 able doubt as to what were the actual additions 
 made to the Tower of London during the 
 reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. Stow 
 says : " They also caused a castle to be builded 
 under the said tower, to wit, on the south side 
 towards the Thames, and also incastellated the 
 same round about." This castle on the south side 
 towards the Thames has by some been thought to 
 be St. Thomas's Tower ; but that cannot be, for 
 St. Thomas's Tower was not built until the reign 
 of Henry III., when the land was reclaimed from 
 the river. More probably this castle was the Hall, 
 or, as it is now called, the Wakefield Tower, in 
 which the Crown Jewels are kept, and which in 
 its lower masonry shows traces of great antiquity. 
 
 Upon the death of Rufus the citizens of London 
 seized Ralph Flambard, whom they hated for his 
 extortions, and Henry, who had reasons enough for 
 conciliating the commons in the face of the im- 
 pending struggle for the kingdom with his brother 
 Robert, sent the ex-treasurer to be imprisoned in 
 the Tower, the first of a long roll of political 
 captives. But he led an easy life there, well 
 lodged and well fed, with liberty to buy what 
 8
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 luxuries he might wish for over and above what 
 could be procured for the two shillings a day 
 assigned for his maintenance out of the royal 
 exchequer. One fine day, using a trick as old 
 as the time of Ulysses, he sent for a number 
 of kegs of wine, and gave a great feast to his 
 gaolers, who got helplessly drunk. In one of 
 the kegs was concealed a rope, by which the 
 burly Bishop let himself down out of the 
 window, and although the rope was too short, 
 and he had an awkward drop to brave, Flambard, 
 fat as he was, took no hurt, and made good his 
 escape to France. This happened in the month of 
 February noi. Poor Griffin, Prince of Wales, 
 who tried the same adventure in Henry III.'s 
 reign, did not fare so well. He too was a portly 
 man, and he broke his neck. 
 
 The first four constables of the Tower were 
 Othowerus, Acolinillus, Otto, and Geffrey Magna- 
 ville, Earl of Essex men of rapacious character and 
 strong grasp, for they took East Smithfield, which 
 belonged to the priory of the Holy Trinity within 
 Aldgate, and held it as a vineyard. No wonder 
 the people looked with terror and dislike upon the 
 frowning walls which harboured knights so bold 
 that even the Church in the heyday of her power 
 was not safe from their depredations ! In the 
 second year of King Stephen the monks came to 
 their own again, but, as will be seen presently, the 
 Tower of London was but an uncomfortable neigh- 
 bour to the Church of the Holy Trinity for many a 
 long year. 
 
 For a century and a half little or nothing appears 
 
 9
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 to have been done to the Tower, until in the 
 year 1155 "Thomas Becket, being Chancellor to 
 Henry the Second, caused the Flemings to be 
 banished out of England, their castles lately 
 builded to be pulled down, and the Tower of 
 London to be repaired." 
 
 Forty years later, about the year 1190, when 
 John was in rebellion against his brother Richard I., 
 William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and Chancellor 
 of England, " enclosed the Tower and Castle of 
 London with an outward wall of stone, em- 
 battelled ; and also caused a deep ditch to be cast 
 about the same, thinking to have invironed it 
 with the river of Thames." This ditch was a 
 new blow to the prior and monks of the Holy 
 Trinity, for by the digging of it the church lost 
 half a mark rent by the year, and the poor 
 brethren of St. Katherine lost their mill, which 
 stood " where now is the iron gate of the 
 Tower." 
 
 Moreover, the garden, which the King had 
 hired of the brethren for six marks a year, "for the 
 most part was wasted and marred by the ditch. 
 Recompense was often promised, but never per- 
 formed till King Edward, coming after, gave to 
 the brethren five marks and a half for that part 
 which the ditch had devoured ; and the other 
 part thereof without he yielded them again, which 
 they hold ; and of the said rent of five marks and 
 a half they have a deed, by virtue whereof they 
 are well paid to this day." 
 
 If the church suffered loss by the encroachments 
 of the new fortifications, so also did the city, for 
 10
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 an equal quantity of land was taken from Tower 
 Hill, besides breaking down the city wall from 
 the White Tower to the first gate of the city, called 
 the Postern Gate. Yet, says Stow, from whom 
 we have been quoting, " I have not read of any 
 quarrel made by the citizens, or recompense 
 demanded by them for that matter : because all 
 was done for good of the cities defence thereby, 
 and to their good likings." 
 
 Not so patient were the citizens when Henry III. 
 began his great works at the Tower : " In the 
 year 1239," writes Matthew Paris, "King Henry 
 the Third fortified the Tower to another end : 
 wherefore the citizens, fearing lest that were done 
 to their detriment, complained ; and the King 
 answered that he had not done it to their hurt ; 
 but (saith he) I will from henceforth do as my 
 brother doth in building and fortifying castles 
 who beareth the name to be wiser than I am ! " 
 
 And he kept his promise, for if he was a weak 
 king, he was a mighty builder. Corffe, Conway, 
 Beaumaris, " and many other fine poems in stone," 
 are his work. 
 
 But the chief claim of King Henry III. should 
 rest upon his having been the first deviser of an 
 embankment of the Thames. For to him, and to 
 his master mason, Adam de Lamburn, belongs 
 the honour of having constructed the great wharf 
 reclaimed from the Thames on the south side of 
 the Tower. This was no mean piece of engi- 
 neering, when the force of the tide at this point 
 is considered, nor was the embankment made 
 good without the exercise of much patience and 
 
 B II
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 perseverance. On the night of the festival of St. 
 George, 1240, the tide rolled in heavily, under- 
 mining the earthworks, and the water gate and the 
 river wall fell in. 
 
 The King set to work again, and for a whole 
 year nothing occurred to hinder him, until, on the 
 very anniversary of the former disaster, the surging 
 tide once more swept away gate and wall. That 
 very night a certain priest, a holy and a prudent 
 man, dreamt a dream, in which it was revealed to 
 him that an archbishop, clad in his pontifical robes 
 and carrying a cross in his hand, came to the walls 
 which the King had at that time built near the 
 Tower of London, and surveying them with an 
 angry countenance, struck them sharply and violently 
 with the cross which he carried in his right hand, 
 saying, " Why do ye rebuild these ? " And im- 
 mediately the newly built walls fell in ruins as 
 though they had been caused to fall by an 
 earthquake. 
 
 Terrified at the vision, the priest asked of a 
 certain clerk who appeared to be following the 
 archbishop, " Who is this archbishop ? " Said he, 
 " The blessed Thomas the Martyr, a Londoner by 
 birth, who, considering that these walls have been 
 made to the shame and prejudice of the Londoners, 
 has thrown them in ruins, so that they may never 
 be restored." 
 
 Then said the priest, " Oh, what expense and 
 what labour of craftsmen has he destroyed ! " To 
 him answered the clerk, " If poor craftsmen, gaping 
 for pay and being in sore need, have earned victuals 
 for themselves thereby, it may be borne. But 
 12
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 since these walls have been built, not for the 
 defence of the kingdom, but for the woe of guilt- 
 less citizens, if the blessed Thomas had not cast 
 them down, St. Edward the Confessor and his 
 successor would have destroyed them to the foun- 
 dation yet more cruelly." Then the priest awoke, 
 and rose and told his vision to all those who were 
 in the house ; and in the morning the news spread 
 all over London that the walls built about the 
 Tower, upon the building of which the King had 
 spent more than twelve thousand marks, had fallen 
 down, and were beyond repair. For the which 
 disaster the citizens of London were but little 
 grieved, for the walls were to them as a thorn in 
 their eye. 
 
 This story, which has been preserved by Matthew 
 Paris, and embroidered upon by Mr. Hepworth 
 Dixon in his struggles to be picturesque at the ex- 
 pense of accuracy, serves at any rate to show the great 
 unpopularity of Henry's fortifications. The King, 
 however, was not to be permanently daunted either 
 by expense or by ghostly warnings. He and Adam 
 de Lamburn must have been sorely mortified at 
 the second collapse of their embankment, and for 
 some years nothing more was done to it ; but they 
 set bravely to work again, and this time they built 
 so strongly that their masonry has withstood the 
 attacks of storms and tides and ghosts to this day. 
 
 Many other works did Henry III. about the 
 Tower of London. He restored and strengthened 
 the garner or storehouse and the great White 
 Tower. He built the Water Gate, which was 
 called St. Thomas's Tower, and in which a chapel
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 was dedicated to St. Edward the Confessor, probably 
 to commemorate the priest's dream and to deprecate 
 the further wrath of the saints. He built and 
 fortified the inner ballium with the Lanthorn 
 Tower, which he fitted up for his own habitation, 
 causing his privy chamber to be painted with the 
 story of Antiochus. Nor, while directing his chief 
 attention to the fortification of the Tower as a 
 place of arms and safety for the King's person, did 
 Henry neglect the sacred buildings within it. He 
 repaired and beautified the Chapel of St. John 
 inside the White Tower, giving orders for three 
 glass windows, the one towards the north " with a 
 little Mary holding her Child," and two others 
 towards the south representing the Holy Trinity 
 and St. John the Evangelist. 
 
 The cross and rood were also to be repainted in 
 good colours, and two fair images were to be made 
 and painted " where it could be best and most 
 properly done in the said chapel " ; one of them of 
 St. Edward holding a ring and giving it to St. John 
 the Evangelist. Minute instructions were also 
 issued for the restoration of the Church of St. 
 Peter ; the royal stalls were to be painted, and the 
 "little Mary," with her shrine, and the figures of 
 St. Peter, St. Nicholas, and St. Katherine newly 
 coloured ; a new image of the Blessed Virgin was 
 to be made, and one of St. Peter in the robes of an 
 archbishop ; there was to be made and painted, 
 " where it could be better and more decently 
 done," an image of St. Christopher carrying Jesus ; 
 two fair tables of the best colours were to be 
 painted with the legends of St. Nicholas and St. 
 H
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 Katherine, and " two fair cherubims with hilarious 
 and joyous countenances " were to be placed on the 
 right hand on the left of the great cross ; a carved 
 marble font with marble columns was also to be 
 provided. 
 
 Wonderfully minute in detail and very curious 
 are the instructions issued by King Henry to 
 the " custodes operationis Turris Londinensis." 
 Among others there is one in which he commands 
 to make " all the leaden gutters of the great Tower, 
 by which the rain-water should fall from the top 
 of the said Tower, be continued down to the 
 ground, so that the newly whitened wall of the 
 said Tower may in no wise perish nor easily give 
 way owing to the water trickling down it " : sound 
 building principles, which were conveyed to his 
 clerks in the doggiest of Latin. 
 
 Louder and louder grew the discontent of the 
 good citizens of London as they saw more work 
 being spent upon the Tower. In every addition 
 to its strength they saw a fresh menace directed 
 against their liberties. Moreover, the King's 
 love of bricks and mortar and works of art was 
 an expensive taste, and it was their money that 
 was being swallowed up in the great fortress. 
 The Queen, Elinor of Provence, shared her lord's 
 unpopularity, and it was against her that it found a 
 vent. 
 
 In the year 1263 there were great riots in 
 London, during which the houses of the Jews and 
 the Lombard bankers were attacked and pillaged. 
 Henry was away, but the Queen was at the Tower, 
 and was so frightened by the outrages that were
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 taking place in the city that she sought to go to 
 Windsor by boat. 
 
 As she drew near London Bridge the people cried 
 out, " Drown the witch ! " " Drown the witch ! " 
 Not content with abusing her in the most indecent 
 language, they pelted her with rotten eggs and dirt, 
 and had prepared large stones to sink her boat, 
 should she attempt to shoot the bridge : so that 
 she was terrified and returned to the Tower. 
 
 At the close of Henry III.'s reign, the Tower 
 was a complete and, for the engines of war of those 
 times, impregnable stronghold, presenting a perfect 
 picture of the feudal system. 
 
 It was divided into two wards, the inner ward 
 and the outer : the former reserved for the King, 
 the latter open to the people. 
 
 In the inner ward were the King's palace 
 (Henry, as we have seen, occupied the Lanthorn 
 Tower), the dungeon keep for his prisoners, the 
 treasury, garner, and chapels. In this inner 
 sanctum sat the Court of King's Bench. The 
 outer ward, in which sat the Court of Common 
 Pleas, was nominally in the custody of the citizens, 
 who on stated occasions enforced their rights of 
 access to the King and the Courts of Law. 
 
 At such times they met in Barking Church on 
 Tower Hill, whence they sent "six sage men" as 
 a deputation to beg the King, according to custom, 
 to forbid his guards either to close the gates or to 
 keep watch over them while the citizens were 
 coming and going, for that no one should guard 
 the gates of the Tower save only such persons as 
 they might appoint. 
 16
 
 The King, as a matter of course, granted this re- 
 quest, and for the nonce the citizen guards, newly 
 shaved and sprucely clad in their best, took 
 possession of the gates. 
 
 There is one institution which dates from 
 Henry's time to which we may allude. In the 
 year 1235 the Emperor Frederick sent to the King, 
 who was his brother-in-law, three leopards, as an 
 emblem of the royal coat-of-arms of England : and 
 from that time forth until the year 1826, when the 
 wild beasts were removed to the Regent's Park, the 
 menagerie, which was kept in the Lion's Tower, 
 formed a part of the royal appanage of the Tower 
 of London. So the three leopards of King Henry III. 
 were the foundation of the Royal Zoological Society. 
 
 None of Henry's successors emulated the active 
 and artistic interest which he showed in the Tower 
 of London. 
 
 To him must be ascribed the credit of having 
 finished it as it stood until the close of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 Some details, indeed, were afterwards altered ; the 
 present church of St. Peter was built by Edward I., 
 on the site of the older church ; about four cen- 
 turies later, Sir Christopher Wren added a large 
 store-house on the north side, which was burnt 
 down in 1841 and replaced by the present barracks. 
 But although kings and queens held their court 
 here, no changes of importance in the structure 
 took place. The great fortress remained as the 
 third Henry had left it. How it became the scene 
 of many a royal murder how Henry VI. was 
 killed in the little oratory in the Wakefield Tower 
 
 1 7
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 how Richard brought about the death of his 
 nephews how Henry VIII. beheaded his wives 
 how his daughter signed warrants for the burning 
 of heretics and the imprisonment of her sister 
 and how many a captive lingered through a living 
 death within those terrible walls, or perished in the 
 torture chamber all these stories, and many others 
 of which the Tower was the scene, are thrice-told 
 tales familiar to every child ; but, even so, they 
 are so full of pathetic interest that one cannot, if 
 one would, avoid lingering upon them. 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren is the next prominent 
 figure with which we have to deal. Besides the 
 great store-house, of which mention has been made, 
 he did much work of restoration about the Tower. 
 But unfortunately he did not enter into the spirit 
 of the place, and the masonry which he introduced, 
 notably in the White Tower, is quite out of harmony 
 with the Norman character of the building. 
 
 But it was at the end of the eighteenth century that 
 the Tower, long neglected, suffered an irreparable loss 
 by the destruction of the Lanthorn Tower, which 
 was burnt down in the year 1786. This tower, 
 which, as part of the royal habitation, would have 
 been of the greatest interest to the curious in 
 antiquities, was a large round structure surmounted 
 by a small turret. It stood to the west of the Salt 
 Tower, from which it was separated by a gallery 
 dividing the privy garden, and that the disaster might 
 be the more complete, its very ruins were carted 
 away, and in its place was reared a huge unsightly 
 warehouse masking the Tower from the river. 
 During the Crimean War this warehouse was 
 18
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 heightened by a storey, and a crueller blot on a 
 grand old pile of buildings it is difficult to imagine. 
 
 The Georgian epoch was fatal to many of our 
 finest antiquities throughout the country. The 
 prevailing dearth of taste is shown by the ruthless 
 way in which picturesque old manor-houses of the 
 Tudor and even earlier times were swept away by 
 the score to make room for Grecian temples or 
 Italian villas. 
 
 It was a period in which the people cared no 
 more for the monuments of their country, as old 
 Weever said of his own contemporaries in a 
 previous century, " than for the parynges of their 
 nayles." In such an age men cared little for 
 antiquities, little for the glories of such. It had 
 long ceased to be a royal palace, and even the old 
 custom of holding a court there before the corona- 
 tion of the king, who was wont to pass in solemn 
 procession through the City to Westminster, was 
 observed for the last time by King Charles II. 
 
 The genius of ugliness was allowed to do its 
 worst : indignity after indignity was committed, 
 and the finest monumental fabric in Europe was 
 hidden and screened from the waterway as if it had 
 been something to be ashamed of. 
 
 Had matters gone on thus it is difficult to say 
 what would have been the end : the place would 
 have been at the mercy of storekeepers and paper- 
 keepers, and all considerations of artistic beauty 
 and historic interest would have given way before 
 the urgent necessity for stowing away a few more 
 soldiers' blankets or a packet of dusty files from 
 some public office. 
 
 '9
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 Where shall you find another building so full 
 of pathetic interest, so pregnant with historic 
 memories as the little church on the north side of 
 Tower Green, the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula ? 
 In comparison with the grandeur and architectural 
 magnificence of that other great church, the Abbey 
 of Westminster, also dedicated to St. Peter, it is 
 but a hovel ; yet no place in the world can show 
 such a record of " tragedy in sceptred pall." Lord 
 Macaulay's description of it is a classic passage : it 
 can hardly be left out. " I cannot refrain," he 
 says, " from expressing my disgust at the barbarous 
 stupidity which has transformed this interesting 
 little church into the likeness of a meeting-house 
 in a manufacturing town. In truth there is no 
 sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. 
 Death is there associated not, as in Westminster 
 and St. Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public 
 veneration and with imperishable renown ; not, as 
 in our humblest churches and churchyards, with 
 everything that is most endearing in social and 
 domestic charities : but with whatever is darkest 
 in human nature and in human destiny ; with the 
 savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the 
 inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of 
 friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and 
 of blighted fame. Thither have been carried 
 through successive ages by the rude hands of 
 gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleed- 
 ing relics of men who had been the captains of armies, 
 the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and 
 the ornaments of courts." 
 
 Lord Macaulay's eloquent words rather under- 
 20
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 state than exaggerate the squalor and decay into 
 which the chapel had been allowed to fall and the 
 barbarism with which it had been defaced. High 
 pews and galleries of painted deal crowded up 
 the interior : whitewash had done its worst to 
 degrade the walls and columns. The pavement 
 was as uneven as if it had been forced out of the 
 level by the violence of an earthquake. There 
 was nothing solemn, nothing to suggest religion or 
 divine worship, nothing to record the burial of the 
 mighty dead who lay there. Two Queens three 
 indeed, if we count Lady Jane Grey John Fisher, 
 Bishop of Rochester ; Sir Thomas More ; Thomas 
 Seymour Lord Sudeley, the husband of Queen 
 Catherine Parr and the suitor of Princess Elizabeth ; 
 Northumberland and Somerset, mortal enemies, 
 now lying side by side in the peace of death : Essex, 
 in spite of the Queen's ring * vainly committed to 
 the treacherous hands of Lady Nottingham, a story 
 now looked upon as apocryphal ; James, Duke of 
 Monmouth -f- (Dryden's Absalom) ; the three rebel 
 Lords of the '45 , and many others. 
 
 * A ring said to be the very ring given by Queen Elizabeth to Essex 
 was sold among the Thynne heirlooms at Christie's on May 18, 1911. 
 It was bought by Messrs. Duveen, acting, it was said in the rooms, 
 for Lord Michelham, for 3412 los. The pedigree given in the 
 sale catalogue says that it descended from Lady Frances Devereux, the 
 Earl of Essex's daughter, in unbroken succession from mother and 
 daughter until it came to Louisa, daughter of John, Earl of Granville, 
 who married Thomas Thynne, Second Viscount Weymouth great- 
 grandfather of the late owner. It is described as a ring of gold, the 
 back engraved with arabesque foliage enamelled blue, the bezel set with 
 a sardonyx cameo, carved with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth viewed in 
 profile turned to the right, wearing a head-dress and large ruff. 
 
 t It is difficult to imagine anything more horrible in its details than 
 the execution of the Duke of Monmouth. John Ketch, the common 
 
 21
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 In reading the records of all these horrors it is im- 
 possible not to be struck with admiration for the 
 courage with which one and all met their fate. 
 Bishop Fisher, an old man in his eightieth year, after 
 an imprisonment during the cruel winter months, 
 starved with cold and privations, prays to Cromwell 
 at Christmas-time for some clothes to cover him, 
 " for I have neither shirt nor sute, nor yet other 
 clothes, that are necessary for one to wear, but that 
 bee ragged and rent to shamefully. Notwithstanding 
 I might easily suffer that if they wold keep my 
 body warm," and also begs for a little suitable food. 
 But on June 23, when he was carried to the scaffold, 
 reaching the steps, the poor old man, who had 
 scarcely strength left to walk, refused all help, 
 saying, " Nay, masters, seeing I am come so far, 
 
 hangman of London, was the executioner. When the duke was on the 
 scaffold he tried the edge of the axe with his nail, saying : " I fear it is 
 not sharp enough." The duke gave the headsman six guineas and said, 
 " I pray you do your business well do not serve me as you did my 
 Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him three or four times ; if you 
 strike me twice I cannot promise you not to stir." The duke would 
 not have his eyes bandaged, but having prayed laid his head calmly on 
 the block. " And yet for all this," writes an eyewitness, " the botcherly 
 dog did so barbarously act his pairt, that he could not at fyve stroaks of 
 the axe sever the head from the body." After the third stroke Ketch 
 sickened and threw away the axe, offering forty guineas to any one who 
 would finish the work. The sheriffs compelled him to go on. Two 
 more strokes were dealt, and then the executioner finally severed the 
 head with his knife. (See Doyne Bell's " Chapel in the Tower " and 
 Macaulay's "History of England.") It was from the name of this man 
 Ketch that the common word for the hangman, " Jack Ketch," was 
 derived. The hangmen of London claimed the title of esquire in con- 
 firmation of the coat-of-arms granted by Sir William Segar, Garter King- 
 of-Arms, to Richard Brandon, who beheaded King Charles I. Brandon 
 was succeeded by Edward Dun, and Dun by this " botcherly " John 
 Ketch. There is a pamphlet written by the latter in defence of his 
 conduct at Lord Russell's execution. He throws the blame for his 
 bungling on the movements of the victim. 
 22
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 let me alone and you shall see me shift for myself 
 well enough," and when the summer sun shone in 
 his face he cried, " Accedite ad eum et illuminamini, 
 et facies vestrae non confundentur." The glory of 
 that ray of sunshine illumines his face to this day. 
 
 Sir Thomas More, as dauntless as the Bishop, 
 wisest and wittiest of men, dies, as Hall's chronicle 
 puts it, " with a mocke." Come to the scaffold 
 which was ill-constructed, weak, and ready to fall, 
 " he said merrilie to the Lieutenant, c I pray you, 
 Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my cominge 
 downe, let me shift for myselfe.' When he had 
 finished his prayers and repeated the fiftieth Psalm, 
 the executioner, according to custom, asked him 
 for forgiveness. Sir Thomas kissed him, and said, 
 ' Plucke up thy spirits, man, and be not afraide to 
 doe thine office. I am sorie my neck is verie 
 short, therefore strike not awrie for savinge of 
 thine honestie.' He bandaged his eyes with his 
 own hands and laid his head upon the block. 
 Then he signed for a moment's delay while he 
 moved aside his beard : c Pity that should be cut,' 
 he murmured, ' that has not committed treason,' ' 
 a famous speech as to which Froude says, " with 
 which strange words, the strangest perhaps ever 
 uttered at such a time, the lips most famous in 
 Europe for eloquence and wisdom closed for 
 ever." * 
 
 * We may hazard a shrewd guess at what was in Sir Thomas 
 More's mind when he made this grim jest. Until his imprisonment he 
 was always close-shaven. All the authentic portraits of him are with- 
 out a beard, so as it came into existence after his offence the beard was 
 no accomplice in his treason. A so-called portrait of Sir Thomas More 
 in the Brussels Gallery, with a beard, attributed to Holbein, is an 
 
 2 3
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 And Queen Anne Boleyn ! How bravely she 
 died ! There are letters from Sir William Kingston, 
 Constable of the Tower, to Cromwell, quoted by 
 Doyne Bell, telling of her demeanour during the 
 few days, not much more than a fortnight, of her 
 imprisonment in the Tower, how at times she was 
 cheerful, laughed heartily and ate her meals with a 
 good appetite. On May 18, the day before her 
 execution, Kingston writes, " thys morning she sent 
 for me that I myght be with her at soche time as 
 she resayved the gud Lord (the sacrament) to the 
 intent I should hear her speak as towchyng hyr 
 innosensy alway to be clere and in the writyng 
 of this she sent for me, and at my commyng she 
 sayd, ' Mr. Kyngston, I hear say that I shal not 
 dye afore none, and I am very sory therefore ; for 
 I thowth to be dede by thys time, and past my 
 payne.' I told hyr it shuld be now payne it was 
 so sottel ; and then she sayd, ' I have hurd say the 
 execut r was very gud, and I have a lyttel neck,' and 
 put her hand abowt it lawing [laughing] hartely." 
 Kingston goes on to say, " I have sen many men 
 and also wemen executed, and that they have been 
 in grete sorrow ; and to my knowlidge thys lady 
 hasse meche joy and plesure in dethe." On the 
 scaffold, after she had made her last speech, " with 
 her own hands she took her coifs from her head 
 and delivered them to one of her ladies, and then 
 putting on a little cap of linen to cover her hair 
 withal she said, ' Alas ! poor head, in a very brief 
 
 obvious fraud. It may be the portrait of Pattenson, his jester, to whose 
 outline in the Basel sketch of More and his family it bears some 
 likeness. It was engraved by Vorsterman. 
 
 24
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 space thou wilt roll in the dust on the scaffold * 
 and so having said a few farewell words to her 
 ladies and praying ' Oh ! Lord God have pity on 
 my soul ! ' she knelt and laid her head upon the 
 block, and the executioner of Calais struck it off 
 with a sword." Such was the end of that unhappy 
 beauty for the love of whom King Henry set aside 
 a marriage of eighteen years' standing, gave deadly 
 offence to Spain, flouted the authority of the 
 Pope and established the Protestant Religion in 
 England. 
 
 It is impossible not to feel great pity for 
 Katherine Howard. Her life was blighted from 
 its outset. Shamefully neglected by her grand- 
 mother, the old Duchess of Norfolk, to whose care 
 she had been confided, surrounded by women so 
 depraved that they seemed to rejoice in leading 
 her astray while still a child, she can hardly have 
 known what innocence meant. That she ever was 
 unfaithful to the King after her marriage there is 
 no evidence. But the fatal paper which Cranmer 
 placed in the King's hand during mass in the 
 chapel at Hampton Court sealed her fate. The 
 King left Hampton Court at once, and the Queen 
 was arrested and sent to Sion House. It was said 
 that she screamed aloud as she was being dragged 
 along the great corridors of Hampton Court and 
 until recently there were people who believed that 
 in the dead of the night her cries are still to be 
 heard there a foolish tale, the author of which 
 confessed himself to me, but it found credence. 
 The Queen, according to a letter written by a 
 London merchant to his brother at Calais, " made 
 
 2 5
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 a most godly Christian end that ever was heard or, 
 uttering her lively faith in the blood of Christ only, 
 and with godly word and steadfast countenance 
 desired all Christian people to take regard unto her 
 worthy and just punishment." So eager was poor 
 Katherine Howard to die honestly, like Lucretia, 
 that on February 12, when she was told that she 
 must die on the morrow, she desired that the block 
 on which she was to suffer might be brought to 
 her that she might know how to place herself. 
 This was done, and so she made a gruesome 
 rehearsal of the coming tragedy. 
 
 These are cruel stories, but the chronicles of the 
 Church of St. Peter-in-Chains are all cruel. Those 
 were terrible times in which it was an ill thing to 
 be a person of note, whether man or woman. 
 Even the grey hairs of the venerable Margaret 
 Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, could not pro- 
 tect her. What had she done that she should be 
 dragged to the scaffold and stricken by the com- 
 mon hangman like a felon, after weeks of suffer- 
 ing, half-fed and half-clothed, of which her very 
 gaolers complained ? Certain Bulls of the Pope had 
 been found in her possession, and she had corre- 
 sponded with her son, Cardinal Pole, who had given 
 King Henry dire offence by his book " De Unitate 
 Ecclesiastica." To expiate these crimes she died 
 she, the lady whom the King had chosen to be 
 Princess Mary's governess, and whom he once de- 
 clared to be the most saintly woman in England. 
 Lord Herbert's account, founded upon hearsay, gives 
 details of her execution, probably apocryphal, and 
 invented to excuse the lack of skill of the headsman. 
 26
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 "The old Lady being brought to the scaffold . . . 
 was commanded to lay her head on the block : but 
 she (as a person of great quality assured mee) 
 refused, saying, so should traitors do, and I am 
 none : neither did it serve that the executioner told 
 her it was the fashion ; so turning her gray head 
 every way, shee bid him if hee would have her 
 hedd, to get it as hee could : so that he was con- 
 strained to fetch it off slovenly."* Her last words 
 were " Blessed are they who suffer persecution for 
 righteousness' sake." So says a letter of her son, 
 Cardinal Pole, quoted by Lingard.-f' 
 
 There is surely no more pathetic figure in history 
 than that of Lady Jane Grey. Almost from her 
 babyhood the beautiful child was the centre of 
 intrigues and plots and counterplots feeding the 
 scaffold. At nine years of age she entered the 
 household of Queen Catherine Parr. When she 
 was eleven the Lord High Admiral, Catherine's 
 widower, obtained her guardianship in order to 
 marry her to King Edward VI., thereby hastening 
 his own death, for his brother, the Lord Protector, 
 wanted the King for his own daughter. After 
 the Admiral's execution Lady Jane went back to her 
 father, the Duke of Suffolk, at Bradgate, where she 
 studied once more under Aylmer, afterwards Bishop 
 of London. Here, when she was thirteen, Roger 
 Ascham found her reading the " Phasdo " of Plato. 
 Even as a child her life with her parents was un- 
 happy, for she told Ascham how they subjected 
 her to " pinches, nips, and bobs " for any stray 
 
 * Doyne Bell, and " Diet, of National Biography." 
 t Vol. V. p. 62. 
 
 c 27
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 shortcoming. By the time she was fifteen she had 
 added Hebrew to her other accomplishments, and 
 as a scholar she became world-famous. Before she 
 was sixteen, to serve the ambition of Northumber- 
 land, she was wedded, forcibly as it is said, to his 
 fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley. That was the 
 first act of the tragedy. The last was when on her 
 way from the house of Nathaniel Partridge, the 
 gentleman gaoler, to the shambles on Tower Green, 
 she, the Queen of a week, met the litter on which 
 lay her young husband's headless body. Old 
 Fuller's words are good to quote. " She had the 
 birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life 
 of a saint, yet the death of a malefactor for her 
 parent's offence, and she was longer a captive than 
 a Queen in the Tower." 
 
 I have but sketched some of the many stories of 
 blood and agony which are bound up with the 
 history of the old chapel built by Edward I. on 
 the site of a still older church enough to show 
 what a great measure of interest attaches to a build- 
 ing which successive generations had seemingly 
 taken pains to make as shabby and forlorn as possible. 
 In the old Tudor days this neglect was certainly 
 purposeful and intelligible. It was a chief object 
 of those in power to wipe out all traces of the 
 victims of their political executions or murders. 
 The dead bodies of queens and nobles and states- 
 men, who in their lives, a few days or at most 
 weeks before, had been the cynosure of courtly 
 pageants and royal progresses, were huddled into 
 the earth without any semblance of decency. To 
 many not even coffins were given. A little soil 
 28
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 consecrated soil it is true a scattering of lime, and 
 then oblivion. Anne Boleyn, as an exception, was 
 buried in an elm chest which had served to carry 
 arrow heads to the warders' quarters. Some of the 
 actual places of burial were recorded of others 
 there was no mention, and to their whereabouts no 
 clue. All that was known was that somewhere in 
 the chapel, under this stone or under that, lay the 
 remains that fear or perhaps repentance desired to 
 forget. No more squalid cemetery exists, none 
 more teeming with the mystery and the deadly 
 romance of crime. 
 
 In 1876 a report by Sir John Taylor showed that 
 the old chapel was rapidly decaying and that unless 
 something were done, and that quickly, the very 
 walls must crumble into dust. The report was 
 communicated to the various authorities responsible 
 for the Tower ; * above all, the pleasure of Queen 
 Victoria was taken. She had always showed the 
 greatest personal interest in all that concerned the 
 old place ; indeed it was by her command that the 
 site of the scaffold on Tower Green was fenced off. 
 The Queen, through Sir Henry Ponsonby, signified 
 to me her consent to the necessary work for the 
 preservation of the building, at the same time ex- 
 pressing her wish that all possible care and reverence 
 should be exercised to prevent any undue tampering 
 with the graves of the illustrious persons who were 
 buried there. She further desired that a careful 
 
 * The Tower being Palace, Prison, and Fortress with barracks, the 
 Lord Chamberlain, the Constable of the Tower, and the War Office all 
 have their say in anything that concerns it. The Office of Works is 
 responsible for the structure. 
 
 29
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 record should be kept of every sign or possible 
 identification. 
 
 There was no question of restoration, for barring 
 the Blount monument in the chancel and one or 
 two others, there was nothing to restore; any 
 semblance of decoration, or even of decent respect 
 for the sanctity of the building, had long since been 
 swept away and given place to the painted deal and 
 the plaster of Georgian vandalism. All that we had 
 in view was to preserve a life of the highest interest, 
 and, while saving the shell, to fit the interior for 
 divine worship in conditions of decency. 
 
 The state of the pavement, which was like the 
 waves of the sea, and the threatened collapse of the 
 walls made it evident that the work would be very 
 serious and involve great disturbance of the surface 
 in order to get a safe foundation. Seeing this, and 
 having regard to the Queen's commands as to 
 identification, it seemed advisable that some known 
 antiquary and also a gentleman skilled in anatomy, 
 to determine the probable age of any remains that 
 might be found, should be present at the investi- 
 gations. Mr. Doyne Bell was asked to serve as 
 antiquary : Dr. Mouat, F.R.C.S., of the Local 
 Government Board, as surgical expert. 
 
 The nave and aisle of the church had been so 
 much disturbed, and the old graves and remains so 
 scattered in order to make room for the burial 
 during the eighteenth and first part of the nineteenth 
 centuries of any person, however obscure, who 
 might chance to die within the precints of the 
 Tower, that we did not expect to find there any 
 evidence of historic interest. Nor did we. The 
 
 3
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 chancel was different : there it was that the 
 principal victims of the cruel sixteenth century 
 were thrown into the earth, dishonoured and un- 
 wept. We had hoped that it might be possible to 
 leave the chancel undisturbed, merely covering over 
 the old worn and uneven pavement with new flags. 
 A closer examination showed that this could not 
 be. There were two serious depressions, and evi- 
 dence that the ground under the pavement was 
 hollow, so that all that part of the structure was in 
 danger of collapse ; indeed the only safe place was 
 the little brick grave in which Sir John Burgoyne 
 was buried in 1870. The Queen was again con- 
 sulted, and gave her sanction to the removal of the 
 stones and the carrying out of such work as might 
 be necessary, repeating her former injunctions. 
 
 The work in the chancel was begun on November 
 9, 1876. There were present Mr. Gerard Noel, 
 First Commissioner of Works ; Col. Milman, resident 
 Governor of the Tower ; Sir Spencer Ponsonby 
 Fane, Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain's De- 
 partment ; Mr. Doyne Bell; Dr. Mouat, F.R.C.S., 
 and myself. Obviously if the ground was to be con- 
 solidated we must dig to some little depth, other- 
 wise the sinking might go on and no good end be 
 attained. We had prepared a plan showing the 
 position in which, according to the best historical 
 authorities, the various persons had been interred, 
 and we determined to commence operating on the 
 north side of the chancel, where it was believed, 
 and indeed pretty certain, that Anne Boleyn was 
 buried. 
 
 There was a thrill of emotion upon every one 
 
 3 1
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 present when, at two feet from the surface, we 
 came upon the bones of a woman of from twenty- 
 five to thirty years of age, as Dr. Mouat certified. 
 Anne Boleyn was twenty-nine years old at the 
 time of her death, and there could be no doubt 
 that this was indeed the unhappy Queen. The 
 bones were slender and beautifully formed narrow 
 feet and hands, delicate limbs in excellent propor- 
 tion, the vertebras very small, the atlas (the joint 
 nearest the skull) tiny (remember her laughing at 
 her " lyttel neck " on the eve of her execution !) 
 Every particle of earth was carefully passed through 
 a sieve, so that not a splinter of bone should be left, 
 and all the remains were piously gathered together 
 for reburial. It was evident that at some time, 
 certainly not less than a century previously, the 
 earth had been disturbed, for the bones were not 
 lying lengthwise as a complete skeleton, but had 
 been carefully gathered together and replaced. 
 The bones were evidently those of one person, 
 and no other female bones were found near them. 
 
 There could be no sadder duty than the un- 
 earthing of these precious relics : none could have 
 been more reverently performed. We spoke in 
 whispers, tears were in our voices. The spell of 
 the place was upon us. The very workmen who 
 dug, and sifted the earth, touched the fragments as 
 delicately as if the spirit of the dead Queen had 
 been watching them. It was Lord Mayor's Day, 
 and an alderman had been elected out of a ward 
 lying near the Tower : as we worked, deeply 
 penetrated with the tragic sense, the trumpets and 
 kettledrums of the procession, braying out some
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 trivial march, were passing outside. I can hear 
 now, after all these years, the music of a gaudy 
 pageant breaking in upon what must remain as a 
 solemn memory to the dying day of every man 
 present. But the contrast ! Outside the Tower a 
 newly fledged Lord Mayor carried, with all the 
 circumstance of civic pomp, to his turtle and his 
 dignities ; inside the church a murdered Queen 
 lying in the silence of an almost forgotten tomb. 
 Sadly we carried the remains in a box under lock 
 and key to the Governor's house, to be kept there 
 until the chapel should be ready to receive them 
 once more. 
 
 Two feet lower down we came upon the cause of 
 the sinking, the carelessly constructed grave of one 
 Hannah Beresford, who was buried in 1750, and to 
 make room for whom Queen Anne Boleyn's skele- 
 ton had been removed, but happily not scattered. 
 
 Lord Rochford, Anne Boleyn's brother, was 
 buried immediately under the north wall of the 
 chancel, and close to her. There was no structural 
 necessity for removing the earth here, and indeed 
 it would have imperilled the Blount monument so 
 to do, so no disturbance took place. Northumber- 
 land and Somerset the Protector were buried 
 between the two Queens, Anne Boleyn and Katherine 
 Howard. When on the iith of the month we 
 continued the work, digging to the south of Anne 
 Boleyn's grave we found the bones of a tall and 
 stalwart man, corresponding to the description 
 of the Duke of Northumberland, but it was dis- 
 concerting to find the skull surely the head 
 would be exposed on London Bridge as the " head 
 
 33
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 of a traitor " : was not this a death-blow to all 
 possibility of identification of all the remains ? If 
 in one case the identification were disproved, a 
 doubt at the very least must be cast on all. With 
 faint hearts we turned up the records and found 
 that after the execution of Northumberland the 
 head as a matter of grace was not exposed, but was 
 allowed to be buried with the body. In this way 
 what seemed to raise a doubt became an indirect 
 witness of accuracy. In every place indicated by 
 tradition or record we found remains exactly 
 tallying with the descriptions of the persons who 
 had been buried. Somerset's bones were found 
 displaced. In the spot reputed as the grave of the 
 good old Countess of Salisbury, the bones of an 
 aged woman, tall and delicate, with tapering 
 hands and narrow feet ; near her the skeleton of a 
 younger woman, without a doubt Lady Rochford. 
 Of Katherine Howard not a trace, but she was so 
 young that the greedy lime would make short 
 work of eating her hardly developed bones. Under 
 the altar it was recorded that Monmouth lay, not, 
 as is usual, east and west, but north and south, and 
 there sure enough was a dead man lying as in- 
 dicated. With such a chain of confirming evidence 
 could there be any doubt as to our having held 
 in our hands the very bones of Anne Boleyn and 
 the other victims of those unforgiving times ? 
 
 The actual whereabouts of the graves of the 
 saintly Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley 
 was unrecorded : we found nothing to clear the 
 mystery. 
 
 On April 13, 1877, the work about the chancel 
 
 34
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 having been completed and the ground and walls 
 made secure, we re-interred the relics in seven 
 solid leaden caskets, fastened down in oak boxes 
 one inch thick. On each box was fixed an 
 escutcheon of lead on which was engraved the 
 name of the person whose remains it was supposed 
 to contain, with the dates of death and re-burial. 
 The caskets were placed in the positions in which 
 the bones were found, and a plan on vellum 
 recording the various spots was deposited among 
 the records of the Tower. The Chaplain of St. 
 Peter's, the Reverend E. Jordan Roberts, was 
 present at the solemn ceremony. The remains 
 were at last and for the first time decently com- 
 mitted to the earth, it may be hoped never again 
 to be moved, and the reproach of Lord Macaulay's 
 stinging words was wiped out. 
 
 The work at St. Peter's was now finished, but 
 much remained to be done if the Tower was to be 
 reinstated in its old dignity. Every available nook 
 and corner seemed to have been filled with some 
 degraded shanty put up without the slightest regard 
 to the beauty and romantic interest of the place. 
 Even the White Tower, which above all should 
 have been held sacred, had been defaced by plaster- 
 ing ugly nondescript annexes against it. On the 
 south side was the hideous horse armoury ; on the 
 east a calamitous set of sheds with grey doors 
 marked go vernmen tally with the letters of the 
 alphabet, occupied in some military way as store- 
 houses. Happily heavy settlements and cracks 
 sealed the fate of these abominations, and so 
 GundulPs great tower was revealed in all its 
 
 35
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 grandeur.* Then there were the so-called Irish 
 barracks, a nest of filthy slums rilling the space 
 between the inner and the outer fortifications. 
 All these noisome outgrowths festering upon the 
 walls were removed : they are now a thing of the 
 past, and the Salt and Broad Arrow Towers stand 
 out unveiled. 
 
 So far as the picture was concerned and in- 
 deed it is a picture the value of which no one with 
 the faintest care for the glories of the past, or for 
 the beauty of the present, could deny it was 
 obviously on the south or river side of the fortress 
 that the most difficult part of our undertaking was 
 awaiting us. The outer fortifications had practically 
 disappeared ; what remained of the Well and 
 Cradle Towers was in a pitiable condition. The 
 Well Tower, at the eastern angle of the outer wall, 
 was surmounted by a crazy upper storey of brick, 
 which on two sides rested on projecting wooden 
 beams ; the Cradle Tower, so far as its upper 
 portion was concerned, had been destroyed, the 
 structure having been cut down flush with the 
 wall and asphalted over. What remained of the 
 head, legs, trunk, was used as a powder store. 
 There could be no question as to the propriety of 
 replacing the two Towers. The inner Ballium 
 wall with the Lanthorn Tower, where Henry III. 
 had his private apartments, had perished in the great 
 fire of 1788. Their place had been filled by huge 
 unsightly warehouses the despair of antiquaries and 
 art lovers, to which an additional storey had been 
 
 * It was during the sweeping away of these stores that remains of the 
 Roman fortifications were discovered. 
 
 36
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 added during the Crimean War. Cranes lifting 
 bales of military stores of all incongruous kinds 
 were rattling their chains from morning to night. 
 If this indignity was to be perpetuated, hiding our 
 noblest national monument from the river as if it 
 had been indeed, as Gray called it, a thing of 
 shame, we should in all truth deserve to be branded 
 as a nation of shopkeepers. Happily this great 
 Georgian monster had been condemned as unsafe, 
 and it would cost more to restore it than to find 
 elsewhere fitting shelter for blankets, boots, and out- 
 of-date muskets. The building was doomed, and 
 with ample plans before us, together with the 
 guidance of the old foundations, we were able to 
 replace it by a correct presentment of the inner 
 Ballium, with the Lanthorn Tower ; thus showing 
 to the Thames once more the great White Keep by 
 the building of which eight centuries and more 
 ago William made the good citizens of London 
 quake with fear. 
 
 Once more I must repeat that all the credit for 
 the execution of this work is due to Sir John 
 Taylor. His judicious treatment, and his know- 
 ledge of the subject gained by careful study, were 
 above praise. One discovery of his should be 
 noteworthy. The White Tower had for centuries 
 been pointed to as the one Norman Keep inside of 
 which there was no well. Such an omission on 
 Bishop Gundulf s part in a fortress which might 
 have to stand a siege was incredible. Sir John 
 Taylor in the course of certain investigations in the 
 lower part of the Tower found the lost well, and 
 saved the tearful Bishop's reputation. 
 
 37 

 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 The armoury at the Tower is such a pleasure to 
 so many people that a note on its history with 
 which I have been furnished by the kindness of 
 Mr. Guy Laking, the Keeper of the King's armour, 
 and one of the first authorities upon the subject, 
 cannot fail to be of interest. All those who care 
 for such things must join with him in congratulating 
 themselves upon the knowledge that the collection 
 is now under the loving care of that great antiquary 
 and expert Lord Dillon. 
 
 The first important Royal armoury of which we have accurate record 
 was brought together at the Palace of Greenwich, but the exact date of 
 its formation is not known, but it was probably early in the reign of 
 King Henry VIII. and perhaps at the time when he established the 
 Almain armouries there in 1514. 
 
 It appears that an armoury house was attached to the Palace and 
 built in the year 1517 it must, however, for twenty-five years have 
 only partially fulfilled its purpose, inasmuch as in an inventory taken of 
 Greenwich Palace in 1543 only arms are mentioned ; though five years 
 after that date a collection of arms, and much armour, is carefully 
 described. This is in the inventory of the property of King Henry 
 VIII. taken immediately after his death in 1547. The volume that 
 records the armour and arms in the Palaces of Westminster and 
 Greenwich, as also those at the Tower, is now preserved in the Society 
 of Antiquaries of London : the remainder of the inventory, which deals 
 with the household " stuffs " in the lesser palaces of King Henry VIII., 
 is in the Harleian collection of MSS. 1419 A & B. It is this 1547 
 inventory that first records the contents of the armoury of the Tower of 
 London. Despite the larger armoury at Greenwich, the Tower of 
 London was apparently the show-place to which distinguished foreigners 
 were taken, as there are numerous records of the visits of Ambassadors 
 to the great store-house and fortress. 
 
 In 1515 Pasqualigo, the Venetian, writes that he had seen the Tower, 
 where, besides the lions and leopards, were shown the King's bronze 
 artillery mounted on four hundred carriages, also bows and arrows and 
 pikes for 40,000 Infantry. 
 
 In 1535 Chapuis writes to Charles V., "The French Ambassador 
 showed no pleasure at any attention that was shown him, even at the 
 Tower of London and the Ordnance." 
 
 In 1554 Soranzo, the Venetian, reports : " His Majesty has a great 
 
 38
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 quantity of very fine artillery . . . especially at the Tower of London, 
 where the ammunition of every sort is preserved." 
 
 The combination of the Royal armoury of Greenwich with that of 
 the Tower of London seems to have been between 1640 and 1644, as 
 there are records of partial removals in the intervening years, the latest 
 being dated 1644 ; although before that date, besides the artillery and 
 weapons, particular suits of armour must have been exchanged, for in 
 1598 Hentzner mentions seeing certain suits at the Tower of London 
 that in the 1547 inventory are recorded as being at Greenwich Palace. 
 Much of the older armour in the Tower of London was, by command 
 of Queen Elizabeth, in 1562 re-modelled, for we note the order "9 
 curates* of olde Almaigne rivets, 785 pairs of splynts, 482 sallets, 60 
 olde hedpec's, and 60 olde curats of dimilances " to be altered and 
 transposed with plates for making 1500 jacks for use of the Navy. 
 
 In 1635, Charles I. issued a commission to Mountjoy Earl of Newport 
 to select armour for 10,000 men from the Tower, and to sell the 
 remainder to persons in the country who had none. This, however, 
 was not done. The civil wars did much to abstract armour and arms 
 from the contents of the Tower armoury, both sides drawing from it on 
 several occasions. 
 
 The following account of a visit to the Tower in 1672 by Mons. 
 Teravin de Rocheford was published in 1672 in Paris, and is printed in 
 Grove's "Antiquarian Repertory," IV. 569. It is interesting as showing 
 the state, not only of the Tower, but also of antiquarian knowledge in 
 those days : 
 
 "The great Arsenal consists of several great halls and magazines 
 filled with arms of all sorts, sufficient to equip an army of a hundred 
 thousand men. Our conductor showed us a great hall, hung with 
 casques and cuirasses for arming both infantry and cavalry ; among 
 others were some which had been worn by different Kings of 
 England in their wars ; they were all gilded and engraved in the 
 utmost perfection. 
 
 " We saw the armour of William the Conqueror, with his great 
 sword ; and the armour of his Jester, to whose casque was fixed 
 horns ; he had, it is said, a handsome wife. Moreover, they showed 
 us a cuirass made with cloves, another of mother-of-pearl ; these two 
 were locked up in a separate closet. 
 
 " We passed into another hall, where there were nothing but 
 muskets, pistols, muiketoons, bandoliers, swords, pikes, and halberds, 
 arranged in a very handsome order, so as to represent figures of many 
 sorts. We saw William the Conqueror's musket, t which is of such a 
 length and thickness that it is as much as a man can do to carry it 
 on his shoulders. We descended from this room to another place 
 
 * Curates cuirasses. Sallet = a sort of helmet. 
 t (!) 
 
 39
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 where there are the magazines of cannons, bullets, powder and match, 
 and other machines of war, each in its particular place. 
 
 " But after all, this is nothing when compared to that of Venice. 
 
 It is true that I saw, in a cabinet in the King's Palace, many arms, 
 
 which, for their beauty and exquisite workmanship, surpassed the 
 
 rarest in the Arsenal of Venice. This was by the permission of 
 
 Monsieur De la Mare, Keeper of the King's Armoury." 
 
 In the eighteenth century, the Tower of London was considered to 
 
 be the most important of London's show-places. After the Restoration, 
 
 the armaments were furbished up, Grinling Gibbons himself handling, 
 
 with dramatic effect, the then much depleted armoury ; indeed, even 
 
 to-day his handiwork is manifest in some of the wooden horses on 
 
 which certain of the figures are placed. Mistakes as absurd as those 
 
 narrated by Mons. Teravin de Rocheford were made in the description 
 
 of the armour and weapons. A coloured aquatint after Rowlandson 
 
 published in 1781 shows a view of the so-called horse or Royal armoury 
 
 of the Tower with a row of mounted figures, each suit accredited to 
 
 some King, starting the series with that of William the Conqueror.* 
 
 In the year 1825, Dr. Samuel Rush Meyrick received the Royal 
 commands to re-arrange the horse and Spanish Armouries, as they were 
 then called ; but instead of that learned antiquary being permitted to 
 exercise his taste and knowledge to the extent he desired, he was 
 hampered by the instructions of the War Office. He was allowed to 
 arrange the armour upon principal equestrian figures in certain 
 chronological order and to do away with the gross absurdity of ex- 
 hibiting a suit of the reign of Elizabeth as one that belonged to 
 William the Conqueror, but he was not permitted to entirely destroy 
 the absurd " line of Kings," or when he did, was ordered to appropriate 
 the mounted figure to some great personage. Dr. Meyrick was 
 knighted for his gratuitous services. His work was conscientious, he 
 gainsaying nearly all the eighteenth-century absurdities of attribution. 
 After the lapse of a quarter of a century, Mr. J. R. Planche, known to 
 the world by his famous works on costume,t started a crusade against 
 the War Office Authorities for permitting the gross irregularities that 
 permeated the management of the Tower armouries. It was at this 
 period, from the end of the thirties to the sixties of the nineteenth 
 century, that purchases were made by the authorities in charge. 
 These, for the most part, were puerile forgeries, nearly all the work of 
 one Grimshaw, a clever artificer, who supplied each of his products with 
 a so-called accurate account of its discovery. The building which then 
 
 * Compare the portraits of the Kings ot Scotland at Holyrood 
 Palace. 
 
 t Also as a herald, and author of the beautiful extravaganzas produced 
 at the Lyceum, under the management of Charles Mathews and 
 Madame Vestris. 
 
 4.0
 
 A TRAGEDY IN STONE 
 
 contained the armoury was simply an annexe,* through the roof and 
 skylights of which Mr. Planche records that the rain penetrated, forming 
 pools of water in the gangways and dripping upon the armour and 
 weapons. Although Mr. Planch^ started his agitation for the im- 
 provement of the Tower armoury in 1855, it was not until 1869 that 
 he was allowed to do all that was possible, hemmed in as he was with 
 " red tape " of the time. In the seventies the wooden annexe was 
 done away with, and the armoury was reinstated in the White Tower. 
 Little was done for its more studious arrangement ; indeed, it may be 
 said the care of it, if possible, relaxed. Only twenty years ago the 
 visitor was shown a suit of Eastern chain mail set upon an equestrian 
 figure as that of a Norman Crusader, also other anachronisms almost as 
 glaring. The late Mr. Barber, who had charge of the Armouries for 
 many years, was conscientious, but unobserving. The armour under 
 his care was vigorously scoured at given intervals by the troops of the 
 garrison, by no means to its advantage. The advent of the Viscount 
 Dillon to the Armouries as Curator has saved the National armoury 
 from being what it was at one time, the laughing-stock of the Con- 
 tinental cognoscenti. 
 
 * Swept away as told above.
 
 ART AND THE EXACT SCIENCES 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI
 
 ART AND THE EXACT SCIENCES. 
 BEING A PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 TO THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC 
 SOCIETY, 1912 
 
 ^ m ^HE choice of a subject for his annual address 
 | must always be a very difficult ordeal for 
 M your President to face. It is, of course, 
 desirable that the address should have some bearing, 
 however remote, upon the aims of the Society. In 
 my case, perhaps, for obvious reasons, the more re- 
 mote the better. You may imagine, then, how 
 puzzled I was to find for this evening's meeting some 
 topic which might in any sense fulfil those con- 
 ditions which I deem to be essential. I was in 
 despair ; my inventive powers were utterly bank- 
 rupt, and I was cudgelling my brains to solve the 
 difficulty, when one morning the news arrived in 
 London of the theft of the famous Monna Lisa 
 from the Gallery of the Louvre. 
 
 It was a great burglary, a very notable achieve- 
 ment, which, in the world of art, will be of historic 
 interest for all time. It must be a source of pride 
 to its perpetrator, for it has lifted him at one 
 stroke on to a pinnacle in the front rank of the 
 members of his profession. Beside this heroic 
 triumph the work of his predecessors in the art of 
 commandeering sinks into mere dirty theft. Corn- 
 pared with this great unknown expert, Autolycus 
 himself, the patron of thieves, Colonel Blood, who 
 stole the crown jewels, Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, 
 Charles Peace, are degraded into vulgar bunglers. 
 The whole thing was a triumph of inventive genius 
 
 45
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 carried out with the utmost distinction and 
 delicacy. There was no shivering of glass, no 
 violence, no alarm. Not a jemmy, not a centrebit 
 was brought into play. The picture was there on 
 the Sunday : on the Monday it had vanished 
 that is all. The Fairies of King Oberon's Court 
 could not have spirited it away more deftly, more 
 noiselessly, or more discreetly. You will perhaps 
 ask what this burglary has to do with us here this 
 evening. The answer is, as a burglary, absolutely 
 nothing. I could not, however, refrain in the first 
 place from paying my tribute of admiration for an 
 artist of superlative eminence in his craft, even 
 though his peculiar line of art should differ widely 
 from that of the Royal Photographic Society. 
 Besides, I owe him a debt of gratitude, for his 
 most audacious deed led me into a train of ideas 
 which seemed to open up a subject which I thought 
 we might perhaps consider this evening, not 
 without profit. 
 
 Do not be afraid, ladies and gentlemen, I do not 
 propose to discuss the merits of that wonderful 
 painting, one of the rare masterpieces which the 
 world has received as the gift of genius. Far be it 
 from me to add one more to the numberless dis- 
 sertations and controversies upon that mysterious 
 smile, into which the critics have read so many 
 hidden secrets. We are all acquainted with the 
 Moutons de Panurge. When a great aesthete like 
 Theophile Gautier or a scholar like Waagen gives 
 out an opinion, all the mutton-heads of the 
 dilettante world must not only follow in the same 
 path, but they must bleat in unison, or even try to
 
 outbleat the bell wether. It is enough to say that 
 the picture, wherever it may be to-day, is one of 
 the miracles of human effort, even though, as one 
 irreverent iconoclast dared to hint, the lady should 
 be a not very conspicuous beauty, and the famous 
 smile only a simper. But our business is not with 
 Monna Lisa or her charms. I want to talk to you 
 about the painter and his many-sided genius. His 
 life has always had a great fascination for me, and 
 I venture to think that it should have a peculiar 
 interest for those who practise your art, and more 
 especially for those of you who make it their 
 special business to penetrate the arcana of science 
 upon which it is based. 
 
 Photography is of course intimately bound up 
 with optics, with chemistry, with mechanics : in- 
 directly therefore with mathematics. Now these 
 are some few at any rate of the many branches of 
 knowledge with which Leonardo da Vinci was 
 more especially concerned, and in their pursuit, 
 together with that of physics, of anatomy and 
 others, his life gave the lie to that famous saying of 
 Schopenhauer's to the effect that genius and the 
 head for mathematics are contradictions which 
 cannot coexist in the same brain. Other great 
 artists there have been whose work might also be 
 cited in refutation of Schopenhauer's axiom. 
 Albrecht Diirer was certainly a genius he wrote 
 upon anatomy, upon geometry, and contended that 
 the excellence of painting depends upon measure- 
 ment, mathematical precision ; moreover, he pub- 
 lished a treatise upon " Proportion," and, as 
 engineer, an " Instruction on Fortification of 
 
 47
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 Towns, Castles and Places." Here then was a 
 man endowed with the highest conception of art, 
 who set such a value upon the teaching of exact- 
 ness that is to say, mathematics that he con- 
 stituted himself its Professor. Take again the case 
 of Leonardo's rival, Michael Angelo, who as 
 painter, sculptor, poet, stands conspicuous in the 
 domain of imagination. Was he not a genius ? 
 Probably no man ever equalled him in inventive 
 art think only of the Night, Morning, Dawn, and 
 Twilight on the Medici tombs yet, as an architect 
 and as an engineer, exact sciences in which mathe- 
 matics play so conspicuous a part, he was the 
 wonder of his age. And Shakespeare ; an artist and 
 genius if ever there was one do his works not 
 teem with evidence of exact observation and 
 measurement of nature ? 
 
 Schopenhauer has been called the most read of 
 philosophers because he is by far the most readable, 
 and, as Chamberlain says in a great work to which 
 I shall allude presently, one feels almost ashamed 
 to do battle with this man of exuberant genius 
 when in support of his theories he brings forward 
 the argument that Alfieri, who, by the by, was but 
 a mediocre poet and we all know what Horace 
 said about mediocre poets never could master the 
 fourth proposition of Euclid, and an unnamed 
 French mathematician, after reading Racine's 
 " Iphigenie," shrugged his shoulders and asked, 
 " Qtfest-ce que cela prouve ? " If these are argu- 
 ments one might sum up the matter with equal 
 truth by saying, inasmuch as Coleridge at the age 
 of forty, although he lived in the country, had not
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 realised that tadpoles turn into frogs, therefore no 
 poet is fitted for the observation of nature.* The 
 mischief is, as Chamberlain goes on to say, that 
 when a man of Schopenhauer's fame gives out such 
 a dictum it obtains wide circulation, and it is but 
 one step further for men to flatter themselves with 
 the thought that because they do not understand 
 mathematics, therefore they are men of genius an 
 easy step and most comforting. 
 
 But we must return to Leonardo, for it is to the 
 less generally known qualities of his mighty brain 
 that I am desirous of calling your attention. I 
 have gone to several sources to try to draw some 
 little store of knowledge for retail consumption to- 
 night. But my most stimulating fountain must be 
 Chamberlain's brilliant monograph on Kant, to my 
 mind one of the first books of the age. It is 
 written in German and has, so far as I know, not 
 been translated, but to those of you to whom 
 German is familiar I commend it as a veritable 
 treasure-house of learning. The scheme of the 
 work is original. Taking the great philosopher of 
 Konigsberg as his subject, he brings him into con- 
 trast with five of the great thinkers of the world, 
 Goethe, Leonardo da Vinci, Descartes, Bruno, and 
 Plato ; to each of these he gives a chapter, never 
 losing sight of his principal subject by way of com- 
 parison. The last and longest chapter is on Kant 
 himself. Of these the chapter on Leonardo is 
 perhaps my favourite. One rises from its perusal 
 with a feeling of satisfied delight such as one rarely 
 enjoys, and if I can impart to you some of the 
 
 * See Chamberlain's " Immanuel Kant." 
 
 49
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 pleasure which I have derived from it my task will 
 be accomplished. Nay more. If I succeed, you 
 will carry away thoughts which will encourage 
 you to look upon the more mechanical part of your 
 work with all the more satisfaction, in that you 
 will see that its pursuit does not necessarily divorce 
 you from striving for those giddy heights of 
 human endeavour which are the throne of genius. 
 " There were giants in those days." When one 
 considers the roll of honour of the sixteenth century 
 one is almost staggered by the multitude of great 
 names in every branch of life's energies. At that 
 time monarchs not only reigned but ruled. Henry 
 VIII., Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V., Francis 
 I., wielded powers far greater than those of a 
 Kaiser or Tsar to-day. Indeed I once heard a 
 great Russian statesman say, " Yes, the Tsar is 
 powerful so long as he obeys the counsels of his 
 ministers whenever a Tsar has been obstinate 
 means have always been found to get rid of him." 
 In the great century the position was very different : 
 it was the minister, not the Sovereign, who dis- 
 appeared. Among the statesmen, men like Sir 
 Thomas More, Wolsey, Machiavelli, Leo X., and 
 many others played a great part, shining con- 
 spicuous. Christopher Columbus, Magellan, 
 Amerigo Vespucci, were making their great dis- 
 coveries, little short of miraculous when we think 
 of the means at their disposal. Martin Luther, 
 that spiritual volcano, Erasmus, the friend ot 
 Popes, Emperors, and Kings, St. Ignatius Loyola, 
 the founder of the Jesuits, and his fellow-worker, St. 
 Francis Xavier, greatest of all missionaries, Colet, 
 
 50
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 dean of St. Paul's, were among the Churchmen. In 
 poetry and literature we find Shakespeare, Rabelais, 
 Ariosto, Spenser, Tasso, of whom Balzac said that 
 Virgil was the cause of Tasso not being the first 
 poet, Tasso the cause of Virgil not being the only 
 one. I do but cite a few of the most famous 
 names. But it is in art, perhaps, that the Cinque 
 Cento produced the most egregious phenomena. 
 In Europe we had a Raphael, a Michael Angelo, a 
 Holbein, a Titian, besides many stars of lesser 
 magnitude. But the superlative excellence of art 
 was not confined even to one continent. India in 
 the reign of the Mogul Akhbar was producing her 
 finest wares, Persia luminous tiles of transcendent 
 beauty ; the smiths of Damascus were forging 
 swords which to-day are priceless. In China, 
 under the Ming dynasty, porcelain had reached its 
 zenith, and never after the death of the last of the 
 Lang family, about the year 1610, were the 
 Chinese, clever imitators though they may be, able 
 to reproduce the glorious colours and deep glaze 
 which during the sixteenth century came from the 
 furnaces of that race of potters. Even more startling 
 is it to find that in far-away Kyoto, a then almost 
 unsuspected city, the first artist of the Myochin 
 family was turning out his masterpieces of metal 
 work at the very moment when Benvenuto Cellini 
 was casting and hammering and chiselling in the 
 service of Popes and .potentates in Rome and 
 Florence. 
 
 Although Leonardo's birth took place in the 
 previous century it was in this marvellously art- 
 favoured epoch that his greatest fame was reached,
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 and it was among the inspired men whom I have 
 cited that he won for himself a pre-eminence which 
 stamped him as the greatest of them all. Had his 
 paintings, of which there are, alas ! only too few, 
 been his only claim to fame, they would have 
 sufficed. But he was far more than a painter, far 
 more than an architect or engineer ; he was a Seer, 
 a Prophet gifted with an almost supernatural power 
 of unveiling things that are hidden to the duller 
 vision of the ordinary man. I shall hope to show 
 you presently how he was able with that prophetic 
 eye of his to pierce mysteries, the secrets of which 
 were not revealed for many a long year after his 
 death. For that mighty brain, with its cult for 
 the exact sciences, nothing was too abstruse, 
 nothing too difficult. His whole life was one long 
 contradiction of Schopenhauer's sweeping, and 
 none too wise, saying. For the exact sciences he 
 entertained a love which was almost a religion. 
 But what philosopher, what Schopenhauer, was 
 ever gifted with so glorious a power of original 
 thought ? Mathematician as he was, the wings of 
 the boldest fancy carried him soaring through a 
 lofty empyrean of knowledge in wild flights such 
 as no human being had ever attempted. 
 
 Through the fairest valley of Tuscany, in the 
 midst of scenery dear to the Italian poets, flows the 
 golden stream of the Arno, bordered by cypresses 
 and stone pines. Its homesteads lie among teem- 
 ing groves of olive trees, fig gardens, and vineyards 
 for the nymph of the foaming mountain torrent 
 which bursts out of the Monte Falterona in the 
 Etruscan Apennines has with the touch of her
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 magic waters conjured up the wealth of a vast and 
 luxuriant garden. Near Empoli, between Florence 
 and Pisa, stood the old castle of Vinci, and here it 
 was, among the most poetical surroundings, that in 
 the year 1452 Leonardo was born, the natural son 
 of Ser Piero Antonio da Vinci. His father was a 
 lawyer, apparently of good repute, a person more- 
 over of some consideration, for he was notary to 
 the Signoria of Florence, filling therefore an im- 
 portant public office. His mother was a peasant 
 girl who afterwards married Accatabriga di Piero 
 del Vacca di Vinci, a man of her own class in the 
 village. Ser Piero soon after Leonardo's birth 
 married a lady of gentle blood, but he acknowledged 
 and did his duty by the boy, taking him to live 
 with him, and giving him the best education. 
 With the father, therefore, his connection until his 
 twenty-third year was unbroken ; but I sometimes 
 wonder whether the mother in her day-dreams 
 amidst the duties of her humble farm life, harvest- 
 ing the olives, treading out the grapes in the wine 
 vat, cooking the chestnuts and polenta for the 
 men's supper, or mending her husband's clothes by 
 the blazing logs in winter, ever realised the greatness 
 of the eagle that had soared from her nest. Men 
 say that genius is the gift of the mother. The 
 evidence of one of the most illustrious men of our 
 time, one whom some of you may have known, is 
 worth quoting : " Physically and mentally," said 
 Huxley, " I am the son of my mother so com- 
 pletely, even down to peculiar movements of the 
 hands, that I can hardly find a trace of my father 
 in myself." Had Caterina, too, been touched by 
 
 53
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 the finger-tips of the gods ? Had they breathed 
 upon her ever so slight a whiff of that divine 
 afflatus which was meted out in such full measure 
 to the nursling at her breast ? The poor loving 
 country lass must surely have a claim to some of 
 the world-fame of her mighty son. It could not 
 have been all inherited from the man of crackling 
 parchment and crabbed law books. Nay more, 
 Uzielli, who in 1869 traced the da Vinci family 
 history, finds that out of Leonardo's five immediate 
 forbears no fewer than four were notaries : a veri- 
 table legal dynasty. This is the despair of his 
 biographers, who would fain have found some 
 trace of artistic or scientific distinction among his 
 father's progenitors, something to which they 
 might cling in support of atavism. They forget 
 that he had a mother. Ser Piero was married 
 four times the two first wives bore him no child, 
 the third and fourth gave him nine sons and two 
 daughters. Out of the eleven children and their 
 descendants, who still exist, not one ever made any 
 stir in the world. It was the love-child of the 
 humble contadina that by his own glory saved his 
 father's name from being forgotten and unknown. 
 Leonardo must have been thinking of his own 
 mother when he pointed out that you may find 
 fairer forms and greater beauty under the ragged 
 clothes of the hill maidens than among the grand 
 ladies of the Court tricked out in their finery. 
 
 In spite of his marriage Ser Piero kept the boy 
 in his own house. Quite apart from his genius, 
 of t which he gave early signs, he was physically 
 something of which a father might well be proud. 
 
 54
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 All his contemporaries speak of his great beauty 
 and muscular strength. He was Apollo and 
 Hercules welded into one. He could stop a run- 
 away horse or bend a horse-shoe with his two 
 hands as if it were of lead, and Vasari adds that 
 " the splendour of his appearance, which was most 
 beautiful, was such that it would bring back serenity 
 to every troubled soul." As a mere boy he devoted 
 himself passionately to the fine arts, to mathematics 
 and mechanics. Music and poetry were a delight 
 to him, and he sang divinely, accompanying him- 
 self on his lute, often improvising both words and 
 music. Handsome, gay, witty, charming, full of 
 accomplishments, he was the joy of all who came 
 into contact with him. Princes by birth and 
 princes by talent all came under the spell of the 
 Prince Charming and so he remained to the end. 
 Even though his father should have been as 
 commonplace and matter-of-fact as seems to be 
 generally supposed, he had appreciation enough to 
 see that his boy's talent was of no mean order. He 
 took his drawings to Andrea del Verrocchio, " gold- 
 smith, master of perspective, sculptor, inlayer of 
 woods, painter and musician," the man who 
 wrought the Colleone at Venice, the finest 
 equestrian statue in existence. Verrocchio was 
 amazed at the precocious genius which these draw- 
 ings revealed, and at once took the youth into his 
 studio, where he had as fellow-pupils at least two 
 men of fame, Pietro Vannucci, known as II Peru- 
 gino, and Lorenzo di Credi. While working with 
 Verrocchio, as the story repeated by Vasari goes, 
 Leonardo painted the angel in the picture of the 
 
 55
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 baptism of Christ which his master executed for 
 the monks of Vallombrosa, and Verrocchio, put to 
 shame by the fact that the angel, " the work of a 
 mere child," altogether eclipsed his own perform- 
 ance, gave up painting for ever and confined 
 himself to sculpture. It is somewhat remarkable, 
 by the way, that though Leonardo helped Ver- 
 rocchio with the Colleone, and though he spent 
 sixteen years upon the model of the equestrian 
 monument in honour of Francesco Sforza, with the 
 praise of which all Italy rang, but which for want 
 of funds was never cast in bronze and was destroyed 
 in the invasion of Milan by the French, there is 
 not extant any work of sculpture which can with 
 certainty be attributed to him. The bust of 
 Beatrice d'Este and the bas-relief of Scipio 
 Africanus in the Louvre, the Discord at South 
 Kensington, and one or two others, are all works of 
 which the authenticity has been disputed. Have 
 we not heard of a certain wax bust the stuffing of 
 which was found to be rags of early Victorian 
 manufacture ? Richter considers it probable that 
 Leonardo entered Verrocchio's school in the year 
 1470. In the June of 1472 we find an entry of 
 his name in the account books of the Guild ol 
 Painters as an independent artist. The fees, by the 
 by, with true artistic carelessness, appear never to 
 have been paid. 
 
 Here as artist we must leave Leonardo. Volumes 
 have been written upon his works ; more volumes 
 will probably yet be written. This evening I wish 
 to confine myself to the other side of his character. 
 It is as the exponent of the exact sciences and as a 
 
 56
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 genius of almost universal powers that I wish to 
 bring him before you. Of the first forty years of 
 his life very little accurate knowledge is available 
 indeed, not much more than I have sketched in 
 above. He was thirty-two years of age when he 
 left Florence for Milan. There is some reason to 
 suppose that in the meantime he had spent at least 
 three years in Eastern travel, during which he 
 visited Egypt, Constantinople, and Armenia. 
 Richter ingeniously brings forward in support of 
 this story the numerous allusions to the East which 
 are to be found in his writings. In a manuscript 
 in the British Museum there is an allusion to the 
 eruptions of Etna and Stromboli ; in the library at 
 Windsor Castle a description of the Island of 
 Cyprus : one of the MSS. in the Institut de France 
 has the design of a bridge to unite Pera with 
 Constantinople ; the Codex Atlanticus at Milan 
 bears a still more convincing testimony in the shape 
 of a draft letter to the Diodario (the Deratdar) of 
 Syria, in which he recites the work undertaken for 
 the Sultan of Babylon, the name often given in the 
 Middle Ages to Cairo. " Here am I," writes 
 Leonardo, " in Armenia to carry out with devotion 
 the work with which you entrusted me when you 
 sent me hither. To begin with the districts which 
 appear to be most suitable I went to the town ot 
 Chalendra. It is a town close to our frontier at 
 the foot of the Taurus range," &c. &c. Again, " I 
 do not deserve the charge of idleness, O Diodario, 
 as your reproaches seem to suggest ; but rather as 
 your kindness which is boundless has created the 
 office entrusted to me, I feel bound to make 
 
 57
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 experiments and to make researches into the reason 
 of such considerable and stupendous effects " the 
 allusion being to the damage done by a hideous 
 earthquake, the " grande e stupendo effecto " of 
 which the Sultan had himself witnessed on a journey 
 in 1477. In the face of this evidence one would 
 think that there could be little doubt that Leonardo 
 did actually undertake this journey, and that he 
 was employed as an engineer by the Sultan Kait 
 Bai. It is but fair to say, however, that writers so 
 eminent as Muntz, Seailles, and Govio, hinting that 
 the letters were part of a romance which Leonardo 
 projected but never finished, receive the story only 
 with the greatest reservation ; for myself I have 
 thought it to be at least of sufficient interest to be 
 mentioned this evening, especially as it concerns 
 the scientific and mechanical side of our hero's 
 capabilities the object being nothing less than the 
 reconstruction of a city which had been flooded 
 by the collapse of a mountain damming up a river. 
 Florence at the end of the fifteenth century was 
 a fitting cradle for the development of Leonardo's 
 special scientific genius. Art, industry, commerce, 
 and finance flourished amazingly, and the acquisi- 
 tion by purchase of Leghorn from the Genoese 
 gave the Florentine merchants and manufacturers 
 facilities for the inlet of raw materials and the 
 export of their finished wares. Cloth factories, the 
 weaving of gold and silver brocade, dyes the secrets 
 of which were a jealously guarded state monopoly, 
 were among the chief industrial products. 
 Machinery at work everywhere, a fever of com- 
 mercial activity what a stimulus must these 
 
 58
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 surroundings have been to such a mind as 
 Leonardo's ! It was, as Hermann Grothe says, 
 " the age of Pericles returned once more." The 
 rattle and din of machinery were dear to Leonardo's 
 heart mechanics were to him, as he said himself, 
 " the Paradise of sciences by the aid of which we 
 reach the fruit of mathematics," and so we find 
 him scheming, planning, inventing. At one 
 moment he is designing a lighthouse ; at another 
 he is deeply absorbed in plans for making the Arno 
 navigable, for converting it into a sort of Manchester 
 Ship Canal. Hydrostatics, water, the waves of 
 the sea, offer problems which enchant him. He 
 perceives the power of steam, and tries to apply it as 
 a motive power to boats and pumps : he constructs 
 a steam gun, the invention of which, for some un- 
 known and perfectly mythical reason, he attributes 
 to Archimedes : he turns a roasting spit by the hot 
 air of the chimney : he invents an instrument for 
 planing and another for boring wooden pipes : his 
 saw is still used at the quarries of Carrara : he 
 makes cranes, levers, a weaving machine, a rain 
 gauge : he discovers the topsyturvydom of the 
 camera obscura : his studies in artillery, including 
 a movable breech, are marvellous : optics engross 
 him. He does not invent the telescope, but he 
 sees the moon through a lens. Nothing is too 
 great, nothing too small to occupy his attention. 
 But perhaps his most absorbing experiments were 
 those upon aviation, and in view of the progress 
 which within the last few years has been made in 
 that direction they are of supreme interest to-day. 
 For thirty years, at Milan first and afterwards at 
 
 E 59
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 Rome, he laboured at making a flying machine. He 
 invented a parachute, and although the Montgolfier 
 balloon was not invented until the end of the eigh- 
 teenth century he had discovered the principle for 
 Vasari tells us that he was in the habit of making 
 figures of animals in a thin waxen film which, when 
 he had inflated them with hot air, floated about 
 aloft to the great amusement of his friends. But 
 Leonardo was much too keen-sighted not to per- 
 ceive that it was not by using a machine lighter 
 than itself, not by balloons or parachutes, that the 
 air was to be conquered. If he did not succeed in 
 his great endeavour, he at any rate perceived that 
 if man is to fly it must be by some means similar 
 to those with which the bird is endowed. The 
 flight of the eagle poised in the air, the arrange- 
 ment of the joints and feathers in the wing, all 
 these were carefully observed and imitated, all that 
 was wanting was the motor : he had only the 
 muscles of the flying man himself upon which to 
 depend, and so he failed. But with what a frenzy 
 of excited interest he would have watched the evo- 
 lutions of an aeroplane of to-day ! The goal of 
 his dreams, of the long endeavours of thirty years, 
 reached at last ! Man the Master of the Air ! 
 
 It would not be possible, within the limits of 
 the time that I must give myself, to go more 
 deeply into Leonardo's mechanical work. He in- 
 vented many things and made many improvements 
 in the work of others. Whatever he did was dis- 
 tinguished by delicacy and lightness far ahead of 
 the clumsy work of some of those who followed 
 him. 
 60
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 Leonardo was thirty years of age when, in 1483, 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent sent him to Milan with 
 a present of a lute for Lodovico Sforza il Moro, 
 who was at that time at the height of his power. 
 There are several versions of the story of his 
 mission. We need not concern ourselves with 
 them. It is enough for us that he went, and that 
 he afterwards offered his services to the Duke in a 
 letter which is of the greatest interest, as giving 
 his own estimate of his capabilities. Here is 
 Richter's version : 
 
 " Having, most illustrious Lord, seen and duly 
 considered the experiments of all those who repute 
 themselves masters in the art of inventing in- 
 struments of war, and having found that their 
 instruments differ in no way from such as are in 
 common use, I will endeavour, without wishing to 
 injure any one else, to make known to Your Ex- 
 cellency certain secrets of my own as briefly 
 enumerated here below. 
 
 " i. I have a way of constructing very light 
 bridges, most easy to carry, by which the enemy 
 may be pursued and put to flight. Others also of 
 a stronger kind, that resist fire or assault, and are 
 easy to place and to remove. I know ways also for 
 burning and destroying those of the enemy. 
 
 " 2. In case of investing a place I know how to 
 remove the water from ditches and to make various 
 scaling ladders, and other such instruments. 
 
 " 3. Item : If, on account of the height or 
 strength of a position, the place cannot be bom- 
 barded, I have a way for ruining every fortress 
 which is not on stone foundations. 
 
 61
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 " 4. I can also make a kind of cannon, easy and 
 convenient to transport, that will discharge inflam- 
 mable matters, causing great injury to the enemy, 
 and also great terror from the smoke. 
 
 " 5. Item : By means of narrow and winding 
 underground passages made without noise, I can 
 contrive a way for passing under ditches or any 
 stream. 
 
 " 6. Item : I can construct covered carts, 
 secure and indestructible, bearing artillery, which, 
 entering among the enemy, will break the strongest 
 body of men, and which the infantry can follow 
 without any impediment. 
 
 " 7. I can construct cannon, mortars, and fire 
 engines of beautiful and useful shape, and different 
 from those in common use. 
 
 " 8. Where the use of cannon is impracticable, I 
 can replace them by catapults, mangonels, and 
 engines for discharging missiles of admirable 
 efficacy, and hitherto unknown in short, according 
 as the case may be, I can contrive endless means of 
 offence. 
 
 " 9. And, if the fight should be at sea, I have 
 numerous engines of the utmost activity both for 
 attack and defence, vessels that will resist the 
 heaviest fire : also powders or vapours. 
 
 " 10. In time of peace, I believe I can equal 
 any one in architecture, and in constructing build- 
 ings, public or private, and in conducting water 
 from one place to another. 
 
 " Then I can execute sculpture, whether in 
 marble, bronze, or terra-cotta, also in painting I can 
 do as much as any other, be he who he may. 
 62
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 " Further, I would engage to execute the bronze 
 horse in lasting memory of your father and of the 
 illustrious House of Sforza, and ir any of the 
 above-mentioned things should appear impossible 
 and impracticable to you, I offer to make trial of 
 them in your park, or in any other place that may 
 please Your Excellency, to whom I commend 
 myself in utmost humility." 
 
 The letter, as one critic, Mrs. Heaton, shrewdly 
 observed, could only have been written by a genius 
 or by a fool. The writer was certainly no fool. 
 Those were stormy times, and the promise of all 
 these death-dealing instruments probably carried 
 great weight with Lodovico, who had, moreover, 
 already been captivated by Leonardo's musical 
 powers and by the charm of his conversation. His 
 wit was proverbial. May I give you an instance 
 of it related by Geraldi ? 
 
 Leonardo was a very dilatory worker ; for whole 
 days he would remain in contemplation of his 
 picture of the Last Supper, doing nothing. The 
 Prior of the Convent of the Madonna delle Grazic 
 was at last so angry that he complained officially to 
 Duke Lodovico of the painter's slowness in finishing 
 his great fresco. The head of Judas alone remained 
 to be painted, and so it had been for more than a 
 year, during which time he had not once put foot 
 inside the convent. Lodovico sent for Leonardo, 
 who answered, " The fathers know nothing 
 about painting. It is true that I have not been 
 inside their convent for a long time, but they are 
 wrong when they say that I do not spend at least 
 two hours every day oa the work." " How can 
 
 63
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 that be," said the Duke, " if you do not go there ? " 
 " Sir," replied Leonardo, " Your Excellency knows 
 that there only remains to be painted the head of 
 Judas, the greatest villain that ever lived : it is 
 meet that his wickedness should be reflected in his 
 countenance. For a year and more I have been 
 going night and morning to the Barghetto, where, 
 as Your Excellency knows, all the rascaldom in 
 your capital congregates. I have not found a single 
 face suitable. I can only suggest that the Prior 
 should himself give me a sitting : he is admirably 
 adapted for the part. My only hesitation has been 
 owing to unwillingness to turn him into ridicule in 
 his own convent." 
 
 Leonardo, having entered the service of the Duke, 
 remained at Milan for nearly twenty years, which 
 probably represented the period of his greatest 
 activity, even though they could not be reckoned 
 as the most fruitful in artistic work. His duties 
 appear to have been chiefly concerned with en- 
 gineering and with the more frivolous business of 
 devising entertainments and pageants for the court, 
 whose darling he was. In Art, " The Last Supper " 
 and the great statue of Francesco Sforza were his 
 principal achievements. Alas ! centuries of damp 
 and monkish neglect have all but obliterated the 
 first ; and the second, as I said above, died still-born 
 in war. 
 
 Marvellous indeed were the speculations of this 
 god-like man in every branch of natural science 
 speculations upon which he brought to bear the 
 exactitude of the study of mathematics, which were 
 to him a religion Non mi /egga chi non e matematico^
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 he exclaims, " Let no man read me who is not a 
 mathematician," and again, " No human investiga- 
 tion can be called true science unless it passes the 
 test of mathematical demonstration," and " The 
 man who despises mathematics nourishes himself 
 with confusion." This, with the addition of ex- 
 perience, which he called " the common mother of 
 all sciences and art," was the law which he laid 
 down for himself in the conduct of his thoughts 
 and experiments. But in order to appraise at their 
 true value the scientific intuitions of this inspired 
 brain, it is necessary that we should bear in mind 
 the state of knowledge, and the conception of the 
 universe which was the doctrine nay more, the 
 religious belief of those days. The earth was a 
 flat surface, ocean-girt, traversed by rivers and 
 divided by seas, lakes, and mountains, created by 
 Jehovah in seven days. Above the earth, separated 
 from it by the air which we breathe, was Heaven, 
 the abode of God Himself, where, surrounded by 
 worshipping angels and saints, He was waiting to 
 welcome the souls of the righteous into eternal 
 happiness. Below the earth were Hell and the 
 Devil. You may perhaps remember how nearly 
 the great voyage of Christopher Columbus came to 
 an end, because his crew, being mutinous and at 
 the same time deeply religious, were convinced 
 that they were approaching the rim of the earth, 
 and that one fine day they would topple over and 
 be hurled, ship and all, into the flames of Hell. Of 
 a solar system, still less of many solar systems, there 
 was not an inkling, for the discoveries of Coper- 
 nicus were not made known to the world until a 
 
 6 5
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 quarter of a century after Leonardo's death ; and 
 then what a stir the De revoluttonibus orbium raised 
 among the orthodox when it was sent out from the 
 death-bed of its paralysed author ! Martin Luther 
 with his sledge-hammer oratory pounded the 
 heretic who dared to assert a theory contra- 
 dicting divine revelation. Melanchthon, the most 
 learned of Luther's helpers, called upon the lay 
 lords of the earth to suppress it. The Roman 
 Catholic Church was less intolerant ; but it is re- 
 markable that though Copernicus dedicated his 
 book to Pope Paul III., it was not until the year 
 1822 that books denying the revealed truth that 
 the sun goes round the earth were removed from 
 the Index Expurgatorius. 
 
 Leonardo's writings were copious and all-em- 
 bracing ; unfortunately, though he appears to have 
 meditated their arrangement and " publication in 
 substantive book form," this was never done, and 
 they remained as aphorisms disjointed thoughts of 
 the deepest significance scribbled, as they occurred 
 to him, in note-books, one of which he always 
 carried with him, or jotted down hurriedly on the 
 margin or on the back of some drawing upon 
 which he was engaged, staying his pencil in mid- 
 course to record a fleeting thought. On the first 
 sketch for the " Last Supper " is a geometrical 
 problem with its solution in cypher ; on another 
 sheet of paper, with studies for the heads of the 
 Apostles and our Lord, is the plan of a machine 
 with explanatory remarks (Chamberlain). These 
 note-books and sketches are scattered among the 
 museums of Europe, the chief part in England, and of 
 66
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 these a vast collection is in Windsor Castle. Some 
 of the notes have not yet, so it is said, been 
 deciphered. And indeed the deciphering is no 
 small labour ; for Leonardo, who, by the by, was 
 left-handed, for some secret reason wrote in the 
 Eastern fashion from right to left, so that the 
 quickest way of reading him is to hold the sheet 
 up to a looking-glass. Possibly he adopted this 
 method to puzzle would-be pirates ; possibly, as it 
 seems to me, since his views were anything but 
 orthodox, to avoid falling into the clutches of the 
 Inquisition. It is true that the Holy Office was 
 by no means so bloodthirsty in Italy as it was in 
 the Spanish Peninsula ; still, it was a terror. 
 
 Pregnant indeed were some of the thoughts thus 
 jotted down. // sole non si muove : the sun does 
 not move. Here in seven syllables is the kernel of 
 the Copernican system. Again " The earth is 
 not in the centre of the sun's orbit nor in the 
 centre of the world." He goes a step further 
 " There are many stars which are many times 
 greater than the star which is our earth." He sees 
 that the moon has no light of its own, but only 
 light reflected from the sun, and that our earth 
 seen from the moon must have the same appear- 
 ance that the moon has to us. He argues that the 
 earth must be almost spherical and revolves upon 
 its axis. 
 
 So much has been written about this wonderful 
 Leonardo, notably by Seailles, Muntz, Richter, 
 Arsene Houssaye, Goethe, and above all by 
 Ravaisson Mollien, who with infinite pains has 
 deciphered and translated his manuscripts in the
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 library of the Institut of Paris, that it needs no 
 more than mere scissors-and-paste work to show 
 you how they forestalled the discoveries of follow- 
 ing centuries. 
 
 His eyt^Jincstra delT anima the window or the 
 soul as he called it, was ever at work. " Seeing," 
 he said, " is the noblest of the senses " ; and he 
 saw. He more than guessed at the secrets of 
 geology. He recognised the power of water 
 carving out mountains and depressing valleys. He 
 reasoned out the stratification of rocks, and traced 
 the evidence of prehistoric seas in the marine shells 
 and deposits among the hills. The fossil plants 
 teach him new and unsuspected lessons in the 
 world's history. Would it be too much to call 
 him the Father of Geology ? 
 
 The botanists of the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century have been accredited with the discovery 
 of the laws of phyllotaxy, that is, the arrangement 
 of the leaves on their stem. Leonardo had de- 
 scribed it and carefully drawn it a hundred and 
 fifty years earlier. Hear what he says : " Nature 
 has disposed the leaves of the last twigs of many 
 plants in such a fashion that the sixth leaf is 
 always over the first. This is doubly to the ad- 
 vantage of the plant. First, inasmuch as the new 
 twig or fruit is borne in the following year at the 
 juncture of the leaf, the water which falls upon 
 the twig can travel down and feed the bud. 
 Secondly, when the new growth takes place in the 
 following year the new twigs do not cover one 
 another, for the five twigs are borne turned in 
 five different directions, the sixth being borne 
 68
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 above the first at a considerable distance." In the 
 same way he saw that the concentric rings on the 
 cut stem of a tree showed its age a discovery not 
 made public till the seventeenth century. 
 
 " Anatomy," says M. Seailles, " occupied him 
 during his whole life." Showing thereby what he 
 had endured himself, he warned the student that 
 he must face much that is disgusting and terrible. 
 It was by autopsy and dissection that he penetrated 
 many of the secrets of life and death. His greatest 
 discovery was the circulation of the blood, which 
 he noticed just a century before William Harvey 
 delivered his famous lectures. His anatomical 
 studies, illustrated by careful drawings, show with 
 what pains he analysed that most complex of all 
 machines, the human body the bones, the 
 muscles and tendons, the veins, arteries, and viscera. 
 The eye, finestra delT anima^ was always searching, 
 probing, discovering. To comparative anatomy he 
 gives special attention he compares man with 
 the ape ; the lion, the tiger, and other felines with 
 the cat ; the bull with the buffalo, the stag, the 
 buck, and the roe ; and the horse, his special 
 favourite among beasts, with the ass and the mule. 
 He shows where the distinctions between different 
 genera and species lie ; he traces the points of 
 similarity between the arm of the man and the 
 wing of the bird. He shows how all the animals 
 of the earth are constructed upon a homogeneous 
 plan. Muscles, bones, and nerves are common to 
 all, varying only in length and size. 
 
 In an age when black magic was an article of 
 faith, and every pope and king had his adept in
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 league with the Prince of Darkness hunting for the 
 philosopher's stone, it would be strange indeed if 
 Leonardo, with his encyclopaedic curiosity, had not 
 investigated the claims and the powers of the 
 sorcerers and alchemists. His mathematical mind 
 quickly disposed of them. Palmistry and the line 
 of life he dismissed in these words, " If you take 
 the markings of the hand to predict the future, you 
 will find that great armies and numerous equipages 
 have succumbed at the same hour, and that never- 
 theless the markings were absolutely different in 
 each individual." Further, " Of all human opinions 
 we must regard as the most foolish the belief in 
 necromancy, the sister of alchemy.*' It was pre- 
 tended indeed by some persons that Leonardo had 
 himself given encouragement to these impostures. 
 If he did have aught to do with them, it was 
 obviously only for the purpose of exposing their 
 falsehood. 
 
 Upon the last years of Leonardo's life I will not 
 dwell. Evil days had fallen upon Milan, where he 
 would fain have remained to cast the mighty statue 
 of Francesco Sforza, and gather together in one 
 vast all-embracing work the voluminous notes which 
 he had been collecting during so many years. If that 
 could have been done, the world's knowledge would 
 have been advanced by an immeasurable time, for 
 it was not till centuries had elapsed that the 
 scattered wisdom of the man was deciphered, but, 
 alas ! never put together. The fates had willed it 
 otherwise. Many a man earned fame, and justly 
 earned it, by the discovery of facts new to science, 
 but which had been known to, or suspected by, 
 70
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 Leonardo, buried rather than recorded in the 
 secrecy of his cryptic and disjointed writings. 
 
 He became a wanderer. He travelled in Central 
 Italy and returned to Florence, and became attached 
 to Louis XII. He went to Rome and worked for 
 the great Medici Pope Leo XII., who treated him 
 somewhat shabbily, but left that city to join 
 Francis I., at Pavia, and after once more visiting 
 Milan, the scene of so many triumphs, so many 
 memories, and so much disappointment, he followed 
 the king to France in 1516. Francis gave him as 
 his home the Chateau de Cloux, near Amboise, 
 where the court often went. Here he lived peace- 
 fully for three years, but the end was not happy. 
 Prematurely aged, for he was only sixty-four years 
 old, crippled by paralysis, worn out by the vast 
 energies of his genius, the great handsome man, 
 the profound thinker, the prophet of science, the 
 incomparable artist, commending his soul to the 
 Virgin Mary, to St. Michael and all the saints, passed 
 into eternity, and a great light was extinguished. 
 Two men wept : his friend, pupil, and executor, 
 Melzo, and the great king who loved him dearly. 
 
 I am afraid that I have sorely tried your patience, 
 and yet I must ask you to bear with me for a few 
 more minutes, in order that I may show you why 
 I have chosen this subject for our consideration this 
 evening, and what are the lessons and the en- 
 couragement which, unless I am mistaken, the 
 photographer may derive from it. 
 
 Photography has been reproached with being a 
 mere mechanical process. In a sense that is true ; 
 and yet, in spite of that, it is capable of being 
 
 7 1
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 inspired with such poetic grace and beauty that it 
 may well claim the right of entrance into the holy 
 of holies of Art's temple. Only think how 
 Leonardo, the man to whom the mechanics were 
 " a Paradise," would have revelled in this " mere 
 mechanical process " ! What imagination, what 
 divine poetry he would have pressed into its service ! 
 Yet, grandly as he would have turned it into 
 account artistically, we may be sure that it is the 
 mechanical perfection, the mathematical sincerity 
 of your art, its high value as the helpmeet of 
 science, that would have appealed to him. Pene- 
 trated as he was by the artistic aura, it would have 
 been impossible for him to have approved those 
 recent methods by which the photographer tries to 
 trespass upon the province of the painter, and in 
 which he so signally fails. He would most surely 
 have recognised and welcomed those powers which 
 are the monopoly of the photographer such, for 
 instance, as the reproduction of the fleeting and 
 evanescent forms of clouds, the structure, shape, and 
 movements of waves, upon which he thought and 
 wrote so much, the motion of trees or of the corn- 
 fields under the action of wind (another subject 
 which occupied his busy pen). He would have 
 acknowledged the assistance which those powers 
 may render to the painter, but he would have 
 shuddered at and sternly rebuked the degradation of 
 an art, the essence of which is truth, by plagiarisms 
 which throw into the shade the vilest falsehoods of 
 the incompetent limner. Above all, he would 
 have driven home the value of perspective. That 
 was to him, as to Albrecht Diirer, the first and 
 72
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 foremost essential in all art. " Perspective," he said, 
 " is the bridle and rudder of painting." Here is a 
 passage which might have been specially written 
 for the benefit of the photographer : " Among all 
 studies, natural causes and reasons, light is that 
 which the most delights those who contemplate it. 
 Among the grand effects of mathematics it is the 
 certainty of demonstration which above all other 
 things elevates the mind of the investigator ; for 
 this reason perspective is to be placed above all 
 human studies and disciplines, because in it the line 
 of light is combined with mathematical demonstra- 
 tion " and he ends with a characteristic prayer : 
 " May the Lord who is the light of all things, 
 deign to give me light that I may treat of light." 
 What would he have said to the wilful violations 
 of the laws of perspective which we see in so many 
 photographic exhibitions ? Ships cut off at mid- 
 mast in order that a great ladder of distorted ripples, 
 all out of focus, may drag out a meaningless and 
 hideous reflection a poor trick indeed, torturing 
 the old Greek poet's lovely image of " the countless 
 smiles of the sea " into the vulgar grins of a circus 
 clown. In another frame we see a delightful old 
 ruin castle or monastery perched up in minia- 
 ture at the top corner of a picture, the bulk of 
 which is eaten up by a Brobdingnagian expanse of 
 gravel, or by a field of grasses which look like 
 sugar canes and castor-oil plants. In portraiture 
 we are shown mere faces, flat and without any 
 sense of the subtle mysteries of aerial perspective 
 fafts all blotches and scars that might well serve as 
 cnfrts to illustrate some medical book on skin 
 
 73
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 diseases. And yet, in this very room, on these 
 walls, what delicate, refined work we have seen in 
 landscape, seascape, and portraiture ; work in which 
 the secrets of nature have been recorded with 
 loving truth and enthusiasm genuine triumphs of 
 skill and of the appreciation of the beautiful 
 showing what are your capabilities. Can we 
 doubt for one moment to which of these methods 
 a Leonardo would have given his blessing ? 
 
 I cannot help thinking that his advice to the 
 photographer would have been " the cobbler to his 
 last." The photographer has at his command 
 powers which are of the highest value and which 
 no painter possesses. See from one last quotation 
 how Leonardo would have appreciated instantaneous 
 photography. " If a battle is to be represented," 
 he says, " the poet would have worn out his pen, 
 dried up his tongue with thirst, exhausted his body 
 with want of sleep and hunger, before having 
 described what the painter with his science shows 
 in an instant." How much more rapid and 
 accurate for such work is the photographer ! He 
 can teach the painter much : many truths the 
 depths of which few artists have sounded. From 
 the painter he has little to learn beyond the 
 elements of composition. His school is elsewhere. 
 It is to Nature herself that he should go and not to 
 any copy, however skilful. That indeed was 
 Leonardo's advice to all artists. A painter, he 
 says, will produce but poor stuff if he takes as his 
 guide the paintings of others ; and that came with 
 no small force from the master who so rendered 
 the foreground of his great picture, La Vierge aux 
 
 74
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 rockers^ that, as Richter puts it, " each flower is 
 given with such exquisite truth that to classify it 
 botanically is an easy matter." The true artist, he 
 again says, is the son of nature the copyist only 
 her grandson " nipote." 
 
 This is a subject which might be drawn out at 
 great length, but I hope that I have said enough to 
 show you that a study of the life and achievements 
 of this great artistic genius, in some respects indeed 
 the greatest that ever lived, may well serve as an 
 encouragement to you to follow his teaching, by 
 practising in your art all that is most truthful, 
 most beautiful, and most satisfying to the finestra 
 deir anima^ to the eye that sees as Leonardo's 
 saw. Above all his example and doctrine bring 
 ample comfort to the photographer, who never need 
 blush when it is cast in his teeth that he is dealing 
 only with mechanics. " With mechanics," he may 
 reply, " yes ! with the Paradise of Leonardo da 
 Vinci." 
 
 75
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO * 
 
 THERE are some folk who object to the 
 planting of exotic trees and shrubs in 
 English pleasure grounds. They say that 
 such manifestly alien plants give a foreign and un- 
 homelike appearance to the garden, that they are out 
 of place, fantastic, and what not beside ! Are not 
 the Briar Rose, the Holly, the Gorse, the Hazel, and 
 many others, far more beautiful than all the plants 
 which have been brought from abroad with infinite 
 pains and at great cost ? No one denies the loveli- 
 ness of the Briar Rose and its companions, but even 
 their charms can be shown to greater advantage 
 when set out with other and still morebrilliant plants, 
 which, though not natives, are at any rate willing 
 refugees here. Rubies and diamonds are not 
 found in England, yet our English women are no 
 less fair for wearing them, and would be sorely 
 troubled if sumptuary laws were to be passed re- 
 stricting them to the use of British pearls. Our 
 gardens, like our dames, challenge the world for 
 natural beauty. Their ornaments, from time im- 
 memorial, they have drawn from over the seas. 
 It is right that we should take everything that is 
 beautiful wherever we may find it ; it is certain 
 that we shall hit upon some spot in which it will 
 blend harmoniously with what already exists ; and 
 it is in the discovery of that fitting place that we 
 shall show our skill and our knowledge. But 
 
 * This chapter on landscape gardening comes from my " Bamboo 
 Garden," published in l 896, and now out of print. As the book will 
 never be reprinted, I thought I might insert it here. 
 
 79
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 there has been so much heretical doctrine preached 
 upon this subject, that I would fain have my say 
 in defence of my Bamboos and other fair plants 
 which have been so unjustly vilipended, taking for 
 my text Bacon's famous saying, " God Almighty 
 first planted a garden, and indeed it is the purest of 
 human pleasures." 
 
 Many years ago I was travelling with a com- 
 panion in Asia Minor, and we passed some days in 
 the Troad. It was before the days of Schliemann's 
 great discoveries, and we, full of young ambition 
 and presumption, thought that perhaps for us the 
 centuries might have guarded the secrets of King 
 Priam's treasure-house, and that to our lot might 
 fall the glory of fixing the site of the buried city. 
 In vain we sought, thermometer in hand, for the 
 warm springs at which the deep-bosomed Trojan 
 dames were wont to wash peplum and chiton ; in 
 vain we tried to fix the positions of the great gates, 
 and dug in every mound for relics of the mighty 
 dead. We were not possessed of the talisman 
 which should charm the guardian Afrits into 
 revelation of the mysteries committed to their 
 charge, and we went away no wiser than we came. 
 Had we but been armed with King Solomon's seal 
 we should have been famous, and Schliemann an 
 unknown nonentity. Fate willed that it should be 
 the other way. 
 
 If, however, we did not find the city of Troy, 
 we nevertheless were not without our Homeric 
 experiences. Well do I remember how, on one occa- 
 sion, the god descended into the River Scamander, 
 and there was a mighty flood, and we, wet to the 
 80
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 bone under torrents of rain, were separated from 
 our baggage for two days, and had to take refuge 
 in a Turkish farmhouse, where during the hideous 
 nights we fed the hungry myriads that formed the 
 subject of the famous riddle that drove Homer to 
 despair and death. Happily, however, memory 
 makes light of mischances, and it is the loveliness 
 and delight of the days that followed which remain 
 crystallised in my mind days when we wandered 
 through the Ida Range amid scenes so entrancing 
 that one understood how the burning imagination 
 of the Old Greek poets peopled them with gods 
 and goddesses, wood nymphs and water nymphs, 
 Beings more ethereal and more beautiful than the 
 children of men, and yet capable of revealing them- 
 selves to, and even of loving, and being loved by, 
 those few happy mortals to whom the supreme 
 gift of the favour of Olympus should have been 
 vouchsafed. I remember how, during the lower 
 part of the ascent of Mount Ida, we rode through 
 the enchanted forest and among the pastures where 
 young Paris tended his flock, and Aphrodite used 
 to console the solitudes of Father Anchises. (How 
 hard it is, by the way, that Paris should seem 
 always young, as young to-day as when he went 
 a-courting Helen, while Anchises, who charmed 
 the Queen of all charms, is nothing but a blear- 
 eyed wreck, in order to bring into relief the ever- 
 lastingly priggish piety of pious ^Eneas ! a strange 
 case of poetic injustice !) 
 
 I remember how one longed to stop and dream 
 away the lovely noontide under the shade of the 
 great trees Oaks and Chestnuts and Pines, and 
 
 81
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 others whose names I knew not; but it was enough 
 for me that they were the descendants of the very 
 trees of Homer, as it was enough for me to know 
 that every tiny rill that whispered over the great 
 moss-grown stones, glimmering through a carpet 
 of daintiest wild flowers, would fight its way down 
 to join the rushing Scamander in the plain, just as 
 it had done in the days of the ten years' siege. It 
 was my first taste of the East. 
 
 The sunshine was brighter, the shadows were 
 darker than any that I had seen before, and over 
 dell and glade and rockbound burn there was a 
 glamour of sensuous beauty, new, strange, and 
 bewildering. Nor was there room to doubt that 
 Homer himself must have travelled through the 
 mountain forests that he described. For as we 
 went upward, the vegetation, so luxuriant below, 
 became scantier and scantier until it dwindled 
 into mere scrub, and finally ceased altogether ; 
 then came a stiff climb across loose shingle, 
 where hardly a lichen was to be found, and over 
 which we had painfully to drag our unwilling 
 horses until we reached the summit. There, 
 wonder of wonders ! after the long and weary tramp 
 over barren rock, there burst upon our view the 
 very carpet of flowers which marked the spot where 
 the Lady Hera, having borrowed the girdle of the 
 Goddess of Love, decoyed the cloud-compelling 
 Zeus. Old Homer must have seen this strange 
 sight, and invented the pretty fable to account for 
 it. He could not have been born blind. 
 
 Ah ! Mother Ida ! many-fountained Ida ! "your 
 beauty haunts me like a fever dream ! " Crags and 
 82
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 fells, groves and streams, all are visions of supreme 
 loveliness. It is the gardening of the gods, inimit- 
 able, unapproachable, and yet conveying a great 
 lesson. Happily for the world, though there are 
 few scenes to match those which inspired the old 
 Greek poets, there are yet not many countries where 
 Nature has not dedicated some favoured school 
 to teach man the same object-lesson, if he would 
 only profit by it. And yet there are still men 
 whose ambition it seems to be that their Neptune 
 shall throw up a spout of water a yard higher than 
 somebody else's Triton, and who would fain, ac- 
 cording to the measure of their means, ape the 
 extravagant vulgarities of Versailles or Sydenham. 
 They forget that these masses of stone abominations, 
 though they may be triumphs of engineering skill, 
 are no more gardening than are the fortifications of 
 Vauban, and that, the highest art being the con- 
 cealment of art, that man is the greatest gardener 
 who shall, on however humble a scale, have suc- 
 cessfully imitated the master touch of Nature. In 
 the garden of Eden there were no flower-beds, and 
 the fairest and most bewitching scenes of this earth 
 are those in which we can picture to ourselves Adam 
 and Eve, before sin and carpet-bedding had been 
 invented, wandering hand in hand, happy, childlike, 
 innocent contented with the mere sense of life and 
 beauty and love, surrounded by the bountiful pro- 
 fusion of Nature, and soothed by the rushing music 
 of sweet waters. Such a spot I can yet see in my 
 mind's eye far away on an island of the Malay Archi- 
 pelago a lovely vision of a crystal clear pool, fed 
 by the glistening jewels of an overhanging cascade, 
 
 83
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 sheltered from the heat or noon by a network or 
 Palms and Bamboos, and strange vegetation draped 
 with giant climbers. Birds, and butterflies as big 
 as birds, of every dazzling colour of the rainbow, 
 flit from bough to bough. The air is heavy with 
 the scent of spices ; Orchids and mysteriously 
 shaped flowers peep out as surprises amid the giant 
 foliage ; while great apes, chattering with uncon- 
 trollable fun, fight mimic battles with tropical 
 fruits for ammunition, or gravely assist in one 
 another's toilet. Here again is the gardening of the 
 gods no formal beds, no torturing and trimming 
 of Alternantheras, no setting out of geometrical 
 patterns with House-leeks. And yet what beauty 
 of form ! what incomparable harmony of colours ! 
 a memory the light of which the changes and 
 chances of nearly fifty years have not been able to 
 extinguish. 
 
 It is good to be able to record the fact that 
 though there are still found prophets to bless the 
 so-called architectural school of gardening, and even 
 to write books advocating its adoption, the pro- 
 fessors of these heresies find fewer acolytes year by 
 year, while men more and more consult Nature 
 as the true fountain-head of the gardener's craft. 
 As for those books and their writers, have they not 
 been pilloried and annihilated and utterly wiped 
 out by the accomplished author of the " English 
 Flower Garden " himself a true apostle of Nature, 
 and a deadly foe to the intrusions of the stonemason 
 into the garden that he knows how to love ? And 
 yet I would guard myself against being misunder- 
 stood. There are, of course, many gardens where
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO M E O 
 
 the natural configuration of the site has made a 
 terrace, or even a succession of terraces, a matter or 
 necessity, where, in fact, nothing could have been 
 achieved without them. There are many such 
 where great beauty has been attained by the skil- 
 ful combination of architecture with plant life. 
 Who can deny the merits and distinction of some 
 of the famous Roman Gardens, or of many of the 
 Scotch and Welsh hillside pleasaunces ? What I 
 am chiefly concerned to criticise are the acres or 
 paving stones surrounded by balustrades, and be- 
 spattered by jets of greater or lesser size, which 
 were dear to the French architects. In these stones 
 there is no beauty and but one sermon : " Vanity 
 of vanities, saith the Preacher ; all is vanity." 
 Versailles is a wreck, and the rays of the Roi Soleil 
 are extinguished for ever. 
 
 In these heavy masses of masonry there is only 
 dignity for those who admire that which is costly. 
 The poetry of gardening lies in another direction. 
 Who can conceive a Dryad making her home in 
 an Orange-tree incased in a green wooden tub ? 
 What nymph who respects herself would bathe her 
 dainty limbs among the glorified squirts of Syden- 
 ham ? Another test : Could a painter paint these 
 formal gardens of ashlar? Could a poet find in- 
 spiration in them? Would Saint Bernard say of 
 them what he said of the woodland, " Aliquid 
 amplius invenias in sylvis quam in libris"? 
 
 He who would lay out for himself a paradise * 
 I use the word in old Parkinson's sense cannot do 
 
 * " Paradisi in sole Paradisus terrestris," &c. By John Parkinson, 
 Apothecary of London, 1629. 
 
 85
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 better, having the needful leisure, than set out to 
 drink in wisdom in Japan. Not in the Japanese 
 gardens, for, as we shall see presently, nowhere is 
 the gardener's work more out of tune with Nature 
 than in that country of paradoxes ; but on the 
 mountain-side, in the dim recesses of the forest, 
 by the banks of many a torrent, there the great 
 silent Teacher has mapped out for our instruction 
 plans and devices which are the living refutation of 
 the heresies of stonemasonry. There are spots 
 among the Hakone Mountains, not to mention 
 many other places, of which the study of a lifetime 
 could hardly exhaust the lessons. One reason which 
 makes Japan such a rich field for observation is 
 that perhaps in no other country will you find so 
 many types of vegetation within so small an area. 
 The sombre gloom of the Cryptomerias, the stiff" 
 and stately Firs, Pine-trees twisted and gnarled into 
 every conceivable shape, flowering trees and shrubs 
 in countless varieties, combined with the feather- 
 ing grace of the Bamboo and soft curtains of wild 
 Vines and Wistarias and all growing as if the 
 kindly function of each plant were not only itself 
 to look its very best, but also to enhance the 
 beauty of its neighbours present a series of 
 pictures difficult to realise. Fancy a great glen all 
 besnowed with the tender bloom of Cherries and 
 Peaches and Magnolias in spring, or blazing with 
 the flames of the Maples, the " brocade " of the 
 Japanese poets, warming the chill October, and in 
 its depths a great waterfall leaping from rock to rock 
 for some hundreds of feet ! Here and there the 
 soft brown thatch of some peasant's cottage, or the 
 86
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 quaint eaves of a Buddhist temple, jut out from 
 the hillside, while far down below you are the 
 emerald-green patches of paddyfield, with great 
 white cranes stalking about in solemn state. In 
 such a glen you may sit hour after hour, feasting 
 your eyes in wonder, and learning how to get the 
 fullest value out of your treasures at home. Few, 
 if any, of the plants which you are admiring are too 
 tender to be grown in some part of England, and the 
 fair landscape before you furnishes the key to their 
 successful adaptation. 
 
 The Japanese are true lovers of scenery ; no 
 people have a keener feeling for a beautiful land- 
 scape ; to them a moon rising over Mount Fuji is 
 a poem, and their pilgrimages to see the almonds 
 in blossom or the glories of the autumn tints are 
 almost proverbial and yet, strange to say, in their 
 gardens they seem to take a delight in setting at 
 defiance every one of those canons which Nature 
 has laid down so unmistakably for those who will 
 be at the pains to read them. The Japanese garden 
 is a mere toy that might be the appanage of a doll's 
 house. Everything is in miniature. There is a 
 dwarf forest of stunted Pines, with a Lilliputian 
 waterfall running into a tiny pond full of giant 
 gold-fish the only big things to be seen. There 
 is a semblance in earth and stones of the great 
 Mount Fuji, and in one corner is a temple to Inari 
 Sama, the god who presides over farming, and 
 is waited upon by the foxes. Stone lanterns of 
 grotesque shape spring up here and there, and the 
 paths are made of great flat stepping-stones set well 
 apart so as not to touch one another ; shrubs, Cycads, 
 
 87
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 and dwarf Conifers are planted, not without quaint 
 skill and prettiness, but there are no broad effects, 
 no inspiration of Nature. It is all spick and span, 
 intensely artificial, a miracle of misplaced zeal and 
 wasted labour. Attached to what were the Daimios' 
 palaces in the old days there were some fine pleasure 
 grounds, well laid out, rich in trees, and daintily 
 kept. The gardens of the Mikado, by the shore 
 of the Bay of Yedo, are beautiful. But the average 
 Japanese garden is such as I have described it a 
 mere whimsical toy, the relic of an art imported 
 from China, and stereotyped on the willow-pattern 
 plate. 
 
 In my little garden at Tokyo such a lovely 
 spot overlooking the bay ! there was a small pond 
 in which myriads of mosquitoes used to live and love, 
 bringing up innumerable families, and making life 
 almost intolerable. At last I could bear it no 
 longer, so I filled up the pond and made a sort of 
 bog garden of it, the chief feature of which con- 
 sisted of great clumps of Iris Kasmpferi. It was 
 wrong, it was heterodox, it almost broke my 
 gardener's heart. For if there are laws, sacred, 
 immutable, as to the disposal of a few flowers in a 
 vase, how much more is the laying out of a garden 
 a matter not to be lightly tampered with ! And 
 yet when the iris came into bloom the following 
 year, even the greatest sticklers for precedent among 
 my Japanese friends were enraptured at the beauty 
 of an innovation only pardonable in a barbarian. 
 
 The secret of the success lay in the massing of 
 the plants another lesson learnt from Nature, but 
 nowhere better taught than in some of those lovely 
 88
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 valleys of Mongolia which lie beyond the Great 
 Wall of China. I was travelling in those regions in 
 1 866. I knew nothing, but my comrade was a good 
 botanist and an ardent lover of flowers, and I can 
 well remember how he kept jumping off his horse, 
 as it seemed to me every few yards, to gather some 
 precious rarity. We must have trampled treasures 
 under foot which I, blind bat that I was, should 
 have ridden past uncaring and unthinking but for 
 my friend. Yet, in spite of ignorance, it was 
 impossible even for me not to be struck by the 
 picturesque and bold grouping of the flowers with 
 which the valleys were enamelled. Nature had laid 
 on her colours from a rich and generous palette. I 
 can even now call to mind a great isolated crag 
 some five or six hundred feet high, standing out 
 from the mountain wall, on the summit of which, 
 by efforts little short of miraculous, a small Buddhist 
 temple had been made to perch. Every cranny 
 and fissure of that great mass of rock seemed to be 
 filled with lovely flowers and ferns, and at the base 
 was a flame of scarlet Turk's-cap Lilies growing by 
 scores against a background of some scrubby Pine or 
 Juniper. That day I felt that I learnt how Nature 
 intended Lilies to be planted ; and that, as we know 
 from Ovid, was how Tarquin grew them. As I 
 have said before, at that time my ignorance of plant 
 life was complete ; but I had a great leaning to all 
 that is beautiful and picturesque, and so my travels in 
 many lands were insensibly an education in garden- 
 ing. It is true that it was the beauty of the garden 
 and not the species of the flower that attracted me, 
 but the joy that I took in the one led to the study
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 of the other, and so the great love of both was 
 built up. 
 
 To return to my lilies. It is strange how the 
 value to be obtained by planting great masses of 
 one flower together is forgotten or neglected. 
 How often, for instance, does one see stowed away 
 in some corner a single plant of Erica carnea or 
 Omphalodes verna, which ought to be grown by 
 the hundred, or rather by the thousand ! How 
 rarely do you find the pretty little blue Lobelia 
 planted otherwise than in a thin, ineffective line ! 
 and how charming it is when you do come upon a 
 great clump of it ! 
 
 I know a garden to the west of London where 
 there is a really fine collection of plants, especially 
 of herbaceous plants. 
 
 They are grown with loving care ; they are all 
 planted in soil scientifically prepared to suit their 
 several natures, and scrupulously labelled, so that 
 every plant stands out with its rank and titles 
 ostentatiously set forth in English and Latin. 
 
 No new rarity is announced in the nurserymen's 
 catalogues but what it at once finds its way into 
 those all-absorbing borders, of which there are 
 hundreds upon hundreds of yards. 
 
 All the treasures of the uttermost ends of the 
 earth seem to be gathered together there ; but 
 none is allowed to gladden the eye by showing off 
 its true beauty. Background there is none ; and 
 if there be six or sixty, or any number of one 
 species, they are all dotted about singly, separated 
 from their fellows, and compelled to consort with 
 any uncongenial stranger that chance or the 
 90
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 gardener's trowel may have established by their 
 side. In winter, when the leaves have died down, 
 the labels in the long dreary borders look like a 
 procession of Lilliputian tombstones a very necro- 
 polis of plants. Here are love, money, and labour 
 lavishly expended, and all lost for want of a little 
 attention to that teaching which Nature so unmis- 
 takably gives us. If a man is making a pleasaunce 
 for himself, then, as it appears to me, beauty is 
 the first object, and this in any garden may best be 
 obtained by having a few varieties liberally dis- 
 played in such a framework of other plants as 
 will set them off to the best advantage. 
 
 If a botanical collection be the aim in view that 
 is another matter ; but then the plants should be 
 set out according to families and in purely scientific 
 array. That is a great and laudable object. But 
 to turn what should be a garden of delight into a 
 mere living illustration of the advertising lists to 
 look upon rarity and crackjaw names as the highest 
 goal of the gardener's ambition, that is a view with 
 which I for one have no sympathy. And yet it is 
 a vice of which there are many amateurs. Fiends 
 there are who haunt flower shows, and are assiduous 
 attendants at lectures, bores from whom there is 
 no escape mostly feminine, but some apparently 
 neuter, flinging painfully acquired sesquipedalian 
 names at their victims' heads with an air of 
 conscious superiority. It is strange that one never 
 hears of those plants a second time. I believe that 
 if they ever existed they die of despair, killed by 
 their names! 
 
 When all is said and done, it is certain that 
 
 G 91
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 although there are many bad and ugly gardens in 
 England, still there is no country in the world that 
 can show so many really beautiful pleasure grounds, 
 and that the number of these is increasing as taste 
 improves and larger views prevail. Washington 
 Irving is not the only traveller who has done 
 homage to our skill as landscape gardeners. There 
 are many reasons which combine to give England 
 the pre-eminence in this respect. In the first place, 
 there is the much abused climate. Foreigners 
 may sneer as they please at our fogs and our grey 
 skies, but with all their contempt where can they 
 show such turf and such trees ? and are not these 
 the foundation of all gardening ? It was a wise as 
 well as a gallant Frenchman who asserted that the 
 most beautiful thing in Nature is an English girl, 
 mounted on an English horse, on English turf, and 
 under an English tree. True it is that the rays of 
 the sun caress rather than scorch up our plants ; but 
 our vegetation is the greener, and our flowers last 
 the longer, not meeting the fate of Semele. After 
 all there is some malice and not a little envy in 
 the attacks upon us. If I were asked to quote the 
 most insolent speech that ever was made in polite 
 society, I think I should cite the reply of the 
 Neapolitan ambassador (to Sir Robert Walpole, I 
 think) when he was asked to admire an effect of 
 sunlight on the Thames at Chelsea, " La lune du 
 Roi mon maitre vaut bien votre soleil." After 
 all we may be contented with a climate that 
 admittedly gives us beautiful women, beautiful 
 horses, beautiful turf, and beautiful trees. But 
 that is not all ; it is certain that, in spite of fickle 
 92
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO M E O 
 
 weather, we can and do cultivate more varieties of 
 plants than can be seen in any other country. 
 What quarter of the globe is there that has not 
 been laid under contribution to enrich and beautify 
 our gardens ? There are many English pleasaunces 
 which are in themselves a liberal education in 
 geography. Here are pines from California, China, 
 Mexico, Sardinia ; fir-trees from the Black Sea 
 and Colorado ; great Flame Flowers, Tritomas, 
 from the Cape of Good Hope ; a carpet of Acsna 
 from New Zealand ; Tulips and other bulbs from 
 Asia Minor ; herbaceous plants from Central Asia ; 
 Bamboos from China and Japan and the Himalayas; 
 the Chusan Palm ; the Edelweiss of the Alps ; the 
 Honeysuckle of the Pyrenees ; and every recurring 
 season tests the resisting power of some new plant. 
 It is a never ceasing wonder that all these, and 
 thousands of others, all different in nature and in 
 origin, can find such a congenial home in this 
 Protean climate. Perhaps it is the very fact of 
 the variations in our weather that gives us this 
 boundless and varied wealth to choose from. 
 
 Then there is the extraordinary power inborn in 
 the Englishman of making a home for himself 
 wherever he may be. Not only does he travel more 
 than other people, but wherever his fortunes lead 
 him whether as colonist, soldier, or diplomatist- 
 there he at once sets about establishing himself as 
 if the remainder of his life were to be spent there, 
 and his ambition is to " settle " a word untrans- 
 latable in any other tongue, because the idea is 
 absent. In a French colony there is no such thing 
 as the " settler " the man who comes prepared to 
 
 93
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 stay if needs must, and perhaps even found a 
 family. The Frenchman, differing in this from 
 us, dreams only of the day when he shall return to 
 his beloved cafe on the Boulevards, and in the 
 meantime is content to sip his absinthe in as good 
 an imitation of that same cafe as circumstances will 
 admit. The Spaniard, the Italian, the German are 
 better colonists than the Frenchman, but the idea 
 of making a home, even for a short time, is peculiar 
 to the Englishman ; and of his home the garden is 
 an essential feature. In many lands are such 
 gardens found, and they exercise an influence over 
 much of the work that is done in this country. 
 There are hundreds of gardens in England which 
 have some feature inspired by the memory of the 
 owner's little patch of pleasure ground thousands 
 of miles beyond the seas ; others there are that, 
 furnished with seeds of plants from some banished 
 friend, reflect the descriptions given in his letters. 
 But even when men have simply travelled much, 
 keeping their eyes open to see what is beautiful, 
 without of necessity remaining for any length of 
 time in one place, they come back with new ideas 
 insensibly acquired, pictures indelibly fixed in their 
 minds, which they cannot but strive in some 
 measure to reproduce when the chance occurs. 
 And so it is that in English gardens and pleasaunces 
 there is so often a memory of many lands enshrined 
 amid the charms of our own scenery. 
 
 In gardening, as I said before, there is a school 
 that prides itself on having purer methods than 
 those that are followed by the general. To these 
 purists it is a sin that we should introduce foreign 
 
 94
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 trees into our pleasaunces. " England for the 
 English " is their motto, and they resent the in- 
 trusion of any foreigner among their Elms, and 
 Oaks, and Ashes, and Chestnuts. But then they 
 should be consistent. It suits them to forget that 
 these very Elms and Chestnuts which they look 
 upon as the legitimate ornament and pride of their 
 landscape are themselves aliens, the one an Italian, 
 the other an Asiatic. " Time," say the objectors, 
 " has washed from them the stain of birth and 
 given them the rights of citizenship" ; time will 
 perform the same kindly office for many another 
 beautiful plant. Sadly, indeed, would our planta- 
 tions be shorn of their glories if all evergreens save 
 those which are indigenous were to be banished 
 from them, and we were restricted to the natives 
 which you may count on the ringers of your two 
 hands. 
 
 No ! our gardens, like our race and our language, 
 owe their merits to the continual infusion of new 
 blood. Indeed, it would seem as though race and 
 language were in far greater danger from intruders 
 than our Flora, for every steamer that reaches our 
 ports discharges a load of indigent aliens, while 
 even in the days when Dryden was king over the 
 wits of the coffee-houses he complained that "if 
 so many foreign words are poured in upon us, it 
 looks as if they were designed not to assist the 
 natives, but to conquer them." In rightly using, 
 then, the great gifts which we have received from 
 beyond the seas, we should, to borrow Dryden's 
 phrase, "assist the natives," not "conquer them." 
 
 For there are undeniably certain characteristics 
 
 95
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 peculiar to the English landscape with which it 
 would be treason to interfere. As I write, I look 
 upon a great rolling tract of park land studded 
 with patriarchal Oaks that were saplings in Plan- 
 tagenet and Tudor days, giant Ash-trees, Elms and 
 Thorns planted in the reign of good Queen Anne. 
 Far be it from me to introduce any change in such 
 a scene. It is thoroughly English and perfect of 
 its kind ; no impious hand should dare to tamper 
 with it. But farther up the hill there is a spot 
 snugly screened from the cruel blasts which come 
 from north and east, where, when the great Oaks 
 and Elms, shorn of their summer bravery, are mere 
 gaunt skeletons, there is still some shelter and some 
 warmth. 
 
 Here, amid the sparkling glitter of a holly 
 grove, are all manner of beautiful evergreens rare 
 pines, steepling fir-trees, rhododendrons, cypresses, 
 junipers. A tiny rill trickles over the green velvet 
 of the rocks, with ferns creeping out of the crannies 
 in which many an Alpine treasure is hushed to 
 rest, waiting the warm kiss of spring and the song 
 of the birds, that, like Orpheus with his lute, shall 
 raise the seeming dead from the grave. 
 
 Tall rushes and gracefully arching Bamboos, 
 hardly stirred by the wind, nod their plumes over 
 the little stream from which the rays of a December 
 sun have just strength enough to charm the 
 diamonds and rubies and sapphires ; a golden 
 pheasant, all unconscious of human presence, is 
 preening his radiant feathers by the water-side. It 
 is a retreat such as the fairies might haunt, and 
 where in the bitter Christmastide a man may
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 forget the outside world, and for one too brief hour 
 revel in a Midwinter Day's Dream of glorious 
 summer. In the planning of this sun-trap surely 
 the most captious critic will not cavil at the 
 addition of such strangers as may seem best suited 
 to fill in a scene which may not be English, and 
 yet is in harmony with, and lends a new charm to, 
 the surroundings with which it is contrasted. 
 
 Whatever may be the cause and now that one 
 may put a girdle round the earth in little more 
 time than it took to ride post from the Land's End 
 to John o' Groat's and back a hundred years ago, it 
 seems evident that travel has much to say to it 
 the improvement in our gardens is most con- 
 spicuous. And in truth we have unlearnt as much 
 as we have learnt. To own an historic house and 
 gardens, like Levens, for instance, which have been 
 undisturbed and unchanged by the revolutions of 
 centuries, is a matter of which a man may well be 
 proud. Nor is it only the interest of antiquity 
 which attaches to such relics of a bygone age, for 
 there is a certain impressive beauty in their state- 
 liness which cannot be denied, Yet would it be 
 unwise to plant in that way to-day. The stamp 
 of nobility which time alone could give would be 
 wanting. Yew or box trees fantastically carved 
 and tortured into all manner of whimsical shapes 
 cannot be achieved but by patience and long years 
 of waiting. Better results may be obtained with 
 much less labour and greater rapidity, and the Ars 
 Topiaria is happily dead. Not so the hedge of 
 holly or yew, which is a grave, dignified, and even 
 necessary feature in many gardens, modern as well 
 
 97
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 as ancient. Indeed, I have in my mind such a 
 screen planted some thirty years since, sheltering 
 a long row of beehives in a beautiful Scotch flower 
 garden, the effect of which is most charming ; but 
 the birds and men and beasts, ships and teapots and 
 the many other conceits of the pleacher nay, the 
 very pleacher himself are as extinct as the dodo or 
 the great auk. 
 
 Then there was a moment when the folly of 
 fashion spent itself in the construction of abomina- 
 tions in the shape of grottos probably inspired by 
 the grand tour and the study of Virgil ; when 
 every man who had completed his education by a 
 journey in Italy, or, if he could not afford that ex- 
 pensive luxury, by reading a friend's letters from 
 Naples or Syracuse, must needs contrive in his 
 garden a den the walls of which he lined with 
 shiny pebbles, shells, bits of glass, and every incon- 
 gruous rubbish that he could gather together. 
 Among the most famous of these were Pope's 
 grotto at Twickenham, " composed of marble, 
 spars, gems, ores and minerals," and that of the 
 Duke of Newcastle at Oatlands Park, which was 
 afterwards the residence of the Duke of York. 
 Dr. Johnson's account of the former in his " Lives 
 of the Poets " is too good not to be transcribed : 
 
 " Here he planted the vines and the quincunx 
 which his verses mention ; and being under the 
 necessity of making a subterraneous passage to a 
 garden on the other side of the road, he adorned 
 it with fossil bodies, and dignified it with the 
 title of a grotto a place of silence and retreat, 
 from which he endeavoured to persuade his friends
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 and himself that cares and passions could be ex- 
 cluded. A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure 
 of an Englishman, who has more frequent need to 
 solicit than exclude the sun ; but Pope's excavation 
 was requisite as an entrance to his garden, and as 
 some men try to be proud of their defects, he 
 extracted an ornament from an inconvenience, and 
 vanity produced a grotto where necessity enforced 
 a passage." 
 
 After all, therefore, there was some excuse for 
 Pope's folly, but what can be said for that of the 
 Duke of Newcastle, over which the county history 
 gloats with honest pride ? 
 
 " The pleasure grounds are beautifully laid out ; 
 and a delightful walk through the shrubbery leads 
 to a romantic grotto, which was constructed at a 
 great expense for the Duke of Newcastle by three 
 persons (a father and his two sons), who are 
 reported to have been employed in the work 
 several years. It consists of four or five apart- 
 ments, the sides and roofs of which are incrusted 
 with satin spar, sparkling ores, shells, crystals, and 
 stalactites ; some of the quartz crystals are un- 
 usually large and fine. There is also a bath-room, 
 in which is a beautiful (marble) copy of Venus 
 di Medici, as though going to bathe. The 
 rocks forming the exterior are built up with a 
 whitish-coloured perforated stone, a kind of tufa. 
 In the upper chamber the late Duchess of 
 York passed much of her time when the Duke 
 was in Flanders during the revolutionary war with 
 France." 
 
 Like a cavernous Madame Malbrook ! Grottos 
 
 99
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO MEO 
 
 have gone out of fashion now ; as Dr. Johnson 
 pointed out, they did not suit the climate ; and 
 then they were so manifestly incomplete : what is 
 a spelunca without a great clumsy Polyphemus 
 ogling his Galatea with his one saucer-eye ? 
 
 Of carpet gardening a disgrace which has sat 
 heavily upon us these many years there is no 
 need to say much ; it avails not to flog a dead 
 horse, and this, if not dead, is at any rate dying ; 
 as Bacon said of the fashion consequent upon it, of 
 tricking out patterns in coloured earths, sands, or 
 pebbles, " You may see as good sights, many times, 
 in tarts." 
 
 The truth is that in every good garden there is 
 poetical or spiritual beauty with which these crude 
 and flaunting artifices are out of tune ; the air 
 which breathed o'er Eden still in some mystic 
 sense pervades our groves. " God planted the first 
 garden"; and if man was formed in His image, 
 may we not believe that certain more favoured 
 spots still reflect the idea of that first Divine 
 Garden ? To catch the spirit of these is the 
 supreme art of the gardener, and leads him to the 
 realisation of the next proposition of the text, 
 " the purest of human pleasures." 
 
 I look upon gardening as one of the fine arts, 
 and, rightly understood, not one of the least diffi- 
 cult. The painter or the sculptor makes his 
 effects at once, and obliterates, or models and 
 remodels, until he has attained that at which he is 
 aiming. But the gardener has to consider not 
 what his work is now, but what it will grow into 
 ten, twenty, fifty years hence. He has to take 
 100
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO M E O 
 
 into account not the present aspect of his materials, 
 but what are their capabilities in the future and 
 their relative powers of development. If he has a 
 background ready made to his hand he is lucky, 
 but if he has to make it he has to do so with trees 
 which are mostly far slower of growth than the 
 more immediately effective plants which it is their 
 office to set off. He has to balance questions of 
 soil, light, moisture. All this involves not only 
 the poetic sense, but also great and patiently 
 acquired knowledge. He has no Aladdin's lamp 
 wherewith to bid trees spring from the earth and 
 form a sheltering background, yet background is 
 the soul of all gardening, rarely, alas ! seen at its 
 best by him who has devised it. If the background 
 be unfitting all the work is thrown away. Colour, 
 form, light and shade, grouping, all have to be 
 studied in the composition of one of those living 
 pictures which the gardener paints from a living 
 palette. 
 
 In these days his choice of subjects is varied 
 indeed, for there is scarcely a portion of the globe 
 from which he cannot borrow some landscape with 
 the aid of the wealth of plants that the last half- 
 century has given us. Are all these chances and 
 opportunities to be thrown away ? Are the lessons 
 that have been learned to be a vain thing ? It 
 seems to me to be rank folly that we should fetter 
 ourselves by rejecting all the beauties of form as 
 being incongruous, when no one dreams of ex- 
 cluding those of colour. No one ever repudiates a 
 beautiful flower because it is an exotic ; it is incon- 
 sistent, then, to refuse admission to a lovely tree. 
 
 101
 
 APOLOGIA PRO HORTO M E O 
 
 In Nature it is to form, far more than to colour, 
 that the fairest pictures owe their charm. You 
 may have to hunt for a flower, but the grace of a 
 Palm or a Bamboo springs into notice of itself. 
 
 So far as our present knowledge goes, with the 
 single exception of Fortune's Chamsrops, the 
 hardy Bamboos are the only plants which help us 
 to give, in certain appropriate places, some faint 
 idea of the mysterious vegetation of warm climates. 
 Outlanders it must be confessed that they are, with 
 the impress of their foreign origin stamped on 
 every feature, differing in that from many an im- 
 postor, too often undetected, that raises its bragging 
 head with as much effrontery as if it could trace 
 an English pedigree back beyond the Crusades. 
 The impostor is admitted without a word, but give 
 a place to the more honest and charming outlander, 
 and you are a Goth, a destroyer of the English 
 landscape when, turning an alley, you bring the 
 purist to some secluded spot framing a picture 
 which he cannot understand, and in his superiority 
 will not admire, but which to you brings back 
 something like a subtle fragrance of the dim far- 
 away. 
 
 1 02
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER, BEING 
 ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 
 TO THE ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC 
 SOCIETY 
 
 IN preparing my presidential address, it occurred 
 to me that there might be some interest in 
 leaving the ordinary groove of such discourses 
 and attempting to throw some light upon the subject 
 of any one of those many materials which we have 
 in daily use, and which are so familiar to us that we 
 have almost ceased to consider that they, too, have 
 their life history, that they, too, have gone through 
 many vicissitudes, which it may be instructive at 
 any rate to trace. 
 
 In the course of a somewhat desultory way of 
 reading, which it is my wonted habit to follow, I 
 had occasion lately to inquire into the history 
 the very ancient history of Paper. I came upon 
 much that was new, at any rate to me, and much 
 which I thought might specially interest some of 
 you as photographers ; for although paper is one 
 of the most familiar necessaries of modern life, 
 there are, perhaps, few people who are more in- 
 debted to it than the men of our craft. It seemed 
 to me then that, rather than weary you with any 
 futile disquisition upon matters in which you are 
 past masters and I a mere tyro, I might perhaps 
 venture to ask you to follow me in examining one 
 subject upon which in late years the labours of two 
 eminent Austrian scientists, Professors Karabacek 
 and Wiesner, of Vienna, have thrown new and 
 most interesting light, These two gentlemen, 
 
 105
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 working quite independently, the one as an 
 eminent Arabic scholar, the other as a no less 
 distinguished microscopist, have arrived at the 
 same conclusion, and it is upon the result of their 
 work that the remarks which I shall lay before 
 you this evening are based. 
 
 It has been a common creed that our modern 
 civilisation and culture is due to the invention of 
 printing with movable type by Gutenberg in the year 
 1450. This, as Houston Chamberlain has shown 
 in his " Foundations of the Nineteenth Century," 
 is putting the cart before the horse. " If there be 
 any one," he says, " who shares Janssen's opinion 
 that it is the art of printing that has given wings 
 to the human mind, be so good as to explain to us 
 why it is that the Chinese are without wings." 
 Chamberlain gives the glory to the discovery of 
 paper, which, by furnishing a cheap and handy 
 material upon which to work, gave the impetus 
 which led to the spread of printing with such 
 rapidity that, while Gutenberg was type-founding 
 at Mayence, other men were striving in the same 
 direction at Bamberg, at Haarlem, at Avignon, 
 and in Venice, and within twenty-five years print- 
 ing presses were busy at work in almost all the 
 chief cities of Europe ; and this was the outcome 
 of the invention of paper, a new, cheap, and fitting 
 vehicle for the diffusion of knowledge, which took 
 the place of papyrus, silk, leather, and vellum, not 
 to speak of the little cakes of clay upon which the 
 Assyrians wrote their business notes, their official 
 despatches, and perhaps their love letters ! Think, 
 when you sit down to write a note, of the great 
 106
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 King of Assyria, Hamurabi, who lived a thousand 
 years before Moses, and who, wishing to summon 
 three recalcitrant officials from a distant province, 
 sent for a lump of clay like a cake of soap, wrote 
 his royal command upon it in cuneiform characters, 
 sent it to be baked, and enclosed it in an envelope, 
 also of clay, addressed and baked ! That very 
 despatch, with its envelope, is now in the British 
 Museum, with many others. 
 
 In printing we may also say that there was no 
 absolutely new idea. The head and inscription 
 stamped on a coin or medal were forms of printing, 
 the impression of a seal was nothing else, and seals 
 were in use, as we know, thousands of years before the 
 days of the Patriarchs. The founding of movable 
 type was of course a giant's step in advance of the 
 block which was the first form of true printing, and 
 which is still in use in China. But it was an im- 
 provement rather than an invention, and the im- 
 provement was due to the facilities offered by paper. 
 
 It is a matter of common knowledge that paper 
 made of the fibrous pulp of plants was of Chinese 
 invention. The wen fang ssu pao, the four 
 treasures of the library, are the pencil, ink, ink- 
 stone, and paper. Leaving on one side the 
 papyrus of ancient Egypt, that paper was the in- 
 vention of the Chinese, about the year 95 A.D., is 
 generally admitted, though there is a supposition 
 that it might have been introduced from India, 
 where tradition, in this case I believe absolutely 
 false, claims that it was in use a century or more 
 earlier. In the days of Confucius the Chinese 
 wrote upon the thinly pared bark of bamboo, 
 
 H 107
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 etching the characters with a style. The first 
 paper seems to have been made of bamboos by a 
 primitive method described in the Chinese Re- 
 pository III. p. 265 : "The stalks are cut near the 
 ground, and then sorted into parcels according to 
 the age, and tied up in small bundles. The younger 
 the bamboo the better is the quality of the paper 
 which is made from it. The bundles are thrown 
 into a reservoir of mud and water, and buried in 
 the ooze for about a fortnight to soften them. 
 They are then taken out, cut into pieces of a proper 
 length, and put into mortars with a little water, to 
 be pounded to a pulp with large wooden pestles. 
 This semifluid mass, after being cleansed of the 
 coarsest parts, is transferred to a great tub of 
 water, and additions of the substance are made 
 until the whole becomes of sufficient consistence to 
 form paper. Then a workman takes up a sheet 
 with a mould or frame of the proper dimensions, 
 which is constructed of bamboo in small strips, 
 made smooth and round like wire. The pulp is 
 continually agitated by other hands while one is 
 taking up the sheets, which are then laid upon 
 smooth tables to dry. According to others the 
 paper is dried by placing the newly made sheets 
 upon a heated wall and rubbing them with brushes 
 until dry. This paper is unfit for writing on with 
 liquid ink, and is of a yellowish colour. The 
 Chinese size it by dipping the sheets into a solution 
 of fish-glue and alum, either during or after the 
 first process of making it. The sheets are usually 
 three feet and a half in length and two in breadth. 
 The fine paper used for letters is polished, after 
 108
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 sizing, by rubbing it with smooth stones." By 
 degrees the bark of Broussonetia papyrifera, the 
 paper mulberry, Boehmeria nivea (a plant of the 
 Nettle family), rags, silk refuse, linen, &c., came 
 into use. What is known among Europeans as 
 rice paper, that curiously brittle, pure white 
 material used for the marvellously minute drawings 
 of figures and birds, flowers and fruit, in which 
 the artist of the Middle Kingdom delights, is 
 made of the pith of an araliaceous plant ; rice 
 does not enter into its composition.* It is the 
 migration of paper from China to Europe that 
 constitutes the interesting part of its history. 
 
 During the early centuries of our epoch Samar- 
 kand, which lies on the borders of Bokhara, and 
 which had been taken in war by Said, the son of 
 the Caliph Osman, in the year 676, was under the 
 rule of the Caliphs of Bagdad, a fact which, by the 
 by, gives us some idea of the length of their arm 
 and of the power which they wielded. It is a far 
 cry from Bagdad to Samarkand ; if you look at 
 their relative positions in the map of Asia, taking 
 into consideration the nature of the intervening 
 country, you will be amazed at the might of an 
 influence which could reach such a distance with 
 the means of transport available at the time. 
 Central Asia was then, as it has been in more 
 recent years, the theatre of wars, prompted by 
 international jealousies and racial ambitions. It 
 happened that in the raid which ended in the 
 
 * The true rice paper made from the rice straw is the coarse cheap 
 yellow paper used for packing. The so-called rice paper was so named 
 owing to its dazzling whiteness, like that of the finest rice. 
 
 109
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 capture of Samarkand the Arabs took prisoners a 
 number of men, some of whom were probably 
 Chinese workmen skilled in the art of paper- 
 making. These men, establishing themselves among 
 their captors, began to ply their trade in peace, and 
 Samarkand became the recognised home of paper- 
 making. But the Chinaman, who is capable of 
 invention, perhaps above all other men, seems to 
 be incapable of improvement ; indeed, to him all 
 progress is odious. He invents, is contented, and 
 there it ends ; witness the centuries upon centuries 
 of block printing, though here there are great 
 excuses. Movable type was introduced in China 
 as early as the eleventh century. But the ideo- 
 graphic writing in which every character repre- 
 sents a word was a formidable difficulty. Consider 
 the number of separate types for such a word as 
 " is " required to print a book ! Think of that and 
 then give thanks to Heaven for Cadmus and the 
 alphabet. At Samarkand paper fell into the hands 
 of a people of a race totally different from the Chinese. 
 Chamberlain, the scope and aim of whose book is to 
 prove the superiority of the Indo-European to all 
 other races, is careful to point out that the people of 
 Samarkand, though subject to Semitic Arabs, were 
 in fact Iranian Persians that is to say, members or 
 the same great Aryan family to which we ourselves 
 belong. These Aryans, then, having received the 
 idea of paper-making from the Chinese, were not slow 
 to improve upon the invention, and the result was 
 the development of the art, and the employment of 
 a new material, linen rags, in the manufacture. 
 
 And here we come to an old friend in the 
 no
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 person of the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid, the 
 Caliph who is so well known to us on account of 
 his nightly wanderings through the city of Bagdad, 
 attended by Giafar the Grand Vizier and Mesrour 
 the Chief of the Eunuchs, as they are told in the 
 " Arabian Nights' Entertainments." Indeed, that 
 potentate has become so mixed up in our minds 
 with Jinns and fairies, one-eyed Calenders, slaves ot 
 the Ring and slaves of the Lamp, that one is apt 
 to think of him as a nebulous being, something 
 like Sinbad the sailor or Aladdin himself. As a 
 matter of fact, he was not only a very real person- 
 ality, but also was a very great and powerful ruler, 
 whose fame was so far spread that in days when 
 newspaper correspondents were not, and inter- 
 viewing had not yet become a fine art, it reached 
 his European contemporary Charlemagne, who 
 even sent an embassy with a view to cultivating 
 his friendship, receiving in return a mission from 
 the Caliph which brought him a present of a 
 clock, worked by water, striking the hours by 
 means of balls dropped on to a kind of drum, and 
 adorned with little movable images of warriors 
 and nobles. Nine years after his succession to 
 power, Haroun Al Raschid, in the year of the 
 Hejira 179 (corresponding to 795 of our era), sent 
 for artificers from Samarkand, and established a 
 paper manufactory at Bagdad, where the industry 
 was maintained as a state monopoly, the secret of 
 which was carefully guarded : and so it remained 
 until the thirteenth century, a space of nearly five 
 hundred years, time enough, as has been pointed 
 out, for this wonderful intellectual weapon to have 
 
 in
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 developed into a world-power had it been in 
 capable hands. But the Arab when he leaves his 
 tents for the city deteriorates to an extent which 
 has become proverbial ; as a child of the desert 
 he is brave, hospitable, a cruel enemy if you will, 
 but a loyal friend, and in many respects a noble 
 specimen of humanity ; as a citizen he becomes 
 mean, vicious, dishonest incapable above all of 
 any intellectual effort. During the five hundred 
 years that paper remained his monopoly its results 
 were absolutely nothing beyond bills, notes of 
 hand, official documents of no value, and I.O.U.s, 
 nothing but a few worthless, tiresome, barren 
 manuscripts, the lack of which, had they never 
 been written, would have left the world no poorer. 
 And so things might have gone on had not war 
 for a second time played a decisive part in the life 
 history of Paper. It was the Crusaders who lifted 
 the veil of the mystery of paper-making, and by 
 them, in the last years of the twelfth century, the art 
 was introduced into Europe. The result was pheno- 
 menal. Even in the days before the establishment of 
 printing presses the spread of knowledge by means 
 of paper manuscripts was fabulous ; especially was 
 it noteworthy in the spread of the New Testament 
 we may judge of it by the report of a Dominican 
 monk, who was sent out against the Waldenses in 
 the first half of the thirteenth century, and who 
 said that all these heretics were pre-eminently well 
 versed in Holy Scripture, and that he had seen 
 uneducated peasants who could recite the whole of 
 the New Testament by heart. With this prodigy 
 of memory, by the by, may be compared the story 
 
 112
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 of the preservation of the Chinese classics. When, 
 some 200 years B.C., Shih Hwang Ti, Prince of 
 Chin, had destroyed the feudal system in China and 
 established himself as the " First Emperor," as his 
 style implies, he was jealously desirous of obliterat- 
 ing the glory of every past emperor, especially that 
 of the States of Chao, whose history was com- 
 mented upon in the works of Confucius and 
 Mencius, so he commanded that all the books of 
 the sages should be destroyed. For attempting to 
 save their precious books some four or five hundred 
 learned scholars were put to death. But the act of 
 barbarism was as vain as the Great Wall of China 
 itself (Shih Hwang Ti's other great work, the one 
 being of destruction, the other of construction), for 
 there were men enough who were able from 
 memory to re-write the sacred books, and so they 
 were preserved. Doubts have indeed been ex- 
 pressed as to whether the destruction could have 
 been so complete as was said, but, as Wells Williams 
 in his monumental " Middle Kingdom " says, " Ir 
 the same literary tragedy should be re-enacted to- 
 day thousands of persons might easily be found in 
 China who could re-write from memory the text 
 and commentary of their nine classical works." 
 And I have no doubt that Wells Williams is not 
 exaggerating. It was from the Chin dynasty that 
 the name China was derived. 
 
 Knowledge in the possession of Europeans is a 
 very different matter from what it is when buried in 
 the minds of Chinese, of Iranians, or of Arabs. It 
 spreads like the beacon fires which from height to 
 height told of the fall of Troy's citadel. Improve-
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 ment followed upon improvement until the first 
 scientifically equipped paper mill was established 
 in Ravensburg in the year 1290. Printing came 
 next, almost as a matter of course, and even in 
 its primitive form, during a hundred years, gave 
 out many books printed from wooden blocks 
 especially the Scriptures. The world had but to 
 wait fifty more years for the invention of the fount ; 
 that was the final perfection of the great double 
 engine of civilisation, Paper and Printing ; but of 
 these two Paper must be held to have been the 
 more important power, for without it Printing 
 would have been of comparatively little value. 
 Only think how few copies of any given book 
 could have been printed on such costly and 
 cumbersome materials as parchment or vellum, and 
 you will realise the disseminating value of the new 
 invention and its influence in the furtherance of all 
 human knowledge. 
 
 It is difficult to say what would provoke in a 
 German philosopher the pruritus or itching of 
 investigation. It appears that certain persons of 
 the baser sort, writers in cyclopaedias, journals, or 
 other publications issued for the spreading of error, 
 had had the audacity to assert that the artisans of 
 the paper factory of Samarkand were in the habit 
 of using cotton as their chief material. This was 
 clearly not to be tolerated, and so the two Professors 
 Karabacek and Wiesner, carrying on their inquiries, 
 as I have said before, independently, set to work to 
 demolish this false doctrine. The one brought to 
 bear upon his enemies the heavy artillery of his 
 Oriental learning, the other the no less deadly and 
 114
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 searching powers of his microscopic mitrailleuse. 
 Professor Karabacek tells us, in the introduction to 
 his great monograph on Arabian paper, that he was 
 engaged in the examination and study of the 
 collection of the papers belonging to the Austrian 
 Archduke Rainer, and it makes one giddy to read 
 that he has examined, tested, and catalogued some 
 12,500 Arabic documents without having ex- 
 hausted its contents ! In the course of his studies 
 he became aware that in order to arrive at a 
 correct knowledge of the history of paper a minute 
 examination of the material by a man of science 
 was indispensable. With this idea he persuaded 
 Professor Wiesner to study the subject microsco- 
 pically, and as he tells us in a note, the scientists 
 worked apart, Professor Wiesner not being made 
 acquainted with the researches of his colleague. 
 From this examination it results, to quote Kara- 
 bacek, " that Wiesner has proved by his micro- 
 scopical investigation and histological criteria that 
 there never has existed a paper made of raw cotton, 
 but that the manufacture as practised in the East 
 and in Europe begins with the making of rag paper." 
 And now as to the date of the first making ot 
 paper. Wattenbach, in his treatise on writing in 
 the Middle Ages, says : " The preparation of paper 
 from cotton is said to have existed in the remotest 
 times, and became known to the Arabs when they 
 conquered Samarkand about the year 704 " a 
 mis-statement which Karabacek annihilates from 
 beginning to end. There is no proof that the 
 Chinese ever put cotton to this use, for which, 
 by the by, it is ill adapted, and which is never 
 
 "5
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 mentioned in their lists of materials for the making 
 of paper, nor is this to be wondered at, for the 
 cotton plant was not introduced into China from 
 Southern India until the reign of Kublai Khan 
 in the second half of the thirteenth century. That 
 the Chinese were the first inventors of paper is 
 admitted, but the date is uncertain. The first 
 mention of paper is referred to the year 650, when 
 it is said to have been introduced as an article of 
 commerce into Samarkand from China ; but all 
 the dates given are confessedly misty and uncertain, 
 nor indeed have they any very great importance 
 or significance : the main facts are known, and it 
 is perhaps enough that we should recognise the 
 fact that the various sorts of paper which the 
 Chinese carried into Central Asia were made of 
 the pith or the pulp of plants, amongst others of the 
 Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), which 
 is still in use to-day, and of the refuse of silk. 
 The confusion as to the whole question, not only 
 of the introduction of paper, but as to the material 
 employed by the Arabs is further entangled by pas- 
 sages in the native histories of AH Ibn Muhammed 
 el Farifi and Abu Ali Muhammed el Ghazali, who 
 severally fixed the date at the years 704 and 707 
 A.D. Both state in effect that paper was intro- 
 duced into Mecca by one Yusuf (Joseph), the son 
 of Amru (or named Amru himself), who had 
 learned the art in Samarkand, and taught it to 
 others. According to these authorities, which are 
 considered, and indeed proved, to be apocryphal, it 
 was to Mecca and not to Bagdad that paper first 
 found its way from Samarkand. The story is 
 116
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 quite impossible. It is proved beyond the possi- 
 bility of a doubt that the final victory of the " true 
 believers " over the " unbelievers " in Khorasan did 
 not take place until the month of July in the year 
 751, and the introduction of paper into Islam may 
 safely be assigned to that year. All the stories of 
 a great battle at Athlah by Zijad, the son of Salih, 
 a personage whose very existence is a matter of 
 doubt, may be dismissed as idle tales, and with 
 him disappears into the limbo of the father of lies 
 Yusuf, with his paper factory at Mecca. 
 
 As to the material which the Arabs used, 
 following the recipes of their teachers in Khorasan, 
 there is very little mystery. It is true that the 
 word which is used in the old Arab MSS. is 
 El-Kattan, but that is probably due to the fact 
 that flax was not cultivated in that country, and 
 that the Arabs mistook linen, made from Linum 
 usitatissimum, for cotton, with which they were not 
 acquainted. Jahiz, an Arab author who died in 
 the year 869 of our era, writes : " All men know 
 that Khorasan is the land of cotton, Egypt the 
 land of flax." Such paper as that of the most 
 ancient Arabian specimens in the Archduke 
 Rainer's collection could not have been made from 
 cotton, which with its very elastic fibres yields 
 only a spongy, highly absorbent, porous material 
 like blotting paper, which must be thoroughly 
 sized before it can be used for writing. Now the 
 paper of the Archduke's MSS. is conspicuously 
 free from size. Inasmuch as the flax-plant was 
 not procurable at Samarkand the paper-makers 
 were driven to use the old worn-out stuffs which 
 
 117
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 came to their hand, the fibres of which furnished 
 the finest, the smoothest, and the thickest paper. 
 
 The making of paper from rags was not, then, 
 the invention of the Chinese, who only became 
 acquainted with it about 200 years later. It was 
 due to the ingenuity either of the Iranians (Persians) 
 or of the Arabs ; probably the former, for the 
 Arabs adopted the Persian word Kaghad or Kaghid 
 for it a curious word derived from the word Kagh, 
 noise, alluding to the rustling sound made by paper. 
 This is one of those refined derivations which 
 philology furnishes in support of, or as a clue to, 
 history. 
 
 Six sorts of paper were made at Bagdad, and it 
 is not a little interesting to find that one of them 
 was named El Giafaridsh, after the vizier of 
 Haroun Al Raschid, the unhappy Minister who, 
 after being for years the sovereign's favourite, was 
 one of the victims of that tyrant's massacre of the 
 Barmecides, the clan to which he belonged. 
 
 In the eleventh century the paper of Bagdad 
 seems to have deteriorated, but Samarkand pushed 
 the industry forward as much as ever, and the 
 paper of Samarkand, " Sultan paper " and " silk 
 paper," made of course of linen, were famous all 
 over Persia. The silk paper, so called because of 
 its thin and delicate texture, was cunningly but 
 very lightly sized with soap, and it was smoothed 
 to a shining surface with a polishing stone. The 
 influence of China continued very great here and 
 along the whole eastern boundaries ; and in the 
 paper industry, as in many others, Chinese workmen 
 were employed. 
 118
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 So much for the manufacture of this ancient 
 paper. It was when paper left Samarkand and 
 was distributed east and west over the civilised 
 world that, as Karabacek says, it became epoch- 
 making in the history of the culture of mankind. 
 It will, I hope, not be without interest to trace the 
 way in which it asserted its superiority over all 
 other materials for writing. In the earlier days of 
 Islam papyrus was a vehicle for all documents, 
 acts, and business records of the Caliphs. When 
 the first Caliph of the Abbaside dynasty came to 
 power, in the year 749, parchment was substituted 
 for papyrus. But this was only possible because 
 of the great wealth and luxury of the Bagdad of 
 those days. When Haroun Al Raschid succeeded 
 as fifth Caliph of that dynasty, the two brothers, 
 Giafar, of whom I have already spoken, and El 
 Fadl, being in high favour, the one became Grand 
 Vizier and the other was appointed Governor of 
 Khorasan, with a residence at Samarkand. This 
 latter appointment was pregnant with results for 
 the world at large, for he it was Who, seeing the 
 extravagant expenditure on parchment for the 
 daily increasing needs of the Government and 
 Public Offices, advised the Caliph to substitute 
 paper, which for some forty years had been manu- 
 factured in Samarkand. The experiment was a 
 brilliant success, and we are enabled to fix the date 
 of the establishment of a factory at Bagdad, the 
 City of Salvation, at the year 794 or 795. Once 
 started there was no standing still ; the industry 
 grew and flourished to such an extent that, as 
 Professor Karabacek puts it, " As in the case of 
 
 119
 
 THE HISTORY OF PAPER 
 
 other Oriental products, weaving and ceramics, for 
 instance, we may, instead of inquiring where was 
 paper made, invert the question and ask where 
 was paper not made ? " Tihama, Yemen, Egypt, 
 Syria, Palestine, North Africa, the Spain of the 
 Moors, Persia, India, followed the lead of Samar- 
 kand and Bagdad. Is it not wonderful, is it not 
 almost miraculous, that this invention which was 
 destined to revolutionise the civilisation of the world 
 should have remained for centuries the monopoly 
 of the most unlearned and retrograde of the so- 
 called civilised nations ? What were the Romans 
 about ? Their arm was long enough, one would 
 have thought, to have wrested this great engine from 
 the almost savage hands which held it in their grip. 
 Europe had to wait, for although there was a 
 manufactory at Shatiba, the modern San Felipe of 
 Valencia in Spain, it must be remembered that it 
 was a Moorish and not a Spanish industry. The 
 secret was well guarded. You know how it was 
 revealed and to what the revelation led. 
 
 I should gladly have laid before you more of 
 Professor Wiesner's discoveries, confirming and 
 confirmed by Professor Karabacek's philological 
 studies ; but I feel that I have already detained 
 you too long. One fact ascertained by Wiesner is 
 worth recording. He found that such sizing as 
 the Arabs used in Bagdad was made of wheat 
 starch. In other places, in Palestine for example, 
 the roots of the asphodel were used as size. Both 
 were employed in Egypt, where their use was 
 jealously watched for the asphodel starch was 
 turned to account by roguish silk vendors to 
 
 120
 
 increase the weight of the silken thread, a practice 
 which was strictly forbidden by law. It is con- 
 solatory to find that even in those ancient days 
 adulteration was not unknown : it is not a new 
 invention. 
 
 And now, ladies and gentlemen, the time has 
 come to relieve you from my tedium. I have 
 endeavoured to give you the pith of the very 
 minute and searching labours of Professors Kara- 
 bacek and Wiesner ; and if I have succeeded in 
 any degree in arousing your interest you will agree 
 with me that though the scholarship and learning 
 of the German scientists may sometimes seem to 
 be a little meticulous, we owe them much gratitude 
 for the unravelling of knots which would be a 
 cruel trial to men of less patience. 
 
 One word I may add : I have omitted any 
 mention of Japan, because in all these matters of 
 invention up to the time when Japan adopted 
 Western methods and Western machinery, Japan is 
 included in China. The art of paper-making came 
 to Japan from the Celestial Empire. The art of 
 writing came to Japan in about the sixth century 
 of our era, and Chinese paper came at the same 
 time. Therefore, when speaking of paper as of 
 Chinese origin, it became unnecessary to allude 
 to Japan, in spite of the beautiful papers pro- 
 duced in the latter country. Whatever advance 
 the Japanese may have made in the art of paper- 
 making, the fact remains that it was a Chinese 
 and not a Japanese invention, and I have con- 
 fined myself to the country which produced the first 
 kind of paper which was known to the world. 
 
 121
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT 
 THE ART SCHOOL AT CHIPPING 
 CAMPDEN IN 1904
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE 
 OPENING OF THE AUTUMN SESSION 
 OF THE ART SCHOOL AT CHIPPING 
 CAMPDEN IN 1904 
 
 LADIES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 1AM not sure that I owe a very deep debt of 
 gratitude to Mr. Ashbee * for placing me in the 
 position in which I find myself to-day ; in fact, 
 a man who comes to talk to artists about art, and to 
 craftsmen about their craft, is rather in a trap he 
 is in a very difficult position. However, with age 
 comes that wariness which prevents us from easily 
 falling into such gins as these. You may rest 
 assured that I shall not talk to you about your 
 blow-pipes, your crucibles, your printing presses, 
 your bookbinders' tools, your enamelling processes. 
 I shall continue to look at them from a distance 
 with respect and awe. I must try and find some 
 point upon which we stand together upon more 
 level ground ; and so I shall take for my subject to- 
 day "The Divine Doctrine of Discontent" not that 
 vulgar form of discontent which snarls and growls at 
 fortune because some neighbour is more prosperous, 
 more lucky, as it is called, than ourselves ; but that 
 high form of discontent which prevents a man 
 when he has executed a piece of work from 
 looking at it and seeing that it is good. That is 
 only possible for the omnipotent Divine Creator. 
 Man, with his limitations and his imperfections, 
 should look at his work and see that it might be 
 better. I do not myself believe that there ever 
 
 * The head and founder of the school. 
 
 I2 5
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 was any first-rate piece of work done in this world 
 in the frame of mind which is known as content. 
 In literature, in art, in science, discontent is that 
 which has ever been leading men on to higher 
 things, and enabling them to achieve something 
 nearer to that ideal for which they are striving. 
 We know how amongst writers, for instance, old 
 Horace told us the secret of his work was that he 
 was always turning his pen ; we know how Charles 
 Dickens was the terror of the compositors, so crossed 
 and re-crossed and scratched were the manuscripts 
 which he handed in to them. It is impossible to 
 conceive that the great works, the masterpieces of 
 the Greek writers, were produced in any other way 
 than by continual erasion and correction. The 
 story of Demosthenes, the poor stammerer, out- 
 roaring the scolding of the sea, until he became 
 the greatest orator of his own or of any other age, 
 if a fable, is yet a useful one. 
 
 But it skills not to dwell too much upon this 
 one point. It is a matter which I fancy every one 
 will concede. But I should like to remind you of 
 one anecdote which I have used once before, but 
 not here ; and at any rate it is a story which has 
 had so much influence upon me that I always feel 
 as if it could scarcely be too often told. 
 
 In one of those charming essays on Italy by my 
 old friend Mr. Storey, the American sculptor, there 
 is a tale told how one of the Cardinals was driving 
 into Rome from the Coliseo on a bitter February 
 morning. The wind was blowing and snow was 
 falling ; it was a regular blizzard. The Cardinal 
 curled himself up in the corner of his coach, nestling 
 126
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 in his warm furs, and pitied the wayfarer who must 
 be outside. All of a sudden, as he came nearer to 
 Rome, he saw a pathetic figure struggling against 
 the storm, his cloak closed tightly round him, a staff 
 in his hand a resolute, sturdy oldfellow doing battle 
 with the elements. To his surprise, as he drew near 
 he perceived that he was Michael Angelo Michael 
 Angelo, the poet, sculptor, painter, engineer, archi- 
 tect, the Wonder of his age. The Cardinal stopped 
 his coach. He said, " Michael Angelo, what are 
 you doing here ? " " Eminence," replied the old 
 man, " I was going out to the ancients to learn 
 something." Here was the spoilt child of science 
 and art, still learning, still eager to acquire, still 
 animated by the Divine Spirit of Discontent. 
 
 But I wish to show you how this spirit has 
 affected the soul of a whole people, and what a 
 part it is playing in the history of our times. At 
 the present moment we have before us an example 
 of the gayest, the brightest, the sunniest nation in 
 the whole world I was going to say the most 
 contented nation in the whole world the Japanese ; 
 and yet there is no people in the world that has 
 given such evidence of being stirred by the 
 Divine Spirit of Discontent as they have done. 
 Take their art. For the most part, when a 
 European artist has reproduced some object of 
 Nature, in metal work, in ivory, or in any other 
 material, he is satisfied and contented if the result 
 of his labour shows a presentment of the form 
 which he is striving to copy, in so far as it is seen. 
 That is not enough for the Japanese. The 
 Japanese will produce a bird, and he knows that 
 
 127
 
 that bird will have to stand upon two clamps fixed 
 to a stand ; he knows that only the upper part of 
 the feet will be seen, but it will not suffice him 
 that only the upper part of the feet should be 
 worked. The lower part of the feet will be 
 worked with the same assiduity, the same care, 
 the same loving, caressing hand as all the rest 
 of the work which will come before men's eyes. 
 It does not matter to him that the thing shall not 
 be seen ; it would be imperfect if it were seen, 
 therefore the work must be done. Now that is 
 to my mind the highest form of conscientious love 
 of art. 
 
 But it is not only in art that this wonderful 
 nation has given us an example of what can be 
 achieved by patient perseverance, and conscientious 
 striving after high ideals. 
 
 Nearly fifty years ago I was in Japan ; and the 
 Japanese then bought from an American firm of 
 the name of Walsh, Hall, and Company their first 
 man-of-war. They had owned a small ironclad 
 which had been presented to them by the United 
 States, but this was their first purchase of a man- 
 of-war. It was an old monitor that had done 
 service in the American War. When the Japanese 
 came to pay over the dollars and take possession of 
 the ship, Messrs. Walsh, Hall, and Company offered 
 them to send their engineer on board and show 
 them how to work the engines. They were 
 grateful for the offer, but they declined it. They 
 said that they knew all about engines, and that 
 they did not need any help whatever. They took 
 over the ship, and got up steam, and sailed away 
 128
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 gaily into the Bay of Yedo ; but having got up 
 steam, they did not know how to shut it off again. 
 They had to go round and round in a circle until 
 the fires went out and the boilers cooled. In less 
 than forty years from that time that nation became 
 one of the first naval powers of the world. Is 
 not that an astonishing instance of what can be 
 achieved by people who set before themselves an 
 ideal, and, striving to reach it, are never contented 
 until they have done so ? Suddenly they emerged 
 from the gloom of the thirteenth century to the 
 brilliant light of the nineteenth. Yet were they 
 not content to don the nineteenth century ready 
 made from any country as a man might buy a coat 
 at a cheap tailor's. No ! they must cull the best 
 wherever it might be found, and so mould and 
 fashion and shape it as should best serve their ends. 
 Professors were brought from all the headquarters 
 of civilisation and progress. Bands of students 
 were sent out into all lands and how they worked ! 
 Jurisprudence, surgery, medicine, political economy, 
 finance, science, the art of war by sea and by land, 
 railway organisation, and all those numberless 
 branches of knowledge which combine to make 
 a people great, were assimilated and even improved 
 upon, until now the pupils bid fair to become the 
 masters of their masters. 
 
 These things were open for all men to see. What 
 some of us who had known Japan well in the old 
 days of the feudal system, when swashbucklers 
 ruled the roast, did not see was the fact, of which 
 there is now ample evidence, that hand-in-hand 
 with the material change there had taken place an 
 
 129
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 inner and more subtle transformation, yet more 
 marvellous than the mere adoption of modern 
 inventions. Some of us said and wrote things 
 which had better have been left unsaid and un- 
 written. I, for one, confess with no little shame 
 that I was utterly wrong. 
 
 These splendidly discontented Japanese, then, 
 gave themselves no peace until they had brought 
 themselves into the first rank among the nations. 
 And so it came to pass that when they were pitted 
 single-handed against what was regarded as the 
 most formidable power in Northern Europe, their 
 triumph by sea and by land was complete. 
 
 There is another force which counts for much 
 in moulding the Japanese character the Yamato 
 Damashi the spirit of old Japan, which makes 
 every Japanese a true patriot. Bound up with this 
 is the much famed Bushi-Do " the way," or, as 
 one might almost translate it, the " religion," of 
 the warrior.* I will give you an instance which 
 occurred during the recent operations against Port 
 Arthur. I suppose all of you have heard of the 
 heroic Commander Hirose, who went out to try 
 and block Port Arthur with one of those ships that 
 the Japanese endeavoured to plant in the passage. 
 He succeeded in leaving the ship there and went 
 back to his boat. When he got to the boat he 
 missed a midshipman. He went back to try and 
 save the midshipman. He found the midshipman 
 dead on the deck of the ship, and he came back to 
 his boat again. Once more it occurred to him that 
 
 * The Chinese word Tao, road or path, of which Do is the Japanese 
 transcript, is often used in the sense of religion just as our word Path is. 
 130
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 he had left his sword behind him. No Japanese 
 could leave his sword behind him without being 
 disgraced. So he went back once more, and that 
 time he was blown to pieces. But that is not the 
 whole point of the story. Amongst his effects was 
 found a letter to his family, saying that it was his 
 intention to go on attempting to block Port Arthur 
 until he either succeeded or died in the attempt. 
 But even if he should succeed, and if he should 
 return alive from his most hopelessly perilous 
 mission, they must still never expect to see him 
 again, for this reason : He was a sailor and an 
 officer of the Japanese Empire. To his Sovereign 
 and his country all his efforts were due ; every 
 drop of his life's blood was theirs. But he could 
 not forget that he had been sent to St. Petersburg 
 as naval attache, that he had made many friends 
 there and learnt many useful lessons. Therefore 
 in the event of his succeeding in doing the Russians 
 this great injury, it would be necessary for him, as 
 a man of honour, to go on board the Japanese flag- 
 ship and perform hara-kiri on the quarter-deck, 
 thus discharging his debt.* 
 
 Now is not that the sublimest form which the 
 Divine Spirit of Discontent Can take ? We in this 
 country are apt to look on hara-kiri as a barbarous 
 and even theatrical form of suicide. It is nothing 
 of the kind. It is indeed the sublimation of all 
 those ideas of honour which constitute the very 
 essence of chivalry. The first doctrine which is 
 
 * This is the story as it was sent to me by the late Admiral Sir 
 Assheton Curzon Howe, who was commander-in-chief on the China 
 Station at the time 
 
 '3 1
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 instilled into the mind of the young Japanese is 
 that death is preferable to dishonour, and that no 
 amount of worldly prosperity and no amount of 
 success are worth having unless the honour of the 
 man be as spotless as the steel of his blade. This 
 spirit is carried into all relations of life, and it is 
 the dominant influence which forms the character 
 of the Japanese. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, I must apologise to you 
 for having wandered too far afield from the realm 
 of art ; but I think you will see that it is only in 
 appearance that I have done so. I have been 
 desirous of showing you how the most artistic and 
 the most accomplished nation of the day derive 
 their spirit, not only in art and in science, but in 
 moral philosophy, in the duties of the subject to 
 the ruler, and in all the higher relationships of life, 
 from a feeling that it is not sufficient to leave a 
 piece of work alone until you are perfectly certain 
 that it cannot be made better. 
 
 We all of us owe great thanks to Mr. Ashbee 
 for having started these schools in this neighbour- 
 hood. I think that the schools themselves cannot 
 fail to gain by being nestled in one of the prettiest 
 towns in the Cotswold Hills. I am sure that the 
 neighbourhood will be the better and the happier 
 for the opportunities that are afforded to those 
 young men who have talent and perseverance of 
 effecting something more in life than they could 
 have done under the old system. Again, I think 
 that Mr. Ashbee has been wise in bringing the 
 town to the country. Every movement that tends 
 to lessen the congestion of the great towns is an 
 132
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 imperial movement of the greatest importance. 
 I think we all of us know enough about this 
 institution that Mr. Ashbee has been the means of 
 founding here to be sure that under him and 
 Mrs. Ashbee there exists and flourishes a colony 
 whose happiness and prosperity are their first care 
 in life. 
 
 Gentlemen May the work of your hands 
 prosper ; may your schools flourish and bring 
 forth great and noble and far-reaching results ; and 
 above all may you yourselves be animated by that 
 Divine Spirit of Discontent upon which I have 
 preached to you to-day. And some day, years 
 hence, when perchance some one of you, now full 
 of the hopes, the ambitions, and the lusty vigour 
 of youth, shall have waxed old when the eye 
 shall have grown dim and the hand uncertain 
 then, and not till then, may such a one, looking 
 back upon some dainty piece of work into which 
 in the long, long ago all his artistic soul, all the 
 poetry of his being had been poured, be able to 
 murmur gently to himself : " Aye ! that was well 
 done." 
 
 '33
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS, DELIVERED AT 
 THE ART SCHOOL AT CHIPPING 
 CAMPDEN IN 1905
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS AT THE AUTUMN 
 SESSION OF THE CAMPDEN ART 
 SCHOOL, IN 1905 
 
 LADIES, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN, 
 
 AMONG the countless myths which the rich 
 fancy of the ancient Greeks has bequeathed 
 to us, none, as it seems to me, is more beau- 
 tiful, none more pregnant with meaning, than the 
 story of Pandora. She, you will remember, was the 
 first woman, the mother of all men, the Eve of classic 
 mythology. To her the Gods entrusted a precious 
 casket containing every good gift for mankind 
 but it might not be opened. That was a solemn 
 injunction. Now she, womanlike, bitten with 
 curiosity, could not refrain from opening the box, 
 if it were only for one peep at its contents. She 
 looked, and alas for the good God-sent gifts ! They 
 flew away, never to return. Terrified, she shut 
 down the lid, but it was too late only one gift 
 remained, but it was the best of all : Hope. That, 
 at least, was saved. 
 
 Yet I venture to think that in some corner or 
 cranny of the casket there must have lingered yet 
 another gift ; one closely allied to Hope, and 
 almost as enriching to all of us. That gift was 
 Imagination, and of that I wish to speak to you 
 to-day. It is well for us that the lid was closed 
 before Hope and Imagination had had time to 
 escape. 
 
 I do not know whether there be any of you here 
 present who are not familiar with Boswell's " Life of 
 Johnson." If such there be let me urge you to 
 
 37
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 repair the omission without delay. For not only is 
 Boswell the first of all Biographers, but he is also 
 a most excellent Master of the Ceremonies, who 
 will introduce you to the very best society. John- 
 son himself, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Burke, Garrick, 
 Goldsmith, Gibbon, Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, 
 and a host of others. Where else can you enjoy 
 the conversation of such a galaxy of wit and 
 learning ? Nay more, if you would listen to the 
 talk of the King, is not His Majesty's interview 
 with Johnson accurately recorded? But that be- 
 longs to another story. 
 
 On Tuesday, July 5, in the year of grace 1763 
 Boswell called upon Dr. Johnson, who told him 
 that he had been looking into the poems of a 
 certain Scots Presbyterian Minister, but "could find 
 nothing in them." Boswell, ever eager to take up 
 the cudgels for a brother Scot, said, "Is there not 
 Imagination in them?" Johnson replied: "There 
 is in them what was Imagination, but it is no more 
 Imagination in him than sound is sound in the 
 echo. And his diction, too, is not his own we 
 have long ago seen 'white-robed innocence' and 
 'flower-bespangled meads." 
 
 In all expression of thought, then, we should 
 remember that " white-robed innocence " and 
 " flower-bespangled meads " are something to be 
 avoided by all those whose ambition it is to achieve 
 any good thing in this world of much evil. 
 
 Perhaps you may be inclined to object, " This is 
 not a school of Poetry," and to ask, " What have 
 we to do with these commonplaces ? " In a sense 
 you will be right. If Poetry be confined to musical
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 metres and jingling rhymes, then this is not a school 
 of Poetry. But you must consider what was the 
 original meaning of the words " Poet " and 
 " Poem." They are derived from a Greek word 
 signifying to make or create. The Poet was the 
 man who made something, the Poem was that 
 which he made ; and it is worthy of remembrance 
 in this school that in the first instance the word 
 polema^ Poem, was exclusively applied to metal 
 work. By degrees the words were extended to 
 works of the Imagination, and the Romans, who 
 affiliated them into their own language, used them 
 in that sense exclusively. 
 
 The Romans were great warriors and great 
 lawyers ; indeed, they laid the foundations of juris- 
 prudence for the whole world. But in works of 
 the Imagination they were singularly deficient : 
 their art was feeble, and even of their two greatest 
 Poets, the one, Virgil, was a translator, adapter, and 
 imitator, the other, Horace, was a society verse- 
 maker both first-rate in their way, but how in- 
 ferior to the creative Imagination of the Greeks ! 
 For Poetry the Latins had not even a word in their 
 own language. They borrowed the Greek word in 
 its second intention, and so it was handed on to the 
 rest of the world, becoming crystallised in almost 
 every modern European tongue. 
 
 Poets, then, in the oldest acceptation of the 
 word that is to say, makers or creators you here 
 aspire to be ; and the technical school which fulfils 
 its mission is in very truth a school of Poetry. 
 This being so, it behoves you to lay to heart Dr. 
 Johnson's criticism of Dr. Ogilvy, and to take heed 
 
 K I 39
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 lest you lay yourselves open to the charge of 
 borrowing or adapting to your own uses what was 
 Imagination in somebody else. 
 
 The gift of Imagination appears to be the peculiar 
 privilege of man. The architecture of the beaver 
 is clever and ingenious, but the work of one beaver 
 differs only from that of his fellow in the shape 
 and nature of the wood at their respective com- 
 mand. The cells of a honeycomb, beautiful and 
 mathematically correct as they are, differ in no 
 particular from those in every other bee's con- 
 struction. Every village boy knows that one 
 thrush's nest is repeated character for character in 
 that of another. With you it is different : each 
 one of you can put something of himself into his 
 work, and unless he does so he becomes a mere 
 copyist, an echo and not a sound, a purveyor of 
 " white-robed innocence " and " flower-bespangled 
 meads." 
 
 Of course I do not pretend to say that every 
 one, be he never so diligent, never so enthusiastic, 
 can achieve the success of originality. The great 
 Art-poet is as rare as the great Song-poet. But the 
 humblest Craftsman, if he only have appreciation, 
 for which some share of Imagination is required, 
 can and will infuse into his work some spark of 
 originality, some measure of the sense of beauty 
 which is in him. That, I take it, is the meaning 
 of the writing upon your walls : 
 
 Give to barrows, trays, and pans 
 Grace and glimmer of romance. 
 
 And here I would fain utter a word of warning. 
 140
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 The true Artist will not allow his fancy so to run 
 riot as to annul the utility of his work. If your 
 barrows will not wheel, if your trays be so fashioned 
 that they will not carry cups and saucers in propor- 
 tion to their size, if your pans will not fry your 
 food, then your art becomes mere faddism and you 
 are better without it. 
 
 I remember the erection of a great public office 
 by a famous architect some thirty or forty years 
 ago. In order to suit what he conceived to be 
 essential to his elevation, the highest rooms had no 
 windows but what could be formed out of the tops 
 of the arched windows of the third floor. Now 
 these rooms were meant for men to write in. Their 
 only light came from the level of the floor, reach- 
 ing four feet or so upward. The rooms had to be 
 turned into store-rooms. Was that good art ? The 
 first function of a window is to give light and air. 
 These windows gave only cruel draughts round 
 feet and legs, and absolutely no light by which a 
 man might work. 
 
 The first thing needful in a house, a barrow, a 
 tray, or a pan is that it should serve the purpose 
 for which it was intended. That end being 
 achieved, embroider as you please, adorn as your 
 genius may prompt you, as your imagination may 
 dictate. 
 
 For all the great work that has been done in 
 the world, for all the great discoveries that have 
 been made, we have to thank this sublime gift 
 of Imagination Imagination backed by courage. 
 
 When men saw the sun rise in the east, cross the 
 great arch of the sky, and drop down out of sight 
 
 141
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 in the west, what was more natural than that they 
 should suppose that the sun revolved round the 
 earth ? So much was this the case that the belief 
 became an article of religious faith ; and when 
 there came thinkers whose Imagination was so 
 strong that it could not refrain from working, and 
 who saw that it was the earth and not the sun that 
 moved, their newly found knowledge, now the 
 property of every infant, was combated by all the 
 horrors of the Inquisition. The Imagination of 
 these men would have been little worth had it not 
 been wedded to courage. Nothing needs more 
 audacity than the denial of worn-out faiths, the 
 attacking of threadbare opinions. Is there a finer 
 picture in the whole history of human thought 
 than that of the brave old philosopher Galileo, past 
 seventy years of age, daring the Inquisitors with 
 his famous speech eppur si muove, saying of the 
 earth, " For all that, it moves " ? The spirit of 
 modern Scepticism casts a doubt upon those words, 
 but even if he did not speak them, he acted them, 
 and deeds are more than speech. Thus was the 
 Copernican system asserted and maintained, maugre 
 the thunders of Popes and Potentates. 
 
 See the great liners of to-day racing across the 
 Atlantic ! Leviathans of many thousand tons, 
 crowded with hundreds of passengers, setting time 
 and space at defiance ! And then think of Columbus 
 straining his bold, yearning eyes seaward and west- 
 ward, and dreaming of a great continent in the 
 existence of which no man believed. With the eye 
 of the Poet, with the eye of the Prophet, he sees 
 what no other eye can see visions of a Greatness 
 142
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 yet unborn, visions of Possibilities how much 
 more than fulfilled. During upwards of twenty 
 years never for a moment did his courage fail to 
 uphold the belief which was in him, the solemn 
 creed of his Imagination. Wandering hither and 
 thither, from Lisbon to Genoa, from Genoa to 
 Venice, from Venice back to the Peninsula, scouted 
 and flouted as a visionary by dullards and muddy 
 brains, at last he finds his way to Spain. Travel- 
 stained, foot-sore, weary, dying of starvation, he 
 comes to beg a crust at a convent-door, and here 
 at last he finds an ear to listen, a brain to compre- 
 hend. The Abbot, a man of shrewd perception, 
 possessing great influence at Court, is struck with 
 the noble bearing and lofty thoughts of this poor 
 faltering Mendicant. His cause is pleaded with the 
 King and Queen, the famous Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 and happily they have faith enough to fit out an 
 expedition. In command of three small vessels, two 
 of them not even decked think of that ! trusting 
 in God and in the surety of his own Beliefs, he 
 sailed into the great trackless waste of unknown 
 waters. But his troubles were only begun hunger, 
 thirst, and mutiny were the deadly foes against 
 which he had to fight. Yet his stout heart never 
 forsook him, and in spite of all dangers and 
 difficulties he reached the goal of his Imagination. 
 His subsequent voyages and adventures, the 
 faithlessness of the king whom he had served so 
 loyally, his chains, his degradation, and the tardy 
 honours bestowed upon him after death all these 
 are thrice-told tales which need not be insisted 
 upon here. I have but cited this great Hero
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 as an exemplary instance of what Imagination can 
 do when held up by the courage of a Columbus. 
 
 In Science, to the full as much as in Art, 
 or in that branch of Art which we call Poetry, 
 Imagination has been the great benefactor of 
 mankind. 
 
 A kettle is boiling on the hearth. To the 
 ordinary man the steam bursting out from the 
 spout suggests only a measure of material comfort. 
 The more thinking man perhaps regards it as 
 water in a gaseous form. But the imagination 
 of the creative man, the Poet in the first sense 
 of the word, sees in it a force and a propelling 
 power, and in our own county of Gloucester, just 
 two hundred and fifty years ago, the Marquis of 
 Worcester was the first man, in England at any rate, 
 to succeed in utilising it as such. 
 
 How many* men had seen apples fall to the 
 ground before Newton ? He saw it and great 
 were the results. His imagination was excited, 
 and the law of gravitation was discovered. A boy 
 of eighteen, watching the movement backward and 
 forward of a lamp which some chance had set 
 a-swinging in the Cathedral of Pisa, was roused to 
 think, and the issue of his Imaginings was the 
 invention of the Pendulum as one means of 
 measuring time. 
 
 Consider for a moment all that the Imagination 
 of the most gifted men has done for us during the 
 last hundred years. How we compass in a day a 
 distance over which at the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century it took three weeks or more to 
 travel. How the goods and produce of foreign 
 144
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 countries, tea, sugar, coffee, once the luxury of the 
 very rich, have been brought to the humblest door, 
 and have become the necessities of the very poor. 
 How the very lightning has been captured and 
 made to serve our purposes. Think of the great 
 engineering works the tunnelling of the Alps, the 
 cutting of the Suez Canal think of the advance in 
 surgery rendered possible by the antiseptic methods 
 of a Lister! Verily we are driven to the reflection 
 that in all material progress of life there is more 
 difference between our days and those of King 
 George the Third than there was between his 
 days and those of William the Conqueror. And 
 all this, I cannot repeat it too often, is due to the 
 working of Imagination. 
 
 The dreams and ambitions of Kings, Warriors, 
 and Politicians : some successful, some the reverse ; 
 some making for the good of mankind, and some 
 working unmitigated evil these I purposely leave 
 on one side. With the Alexanders, the Caesars, the 
 Mahomets, the Napoleons, the Bismarcks, the 
 Cavours, we have no concern to-day. Imagination 
 they had in plenty, but their achievements and their 
 failures are outside the scope of our inquiry. 
 
 And now I wish to consider this very school in 
 which we are gathered together to-day as being 
 itself an important and I hope most successful work 
 of Imagination the outcome of the thought and 
 care of one man. 
 
 For upwards of half a century I have known 
 this beautiful old town. I well remember the first 
 impression which it made upon me. The old 
 seventeenth-century stone buildings, which are such 
 
 '45
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 a precious inheritance of our hills : the town hall, 
 the market-place all pictures speaking of a time 
 long since passed away, of days when the Cotswolds 
 were a great wool-growing district, when every 
 man was a flockmaster and every woman span. It 
 was lovely, it had the perfume of a bygone age, 
 like something that has been laid up in lavender. 
 But it was fast asleep. Except the rush from 
 the grammar school at playtime, and now and 
 again the eager bustle of market days, there was 
 little stir in the place, nothing which told of active 
 life. Now all is changed. Imagination has touched 
 the dear drowsy old town with its Magician's 
 Wand, and we stand amazed at the awakening. A 
 guild of arts and crafts, with a depot in London, 
 finds a home here for strenuous work work beauti- 
 ful in itself and inspiring in others. The printer, 
 the bookbinder, the carpenter, the jeweller, the 
 enameller, the smith, and I know not how many 
 others, are all busily plying their trades every- 
 where the hum of cheerful Industry ! Nor has 
 the leisure hour been left unprovided for. Music, 
 reading, manly games, gardening, even swim- 
 ming which seemed most hopeless in our dry 
 country are here at command. But that is 
 not all. 
 
 These schools, of which the autumn session 
 opens to-day, have been established, and it would 
 pass the wit of man to foretell to what their 
 influence may lead. When we reflect that out of a 
 small population of some 1500 souls no fewer than 
 205 young folk have eagerly flocked here to take 
 advantage of this teaching, we can form some 
 146
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 estimate of its power and of its value. And this 
 leads to the further thought of the debt of gratitude 
 owing to the Magician who has wielded his Wand 
 to such good purpose. 
 
 It is true, as I said before, that all who come 
 here cannot aspire to take a foremost place in Art. 
 That is reserved for the elect, and in the course of 
 the centuries these have been few indeed. But 
 even so, taking the humblest and least hopeful 
 view of what is being done, we may say that many 
 lives which would otherwise have been dull will 
 have been made bright, if only by acquiring the 
 power of appreciating the work of the great 
 Masters. And not a few, maybe, will have been 
 saved from what is ugly and bad by the love of 
 what is beautiful and good. 
 
 You then who are scholars I urge to cultivate 
 Imagination, which is the parent of all true Poetry 
 and all good and noble work. Reverence the Art- 
 poets of the past, bearing in mind that the best 
 work of the Artisan and Craftsman is as much a 
 Poem as " Hamlet " or '^Paradise Lost." To those 
 who are not scholars I pray your leave to say a 
 word, begging them by every means in their power 
 to encourage the good work that Mr. Ashbee has 
 initiated. Mr. Ashbee, I know, sets a high value 
 upon the assistance which he has received from 
 his Co-Trustees and from the local Committee. 
 Far be it from me to belittle their good influence, 
 yet it must be plain to us that to him belongs the 
 credit, as upon him rests the responsibility, of this 
 work of his Imagination. That being so, to us at 
 least there need not attach the ^//V-credit of leaving 
 
 H7
 
 A SECOND ADDRESS 
 
 him to bear his self-imposed burthen alone and 
 without encouragement. A little Sympathy, a 
 little Help, will fall like summer dew upon the 
 good seed which he has sown, and which we may 
 expect to see bearing so rich a harvest of happiness 
 and well-being. 
 
 148
 
 A TALE OF OLD AND NEW JAPAN
 
 A TALE OF OLD AND NEW JAPAN, 
 BEING A LECTURE DELIVERED 
 BEFORE THE JAPAN SOCIETY OF 
 LONDON, NOVEMBER THE I4TH, 
 MDCCCCVI 
 
 WHEN your Secretaries did me the honour 
 to request that I should read a Paper at 
 the Opening Meeting of this Session of 
 your Society, I felt that I could not refuse so 
 flattering a compliment, but I made it a bargain 
 that they, not I, should choose the subject. 
 
 They were good enough to suggest that it might 
 be "a contrast between Japan as it now is and what 
 it was some years since, with the title possibly of 
 'A Tale of Old and New Japan." 
 
 It will be seen then that I am responsible neither 
 for the text nor for the title of my discourse. It 
 is true that your Secretaries gave me as an alterna- 
 tive subject "some incident in reference to the 
 recent Garter Mission"; but with that I have to 
 the best of my ability dealt in another manner, and, 
 even so, it will be difficult to keep the experiences 
 of that expedition out of our consideration. For 
 if my life during former years in the Far East gave 
 me some knowledge of the Old Japan, it is my 
 recent journey with its many and astonishing 
 experiences which opened my eyes to the full 
 appreciation of that New Japan which has burst 
 upon an astonished world. 
 
 It has become the merest platitude to talk of the 
 progress of science during the last fifty years, that 
 pregnant epoch, the teeming mother of many
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 inventions ; but if the material progress of mankind 
 during the half-century has been a wonder, pro- 
 ducing results which would have seemed to our 
 forefathers something beyond the craziest dreams of 
 a moonstruck imagination, the political history of 
 the same period has been no less astounding. 
 Empires and dynasties have been brushed away ; 
 worn-out kingdoms and duchies, impotent in their 
 arrogant smallness, have been welded together into 
 new and mighty fabrics defying the world ; in the 
 Far West a long and terrible war has washed out in 
 blood the dark stain of slavery. Manifold have 
 been the cataclysms which we, the old men of 
 to-day, have witnessed ; but of all the changes that 
 have occurred none is so altogether amazing, none 
 so far-reaching in its consequences both at home 
 and abroad, as that which has taken place in Japan. 
 To describe in some way, necessarily imperfect, 
 this great upheaval is the task which is before me 
 this evening. A difficult task if ever there was 
 such ! For this contrast which I am bidden to paint 
 is one of such violence that I doubt whether my 
 poor palette holds colours bright enough for the 
 work. 
 
 And here I must utter one word of apology to His 
 Excellency* and to my Japanese hearers. I do not 
 think that any of you here present will accuse me 
 of want of sympathy with the Old Japan. The 
 poetry, the fascination, the charm, that made up 
 the dainty joyousness of the life in that land ot 
 beauty as I first had the happiness to know it, have 
 built for me a rich storehouse of precious memories, 
 
 * Baron Komura, Japanese Ambassador, was in the chair. 
 I 5 2
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 some of which I have in the past endeavoured, 
 however feebly, to impart to others. Indeed, I 
 sometimes think that no retrograde or reactionary 
 Samurai of the old school could look back on those 
 times more regretfully than I do. Who could 
 help being fascinated by the chivalry, the heroism 
 celebrated in many an old-world legend by the 
 poetry of myth and fable which cast a glamour over 
 all those who, coming from the humdrum and com- 
 monplace of the West, were spellbound as by a 
 wizard's magic ? And then the setting of it ! A 
 country so lovely, so dainty, so wildly fantastic in 
 its beauty, that it seemed to be a fitting home for 
 fairies and giants and dwarfs, such as troubled the 
 brain of Don ^Quixote if human beings there 
 were, they must be knightly figures and lovely 
 princesses that might have stepped out of the 
 illuminations of an Eastern Romance of the Rose. 
 And yet those were dark days, black days, which, 
 love them and cherish their memory as we may for 
 the sake of their mystic charm, we must needs paint 
 in sombre colours if we are to give due expression 
 to the glorious sunshine by which they have been 
 followed. After all, it is a question of chiaroscuro : 
 what gives value to the high lights is the gloom of 
 the deep shadows ; and so you must bear with me 
 if, in order to show the suddenness and the per- 
 fection of what Japan has achieved, I dwell with 
 some stress upon what she has cast aside. 
 
 I spoke just now of the history of the last fifty 
 years, and of the dominant place which Japan must 
 occupy in it. What shall we say of the fifty years 
 which preceded them ? In the story of mankind 
 
 'S3
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 during the half-century ending in 1853, it is not 
 too much to say that Japan, which must of neces- 
 sity loom so large in the following half-century, 
 will not once be mentioned. By her own choice 
 she stood alone, unknown to the rest of the world 
 of which she herself was entirely ignorant. The 
 small Dutch trading guild which lived in mercan- 
 tile imprisonment in the island of Deshima had 
 been for well-nigh 250 years the one link between 
 Japan and the rest of mankind ; and, with a few 
 solitary exceptions such, for instance, as the emi- 
 nent Bavarian Doctor von Siebold the Guild was 
 not composed of men calculated to illuminate Japan 
 as to the outside world ; whereas of Japan herself 
 they spread the most astounding figments figments 
 all the more mischievous in that they tended to 
 hamper those who first attempted to establish sound 
 relations with her. 
 
 In these days of swift ships and transcontinental 
 railroads, when we rival Puck himself in girdling 
 the earth, and when a man may wander where 
 he will through the lovely Islands of the Rising 
 Sun, it seems almost incredible that when I first 
 entered the public service in 1858 there was not 
 a living Englishman who could say that he had 
 ever set foot in Japan. I remember the excitement 
 when it was announced that Lord Elgin had sailed 
 from China to negotiate a treaty in that terra in- 
 cognita. To-day there is not a city, not a seat of 
 learning in Europe or America that has not held 
 subjects of the Mikado, eager students in every 
 branch of learning, law, medicine, philosophy, the 
 economic arts, science in all its branches, men who 
 
 '54
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 have worked out to their profit the deepest problems 
 of Western lore, to say nothing of all that apper- 
 tains to naval and military knowledge ; at the time 
 of which I speak not a single Japanese had ever 
 been seen in Europe.* How remote it all seems 
 in its impossibility, and yet, measured by what has 
 been achieved, how short a time has elapsed ! 
 
 The knowledge of the average European about 
 Japan was limited to the fact that in some remote 
 corner of the Eastern seas there lived a mysterious 
 nation of cunning craftsmen, skilled in the making 
 of pottery and lacquer, deft workers in bronze and 
 other metals, carvers of wood and ivory, whose 
 masterpieces were eagerly sought after by lovers of 
 art. We heard the wildest tales stories made in 
 Holland about a spiritual Emperor and a temporal 
 Emperor, and about a form of government in which 
 spying had been brought to a fine art. So crass 
 was our ignorance that even educated men were 
 for the most part under the impression that the 
 Japanese language was identical with, or at any rate 
 a dialect of, the Chinese. 
 
 But it signifies little what might be the fallacies 
 which Europeans held about Japan fifty years ago 
 indeed, it signified little then. What was far 
 more important was the opinion entertained for us 
 by the Japanese. It was not flattering, and out of 
 it sprang no little trouble. I well remember, even 
 so late as a few years after the opening of Japan, 
 seeing a handbill which was sent out broadcast by 
 certain anti-foreign fanatics at Kyoto in which all 
 
 * That is to say, of course, since the Missions of the sixteenth and 
 beginning of the seventeenth centuries. 
 
 L 155
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 men were warned to preserve the land sacred to the 
 descendants of the Gods from being defiled by the 
 barbarians, who were the offspring of dogs and cats 
 and apes. To travel abroad was under an edict of 
 lyemitsu, the third Shogun of the Tokugawa 
 dynasty, punishable by the extremest penalties of 
 the law. No Japanese might leave the country 
 under pain of death, no foreigner might enter it, 
 save and except that handful of Dutchmen alluded 
 to above, who drove a none too respectable trade 
 cooped up in Deshima, content to suffer indignities 
 unspeakable among which e-fumi, trampling on 
 the sacred images, bore a conspicuous part so long 
 as they might buy and sell, making a huge profit 
 out of the exchange in gold and the monopoly of 
 an interesting commerce. So exclusive was the 
 anti-foreign policy of lyemitsu, so determined was 
 he that the outer barbarian should have no footing 
 in his country, and that no Japanese should have 
 dealings abroad, that he actually forbade the build- 
 ing of sea-going ships. 
 
 Now lyemitsu was certainly one of the strongest 
 of the old rulers of Japan, a worthy descendant of 
 his grandfather lyeyasu, the founder of the Toku- 
 gawa dynasty of Shoguns. What was it that led 
 this wise man, this really great potentate, to take 
 so violent a line against all foreign intercourse ? 
 
 It is a common fallacy to suppose that Japan was 
 from the beginning of time a hermit kingdom, 
 neither giving nor seeking hospitality, keeping 
 herself aloof from the rest of mankind, hugging her 
 solitude, looking upon the sea as a barrier never to 
 be crossed, whether for pleasure, for profit, or for 
 
 156
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 conquest. Nothing could be further from the 
 truth. 
 
 That we may rightly understand the situation in 
 Japan at the first coming of foreigners fifty years 
 ago it is necessary that we should sketch, however 
 briefly, the circumstances which led to her isolation. 
 
 Throughout the Middle Ages the Japanese were 
 kings of the Eastern seas. No Vikings struck 
 more terror into the West than they did in their 
 raids upon the Chinese and Corean coasts. Their 
 iunks, bristling with the spears of fierce warriors, 
 and manned by crews whose daring and spirit of 
 seamanship live again in the bluejackets of Admiral 
 Togo's fleet, knew no repulse, carried mastery 
 whithersoever the winds and the waves might waft 
 them. Yet, be it noted, the annexation of foreign 
 territory formed no part of the national policy of 
 Japan. Provinces might be overrun, towns taken, 
 sacked, and burnt, but the rulers of Japan held aloof. 
 Such piratical raids were the work of privateers, 
 and if these obtained a hold in a distant land, as 
 was once the case in Siam, where two freebooters 
 made important conquests, no attempt was made at 
 any lasting result. For colonisation Japan had no 
 taste, yet she had her Raleighs, her Drakes, her 
 Frobishers, just as to-day she has her Nelson. That 
 such men, instinct with the genius of the sea, born 
 navigators, dare-devil privateers, should have sub- 
 mitted to laws which not only held them in chains 
 at home, but even forbade the building of ships, 
 must ever remain a lasting wonder, a witness to the 
 boundless power of lyemitsu. 
 
 When in the year 1452 the Portuguese first 
 
 '57
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 appeared on the coasts of Japan they were received 
 with warm hospitality. There was no prejudice 
 against them or against their commerce ; in no way 
 were they hindered in their free dealings with the 
 people on the contrary, the advantages of foreign 
 trade appear to have been fully recognised as a boon 
 to the country and a new source of wealth. Other 
 merchants followed and were made equally welcome, 
 the Shogun himself issuing an edict that they 
 might go and trade whither they listed ; and so 
 matters might have gone on, pleasurably, profitably, 
 had not a disturbing influence speedily arisen. We 
 hear much of " das ewig weibliche " the eternal 
 feminine less of " das ewig priesterliche " the 
 eternal priestly and yet the one has hardly 
 wrought more discord in the world than the other. 
 On August 15, 1540, there landed in the 
 Island of Kiushiu a most remarkable man. Father 
 Xavier, afterwards canonised as St. Francis Xavier, 
 was a young gentleman of Navarre, who had 
 adopted Letters as a profession, and was already, at 
 twenty-two years of age, Professor of Literature in 
 the College of Beauvais, when he came under the 
 influence of the Biscayan, Ignatius Loyola, by whose 
 preaching he was persuaded to abandon his literary 
 career and to become one of the seven founders of 
 the famous Society of Jesus. He had chosen the 
 Far East as the theatre of his missionary work, and 
 was known as the Apostle of the Indies. For 
 him perils by sea, perils by land, had no terror. 
 Through all, and in spite of all, he must carry the 
 Cross. And so it came to pass that after many 
 adventures and several years of arduous work he 
 
 158
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 was in the Malay Straits, where he became ac- 
 quainted with a young Satsuma gentleman who 
 had found his way there, and who became his 
 disciple. With him he set sail, with him he cast 
 anchor in the lovely bay of Kagoshima, and with 
 his assistance he began his missionary labours. 
 When he quitted Japan some two and a half years 
 later he had, in spite of many difficulties and no 
 little discouragement, achieved much. He left 
 behind him the foundations of a structure which 
 was destined to attain a great height before its final 
 overthrow. He never came back, for he died of 
 fever in the Island of Shang Chuan on December 
 2, 1552, being only forty-six years of age. 
 
 For thirty years or more the new creed flourished 
 exceedingly. Captain Brinkley tells us that " two 
 hundred thousand converts were won ; three monas- 
 teries, a college, a university, and upwards of fifty 
 churches were built " ; and it seemed as though 
 the thirty-six provinces of which Japan then 
 consisted might soon be included in the pale of 
 Christendom. 
 
 During the early days of the power of Ota 
 Nobunaga in the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century, that great ruler appears to have been 
 favourably disposed towards the Christians ; indeed, 
 he seemed inclined to use Christianity as a lever 
 against Buddhism, which at that time had become 
 violently aggressive. Apparently, however, in all 
 countries the priestcrafts have been unable to con- 
 fine themselves to the task of preaching and saving 
 souls. Sooner or later political power has been the 
 aim of their ambition ; even the disciples of the 
 
 '59
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 gentle and meditative Buddha, the mystic who 
 attained wisdom under the peaceful shadow of the 
 Bodhi tree, were not proof against the temptation 
 to achieve temporal power, and at Kyoto the 
 followers of the teacher to whom all killing was 
 a crime had formed themselves into a monastery of 
 thirty thousand monks armed to the teeth, threaten- 
 ing the palace itself and even the sacred person 
 of the Emperor. Against these turbulent monks 
 the Christians might be a valuable reinforcement, 
 so for a while the new religion was in high favour 
 at Kyoto ; land and emoluments were showered 
 upon the Fathers, who for a few years basked in 
 official sunshine. But this favour was short-lived. 
 Soon they too were suspected, like the Buddhists, 01 
 political aspirations, and Nobunaga determined to 
 rid himself of their presence. Treason, however, 
 put an end to his career and his life before he could 
 carry out his plans. He was succeeded by the 
 famous Taiko Hideyoshi, the greatest ruler of 
 Old Japan. The Taiko was a man of humble 
 origin, who by his military talents and mastery of 
 statecraft raised himself to the proud position of 
 Regent. He was the living embodiment of the 
 Japanese proverb, " The lotus-flower springs from 
 the mud." The change of ruler boded no good 
 for the Christians. Hideyoshi had long distrusted 
 the professors of the new creed. The way in 
 which they used their growing power and wealth 
 convinced him that their aims were political, their 
 ambitions temporal. Laws and Proclamations were 
 set at naught ; cruelties at which the Inquisition 
 itself might have stood aghast had taken the place 
 1 60
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 of the gentle methods, the pious example, and the 
 persuasive teaching of St. Francis Xavier. In the 
 south, where the Christians had their stronghold, 
 the sword and the stake were the arguments for 
 conversion. In temporal matters class was being 
 set against class, and the whole political fabric of 
 the country was in danger. If this faith was to 
 be the antidote to Buddhism it seemed clear that 
 the remedy was worse than the disease. By their 
 turbulent lawlessness the Christians brought upon 
 themselves the just wrath of a ruler with whom 
 there was no trifling. Yet, although in one or 
 two instances the penalty of death was exacted, and 
 one Daimyo was degraded, there was so far no 
 general persecution of the Christians. The Regent 
 contented himself with warning them that their 
 violence and aggressiveness would not be tolerated. 
 The Franciscans brought the religious question to 
 a head, and wrecked the chances of Christianity, 
 just as they did a century later in China, where 
 the Jesuits had achieved such marked success under 
 the enlightened friendship of the Emperor Kang 
 Hsi. 
 
 Under the cloak of a Spanish diplomatic mission 
 a party of these Franciscan friars came to Kyoto, 
 and started a propaganda in opposition to the 
 Jesuits. The latter pleaded not only a Bull of the 
 Pope which appointed them to be the missionaries 
 to the Islands of the Rising Sun, but also the 
 authorisation of the former Regent. The Fran- 
 ciscans paid no heed to either, but continued to 
 preach. The Taiko interfered and ordered them 
 to desist. In vain ! They defied the power of 
 
 161
 
 O<L;D AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 the Regent as they had rejected the remonstrances 
 of the Jesuits and so they rushed upon their ruin. 
 When the Taiko heard that his orders had been 
 set at naught his wrath was aroused. The Fran- 
 ciscans with three Jesuits and some twenty Japanese 
 converts were made prisoners, carried to Nagasaki, 
 and there executed. 
 
 I do not propose to go at any length into the 
 story of the early Christians in Japan. It is a matter 
 of common knowledge that they were expelled, 
 and that there was much bloodshed and cruelty 
 in carrying out that policy. But we must re- 
 member, as regards the latter aspect of the case, 
 that in those times religious intolerance was no 
 less violent in the West. We must moreover bear 
 in mind that in the Island of Kiushiu the Chris- 
 tians had themselves set an example of persecution ; 
 they reaped as they had sown. What is important 
 for us in drawing this contrast between the Old 
 and the New Japan is to consider the aspect of the 
 case as it presented itself to the successive rulers 
 of Japan, and how the attitude of the Christians 
 led to that isolation which lasted for two centuries 
 and a half. Those who wish to study the question 
 more intimately and it is well worth the trouble 
 will find it admirably set forth in the third 
 volume of Captain Brinkley's monumental work 
 on Japan, from which treasure-house of knowledge 
 I must here largely draw. 
 
 At the beginning of the seventeenth century 
 the famous lyeyasu had become Shogun and had 
 founded the dynasty of Shoguns which ended when 
 Prince Tokugawa Keiki abdicated in the revolution 
 162
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 of 1868. That lyeyasu was fully alive to the 
 danger which menaced his country from the in- 
 trigues of the Christian priests is evident from a 
 passage of the Edict of 1614, in which the Shogun, 
 stung by a new Bull of the Pope throwing open 
 Japan to all the sects in defiance of his authority 
 and that of his predecessor, condemned the Chris- 
 tians to banishment and made their creed anathema. 
 The Christians moreover had banded themselves 
 against lyeyasu on the side of those who, in the 
 civil war which arose on the death of the Taiko, 
 were fighting to put the son of the latter in pos- 
 session of the Regency. What wonder then that 
 lyeyasu should have looked upon the Church as 
 a hotbed of political intrigue. Here are the words 
 of the Edict as they are given by Captain Brinkley : 
 "The Christians have come to Japan not only to 
 carry on commerce with their ships, but also to 
 propagate an evil creed and subvert the true 
 doctrine, to the end that they may effect a change 
 of government in the country and thus usurp 
 possession of it. The seed will produce a harvest 
 of unhappiness. It must be eradicated." The 
 Dutch and the English traders, who were jealous 
 of the Portuguese, fomented the animosity of the 
 Japanese against the Fathers, accusing them, with 
 some show of reason, of designs of annexation and 
 colonisation. The fiat went forth. It was the 
 beginning of the end, though the curtain did not 
 fall on the last act of the Christian tragedy in 
 Japan until 1638, when lyemitsu, the grandson of 
 lyeyasu, was Shogun. 
 
 Such, very briefly told, were the circumstances 
 
 163
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 which culminated in the famous Edict- closing 
 Japan, making it death for her sons to travel and 
 forbidding the building of sea-going ships. The 
 Christians had themselves to thank for the horrors 
 by which it was preceded. When they first came 
 to Japan they were made welcome, and had they 
 contented themselves with preaching the Gospel, 
 and teaching, as St. Francis did, by the example of a 
 holy life, they might have achieved great things. 
 Sacerdotalism, grasping at temporal power, ruined 
 all, and for 250 years Japan was isolated from the rest 
 of mankind. Of what took place in those long years, 
 of the internal politics, jealousies, intrigues, I shall 
 not speak with them we are not concerned this 
 evening. 
 
 We must now skip irom the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. 
 In the interval the nations of the West, spurred 
 on by rivalry and the eagerness of competition, had 
 made giant strides forward in every branch of 
 knowledge. Japan had stood still she had cut 
 herself off from all intercourse with her fellow- 
 man, of whom, with the exception or her dealings 
 with the Dutch and a few petty and abortive raids 
 by Russia in the north, she had seen nothing. 
 Such as she was when lyemitsu issued his ful- 
 minating Edict, such she still was when in 1853 
 the American Commodore Perry with four small 
 ships appeared off Uraga not far from Yokosuka. 
 Great was the consternation when the news reached 
 the She-gun's court. The numbers of the foreign 
 ships and crews were grossly exaggerated. When 
 we read again the story of what took place at that 
 164
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 time it seems outside the bounds of possibility that 
 a nation which by its feats of arms has won a fore- 
 most place among the naval and military powers of 
 the world, should so short a time ago have been 
 thrown into an agony of panic by so puny a force, 
 coming indeed with no show of hostile intentions. 
 Looking at the Japan of to-day, it makes one smile 
 to think of the great measure taken by the Shogun's 
 Government in their dire extremity to repel the 
 intruders. They called out the fire brigade, and 
 ordered the fire bells to be rung so soon as the 
 black ships should appear off Yedo ! Remember, 
 you younger folk, that this took place in the 
 memory of men of my age, and then talk of con- 
 trast ! Well ! the fire bells were not rung, for 
 Commodore Perry, having invited the Shogun to 
 conclude a treaty, sailed away, and did not return 
 until the following year to see how his advances 
 might be met. 
 
 I said just now that Japan had stood still. I 
 ought rather to have said that, so far as the govern- 
 ment of the country was concerned, she had gone 
 downhill. It is difficult to believe that rulers of 
 the calibre of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, lyeyasu, or 
 lyemitsu would have so entirely collapsed as the 
 Government of the Shogun did in circumstances 
 which indeed were not altogether unexpected, for 
 they had been warned by the King of Holland of 
 what was likely to occur. But when the time 
 for action came the power of decision was not in 
 them. The moment was certainly critical. The 
 answer to the question whether Japan should 
 accept the overtures of the foreigner or attempt
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 to repel him! [from her shores was fateful. The 
 great men of old would proudly have taken upon 
 themselves the responsibility of giving the answer 
 in one sense or the other. The Bakufu, the 
 Government of the Shogun, effete and shrinking 
 from the adoption of any bold measure, took 
 two steps, either of which was enough to seal 
 the fate of the Shogunate. It must be remem- 
 bered that the Shoguns still wielded an autocratic 
 power, the Emperor having for centuries delegated 
 to them the cares and responsibilities of govern- 
 ment. The Daimyos, moreover, the great feudal 
 chiefs, although invested with almost royal authority 
 in their own provinces, were still chafing under the 
 galling yoke which had been set upon them by 
 lyeyasu and tightened by lyemitsu ; in the affairs 
 of the Empire as a whole they had no voice. The 
 Bakufu in their dismay reported the advent of 
 the foreign ships to Kyoto, and called upon the 
 Daimyos for counsel. Two suicidal steps a 
 renunciation of the delegated authority, and the 
 admission of those whom they claimed as vassals 
 to a consultative voice in the councils of the 
 Empire. 
 
 Of course, there was a difference of advice. I do 
 not think that anything could give a better idea 
 of the state of public opinion at that time than 
 the account given of the crisis in the Genji Yume 
 Monogatari. 
 
 The old Prince of Mito, the father of the last ot 
 the Shoguns, seems to have been a leading spirit 
 in the party which was for expelling the foreigner. 
 Here is his argument as given by the Japanese 
 166
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 author quoted by Adams in his " History of Japan.'* 
 He maintained that foreigners would be the ruin 
 of Japan. " At first," said he, " they will give us 
 philosophical instruments, machinery, and other 
 curiosities, will take ignorant people in, and trade 
 being their chief object, they will manage bit 
 by bit to impoverish the country ; after which 
 they will treat us just as they like ; perhaps behave 
 with the greatest rudeness and insult us, and end 
 by swallowing up Japan. If we do not drive them 
 away now, we shall never have another oppor- 
 tunity. If we now resort to a dilatory method of 
 proceeding we shall regret it afterwards when it 
 will be of no use." 
 
 The Government, on the other hand, were wiser 
 in their generation. They must have known 
 better than anybody that Japan at that moment 
 was not equipped for armed resistance. Their 
 argument was: "If we try to drive the foreigners 
 away, they will immediately commence hostilities, 
 and then we shall be obliged to fight. If we once 
 get into a dispute, we shall have an enemy to fight 
 who will not be easily disposed of. He does not 
 care how long a time he will have to spend over 
 it, but he will come with several myriads of men 
 of war and surround our shores completely ; he 
 will capture our junks and blockade our ports, and 
 deprive us of all hope of protecting our coasts. 
 However large a number of ships we might destroy, 
 he is so accustomed to that sort of thing that he 
 would not care in the least. Even supposing that 
 our troops were animated by patriotic zeal at the 
 commencement of the war, after they had been 
 
 167
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 fighting for several years their patriotic zeal would 
 naturally become relaxed ; the soldiers would be- 
 come fatigued and we should have to thank our- 
 selves for this. Soldiers who have distinguished 
 themselves are rewarded by grants of land, or else 
 you attack and seize the enemy's territory, and that 
 becomes your own property ; so every man is 
 encouraged to fight his best. But in a war with 
 foreign countries a man may undergo hardships 
 for years, may fight as if his life were worth 
 nothing, and as all the land in the country has 
 already owners, there will be none to give away 
 as rewards ; so we shall have to give rewards in 
 words or money. In time the country would be 
 put to an immense expense, and the people be 
 plunged into misery. Rather than allow this, 
 as we are not the equals of foreigners in the 
 mechanical arts, let us have intercourse with 
 foreign countries, learn their drill and tactics, and 
 when we have made the nation as united as one 
 family, we shall be able to go abroad and give 
 lands in foreign countries to those who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves in battle ; the soldiers will 
 vie with one another in displaying their intrepidity, 
 and it will not be too late then to declare war. 
 Now we shall have to defend ourselves against 
 these foreign enemies skilled in the use of mechani- 
 cal appliances, with our soldiers whose military 
 skill has considerably diminished during a long 
 peace of three hundred years, and we certainly 
 could not feel sure of victory, especially in a naval 
 war." 
 
 Such was the perplexity, such were the hesita- 
 168
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 tion and vacillation in which the Shogun's ministers 
 made their appeal to the sacerdotal Court of Kyoto 
 not that it brought them any great help in their 
 difficulties. Its only result appears to have been 
 an Edict enjoining the offering up of prayers at 
 the great shrines for the safety of Japan and the 
 extermination of foreigners. 
 
 When the American commodore returned in the 
 following year he found the Government ready 
 to grant his request. But the arrangement that 
 he made was but the thinnest ghost of a treaty : 
 no more than leave to use three ports as harbours 
 of refuge. It was not until four years later, in 
 1858, that Mr. Townsend Harris on the part of 
 the United States, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros 
 on behalf of England and France, concluded the 
 definite Treaties with Japan under the provisions 
 of which the foreigner was entitled once more to 
 reside and trade in Japan. 
 
 When we consider the grim determination with 
 which Japan set her teeth to face the huge diffi- 
 culties of these later years it seems almost in- 
 credible that so short a time ago her rulers should 
 have been thrown into dismay by the modest 
 request for admission to three harbours of refuge. 
 I think that I said no more than the truth when 
 I described those days as black days. But Japan 
 had reached that darkest hour which proverbially 
 heralds the dawn. 
 
 The advent of foreigners was now, after 1858, an 
 accomplished fact. That they were not altogether 
 welcome guests is certain. There were many 
 collisions and not a few tragedies, but these are so 
 
 169
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 much a matter of common knowledge that I do 
 not propose to dwell upon them at any length. 
 Yet they were so important a feature of those 
 days, a feature of which the disappearance is such 
 a marked phenomenon of these modern times, 
 that I cannot altogether pass them by unnoticed. 
 Looking back dispassionately through the long 
 vista of years, it seems to me now that those 
 tragedies, deplorable as they might be, were in 
 fact inevitable. We must remember all the cir- 
 cumstances in which Japan found herself in 1858. 
 For more than two centuries the policy which 
 inspired the laws or lyemitsu had been deeply 
 graven in the hearts of the people. They had 
 been taught to believe that the presence of the 
 foreigner, however plausibly he might announce 
 himself as a man of peace, whether as an apostle 
 of Christianity or of commerce, meant nothing 
 less to Japan than the ultimate loss of national 
 existence. They saw the sacred person of their 
 Emperor reduced to a feudatory, their fatherland 
 conquered and colonised, their countrymen shackled 
 and enslaved. It seems difficult to-day to believe 
 that such fears should have existed. But it was 
 so. The documents of that time prove it. Then 
 as the months and years rolled on foreign inter- 
 course led to a state of things which was of neces- 
 sity unique, because in no other country did the 
 same conditions at any time exist. The great 
 feudal lords men like Shimadzu Saburo, of Sat- 
 suma, Mori the Prince of Choshiu, Yodo of Tosa 
 were no longer content as vassals to allow an 
 over-lord to stand between themselves and their 
 170
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 Emperor. The casting off of a hated allegiance by 
 the abolition of the Shogunate was a dream of 
 fascination. Some saw its realisation in throwing 
 in their lots with the foreigners ; others in 
 entangling the Shogun in foreign complications ; 
 to this latter end the means were simple. There 
 existed at that time a class of unattached Samurai 
 Ronin, or Wave-men, as they were called men 
 who had left their clans, owning allegiance to no 
 master, restless and free as the waves of the sea 
 from which they took their name. Armed with 
 a deadly weapon the famous Japanese sword, 
 sharp as a razor, heavy as a mallet* these men, 
 setting their own lives at naught, ready for any 
 fray, were a standing difficulty to the Shogun's 
 Government. Enthusiasts, fanatics, patriots, call 
 them what you will, some of them were deeply 
 imbued with the idea that to rid the land of the 
 pestilent foreigner was a sacred duty which they 
 owed to the ancestral Gods of the country. 
 
 Another motive power which worked fiercely 
 against the Western was the Yamato Damashi, 
 the spirit of Old Japan sentiment if you will, but 
 sentiment which fostered a love amounting to 
 worship for all that pertained to the ancient glories 
 of the Island Empire. We must remember that 
 this sentiment was the expression of a culture 
 which was more than twelve centuries old when 
 we first came in touch with it, bringing with us 
 new ideas, every one of which was the direct 
 negation of its tenets. No one has yet been found 
 to deny that this culture which added the dignity 
 
 * " Le marteau rasoir," as Admiral Du Petit Thouars aptly called it. 
 
 M 11
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 of age to a deeply poetic afflatus was one of very 
 lofty aspirations. I am speaking of those elements 
 which were purely national. Of course it is ad- 
 mitted that in her philosophy and her ethics Japan 
 borrowed freely from China. From India, through 
 China and Corea, she received Buddhism, a new 
 religion which was largely grafted upon the old 
 Shinto stock. But her history and her poetry were 
 her own. Not all the teachings of Confucius 
 and Mencius, not all the mystic abstractions of 
 Buddhism, could have given birth to that wonderful 
 Spirit of Old Japan which, outliving the centuries 
 and all the changes that have taken place, raised 
 the cry of " Banzai !" in the midst of the hell-fire of 
 shrapnel, drowning the shrieks of the wounded, the 
 groans of the dying, when Port Arthur had to be 
 stormed, when the enemy had to be driven out of 
 Mukden after the greatest battle that the world 
 has seen and when the Armada of Rojdestvenski 
 had to be scattered in the Sea of Japan. The 
 myths and legends of the Kojiki and the Nihongi 
 still excite the imagination and stimulate to deeds 
 of derring do ; while the poems, the Naga-uta and 
 the Tanka of the Manyoshiu, the collection of Ten 
 Thousand Leaves, inspire the deepest veneration 
 and affection for the Fatherland. When we re- 
 member that these annals and poems, dating from 
 the days of the Heptarchy, have been for twelve 
 hundred years and more the Helicon at which 
 Japan has drunk, we may perhaps realise the power 
 which they exercised at the arrival of the new- 
 comers. We may read them for ourselves. The 
 works of Satow, Aston, and others have placed 
 172
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 them within our reach and now, a week or two 
 ago,* has appeared a new book of Japanese texts, 
 translated by that eminent scholar, Mr. Dickins, 
 which will give the world some idea of the beauties 
 and riches of the Ten Thousand Leaves. Mr. 
 Aston's version of the Nihongi opens up for us the 
 legendary lore of the annals ; the labours of various 
 scholars, many of whose inestimable additions to 
 our knowledge have appeared in the Transactions 
 of the Japan Society, bring under our ken ancient 
 ideas by which Japan was dominated. 
 
 There were then many forces at work which 
 rendered far from easy the task of those enlight- 
 ened men who saw that the future greatness of 
 their country depended upon her entering the 
 comity of nations : it is necessary to take note of 
 those forces so that we may understand the order 
 of national thought in Japan in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century, but in the limits of one even- 
 ing's discourse it is impossible to do more than 
 glance at so pregnant a subject. 
 
 There was another difficulty and here I come 
 to a disagreeable confession. It must be admitted 
 that many of the troubles which arose took their 
 birth in the conduct of the foreigners themselves. 
 I can call to mind a really brave despatch of Sir 
 Rutherford Alcock's, in which he described in 
 unsparing language the stones of offence raised by 
 the newcomers. There were amongst them men, 
 happily a small minority, whose overbearing and 
 discourteous behaviour was not calculated to con- 
 ciliate a proud and highly cultured nation. The 
 
 * 1906. 
 
 173
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 Japanese at that time had not sufficient knowledge 
 of Europeans to be able to discriminate between 
 classes, and the ways of an open port were not 
 always such as to encourage admiration. Sir 
 Rutherford's despatch was not to be contradicted ; 
 its censure was bitter, but it was not more than 
 the facts warranted. The vast majority of our 
 pioneers were as noble men as ever set sail east- 
 ward or westward ; but of that flotsam and jetsam 
 of disreputable humanity for which new shores, 
 and especially new ports, have such an attrac- 
 tion we had more than our just share. The good 
 which is in the world is for the most part a 
 negative condition, and passes unobserved ; the 
 bad is positive, and attracts instant attention ; so 
 the good suffer for the bad. 
 
 Such was the condition of parties in Japan during 
 the middle sixties. Strong prejudice against 
 foreigners and a hatred founded upon a mistaken 
 notion of patriotism on the one hand ; on the 
 other a powerful band of men, few in numbers as 
 yet, but full of hope and enthusiasm, determined 
 that their country, shaking off the slothful isolation 
 of the past, should take her place among the 
 nations. 
 
 So far as outward show went, Japan had altered 
 very little since the days of lyemitsu when I 
 landed in Japan in the month of October 1866 
 just forty years ago. But to those who were 
 brought into more intimate contact with the 
 ruling classes it was evident that a change was 
 not far off. The feudal system was worn out : 
 the great territorial nobles were in a fever of
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 discontent : revolution was in the air. The Bakufu 
 or Shogun's Government had, as I have shown 
 above, lost all its prestige, and its power was 
 tottering. The picturesque old mediaeval days 
 had lingered in Japan for centuries after they had 
 vanished elsewhere. Now, here also, they were 
 to sink into the limbo of the past. At a bound 
 Japan leapt out of the darkness of the Middle 
 Ages into the fiercest light of the nineteenth 
 century. This is not the occasion to dwell upon 
 the intrigues and the many startling episodes which 
 marked the transition. When the story comes to 
 be adequately told it will be seen that all the 
 records of mankind can hardly furnish a more 
 romantic tale. Pieces of it you may gather in- 
 deed from various books here a little and there 
 a little but, so far as I know, as a comprehensive 
 whole it has still to be written. Perhaps the days 
 are yet too close to us for any unbiased account 
 to be possible. It was an upheaval in which the 
 deepest sentiments were stirred, and though most 
 of the actors have passed away, some yet remain 
 whose feelings must be spared. Suffice it to say 
 that it was a passionate convulsion, though perhaps 
 no revolution of equal magnitude has ever been 
 carried into effect with less shedding of blood, or 
 accepted in the end with less bitterness of spirit. 
 
 In 1869 the Mikado died, and the present 
 Emperor came to the throne. The style adopted 
 for the new reign was Meiji "brilliant govern- 
 ment " an auspicious combination of words which 
 the future promptly justified. From the first the 
 new Emperor, although a mere boy in years, showed 
 
 J 75
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 himself to be actuated by liberal principles. In 
 nothing did he show it more than in the attitude 
 which he observed towards foreigners. The first 
 year or two of his power were beset by compli- 
 cations which must often have been a source of 
 great difficulty to the young Sovereign and his 
 advisers. But they came through them all trium- 
 phantly, and the era Meiji, in foreign as well as 
 in domestic affairs, witnessed the inauguration or 
 a new order of things. Surrounded by wise and 
 prudent ministers, the Emperor, in the policy 
 which he has from the beginning fostered, has 
 given proof ot no ordinary strength of character, 
 while his generous attitude during the great war 
 aroused the admiration of the whole world. 
 
 The example of a liberal policy towards foreigners 
 which the Emperor set, the people were not slow 
 to follow. Attacks upon foreigners from the year 
 1870 were a thing of the past. But who at that 
 time would have foretold the spontaneous enthu- 
 siasm with which the whole nation was so soon to 
 hail a foreign alliance ? Who that remembered the 
 old days, with their hatredsand animosities feelings 
 which must long have smouldered even where 
 they were concealed could even have dreamt of 
 the whole-hearted welcome which was one day 
 to be given to the Royal mission of a friendly 
 Sovereign ? 
 
 Perhaps no indication of the depths of this change 
 is more significant than that of which the present 
 aspect of what is generally called " society " is an 
 earnest. When I first arrived in Japan it was 
 seldom indeed that any foreigner was privileged 
 176
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 to enjoy the society of Japanese ladies. There 
 were indeed one or two of us who were fortunate 
 enough to be introduced to the wives of some of 
 our friends, but these were rare exceptions. Now 
 Japanese ladies, many of whom have adopted 
 European fashions, freely enter into society ; at- 
 tending the balls and receptions of the Diplomatic 
 Body ; and one of the striking features of the 
 ceremonies to which we were invited at Court 
 last spring was the presence of the Princesses of 
 the Blood and of the great Ladies of the Court. 
 
 The Empress Haruko, it is true, was not present, 
 the regrettable cause of her absence being that 
 Her Majesty was away ill, so we had not the 
 opportunity of seeing that illustrious poetess who 
 has made herself famous by her many charities 
 and good works, and has earned no less admiration 
 for the writings which bear witness to the graces 
 of her mind than by those deeds which spring 
 from the goodness of her heart. 
 
 Of the marvellous successes of the Japanese 
 arms by sea and by land I need not speak here. 
 They have been recorded by experts we who 
 looked on from a distance of twelve thousand 
 miles stood amazed. But if we marvelled, what 
 must have been the wonder of the older genera- 
 tion in Japan itself men yet living who remember 
 the days of swords and spears and bows and arrows ? 
 How can we in any way produce something like 
 an analogy ? Picture to yourselves the archers of 
 Crecy or Agincourt looking on while their boys 
 handle the huge artillery of to-day. Fancy the 
 captain of the Harry Grace de Dieu the battle- 
 
 177
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 ship of which King Henry the Eighth was so 
 proud watching his son take the mighty Dread- 
 nought into action. That may perhaps bring 
 home to you what a Samurai of 1860, the man 
 whose sword was his soul, may have felt on reading 
 of the storming of Port Arthur, of the northward 
 driving of Kuropatkin through Manchuria, of the 
 fateful naval victory, the greatest since Trafalgar, 
 of the Sea of Japan. It is the marvellous rapidity 
 of the transformation scene which the harlequin's 
 wand of science has unfolded upon which I wish 
 to lay stress. 
 
 The wand of science ! Where in the future will 
 be placed the orders which hitherto have enriched 
 the shipwrights and the cannon founders of the 
 West ? What we saw this spring gave rise to the 
 thought that possibly in the not very remote future 
 the West may be the customer of the East for 
 ships and material of war. At any rate Japan will 
 most surely satisfy her own wants. Perhaps she 
 may have something to spare for others, and may 
 compete in the producing market with the Arm- 
 strongs, the Krupps, and the great firms which 
 now supply the world. Nor is it in the destroy- 
 ing arts alone that Japan has won for herself a 
 proud place among the nations. I can remember 
 the time when Dr. Willis, a name which will 
 always be received in Japan as that of a hero, first 
 taught the Japanese what were the ideals of a 
 hospital, and now the great surgical experts tell 
 us that from the Japan of to-day we in our turn 
 have much to learn. 
 
 Change, change everywhere ! An Emperor or
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 Japan, surrounded by the Princes of the Blood, 
 goes down to a railway station to welcome an 
 English Prince. Who would have thought of 
 such a thing in 1866, in days when the Emperor 
 was a mystery and the railway station something 
 undreamt of? At a banquet in the old castle of 
 Yedo, within which no foreigner had penetrated, 
 the Tenshi proposes the toast of the King of 
 England. An Imperial Princess opens a ball at the 
 British Embassy with the Ambassador ; a concert 
 is given at Uyeno under the patronage of the 
 Imperial family in which the music of Rossini, 
 Wagner, Mendelssohn, Beethoven is performed by 
 Japanese young ladies making up a full European 
 orchestra, the first violin a favourite pupil of my 
 old friend Joachim. Houses built in the Western 
 style have taken the places of the old Yashikis 
 with their long low ranges of guard-houses ; whole 
 quarters of the town are reserved for European 
 buildings. Tramways cross the streets of the old 
 Yedo : overhead the wind moans through a net- 
 work of electric wires. What would Sir Ruther- 
 ford Alcock, Laurence .Oliphant, Sherard Osborne, 
 the men who first described the Old Japan, say 
 to all this ? Above all not a sword to be seen, 
 not a single swashbuckler ruffling his way through 
 what was once the capital of the Shogun. But 
 perhaps the greatest wonder of all is to see the 
 freedom in which Christian missionaries of all 
 sects live in every part of the Empire. 
 
 Our appreciation of the changes we are recording 
 would be clearly incomplete were we not for one 
 moment to glance at the present financial position 
 
 179
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 not a picturesque subject, and yet one that is so 
 full of meaning. For, to quote an old American 
 saying, " the dollars speak." 
 
 It was in the year 1870 that Japan made her 
 first appearance as a borrower in the London 
 money market. As soon as matters had quieted 
 down after the first upheaval of the Goisshin, the 
 great revolution, the new Government was in want 
 of money with which to set to work upon that 
 development which had been from the first its 
 chief aim and ambition. I had just come home 
 from the Far East, and there did not happen to be 
 any one else in London at the time who had any 
 special knowledge of the then very new Japan. I 
 could not imagine why so many gentlemen with 
 names absolutely unknown to me many of them 
 German were so anxious to make my acquaintance. 
 They drew the Foreign Office for me, they hunted 
 my lodgings ; at length one gentleman, Mr. Julius 
 Beer, ran me to earth in my club. The secret then 
 came out. Was it safe to lend Japan money ? Was 
 she solvent ? Well, I was able to reassure my 
 cross-examiner upon that point, and a loan was 
 successfully brought out by Messrs. Erlanger and 
 Beer. But under what conditions ? It was but a 
 small sum that was asked for a million if I re- 
 member right and for this pitiful accommodation 
 Japan was to pledge the right of making railways 
 and to pay the promoters twelve per cent., of which 
 nine per cent, went to the public. Thirty thousand 
 a year for a term of years was a fine plum out of 
 which to pay the expenses of the city gentlemen ; 
 neither had the investing public any reason to 
 180
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 complain of nine per cent, with perfect safety. 
 Such was the back-breaking load which was laid 
 upon Japan by the raising of her first loan 
 
 As to the present state of her credit and financial 
 position let Mr. Takahashi speak. That gentleman 
 has recently arrived in England on a mission con- 
 nected with the conversion of the six per cent. 
 Customs Loans. Let me quote from the Times of 
 October 8 what he says as to the financial out- 
 look : 
 
 " At home money is very easy and the outlook 
 is favourable. Development and progress as 
 a result of the war are to be observed on all 
 hands. The shares of the South Manchurian 
 Railway which we acquired as one of the 
 results of the late war have been eagerly taken 
 up by our people, and a private telegram just 
 received states that there is reason to believe 
 that they have been applied for about 100 
 times over. Our people have become imbued 
 with wider economic, financial, and industrial 
 ideas. Everywhere one sees indications of a 
 desire for improvement in every department 
 on a greatly extended scale, arid on all sides 
 preparations are being made to embark upon 
 enterprises of a much larger character than 
 would have been dreamt of a short while 
 ago." 
 
 Well ! in finance as well as in other matters 
 Japan has not stood still. She no longer needs the 
 backing of an obscure attache to enable her to 
 borrow money at twelve per cent. Her financiers 
 
 181
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 rank among the first in the world ; and when Mr. 
 Takahashi appears among us as her Commissioner, 
 he is welcomed as an honoured colleague by the 
 magnates of New Court and Threadneedle Street. 
 
 Having touched thus briefly upon the many 
 material changes which these forty years have 
 witnessed, I must refer to one of which the glaring 
 inconsistency is nothing short of startling. At the 
 moment when Japan, casting to the winds the old 
 musty methods and schooling of China, has been 
 throwing herself heart and soul into the freshness 
 and vigour of the nineteenth century, it is marvel- 
 lous to see that every year she has more and more 
 engrafted into her language the deformity of a 
 mass of bastard Chinese words a Chinese so mis- 
 pronounced according to arbitrary Japanese methods 
 that no scholar that ever took a degree in the 
 Forest of Pencils at Peking would understand one 
 syllable of it. The perversion is analogous to our 
 own barbarous pronunciation of Latin and Greek. 
 When I went back to Japan I was altogether at sea. 
 But I was comforted by our greatest Japanese scholar, 
 who told me that on returning to Japan after a few 
 years' absence he found that he had practically to 
 learn a new language. The old Japanese such as I 
 learnt it was soft and musical, its rhythm was so 
 perfect that it was called the Italian of the East. 
 Among men of letters a few Chinese words were 
 interspersed here and there, but there was a world 
 of difference between that and the croaking staccato 
 jargon which has replaced the old flowing many- 
 syllabled and inflected words which made up the 
 tender melody of a Japanese sentence. What can 
 182
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 be the reason ? Fashion is a wonderful magician ! 
 Constitutional government, parliamentary institu- 
 tions, the thousand and one miracles of the modern 
 world are certainly not of Chinese birth. Let who 
 will explain why the discord of Chinese mono- 
 syllables should be necessary to give expression to 
 them, setting out of tune a language whose beauty 
 was the inheritance of the centuries. 
 
 There is at present an influential society, the 
 Romaji hirome kai,* the object of which is the 
 substitution of the Roman writing for the ideo- 
 graphs of the Chinese. For us Westerns (and I 
 venture to think for Japan herself) the attainment 
 of this end is devoutly to be wished. Men of in- 
 fluence in the world of politics and in the world of 
 letters are working hard to bring it about, and I 
 believe that in time their efforts will be crowned 
 with success. Perhaps the change may bring with 
 it a reaction in favour of the old language, the 
 tones of which were real poetry. It seems so con- 
 trary to the fitness of things that the adoption of 
 the methods, the science, and even the music and 
 costume of the West should go hand in hand with 
 the growing tendency to introduce Chinese modes 
 of expression into the pure well of Japanese 
 undefiled. 
 
 It is perhaps overbold for a foreigner even to give 
 utterance to a pious wish on such a matter, but 
 then the whole subject of this paper is one re- 
 quiring no little audacity. I have endeavoured 
 briefly and no doubt very roughly to sketch some 
 
 * "The Society for the Promotion of the Use of the Roman 
 Character." 
 
 183
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 of the more salient phenomena which struck me 
 during my recent visit to Japan. I found it at my 
 first coming in 1866 in the middle of the thirteenth 
 century. At my third coming it was in the 
 middle of the twenty-first, for there are many 
 phases of material progress in which Japan has 
 outstripped her teachers. 
 
 When I left her in 1870 she was busy working 
 out the problems of her own political salvation. 
 I went back in 1873 she was then learning and 
 toiling, training herself assiduously for the great 
 part she was to play in the world's history. In 
 1906 I found a great and heroic nation emerging 
 from a war in which she had shown not only those 
 great qualities which gave success to her arms, but 
 also the magnanimity and self-restraint in victory 
 which are the greatest triumph of the conqueror. 
 In forty years Japan, from being an unknown 
 country, a negligible quantity in the councils of the 
 nations, has raised herself to the rank of a first-rate 
 Power, and from this time forth it is impossible to 
 conceive any Congress, meeting to settle the affairs 
 of the world, at which she should not be repre- 
 sented, and in which her statesmen should not 
 have a powerful voice. This nation whose subjects 
 might not travel, whose shipwrights might not 
 build a sea-going vessel, has become a great mari- 
 time power with interests in every shore upon 
 which the waves of the sea break. In her arsenals 
 great battleships of 19,000 tons are ringing with 
 the clang of the hammers beating against their 
 iron sides ; at Yokosuka, Sasebo, Kure, myriads of 
 workmen are toiling, moulding, fashioning, turning, 
 184
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 filing, each man filled with the sense of the im- 
 portance of his own task the conviction that to 
 him has been vouchsafed a mighty privilege, the 
 honour-giving duty of contributing his mite to the 
 glory of the Fatherland. Here is indeed a new 
 outlet for the old Yamato Damashi, the Spirit of 
 Old Japan. Success such as has aroused the 
 wonder of mankind has not been followed by that 
 spirit of puffed-up content which allows the sword 
 to rust in the scabbard. Rather has it been a spur 
 to further endeavour. By sea and by land ; in 
 dockyards, in hospitals, in laboratories, in schools 
 and academies, work, strenuous work, work which 
 represents the love of country and the pride ot 
 race, is going on. A restless ambition inspires 
 the New Japan, the same glorious ambition which 
 Hippolochus, the Lycian Prince, enjoined upon 
 his son as his last farewell before the Trojan war, 
 always to be the best and to tower above all others.* 
 The Old Japan is dead, but its soul survives in a 
 spirit of patriotism and chivalry as lofty as any 
 that the world has seen. Daimyos and Kuges 
 have disappeared. The feuds of the clans, the 
 turbulent frettings of the Wave-men, have faded 
 into the past. In the place of these elements of 
 unrest we see the new birth of a noble people 
 bound together by one great and glorious aspira- 
 tion, following the guidance of an auspicious star 
 leading them to heights of which their fathers 
 never dreamt. There is no cement like that of 
 blood split in a common and noble cause. The 
 warriors of Satsuma, Choshiu, and Tosa fighting 
 
 * uitv apioTtvtiv KCU v-nf.ipo'xpv ffj.fjLeva.1 aAXwy. HOMER, " II." 6, 208. 
 
 185
 
 OLD AND NEW JAPAN 
 
 shoulder to shoulder with the men of Aidzu, who 
 held Wakamatsu against the Mikado's troops, have 
 laid for ever the ghosts of past rivalry and hatred. 
 # # # # 
 
 My task is done. I hope that I have shown 
 you that whatever greatness the future may have 
 in reserve for Japan, it is not too much to say that 
 the period Meiji must ever remain the most con- 
 spicuous landmark in her history. Never again 
 can there come a turning-point of such porten- 
 tous consequence. She may have good and noble 
 Sovereigns ; she will have none nobler, none better, 
 than the august ruler who now sits upon the 
 throne, and who for thirty-nine years has devoted 
 his life to the service of the country which he 
 loves so well. He will be remembered, and his 
 name will live not in Japan alone. But nowhere 
 will his memory be held in greater reverence than 
 in the country which he has helped to unite to 
 his own in the happy bonds of an alliance which, 
 making as it does for the peace of the world, we 
 hope may never be dissolved. 
 
 186
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 N
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, BEING 
 A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 JAPAN SOCIETY OF LONDON, NOVEM- 
 BER THE i 3 TH, MDCCCCVII 
 
 1KNO W that I need make no apology for bring- 
 ing before your notice this evening a matter 
 which is of no little concern in our relations 
 with Japan, from the point of view of the past, as 
 well as from that of the present and the future. It is 
 one in which our allies have shown the deepest and 
 most generous interest, although it is certainly also 
 one in which it is far more a duty for us to show zeal 
 than for them. Although it has been my fate for 
 many years to address various audiences on various 
 subjects, never before have I attempted to put my 
 hand in the purses of my hearers : never before 
 have I preached anything resembling a charity 
 sermon. To-night I stand before you a beggar, 
 abashed indeed, though not ashamed ; for the cause 
 which I plead is a good one : I ask you to co- 
 operate with our Japanese friends to perpetuate the 
 memory of Will Adams, the first Englishman who 
 ever set foot in Japan, and who lived and died 
 there in circumstances so bewilderingly romantic 
 that Defoe, had he known of them, might have 
 been inspired to write a second " Robinson Crusoe." 
 There are, it is true, no footprints on the sand ; 
 there is no " Man Friday." It is the simple tale 
 of a sturdy British seaman, who, after going 
 through perils innumerable, landing on a foreign 
 shore, won by his honesty and force of character 
 the respect and affection of those among whom
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 the caprice of Fate had cast his lot, earning from 
 the ruler of the land honours which had never 
 been conferred before upon a Western man, and 
 which no man has ever attained since. For some 
 two centuries and a half Adams' tomb had been 
 forgotten and hidden by an undergrowth of trees 
 and shrubs; it was discovered in 1872 by Mr. 
 Walter, and it is now proposed to maintain it for 
 all time, appointing as its custodian an old sailor 
 or soldier. For this purpose, and for the mainten- 
 ance of the tomb itself, an endowment is necessary. 
 The Japanese have subscribed most liberally, but 
 more money is still wanted. The British Ambas- 
 sador, Sir Claude Macdonald, is exerting himself 
 in the cause, and he has asl ed me to promote its 
 interests on this side. I thought, therefore, that 
 I could not do better than enlist the sympathy of 
 the Japan Society. Will you help ? Will you do 
 what you can to prevent the tomb of the gallant 
 Will Adams from the risk of falling into ruin ? 
 
 Of the giants who made the glory of Queen 
 Elizabeth's reign, none were more conspicuously 
 worthy of admiration than the seadogs who manned 
 her ships and carried her flag in triumph to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. In those days there 
 were no floating palaces, no Lusitanias or Mauretanias 
 in which men may set at naught the wildest ravings 
 of the Atlantic. In mere cockle-shells they faced 
 the rage of wind and wave. In craft of 140 tons, 
 of 70 tons, and in one case even, if my memory 
 serves me right, of 30 tons, trusting in God and in 
 their own stout hearts, they sailed into the un- 
 known space. That the Western land existed, 
 190
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 that indeed they knew ; the problem had been 
 solved a century earlier. But there were no 
 elaborate surveys, no perfect charts pointing out 
 every hidden terror, every rock and shoal and 
 treacherous current in every possible harbour. 
 Only think how the dangers of the crushing 
 icebergs were magnified for those pigmy vessels ! 
 Yet it is only fair to say that the ship measure- 
 ments of those days must have been very different 
 from those of our time. A ship of the size of 
 those of the old manners, measured by our 
 standard, could not have held the number of men 
 that they carried with them, let alone the stores 
 and outfit. We have accurate information as to 
 the proportion of men to tonnage in the five ships 
 which composed the fleet in which Will Adams 
 sailed: the Hope, 250 tons and 130 men; the 
 Faith, 150 tons and 109 men ; the Charity or 
 Liefde, Will Adams' ship, 160 tons and no men ; 
 the Fidelity, 100 tons and 86 men ; the Good News, 
 75 tons and 56 men. This, however, is a matter 
 into which it is no part of my purpose to inquire. 
 It is only interesting in connection with the 
 subject which is before our meeting as being one 
 more proof of the difficulties which our old 
 seamen had to encounter. 
 
 The Raleighs, the Drakes, the Frobishers, the 
 Howards of Effingham, and how many more ! 
 All these were great men who built up the sea- 
 glory of England, and made this little island the 
 mother of vast States. But in spite of all their 
 great and noble achievements, there was not one of 
 them who went through more wondrous changes 
 
 191
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 and chances of fortune than Will Adams, the 
 humble Kentish pilot.* Fortunately there have 
 been preserved some memorials of his life. There 
 are letters of his own, published by the Hakluyt 
 Society, together with a diary of Captain Cocks, 
 " Cape Merchant " (that is to say, chief merchant) 
 in the English factory in Japan, edited by Sir 
 Edward Maunde Thompson in 1883, and there is 
 the account of the voyage of Captain John Saris, 
 who, in 1612, carried letters from King James I. 
 to the Emperor of Japan, with a view to establish- 
 ing trade relations with that country. 
 
 Let the old sailor tell his own story. On Octo- 
 ber 22, 1611, hearing that certain English mer- 
 chants are lying in the Island of Java, he 
 " ymboldens himself," with many apologies for his 
 " stowtnes," to write to them. " My reason that 
 I doe wryte is first as conscience doth binde me 
 with loue to my countrymen and country. Your 
 worships, to whom this present wryting shall come, 
 is to geve you understand that I am a Kentish 
 man, borne in a towne called Gillingam, two 
 English miles from Rochester, one mile from 
 Chattam, where the King's ships doe lye ; and 
 that from the age of twelue years olde, I was 
 brought up in Limehouse neere London, being 
 apprentice twelue yeares to Master Nicholas 
 Diggines ; and myselfe haue serued for Master and 
 Pilott in her Maiestie's ships ; and about eleven or 
 twelue years haue serued the Worshipful Companie 
 of the Barbaric Marchants, untill the Indish traffick 
 from Holland (began), in which Indish trafBck I 
 
 * Pilot here signifies, of course, master mariner. 
 192
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 was desirous to make a littel experience of the 
 small knowledge which God had geven me. So 
 in the yeare of our Lord 1 598 I was hired for 
 Pilot Maior of a fleete of five sayle which was 
 made ready by the Indish Companie : Peeter 
 Vander Hay and Hance Vander Veek. The 
 generall of this fleet was a marchant called laques 
 Maihore, in which ship being Admirall I was 
 Pilott." I suppose that " being Admirall " means 
 that she was the flagship. 
 
 The fleet sailed on June 23 or 24, too late in 
 the year to avoid passing the Line without con- 
 trary winds. By September they had to land 
 some of their many sick men, only to die, on the 
 coast of Guinea. Then they sailed for the coast of 
 Brazil. But they had to meet many misfortunes, 
 and it was not until April 6, 1599, that they 
 reached the Straits of Magellan, " at which time 
 winter came, so that there was much snowe, and 
 with colde on the one side, and hunger on the 
 other, our men grew weake." The southerly 
 winds kept them in the Straits during the winter 
 till September 24. Their stores were pretty well 
 exhausted, and many men died of hunger and cold. 
 At last they passed through the Straits and made 
 for the coast of Peru. Storms and foul weather 
 scattered the fleet, but they had given one another 
 rendezvous at a point in Chili, where the first 
 comers were to wait for thirty days in order to 
 give the others time to join them and so to effect 
 a meeting. After many troubles and disasters in 
 which storms and Spaniards and savages played a 
 part, Adams' ship fell in once more with the 
 
 193
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 Admiral at the Island of Santa Maria : he had 
 arrived there four days before, having lost the 
 general, master, and all his officers, " murthered a 
 lande,* so that all our officers were slaine, the one 
 bemoning the other " : of the five vessels only two 
 remained. 
 
 The two ships set out together for Japan, 
 having heard that there was a good market in that 
 country for woollen cloth, of which they had a 
 large store ; but on February 23 the Laefde, Will 
 Adams' ship, lost her consort in what he describes 
 as the most wondrous storm of wind that ever he 
 was in ; and on April 19 they sighted land, having 
 been four months and twenty-two days on the 
 voyage from the Island of Santa Maria, " at which 
 time," says Adams, " there were no more than 
 sixe besides myselfe that could stand upon his 
 feet." 
 
 In spite of the intrigues of the Jesuits and what 
 he calls " the Portingals," who told the Japanese 
 that he and his men were pirates and no true 
 merchants, they were kindly received by the 
 Daimyo of Bungo, and were allowed to land the 
 Captain and their sick men, for whom a house 
 " and all refreshing that was needfull " were pro- 
 vided. Out of the crew of 110 men, "we had 
 when we came to anker in Bungo, sicke and whole, 
 four and twenty men, of which number the next 
 day three died. The rest for the most part re- 
 covered, saving three, which lay a long time sicke 
 and in the end also died. In the which time of 
 our being here the Emperour " (that is to say, the 
 
 * " A lande " for " on land," as " aboard " for " on board." 
 I 9 4
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 Shogun lyeyasu), " hearing of us, sent presently five 
 gallies or friggates to us, to bring mee to the Court, 
 where his Highnes was, which was distant from 
 Bungo about an eighty English leagues. Soe that as 
 soon as I came before him, he demanded of me of 
 what countrey we were ; so I answered him in all 
 points ; for there was nothing that he demanded 
 not, both conserning warre and peace between 
 countrey and countrey ; so that the particulars 
 here to wryte would be too tedious, and for that 
 time I was commanded to prisson, being well used, 
 with one of our marinery that came with me to 
 serue me." 
 
 It must have been a wonderful interview that 
 between the bluff English sailor and the Oriental 
 potentate, the master of many swords, who had 
 just established his power, and before whom all 
 Japan trembled ; for at that time, although the 
 Mikado, the Son of Heaven, was the Emperor, it 
 was the Shogun that governed in his name. Will 
 Adams, alone, defenceless, and as we know from 
 himself in hourly dread of being " crossed " that is, 
 crucified might well have been forgiven if he had 
 shown some fear. But never for one moment does 
 he appear to have lost his head, and the impression 
 which he made upon the great Shogun must at 
 once have been favourable. Of his second inter- 
 view he gives rather more detail, showing how 
 ready he was in answer. 
 
 " A two dayes after the Emperour called me agein, 
 demaunding the reason of our comming so farre. 
 I answered : we were a people that sought all 
 friendship with all nations, and to haue trade in all 
 
 195
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 countries, bringing such merchandiz as our Country 
 did afford into strange landes in the way of traffick. 
 He demaunded also as consenting the warres 
 between the Spaniard or Portingall and our 
 Countrey, and the reasons, the which I gave him 
 to understand of all things, which he was glad to 
 heare, as it seemed to me." 
 
 In the letter to his wife, of which a fragment is 
 extant, he gives some further particulars as to the 
 questions put by lyeyasu and his answers : 
 " Further he asked me in what I did beleeve ? 
 I said in God that made heaven and earth. He 
 asked me diverse other questions of things of 
 religion and many other things : as what way we 
 came to the Country. Having a chart of the 
 whole world I showed him, through the Straight 
 of Magellan. At which he wondred and thought 
 me to lie. Thus from one thing to another, I 
 abode with him till midnight, and having asked 
 me what marchandize we had in our shippe, I 
 showed him all. In the end, he being ready to 
 depart, I desired that we might have trade of 
 marchandize as the Portingals and Spanyards had. 
 To which he made me an answer ; but what it 
 was, I did not understand. 
 
 " In the end I was commanded to prisson again, 
 but my lodging was bettered in another place." 
 
 For thirty-nine days he remained in this prison, 
 during the whole of which time he was being 
 denounced by the Jesuits and " Portingals," who 
 " gave evidences against me and the rest to the 
 Emperour that we were theeves and robbers oi all 
 nations, and were we suffered to live it should be 
 196
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 ageinst the profit of his Highnes and the land : 
 for no nation should come there without robbing. 
 ... In the end the Emperor gave them aunswer 
 that we as yet had not doen to him nor to none of 
 his lande any harm or dammage : therefore against 
 Reason and Justice to put us to death. If our 
 Countreys had warres the one with the other that 
 was no cause that he should put us to death : with 
 which they were out of hart, that their cruell 
 pretence failed them. For which God be for ever- 
 more praised." 
 
 Meanwhile lyeyasu had ordered the Liefde, 
 Will Adams' ship, to be brought to Osaka, and 
 when at the end of forty-one days the Englishman 
 was brought again out of prison to be questioned 
 by the Shogun the latter finally asked him whether 
 he was desirous to go to the ship to see his 
 countrymen. " I answered very gladly," says 
 Adams, and so he departed and was freed from 
 imprisonment. With a rejoicing heart he took 
 boat and went to the ship, where he found the 
 Captain and the rest recovered from their sickness. 
 " And when I cam aboard with weeping eyes was 
 received : for it was given them to understand 
 that I was executed long since. Thus God be 
 praised, all we that were left alive came together 
 againe." 
 
 One serious disappointment awaited him during 
 his imprisonment the ship had been robbed, so 
 that the clothes in which he stood were all that 
 remained to him ; worst of all, his precious instru- 
 ments and books were all stolen. When lyeyasu 
 heard of this he was indignant, and ordered instant 
 
 197
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 restitution to be made, but this was impossible ; 
 the things were all scattered and could not be got 
 together again, so he ordered compensation in 
 money to be made to the ship. A sum of fifty 
 thousand reals was given, and his compensation 
 led to a mutiny on board. As Adams puts it, the 
 men would abide no longer in the ship, every one 
 would be a commander, and perforce would have 
 every one part of the money that was given by the 
 Shogun. But this seems to have taken place later, 
 after lyeyasu had decided to retain the ship, and 
 not to allow the crew to leave Japan. 
 
 In the meantime the ship was ordered to proceed 
 to Yedo, whither the Shogun was now going. 
 Contrary winds and the fickleness of that ever 
 restless sea delayed the ship and made her voyage 
 a long one, so that she arrived in the Bay of 
 Yedo long after the Shogun, who travelled by 
 land. 
 
 Adams from this time forth remained perma- 
 nently in the neighbourhood of his mighty patron. 
 His influence seems to have increased day by day, 
 and we see the strange picture of the old pilot, 
 " not unknowen," as he puts it himself, " in 
 RatclifFe and Limehouse," no aristocratic quarters 
 even in those days, blossoming out into the con- 
 fidential friend, adviser, and even teacher ot a 
 powerful ruler at the other end of the world. 
 Truly a wonderful story. There seems to have 
 been but one limit to his power. Home he 
 might not go, as we shall presently see, and 
 even as to that there is something to be said. 
 
 Although Adams' letters breathe a spirit of deep 
 198
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 affection for the English wife from whom he was 
 so cruelly separated, and for his daughter Susan, as 
 years went on he took to himself a Japanese wife, 
 by whom he had two children. Of this marriage, 
 so far as I know, there is no record. All that 
 we learn is that the lady existed, and that her 
 monument stands to this day at Hemin by the 
 side of his own. The story of the marriage has 
 been woven by a Japanese playwright into a 
 melodrama, the first performance of which was 
 given at Tokyo last year.* The story of the play 
 is romantic enough : Otsu, the daughter of one 
 Giheigi, is loved by a Ronin named Iwai. The 
 latter, a man of notoriously bad character, is about 
 to carry her off, when Will Adams, in a flaxen 
 wig and Elizabethan costume, comes up and 
 rescues her. He in turn is carried off by Iwai, 
 who comes back with a band of Ronin. The old 
 father appeals to lyeyasu, who sends a party of 
 Samurai to rescue Adams. The Ronin are defeated 
 and Adams brought back. A Dutch vessel had 
 arrived in Japan at this time, and Adams was 
 hoping to go home in her. But lyeyasu confesses 
 that feeling that Adams' presence in Japan was 
 necessary in view of the extension of intercourse 
 with foreign countries, he has sent the Dutch ship 
 away. He says that a woman's hair is pro- 
 verbially strong enough to bind even a big 
 elephant, and that a Japanese girl will soften the 
 pains of exile for the old pilot, and so the marriage 
 takes place, Otsu becoming the bride, and lyeyasu 
 in person presiding over the ceremony. 
 
 * 1906. 
 
 199
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 There is in the play one little touch which is 
 not without its significance. When the marriage 
 has been arranged lyeyasu admits that although 
 he had pretended that he had sent away the Dutch 
 vessel, that was but make-believe. The ship has 
 not left Japan, she is still at Hirado. Does Adams 
 still wish to return by her ? The old father and 
 Otsu await the answer with great anxiety, but 
 Adams declares that he will remain in Japan. I 
 shall have to return to this question as to 
 whether the old pilot's continued exile was alto- 
 gether against his will. The play, which was 
 beautifully mounted, was received with the greatest 
 enthusiasm in honour of Prince Arthur of Con- 
 naught and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. 
 
 Historically the play has an especial interest, 
 and one which is especially significant to us, 
 as showing how, after a lapse of three cen- 
 turies, the Japanese still look upon Will Adams 
 as a man who played a considerable part in the 
 international politics of his day. lyeyasu, as we 
 see, is made to refuse Adams' permission to go 
 back to England on the ground that he could not 
 be spared at a moment when there was likely to 
 be an extension of foreign relations. His utility 
 could not be only that of an interpreter, for there 
 were Dutch and Portuguese linguists, and Adams' 
 own first interviews with lyeyasu were carried on 
 through the medium of Portuguese. As a matter 
 of common knowledge lyeyasu had formed a high 
 estimate of his worth, and was clearly loth to part 
 with so useful and faithful a servant. 
 
 Adams remained at the beck and call of the 
 200
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 Shogun, who seems constantly to have sent for 
 him, and ultimately bade him build a small ship 
 for him. Adams answered that he was no carpenter 
 and had no knowledge thereof. " ' Well, doe your 
 endeavour,' saith he ; * if it be not good it is no 
 matter." So Adams built him a ship of eighty 
 tons or thereabouts, with which the Shogun was 
 highly pleased. Adams was now in high favour 
 and taught lyeyasu geometry and mathematics 
 with other things. " I pleased him so that what 
 I said he would not contrary." His influence was 
 so great that his old enemies the Spaniards and the 
 " Portingals " came asking for his friendship and 
 intercession, and he records with much simplicity 
 how he returned them good for evil. " In the 
 end of five yeeres I made supplication to the King 
 to goe out of this land, desiring to see my poore 
 wife and children, according to conscience and 
 nature, with the which request the Emperour was 
 not well pleased, and would not let me goe any 
 more for my countrey : but to byde in his land. 
 Yet in process of time, being in great favour with 
 the Emperour, I made supplication again." The 
 Dutch Captain was allowed to go, but Adams must 
 remain, and so he goes on : " Therefore I do pray 
 and entreat you in the name of Jesus Christ to doe 
 so much as to make my being here in Japon 
 knowen to my poor wife : in a manner a widdow, 
 and my two children fatherlesse ; which thing 
 only is my greatest griefe or heart and conscience. 
 Therefore may this letter come to any of their 
 hands or the copy : I do know that compassion 
 and mercy is so that my friends and kindred shall 
 
 201
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 haue news, that I do as yet Hue in this vale of my 
 sorrowfull pilgrimage." Adams goes on to tell 
 the Java merchants how in the year 1610 he made 
 another and a larger ship, in which the Governor 
 of Manila, who had been shipwrecked in Japan, 
 was sent home to Acapulca, and then he continues : 
 
 " Now for my service which I haue doen and 
 daily doe, being employed in the Emperour's 
 service, he hath given me a living, like unto a 
 Lordship in England, with eightie or ninetie 
 husbandmen, that be as my slaves or seruents : 
 which, or the like president, was never here before 
 geven to any stranger. Thus God hath prouided 
 for mee after my great miserie ; and to him only 
 be all honour and praise, power and glory, both 
 now and for euer worlde without ende." 
 
 Thus, having first commended himself to lyeyasu 
 by the tact and diplomatic ability of his answers to 
 his questions at Osaka, and having subsequently 
 given proof of his practical value as shipwright 
 and mariner, the apprentice of Limehouse had 
 become a small daimyo in Japan, ruling over his 
 lands at Hemi, and enjoying an amount of favour 
 that must have been envied by the mightiest 
 Princes in the land. The acknowledgment which 
 this feudal Lord paid to the Shogun was the daily 
 gift of a Tai, or Sea-bream ; and for two hundred 
 and fifty years after the old pilot's death, until the 
 Shogunate was abolished in 1869, the daily tribute 
 of fish from Hemi continued to reach the Castle at 
 Yedo. 
 
 And so the years passed on until 1613, when we 
 come to a new episode in the story of our hero. 
 202
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 In the year 161 1, the East India Company being 
 anxious to open up commercial relations with 
 Japan, the Governor, Sir Thomas Smythe, wrote 
 a letter upon the subject to Adams, who was 
 known to be in that country, and who was looked 
 upon as a person who would, from his position at 
 the Shogun's Court, be able to render valuable 
 assistance. Captain John Saris was placed in 
 command of the outfit, which consisted of three 
 ships, the Clove, the Hector, and the Thomas. 
 Saris received orders to place himself in communi- 
 cation with Adams, and " if on his leaving Japan 
 Adams should importune you to transport him to 
 his native country to visit his wife and children, 
 we pray you then to accommodate him with as 
 convenient a cabin as you may, and all other 
 necessaries which your ship may afford him.'* 
 Saris sailed on April 18 and reached Bantam in 
 October 1612. Augustin Spalding was at that 
 time " Cape Merchant," or head of the factory at 
 Bantam. He had written to Adams in regard to 
 the prospects of trade, but Adams did not answer 
 his letter for some months, when the Clove was 
 already on her way to Japan. 
 
 Adams, foreseeing rivalry and jealousies if the 
 English attempted to establish themselves at 
 Hirado, alongside of the Dutch, had been anxious 
 that the British factory should be situated near 
 Yedo. But it was too late. The Clove arrived at 
 Hirado, which had always been regarded as a most 
 excellent base for trading operations with China, 
 which was above all things the most coveted object 
 of the Company. 
 
 o 203
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 When Saris arrived Adams was at Yedo, and he 
 did not reach Hirado until some seven weeks later. 
 It must be confessed that neither in his letter, nor 
 in regard to meeting Saris, did Adams show any 
 great alacrity, nor indeed was his letter to Spalding 
 in any way encouraging. He seemed to wish to 
 throw cold water upon the whole scheme. When 
 at last he did join Captain Saris he was well 
 received, but from the first there seems to have 
 been no love lost between the two men. Adams 
 would not accept Saris' invitation to lodge with 
 him, preferring to remain with his own colours 
 a St. George's cross made of coarse cloth hanging 
 out of the window of a poor house. He would 
 not associate with the merchants or " go alone in 
 company with them in love, but he entreated the 
 contrary, as some were not well pleased, thinking 
 that he thought them not good enough to walk 
 with him." 
 
 In short, not to put too fine a point upon it, 
 according to Captain Saris, Adams gave himself 
 great airs. He, on the other hand, was equally 
 annoyed, considering that he had been treated 
 with scant respect. I think that the accusation of 
 want of patriotism which was brought forward 
 against him cannot be maintained. His whole 
 subsequent conduct, as recorded in the diaries of 
 Captain Cocks, who remained in Japan as head of 
 the factory, gives the lie to that, nor can he be 
 justly charged with having favoured the Dutch, as 
 Saris pretended. He never pushed their interests 
 unless they were identical with those of his own 
 countrymen. That he should have disliked 
 204
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 " walking in love " with the merchants may be 
 explained on other grounds. Adams had by this 
 time been for many years a feudal chief, and in the 
 old feudal times in Japan trade was held to be 
 degrading. The merest peasant who tilled the 
 soil had a higher social consideration than the 
 trader. It is quite possible that Adams may have 
 felt that if he, a territorial noble, were to be seen 
 hob-nobbing on equal terms with the merchants, 
 he would lose his position, not only among his 
 own dependents, but also at the Shogun's Court. 
 To me this seems a far more plausible explanation 
 of his conduct than the charge of treachery to his 
 own countrymen. Nor do I believe that it arose 
 from pique at his advice not being taken in regard 
 to the choice of a factory near Yedo. That Saris 
 had affronted him is certain ; that together with 
 the reason which I have suggested would account 
 for all. 
 
 However this may be, Adams accompanied 
 Captain Saris to Court and obtained for him all 
 the privileges for which he sought. On this 
 occasion lyeyasu, who had now retired from the 
 Shsgunate in favour of his son lyetada, but still 
 continued to exercise the real power, cross- 
 examined Adams pretty closely as to the north- 
 west passage which had been the dream of the 
 old pilot's life. " Now in my simple judgment," 
 he says, " if the north-west passage be ever dis- 
 covered, it will be discovered by this way of 
 Japan." 
 
 Thus by the help of Will Adams the British 
 factory was established at Hirado, We shall see 
 
 205
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 presently that gratitude was not one of Captain 
 Saris' attributes. Indeed, he appeared to be one 
 of those persons who cannot forgive a benefit. 
 Without Adams the mission was bound to be a 
 failure. Adams saved the situation and Saris hated 
 him accordingly. 
 
 And now comes the strangest part, from a 
 psychological point of view, of a story the romance 
 of which has always strongly appealed to me. 
 
 When the general business of the mission had 
 been settled with the Shogun, Adams writes : " I 
 did seek unto the Counsel to speak in my behalf 
 to get leave to go for my country ; but the 
 Secretary with no other would not speak for my 
 liberty to go for my country, knowing that I have 
 divers times made request, and he would not let 
 me go. So I nevertheless made myself somewhat 
 bold. Finding the Emperor in a good mood, I 
 took out of my bosom his broad seal concerning 
 certain lands, and laid it down before him, giving 
 his Majesty most humble thanks for his great 
 favour unto me, desiring leave to go for my 
 Country. At which request he looked earnestly 
 upon me, and asked me if I was desirous to go for 
 my country. I answered most desirous. He 
 answered, if he should detain me he should do 
 me wrong : in so much that in his service I had 
 behaved myself well, with many other words of 
 Commendacions, the which I leave. So I thank 
 God got my liberty out of my long and evil 
 service." 
 
 Adams was now free free as air to go whither 
 he listed. Saris was shortly about to sail and all 
 206
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 was ready for his return to England. What did 
 he do ? He remained in Japan. 
 
 When Captain Saris asked him what his inten- 
 tions were, he replied that he was most anxious to 
 go back to England, but that, being a poor man 
 and having been able to put by no money, he 
 wished to wait another opportunity in order that 
 he might make a purse for himself. Moreover he 
 would not sail with Saris. " The reason I would 
 not go with him was for dyuers injerues doun 
 against me, very strang and unlocked for, which 
 things were wrytt I cease, leuing it to others to 
 make rellacion thereof." Saris then asked whether 
 he were willing to serve the East India Company, 
 and after much haggling, in which Saris kept 
 trying to beat him down, he was engaged at a 
 salary of ^Tioo a year. 
 
 Some doubt has been raised as to whether the 
 old pilot really desired to return to his English 
 home and his English wife. In order to form our 
 opinion we must consider the circumstances. The 
 ill-will which from the very outset of their inter- 
 course had arisen between him and Saris would 
 have made the voyage home one long misery to 
 him. The life which he had led as Lord of 
 Hemin would hardly fit him for submission to any 
 form of petty tyranny, or make him patient of 
 slights. Of his affection for his wife there can be 
 no question. He was separated from her by what 
 he always looked upon as a cruel fate ; but he kept 
 her memory in his heart. Moneys that had been 
 advanced to her by the East India Company he 
 repaid in full, and in his last will and testament, 
 
 207
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 which was for some two centuries preserved by 
 the East India Company, but has now unfortu- 
 nately been lost, he left half his property to her and 
 to his daughter. That he should have wished, 
 after a banishment of so many years, not to return 
 empty-handed seems to me a most natural desire. 
 If ever a man was entitled to some provision for 
 his old age, surely he was. But that Will Adams 
 was anything but a good, true, and loyal English- 
 man I refuse to believe. I rely upon the testimony 
 of Captain Cocks. 
 
 Saris then sailed from Japan alone, but before 
 leaving Hirado he fired a Parthian shot at poor 
 Will Adams. Here is the document called " A 
 Remembrance " which he wrote for the guidance 
 of Captain Cocks, who was left as chief of the 
 factory. " And for Mr. Adams he is only fittinge 
 to be M r< of the junke, and to be used as linguist 
 at Corte, when you have no imployment for hym 
 at sea. It is necessary you stirr him, his condition 
 being well known unto you as to myself, otherwise 
 you shall have littell service of hym, the countrye 
 affording great libertye, wheare unto he is much 
 affected. The forsed agreement I have made with 
 hym as you know could not be eschudd, ye 
 Flemings and Spaniards making false proffers of 
 great intertaynement, and hymselfe more affected 
 to them than his owne natyon, we holye destitute 
 of language." I care not to inflict more of this 
 poisonous document upon you ; it goes even 
 further than what I have quoted, imputing or 
 hinting at dishonesty. The measure of its truth 
 may be arrived at in the words " it is necessary 
 208
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 you stirr him." That was not the experience of 
 lyeyasu, nor was it the experience of Captain 
 Cocks, who, after twelve months, wrote to the 
 Company : " I finde the man very tractable, and 
 willing to do your wourship the best servis he can, 
 and hath taken great paine about repairing our 
 juncke 'The Sea Adventure,' otherwayse she 
 would not have been ready to have made the 
 Syam voyage this yeare." Again, writing to a 
 member of the factory, he says : " I pray you 
 have a due care to give Captain Adams content, 
 which you may easily do if you use him with 
 kind speeches and fall not into terms with him 
 upon any argument. I am persuaded I could live 
 with him seven years before any extraordinay 
 speeches should happen betwixt us." 
 
 Adams remained with the Company for three 
 years, during which he undertook several voyages 
 in the Sea Adventure, notably one to Siam. But 
 the factory was doomed to failure, largely owing to 
 the neglect of Adams' advice as to not settling 
 in immediate proximity and rivalry to the Dutch. 
 After the year 1616 Adams sailed and traded 
 on his own account, but he seems to have 
 continued to help Captain Cocks diplomatically 
 at the Court of the Shogun, and was to have 
 joined the latter at the Court of lyetada, whose 
 father, lyeyasu, was now dead. But the poor 
 old pilot was himself taken ill and died, on 
 May 6, 1620, probably at Hirado, for it was 
 there that the inventory of goods was made a 
 week later. 
 
 With the death of Adams following upon that 
 
 209
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 of his generous patron lyeyasu, the influence or 
 the English waned. The factory at Hirado, which 
 had never greatly flourished, dwindled, the Dutch 
 were masters of the Eastern seas, and the Com- 
 pany retired from what had been from the first 
 a disastrous competition. 
 
 Adams was undoubtedly a great Englishman. 
 He was a man of high courage, determination, and 
 diplomatic ability. Had he not been possessed of 
 conspicuous force of character he could not have 
 attained the influence which he gained over the 
 great Shogun lyeyasu. His memory is yet green 
 in Japan, and in the city of Tokyo, near the 
 famous Nihon-bashi, there is a street named Anjin 
 cho after him, Anjin the Pilot being the name 
 by which he was known all over the country. 
 Let me read you an extract letter from Captain 
 Cocks, chief of the East India Company's factory 
 at Hirado, reporting the death of Will Adams. 
 It is interesting and significant as showing what 
 the brave old sailor's position was. It is pre- 
 served in the Hakluyt Papers, and was reprinted 
 in the Japan Gazette. It is dated December 12, 
 1620 : 
 
 " Our good frend Captain Wm. Addames, whoe 
 was soe long before us in Japon, departed out of 
 this world the vj of May last ; and made Mr. 
 Wm. Eaton and myself his overseers : giving the 
 one halfe of his estate to his wife and childe in 
 England, and the other halfe to a sonne and 
 daughter in Japon. The coppie of his will, with 
 another of his inventory (or account of his estate) 
 I send to his wife and daughter, per Captain 
 210
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 Martin Pring, their good frend, well known to 
 them long tyme past, and I have delivered one 
 hundred pounds starling to diuers of the James 
 Royall Company, entred into the purser's book to 
 pay two for one in England, is two hundred 
 pounds starling to Mrs. Addames and her daughter, 
 for it was not his mind that his wife should have 
 all, in regard she might marry an other husband, 
 and carry all from his childe ; but that rather it 
 should be equally parted between them : of which 
 I thought good to advize your wourship. And 
 the rest of his debts and estates being gotten in, 
 I will either bring, or send it per first occasion 
 offred and that may be most for their profitt : 
 according as the deceased put his trust in me and 
 his other frend Mr. Eaton." 
 
 Again : " I cannot but be sorrowful for the loss 
 of such a man as Captain Will Adams was, he 
 having been in such favour with two Emperors of 
 Japan as never was any Christian in these parts of 
 the world, and might freely have entered and had 
 speech of the Emperors when many Japon kings 
 stood without and could not be permitted." 
 Captain Cocks' " two Emperors " were, of course, 
 lyeyasu and his son, the two first Shoguns of the 
 Tokugawa family, and the " kings " were the great 
 Daimyos, or feudal chiefs. 
 
 It is interesting to note the account given of the 
 Japanese by an Englishman of three hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 Adams wrote : " This Island of Japon is a great 
 land, and lyeth to the Northwards, in the lattetude 
 of eight and fortie degrees, and it lyeth east by 
 
 211
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 north, and west by south or west south west, two 
 hundred and twentie English leagues. The people 
 of this Island of Japon are good of nature, curteous 
 above measure and valiant in warre : their justice 
 is seuerely executed without any partialitie upon 
 transgressors of the law. They are governed in 
 great civilitie. I meane, not a land better governed 
 in the world by civill policie." 
 
 Again, writing to Spalding, the Cape Master in 
 Bantam : " In this land is no strange newes to 
 sertify you of: the whool being in peace : the 
 peopell veri subject to thear gouvernours and 
 superiores : also in thear relligion veri zellous. 
 In justis very seuer, having no respect of persons. 
 Ther cittis gouverned with greatt civility and 
 love ; for ye most part nonn going to lawe on 
 with another ; but yf questiones be between 
 naybour and naybour, it is by justiss commanded 
 to be pressently taken up, and frindship to be mad 
 with out dellay. No theef for ye most part put 
 in prisson, but pressently executed. No murther 
 for ye most part can escap : for yf so bee y l 
 ye murtherer cannot be found, ye Emperour 
 commands a proclimation with a wryting, and be 
 ye writting so much gold as is of vallew 300 
 starlinge ; and yf anny do know whear ye murtherer 
 is, he cooms and receueth the gold, and goeth his 
 way with out anny further troubell. Thus for the 
 lukar of so much money it coumes to light, and 
 their citties you may go all over in ye night with 
 out any troubell or peril, being a peepell * * 
 to strangers. Ye lawe much lyk the Ind 
 truth. Thus by the way in hast I have imboldened 
 212
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 myself to writ somewhat of ye coustome and 
 manners, &c." 
 
 Truly a striking picture of Japan in the early 
 days of the seventeenth century. 
 
 In the lovely woods which crown the hills by 
 which the harbour of Yokosuka is hemmed in 
 stand the two monuments for which I am plead- 
 ing. It is a romantic spot, rich in all the beauty 
 for which the fairyland of Japan is famous, and it 
 is singularly appropriate as the last resting-place of 
 the man who first built a ship on foreign lines in 
 that country. For from the fief in which Will 
 Adams was chief you may look upon the great 
 arsenal in which last year * I saw the building of 
 the mighty Satsuma, a great ironclad of between 
 nineteen and twenty thousand tons. I could not 
 help thinking of the spirit of the old pilot watch- 
 ing over the place ; the throbbing of machinery, the 
 hissing of steam, the clank of iron beating upon 
 iron, the thousands of workmen swarming over 
 the hulls of the great ships is there not some 
 fitness in these surroundings ? Adams sleeps ; 
 but the spirit of stress and strain in which he 
 gave the lead is awake, and the grand old seaman, 
 if he can look down and see all these wonders, 
 may well view with pride the great work-place 
 which has grown out of his humble shipyard. 
 And we, the Englishmen of to-day, we, too, 
 may be proud, when we see how, after three 
 centuries, the great chiefs and leaders of thought 
 in Japan are uniting to do honour to our country- 
 man, the first who set foot on their shore, and 
 
 * 1906 
 
 213
 
 THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 left behind him so fair a fame, so undying a 
 memory. 
 
 Before sitting down, let me express my thanks 
 to Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, who has lent 
 me books and most valuable notes ; to Mr. John 
 Sparkes, who has also lent me a book which was 
 new to me ; and last, not least, to you, ladies and 
 gentlemen, for so kindly giving me your attention 
 to-night. 
 
 214
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN, BEING A PAPER 
 READ BEFORE THE AUTHORS' CLUB, 
 NOVEMBER THE 6TH, MDCCCCXI : MR. 
 LUCIEN WOLF IN THE CHAIR 
 
 I HOPE that it is hardly necessary for me to 
 say how deeply sensible I am of the honour 
 which you have conferred upon me by in- 
 viting me to be your guest this evening. The 
 compliment is enhanced by the very gracious way 
 in which you have received the flattering remarks 
 of my kind friend, Mr. Lucien Wolf. Laudari a 
 laudato is the highest form which praise can take. I 
 would that it were better deserved. But, gentlemen, 
 your generosity places me in a difficult position. 
 How can I hope to serve up for your banquet a 
 literary dish worthy of the occasion and of the com- 
 pany ? I feel somewhat as a commonplace Athenian 
 gentleman might have felt if on being invited to a 
 symposium in the learned groves of the Academia 
 he found himself forced to harangue the assembled 
 sages and philosophers to whom he would have 
 felt it an honour to listen himself silent. You, 
 gentlemen, are the keepers of the sacred fire which 
 burns upon the altar of the Goddess of Letters. 
 How can you, even for one evening, be patient 
 with the dull glimmer of an old-fashioned rush- 
 light ? It is your privilege to instruct, and, while 
 instructing, to charm the world. It is ours to 
 gather up your words, carrying home with us, as 
 your precious gift, new ideas and new illuminants. 
 From me I am afraid you will glean but little. It 
 is true, as your chairman has told you, that I have 
 
 217
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 witnessed certain curious episodes in the world's 
 history, and had I the skill which some of you 
 possess I might hope to enchain your attention. 
 However, you, being strong, will I know be in- 
 dulgent. At any rate you will be as kindly as the 
 violoncellist whom Mrs. Sartoris (Adelaide Kemble) 
 in one of her wittiest essays described as " bearing 
 his cross meekly in a world over- peopled with 
 Amateurs." Your secretary has kindly left me the 
 choice of a subject on which to address you. I 
 have chosen Feudalism in Japan. 
 
 Besides myself and the Wandering Jew, there are 
 not many people still remaining who can boast of 
 having lived in the thirteenth century. As the 
 years roll on fewer and fewer continue to " make 
 their number." Soon that weary and footsore man 
 will be left as the sole representative of the rapidly 
 dwindling band. 
 
 Just forty-five years have elapsed since, after a 
 furious voyage from Shanghai, in the tail of a 
 typhoon, I stepped ashore on to the loveliest and 
 most fascinating island in the universe, and, rubbing 
 my eyes in amazement, saw myself in a world 
 younger by six centuries than that which I had 
 left behind me. In a country which since the year 
 1636 had cut itself aloof from all intercourse with 
 other nations, not only excluding the undesirable 
 alien, but making it a crime punishable with death 
 for any Japanese to leave the fatherland, the clock 
 had stood still. Even before the famous law of 
 lyemitsu the Japanese had only had experience of a 
 few missionaries and traders. The Japan that I first 
 knew differed in no respect from the Japan of Will
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 Adams, the master-mariner of Queen Elizabeth's 
 time who became the trusted friend and adviser of 
 the great Shogun lyeyasu, the grandfather of 
 lyemitsu. The mere handful of Dutch merchants, 
 cooped up in their very profitable prison in 
 Deshima where, not to speak of other sources of 
 gain, they bought gold for four times its weight 
 in silver were a negligible quantity so far as 
 exercising any influence was concerned ; indeed, 
 had they been possessed of any such power they 
 would hardly have used it. Their advantage 
 certainly did not lie in the direction of opening the 
 eyes of the then simple folk with whom they were 
 dealing. All those who visited the Anglo-Japanese 
 Exhibition last year must have seen the very clever 
 historical groups illustrating the dresses, manners 
 and customs of Japan in different centuries, and 
 they can hardly fail to have been struck by the very 
 slight changes which the years had brought about. 
 If the Japan which I found showed but insignifi- 
 cant alteration from the Japan of the seventeenth 
 century, equally it may be said that Japan under 
 lyeyasu was much the same as it was when in the 
 last days of the twelfth century the death of 
 Yoritomo ended the cruel wars of Gen and Hei. 
 Those were the wars which enriched the legendary 
 history of the country with so many tales of derring 
 do, of chivalry, and of devotion, of heavenly beings 
 siding with this or that party as in the Homeric 
 poems, tales the glamour of which has borne rich 
 fruit in our days at Port Arthur and in the storm- 
 vexed sea of Japan. Yes, gentlemen, the clock 
 had stood still. It had stood still for many 
 
 P 219
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 centuries, and I, during the first eighteen months 
 of my sojourn in the land of Sunrise, felt as if I 
 had been put in possession of that magical flying 
 machine, the invention of a distinguished and 
 brilliant member of your fraternity, by means of 
 which a man might fly backwards or forwards in 
 time or in space at his pleasure, and I had touched 
 the backward button, in obedience to which my 
 fairy aeroplane wafted me away into the days of the 
 feudal system. It was a singular and wonderful 
 experience, which never can be repeated, for of 
 feudalism Japan was the last stronghold. Feudalism 
 is dead, but its ghost haunts me still. I shut 
 my eyes and see picturesque visions of warriors in 
 armour with crested helms and fiercely moustachioed 
 visors processions of powerful nobles with their 
 retinues marching along the cryptomeria avenues 
 of the Tokaido, the road by the Eastern Sea 
 and I hear the cry of " Shita ni iro, Shita ni iro " 
 (Be down, be down), at which all men of low 
 degree go down upon their knees and bow their 
 heads in the dust while the great man passes, silent 
 and gloomy in the loneliness of the norimono.* 
 
 There was practically little difference between 
 the feudalism of Yamato -f- and that of Europe ; of 
 course " East is East and West is West," and all 
 institutions must be in harmony with the civilisation 
 of the country in which they exist. The highly com- 
 plex civilisation of the Old Japan rested on widely 
 different foundations from those upon which the 
 
 * A sort of palanquin borne by men. 
 
 t The old name of Japan taken from the Province of that name 
 " Pars pro toto." 
 
 220
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 European system is based. Yet they had much in 
 common. Rather perhaps I should say that there 
 was a certain mysterious atmosphere, which must 
 be felt but could hardly be described, something as 
 evanescent and at the same time as memory- 
 awakening as the breath of a perfume something 
 which made one feel as if a Saint Louis would not 
 be quite out of place in the white simplicity of the 
 monastic Court of Kyoto, while one of the old 
 Mikados, surrounded by his attendant Kuge,* 
 might with stately dignity have assumed the purple 
 of a European monarch. The divinity that doth 
 hedge a king was nowhere more recognised than in 
 Japan. The Emperor was more than Royal, he 
 was Divine. For twelve hundred years, from the 
 time when the Fujiwara family ruled Japan 
 always, be it noted, in the name of the Tenshi-f' 
 the Mikado had remained behind the curtain. 
 Men knew that an august Being, a phantom served 
 by a court of other phantoms hardly less mysterious 
 than himself, cloistered in the sacred seclusion of 
 Nara, Kyoto, or whatever other city might be his 
 capital at the time, was engaged in the performance of 
 rites and ceremonies with which the whole welfare of 
 Japan was bound up. Following the traditional ex- 
 ample of Jimmu Tenno, the founder of the dynasty, 
 he was himself the High Priest of Shinto,J and 
 Mr. Aston, in his masterly book upon that obscure 
 religion, gives a picturesque account of one of the 
 liturgies in which he was wont to take part. 
 
 * Nobles of the Court. t The Son of Heaven. 
 
 J The indigenous religion "The Way of the Gods." 
 A Japanese writer thus describes the modern form of this ceremony 
 (Nai-shi-dokoro, the place where the sacred jewels or regalia are kept) : 
 
 221
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 Like the Sun in his Heaven, he might be hidden 
 from sight by the clouds of dim and misty cen- 
 turies, but he remained a Power, a name to conjure 
 with as the events of 1867-8 proved. The civil 
 wars which raged during the Middle Ages, and only 
 came to an end when lyeyasu established the 
 Tokugawa dynasty of Shoguns at the beginning or 
 the seventeenth century, giving Japan a peace which 
 lasted for 2t;o years, were not attempts upon the 
 sacred rights of the Emperor ; they were the 
 struggles between the chiefs of clans grasping at 
 the executive power. For instance, the wars of 
 Gen and Hei have been compared to our wars of 
 
 "Within the palace there is a large hall, the Kashiko-dokoro, or place of 
 reverence, constructed of milk-white, knotless timbers, exquisitely joined 
 and smooth as mirrors, but absolutely devoid of decoration. At one 
 end stands a large shrine, also of snow-pure wood, with delicately chased 
 mountings of silver gilt. It encloses models of the divine insignia, and a 
 number of long, narrow tablets of pine, on which were inscribed the 
 posthumous titles of all the emperors since the days of Jimmu. Within 
 the folding doors of the shrine hangs a curtain woven of bamboo threads. 
 At the appointed hour, generally the grey of morning, sakaki boughs 
 are laid beside the shrine, and provision of incense is made ; after which 
 the officials of the Bureau of Rites and those of the Imperial Household 
 file in and seat themselves on either side of the hall. The doors of the 
 shrine are then opened, and offerings of various kinds vegetables, fish, 
 cloth, and so forth are carried in and ranged before it, solemn music in 
 Japanese style being performed the while. Thereafter the princes of the 
 blood and all officials of the two highest ranks, as well as the peers of 
 the ' musk-chamber ' and the * golden-pheasant-chamber,' enter, and 
 when they are seated the Emperor himself appears, and proceeding 
 slowly to the shrine bows his head, takes a branch of Saka-ki (a certain 
 tree) with pendent Gohei (paper tassels), and having waved it in token 
 of the purification of sins, ignites a stick of incense and places it upright 
 in the censer, thereafter repeating a ritual (ttorito). So long as his 
 Majesty is present in the hall all the officials remain standing. His 
 Majesty then retires, and on his departure worship of the same kind, but 
 without any prayer, is performed by a representative of the Prince 
 Imperial, and subsequently by the other members of the Court." 
 " Shinto, The Way of the Gods," by W. G. Aston, C.M.G., pp. 291-2. 
 
 222
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 the Roses : both were fierce and bloody civil wars; 
 but while the latter were a fight for the Crown 
 itself, the former were wars of ambition between 
 families of Minamoto and Taira, each seeking to 
 establish its chief as the Vicar of the Emperor, but 
 neither daring to strive for the divine inheritance 
 of the Throne. That was an impossibility. Secure 
 in his mysterious and heavenly origin, the lineal 
 descendant of the Gods who were the first rulers of 
 the world which they had themselves created, the 
 Mikado's kingship was above all intrigue beyond 
 all rivalry. It was the possession of his sacred 
 person which alone conferred power. Whoever 
 held that in pledge was the actual ruler of Japan, 
 the head of the feudal system. 
 
 Here perhaps it may be interesting to point out 
 how the development of the kingly power took in 
 Japan a diametrically opposite direction to that 
 which it followed in ancient India. There is 
 evidence in the oldest hymns of the Rig Veda 
 which tends to show that the Aryan Kings were in 
 the habit of themselves conducting religious 
 ceremonies and offering sacrifice in fact, that the 
 duties of the priesthood formed part of the kingly 
 office. But by degrees the kings, wearying of 
 formulas and ritual, employed the Brahmans to act 
 as their deputies. Little by little the priestly 
 caste, thus encouraged, grew to be masters, and 
 although, as Max Miiller says, " they left the 
 insignia of Royalty to the military caste (the 
 Kshatriya), woe to the warrior who would not 
 submit to their spiritual guidance, or who would 
 dare to perform his sacrifice without waiting for 
 
 223
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 his Samuel. There were fierce and sanguinary 
 struggles before the king consented to bow before 
 the Brahman " (" Chips," vol. ii. p. 334). In Japan 
 the reverse took place : the King became Priest, 
 and the sword governed the Robe. The revolution 
 of Buddha-Shakya-Muni, himself a royal Kshatriya, 
 was mainly directed against the priestly hierarchy 
 and encroachments of the Brahmans. 
 
 Again, let us compare feudalism in Europe. Ii 
 a people in Europe wished to do away with 
 feudalism they must first rid themselves of its 
 visible head, the king, or, at any rate, under some 
 form of constitution strip him of his omnipotence. 
 In Japan, on the contrary, the people had but to 
 restore the supreme power of the Emperor for the 
 feudal system to tumble to pieces like a house of 
 cards. 
 
 During the last few years of the rule of the 
 Tokugawa Shoguns there were manifest signs of 
 discontent and unrest. At the head of the Nobles 
 were eighteen Kokushu Daimyos,* autocrats or 
 nearly so, with power of life and death in their 
 own provinces, possessed of great wealth, each with 
 a government and small army of his own. Their 
 wealth was calculated in kokus of rice, varying 
 therefore in accordance with the current price of 
 the article. The Prince of Kaga was reputed to 
 be the richest, having a revenue of over a million 
 kokus. The Prince of Satsuma, if I remember 
 right, had something like 800,000 kokus the 
 average value of a koku being probably about i 
 sterling. Those eighteen powerful Princes, and a 
 
 * Kokushu = Land Ruler ; Daimyo = Great Name. 
 224
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 host of other lesser men, were fretting and chafing 
 under restrictions and obligations which must have 
 been galling indeed to such proud nobles as 
 Shimadzu Saburo, the Chieftain of Satsuma, Mori, 
 Prince of Choshiu, Yodo of Tosa, and other 
 grandees. Part of every year they must spend in 
 the Shogun's capital, and if they went home they 
 must leave their nearest and dearest behind them 
 as hostages. Imagine what those travellings back- 
 wards and forwards, some of them extending to 
 many hundred miles, must have meant ! There 
 were no railways no carriages. The long weary 
 journey had to be accomplished at a foot's pace 
 in a litter borne by coolies, guarded in the case of 
 some of the greatest men by an escort of several 
 hundred retainers. And the expense of it ! The 
 system of spies, too, with which the Shogun's 
 Government fenced itself must have been in- 
 tolerable. 
 
 What a city was Yedo, which is now called 
 Tokyo, in the days of the Shogun ! Every Daimyo 
 had his palace or palaces not only the eighteen 
 great magnificoes, but others of lower rank, some 
 two hundred and seventy in all. The great 
 straggling city swarmed with men-at-arms, some 
 of them retainers of the different nobles, others 
 Ronin,* desperadoes who had cast off their clanship 
 and ruffled it on their own account, ready to draw 
 on any or no provocation. Clan feuds, broils in 
 which much blood was shed, were of common 
 
 * Ronin = wave-man, a man who had thrown oft his allegiance to 
 his prince and clan, wandering hither and thither as wild and as 
 irresponsible as a wave of the sea. 
 
 225
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 occurrence in that City of the Sword. Kataki- 
 Uchi,* a Japanese version of the Corsican Vendetta, 
 was one of the sacred duties of the Samurai. " You 
 killed my brother I must kill you ; and, cutting 
 off your head, I must lay it upon my brother's 
 grave, leaving the small knife of my dirk in your ear, 
 as a gallant gentleman should, in order that your 
 brother may recognise the murderer and come and 
 kill me if he can." The tea-houses of Shinagawa, 
 the suburb of Yedo nearest to Yokohama, could tell 
 many a story of deadly encounters. More than 
 once, riding through that sinister and ill-famed 
 quarter at early dawn, we would come upon bloody 
 traces of the night's debauch. Under the heady 
 fumes of the hot sake men's blood would boil to 
 fever-point. They were all armed with one of the 
 deadliest of weapons, a heavy sword with an edge 
 that would cut a piece of tissue paper : an angry 
 word, a fierce dispute, a cry of hatred, a flash of 
 cold steel and a headless body would be spouting 
 blood upon the mats. Hard by at the roadside 
 was the execution ground, a place of gruesome 
 sights. I remember once passing by there when 
 a crucifixion had taken place. The manner of 
 the execution was peculiar. The body of the 
 criminal was tied to a double cross and the execu- 
 tioners, Etas or Pariahs, drove spears through it till 
 he died. In this case there was no suffering. The 
 vengeance of the law was wreaked upon a corpse, 
 for the man, who had murdered his master, died 
 in prison of gaol fever ; so the remains were packed 
 into a huge earthenware jar, like those of the 
 
 * Kataki-Uchi = literally, enemy-slaying. 
 226
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 Forty Thieves, andcovered with salt topreserve them 
 until the day fixed for the execution should come 
 round. Then the jar was carried to Shinagawa, 
 where it had to be broken in order to release the 
 stiffened body ; the limbs were cut through so that 
 it might be stretched upon the cross, and the spears 
 were driven in as they would have been into the 
 living man. As I went by, the Etas, resting from 
 their hideous toil, were smoking their pipes peace- 
 fully, watching by what looked like a shrivelled 
 brown doll. Enough of these horrors ! mercifully 
 they are a thing of the past. No part of the town 
 has changed more than Shinagawa. It is now a 
 quiet, respectable neighbourhood with shops and 
 factories and even fashionable residences. Not long 
 ago I asked a great Japanese lady where she lived 
 " Oh ! " she said, " in Shinagawa," giving a 
 number. I should hardly have been more surprised 
 had I heard the Duchess of Flamborough say that 
 she lived at No. 1129 RatclifFe Highway ! Yedo 
 was like the Edinburgh of the olden days with the 
 cries of the clans and the clash of arms ringing in its 
 wynds and alleys, and a Walter Scott is needed to tell 
 the tale. Those were rough days, wild days, but after 
 all, the feudal system, such as I saw it, bore some good 
 fruit. Death rather than dishonour was no barren 
 phrase. The Samurai did not talk, he acted ; and it 
 is the sons of those men, or perhaps their grandsons, 
 brought up in the traditions of a heroic age, who 
 cheerfully laid down their lives for their country in 
 its death struggle. "My life for my Lord " was 
 the old cry. " My life for the Son of Heaven " is 
 the new. The Yamato Damashi, the spirit of Old 
 
 227
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 Japan, is not dead. It lives in very deed. It lives 
 as, I hope and believe, the spirit of Crecy and 
 Agincourt lives with us. 
 
 It was the nineteenth century which furnished 
 the magician's wand which, with one touch, dis- 
 pelled the clouds of twelve hundred years, of which 
 I spoke just now, and enabled the sun of the 
 Empire to shine once more. The advent of 
 foreigners rang the knell of the Shogun's power 
 and of the feudal system. It was said, and prob- 
 ably with truth, that the murders of foreigners, 
 and the attacks upon the Legations, which caused 
 so much trouble in the early days of our intercourse, 
 were to be ascribed to political intrigues aimed at 
 involving the Shogun in hostilities with Western 
 nations. However that may be, it would not be 
 difficult to show how large a part foreign inter- 
 course played in the crisis. But I must not allow 
 myself to be led astray from my subject. 
 
 The Shogun, a military chieftain (the very title 
 Sei-i-tai-Shogun means " Barbarian-expelling com- 
 mander-in-chief "), was the head of the feudal 
 system. Ruling by the sword, he represented the 
 Government and exercised sovereign powers as 
 Regent for the Emperor. The great Kokushu 
 Daimyos were not unlike the Dukes of Brittany, 
 Burgundy, and the other turbulent nobles of 
 the Middle Ages ever a danger, ever a difficulty. 
 But here again there was a difference ; whereas the 
 European Dukes and Princes were practically inde- 
 pendent, the Japanese Daimyos, even the greatest 
 of them, as I have already shown you, had to obey 
 the behests of the Shogun. In the government of 
 228
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 their provinces, where they were petty sovereigns, 
 they were assisted by their Karo, literally " elders of 
 the House," who, being the heads of the chief 
 families and often kinsmen of their chief, were 
 hereditary councillors ; but although these Karo 
 were persons of great consideration, the real work 
 of the administration was performed by Yonin,* 
 men selected for their talent. It is noteworthy 
 that the men who came to the front in the revolu- 
 tion nearly all came from this class, while the Karo 
 disappeared with the feudal system. Prince Ito 
 was a Yonin of Choshiu ; so was Kido, the ablest 
 of a brilliant brotherhood, a charming personality 
 and a great friend of mine. He, alas ! died young, 
 but his name lives. Terashima occupied the same 
 position in Satsuma, Goto in Tosa ; they were, as 
 Mr. Longford has said, the " brains of the clan." 
 These men, with the Karo, corresponded exactly to 
 what the Romans called the comitatus of the chief- 
 tain. It was only natural that when the days of 
 storm and stress came, they should make felt a 
 power which up to then had been working in 
 silence and unseen. 
 
 No notice of the feudalism of Japan, not even 
 one so compressed as this necessarily must be, would 
 be complete without an allusion to the Inkiyo, who 
 played so great a part in the politla of their 
 country. It was a common custom for the great 
 chieftains, when they grew weary of the ceremonial 
 and restraint of their position, to become Inkiyo 
 that is, to abdicate their position in favour of their 
 sons or heirs. But though they freed themselves 
 
 * Yonin, literally, use men men of business. 
 
 229
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 in this way from irksome obligations, they retained 
 
 their power and influence : whenever a crisis 
 
 occurred or some big question had to be decided, 
 
 the Inkiyo was pretty sure to make his influence 
 
 felt he threw away the shadow, he kept the 
 
 substance. Yodo, the Inkiyo of Tosa, was one of 
 
 the chief movers in the restoration of the Mikado's 
 
 power ; Date, Inkiyo of Uwajima, also played a 
 
 leading part and was at one time Minister of 
 
 Foreign Affairs ; Shimadzu Saburo was no longer 
 
 nominally the head of the Satsuma clan when in 
 
 the early sixties he made such a name for himself 
 
 a name almost of terror. An Inkiyo was a force 
 
 with which men had to reckon. 
 
 It must be something more than a coincidence 
 that under a feudal system, wherever it occurred, 
 literature and art should have flourished as they 
 did. Froude, in one of his delightful lectures 
 defending that most adorable of all professional 
 begging-letter writers, Erasmus, alludes to this. 
 " Allowance must be made for the times," he says ; 
 " a rich patron was then the natural support of 
 a struggling author, and perhaps better books were 
 produced under that system than the public are 
 likely to get under free trade and in an open 
 market. We shall not see another ' Hamlet ' just 
 now, or another ' Don Quixote.' ' Literature, it 
 must be confessed, has not been among the greatest 
 achievements of the Japanese. Mr. Aston's book 
 on the literature of Japan, which appeared in 1899, 
 and is the authority upon the subject, is written, as 
 the reviewer in the Times put it, " in a sober but 
 not unsympathetic spirit " Mr. Aston sums up its 
 230
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 characteristics in a few very justly conceived lines : 
 " It is the literature of a brave, courteous, light- 
 hearted, pleasure-loving people, sentimental rather 
 than passionate, witty and humorous, of nimble 
 apprehension, but not profound ; ingenious and 
 inventive, but hardly capable of high intellectual 
 achievements, with a turn for neatness and elegance 
 of expression, but seldom or never rising to sub- 
 limity." Japan has never produced a Shakespeare, 
 a Milton, a Dante, a Cervantes, a Goethe. It has 
 produced some charming novels and not a few 
 exquisitely fanciful poems. In history, the drama, 
 essays, sermons, and a vast miscellaneous output 
 it has been prolific. Such as it was, the feudal 
 times did much to foster it, and as Mr. Aston has 
 himself said, Yedo as lyeyasu established it " was 
 to Japan for literature what London is to the 
 United Kingdom or Paris to France." 
 
 It is difficult to say enough about the art of the 
 feudal times without saying too much. We all 
 know what art owed to its great patrons in old 
 Italy. We know how it was fostered by men like 
 Lorenzo dei Medici, Lodovico Sforza, Leo X. 
 Under such bountiful patrons the artist's life was 
 secure, he had not to think for the morrow. 
 There was no torturing fear for the necessaries of 
 existence, no struggle, and therefore no hurry. In 
 France it was the same ; the great Leonardo da 
 Vinci ended his glorious life, as the king's loved 
 and honoured guest, at the Chateau de Cloux near 
 Amboise. Clouet, sometimes called Janet, was 
 " Valet de chambre et peintre du Roi " under 
 Francis I. and Henri II. In Spain Velasquez was 
 
 231
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 the cherished companion of Philip IV. In England 
 Holbein, arriving with a letter of introduction from 
 Erasmus, is lodged and maintained by Sir Thomas 
 More, and when he had finished painting his 
 patron and all his family, Anne Roper, Pattenson 
 the jester, and the little lapdog, Sir Thomas More's 
 frugal mind thinks it time to curtail the expense, so 
 he gives a great garden party in honour of the king. 
 Henry VIII. comes up the river in state to Chelsea, 
 his barge gay with banners and musical with 
 trumpeters. Sir Thomas More receives him with 
 all dignity, and shows the king over his house and 
 grounds. There were pictures on every wall, and 
 Henry, who was no mean judge of art, amazed at 
 Holbein's masterpieces, exclaimed, " Is such a 
 painter yet alive, and to be had for money ? " and 
 Holbein was produced out of a closet and trans- 
 ferred to the king's patronage. One of his com- 
 mands, by the by, put him in dread of his head, for 
 Henry sent him abroad to paint a portrait of Anne 
 of Cleves. It was a ticklish duty. If he produced 
 a beautiful woman, woe betide him when the 
 king should see her in the flesh ! If he made her 
 ugly, was she not the king's intended bride ? Was 
 ever poor painter in such a dilemna ? The minia- 
 ture is in the Salting Collection at South Kensington. 
 Truly the lady was no beauty, yet far from deserving 
 Henry's cruel description when he called her " a 
 great Flanders mare." 
 
 Whether art was so actively favoured by the 
 grandees of Japan I am unable to say. There is 
 certainly much reason to suppose that it was. The 
 great works of the famous painters, artists in 
 232
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 lacquer, and sculptors are hardly to be found 
 outside the palaces of the chief nobles or the 
 ancient temples. The Princes and Abbots of the 
 olden time were great aesthetes, and they loved to 
 surround their lives with all that was dainty, re- 
 fined, and beautiful. We may smile at some of 
 their ceremonials, such as the cha no yu, the solemn 
 tea-drinking, or the still more fanciful KG Kiku, 
 " listening to incense," as far-fetched and extrava- 
 gant conceits, but they went hand in hand with 
 the encouragement of art, and when they were 
 driven out by the grey commonplace of the nine- 
 teenth century, it seemed almost as if the knell of 
 the beautiful art of Old Japan had been rung. The 
 life seemed to be strangled out of it by unhappy 
 imitations of base European imports, the dreariest 
 cheap productions of Paris, London, and Berlin. 
 And so it is that I for one still dwell with no little 
 love upon the picture of some old noble of the 
 Middle Ages, like Yoshimasa in the Silver Pavilion 
 at Kyoto, with his familiar cronies in attendance, 
 a dilettante in every form of culture, but ready at a 
 moment's notice to leave his frivolities and rush to 
 the helm when the ship of State might be in 
 danger. The partnership of feudalism and art, 
 whether in Europe or in far-off Japan, was some- 
 thing that it is good to look back upon with no 
 little gratitude and admiration. 
 
 This would be but a dull and a sorry world 
 without the glorious inheritance of the Middle 
 Ages. In the East as in the West they have be- 
 queathed to us all that is most picturesque in life, 
 all its romance. To them we owe most of what 
 
 2 33
 
 FEUDALISM IN JAPAN 
 
 is precious in architecture, painting, sculpture, in 
 poetry, and in the wide realm of letters. Even 
 their follies and their crimes have borne fruit for 
 us. In the alembics and crucibles of the alchemist, 
 crazy seekers for the philosopher's stone and the 
 elixir of life perhaps even in such devil's brew- 
 ages as the Aqua Tofana, the elixir of death 
 lay the beginnings of modern chemistry and 
 science ; a Nostradamus in his lonely tower read- 
 ing the fates of his royal dupes in the courses of 
 the planets through the twelve houses of heaven, 
 a Lilly casting nativities and selling " the sage 
 opinions of the moon," played their part in the 
 development of astronomy. If these gifts were not 
 all good, they at any rate led to results which 
 were ; but the greatest of all the legacies of the 
 Middle Ages comes to us from Feudalism. It was 
 Feudalism that gave birth to the spirit of Chivalry, 
 a spirit that still breathes in that loyal and self- 
 denying patriotism which was the religion of the 
 Samurai, the religion of the Christian knight. 
 Some sixty years ago, in his speech of admission to 
 the French Academy, the Due de Broglie said : 
 " Le respect du passe est la piete filiale des peuples " 
 golden words, worthy to be graven in our hearts ! 
 We may well cherish the lessons which they teach, 
 nor deny to a noble Past the respect of a grateful 
 Present. 
 
 234
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN NEARLY 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO. IN TWO 
 PARTS PART I
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN NEARLY 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO I 
 
 1 
 
 rainy season was over, but not the rain. 
 It had been an unusually wet year, even for 
 Japan, and we, the inhabitants of the plain 
 of Yedo, had been living in the midst of mire and 
 slosh not to be described. For weeks we had been 
 stewed in a moist, unhealthy heat ; shaving-tackle, 
 knives, and guns were covered with rust unpleasant to 
 the touch ; boots and shoes bore a rich crop of un- 
 wholesome fungus ; and such portions of our crazy 
 wood-and-paper built cottages as had been spared by 
 the violence of a recent typhoon smelt of mould and 
 damp : the very people one met in the streets looked 
 mildewed and sodden, as if being hung out to dry 
 would have done them, as well as their clothes, a 
 world of good. It was evident that, for health's 
 sake, a trip to the hills had become necessary, and 
 accordingly I determined to make a start of it. 
 
 Being anxious to make my trip a means of col- 
 lecting some of the old legends with which the 
 country along which my route lay abounds, I per- 
 suaded a native scholar in my employ, named 
 Shiraki, to come with me. He, being a Samurai, 
 a man of gentle blood, did not like to confess that 
 he was no horseman, but having ascertained that 
 he could procure a confidential nag of quiet manners, 
 given neither to kicking, shying, nor running away, 
 he put a bold face upon the matter, and professed 
 delight at the idea. As for my Chinese servant, 
 Lin Fu, I felt no uneasiness on his score ; he was as 
 adaptable as moist clay, and whether riding on an 
 
 2 37
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 ordinary saddle or on a pack-horse, or pinched up 
 in a native palanquin, he was equally at home and 
 equally happy. My groom and three of the Bette- 
 gumi, a native corps raised some years back to 
 escort, protect, and spy upon foreigners, completed 
 the party. Stay I had forgotten one most impor- 
 tant companion, at any rate the one that created 
 the greatest sensation by the way, and the only one 
 besides myself that understood English my dog 
 Lion, a black retriever of great beauty, born of 
 English parents some eighteen months back in this 
 distant land. As he went frisking and gambolling 
 along the road, the women and children would cry 
 out in astonishment, " Oya ! oya ! Look at the 
 barbarian and his ' Come-here ' ! Kireida ne ! What 
 a pretty creature ! " The Japanese believe * that 
 " Come here " is English for a dog, for when our 
 countrymen first reached Japan they brought dogs 
 with them, and hearing them call out, " Come 
 here ! Come here ! " when their pets strayed from 
 heel, the natives took it into their heads that " Come 
 here " could mean nothing but dog. 
 
 Travelling westward along the great high-road, 
 and leaving the port of Yokohama on our left, we 
 halted for the night at the village of Totsuka, some 
 four and twenty miles from Yedo.-f" Having seen 
 my horse rubbed down and bedded, I strolled out 
 to smoke a cheroot. The day's work being over, 
 the country-folk were standing about their doors 
 in picturesque groups the men for the most part 
 naked to the waist, and fresh from the bath, the 
 
 * This was forty-three years ago. They know better now. 
 t Now Tokyo. 
 
 238
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 women almost always tidy, and sometimes even 
 smart enjoying the cool of the evening and chat- 
 ting away in eager idleness, bestowing little or no 
 notice upon the foreigner, whose presence among 
 them has during the last ten years become a matter 
 of familiarity : in sad contrast to their cheery rest, 
 the unhappy inmates of the village stews were be- 
 dizening and painting themselves for the night, and 
 sitting down wearily at the open window to attract 
 the attention of travellers. At one of these high- 
 road pleasure-houses, by the by, I once saw a very 
 melancholy sight : an unhappy girl, driven to 
 despair in her loathing of the life to which she had 
 been sold, had contrived to make her escape, in 
 spite of the argus-eyed watching of her owner ; she 
 was caught and brought back, and to punish her, 
 having been beaten and ill-used, she was bound 
 hand and foot, and exposed in that condition in the 
 front of the house, as a warning to those of her 
 mates who might attempt to follow her example. 
 Turning down a country lane, I came upon a rustic 
 scene of no little beauty. In the foreground was a 
 farm-house, warmly thatched and cosy-looking, in 
 front of which Miss O Hana, " the Flower," was 
 drawing water at the well and exchanging a 
 friendly greeting with the laborious Genkichi, 
 who, hoe on shoulder, was trudging home from 
 his work in the fields. Round and about the house 
 were rich groves of fir and pine, cryptomeria and 
 bamboo, and among these ran a mound, shaped arti- 
 ficially, as such hillocks usually are, after Fuji Yama 
 the Peerless Mountain, commanding a noble view 
 over hill and vale, richly endowed by nature, and 
 
 239
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 turned to good account by the handiwork of man. 
 Every available square foot of land is made to bear 
 its tribute of rice, millet, buckwheat, or vegetables, 
 and the hill-sides are richly clothed with valuable 
 timber. For the Japanese husbandman is a hard- 
 working and industrious soul, toiling early and late, 
 chiefly to make sure the rice-crop, of which he, 
 poor man, may scarcely get a taste. Sic vos non 
 "jobis I He must content himself with coarser fare 
 millet, buckwheat, and a piece of salted turnip- 
 radish for a relish. 
 
 Having given time for Lin Fu to arrive with the 
 coolies bearing the baggage, unpack the same, and 
 prepare my dinner for on the journey he, handiest 
 of men, is cook, and no mean cook either, in ad- 
 dition to his other functions I return to mine inn 
 to take such ease as may be found where there are 
 neither tables, nor chairs, nor beds. The mats, 
 soft indeed and white (but nimium ne crede colori)^ 
 serve all purposes : on them we squat and eat ; on 
 them we lie down and sleep, when the fleas, excep- 
 tionally hungry and poisonous, with which they 
 swarm will allow us a few moments' respite. 
 
 October 7. The clouds that had been gathering 
 round the mountain-tops the night before were 
 still hanging gloomily over the landscape when 
 I awoke and looked out. A threatening, ugly 
 morning. However, it wanted three good hours 
 yet of our starting-time, so I squatted down and 
 tried to write some letters, intending to send a man 
 to catch the mail at Yokohama. But cramp inter- 
 fered with iron hand for it is no easy matter to 
 write sitting on the floor without desk or table 
 240
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 and the letters which reached home by that ship 
 were of the briefest. 
 
 At nine o'clock, after I had finished my break- 
 fast of tea and eggs, Shiraki came in to say that 
 horses and men were ready. A shout of O T>ekake! 
 " coming out " is raised by Shiraki and taken 
 up in chorus by landlord, guards, maids, coolies, 
 and idle folk about the inn, and out I stalk, 
 walking through a perfect avenue of obeisances, 
 with a feeling of shyness which not even long use 
 of Eastern courtesies has sufficed to remove. Now 
 a Japanese can always look dignified under these 
 circumstances, having a signal advantage indeed 
 over the European ; for he who would occupy the 
 best rooms at a Japanese inn must take off his 
 boots on entering the house, out of respect for the 
 mats, which it would be treason to sully ; and I 
 hold it to be very difficult for a man to appear at his 
 ease listening to a whole string of highly coloured 
 compliments whilst he is struggling into a pair of 
 butcher boots ; while a Japanese shuffles on his 
 sandals, which are handed to him by his sandal- 
 bearer kneeling, and mounts his horse with the 
 dignity of supreme indifference, leaving the host 
 and the myrmidons of the inn still intoning their 
 obsequious courtesies. 
 
 We now left the great high-road, and struck off 
 to the left into a country lane. The rains had left 
 the roads in a sad state. The horses could hardly 
 struggle through the deep mire of thick holding 
 clay, out of which they drew their hoofs with a 
 noise as of sucking. The little Japanese ponies 
 managed pretty well ; but my own beast, a heavy, 
 
 241
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 big-boned Australian, sank nearly up to his knees 
 at every step, and I was forced to dismount and 
 lead him much to the joy of my friend Shiraki, 
 who was glad enough of an excuse to follow my 
 example. In this manner we slipped and slid along 
 for about seven miles of lovely scenery, hill and 
 dale, rice-fields (the crop, alas ! not ripening), and 
 woodland. Many a shrine or holy niche stands by 
 the wayside, or crowns some picturesque hilltop to 
 which a flight of steps ascends. Nothing can be 
 prettier than the scenery of these valleys. They 
 are on a small scale, it is true, and it may be said 
 against them that each dell is to the last as one 
 Dromio is to the other ; but they are so bright and 
 green, and the banks between which they lie are 
 so charmingly wooded, with such varied tints in 
 the foliage (especially while the autumn glory of 
 the Jmaples lasts), that the eye never wearies of 
 looking upon them. 
 
 Among these hills lies the site of the ancient city 
 of Kamakura, which we presently reach. 
 
 In the middle of the seventh century of our era 
 there lived a certain prince whose name was Kama- 
 dari. He was the most powerful noble of his day 
 and in high favour at court. Now it happened 
 that, having been sent by the Emperor to undertake 
 a pilgrimage to the shrine of Kashima in the 
 province of Shimosa, he rested by the way at the 
 village of Yui in Sagami, and as he slept he dreamt 
 a dream, in which he was miraculously warned to 
 go and bury the precious sickle (kama), which was 
 the badge of his name, at the pine hillock on Mount 
 Okura. This he did in obedience to the warning 
 242
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 which he had received, and from that time forth 
 the name of the place was changed from Okura 
 (the great storehouse) to Kamakura (or the sickle 
 storehouse), from kama^ a sickle, and kura^ a place 
 of safety, or storehouse. 
 
 Prince Kamadari, who traced his descent in direct 
 line to the gods, died in the year 669 A.D. Im- 
 mediately before his death the Emperor visited him 
 in person, and conferred upon him the family name 
 of Fujiwara and the dignity of Taijokwan, an honour 
 which had never been given before and has never 
 been given since. For Kamadari had rendered 
 great and signal service to the Empire in former 
 years by ridding it of a certain minister named 
 Isuka, who during the reign of the Empress 
 Kogoku (642-644 A.D.) had usurped the power 
 and contrived to make himself a kind of dictator in 
 the land. 
 
 After their father's death the sons of Kamadari 
 came to great honour. From the eldest son sprang 
 the five families in which were hereditarily vested 
 the offices of Kwambaku, or Prime Minister of the 
 Mikado, and Sessho, or Regent, during the Mikado's 
 minority, both of which offices, by the by, have 
 been abolished under the new political system 
 which began in 1868. The second son was ap- 
 pointed governor of the eight provinces of Kwanto,* 
 and took up his residence here at Kamakura, which 
 from that time forth until the sixteenth century 
 became the military capital of the eastern division 
 
 * Kwanto, or "East of the Barrier," is the name given to the 
 provinces of Musashi, Sagami, Awa, Kadzusa, Hitachi, Kotsuke, and 
 Shimotsuke". 
 
 243
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 of the Empire. When the family of Hojo became 
 all-powerful in the land, they transferred the seat 
 of the government of the east to their own castle- 
 town of Odawara at the foot of the Hakone range 
 of mountains, and Kamakura gradually fell into 
 ruins. It is now a mere district consisting of 
 thirteen villages, and, excepting the temples, not a 
 trace remains of its former splendour. This is to 
 be accounted for by the ephemeral character of 
 Japanese houses, which, being built of wood and 
 paper, once having fallen are swept away and crumble 
 into dust. If the city of Yedo, vast as it is, were 
 to be abandoned and allowed to go to rack and 
 ruin, fifty years hence the walls of the castle and 
 a few temples would probably be the only vestiges 
 left to mark its site.* 
 
 It being my purpose to spend a couple of days 
 among the groves and holy places of Kamakura, I 
 put up at the not too clean inn which is at the 
 foot of the great temple of Hachiman. A fat, 
 good-natured Maritornes, sore afflicted with the 
 complaint of her class, the itch, prepared a cup of tea, 
 and having set before us certain thin, greasy biscuits 
 something like wafers, announced that the Nanushi, 
 or mayor of the village, was anxious to come and 
 pay us a visit. Right glad was I to bid Shiraki go 
 and welcome his worship, for he had been described 
 to me as a perfect storehouse of old-world lore, 
 knowing and loving every stone and nook within 
 
 * There is no fear of such a calamity now that the Emperor has 
 made it his capital. Moreover, solidly built houses of Western archi- 
 tecture are springing up in whole quarters of the town. Will they 
 resist the earthquakes ? 
 
 244
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 his jurisdiction, of which he would willingly do 
 the honours, thereby saving me from the clutches 
 of a certain guide, an old man of the sea, a bore of 
 bores, cursed with that peculiar droning voice 
 which is the characteristic of the professed cicerone 
 all the world over. 
 
 Enter the mayor, a neat, cleanly shaved old man, 
 modestly dressed, as becomes his station, in the 
 plain grey taffachelass robe worn by the middle 
 class, his dirk being politely left outside the door. 
 Down he goes on his knees and head, drawing a 
 long hissing breath in token of respect. 
 
 " Sa ! Shiraki ! call for some tea " (Shiraki claps 
 his hands) " and offer our guest a cheroot." 
 
 " Thank you, sir, thank you ! this is indeed 
 difficult to obtain," says the mayor, twisting the 
 cheroot about in his fingers. But he does not like it 
 all the same, and after painfully smoking a puff or 
 two he knocks out the fire, and having rolled up 
 the end in a bit of paper, stows it away in his bosom 
 to be taken home as a curiosity, pezzo di museo. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Mayor, we've come all this way to 
 see the ' meisho,' the lions of Kamakura, and under 
 the shadow of so famous an antiquary we look 
 forward to much enjoyment." 
 
 " Nay, nay, sir ! I am but a dull old fellow, a very 
 rusty blade ; still, if you will condescend to accept 
 my poor guidance, I shall be glad of the honour of 
 offering myself as your pilot." 
 
 And so we sally forth from our inn, the good 
 mayor leading the way. 
 
 The chief of the sites of Kamakura is the glorious 
 old temple of Hachiman. Its groves, lotus ponds, 
 
 245
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 stone stairs, heavy-eaved shrines rich with relics 
 of bygone ages, albino horses sacred to the gods, 
 uncanny pinked-eyed beasts, waxing fat upon the 
 beans offered by pious pilgrims all these have 
 been described by every traveller that has visited 
 the spot, nor need I dwell upon their beauties or 
 oddities here. My object is chiefly to set before 
 future travellers, in as intelligible a manner as 
 possible, a few notes which may enable them to 
 appreciate the interest which attaches to places 
 along a route which they are sure to follow. 
 
 The latter half of the twelfth century was one 
 of the most important epochs of Japanese history, 
 for during that time raged the war between the rival 
 houses of Gen and Hei, which ended in the victory 
 of the House of Gen, of which Minamoto no Yori- 
 tomo was the chief. When he had conquered his 
 enemies and made himself all-powerful in the land, 
 he established himself at Kamakura, which he made 
 the military capital of Japan, and shortly afterwards, 
 in the year 1 192, he was created Sei I Tai Shogun, 
 or Barbarian-repressing Commander-in-chief, being 
 the first who held that title. From that time forth 
 until the year 1868, the Emperor, or Mikado, 
 became a cypher, the executive power being in the 
 hands of his commander-in-chief, and so it was 
 that we heard many Dutch-born fallacies about 
 spiritual and temporal Emperors. 
 
 In those days there stood at a place called 
 Tsurugaoka, at Yui, a certain ancient temple in 
 honour of the Emperor Ojin, deified as the God of 
 War, whom the Buddhists have identified as their 
 own Mars, Hachiman, not on account of any deeds 
 246
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 of daring he performed by himself, but because it 
 was when she was with child, before bringing him 
 into the world, that his mother, the famous Empress 
 Jingo, conquered the Coreans in the third century 
 A.D., having first girt herself up and miraculously 
 delayed her confinement, sealing herself with a magic 
 stone, until she had gained the mastery over her 
 enemies. This shrine, in the year 1191, Yoritomo 
 caused to be removed to his own capital at Kamakura, 
 where it was established in its present site. 
 
 Three gods are specially worshipped at the 
 temple. First and foremost, occupying the place 
 of honour in the centre shrine, at the head of the 
 steps, is the god Hachiman. On the right is an 
 altar dedicated to his mother the Empress Jingo, 
 and on the left is another altar, sacred to the 
 Princess Onaka. I have before me now one of the 
 rude prints of the god Hachiman which are sold 
 on the spot ; he is represented as a fierce warrior, 
 with very slanting eyes, with a beard and moustache 
 grotesquely trimmed, bearing a bow and arrows, 
 and clad, not, as might have been expected, in 
 armour, but in the flowing robes and quaint cap 
 which make up the costume of the court. On the 
 left of the chief shrine is a lesser one, in honour of 
 a hero called Takenouchi Sukune, a warrior who 
 accompanied the Empress Jingo in her expedition 
 to Corea, and afterwards served her by ridding her 
 of a pretender to the throne. He has been canonised 
 as Kora Miyqjin, or Tamadare no Kami. The two 
 gods on the left and right of the gate are called 
 Toyoiwamad,o and* Kushiwamado ; they are deities 
 of the Shinto, or indigenous religion of the country, 
 
 247
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 which is a form of sun-worship and hero-worship 
 combined. The main shrine is in the centre of a 
 square, the three sides of which are occupied by 
 small altars, in which are laid up sacred litters for 
 the gods and relics, such as swords, portions of gar- 
 ments, pieces of armour, and other like curiosities, 
 which belonged to Yoritomo, Yoritsune, Takauji, 
 and other heroes of the brave old days. 
 
 All this portion of the temple was burnt down 
 about forty years ago, and rebuilt, but the pagoda 
 and other sacred buildings below the grand stone 
 steps are ancient. Although built of wood, they 
 have been continually kept in repair, so that they 
 stand now as they stood in the time of the splendour 
 of Yoritomo. 
 
 On the left-hand side the steps are overshadowed 
 by a tree of venerable aspect, of the species called 
 Icho (Salisburia adiantifolia, the maidenhair tree) 
 a tree of bloody memory, for under it was committed 
 one of those crimes which stain the history of the 
 Middle Ages in all countries. 
 
 In the year 1 199 Yoritomo died, leaving behind 
 him two sons, Yoriiye and Sanetomo. The elder 
 of these two, Yoriiye, a youth eighteen years of 
 age, succeeded his father as lord over the warriors 
 of the country ; but he was a foolish prince, and 
 gave himself up to debauchery and drunkenness, 
 being encouraged in his evil courses by his mother's 
 father, Hqjo Tokimasa, who seized upon the real 
 power. Two years later the Emperor invested 
 Yoriiye with the full rank of Shogun, which had 
 been held by his father, but none the less did 
 Tokimasa continue to be master. Yoriiye chafed 
 248
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 under the yoke that was put upon him, and the 
 city of Kamakura was distraught by plots and 
 counterplots, the Shogun being the head of one 
 faction, while his mother and grandfather led the 
 other. Not a little bloodshed ensued, and, among 
 the victims, Yoriiye's infant son was put to death 
 by his own great-grandfather. Shortly after this 
 outrage, Tokimasa spread a report that the Shogun 
 was conspiring against his life, and having seized 
 the person of Yoriiye, he forced him to shave his 
 head and retire from the world into the priesthood. 
 Nor was his vengeance thus satisfied, for in the 
 following year he sent a man-at-arms to the Temple 
 where Yoriiye abode, with orders to kill him ; and 
 the man, having watched his opportunity, cast a 
 rope about the neck of the former Shogun as he 
 lay in his bath, and strangled him. In this way he 
 died, being only twenty-three years of age. 
 
 Yoriiye was succeeded by his younger brother 
 Sanetomo, a boy twelve years of age, who dwelt in 
 his grandfather's palace and issued his commands 
 thence, so that Tokimasa lost none of his former 
 power. This, however, did not content him, for 
 he was minded to kill Sanetomo, that he might set 
 in his place his son-in-law, who had married his 
 favourite daughter. But this time the mother of 
 the Shogun, instead of siding with her father, pro- 
 tected her child, and having discovered the plot, 
 removed Sanetomo from his grandfather's palace, 
 and placed him under the care of her brother 
 Yoshitoki. In the struggle for the power which 
 ensued the army declared itself on the side of the 
 young Shogun, and the old man Tokimasa was 
 
 249
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 banished to the village of Hojo, in the province of 
 Idzu, whence the family took its origin and name. 
 Now, Sanetomo was a gentle and weakly youth, 
 who loved the company of men of letters, and 
 passed his days and nights drinking wine and 
 writing poetry, and the Shogun being steeped in 
 such dissipation, his minister and uncle waxed more 
 and more powerful, and ruled the Empire in his 
 name. 
 
 The former Shogun, Yoriiye, had left one son, 
 who, after various attempts had been made on his 
 behalf to seize upon his father's power, had entered 
 the priesthood at Kyoto, taking, at the same time, 
 the name of Kugyo. In the year 1218 this Kugyo 
 came to Kamakura, where, in spite of the intrigues 
 of which he had been the head, he was received 
 honourably, and made Abbot of the Temple of 
 Hachiman. But he was not contented with his 
 lot, for the imprisonment and murder of his father 
 still rankled in his breast, and he looked with an 
 evil eye upon his uncle the Shogun Sanetomo, 
 biding his time that he might be revenged. 
 
 Now, it happened that in the tenth month of 
 this same year Sanetomo received from the Emperor 
 the dignity of Udaijin, or grand minister of the right, 
 and in the first month of the year 1219 he de- 
 termined to go in solemn state to the Temple of 
 Hachiman to return thanks to the gods for this 
 favour, having chosen by divination the hour of 
 eight in the evening of the twenty-seventh day as 
 an auspicious moment for his purpose. Before 
 leaving his palace he caused his wife, a daughter of 
 the House of Hada, to comb and dress his hair ; as 
 250
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 she was doing this, a hair fell out and he picked it 
 up and gave it to his wife, saying with a laugh, 
 " Take this in memory of me." (This is Mr. 
 Mayor's romantic version of the story. History, 
 more commonplace, tells us that it was a male 
 retainer who acted as barber. Good Mr. Mayor!) 
 
 So he went out with a thousand knights in his 
 train, and his uncle and minister Yoshitoki followed 
 him, bearing his sword. Just as they were about 
 to enter the temple, Yoshitoki was seized with a 
 sudden sickness, so he handed the sword of the 
 Shogun to another noble, and returned home. In 
 the meanwhile, Sanetomo, having bidden the rest 
 of his train to remain outside, entered the temple 
 attended only by his sword-bearer ; and when he 
 had made an end of praying and giving thanks he 
 descended the steps of the temple, and as he went 
 down, a man sprang out from behind a tree on one 
 side and, brandishing a sword, cut down the Shogun 
 and his sword-bearer, whose heads he carried away. 
 It was now black night, and both within and 
 without the temple there arose a great confusion 
 and uproar ; none could tell who had done the 
 deed, until a loud voice was heard crying out, " I 
 am Kugyo ! " 
 
 Then Kugyo, bearing the head of Sanetomo, 
 fled and went to the house of another priest, where 
 he ate some food ; but even while he ate, his hand 
 never loosened its hold upon the head of the 
 Shogun. 
 
 Now, Sanetomo was twenty-eight years of age 
 when he died by the hand of his nephew. At this 
 time, Kugyo had as his disciple a youth of tender 
 
 R 251
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 years, the son of a friend of his ; so he sent this 
 boy home and bade him ask his father for counsel 
 and help. But this man deceived Kugyo, saying 
 that he would go forth with a company of soldiers 
 to meet him ; and having sent this message, he 
 privily reported the matter to Yoshitoki, who bade 
 him take upon himself the duty of punishing the 
 murderer of the Shogun. Acting upon these orders, 
 the false friend sent a trusty fellow with five 
 stalwart men-at-arms to do the deed. In the 
 meantime, Kugyo, who had waited in vain for 
 the soldiers that had been promised him, had 
 crossed a high mound which is at the back of the 
 Temple of Hachiman, and was on his way to his 
 friend's house when he fell in with the six men who 
 had been sent to slay him. A desperate fight arose, 
 but Kugyo, being overpowered, was killed, and his 
 head was sent to Yoshitoki. 
 
 On the following day the Shogun Sanetomo was 
 buried with great pomp, and as his head could not 
 be found, the single hair which he had jestingly 
 left behind him was buried in its stead. His grave 
 may still be seen at the Temple of Jinfukuji. 
 
 This was the end of the dynasty of Shoguns 
 founded by Yoritomo ; only two of his descendants 
 succeeded him, and the three only ruled for twenty- 
 seven years. 
 
 Now, the great maidenhair tree, which may be 
 seen to the left of the steps to this day, is the very 
 tree behind which Kugyo hid himself to lie in wait 
 for the Shogun Sanetomo. So say tradition and 
 my good friend the Mayor of Kamakura. 
 
 On the right hand side of the steps as you go up 
 252
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 is the Waka-Miya^ or " Younger Shrine," which 
 was erected in honour of the deified Emperor 
 Nintoku, the son and successor of Ojin, or Hachi- 
 man, a prince who made himself famous in history 
 by a mild and loving reign. But the shrine is 
 rendered more interesting by an episode in the life 
 of the great Shogun Yoritomo. 
 
 During the long and terrible wars which ended 
 in his mastery over the Empire, Yoritomo's best 
 friend and ablest lieutenant was his brother Yohit- 
 sune. Later in life, however, the poison of slander 
 came between them, and Yoritomo's heart was 
 turned against his brother by the guile of a 
 treacherous friend. But fortune was on the side of 
 the elder brother, and Yoshitsune was compelled to 
 fly to the northern provinces, whence he went over 
 to the island of Yezo, and, as some say, crossed to 
 the mainland. However that may be, his end is 
 shrouded in mystery. 
 
 Now, among the ladies of Yoshitsune was a 
 certain woman called Shidzuka Gozen, whose rare 
 beauty and skill in dancing have passed into a 
 household word. When Yoshitsune was hiding in 
 the north, Yoritomo, knowing the love that his 
 brother bore to Shidzuka Gozen, sent for her, and 
 having taken his seat with his courtiers at the 
 Younger Shrine of the Temple of Hachiman, bade 
 her dance and play before him ; and after she had 
 finished dancing, Yoritomo asked her to reveal 
 Yoshitsune's whereabouts. But she either knew 
 not his hiding-place or was true to her trust, and 
 neither threat nor persuasion availed to open her 
 lips. Hence it is that men still point to the 
 
 2 53
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 Younger Shrine and tell how Yoritomo sat there in 
 great state, but with all his pomp failed to awe the 
 faithful dame who set at naught the might of the 
 Shogun in her love for her lord. 
 
 It will readily be believed that a holy place so 
 old and so rich in historic interest as this temple 
 has not been left without suitable endowment. 
 Indeed, it ranks among the richest foundations in 
 the country. The revenue which it derives from 
 its lands alone amounts to 2500 kokusofrice yearly, 
 and suffices to maintain a body of sixty-four priests, 
 from abbot to acolyte, for the service of the gods. 
 Besides this regular income, there are the offerings 
 of pilgrims and pious persons, and twice a year, 
 ever since the thirteenth century, when the custom 
 was instituted by the Emperor Kameyama, the 
 Government has paid a small fee in return for the 
 offering up of prayers for the prosperity of the 
 country, officers being sent by the Shogun's Govern- 
 ment to attend the service. Nor have special gifts 
 been wanting to beautify the temple. Of these, 
 the chief are the three massive stone portals (Tori-i), 
 grandly simple, standing in the street leading up to 
 the temple, which, were erected by the Shogun's 
 Government in the year 1668 ; and the more 
 richly ornamented colossal stone lanterns, which 
 were subscribed for by the merchants of Yedo at 
 the beginning of the present century.* 
 
 Among the quaintest of the curiosities of the 
 temple is a certain stone called Hime-Ishi, or the 
 Princess Stone, which a freak of nature has fashioned 
 into the semblance of the lower part of a woman's 
 
 * Of course the nineteenth century. 
 
 2 54
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 body. Whence it came hither, or by whom it 
 was brought, tradition says not. It stands in an 
 out-of-the-way part of the grounds, and is sur- 
 rounded by a small paling, on which are hung 
 paper ex-votos and queues of hair, cut off in fulfil- 
 ment of a vow, the offerings of persons who come 
 to pray for relief from diseases of the loins and 
 lower part of the body. Foreigners have an idea 
 that barren women come and pray for children ; 
 but the priests claim no such fruit-giving virtue for 
 the stone, and certainly they would be vastly shocked 
 to hear their holy Princess called by the vulgar 
 name she bears in the vile jargon spoken at Yoko- 
 hama. Many and various, indeed, are the traps 
 into which that same dialect leads the unwary 
 foreigner, who at one moment is, in the innocence 
 of his heart, using language that would disgrace 
 the most foul-mouthed bargee, and at the next, 
 with the utmost courtesy, addresses his groom as 
 "my lord," and promises to have the honour of 
 humbly offering up to his lordship a sound thrash- 
 ing, a promise which his unfortunate lordship knows 
 will faithfully be performed. 
 
 A little beyond the Princess Stone is a small 
 wicket, which leads us out of the temple grounds, 
 in which we have loitered so long, into a plain of 
 rice-fields. On this plain stood the fashionable 
 part of the old city of Kamakura. Here were the 
 palaces of the Shoguns of the Minamoto and 
 Ashikaga dynasties, and of the not less powerful 
 house of Hojo. Not a stick, not a stone remains 
 to mark the different sites, the tradition of which 
 alone remains all is under tillage ; so that the
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 worthy mayor is somewhat difficult to follow when 
 he traces out accurately the limits of each palace, 
 and waxes enthusiastic in his flowery description of 
 a grandeur which is now all mud. 
 
 At the foot of the hill which rises over against 
 us runs the little river Nameri, concerning which 
 rather a droll story is told. In the middle of the 
 thirteenth century, when Hqjo Tokiyori was at the 
 head of the administration, there lived a certain 
 officer named Aoto Sayemon Fujitsuna. One night 
 this man was going to his duties at the palace, and 
 while he was crossing the river, as ill-luck would 
 have it, he dropped out of his flint-and-steel pouch 
 ten copper cash, which fell into the water. Although 
 this was a trifle, which he might have passed on 
 without heeding, he went at once into the shop of 
 a merchant hard by, and having bought ten torches, 
 for which he paid fifty cash, caused a search to be 
 made for the ten cash, which were soon found. 
 When they saw this, the people all laughed at him 
 for wasting fifty cash in torches that he might 
 get back ten. But Aoto, frowning, said : " Fools ! 
 Ye know not what is real waste, nor do ye care for 
 the good of the people. If I had not just now 
 sought for those ten cash, they would have sunk to 
 the bottom of the river, and would have profited 
 no man. These fifty cash that I spent in torches 
 are this merchant's gain what is the difference 
 betwixt him and me ? As it is, not one of the 
 sixty cash has been lost to the world." 
 
 So he snapped his fingers with scorn at the 
 people, whose laughter was changed to admiration. 
 Now, when this story came to the ears of Hqjo 
 256
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 Tokiyori, he was greatly pleased, and having 
 summoned Aoto to his presence, he promoted him 
 to high office probably, not in the finance 
 department. 
 
 In Indian file we follow our guide along the 
 narrow raised paths which intersect the paddy-fields, 
 making for the wooded hills, among which lies 
 hidden and almost forgotten a simple little stone 
 monument, which marks the grave of the mighty 
 Yoritomo. No grand temple, rich with gold 
 lacquer and bronze and cunning workmanship, 
 such as we see in the burial-grounds of the Shoguns 
 at Yedo, surrounds the spot, the whereabouts of 
 which is unknown to the vulgar throng. The 
 memorial is but a simple erection of largish stones 
 in tiers, which would long since have fallen down 
 had it not been for the pious care of the Princes of 
 Satsuma, who have surrounded it with a stone fence ; 
 but the name of Yoritomo will live in Japanese 
 story long after the grand cemeteries of Yedo 
 !>hall have crumbled into dust. 
 
 Near the grave of Yoritomo are three caves. 
 Two of these are merely known as burial-places of 
 ancestors of the Satsuma and Choshiu princes ; but 
 the third is a place of greater interest, having been 
 the prison and scene of the murder of the unhappy 
 Prince Moriyoshi, whose wrongs and sorrows form 
 one of the most romantic episodes of Japanese 
 history. 
 
 The days of the Emperor Daigo II., who reigned 
 in the middle of the fourteenth century, were 
 troubled by civil war, and for an interval of two years 
 he was even dethroned, and another Emperor was set 
 
 257
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 up in his stead. In the end, however, his cause 
 riumphed, and this owing in a great measure to 
 the valour and wisdom of his own son, Prince 
 Moriyoshi, whom he appointed to be Shogun. 
 Now, there was a certain powerful noble, named 
 Takauji, who enjoyed high favour with the 
 Emperor, by whom he had been appointed to a 
 military rank inferior only to that of Prince Mori- 
 yoshi. This Takauji hated Prince Moriyoshi, and 
 coveted his office, while Moriyoshi looked with an 
 evil eye upon Takauji, whom he suspected of 
 treasonable designs. In this feud the Emperor 
 inclined his ear rather to his minister than to his 
 son, whom he sought to remove from the supreme 
 command. When Moriyoshi saw this, he remon- 
 strated with his father, saying : " Verily, the heart 
 of Takauji is crooked, and I fear that, if your 
 Majesty raises him to power, he will become a 
 rebel like those whom we have defeated. Your 
 Majesty knows the proverb, ' It is useless to drive 
 the wolf from the front door, and let in the tiger 
 at the back gate.' So long as this man lives, your 
 Majesty's pillow will know no rest. Let your 
 servant collect an army, and until I shall have 
 punished this traitor, I will not return to my duties 
 as high priest of Hiyeizan." 
 
 But the Emperor would not listen to the words 
 of Moriyoshi, and continued to place all his trust 
 in Takauji. In the year 1334, the Emperor, who 
 was now given up to wine and women and was 
 completely under the control of Takauji, banished 
 his son Moriyoshi to Kamakura, and caused him 
 to be imprisoned in a cave in the hill-side over the 
 258
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 valley called Nikaido. In this dark and noisome 
 hole, where he lived accompanied only by two 
 faithful ladies, the exiled prince passed his time in 
 studying the sacred books by the light of a torch. 
 Takauji, however, was not yet content, but was bent 
 upon the murder of his foe. Accordingly, in the 
 following year, he went himself to Kamakura, and 
 having arranged his plans, chose a certain knight 
 called Fuchibe to carry them out. 
 
 On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, 
 Fuchibe, with six followers, set out to do the deed, 
 and having arrived at the cave, found Moriyoshi, as 
 was his wont, engrossed in study. At first the 
 murderer made a show of treating the prince with 
 great respect, and pretended that he had brought a 
 palanquin that he might escort him away from the 
 prison. But Moriyoshi said, " Nay, not to escort 
 me, but to slay me hast thou come," and springing 
 upon Fuchibe, tried to seize his sword. Then 
 Fuchibe, turning his sword, struck the prince upon 
 the knees, and he, weakened in body by suffering, 
 which had failed to quell his spirit, fell forward. 
 Before he could rise Fuchibe rushed upon him, 
 and bestriding his body, drew a dirk, with which 
 he tried to cut off his head. But the prince, 
 shrugging his shoulders so as to shorten his neck, 
 seized the point of the dirk with his teeth. In the 
 struggle for the dirk the point of it was broken, 
 and more than an inch remained in Moriyoshi's 
 mouth. At last Fuchibe threw away the dirk, and 
 drawing a short sword, stabbed the prince twice in 
 the breast, and then seizing him by the hair, struck 
 off his head. Fuchibe rushed out of the cell, 
 
 259
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 carrying his bloody trophy in his hand ; but when 
 he examined the head in the daylight, the eyes 
 were as those of a living man, and the teeth were 
 still fastened upon the point of the broken dirk. 
 Not liking to show so ghastly an object to his 
 suborner, the murderer flung the head into a 
 bamboo grove hard by ; and while the body and 
 head were yet warm, and before the eyes had 
 become glazed, the chief priest of the temple, 
 called Richikoin, took the remains and piously 
 buried them. 
 
 It was not long before the Emperor had cause to 
 regret his son and to mourn over his folly in 
 trusting to the faithless Takauji ; but with his fate 
 we have nothing further to do. A shrine of fair 
 white wood has recently been erected in honour of 
 Prince Moriyoshi, with two lesser shrines for the 
 two ladies whose love cheered his banishment, and 
 who after his death returned to Kyoto ; and 
 attached to the shrine is a lodge where the Emperor 
 may rest should he ever be moved to come and 
 visit the site. The priest of Richikoin a temple 
 of which a few remains may yet be seen at the foot 
 of a hill not far off placed a stone to mark the 
 spot in the bamboo grove where he picked up the 
 head ; and he set another stone and planted a fir- 
 tree on the top of the hill on which his temple 
 Btood, to show the place where he buried the 
 murdered prince. A steep flight of steps leads up 
 to this venerable tree, from under the shadow of 
 which there is a glorious view over the hill and 
 plain of Kamakura. 
 
 It was now nearly sunset, and so we wended our 
 260
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 way homewards. On arriving at the inn I found 
 that two other travellers had arrived, Englishmen, 
 one of whom was known to me ; and as their 
 stores had not come, they must have gone supper- 
 less to bed, or, at all events, must have put up with 
 a sorry meal of boiled rice and salt fish, had they 
 not fallen in with me. So we made common cause, 
 and spent a very merry evening. 
 
 The next day turned out to be hopelessly wet. 
 The rain fell in sheets, defying all protection in the 
 shape of waterproofs. My companions of the night 
 before had to start for Yokohama in spite of the 
 weather, for one of them had to catch a steamer ; 
 so I was left alone to amuse myself as best I might, 
 translating the scraps of history which I have given 
 above, and wondering at the inscriptions with 
 which former travellers have decorated the inn 
 walls. The Germans always appear to me to be 
 the greatest seekers of pencil immortality. No 
 place is too sacred, none too mean, for them to 
 scrawl over with their names and pleasantries. 
 
 One piece of doggerel has pleased its author so 
 much that I have found it repeated over and over 
 again 
 
 Karl aus Sachsen 
 Wo die Schonen Madchen wachsen. 
 
 Here is a specimen of Swiss wit : 
 
 Vive la Confederation Suisse. 
 
 (Here follow three names.) 
 Nous maintiendrons la dive bouteille, 
 La vieille pipe et le pot federal. 
 
 Next comes " The Marquis Chisholm and a lot 
 more, all Dryboots." Could the Marquis Chisholm 
 
 261
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 have been a negro living at Yokohama ? The 
 Dryboots joke is of course a playful allusion to the 
 Great Buddha, " Dai Butsu," which is near here. 
 
 With the morning came bright sunshine, dis- 
 pelling all the clouds of weary boredom which had 
 gathered round me during the last twenty-four 
 hours of impatient chafing under imprisonment in 
 a sixth-rate native inn. At eight o'clock I rode 
 off, having taken leave of the good-natured mayor, 
 with many thanks for his kindness. A short 
 canter through the keen morning air brought me 
 to the little village of Fukazawa, where the great 
 bronze Buddha sits sedet ceternumque sedebit. The 
 first time I saw it, in the autumn of 1866, the ap- 
 proach to it lay along an avenue of grand old ever- 
 green trees, and the effect of the colossus, when 
 seen from the beginning of the avenue, was most 
 striking. Now, unhappily, the trees have been cut 
 down by the avarice of the priests, who grudged 
 the little bit of soil which might bear a few more 
 vegetables, and who took advantage of the revolu- 
 tion to pretend that the trees had been destroyed 
 by the soldiery. The beautiful vista is lost, 
 but the figure must always rank among the most 
 wonderful monuments of the world. As a work of 
 art, its chief merit appears to me to be the ex- 
 pression of calm dignity and repose in the face, 
 which is enhanced by the huge proportions and 
 boldness of execution. Travellers in Siam talk 
 about gigantic Buddhas 160 feet high, plated over 
 with gold, and having feet of mother-of-pearl, but 
 I defy any country to produce a nobler figure than 
 this. The proportions of the statue are given as 
 262
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 follows in a rough print sold by the priest on the 
 spot : 
 
 Ft. in. 
 
 Height of the statue 50 o 
 
 From the hair to the knees 42 o 
 
 Round the base 96 o 
 
 Height of pedestal 4 5 
 
 Length of face 8 5 
 
 Breadth from ear to ear 18 o 
 Silver boss on forehead, the 
 gift of the widow of a rich 
 
 merchant at Yedo I 5 
 
 Eyes, long 4 o 
 
 Eyebrows 
 Ears, long 
 Nose, long 
 Nose, across 2 
 
 Mouth 3 
 
 Locks of hair 830 in num- 
 ber, 8 inches high, and 
 i foot in diameter 
 Knees, across 36 
 
 The thumb, round 3 
 
 Ft. in. 
 
 4 2 
 
 6 6 
 
 3 8 
 
 The story of the erection of the Great Buddha is 
 one more tale of woman's love. During the civil 
 wars of the twelfth century, the great statue of 
 Buddha which stood at Nara, one of the ancient 
 capitals of the Empire, had been destroyed, and a 
 certain priest, seeing this, undertook a pilgrimage 
 through the Empire, begging alms wherever he 
 went, until at last he had collected sufficient money 
 to erect a new image. Upon the occasion of the 
 festivals held in honour of its completion, the 
 Emperor ordered the Shogun Yoritomo to super- 
 intend the ceremonies, during which he was fired 
 by the ambition to set up a like statue in his own 
 eastern provinces, for the protection and welfare of 
 his family and clansmen. Yoritomo died without 
 having fulfilled his intention, which, however, had 
 been made known to his wife and to one of the 
 ladies of the palace named Ita. Upon the death 
 of Yoritomo, Ita, protected by the Shogun and by 
 Yoritomo's widow, who had now become a nun, 
 and enjoyed so great political power that she is 
 known in history as the Nun-Shogun, set forth on 
 
 263
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 a pilgrimage, during which she collected a sum of 
 money which enabled her to erect a great wooden 
 Buddha and a temple to hold it, which were con- 
 secrated in the year 1228 A.D. But there came a 
 great typhoon, in which the temple was blown 
 down, and the wooden image, exposed to the rain 
 and the weather, soon began to rot away. Nothing 
 daunted, Ita only determined to try again, and this 
 time she resolved that her work should be more 
 lasting. Having obtained the Shogun's leave, she 
 started on a new pilgrimage, and so successful was 
 she that at the beginning of the latter half of the 
 thirteenth century she erected the present bronze 
 figure, together with a grand hall and a gate with 
 two guardian gods. In the year 1495 all the 
 buildings were destroyed and washed away by a 
 tidal wave which swept over the country, and the 
 Great Buddha, with his pedestal, alone remained 
 standing. But the place became deserted and over- 
 grown with grass and rank vegetation, so that its 
 existence was almost forgotten until, some two 
 hundred years later, it was cleared of the rubbish 
 and brushwood by a famous priest called Yuten, 
 aided by a friend from Yedo. These two built a 
 small temple by the side of the great image, in 
 which they collected as relics all that remained ot 
 the former temple, and of a still older shrine called 
 Shojosenji, which had stood upon the same spot 
 since the beginning of the eighth century, and 
 which had been famous in its day as the repository 
 of certain precious copies of the Buddhist sacred 
 books, and of other relics which had been brought 
 from China. 
 264
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 The inside of the Great Buddha is fitted up as a 
 chapel, in which is laid up a small shrine contain- 
 ing an image of the god Shaka Niyorai, which was 
 once the property and family god of the Shogun 
 Yoritomo. The walls are much defiled with the 
 names and inscriptions of foreign visitors, who have 
 not even spared the stone on which is graven the 
 prayer, " Namu Amtda Eutsu " " Save us, Eternal 
 Buddha." 
 
 I could not learn the name of the artist to whom 
 the credit of the great work is due, but he is said 
 to have been the ancestor of one Ono Goroyemon, 
 a man then living in the west of the province of 
 Kadzusa. 
 
 In the old days there were two colossal bronze 
 Buddhas in Japan the one at Nara and the other 
 at Kyoto ; but the latter, which was only erected 
 in the year 1590, having been much damaged by a 
 severe earthquake, was melted down and minted, 
 and replaced by a wooden figure in the year 1662. 
 The image which I have been describing was the 
 least of the three indeed, the one at Nara is said, by 
 a popular fiction, to be so big that a man may 
 crawl up its nostril ; but all men are agreed that 
 the big Buddha near Kamakura is much the most 
 beautiful to see, for the Nara Buddha is inside a 
 temple, so that it cannot be seen in detail, and far 
 inferior as a work of art, while this glorious figure, 
 standing out in the open air, may be looked upon 
 from a distance, which enables the eye to compass 
 it. The first time I came here the genius of 
 the place was a venerable priest said to be a 
 century old, certainly the oldest man to look at 
 
 265
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 that I ever beheld, and all the more remarkable 
 in that it is rare to see persons of very advanced 
 age in this country. Indeed, I doubt whether 
 the Japanese are in general a very long-lived race, 
 although for many of their heroes in the dark 
 ages they are fond of claiming the honour of 
 years. One famous minister there was who died 
 in the fourth century, having lived, as we are told, 
 no less than three hundred and seventeen years, 
 during two hundred and forty of which he was 
 chief minister of six successive Emperors ! Like 
 the avenue of trees, the old priest has disappeared, 
 and both have left a void in the picturesqueness of 
 the place. 
 
 Can anything be more lovely in its way than the 
 ride from the Great Buddha over the richly wooded 
 hills to the sea ? And then it is such a heavenly 
 day, such a pure atmosphere ! The sea, most 
 treacherous of all seas, lies calm and blue before us, 
 breaking in lazy ripples upon the dazzling beach, 
 and looking as innocent and peaceful as though it 
 had never engulfed ships and men and cargo, nor 
 sent up a great, cruel tidal wave to sweep whole 
 townships and villages to destruction before it. On 
 the left are the wood-crowned heights and cliffs now 
 bright with the many colours of autumn ; to the 
 right, in front of us, is the lovely island of Eno- 
 shima with its armour of rocks and crest of fir-trees, 
 and beyond that again are the distant mountains 
 above which stands out Fuji Yama the Peerless, its 
 point just beginning to be capped with snow, from 
 which, during the heat of summer, in spite of its 
 1 3,000 feet, it is quite free. From the hill-sides 
 266
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 three or four streamlets, swollen by the heavy rains, 
 come purling down to the sea, and into one of these 
 Shiraki's little horse, who had probably only been 
 waiting for a convenient opportunity to show his 
 power, quietly landed my unfortunate scribe, who 
 had been giving many signs of suffering under the 
 unwonted exercise he had undergone. The bottom 
 was soft, however, and so was Shiraki, so there 
 were no bones broken and no damage done. 
 
 One of these little rivers is called the Yukiaigawa, 
 or River of Meeting, from the following story : 
 There is a certain Buddhist sect called the sect of 
 Nichiren, after its founder, a priest who came and 
 took up his abode at Kamakura in the middle of 
 the thirteenth century. This Nichiren, not con- 
 tent with preaching his own doctrine, must needs 
 teach that all other sects were damnable heresies, 
 and in so doing he certainly did not show the 
 wisdom of the serpent, for Hqjo Tokiyori, who was 
 then ruling the country, was himself a priest of the 
 Zen sect. At last he became so troublesome and 
 made so great a disturbance in the city that Toki- 
 yori lost patience and ordered him to be executed 
 for a pestilent fellow. So Nichiren was carried off 
 to the village of Katase, opposite Enoshima, to the 
 spot where the temple Riyukqji now stands, and 
 the executioner's leathern carpet having been spread, 
 he knelt down and stretched out his neck to receive 
 the fatal blow. The sword was raised in the air 
 and the headsman was poising it before striking, 
 when suddenly the blade, by a miracle, was snapped 
 in two, and the presiding officer, amazed by the 
 portent, stopped the execution until he should have 
 
 s 267
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 taken Tokiyori's pleasure in the matter, for he felt 
 that of a surety this was no common accident. So 
 he sent off a messenger with all speed to Kamakura 
 to make known what had happened. In the 
 meantime Tokiyori, on his side, had been warned 
 by a miracle not to slay Nichiren, and had also 
 despatched a messenger to stay the execution, and 
 the two messengers met at this little river, which 
 was called the River of Meeting from that day 
 forth. The day fixed for the execution was the 
 twelfth day of the ninth month of the year, and the 
 anniversary is still kept as a great holiday, on which 
 people flock from all parts of the country to the 
 Temple of Riyukqji, the main hall of which is yet 
 called the Hall of the Leathern Carpet ; for 
 Nichiren's teaching prospered greatly, and his sect 
 has spread itself over the whole Empire, " being 
 looked upon " (as a Japanese treatise upon the 
 Buddhist sects says) " with as much affection as a 
 cloud in time of drought." 
 
 Before crossing the narrow strip of sand which 
 now joins the island of Enoshima to the mainland 
 at the pretty little village of Katase, we must travel 
 backwards a long journey of many centuries into 
 the realms of myth-land. 
 
 At the beginning of the sixth century the tract 
 of land in which the city of Kamakura was after- 
 wards built was a vast inland lake, inhabited by an 
 evil dragon, the scourge of the surrounding country. 
 His meat was the flesh of babes and sucklings, his 
 drink their blood. Now there lived by the lake a 
 certain rich man who had sixteen children, every 
 one of whom the dragon stole and ate ; so the 
 268
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 father, mourning over the loss of his darlings 
 changed his place of abode, and having collected 
 the bones of his children buried them at a spot still 
 called Choja-dzuka, or " the rich man's grave." 
 Then the dragon devoured the children of the 
 peasants, who also fled in terror to a place which 
 they called Koshigoye, or " the place to which the 
 children's corpses were removed," because they 
 carried the remains of their little ones with them. 
 After this the people consulted together, and agreed 
 every year to offer up a child as a living sacrifice to 
 the dragon, which used to come and fetch its 
 victim at a spot at the village of Katase, which is 
 still called Tatsu-no-Kuchi, or " the dragon's 
 mouth." This went on for some years, and the 
 people were sorely afflicted at having to pay the 
 tribute of their own bone and flesh to the monster. 
 At last, in the year 552, there came a great storm 
 of thunder and lightning, which lasted twelve days ; 
 the heavens rained stones, and the sea was troubled, 
 and sand and stones were stirred up from the bottom 
 of the deep. Then the island of Enoshima rose out 
 of the sea, and twelve cormorants came and flitted 
 about its rocks, whence it is also called U-Kitaru- 
 Jima, " the island to which the cormorants came." 
 At the same time a beautiful and shining figure of 
 the goddess Benzaiten was seen to descend and 
 dwell upon the island. When the evil dragon saw 
 this, he was overawed by the divine power, and his 
 cruel heart was changed, so that he became a patron 
 saint of the neighbouring country, and a shrine 
 was erected to him at Tatsu-no-Kuchi, or the 
 dragon's mouth, where the peasants of the district 
 
 269
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 still worship and pray. Further, as some say, after 
 he had repented of his evil ways, the dragon 
 married the beautiful Benzaiten, the goddess of 
 mercy. 
 
 Benzaiten, or Benten, as she is more vulgarly 
 called, is the special patroness of the island of 
 Enoshima ; she is represented wearing a jewelled 
 cap, in the centre of which is a white snake, the 
 head of the snake being as the head of an old man 
 with white eyebrows. She has eight hands ; in 
 her left hands she carries a precious ball, a spear, a 
 precious wheel, and a bow ; and in her right 
 hands a sword, a sceptre, a key, and an arrow. 
 Fifteen attendant spirits minister to her. Above 
 all things, as you value your worldly prosperity, be 
 sure that you pay due reverence to the goddess 
 Benzaiten, for he who serves her faithfully will find 
 his poverty changed into wealth. 
 
 The little fishing village at the entrance to the 
 island of Enoshima reminds one strongly of some 
 small hamlet on the Norman coast. There are the 
 same steep slippery streets roughly paved with 
 irregular stones, the same smell of fish, the same 
 amphibious population. The shops are all for the 
 sale of shells, dried fish, corallines, and, above all, 
 for that most beautiful of all products of the sea, 
 the Hosvgai, the work of some silkworm of the 
 deep, which looks like sheaves of the purest spun 
 glass, fastened together by a spongy, shell-covered 
 cement at one end. I do not know its scientific 
 name, but I believe that naturalists esteem it as a 
 thing of great price. The likeness to a French 
 fishing village is strengthened by the stalls for the 
 270
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 sale of votive tablets, made of many-coloured shells, 
 to be hung up at the shrine of the goddess or 
 carried home as a fairing to wife, sweetheart, or 
 children. The place might be called Notre Dame 
 de Grace, were it not for the strange tongue and 
 the strange garments. 
 
 Lovely as is the little island, which, as the legend 
 says, sprang during some volcanic upheaval from 
 the sea, its temples are unworthy of it and of the 
 beautiful goddess in whose honour they were built. 
 The Buddhist priests, who swarm here, are rather 
 unhappy just now ; for they dread disestablishment 
 at the hands of a parental Government, which is 
 showing signs of declaring that the true religion of 
 the country is the Shinto, the indigenous faith.* 
 In this case the poor shavelings will be swept away, 
 with all their host of imported gods and goddesses, 
 whose images will be replaced by the simple mirror, 
 which is the emblem of the Shinto divinity, and 
 Benten will have to admit that she is but a usurper 
 in the island, which rightfully belongs to the goddess 
 Uga, the daughter of the god Sosanoo, who repre- 
 sents the principle of evil in the Japanese mythology. 
 
 But this question of the contest between the 
 two faiths is too long and too intricate a subject to 
 be more than alluded to in passing. For the 
 present Benten still reigns at Enoshima, and we 
 must scramble over the hill to visit her famous 
 cave, a dark grotto about six hundred yards long, 
 the tide-washed approach to which is rather slippery 
 and awkward walking. There is not much to say 
 
 * Their fears were vain. Tolerance has been one of the charac 
 teristics of the Go-isshin the Restoration. 
 
 271
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 about the cave, but the gloom gives an air of 
 romantic mystery to the litanies which the attendant 
 priest recites by the dim light of a single paper 
 lantern hung up before the altar. Outside the 
 cave, a whole company of divers, men and boys, are 
 always in waiting to astonish travellers with their 
 feats, which are really remarkable, although the 
 lobsters and crwabi (a kind of shell-fish much affected 
 by Japanese gourmets) which they bring up have 
 been placed in wicker baskets beforehand. Who 
 hides, finds ! When the fun was at its highest, and 
 a few copper coins thrown into the sea had made 
 some twenty or thirty little brown urchins tumble 
 in all together, there suddenly arose such a yelling, 
 such a splashing, and such diving in pure terror 
 that I fancied the water must be bewitched. The 
 innocent cause of the tumult was Dog Lion, who, 
 moved by a spirit of emulation, or perhaps by the 
 ambition of retrieving some particularly small boy, 
 had jumped in too, and was cheerfully swimming 
 about in the midst of the throng. A shark in 
 Cuckoo Weir at Eton could not have caused a greater 
 astonishment and fright than a dog that would face 
 the water did here at Enoshima. " The Devil take 
 the hindmost" was the order of the day, and, in less 
 time than it takes to write this, Lion was left in 
 solitary enjoyment of his bath. 
 
 272
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN NEARLY 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO PART II
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN NEARLY 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO II 
 
 ALONG morning's walk under a hot sun 
 has made us more than ready for the 
 luncheon which awaits us at the pretty 
 little inn, nor is the prospect of an hour's rest un- 
 welcome before proceeding on our journey. Had 
 I had time, I would gladly have spent the night 
 here, for assuredly the island of Enoshima is one of 
 the fairest spots I have seen, but I was forced to 
 hurry on that I might sleep that night at Fujisawa, 
 a straggling town on the great highway. 
 
 The evening was far advanced when I reached 
 Fujisawa and rode up to the Suzukiya^ once a 
 porcelain-shop, now a really excellent hostelry, 
 where, to my astonishment and delight, I found 
 the luxury of a table and a very hard, straight- 
 backed chair, such as our great-grandmothers sat 
 in and gave the law, such as we more effeminate 
 vote to be an instrument of torture. The room 
 was so natty and tidy as to deserve a few words of 
 description. The sliding panels were covered with 
 a smart new paper, decorated with a pattern of fans 
 sprinkled over it with marvellous effect ; the toko- 
 noma, the raised recess, which is the place of honour, 
 was supported on one side by a wooden pillar, com- 
 posed of a single tree stripped of its bark so as to 
 be perfectly smooth, and contained one of those 
 quaint zigzag sets of shelves which have their 
 origin in a piece of obsolete etiquette. When 
 persons of rank used to meet together in old days 
 to drink and be merry, they would lay aside their 
 
 275
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 caps and dirks, the man of highest rank placing his 
 traps upon the highest shelf, those of lower rank 
 not presuming even to allow their caps to take a 
 precedence which did not belong to them. This 
 is said to have occasioned the invention of those 
 shelves which in lacquer cabinets must have puzzled 
 collectors at Christie and Manson's. The mats 
 and woodwork which are the pride of the Japanese 
 householder were white and new, the beams 
 decorated with carving of no mean taste. One 
 solitary picture, executed with wonderful freedom 
 of touch and grotesqueness, represented, in a few 
 bold strokes of the brush, a group of husbandmen 
 sowing rice in the field, and on one side of the 
 drawing was a distich running thus : 
 
 Useless even for drugs, 
 How happy are the frogs ! * 
 
 The literal translation must plead my excuse for 
 the badness of the rhyme. I was not a little 
 puzzled by the meaning of the couplet until Shiraki 
 came to the rescue and solved the riddle. 
 
 " Sir," said he pompously, " here is a lesson of 
 humility and content conveyed in a parable. It is 
 a fact which will meet with the imperial assent, 
 that frogs are of no use in the world either as food 
 or even as medicine." 
 
 " Very good food," I objected, " either in a curry 
 as eaten at Hongkong, or with a white sauce as at 
 Paris." 
 
 Shiraki smiled a smile that was incredulous. 
 
 * Kusuri ni mo naraneba, 
 Buji na kawadzu kana ! 
 
 276
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 " Some insects feed upon smartweed.* However 
 that may be, we say that the frogs being useless, 
 no man interferes with them, and they are allowed 
 to live out their lives in undisturbed peace. So it 
 is with the farmers : their position is lowly, but 
 they have none of the cares which haunt great- 
 ness : therefore they should be contented, and the 
 poet praises their modest lot." 
 
 Ofortunatos nimium ! Has the Corpus Poetarum 
 Latinorum been translated into Japanese ? As for 
 the frogs, I soon began to wish that some man 
 would find a use for them, or that a new Batracho- 
 myomachia might arise ending in the victory of 
 the mice and the utter extermination of the 
 croakers ; for hardly had I got to bed, hoping for 
 a good night's rest, when there arose from the 
 neighbouring paddy-fields such a chorus of breke- 
 kekex koax koax, as has not been heard since the 
 days of Aristophanes. The night long they sang 
 their hideous song, banishing sleep : sometimes 
 indeed there would come a sudden lull, bringing 
 hope with it ; but hardly had the heavy eyelids 
 time to close before some deep-voiced, hoarse pre- 
 centor would lead off again, the whole choir follow- 
 ing one by one, until it seemed as if every frog that 
 had ever been a tadpole had been summoned to 
 take part in the concert. Until the first dawn of 
 day they went on with what I remember to have 
 seen in some old book is a serenade of love from 
 the males to the females ; with the dawn they 
 rested, and so did I. 
 
 October IO. Whilst my people were packing up, 
 
 * A proverb equivalent to our " There is no accounting for tastes." 
 
 277
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 paying the reckoning, and making ready for a start, 
 I wandered into the yard of the handsome temple 
 opposite the inn. On one of the stone lanterns 
 were graven the two Chinese characters Shen Tien 
 God's Field. What an exact reproduction of 
 our expression "God's Acre"! That the daily 
 wants of mankind should have produced such tools 
 as the saw, the plane, the chisel, the plumb-line, 
 and a thousand others, all the world over, seems 
 natural enough ; but it is astounding to find how 
 the minds of men have hit upon the same ex- 
 pressions of thought. Almost all the proverbs of 
 China and Japan have their fellows in our European 
 languages, while some are identically the same ; 
 such as " Walls have ears " ; " Birds of a feather 
 flock together " ; " Talk of a man and you will 
 cause his shadow to appear " ; " Silence is better 
 than speech " ; besides many more. Here in this 
 Ultima Thule is " God's Acre." 
 
 A nipping and an eager air blowing over the 
 mountains in our faces reminds us how fast the year 
 is waning, and it is so chilly that we are glad to 
 dismount and walk, in order to keep ourselves 
 warm. But the rays of a scorching sun soon dis- 
 perse the delicious crispness of early morning, and 
 drive us to take shelter under the fragrant shade 
 of the grand old pines and firs which border this 
 portion of the high-road. 
 
 Journeying on in a westerly direction, we soon 
 arrive at the little village of Nango, beyond which 
 a sharp turn of the road brings us upon one of the 
 views most esteemed by Japanese landscape-painters. 
 The highway follows such a straight line that 
 278
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 Mount Fuji appears almost always on the right 
 hand of the westward-bound traveller. Here is 
 one of the rare exceptions to the rule : the Peerless 
 Mountain rises on his left, its glorious cone tower- 
 ing above the rugged outline of the Hakone range, 
 and the wilds of Mount Oyama, dark, gloomy, and 
 lowering, a sacred haunt long guarded jealously 
 from the profanation of a foreigner's foot. Among 
 yonder mysterious glens, crags, and gorges is the 
 home of the Tengu or Dog of Heaven, a hideous 
 elf, long-clawed, long-beaked, winged, loving soli- 
 tude ; terror of naughty children who refuse to go 
 to sleep at the word of command, or are guilty of 
 other infantine crimes : altogether an uncanny 
 hobgoblin : and should you, losing your way among 
 the hills, find its nest, which is built in the highest 
 trees, go your way and disturb it not, lest some foul 
 evil should overtake you. The enchanting scenes 
 of this day's journey, which change and bring fresh 
 charms before the eye at every turn in the road, 
 would alone repay the pilgrim for the trouble of his 
 expedition, and he will once more feel how legends 
 and fairy-tales have grown around haunts so beauti- 
 ful, so wild, and so lonely that they seem to belong 
 to another and a better world. 
 
 A glance at the map of Japan will show that, 
 the watershed being so close to the sea, it is im- 
 possible that there should be any rivers of impor- 
 tance ; indeed, there are very few that are navigable 
 even to junks and steam-launches, and most of 
 those are guarded by dangerous and almost im- 
 passable bars.* Here the rivers are mere mountain 
 
 * The bars at the mouths of the rivers at Osaka and Niigata have 
 
 279
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 torrents, rising rapidly and wickedly, to use a Scotch 
 fisherman's expression, and, in the absence of bridges, 
 often putting a stop to all communication. The 
 little river Sagami, which we presently have to 
 cross, is in full spate ; luckily, however, it is not 
 yet so swollen as to stop our progress. At this 
 point it is called Banin-gawa, or the Horse-Plunge 
 River, from an adventure which happened to the 
 Shogun Yoritomo. 
 
 Yoritomo, it will be remembered, had reached 
 the supreme power by a bloody road. Among the 
 chief of the persons who perished in the civil wars 
 were the infant Emperor Antoku (whose grand- 
 mother, clasping him to her bosom, jumped into 
 the sea in despair) and Yoritomo's own brother 
 Yoshitune. Now it happened, in the twelfth 
 month of the year 1198, that a certain noble, 
 named Shigenari, who had married the sister of 
 Yoritomo's wife and had become a widower, built 
 a bridge over the River Sagami and held a great 
 festival, according to the Buddhist ritual, in honour 
 of his dead wife. Upon the day appointed for the 
 ceremony, Yoritomo, on account of the relationship 
 which existed between him and Shigenari, set out 
 to do honour to the occasion by his presence. 
 Having arrived at the place, the Shdgun was 
 received with due respect by his brother-in-law, 
 who forthwith gave orders that the priests should 
 begin their prayers and litanies. Then there arose 
 
 been frequently fatal to the lives and merchandise of foreigners. It was 
 in crossing the bar at Osaka that the American Admiral Bell was lost, 
 with his flag-lieutenant and all his boat's crew, in the month of January 
 1868. 
 
 280
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 a great storm of thunder and lightning, and in the 
 midst of the storm there appeared a hideous ghost 
 mocking and gibbering, and a black cloud was seen 
 dancing down the river on the top of the water. 
 Startled by the apparition, the Shogun's horse 
 snorted and reared so that Yoritomo was thrown, 
 and the horse, leaping over the parapet, jumped 
 into the flood and was drowned and this mishap 
 gave the name to the river. But when the 
 bystanders saw all these signs their hearts quailed, 
 and they knew that some terrible calamity was 
 about to happen. Nor was this the only portent 
 which they were destined to behold, for when 
 Yoritomo on his homeward journey reached the 
 moor of Yatsumato, the ghosts of his brother 
 Yoshitune and of another hero, called Yukiiye, 
 appeared to him in anger, and at Cape Inamura he 
 was met by the ghost of the Emperor Antoku, so 
 that the Shogun, terror-stricken by the sight, fell 
 fainting from his horse. His attendants caught 
 him in their arms, and carried him back to Kama- 
 kura ; but from that time forth he sickened, until 
 on the thirteenth day of the first month of the 
 following year he died, being fifty-three years of 
 age, and having ruled as Shogun during eight 
 years. 
 
 Injustice to the character of the Japanese histori- 
 cal books, I should add that the story of the miracu- 
 lous apparitions which preceded the death of 
 Yoritomo is based merely upon tradition ; but it is 
 treasured nevertheless in the memory of a marvel- 
 loving people. 
 
 Twice during the day we halted, first at Hira- 
 
 281
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 tsuka for luncheon, and again in the afternoon at 
 the village of Meida, for the intense heat of the 
 afternoon sun made a rest and a cup of tea very 
 acceptable. At Meida my groom fell in with a 
 friend, and it was most amusing to see the two lads, 
 half-naked, their wonderfully tattooed limbs show- 
 ing the lowness of their class, meet one another, 
 bowing and prostrating themselves with more 
 ceremonious greetings than would be exchanged 
 between two Western potentates : 
 
 " Welcome ! welcome ! Mr. Chokichi, this is 
 indeed a matter of congratulation. You must be 
 fatigued let me offer you a cup of tea." (All this, 
 by the by, with the compliments thrown in most 
 untranslatably at every step.) 
 
 " Thank you, sir. This is truly rare tea. 
 J^ekko ! Kekkd ! delicious! delicious! Whence 
 are you pleased to be making your progress ? " 
 
 " From Odawara it is a long time since I have 
 had the pleasure of placing myself before your 
 eyes." 
 
 And so they went on, with truly Oriental 
 courtesy, nor did there seem any reason why they 
 should ever have stopped, unless I had given the 
 signal for a start, when down they went again in 
 renewed prostrations. Five minutes afterwards I 
 overheard my groom telling one of the other 
 horseboys a long story, the upshot of which was to 
 show what a rogue, rascal, and villain was his 
 acquaintance, with whom he had parted so affec- 
 tionately with compliments coming as much from 
 the heart as kisses exchanged between rival fine 
 ladies. 
 282
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 The left bank of a broad shallow river, upon 
 which we presently come, is the limit within 
 which, according to treaty, the foreigners resident 
 at Yokohama are bound to confine themselves ; and 
 two white notice-boards inscribed with that an- 
 nouncement in French and English stand by an 
 office for the examination of passports, which are 
 now readily granted to those desirous of extending 
 their observations. A third notice is very signi- 
 ficant of the danger which the traveller yet runs 
 should he fall in with a fanatic or ill-conditioned 
 fellow : this proclamation is now stuck up at all 
 the principal places throughout the Empire, in 
 accordance with an agreement entered into by the 
 Japanese Government with the foreign representa- 
 tives after the attacks upon foreigners which took 
 place in 1868. Translated, it runs as follows : 
 
 " Now that the Imperial Government has been 
 newly stablished, in obedience to the principles of 
 the Court, it has been commanded that friendly 
 relations should exist with foreign countries, and 
 that all matters should be treated directly by the 
 Imperial Court.* The Treaties will be observed 
 according to International Law, and the people of 
 the whole country, receiving the expression of the 
 Imperial will with gratitude, are hereby ordered to 
 rest assured upon this point. 
 
 " Henceforth those persons who, by violently 
 slaying foreigners, or otherwise insulting them, 
 would rebel against the Imperial commands, and 
 brew trouble in the country, and all other persons 
 whatsoever, are hereby ordered to behave in a 
 
 * Instead of by the Tycoon, the head of the executive, as heretofore. 
 
 T 283
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 friendly manner. Those who do not uphold the 
 Majesty and Good Faith of their country in the 
 eyes of the world, being guilty of most audacious 
 crime, in accordance with the heinousness of their 
 offence, will, even should they belong to the 
 Samurai class, be stripped of their rank, and will 
 meet with a suitable punishment. Let all men 
 receive the Imperial commands, by which riotous 
 conduct, however slight, is strictly forbidden." 
 
 The virtue of the proclamation lies in the words, 
 "even should they belong to the Samurai class." 
 From the common people, who are mostly well 
 disposed and friendly, the foreigner has nothing to 
 fear, unless it be perhaps a volley of stones at the 
 hands of a party of merry-makers in holiday-time, 
 and a few cuts of his horsewhip will amply avenge 
 him; but that the privileged and armed Samurai 
 should learn that in cutting down a barbarian he is 
 not only not performing an act of devotion pleasing 
 in the eyes of the gods, but is committing a crime 
 which even deprives him of his dearly valued birth- 
 right of self-immolation by hara-kiri^ and puts him 
 under the sword of the common headsman, is an 
 immense point gained in our relations with Japan. 
 The Son of Heaven, the lineal descendant and 
 successor of the gods, himself takes us under his 
 protection, and commands "that friendly relations 
 should exist with foreign countries." 
 
 I do not of course mean to say that this law will 
 of itself be sufficient to protect foreigners from 
 insult and outrage in a land which numbers so 
 many fanatic dare-devils, and where the jo-i or 
 barbarian-expulsion party, who hold, with some 
 284
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 truth on their side, that foreign intercourse has 
 brought nothing but trouble upon the country, are 
 yet very strong. But it is a step in the right 
 direction, and now (1872) that railroads and tele- 
 graphs are an established fact in Japan, the advance 
 in toleration will no longer be by steps, but by 
 seven-league-booted strides. Thus I wrote in 1 872 ; 
 to-day, forty years later, it is all prehistoric 
 mukashi^ as the Japanese say. 
 
 We must now pass through the ordeal of inspec- 
 tion at the bansho or guard-house, a wooden shanty 
 entirely open on the side facing the road, in which 
 are squatting over their braziers four or five 
 rather ragged petty yakunin^ literally " office-men," 
 smoking in grim and sulky silence. One of them 
 seeing me beckons with his pipe, and, in the vile 
 jargon of Yokohama, bids me come up and de- 
 liver my passport. Shiraki and the chief of my 
 escort are horrified at this breach of good manners, 
 and rush to the front vying with one another in 
 loud denunciation of the chikusM (" beast ") who 
 dares to take such liberties. 
 
 "If it be possible," says the polite corporal, 
 apologising to me, " be pleased to exercise your 
 august patience. This guard is a beast that knows 
 no manners. Verily I have lost face." 
 
 After some wrangling, and no little abuse of the 
 unhappy guard, who now looked thoroughly crest- 
 fallen and ashamed of himself, my passport was 
 pronounced to be en regie, and I was allowed to 
 make my arrangements for crossing the river, on 
 the bank of which a whole company of coolies 
 were disputing and fighting for the job of carrying 
 
 285
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 me and my party over. Fording the river on 
 horseback was quite out of the question ; it was 
 running like a mill-race, and both in breadth and 
 depth far beyond its usual measure. So we were 
 placed man by man, each with his saddle by him, 
 on a square deal board, and hoisted on to the 
 shoulders of four stout brown-limbed coolies, naked 
 save a loin-cloth, who bore us bravely across the 
 muddy flood, although the stream threatened at 
 every step to wash their legs from under them. 
 The horses were left in charge of the grooms, who 
 stripped (a process which, sooth to say, did not 
 involve taking off very much), and, plunging in 
 with them, drove them, somewhat frightened, poor 
 beasts, in safety to the other side. Twelve hours later 
 neither man nor horse could have faced the torrent. 
 
 We have no great distance to go now, up a 
 gentle picturesque ascent, to reach Odawara, this 
 day's goal. A pitiful, mean little town it is, with 
 dilapidated houses much needing repair, whether 
 seen from the moralist's or the builder's point of 
 view. Poor in appearance as it now is, however, 
 it still boasts a handsome feudal castle, with tower- 
 cornered walls and a moat, and an official quarter 
 for the dwellings of my lord's chief retainers, and 
 in its day it has played no mean part in the history 
 of the country, of which for some generations it 
 was the military capital. 
 
 Just now the main street is full of bustle ; scores 
 of wayfarers travelling eastward are pouring in, 
 and although the place is full of houses of enter- 
 tainment (many of them, as I have hinted above, 
 not over respectable), it becomes no easy matter to 
 286
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 find suitable accommodation. As for my horse, at 
 one moment I feared that I should have to leave 
 him roofless to brave the storm that was evidently 
 brewing as best he might, for there was not a 
 stable in the place big enough for him to walk into. 
 At last, by causing a rotten beam to be cut away 
 from under an archway, I contrived to get him 
 housed. All along the road his size had called 
 forth a great measure of wonder, for Europeans 
 when travelling usually content themselves with 
 Japanese ponies ; but here, beyond the treaty limit, 
 a horse over sixteen hands high created as much 
 astonishment as a giraffe might in a Yorkshire 
 village. By the same token, in these out-of-the- 
 way regions, Dog Lion was taken sometimes for a 
 bear, but more often for a sheep, an animal known 
 by fame, indeed, but never seen out of the neigh- 
 bourhood of foreign settlements.* 
 
 And now heavy black clouds were gathering 
 overhead, and the storm began to bluster and scold 
 among the mountains, at the foot of which we lay 
 snugly sheltered, having washed away our travel- 
 weariness in a hot bath, the one genuine comfort 
 which is never failing in a Japanese inn. (Be sure, 
 however, that your servant sees that you have the 
 first useiof it, unless, Japanese-like, you do not mind 
 bathing in the same water after, perhaps, half a 
 score of other persons ; not a pleasant idea, especially 
 in a country where skin-diseases are so prevalent. 
 
 * It is said that sheep will not live in Japan, the soil being so rich 
 and moist that they die of foot-rot ; but I take it that if the experiment 
 were tried in some of the inland moorlands, they might be made to 
 breed and thrive there ; as it is, we get our sheep over from Shanghai, 
 and our mutton costs us half-a-dollar a pound. This was so in 1869. 
 
 287
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 In the morning you may always be certain of virgin 
 water, for the natives do not bathe until after the 
 day's work is over, and before the evening meal.) 
 
 October n. Rain falling in sheets ; the main 
 street running like a mountain burn ; a group of 
 coolies dressed in mushroom hats, and raincoats 
 made of long grass, looking like animated haycocks 
 that had suddenly taken to themselves legs, and 
 rushed under the projecting eaves of the houses to 
 save the crop ; a petty personage, closely shut up 
 in his litter, being borne along at extra speed by 
 naked bearers, all glistening with wet, his two 
 attendants vainly trying to wrap themselves in 
 their waterproof coats made of oiled paper, out of 
 which stuck their swords like the tails of wooden 
 monkeys ; water dripping, water pouring, water 
 running, a general sloppiness, beggaring description: 
 this was the scene upon which I looked out the 
 following morning. It was hopeless to think of 
 starting in such a downpour ; so having made as 
 long a business as possible of shaving, dressing, and 
 breaking my fast, in order to kill time, I sat down 
 with Shiraki to learn what I could respecting the 
 town of Odawara. 
 
 The arch-enemy of the Shogun Yoritomo was 
 Taira no Kiyomori, the head of the house of Hei. 
 So great was his hatred of Yoritomo that he died 
 saying, "After my death say no litanies for the good 
 of my soul ; all that I desire is that the head of 
 Yoritomo may be laid upon my grave." This was 
 his last will and testament. Now, when the house 
 of Gen, with Yoritomo as its leader, rose to 
 supreme power, it followed, as a matter of course, 
 288
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 that the house of Hei became utterly ruined, its 
 members being scattered here and there over the 
 country, and forced to gain their livelihood as best 
 they might. In the chronicles of the provinces of 
 Idzu and Sagami * it is written that towards the 
 end of the fifteenth century a descendant of 
 Kiyomori called Hqjo Shinkuro Nagauji had, by 
 the lapse of time, become reduced to the condition 
 of a peasant, and was a wanderer upon the face of 
 the earth. But notwithstanding his fallen con- 
 dition, his valour and talents were worthy of the 
 noble blood that flowed in his veins, and his spirit 
 rebelled against the misfortune under which he 
 was crushed. So he went to the capital, Kyoto, 
 and having placed himself under the protection of 
 one of the ministers of the then Shogun, Ashikaga 
 Yoshimasa, took up his abode at the fortress of 
 Kokokuji. Bent on raising himself to eminence, 
 he took advantage of a feud which existed between 
 the Shogun at Kyoto and his representatives at 
 Kamakura, and distinguished himself in many 
 conflicts in the provinces of Idzu and Sagami, finally 
 wresting the town and castle of Odawara from 
 the Omori family, who belonged to the Kamakura 
 faction. He now made the castle of Odawara his 
 headquarters, and having so far pushed his way in 
 the world, he entered the Buddhist priesthood 
 under the name of Soun ; but though he donned 
 the scarf, he did not lay aside the sword, and his 
 military power waxed stronger and stronger, until he 
 became the recognised leader of the chivalry of the 
 two provinces. The task of completing the glory 
 
 * Dzu-S6-Ki is the title of the book. 
 
 289
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 of the family was reserved for his grandson Ujiyasu, 
 who, having put down with a strong hand the 
 factions which disturbed the eight provinces of 
 Kwanto, annexed them, and placed them under his 
 own rule. Odawara now took the place of Kama- 
 kura as military capital, and here the Hojo family 
 ruled for five generations in the capacity, although 
 not bearing the title, of Shoguns (which was still 
 held by the Ashikaga family), until the time of Hqjo 
 Ujimasa, who, having neglected a summons to go 
 to court at Kyoto, was attacked by the famous 
 general Taiko Sama, who determined to punish his 
 disobedience. Taiko Sama invaded the eastern 
 provinces with an overwhelming force, and pitched 
 his main camp on mounts Ishigaki and Biyobu, so 
 distributing the rest of his forces as to overcast the 
 town of Odawara with a cloud of soldiers. Ujimasa 
 prepared to make a stout defence, and called all the 
 troops of Kwanto to his assistance ; but they were 
 no match for Taiko Sama, whose artillery played 
 pitilessly upon them from the neighbouring heights ; 
 and on the fifth day of the seventh month of the 
 year 1590 Ujimasa surrendered at discretion, Taiko 
 Sama refusing to hear his prayer for peace, and in- 
 sisting that he must put himself to death. So 
 Ujimasa disembowelled himself, and his head was 
 sent to Kyoto, to be exposed as the head of a 
 traitor ; his son Ujinao was banished to Mount 
 Koya in Kishiu ; and this was the end of the great 
 Hqjo family, which had held the castle of Odawara 
 for ninety-seven years. 
 
 One day during the siege, as Taiko Sama and his 
 general Tokugawa lyeyasu were standing on a 
 290
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 watch-tower which they had built on the heights 
 above Odawara, Taiko Sama said, " I see before 
 me the eight provinces of Kwanto. Before many 
 days are over I will take them and give them to 
 thee." 
 
 lyeyasu thanked him, saying, " That were indeed 
 great luck." 
 
 " Wilt thou live here at Odawara," asked Taiko 
 Sama, " as the men of Hojo have done ? " 
 
 " Ay, my lord," answered lyeyasu, " that 
 will I." 
 
 " That will not do," said Taiko Sama. " I see 
 on the map that there is a place called Yedo some 
 twenty ri* eastward from here. It is a fine 
 position, and that is the place where thou shouldst 
 live." 
 
 " I shall with reverence obey your lordship's 
 instructions," replied lyeyasu. 
 
 Now when the house of Hojo had been anni- 
 hilated, Taiko Sama fulfilled his promise, and made 
 lyeyasu lord of the provinces of Kwanto ; and he 
 became the founder of the last dynasty of Shoguns, 
 and made Yedo the military capital, according to 
 his chiefs advice. So Odawara lapsed into in- 
 significance, it being a matter of wonder, indeed, 
 that a place so utterly at the mercy of an attack 
 from the mountains which overhang it should ever 
 have been chosen as a military stronghold. 
 
 The vacillation shown by the lord of Odawara 
 during the siege has passed into a proverb. He 
 was for ever saying, " To-morrow we will fight," 
 " To-morrow we will make a sortie." But the 
 
 * One ri = 4320 yards. 
 
 291
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 carrying out of his good resolutions was always 
 delayed, so that the expression, Odawara hiyojd, 
 " deliberations of Odawara" (a sort of jingling play 
 on the name Hojo being also intended), is now a 
 synonym for fatal procrastination. 
 
 During the whole morning the pelting rain 
 continued, but towards one o'clock the hills began 
 to unveil themselves, and a glorious afternoon 
 rewarded us for the gloom in which we had been 
 confined. My original intention had been to go 
 straight up the Hakone Pass by the main road ; 
 but hearing that a great friend of mine, a native 
 gentleman, one of the most distinguished members 
 of the Government, was staying at Miyanoshita, a 
 place among the mountains famous for the beauty 
 of its scenery and for certain natural hot-springs, I 
 determined to change my route in order to go and 
 pay him a visit. For a short distance we rode, 
 but when we had to turn up to the right by a 
 steep, difficult mountain-path, it became evident 
 that Shanks's mare was the best horse, so we sent 
 our beasts back to Odawara to await our return, 
 and proceeded on foot. We had some little 
 difficulty in finding our way, as neither my escort 
 nor Shiraki knew the road. As for the distance, 
 like the Scotch " mile and a bittock" it seemed to 
 be an unknown quantity, for the natives of whom 
 we asked our way, eager to be hired as guides, 
 always made Miyanoshita recede in proportion as 
 we advanced, greatly to the indignation of the 
 corporal of the escort, who at last lost all patience 
 with one touting scoundrel, saying, " What do 
 you take us for, you lubber ? The next time a 
 292
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 country bumpkin passes this way you may talk 
 like that, but it's no use your trying it on with a 
 Yedo child " ; and I had to interfere to save the 
 poor wretch from a liberal payment of stick 
 bakhshish. It was stiffish walking up the slippery 
 hill-paths, but what a beautiful scene ! The 
 variegated trees sparkling with prismatic colours ; 
 the mountain torrents, swollen and foaming, 
 dashing past lichen-covered rocks overhanging 
 black pools, the home of many a tiny trout ; such 
 subtle effects of light and shade ; such blue 
 distances ; the two famous twin mountains, Futago 
 Yama, clothed in deep purple, ahead of us ; a fresh 
 keen air that was new life to men sodden with the 
 hot damp of the plain ; even the stout and elderly 
 Shiraki rose in spirits notwithstanding the efforts 
 of the scramble, and declared, gasping for breath, 
 that this was indeed enjoyment. I think we were 
 none of us sorry when we came upon a certain 
 spring called Himemidzu, the Princess-water, 
 where an ancient dame served us with cups con- 
 taining the most delicious crystal-clear draught, as 
 cold as ice, which we sat down and drank as if it 
 had been nectar. The spring takes its name from 
 a story that one of the princesses of the noble 
 house of Hqjo was wont to come hither from 
 Odawara with her ladies, and make tea al fresco. 
 Close to the well the old woman has a little 
 cottage, and she earns a scanty living by serving 
 tea of the Princess-water to weary footpads like our- 
 selves. Having rested ourselves, we made her happy 
 with a small silver coin, a largesse about ten times as 
 bountiful as she had hoped for, and went on our way. 
 
 293
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 We must have gone some nine miles, as I should 
 guess, since we left Odawara, when we reached 
 the village of Miyanoshita, a most lovely spot 
 lying lost among the hills. The little hamlet 
 seems to be made up entirely of bathing-houses, 
 which are also inns and shops for the sale of 
 camphor-wood boxes, marqueterie and toys of 
 different sorts, very pretty and tasteful, which the 
 bathers take home as keepsakes to their families. 
 It is a most fashionable watering-place, a sort of 
 Japanese Tunbridge Wells. I never saw a place 
 in such complete repose ; when we came upon it 
 not a soul was stirring, not a dog was barking ; 
 perhaps rest is part of the cure ; at last I found a 
 native who told me at which of the inns my friend 
 was staying, and was lucky enough to be able to 
 secure an apartment in the same house. It will 
 easily be imagined that in such a place the inns 
 are perfection in their way ; the charm of that at 
 which I put up quite passed my expectations. I 
 was lodged in a beautiful clean set of rooms, with 
 a balcony looking on to a lovely little garden full 
 of dwarfed trees, rare shrubs and flowers, with 
 quaint rockeries, and a pond full of gigantic gold- 
 fish and carp, grown old and fat and lazy under 
 a long course of feeding at the hands of genera- 
 tions of bathers ; behind the garden the mountain 
 copses made a natural background of forest scenery. 
 As I lay looking out on this pretty view, after a 
 bathe in the hot water welling from the living 
 rock, I was lulled almost to sleep by the plashing 
 of a neighbouring water-wheel. I was aroused 
 from my dreamy state by the entrance of my 
 294
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 friend Kato, who had just come in from a country 
 walk. He had been surprised not a little to hear 
 of my arrival, and when I told him that I had 
 come purposely to see him, he was profuse in his 
 expressions of thanks. Seeing that my baggage 
 had not yet arrived, he pressed me warmly to go 
 across to his rooms and dine with him, an invita- 
 tion which I was glad enough to accept. 
 
 Here it was that I first became acquainted with 
 Kato's wife, a bonny little lady, though eyes less 
 familiar with the custom than mine would have 
 objected to the disfigurement of shaven eyebrows 
 and blackened teeth. She was very civil and 
 pleasant, and had none of the shyness which I have 
 usually met with in Japanese ladies ; nor had she 
 the servile manner which is another defect bred by 
 the seclusion and abased condition in which women 
 are kept ; on the contrary, she took part in the 
 conversation brightly and well, and did the honours 
 of her husband's apartment with ease and grace. 
 She had with her as companion and playmate a 
 charming little girl about eight or nine years old, 
 whose special function appeared to consist in being 
 petted and stuffed with sweetmeats. The story ot 
 my host's marriage was a romantic one. During 
 the political storms which preceded the outbreak 
 of the revolution, Kato had brought himself into 
 notice as a very active and dangerous man ; a 
 price was set upon his head, and he had to fly for 
 his life : this young lady sheltered him and 
 screened him from his enemies, and he fell in love 
 with and married her. A very happy couple they 
 seemed to be. 
 
 295
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 Purposing to remain some weeks at Miyanoshita, 
 Kato had surrounded himself with a number of 
 comforts which gave his room quite a home-like 
 air. Two or three smart rugs or small carpets, a 
 luxury which has recently been borrowed from the 
 West, gave a colour and warmth to the cold white- 
 ness of the mats and walls ; writing materials, 
 books, handsome lacquer boxes, musical instruments, 
 pipe-stands, and a sword-rack were strewed about 
 the floor, and in the recess a bronze jar contained 
 one of those bouquets the making up of which is 
 a special and elaborate part of a Japanese lady's 
 education. Further, lest he should find his villegia- 
 tura dull, he had gathered together a few friends, 
 " companions of his solitude," to whom, as they 
 came dropping in one by one, I was solemnly 
 presented. First and foremost was the doctor, an 
 intelligent young man of the Satsuma clan, who 
 had studied medicine in the English school presided 
 over by Dr. Willis at Yedo, and had acquired 
 some little reputation in his craft : he spoke with 
 enthusiasm of his kind and excellent teacher. 
 Then there were two or three private gentlemen, 
 remarkably pleasant men, learned in the lore of 
 their country ; a professor of the game of chequers, 
 as elaborate a study as chess or whist ; and, above 
 all, a certain character who deserves a paragraph 
 to himself. 
 
 This was an artist in lacquer, one of the drollest 
 creatures I ever met, as grotesque as the devices 
 upon his own boxes. He was a wit, a wag, a 
 contortionist, cunning at legerdemain and all 
 manner of tricks, which he was continually show- 
 296
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 ing, and yet, somehow, he never was a buffoon. 
 It was most excellent good fooling, and always in 
 good taste. Although a rich man and the especial 
 pet of the great and powerful on account of his 
 social talents, he affected to be especially careful 
 not to imitate their dress, but to abide by the old 
 fashions of the Chonin or wardsmen, even in the 
 cut of his hair, which was closely shaven to the 
 tops of the ears, and brought forward in the tiny 
 little queue which used to be a distinguishing 
 mark of artisans. In his girdle, in the place of a 
 dirk, he wore the wooden beater which his mother 
 had used to pound rice, and which he had deco- 
 rated with many a curious fancy in lacquer, and 
 studded with gold coins. "What need had he to 
 carry a blade ? " he said. His playful sallies, the 
 effect of which was heightened by a marvellously 
 mobile face, kept us in laughter during the whole 
 evening. 
 
 When we had finished dinner, our hostess pro- 
 duced her samishen, half guitar, half banjo, to the 
 accompaniment of which she began singing, while 
 the lacquer-man, not to be outdone in a matter of 
 polite accomplishments, came in with a flute 
 obbligato. I cannot say in conscience that the 
 result was pleasing to a European ear, but, as is 
 often the case elsewhere, the music was the signal 
 for and assistance to conversation, and we, the 
 audience, began talking politics, leaving the per- 
 formers to the enjoyment of their own sweet 
 sounds. It was eleven o'clock when I wished my 
 friends good-night, and I left Kato and the pro- 
 fessor, heads on hands, as completely abstracted 
 
 297
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 from all earthly matters as Buddhists in a state of 
 Nirvana, lost in the solution of some impossible 
 problem in the mysterious game of chequers. 
 
 The following morning (October 1 2) dawned in 
 
 rare splendour, and the opened slides let in a waft 
 
 of fresh mountain air, as exhilarating as good news 
 
 from home. The garden, all ablaze with dew, its 
 
 trimness in striking contrast to the wild nature 
 
 beyond, was looking even more beautiful, if possible, 
 
 than the evening before a fitting spot in which 
 
 to enjoy one of Heaven's own holidays. It is 
 
 always a matter of regret to me that the beauties 
 
 of Japanese scenery should have been done justice 
 
 to by no gifted word-painter like John Ruskin. 
 
 The shapes of the mountains, sometimes grand, 
 
 sometimes fantastic ; the marvellous gradations of 
 
 the tree-colours, from the exquisitely tender green 
 
 of the feathering bamboo, waving in the wind, 
 
 slender and graceful, to the gloom of the sturdy pines 
 
 and cryptomerias which spring from the more barren 
 
 soil ; the rocks streaked and patched with lichens and 
 
 mosses, with many a rare fern and lycopod peeping 
 
 out of chinks and crannies, are worthy studies for a 
 
 great artist to paint with loving hand, and hardly will 
 
 he succeed, limn he never so cunningly. To me the 
 
 memory of these places is like that of a beautiful 
 
 dream of fairyland, vivid and bright, but utterly 
 
 beyond the pale of description. 
 
 At about nine o'clock I received a visit from 
 Kato, who came to tell me that he was off to take 
 his daily bath in the hot iron springs at Kiga, a 
 lovely spot among the mountains, and proposed 
 that I should accompany him that we might make 
 298
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 a picnic luncheon together. At the time of his 
 coming my room was full of sellers of camphor- 
 wood boxes and toys, who had brought their wares 
 for inspection ; directly they saw Kato their prices 
 went down fifty per cent. the rogues had been 
 asking the foreigner something like three times the 
 real value of their goods. I bought a few very 
 pretty specimens of marqueterie and a certain 
 camphor-wood cabinet (which now holds the flies 
 and feathers of a distinguished salmon-fisher) at a 
 reasonable price, thanks to my friend, with whom 
 I presently started on our expedition, the whole of 
 the party of the night before, with the exception 
 of the lady, being of the company. 
 
 We had a very pleasant walk over the hills, Kato, 
 on account of his delicate state of health, being 
 carried in a litter, which, however, being open at 
 the sides, did not prevent him from joining in the 
 conversation and laughter with which we beguiled 
 the way. Every now and then the doctor or one 
 of the others would take me for a scramble to see 
 some new point of view, some fresh beauty in the 
 landscape, for these Japanese are passionate lovers 
 of nature, so that after many stoppages, now to 
 feast our eyes, now to rest Kato's coolies, it was 
 noon by the time we reached Kiga. 
 
 Our picnic was a great success ; the doctor and 
 the lacquer-man were with one consent elected 
 chief cooks, and distinguished themselves by pro- 
 ducing, the one a fry of delicious burn-trout, the 
 other a savoury stew, in which the shortcomings 
 of a rather lean old cock-pheasant were skilfully 
 concealed. The cordon bleu of the establishment 
 
 u 299
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 supplied the rest of the dishes, my contribution 
 being sundry bottles of pale ale and porter, which 
 were immensely popular, for the names of Bass, 
 Allsopp, and Guinness are familiar now as house- 
 hold words to the Japanese. Through the heat of 
 the afternoon we remained chatting over every 
 conceivable matter, grave and gay, but chiefly 
 discussing politics and the application of European 
 principles of government to Japan. Of all subjects, 
 this is the favourite among this improvement- 
 seeking people. It is little wonder that, with 
 their eagerness to learn and profit by the experience 
 of other nations, they should have distanced their 
 backward neighbours, the Chinese, in such matters 
 as railways and telegraphs. In the cool of the 
 evening we trudged home, and at a little distance 
 from Miyanoshita we were met by Kato's wife 
 with her little companion. 
 
 Towards eight o'clock we all met again in my 
 rooms for dinner, Dog Lion, at the special request 
 of the lady, being present, and exciting great 
 admiration by his discreet and polite behaviour. 
 He divided the honours of the evening with the 
 lacquer-man, who outdid himself in efforts to make 
 my party go off well. Shiraki, as chief retainer, 
 did the honours, affording thereby an instance of 
 Japanese manners and customs. No feature of 
 Japanese society is more curious than the relations 
 between master and man. The master admits his 
 retainer (provided, of course, that he be of the 
 military class) to his intimate society ; but the 
 retainer never assumes a liberty. He takes his 
 place at dinner with the utmost humility, and 
 300
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 having done so, bears his share of the conversation, 
 addressing freely not only his master, but even 
 guests of the highest rank. The master will pass 
 his own wine-cup to his man, as if he were an 
 honoured guest, and for a while they would appear 
 to any one not acquainted with the turns of a 
 language most fertile in subtle distinctions to be 
 upon perfectly equal terms. Yet, the moment 
 the feast is over, the man retires with the same 
 profound obeisances and marks of deference with 
 which he entered, and immediately relapses into 
 the servitor ; nor will he in any way presume upon 
 the familiarity, which, having lasted its hour, 
 disappears until occasion calls it forth again. 
 Feudalism strips service of servility, and, although 
 the feudal system is a thing of the past, its traces 
 must long remain. 
 
 The following morning (October 1 3), to my great 
 regret, I was forced to leave Miyanoshita and my 
 good friends, with whom I had passed such a 
 pleasant time. We parted with many expressions 
 of mutual good-will, promising to meet soon in 
 Yedo. This morning's walk, as far as the sulphur- 
 springs of Ashi-no-yu, was less interesting, for the 
 mountain, bare of trees, is covered only with a rich 
 growth of rank grass, mixed with wild flowers. 
 There was no shade, and the heat of the sun was 
 overpowering, so that we were right glad when, 
 towards mid-day, we came down upon our halting- 
 place. 
 
 The springs are certainly very remarkable ; the 
 whole neighbourhood is full of volcanic signs, and 
 in every direction the water wells out, charged with 
 
 301
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 a rich sulphurous ooze. Close by is a crater, not 
 active, indeed, but looking, with its sides covered 
 with brimstone and lava, as if it might break out 
 at any time. The baths of Ashi-no-yu are in the 
 village street, but covered over with wooden 
 shanties, that people may bathe with decency. 
 Just as I came in sight of the huts, a matron, 
 carrying a child in her arms, both as naked as they 
 were born, came out, and tripped, she picking her 
 way with her bare feet, across the street into a tea- 
 house, where she had left her clothes. This is the 
 only instance which I ever came across of a woman 
 appearing naked in the street, although most 
 travellers' books abound in stories of women tub- 
 bing in public, and of other outrages upon decency. 
 Be it remembered, however, this was in a most 
 out-of-the-way place, and at a time of day when 
 the good woman might reasonably expect that, the 
 men being all away at their work, she would be as 
 free from the profane gaze of mankind as Lady 
 Godiva ought to have been and was not. Her 
 shame when she saw me knew no bounds. The 
 European doctors of Yokohama have not been slow 
 to find out the excellent properties of these baths, 
 and I found established there for the season an 
 Italian gentleman and his wife rather wild 
 quarters for a daintily nurtured lady to occupy, the 
 only thing about the place which had an affinity 
 with Europe being the smell, which might remind 
 her of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 Not far from Ashi-no-yu, on the road to 
 Hakone, half-hidden among the brushwood and 
 long grass, are two remarkable monuments, shaped 
 302
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 like the stone lanterns which the Japanese set up in 
 their pleasure-grounds and temple-yards. To the 
 right of these, near at hand, is a third and lesser 
 stone. It can hardly fail to set the traveller 
 a-wondering when he comes upon such traces of 
 man's work in the midst of a wilderness, and he 
 will readily guess that they mark some famous or 
 sacred spot. The two stones mark the graves of 
 the brothers Soga, the heroes of one of the most 
 celebrated stories of vendetta in Japanese history, 
 and the third is in honour of the woman, Tora 
 Gozen, the true love of one of them. 
 
 In the summer of the year 1193 the Shogun 
 Yoritomo went out to hunt on the moors and 
 waste lands about Mount Fuji, followed by the 
 flower of the chivalry of the East, his train being 
 swelled by a great company of camp-followers, 
 mimes, jesters, musicians, and singing women. 
 Among the nobles who went with him was one 
 Kudo Suketsune. Now this Suketsune, many years 
 before, having certain wrongs to avenge, had 
 caused the murder of his cousin Sukeyasu, who 
 died leaving a widow and two infant sons. Upon 
 the death of her husband the widow wished to 
 forsake the world, shave her head,* and enter a 
 nunnery, but her father-in-law prevented her, so 
 she married a second time one Soga Taro Sukenobu, 
 who took her two sons to live with him, and 
 adopted them as his own children, causing them at 
 
 * The nuns of Japan, like the Buddhist monks, shave the whole 
 head ; hence the proverbial expression, Bikuni ni Kanzashi, " To ask 
 a nun for a hair-pin," equivalent to our " You cannot draw blood from 
 a stone," or better still, " Taking the breeks off a Highlander." 
 
 33
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 the same time to take his patronymic of Soga. 
 Happy as they were in their new home, the two 
 boys never forgot the death of their father nor the 
 debt of revenge which they owed to his murderer : 
 when at play in their earliest childhood they would 
 make figures to represent Suketsune that they 
 might have the pleasure ot torturing and destroy- 
 ing him in effigy, nor would they listen to the 
 pravers and remonstrances of their mother, who in 
 despair sent the younger brother, Soga Tokimune, 
 to the temple at Hakone, that he might be brought 
 up for the priesthood. But it was all of no avail, 
 for the lad never for a moment relaxed his purpose, 
 and at last, when he grew up and it became time 
 for him to take the vows, he fled secretly from 
 the temple and took refuge with the Lord of 
 Odawara, who, taking compassion upon his orphan 
 state, gave him shelter, and allowed him free access 
 to his stronghold. 
 
 The hunting expedition of the Shogun Yoritomo 
 was the opportunity which the brothers chose 
 for wreaking their vengeance on the murderer 
 Suketsune. 
 
 On the 28th day of the fifth month there arose 
 a great storm of wind and rain, and at night, there 
 being neither moonlight nor starlight, the hunting 
 camp was shrouded in thick darkness. In the 
 dead of the night they sought the place where 
 their enemy lay, but he had changed his abode, 
 and their plan would have miscarried had they not 
 received aid from a woman. This was a beautiful 
 girl, called Tora Gozen, the inmate of a pleasure- 
 house at Oiso, in the province of Sagami, and the 
 
 34
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 sweetheart of the elder brother, Sukenari. When 
 the two were in despair at not rinding Suketsune, 
 and were debating what they should do, she came 
 forth and pointed out to them the place to which 
 he had removed, and they, overjoyed, hurried to 
 the spot where Suketsune lay fast asleep. Sukenari 
 stood at his pillow, and Tokimune, the younger 
 brother, took his place behind him. Then Suke- 
 nari kicked aside the pillow, and shouted with a 
 loud voice, crying, " Here stand I, Soga Sukenari, 
 the avenger of my murdered father !" Suketsune, 
 aroused by the cry, jumped up and tried to defend 
 himself with his dirk, which lay by his couch ; but 
 the two brothers fell upon him with their swords 
 and slew him. 
 
 Having now satisfied their revenge,'they had no 
 further wish left in the world, so they determined 
 to risk their lives in an attempt to slay my lord the 
 Shogun Yoritomo, between whom and their own 
 grandfather there had been a deadly feud. Now 
 was their best chance of success, so, brandishing 
 their bloody swords, they rushed into his tent with 
 a loud shout. The guards who watched over the 
 Shogun did battle with them ; but so desperately 
 did they fight that they cut down, as it is said, 
 more than fifty men before Sukenari, being tired, 
 was slain, and the younger brother, Tokimune, was 
 pinioned by a page, disguised as a woman, who 
 sprang upon him from behind. 
 
 The following morning Tokimune was brought 
 before the Shogun, who examined him in person, 
 saying, " Wherefore dost thou disturb my camp ? " 
 
 " You were my grandfather's enemy," answered 
 
 35
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 Tokimune, unabashed, " and Suketsune was my 
 father's murderer, so I hated you because you loved 
 him." 
 
 The Shogun was pleased with the youth's bold 
 speech, and wished to spare his life, but Inubo 
 Maru, the son of Suketsune, prayed that his father's 
 murder might not be left unavenged ; so Tokimune 
 was put to death, being at the time twenty years 
 of age. 
 
 Now when Tora Gozen heard that Sukenari, the 
 man whom she loved, was dead, she vowed a vow 
 of chastity, and went to the temple at Hakone, and 
 became a nun at the age of nineteen. When she 
 was quite an old woman of seventy-one summers, 
 she started on a pilgrimage to a temple at Kumano, 
 in Kishiu, but she died by the road, and it is said 
 that the clothes she wore and the things she carried 
 with her on the journey are still preserved as sacred 
 relics at a temple called Jinguji. 
 
 The piety of the brothers Soga in avenging their 
 murdered father earned for them a rich meed of 
 praise from every true and loyal warrior ; and even 
 Yoritomo, who had so narrowly escaped from 
 falling a victim to their rage, approved what they 
 had done, and caused their swords to be laid up in 
 the temple of Gongen at Hakone, where they 
 have been carefully preserved by generation after 
 generation of priests. Their names live in history, 
 and are treasured in the heart of every Samurai. 
 
 Near the graves of the two brothers is a figure 
 of the Buddhist god Jizo Sama, graven in the solid 
 rock, as some say by Nature herself; by others 
 believed to have been miraculously wrought in a 
 306
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 single night by the famous Kobodaishi, a priest who 
 lived in the ninth century, and who was the inventor 
 of the syllabary known as the I-ro-ha, in which he 
 assimilated the letters of the Japanese language to 
 the Bonji or Pali characters used in the Buddhist 
 classics. The image is rude enough, but it is ennobled 
 by the veneration of the simple mountaineers. 
 
 It was yet early in the afternoon when we came 
 upon the blue waters of the Hakone lake, lying 
 like a sapphire mirror among the hills, unruffled by 
 the gentlest semblance of a breeze. It would be 
 strange, indeed, if so romantic a locality were to 
 lack the ornament of some old-world legend. 
 There is a tale told of a certain terrible dragon 
 with nine heads that used to dwell in the lake, and 
 troubled the people by raising great storms of wind 
 and wave, in the midst of which he would appear 
 and carry off little children for his food. But at 
 last, in the eighth century, a certain holy priest, 
 named Mangan, who was renowned for his piety, 
 exorcised the dragon, and by the aid of magic arts 
 tied him to a tree, which is still believed to be 
 visible at the bottom of the lake, punishing the 
 monster until it craved pardon for its misdeeds. 
 When the fame of this exploit reached the 
 Emperor's ears, he summoned the priest Mangan 
 to Kyoto, but the good man died by the way, 
 and entered peace at a place called Yanagori, in 
 the province of Mikawa ; so his pupils brought his 
 remains, and buried them at the temple of Gongen, 
 at Hakone. Every year, during the night of the 
 twelfth day of the sixth month, the eve of the 
 great feast of the temple, the people still come to 
 
 37
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 the lake, and make offerings of food to propitiate 
 the dragon. 
 
 Of course we went and visited the Temple of 
 Gongen, that ancient fane, the dwelling-place of 
 many holy men during the dark ages, including 
 Kobodaishi, Jikakudaishi, and others, and were 
 shown the swords of the Soga brothers, and the 
 dirk with which their enemy tried in vain to ward 
 off their blows, with other curiosities. The position 
 of the shrine, surrounded by lofty cryptomerias and 
 looking down upon the lake, is most beautiful ; but 
 the buildings were greatly damaged in the war 
 which ended in the ruin of the lords of Odawara, 
 and have never been restored to their former 
 splendour. At the foot of the temple we took 
 boat, and so came to the little town of Hakone. 
 
 Situated at the very top of a mountain-pass, some 
 three thousand feet or more above the sea-level, 
 Hakone must until the completion of the railroad 
 which is to unite the two capitals, Yedo and Kyoto 
 always be a resting-place of some little impor- 
 tance, and allow a number of inn-keepers to drive a 
 thriving trade ; but until the year of grace 1868 it 
 had also a great political significance as the barrier of 
 the Tycoon's territory, which no man could pass 
 without a passport death by crucifixion being the 
 penalty of an attempt to escape by any mountain- 
 path. At the entrance to the town was a guard- 
 house, strongly manned, flanked by a formidable 
 stand of arms, holding spears and hooks and the 
 other paraphernalia of Japanese police, on passing 
 which every person, save those of the very highest 
 rank, was required to dismount and do obeisance 
 308
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 to the representatives of Tycoonal power. The 
 guard-house is swept away now, together with the 
 other encumbrances and annoyances of the obsolete 
 Government, and men may come and go as they 
 list. It is more convenient, to be sure ; but there 
 were a quaintness and picturesqueness about the old 
 customs which the travellers who follow in our 
 steps will miss. Now, even the old costume of the 
 country is slowly but surely disappearing ; and 
 when the railroad shall be an accomplished fact, 
 travelling in Japan will have lost much of its charm. 
 Four years ago we were still in the Middle Ages ; 
 we have leapt at a bound into the nineteenth century 
 out of the dreams of poetry into plain, useful prose. 
 I had no time to stop at Hakone, to my great 
 regret ; for I should not soon have grown weary 
 of looking out upon the lake washing the grand 
 dark hills above which Mount Fuji raised its 
 brilliant cone of white snow, and there are many 
 nooks and hidden places among the mountains 
 celebrated in history, in poetry, and in folk-lore. 
 Down the mountain-pass we sped, each step re- 
 vealing some new beauty : now a natural rock- 
 garden, now some old gnarled stem of cryptomeria 
 or Scotch fir, now a thicket of flame-coloured 
 maples. It was getting late, and travellers, whether 
 upward or downward bound, were hurrying to 
 reach their resting-place. Even the coolies, heavily 
 weighted beasts of burden, were putting on an extra 
 spurt, the tension of the muscles in their marvel- 
 lously developed legs showing what hard work they 
 were doing. The shadows had lengthened and 
 lengthened until they had passed away altogether 
 
 39
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 (for we were now on the eastern side of the range) 
 by the time we reached Hata, our halfway-house, 
 a village of hostelries, at the doors of which attrac- 
 tive little damsels, attired in their smartest garb, 
 were standing and keeping up a continual shout of 
 O hairi nasare I O tomarinasare ! " Pray come in ! 
 pray rest here ! " Resisting the invitation of who 
 knows how many decoy-ducks, I entered the Honjin, 
 or chief inn of the village, and found a charming 
 apartment overlooking a garden, the fame of which 
 is known throughout the length and breadth of 
 Japan. This little garden, fashioned around a real 
 waterfall, which was tumbling over the most 
 picturesque rocks, is the very ideal and dream of 
 Japanese horticulture, and would be a fitting model 
 upon which some native Lord Bacon should write 
 an essay. Nothing more trim and perfect than its 
 dwarfed trees, nothing more rugged than its rock- 
 work, nothing fatter and larger and brighter than 
 its gold-fish ; above all, a natural waterfall, dear 
 beyond measure to the Japanese landscape-gardener. 
 The honours of the establishment were done by 
 O Take San, " Miss Bamboo," a nymph who would 
 have been a little gem of beauty had her face not 
 been marred by a most undeniable squint. There 
 was no compromising matters by calling it a cast 
 in the eye. There it was a squint, and nothing 
 but a squint. Besides this defect, for which she was 
 not accountable, there was another, which might 
 have been avoided she was eaten up with the itch. 
 This being, in some sense, the turning-point of 
 our journey, I gave Shiraki and the escort a feast, 
 which they had richly deserved, for every man of 
 310
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 them in his own capacity had done his utmost to 
 make the trip go off well. When the shutters 
 were closed, and the wine-cup going round, we 
 were startled by a clatter of clogs in the garden. 
 Shiraki and the escort jumped up and took their 
 swords, and I made ready with my revolver. Miss 
 Bamboo and another girl putting the gold-fish to bed 
 in a rock-covered hole, for fear of otters, turned out to 
 be the innocent cause of our alarm. Laughing at our 
 fears, we made merry until it was time to go to bed. 
 
 October 14. Mist and rain. A pretty ducking 
 we got as we walked, or rather slipped, down to 
 Yumoto, the place which, as I have said above, 
 gives its name to all the hot springs of the Hakone 
 mountains. As at Miyanoshita, the chief trade 
 here is in camphor-wood boxes and marqueterie, of 
 which I bought some more specimens, and having 
 found out the right price from my friends at the 
 former place, I was not robbed. Over against 
 Yumoto are two noteworthy hills, Mounts Ishigaki 
 and Ishibashi,* the former the site of Taiko Sama's 
 headquarters when he attacked Odawara, the latter 
 the hiding-place of Yoritomo when he was flying 
 from his enemies before he rose to power. Here 
 is the story. It shall be the last ! 
 
 In the year 1180, on the twenty-fourth day of 
 the eighth moon, Yoritomo was encamped on 
 Sugi-yama, " the Mountain of Cryptomerias," and 
 one of the captains of the house of Hei, with three 
 thousand and more warriors at his back, was in hot 
 pursuit of him. Yoritomo, knowing that he was 
 out-numbered, and that there was no hope for him 
 
 * Ishigaki signifies stone-fence, and Ishibaihi, stone-bridge. 
 
 3 1 '
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 but in flight, went and hid on a remote mountain- 
 peak, leaving two of his lieutenants to turn aside 
 the attention of the enemy. When the immediate 
 danger was past, Hojo Tokimasa, Yoritomo's father- 
 in-law and most trusty friend, went and scoured 
 the mountains far and wide, and at last found him 
 hiding in the hollow trunk of a fallen tree. When 
 Yoritomo saw himself in the midst of his friends 
 he was overjoyed, but Sanehira, who had accom- 
 panied Tokimasa, said : " Truly it is much to be 
 thankful for that we should all have reached these 
 heights safe and without hurt. Yet if we remain 
 here in so large a company, it will be a hard 
 matter for us to escape detection. Let my lord 
 Yoritomo remain here alone, and his servant Sane- 
 hira will find means of hiding him." 
 
 This counsel seemed good to them all, so they 
 agreed to separate and went in different directions, 
 Sanehira alone remaining with his chief. In the 
 meanwhile, the men of the house of Hei were 
 hunting over hill and dale seeking Yoritomo ; but 
 one of their captains, who by some means had 
 learnt Yoritomo's hiding-place, being a traitor to 
 his own party, declared that he had searched 
 Mount Ishibashi and found no trace of a human 
 being, so the men of Hei spent their labour in 
 searching the other hills. 
 
 One day, while Yoritomo was lying lost among 
 the rocks of Mount Ishibashi, he took from his 
 bosom a small figure of the Buddhist god Kwannon, 
 and stowed it away in a secret cave. When Sane- 
 hira saw this, he wondered, and asked what was the 
 reason of this strange act. 
 312
 
 A HOLIDAY IN JAPAN 
 
 " I lay aside this sacred image," answered 
 Yoritomo, " lest my head should fall into my 
 enemies' hands and they should see the figure ; for 
 if they did, they would laugh at the chief of the 
 house of Gen, saying that I am brave only because 
 I trust in my patron saint. When I was a babe 
 three years old, my foster-mother took me to the 
 Temple of Kwannon, at Kiyomidzu, near Kyoto, 
 and in the loving-kindness of her heart she prayed 
 that I might prosper in the world. Fourteen days 
 after this she saw a marvellous dream, and she gave 
 me this little image of Kwannon two inches long in 
 commemoration of it. This is why I have treasured 
 it ever since." 
 
 Soon after this the others returned, bringing 
 with them a horseload of provisions which they 
 had received from the priest of Hakone. Poor 
 food it was monks' fare and they laughed as they 
 set it before their lord ; but the hungry man, be he 
 lord or peasant, values any food above riches. 
 
 Those were the days of Yoritomo's deadly peril ; 
 how he escaped from the toils of his enemies and 
 lived to be the ruler of the East, all these things 
 are written in never-dying history. 
 
 From Yumoto to Odawara is but a short distance, 
 and we reached our inn in time for the mid-day 
 meal. The rivers were so swollen that they could 
 no longer be passed, so we had to wait chafing for 
 three days until the floods abated. Our route back 
 to Yedo was along the great highway, past the 
 places which I have already described : so of this 
 happy expedition there is nothing left to say.
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABBASIDE Dynasty, the, 119 
 Abu Ali Muhammed el Gha- 
 
 zali, 116 
 Acapulca, 202 
 Acolinillus, Constable of the 
 
 Tower, 9 
 Adams, Mr., his History of 
 
 Japan, 167 
 
 Adams, Susan, daughter of Will 
 
 Adams, 199, 208, 210, 211 
 
 Adams, William, Captain 
 
 Cocks' s estimate of, 204, 
 
 208-211 
 
 endowment of tomb of, 
 
 189, 190, 213 
 his account of Japan, 211- 
 
 213 
 his dislike of Saris, 203- 
 
 208 
 his estate at Hemin, 202, 
 
 205, 207, 213 
 his influence with the 
 
 Shogun, 198-211 
 his Japanese marriage, 199 
 his letter to his wife, 196 
 his reception by the Sho- 
 gun, 195-198 
 his relations with the 
 Dutch traders, 200, 
 203, 204, 208-210 
 his relations with the East 
 India Company, 207- 
 211 
 his tribute to the Shoguns, 
 
 202 
 his voyage to Japan, 191- 
 
 194 
 
 his will, 2IO 
 
 his wish to return to Eng- 
 land, 200-203, 206-208 
 
 Adams, William, honoured in 
 
 Tokyo, 199, 200, 210 
 j^Eneas of Troy, 81 
 Agincourt, battle of, 177, 228 
 Aidzu, 1 86 
 Ainsworth, Harrison, The Tower 
 
 of London, 3 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, 302 
 Akhbar the Great, 51 
 Aladdin, in 
 Albert, Prince, 4 
 Albino horses at Kamakura, 
 
 246 
 Alchemy, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 investigates, 70 
 
 Alcock, Sir Rutherford, censures 
 his countrymen in Japan, 
 
 on old Japan, 179 
 
 Aldgate, Priory of the Holy 
 Trinity within, 9, 10 
 
 Alexander the Great, 145 
 
 Alexia, 3 
 
 Alfieri, his mathematical short- 
 comings, 48 
 
 Ali Ibn Muhammed el Farifi, 
 116 
 
 Allsopp's ale in Japan, 300 
 
 Almain Armouries at Green- 
 wich, 38, 39 
 
 Alps, the edelweiss, 93 
 tunnelling of, 145 
 
 Alternantheras, 84 
 
 Amboise, 71, 231 
 
 American Civil War, 128 
 treaty with Japan, 169 
 
 Amru, Yusuf, son of, 116 
 
 Anatomy, Leonardo da Vinci's 
 discoveries in, 69 
 
 Anchises, 81 
 
 3 1 7
 
 INDEX 
 
 Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 200 
 Exhibition, 219 
 
 Anne, Queen, 96 
 
 Anne of Cleves, Holbein's por- 
 trait of, 232 
 
 Anselm, friend of Gundulf, 6 
 
 Antiochus, fresco of, in the 
 Tower, 14 
 
 Antiquaries, Royal Society of, 
 
 38 
 
 Antoku, Emperor, his death 
 and his ghost, 280, 281 
 
 Aoto Saymon Fujitsuna, re- 
 covers ten cash, 256 
 
 Apennines, Etruscan, 52 
 
 Aqua Tofana, the, 234 
 
 Arabian Nights' Entertainments, 
 ill 
 
 Arabian paper, Professor Kara- 
 bacek's examination of, 115, 
 117, 120 
 
 Arabs as citizens, 112, 113 
 
 Archimedes, 59 
 
 Architectural school of garden- 
 ing condemned, 83-86 
 
 Architecture, Da Vinci's skill 
 in, 62 
 
 Ariosto, 51 
 
 Aristophanes, frogs and, 277 
 
 Armenia, Da Vinci in, 57 
 
 Armoury at the Tower, 38-41 
 
 Armstrong, Messrs., 178 
 
 Arno, the, Da Vinci's plans to 
 
 make navigable, 57 
 valley of, 52 
 
 Arthur of Connaught, Prince, 
 his reception in Japan, 151, 
 177, 179, 200 
 
 Artists, Da Vinci's advice to, 74 
 to consider utility, 141 
 
 Aryan races, their improvements 
 
 in paper-making, no 
 their kings as priests, 223 
 
 318 
 
 Ascham, Roger, on Lady Jane 
 
 Grey, 27 
 Ashbee, Mr., founder of Art 
 
 School at Chipping Campden, 
 
 125, 132, I33> J 47> 148 
 Ashikaga dynasty, the, palaces 
 
 of, 255 
 Yoshimasa, Shogun, 289, 
 
 290 
 Ashi-no-yu, sulphur-springs of, 
 
 301, 302 
 
 Asphodel starch, 120 
 Assyrian method of letter 
 
 writing, 106, 107 
 Aston, W. G., his version of 
 
 the Nihongi, 172, 173 
 on the literature of Japan, 
 
 230, 231 
 Shinto, The Way of the 
 
 Gods, quoted, 221, 222 
 Astrology, 234 
 Astronomy, advance of, 142 
 
 discoveries by Leonardo da 
 
 Vinci in, 67 
 Athlah, battle of, 117 
 Atlantic liners, 142 
 Authors' Club, the, paper read 
 
 before, 217 
 Autolycus, 45 
 
 Aviation, Da Vinci's experi- 
 ment in, 59, 60 
 Avignon, 106 
 
 Awa, province of, 243 note 
 Aylmer, Bishop of London, 
 tutor to Lady Jane Grey, 27 
 
 BABYLON, Sultan of, 57 
 Bacon, Francis, on gardens, 80, 
 
 100, 310 
 Bagdad, Caliphs of, their sway, 
 
 109 
 
 paper manufactory in, in, 
 118-120
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bakufu, the, loses its prestige, 
 
 166-169, 175 
 Balzac, Honore de, on Tasso 
 
 and Virgil, 51 
 Bamberg, 106 
 Bamboo Garden, 79 note 
 Bamboos, exotic beauty of, 80, 
 
 84, 86, 96, 102 
 
 paper made from, 108 
 
 Banin-gawa, story of the river, 
 
 280 
 
 Bantam, English traders at, 203 
 Barbary merchants, Will Adams 
 
 in service of, 192 
 Barber, Mr., Keeper of the 
 
 Tower Armouries, 41 
 Barking Church, citizens meet 
 
 in, 16 
 
 Barmecides, massacre of the, 1 18 
 Basel, sketch of Sir T. More 
 
 and family at, 24 note 
 Bass's ale in Japan, 300 
 Batrachomyomachia, a, 277 
 Beaumaris, built by Henry III., 
 
 Li 
 Beauvais, College of, Xavier a 
 
 Professor of, 158 
 Bee, Normandy, Benedictine 
 
 monastery of, 6 
 
 Becket, Thomas, banishes the 
 Flemings and repairs the 
 Tower, 10 
 vision of, destroying the 
 
 Embankment, 12, 13 
 Beer, Julius, his loan to Japan, 
 
 180 
 Beethoven, played in Japan, 
 
 179 
 Bell, Admiral, drowned at 
 
 Osaka, 280 note 
 Bell, Doyne, serves as antiquary 
 
 at the repairing of the 
 
 Tower Chapel, 30, 31 
 
 Bell, Doyne, The Chapel in the 
 Tower, 22 note, 24, 27 note 
 
 Benten or Benzaiten, goddess of 
 mercy, patroness ofEnoshima, 
 269-271 
 
 Beresford, Hannah, grave of, 
 
 33 
 Berlin, 233 
 
 Bettegumi, the, 238 
 Bible, knowledge of, due to in- 
 vention of paper, 112, 114 
 Bismarck, 145 
 Biyobu, Mount, 290 
 Black magic, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 investigates, 69, 70 
 Blood, Colonel, 45 
 Blount monument in the Tower 
 
 Chapel, 30, 33 
 Bodhi tree, the, 160 
 Bokhara, 109 
 Boleyn, Anne, her death in the 
 
 Tower, 24, 25 
 her ghost, 3 
 her grave, 29, 31-33 
 Bonji characters, the, 307 
 Boswell, James, his Life of 
 
 Johnson, quoted, 137, 138 
 Botanical collections, 91 
 Botany, Leonardo da Vinci's 
 
 discoveries in, 68 
 Brad gate, 27 
 Brahmans, priesthood of the, 
 
 223 
 Brandon, Richard, executioner, 
 
 22 note 
 Brazil, 193 
 Briar Rose, the, 79 
 Bridges, Da Vinci's, 61 
 Brinkley, Captain, his work on 
 
 Japan, 162 
 on the spread of Christianity 
 
 in Japan, 159, 163 
 British Embassy in Japan, 179 
 
 3 J 9
 
 INDEX 
 
 British Museum, Da Vinci MS. 
 
 in, 57 
 Hamurabi's despatch in, 
 
 107 
 
 Brittany, Dukes of, 228 
 Broglie, Due de, on respect for 
 
 the past, 234 
 Bruno, contrasted with Kant, 
 
 49 
 
 Brussels Gallery, supposed por- 
 trait of Sir T. More in, 23 
 note 
 
 Buckingham, Earl of, 5 
 Buddha-Shakya-Muni, revolu- 
 tion of, 224 
 Buddha, statue of, at Ashi-no- 
 
 yu, 306 
 
 at Fukazawa, 262-266 
 at Kiyoto, 265 
 at Nara, 263, 265 
 Buddhism in Japan, rivals Chris- 
 tianity, 159-161 
 spread of, 159, 172, 246 
 Buddhist, classics, characters of, 
 
 307 
 god Kwannon, image of, 
 
 3 12 , 3 J 3 
 monks, 303 note 
 
 priesthood, at Enoshima, 
 
 271 
 
 military power of, 289 
 usurps political power, 
 
 1 60 
 
 shrine of Shojosenji, 264 
 state of Nirvana, 298 
 Bungo, Will Adams in, 194, 
 
 '95 
 
 Buonarroti, Michael Angelo, 
 
 see Michael Angelo 
 Bu-glary, a great, 45 
 Burgundy, Dukes of, 229 
 Burke, Edmund, 138 
 Bushi-Do, example of, 130-131 
 320 
 
 C^SARS, the, 145 
 Cairo, Da Vinci in, 57 
 Calais, 25 
 
 executioner of, 25 
 Californian pines, 93 
 Cannon, Da Vinci's, 61 
 Cape Inamura, 281 
 Cape of Good Hope, Tritomas 
 
 of > 93 
 Carpet-bedding, fashion for, 83, 
 
 100 
 
 Carrara, quarries of, 59 
 Caterina, the mother of Da 
 ^ Vinci, 53, 54 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, 51 
 Cervantes, 231 
 Chalendra, 57 
 Chamserops, Fortune's, 102 
 Chamberlain, Houston 
 
 his Foundations of the Nine- 
 teenth Century, quoted, 
 106, no 
 
 his Immanuel Kant^ 49, 66 
 on Schopenhauer, 48 
 on the discovery of paper, 
 
 106 
 
 Chao, States of, 113 
 Chapuis, 38 
 Charity^ see Liefde 
 Charlemagne, his embassy to 
 
 Haroun Al Raschid, in 
 Charles I., execution of, 22 note 
 his commission re Tower 
 
 armour, 39 
 Charles II., holds last court in 
 
 the Tower, 19 
 Charles V., 38 
 
 autocracy of, 50 
 Chateau de Cloux, death of Da 
 
 Vinci at, 71, 231 
 Chatham, 192 
 
 Chelsea, Sir T. More's house 
 at, 232
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chelsea, Thames at, 92 
 Chequers, Japanese game of, 
 
 296, 298 
 Chestnut trees on Mount Ida, 
 
 81 
 
 Chili, 193 
 
 Chin dynasty, the, 113 
 China, Great Wall of, 113 
 
 introduction of cotton into, 
 
 116 
 its arts taught in Japan, 88, 
 
 121, 172, 182 
 its feudal system destroyed, 
 
 "3 
 
 Japanese raids on coast of, 
 
 '57 
 Lord Elgin in, 154 
 
 Chinese, art of printing, 107, 
 
 no 
 classics preserved by 
 
 memory, 113 
 invention of paper, 107, 
 
 no, 116, 121 
 lack of progress, no, 113, 
 
 300 
 
 language, Japanese perver- 
 sion of, 182, 183 
 method of making bamboo 
 
 paper, 108 
 paper-makers in Samarkand 
 
 and Bagdad, no, in 
 pines, 93 
 porcelain of the Cinque 
 
 Cento, 51 
 proverbs, 278 
 Repository, quoted, 108 
 Chipping Campden Art School, 
 
 i3 2 > J 45> HO 
 Addresses to, 125, 137 
 Chips, quoted, 224 
 Chisholm, Marquis, 261 
 Chivalry, born of feudalism, 234 
 Choja-dzuka, 269 
 
 Chokichi, Mr., 282 
 Choshiu, 185 
 
 Mori, Prince of, 170, 225 
 Yonin of, 229, 257 
 Christianity in Japan, early 
 
 history of, 159-164 
 modern tolerance of, 179 
 Christie's auction rooms 
 
 Japanese lacquer cabinets 
 
 in, 276 
 sale of Queen Elizabeth's 
 
 ring at, 21 note 
 Chusan Palm, 93 
 Cinque Cento, state of know- 
 ledge in, 65 
 world-wide phenomena of, 
 
 5.1 
 
 Circulation of the blood, dis- 
 covery of the, 69 
 
 Civil Wars, English, Tower 
 Armoury used in, 39 
 
 Cleves, Anne of, portrait of, 
 232 
 
 Clouet, his patrons, 231 
 
 Clove at Hirado, 203 
 
 Cocks, Captain, his Diary, 192, 
 
 204, 208 
 
 his estimate of Will Adams, 
 208-211 
 
 Codex Atlanticus, Da Vinci 
 MS. in, 57 
 
 Coldstream Guards, officer of 
 the, 3 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., his lack of 
 observation, 48 
 
 Colet, Dean of St Paul's, 50 
 
 Colleone, Verrocchio's, 55, 56 
 
 Colorado, fir trees of, 93 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, 50 
 
 his crew's mutinous fears, 
 
 . 6 5. 
 
 his imagination and his 
 
 courage, 142-144 
 
 321
 
 INDEX 
 
 Common Pleas, Court of, sits 
 
 in the Tower, 16 
 Confucius, 172 
 
 paper used in time of, 107 
 Works of, 113 
 Constables of the Tower, 9, 29 
 
 note 
 
 Constantinople, Da Vinci in, 57 
 Conway Castle, built by Henry 
 
 III., 1 1 
 Copernicus, discoveries of, 65, 
 
 67, 142 
 Corea, Japanese raids on, 157, 
 
 172, 247 
 Corffe Castle, built by Henry 
 
 III., ii 
 Corpus Poetarum Latinorum, 
 
 277 
 
 Cotswold Hills, the, 132, 146 
 Cotton as a basis of paper, 1 10, 
 
 115-118 
 Courts of King's Bench and 
 
 Common Pleas sit in the 
 
 Tower, 16 
 
 Cranmer, Thomas, 25 
 Crdcy, battle of, 177, 228 
 Credi, Lorenzo di, fellow pupil 
 
 of Da Vinci, 55 
 Crimean War, the, 4, 37 
 Cromwell, Sir Thomas, Kings- 
 ton's letters to, 24 
 Crown Jewels kept in the 
 
 Tower, 8 
 
 Cruikshank, George, his illustra- 
 tions to The Tower of London, 
 
 3 
 
 Crusaders, the, introduce paper 
 
 into Europe, 112 
 Cryptomerias in Japan, 86 
 Curzon Howe, Admiral Sir 
 
 Assheton, 131 note 
 Cyprus, Island of, Da Vinci 
 
 visits, 57 
 322 
 
 DAI BUTSU, Buddha of Fuka- 
 
 zawa, 262-266 
 Daigo II., Emperor, his feud 
 
 with his son, 257-260 
 Daimyos, the, degradation of a, 
 
 161 
 their feudal system, 166, 
 
 1.74, i85 
 
 their foreign policy, 166 
 their palace grounds, 88 
 their position under the 
 
 Shogunate, 224-230 
 Damascene swords of the 
 
 Cinque Cento, 51 
 Dante Alighieri, 231 
 Dat, Inkiyo of Uwajima, 230 
 Da Vinci, Leonardo, anecdote 
 
 of his Last Supper, 63, 
 
 64 
 
 as an anatomist, 69 
 as an architect, 62 
 as an artist, 56, 63, 64 
 as an astronomer, 67 
 as a botanist, 68, 74 
 as an engineer, 58, 59, 61 
 as a geologist, 68 
 as a sculptor, 56 
 contrasted with Kant, 49 
 his birth and education, 53 
 his Eastern travels, 57 
 his experiments in aviation, 
 
 59, 60 
 
 his last years, 70, 71, 231 
 his mathematical genius, 
 
 52, 59, 61, 65, 70 
 his model of monument to 
 
 the Sforza, 56, 63, 64, 
 
 70 
 his Monna Lisa stolen, 45, 
 
 46 
 
 his MSS., 57, 66, 67, 70 
 his probable attitude to 
 
 photography, 72-75
 
 INDEX 
 
 Da Vinci, Leonardo, his own 
 estimate of his capabili- 
 ties, 61-63 
 
 his verdict on necromancy, 
 70 
 
 his work for Verrochio, 
 
 55,56 
 
 on perspective, 73 
 universality of his genius, 
 
 55,59,61,64 
 Defoe, Daniel, Robinson Crusoe, 
 
 189 
 De la Mare, Monsieur, Keeper 
 
 of the King's Armoury, 40 
 Demosthenes overcomes his 
 
 stammer, 126 
 
 2)<? revolutionibus orbium, 66 
 Descartes, contrasted with Kant, 
 
 49. 
 Deshima, Island of, Dutch 
 
 trading guild of, 154, 156, 
 
 164,219 
 
 D'Este, Beatrice, bust of, 56 
 De Unltate Scclesiastica, 26 
 Devereux, Lady Frances, 21 
 
 note 
 
 Dickens, Charles, terror of com- 
 positors, 126 
 Dickins, Mr., his version of the 
 
 Ten Thousand Leaves, 173 
 Dictionary of National Biography, 
 
 quoted, 27 note 
 Diggines, Nicholas, 192 
 Dillon, Viscount, Keeper of the 
 
 Tower Armoury, 38, 41 
 Diodario of Syria, Da Vinci's 
 
 letter to, 57 
 Discontent, Divine Spirit of, 
 
 125, 133 
 exemplified by Japan, 127- 
 
 132 
 
 exemplified by Michael 
 Angelo, 126 
 
 Dixon, Hepworth, on Gundulf, 
 
 6, 13 
 
 Dog of Heaven, the, 279 
 Don Quixote, 153, 230 
 Dragons, legends of, 268, 307 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 157, 191 
 Dromios, 242 
 Dromore, Bishop of, Dr. Percy, 
 
 138 
 
 Dryden, John, his Absalom, 21 
 his complaint of foreign 
 
 words, 95 
 
 Dudley, Lord Guildford, his 
 
 grave in the Tower, 34 
 
 his marriage and death, 
 
 28 
 Dun, Edward, executioner, 22 
 
 note 
 
 Dttrer, Albrecht, his mathe- 
 matical genius, 47 
 regards perspective as essen- 
 tial, 72 
 Durham, Bishop of, see Ralph 
 
 Flam bard 
 
 Dutch East Indian trade, 192 
 Dutch traders in Deshima, 
 154, 156,163, 164,219 
 Will Adams's relations 
 with, 200, 203, 204, 
 208-210 
 Duveen, Messrs., 21 note 
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY establish 
 trade with Japan, 203- 
 205 
 Will Adams's relations 
 
 with, 207-211 
 
 East Smithfield held as a vine- 
 yard, 9 
 Eaton, William, executor of 
 
 Will Adams, 210, 211 
 Eden, Garden of, 83, 100 
 Edinburgh, 227 
 
 3 2 3
 
 INDEX 
 
 Edmere, burgess of London, 7 
 Edward L, compensates the 
 brethren of St, Kather- 
 ine, 10 
 his additions to the Tower, 
 
 17,28 
 Edward VI., plans for marriage 
 
 of, 27 
 Effingham, Lord Howard of, 
 
 191 
 Egypt, Da Vinci in, 57 
 
 manufacture of paper in, 
 
 1 20 
 
 Egyptian flax, 117 
 El Fadl advises use of paper, 
 
 119 
 Elgin, Lord, negotiates treaty 
 
 with Japan, 154, 169 
 Elinor of Provence, Queen, citi- 
 zens' demonstration against, 
 15, 16 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, commands 
 the remodelling of 
 Tower armour, 39 
 her gift of a ring to Essex, 
 
 21 
 her suitor, Lord Sudeley, 
 
 21 
 sea-dogs of her reign, 190, 
 
 219 
 
 Elm trees, their claim to be in- 
 digenous, 95, 96 
 Ely, Bishop of, see William 
 
 Longchamp 
 
 Embankment of the Thames 
 begun by Henry III., II- 
 
 *3 
 
 Ernpoli, 53 
 
 English colonists as gardeners, 
 
 93? 94 
 
 English Flower Qarden, 84 
 
 English gardens, pre-eminence 
 of, 92 
 
 3 2 4 
 
 English traders in Japan, censure 
 
 their accusations of the 
 
 Jesuits, 163 
 treaty with Japan, 154, 
 
 169 
 Enoshima, Island of, legend of, 
 
 269-271 
 
 situation of, 266-268, 275 
 Erasmus, 50 
 
 Froude on, 230 
 
 his introduction of Holbein, 
 
 232 
 Erlanger and Beer, Messrs., 
 
 their loan to Japan, 180 
 Esquire, title of, claimed by 
 
 hangmen, 22 note 
 Essex, Earl of, his burial in the 
 
 Tower, 21 
 his ring, 21 
 
 Essex, Geffrey Magnaville, Earl 
 of, Constable of the Tower, 
 
 Etas, Japanese, 226, 227 
 Etna, Mount, 57 
 Eton, Cuckoo Weir, 272 
 Exotics in English gardens, ob- 
 jections to, overruled, 
 
 79>95 
 variety of, 93, 101 
 
 Faith, the, 191 
 
 Fane, Sir Spenser Ponsonby, 
 present at the exhumation of 
 Anne Boleyn, 31 
 Ferdinand and Isabella of 
 
 Spain, autocracy of, 50 
 encourage Columbus, 143 
 Feudalism in Japan contrasted 
 with European, 220, 
 224, 228 
 
 contrasted with Indian, 
 223
 
 INDEX 
 
 Feudalism in Japan, ghost of, 
 
 220 
 literature and art under, 
 
 230-233 
 
 overthrow of, 127, 174 
 rule of the Shoguns, 220- 
 
 230 
 
 traces of, 301 
 Fidelity , 191 
 Fir trees in Japan, 86 
 Fisher, John, Bishop of Roches- 
 ter, his sufferings and death 
 in the Tower, 21-23 
 Fitzstephen, his description of 
 
 the Tower, 7 
 
 Flambard, Ralph, Bishop of 
 Durham, his escape from 
 the Tower, 9 
 his imprisonment in the 
 
 Tower, 7, 8 
 procures the money to 
 
 build the Tower, 7 
 Flanders, Duke of York in, 
 
 99 
 Florence, Signoria of, Da Vinci 
 
 notary to the, 53 
 Florence, the Cinque Cento in, 
 
 58 
 
 Foundations of theNineteenth Cen- 
 tury, quoted, 1 06 
 Francis I., autocracy of, 50 
 
 patron of Leonardo da 
 
 Vinci, 7 1, 23 1 
 Franciscan friars in Japan, 
 
 161 
 Frederick, Emperor, his gift of 
 
 three leopards, 17 
 French Academy, 234 
 as colonists, 93, 94 
 invasion of Milan, 56 
 treaty with Japan, 169 
 Frobisher, Martin, 157, 191 
 Frogs in Japan, 276, 277 
 
 Froude, J. A., on literature 
 
 under feudalism, 230 
 on Sir T. More's last 
 
 words, 23 
 Fuchibe murders Prince Mori- 
 
 yoshi, 259 
 
 Fujisawa, visit to, 275-278 
 Fujiwara dynasty, the, 221, 243 
 Fuji Yama, the Peerless, 266 
 Japanese reverence for, 87, 
 
 . 2 39 
 
 view of, 279, 309 
 Yoritomo on, 303 
 Fukazawa, bronze Buddha of, 
 
 262 
 Fuller, Thomas, on Lady Jane 
 
 Grey, 28 
 Futago Yama, Mount, 293 
 
 GALILEO, his defiance of the In- 
 quisition, 142 
 Gardening as a fine art, 100- 
 
 IO2 
 Gardens, fashions in, 83, 84, 97- 
 
 100 
 
 ideal, sought in Nature, 
 82-89, I0 
 
 T 
 
 Latimty in, 90, 91 
 supremacy of English, 92 
 their debt to exotics, 93- 
 
 97, 101 
 
 Garrick, David, 138 
 Garter Mission to Japan, 151, 
 
 177,182, 184 
 Gautier, Thophile, 46 
 Gen and Hei, wars of, 219, 222, 
 
 246,288,311-313 
 Genius, the gift of the mother, 
 
 53. 
 Genji Yume Monogatari, the, 
 
 166 
 
 Genkichi, 239 
 Genoa, 143 
 
 325
 
 INDEX 
 
 Genoa cedes Leghorn, 58 
 Geology, Leonardo da Vinci's 
 
 discoveries in, 68 
 George III., his conversation 
 
 with Dr. Johnson, 138 
 reign of, 145 
 Georgian era, vandalism of the, 
 
 19, 3> 3.7 
 Geraldi, his instance of Da 
 
 Vinci's wit, 63 
 German inscriptions, 261 
 Giafar, Grand Vizier of Bagdad, 
 
 in, 118, 119 
 Gibbon, Edward, 138 
 Gibbons, Grinling, his work in 
 
 the Tower Armoury, 40 
 Giheigi, 199 
 Gillingham, birth-place of Will 
 
 Adams, 192 
 
 " Girl I left behind me, the," 4 
 Godiva, Lady, 302 
 God's acre, Chinese equivalent 
 
 of, 278 
 
 Goethe, J. Wolfgang von, 231 
 contrasted with Kant, 49 
 on Leonardo da Vinci, 67 
 Go-isshin of Japan, the, 1 80, 271 
 
 note 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 138 
 Gongen, temple of, 306, 307 
 Good News, 191 
 
 Gorse, indigenous to Britain, 79 
 Goto of Xosa, 229 
 Govio on Da Vinci, 58 
 Granville, John, Earl of, 21 note 
 Gravitation, laws of, discovery 
 
 of, 144 
 Gray, Thomas, on the Tower 
 
 of London, 5 note, 37 
 Greenwich, Palace of, first 
 
 Royal Armoury at, 38, 39 
 Grey, Lady Jane, her death in 
 
 the Tower, 21, 28 
 326 
 
 Grey, Lady Jane, her education, 
 
 27, 28 
 
 her grave in the Tower, 34 
 Griffin, Prince of Wales, 9 
 Grimshaw, his forgeries of 
 
 armour, 40 
 Gros, Baron, negotiates treaty 
 
 with Japan, 169 
 Grothe, Hermann, on the 
 
 Cinque Cento in Florence, 
 
 ^59 
 
 Grottoes, fashion for, 98-100 
 
 Grove's Antiquarian Repertory, 
 
 quoted, 39 
 
 Guild of Painters, 56 
 Guinea, coast of, 193 
 Guinness's stout in Japan, 300 
 Gundulf, Bishop, builds the 
 
 White Tower, 4, 6, 7 
 his architectural fame, 6, 37 
 his tears, 6, 7 
 
 Gutenberg, his invention of 
 printing, 106 
 
 HAARLEM, 106 
 
 Hachiman, temple of, at Kama- 
 
 kura, 244-255 
 Hada, House of, 250 
 Hadenham, Edmund of, 6 
 Hakluyt Society, publishes letters 
 
 of Will Adams, 192, 210 
 Hakone, 302 
 
 lake, legend of, 307 
 mountains, the, 244, 292 
 
 beauty of the, 86, 279 
 temple at, 304, 306, 307, 
 
 313 
 
 visit to, 308, 309 
 Hamlet, 147, 230 
 Hampton Court, Henry VIII at, 
 
 25 
 
 Hamurabi, King of Assyria, his 
 despatch, 107
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hangmen claim title of esquire, 
 
 22 note 
 Hara-kiri privilege of the 
 
 Samurai, 231, 284 
 Harleian MSS., 38 
 Haroun Al Raschid, Caliph, 
 establishes paper manu- 
 factory at Bagdad, in, 
 
 his gift to Charlemagne, 
 
 in 
 massacres the Barmecides, 
 
 118 
 Harris, Townshend, negotiates 
 
 treaty with Japan, 169 
 Harry Qrace de Dieu, the, 177 
 Haruko, Empress of Japan, 177 
 Harvey, William, discovers the 
 
 circulation of the blood, 69 
 Hata, visit to, 310, 311 
 Hazel, indigenous to Britain, 
 
 79 
 Heaton, Mrs., on Da Vinci's 
 
 letter to the Sforza, 63 
 Hector, 203 
 Hei and Gen, wars of, 219, 222, 
 
 246,288, 311-313 
 Helen of Troy, 81 
 Helicon of Japan, the, 172 
 Hemin, Will Adams's estate at, 
 
 2O2, 205, 207, 213 
 tomb at, 199 
 
 Henri II., patron of art, 231 
 Henry I., his additions to the 
 
 Tower, 8, 10 
 
 Henry III., his additions to the 
 Tower, 8, n, 13-17 
 his architectural fame, 
 
 II 
 his embankment of the 
 
 Thames, 11-13 
 his private apartments 
 in the Tower, 14, 36 
 
 Henry III. imprisons Griffin, 
 Prince of Wales, 9 
 
 Henry VI., murder of, in the 
 Tower, 17 
 
 Henry VIII., 18 
 
 as patron of Holbein, 232 
 
 autocracy of, 50 
 
 his armouries, 38 
 
 his battleship, 178 
 
 his love for Anne Boleyn, 
 
 . 2 5 
 his revenge on Cardinal 
 
 Pole, 26 
 Hentzner, visits the Tower 
 
 Armoury, 39 
 Hera, Lady, on Mount Ida, 
 
 82 
 
 Herbert, Lord, his account of 
 Lady Salisbury's death, 26, 
 27 
 
 Hidyoshi, Taiko, his persecu- 
 tion of the Jesuits, 160-162 
 Himalayan bamboos, 93 
 Hime-Ishi, the Princess stone, 
 
 254 
 
 Himemidzu, Spring of, 293 
 Hippolochus, Prince, 185 
 Hirado, 200 
 
 British factory at, 203-205, 
 
 208-210 
 Hiratsuka, 281 
 Hiros6, Commander, performs 
 
 hara-kiri, 130, 131 
 Hitachi, province of, 243 note 
 Hiyeizan, 258 
 Hojo, village of, 250 
 Hojo dynasty, the, 244, 253 
 Princess of, 293 
 rise and fall of, 289-292 
 H6jo Shinkuro Nagauji, military 
 
 prowess of, 289 
 
 Hojo Tokimasa, treachery of, 
 248-250 
 
 3 2 7
 
 INDEX 
 
 H6jo Tokiyoro, Shogun, his 
 opposition to Nichiren, 
 267, 268 
 Shogun, rewards Aoto, 
 
 256, 257 
 Holbein, Hans, 51 
 
 his English patrons, 232 
 portrait of Sir T. More 
 
 attributed to, 23 note 
 Holland, king of, his intercourse 
 
 with Japan, 165 
 Holly, the, hedges of, 97 
 
 indigenous to Britain, 79, 
 
 96 
 Holyrood Palace, portraits of 
 
 Scottish kings in, 40 note 
 Holy Trinity, Priory of the, 
 suffers from its neighbourhood 
 to the Tower, 9, 10 
 Homer, Iliad quoted, 185 
 
 the country of, 81, 82 
 Hongkong, 276 
 Hope, 191 
 
 Horace, his method of work, 126 
 Horse-Plunge River, the, 280 
 Hosugai of Enoshima, 270 
 Hot Gospeller, the, 3 
 House-leeks, 84 
 Houssaye, Arsene, on Leonardo 
 
 da Vinci, 67 
 Howard, Katherine, her arrest, 
 
 25 
 her burial in the Tower, 
 
 33>34 . 
 her execution, 26 
 
 Howard of Effingham, Lord, 
 191 
 
 Howe, Admiral Sir Assheton 
 Curzon, 131 note 
 
 Huxley, his heritage from his 
 mother, 53 
 
 Hydrostatics, Da Vinci's ex- 
 periments in, 59 
 
 328 
 
 ICHO tree at Kamakura, 248 
 Ida Range, 81 
 Idzu, province of, 250, 289 
 Imagination, backed by courage, 
 
 .141 
 
 distinguishing gift of man, 
 
 Dr. Johnson on, 138 
 progress due to, 144-147 
 Inari Sama, garden temples to, 
 
 8 7 
 
 India, art in, during the Cinque 
 
 Cento, 51 
 
 claims the invention of 
 
 paper, 107 
 development of kingship in 
 
 223 
 
 Indigenous trees, 95 
 Indo-European race, superiority 
 
 of, no 
 Inkiyo, the, influence of, 229, 
 
 230 
 Inquisition, Italian, 67 
 
 Galileo before the, 142 
 Institut de France, Da Vinci 
 
 MSS., 57, 67 
 Inubo Maru, 306 
 Iranian Persians, their improve- 
 
 ments in paper-making, no, 
 
 118, 120 
 
 Iris Kaempferi in Tokyo, 88 
 Irish Barracks, the, 36 
 I-ro-ha, syllabary of, 307 
 Irving, Washington, his tribute 
 
 to English gardens, 92 
 Ishigaki, Mount, 290 
 Isuka overthrown by Kamadari, 
 
 243 
 Ita erects the great Buddha of 
 
 Fukazawa, 263, 264 
 Italy, patronage of art in, 231 
 Ito, Prince, Yonin of Choshin, 
 
 229
 
 INDEX 
 
 Iwai, a Ronin, 199 
 Iymitsu, Shogun, his anti- 
 foreign policy, 156, 157, 
 163-165,170, 174,184, 
 218 
 his hold on the Daimyos, 
 
 1 66 
 Iytada, Shogun, Court of, 205, 
 
 209, 211 
 Iyyasu, Shogun, 165 
 
 founder of the Tokugawa 
 dynasty, 156, 162, 222, 
 290, 291 
 
 his Edict against Chris- 
 tianity, 163 
 his hold on the Daimyos, 
 
 166 
 his reception of Will 
 
 Adams, 195-197 
 patron of Will Adams, 
 198-205, 209-211, 219 
 Will Adams's daily tribute 
 to, 2O2 
 
 JAHIZ on cotton, 117 
 
 James L, his embassy to Japan, 
 
 192 
 James Royal Company, the, 
 
 2ii 
 
 Janet, his patrons, 231 
 Jannsen on the art of printing, 
 
 106 
 
 Japan, anti-foreign policy of, 
 
 155, 156, 163-167, 170 
 
 Buddhism in, 160, see 
 
 Buddhism 
 charm of old, 152 
 Chinese arts in, 88, 121, 
 
 172, 182 
 
 Christian missions in, 179 
 early history of, 1 58-164 
 Dutch traders in, see 
 Dutch traders 
 
 Japan, Daimyos of, see Daimyos 
 
 East India Company trades 
 with, 207-211 
 
 European civilisation in, 
 129, 152, 172, 176-186, 
 219, 300 
 
 feudalism in, see Feudal- 
 ism 
 
 financial position of, 179- 
 182 
 
 foreign policy of, 176", 186 
 
 foreigners first enter, 164- 
 170, 173 
 
 frogs in, 276, 277 
 
 Garter Mission to, 151, 
 
 1 77, !79> J 82, 184 
 Go-isshin of, 164, 174, 
 ^175,271,283 
 Government of, its fee to 
 
 the temple of Hachiman, 
 
 254 
 her conquest of Corea, 
 
 247 
 
 her rank as a Power, 184 
 her war with Russia, 130, 
 
 172 
 honours Will Adams, 189, 
 
 199, 205, 210 
 isolation of, 154, 156, 157, 
 
 162, 164, 21 8 
 Meiji of, 175, 176, 186 
 natural landscape garden- 
 ing in, 86, 87 
 Portuguese traders in, 157, 
 
 158 
 rainy season in, 288, 292, 
 
 3*3 
 
 reception of Will Adams 
 
 in, 194-198 
 
 scenery of, 242, 266, 279, 
 ^ 293, 298, 299 
 Shint6, the indigenous 
 
 religion of, see Shint6 
 
 329
 
 INDEX 
 
 Japan, travelling in, 308, 309 
 risks in 1872, 283-285 
 treaties with, 169 
 Will Adams's description 
 
 of, 211-213 
 "Japan Gazette^ 210 
 Japan Society, lectures delivered 
 
 before, 151, 189 
 transactions of, 173 
 Japanese animated by dis- 
 content, 127, 130 
 army, 177, 184 
 art of paper-making learnt 
 
 from China, 121 
 art under feudalism, 231- 
 
 233 
 baths, 294, 298, 301, 302, 
 
 3 11 
 Buddhas, 262-266, 306 
 
 divers, 272 
 
 dragons, 268, 307 
 
 etiquette, 275, 282, 300 
 
 historical books, 257, 281 
 
 husbandry, 240, 262 
 
 inns, 240, 241, 244, 261, 
 275, 287, 294, 310 
 
 lacquer cabinets, 276 
 work, an artist in, 
 296-300 
 
 landscape gardening, 310 
 
 language, Chinese corrup- 
 tion of, 182, 183 
 
 literature, 172, 173, 230, 
 231 
 
 longevity, 266 
 
 love of art, 127, 128, 132 
 
 love of scenery, 87 
 
 marqueterie, 299 
 
 melodrama of Will Adams, 
 199 
 
 metal work in the Cinque 
 Cento, 51 
 
 navy, 178, 184 
 
 33 
 
 Japanese navy, first ironclad of, 
 
 128 
 Will Adams founder of, 
 
 201, 213 
 pirates, 157 
 pleasure-houses, 239, 286, 
 
 34 
 
 ponies, 287 
 proverbs, 278 
 rivers, 279 
 society, 176-179,295-297, 
 
 300 
 spirit of Yamato Damashi, 
 
 surgery, 178 
 
 toy gardens, 86-88 
 
 vendettas, 303-306 
 
 wars of Gen and Hei, see 
 
 Gen and Hei 
 
 Java, Island of, English mer- 
 chants in, 192, 202 
 Jesuits in Japan, denounce Will 
 
 Adams, 194, 196 
 Jesus, Society of, founders of, 
 
 158 ' 
 its history in China, 161 
 
 in Japan, 159-164 
 Jews in London, outrages on 
 
 the, 15 
 
 Jikakudaishi at Hakon6, 308 
 Jimmu Tenno, the Mikado, 
 
 221, 222 note 
 Jinfukuji, Temple of, 252 
 Jingo, Empress, legend of, 247 
 Jizo Sama, figure of, 306 
 Joachim, Japanese pupil of, 179 
 John, King, 10 
 Johnson, Dr., Boswell's Life of, 
 
 '37 
 his account of Pope's 
 
 grotto, 98-100 
 on the poems of Dr, 
 Ogilvy, 138, 139
 
 INDEX 
 
 Judas Iscariot in Da Vinci's 
 
 Last Supper ', 63, 64 
 Julius Caesar, 145 
 
 supposed builder of the 
 Tower of London, 5 
 
 KAGA, Prince of, 224 
 Kagoshima, Bay of, 159 
 Kadzusa, province of, 243 note, 
 
 265 
 Kait Bai, Sultan, employs Da 
 
 Vinci as engineer, 58 
 Kamadari, Prince, his dream, 
 
 242 
 
 his honours, 243 
 Kamakura as a military capital, 
 
 243, 246, 290 
 death of Yoritomo at, 248, 
 
 281 
 
 dragon of, 268 
 feud against Yoshimasa at, 
 
 289 
 
 legend of its name, 243 
 murder of Prince Mori- 
 
 yoshi at, 258 
 Nichiren at, 267 
 ruins of, 244, 255 
 statue of Buddha near, 
 
 262-266 
 temple of Hachiman at, 
 
 244-255 
 visit to, 242-262 
 Kamyama, Emperor, 254 
 Kang Hsi, Emperor of China, 
 
 161 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, contrasted 
 with other great thinkers, 49 
 Karabacek, Professor, his dis- 
 coveries concerning paper, 
 105, 114, 115, 119 
 Karo, the Japanese, 229 
 Kashiko-dokoro, the, 222 note 
 Kashima, shrine of, 242 
 
 Kataki-Uchi, the evidence of, 
 
 in Yedo, 226 
 Katase", dragon of, 269 
 
 temple of Riyukoji at, 267, 
 
 268 
 Kato at Miyanoshita, visit to, 
 
 292-301 
 Kemble, Adelaide, see Mrs. 
 
 Sartoris 
 Ketch, John, beheads the Duke 
 
 of Monmouth, 21 note 
 Khorisa'n, paper-makers of, 117, 
 
 119 
 
 Kido, a Yonin, 229 
 Kiga, hot iron springs at, 298- 
 
 300 
 King's Bench, Court of, sits in 
 
 the Tower, 16 
 
 Kingston, Sir William, de- 
 scribes the death of Anne 
 Boleyn, 24, 25 
 Kishiu, province of, 290, 306 
 Kiushiu, Island of, Christians in, 
 
 162 
 
 Xavier lands in, 158 
 Kiyomidzu, Temple of Kwan- 
 
 non at, 313 
 
 Kiyomori, his hatred of Yori- 
 tomo, 288 
 Kobodaishi, priest, sculptor, and 
 
 linguist, 307, 308 
 Kogoku, Empress, 243 
 Kojiki, annals of the, 172 
 Kokushu Daimyos, the, 224 
 Komura, Baron, Japanese Am- 
 bassador, 152 
 
 Kora Miyojin, shrine of, 247 
 Koshigoye, 269 
 
 Kotsuke 1 , province of, 243 note 
 Krupp, Herren, 178 
 Kshatriya, the, 223 
 Kublai Khan, reign of, 116 
 Kuge"s, fall of the, 185, 221 
 
 r 33 1
 
 INDEX 
 
 Kugiyo, his revenge on San- 
 tomo, 250-252 
 
 Kumano, temple at, 306 
 
 Kur6, arsenal of, 184 
 
 Kuropatkin, General, in Man- 
 churia, 178 
 
 Kushiwamado, deity of Shinto, 
 247 
 
 Kwambaku, office of, 243 
 
 Kwannon, Yoritomo's image of, 
 
 3 I2 > 3 J 3 
 Kwanto, provinces of, 290 
 
 governors of, 243, 291 
 Kyoto, 260 
 
 anti-foreign fanatics in, 
 
 155 
 
 bronze Buddha at, 265 
 Buddhist and Christian 
 
 rivalry in, 160 
 court of, 169, 221, 290, 
 
 . 3?7 
 
 foreign ships at, 166 
 
 its art in the Cinque Cento, 
 
 51 
 
 Kugiyo at, 250 
 Nagauji at, 289 
 Silver Pavilion, 233 
 
 LAKING, GUY, his note on the 
 armoury at the Tower, 38-41 
 Lamburn, Adam de, engineer of 
 the first Thames Embank- 
 ment, 11-13 
 Landscape gardening, ideal, in 
 
 nature, 83-89, 100 
 value of massing, 88-90 
 Lanfranc, his pupil Gundulf, 6 
 Lang family, the, Chinese 
 
 potters, 51 
 Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci's, 
 
 Judas Iscariot in, 64 
 first sketch for, 69 
 Leghorn ceded to Florence, 58 
 
 332 
 
 Levens, 97 
 Leo X., 50 
 
 his patronage of art, 231 
 Leo XII., Pope, his treatment 
 
 of Leonardo da Vinci, 71 
 Leopards, the three, 17 
 Liefde, Will Adams pilot of the, 
 
 191, 194, 197 
 Lilly's nativities, 234 
 Limehouse, Will Adams in, 192, 
 
 198, 202 
 
 Lin Fu, adaptability of, 237,240 
 Linen as a basis for paper, 117 
 Lingard's History, 27 
 Lion, his reception in Japan, 
 
 238, 272, 287, 300 
 Lisbon, 143 
 Lister, Lord, his antiseptic 
 
 methods, 145 
 Lombard bankers, outrages on 
 
 the, 15 
 
 London, 231, 233 
 Aldgate, 9 
 
 Bishop of, see Aylmer 
 Bridge, 33 
 
 Queen Elinor retreats 
 
 from, 1 6 
 New Court, 182 
 Postern Gate, n 
 Threadneedle Street, 182 
 Longchamp, William, Bishop of 
 Ely, encloses the Tower of 
 London, 10 
 Longford, Mr., on the Yonin, 
 
 229 
 
 Lord Chamberlain, the, his re- 
 sponsibility for the Tower, 
 29 note 
 
 Lord Mayor's Day, 1876, 31-33 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent, his 
 
 patronage of art, 231 
 sends Da Vinci to Milan, 
 61
 
 INDEX 
 
 Louis XII., Da Vinci's work 
 
 for, 71 
 
 Louis XIV., 85 
 Louvre, the, bas-relief of Scipio 
 
 Africanus in, 56 
 theft of Monna Lisa 
 
 from, 45 
 Loyola, St. Ignatius, 50 
 
 his influence on Xavier, 
 
 158 
 
 Lucretia, death of, 26 
 LusitaniOf 190 
 Luther, Martin, 50 
 
 on Copernicus, 66 
 Lyceum Theatre, 40 note 
 Macaulay, Lord, History of 
 
 England^ 22 note 
 on the Tower chapel, 20, 35 
 Macdonald, Sir Claude, British 
 
 Ambassador to Japan, 190 
 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 50 
 Madonna delle Grazie, Convent 
 
 of the, Milan, 63 
 Magellan, 50 
 
 Straits of, Will Adams in, 
 
 193, 196 
 Mahomet, 145 
 Maidenhair trees in Japan, 248, 
 
 252 
 
 Maihore, Jaques, 193 
 Malay Archipelago, natural 
 landscape gardening in, 
 
 83,84 
 Straits, St. Francis Xavier 
 
 in, 159 
 
 :i Malbrook, Madame," 99 
 Manchester Ship C.inal, 57 
 Manchuria, railways of, 181, 
 Mangan exorcises the dragon, 
 
 37 
 Manila, Governor of, 202 
 
 Manyoshiu, the Tanka of the, 
 172 
 
 Maritornes of Kamakura, 244 
 Mary, Queen, 18 
 
 her governess, 26 
 Mathematics, Leonardo da 
 
 Vinci on, 64, 65 
 Mathews, Charles, 40 note 
 Mauger the Headsman, 3 
 SVlauretania, 190 
 Mayence, Gutenburg at, 106 
 Mecca, introduction of paper 
 
 into, 1 1 6, 117 
 Mechanics, Leonardo da Vinci's 
 
 genius for, 52, 55, 61 
 Medici, Lorenzo de',s^ Lorenzo 
 
 the Magnificent 
 Medici tombs, the, 48 
 Meida, visit to, 282 
 Meiji, Japanese era of, 175, 176, 
 
 186 
 Melanchthon, Philip, on Coper- 
 
 nicus, 66 
 Melzo, pupil and executor of 
 
 Da Vinci, 71 
 Memory, examples of, 112, 
 
 H3 
 
 Mencius, 172 
 
 works of, 113 
 Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, 
 
 179 
 
 Messour, Chief Eunuch, 1 1 1 
 Metal work, Japanese, in the 
 
 Cinque Cento, 51 
 Mexican pines, 93 
 Meyrick, Sir Samuel Rush, his 
 work in the Tower Armoury, 
 40 
 Michael Angelo, 51 
 
 a learner in old age, 127 
 his mathematical genius 
 
 48 
 
 Michelham, Lord, 21 note 
 Middle Kingdom^ The^ quoted, 
 
 333
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mikado, the, accession of present, 
 
 175 
 
 divine state of, 221-223 
 gardens of, 88 
 his foreign policy, 176, 186 
 his ministers, 243 
 honours Prince Kamadari, 
 
 243 
 power delegated to Shogun- 
 
 ate, 246 
 Milan, aviation experiments at, 
 
 59 
 Barghetto, 64 
 
 French invasion of, 56 
 Leonardo da Vinci in, 57, 
 
 61,64,70, 71 
 his Last Supper, 63, 64 
 Milman, Colonel, Governor of 
 
 the Tower, 31 
 Milton, John, 231 
 Minamoto dynasty, the palaces 
 
 of, 255 
 feud of, with Taira, 223, 
 
 see Yoritomo 
 Ming dynasty, the, 51 
 Mito, Prince of, his attitude to 
 
 foreigners, 166, 167 
 Miyanoshita, visit to, 292-301, 
 
 3 11 
 Miyochin family of metal 
 
 workers, 51 
 
 Mogul Akhbar, the, 51 
 
 Mollien, Ravaisson, interprets 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 67 
 
 Monat, Dr., F.R.C.S., identi- 
 fies the bones of Anne Boleyn, 
 
 3-3 2 
 Mongolia, flower effects in, 89 
 
 Monmouth, James, Duke of, 
 his death and burial in the 
 Tower, 21 and note, 34 
 
 Monna Lisa, merits of, 46 
 theft of, 45 
 
 334 
 
 Monte Falterona, 52 
 Montgolfier, his ballon, 60 
 Moors as paper-makers, 120 
 More, Sir Thomas, 50 
 
 his death in the Tower, 
 
 21,23 
 
 patron of Holbein, 232 
 portraits of, 23 note 
 Mori, Prince of Chosin, 170, 
 
 225 
 Moriyoshi, Prince, unhappy 
 
 history of, 257-260 
 Moses, 107 
 Mount Fuji Yama, see Fuji 
 
 Yama 
 Ida, 8 1 
 Ishibashi, Yoritomo hides 
 
 on, 311-313 
 Ishigaki, Taiko Sama on, 
 
 3H 
 
 Koya, 290 
 Okura, 242 
 Oyama, 279 
 Mukden, battle of, 172 
 Miiller, Max, on the Brahmans, 
 
 223 
 
 Muntz on Da Vinci, 58, 67 
 Musashi, province of, 243 note 
 
 NAGASAKI, execution of monks 
 
 in, 162 
 
 Nai-shi-dokoro, the, 221 note 
 Namdri, story of the river, 256 
 Nango, 278 
 Nanushi of Kamakura, the, acts 
 
 as antiquary, 244, 245, 251, 
 
 252, 262 
 
 Naples, grottos at, 98 
 Napoleon I., 145 
 Nara, court of, 221 
 
 statue of Buddha at, 263, 
 
 265 
 Nata-uta, the, 172
 
 INDEX 
 
 Necromancy, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 investigates, 70 
 
 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, 157 
 Newcastle, Duke of, his grotto 
 
 at Oatlands, 98, 99 
 Newport, Mountjoy, Earl of, 
 
 39 
 
 New Zealand, Acsena of, 93 
 
 Nichiren escapes execution, 
 
 267, 268 
 
 Nightgall the gaoler, 3 
 Nihon-bashi, Tokyo, 210 
 Nihongi, annals of the, 172, 173 
 Niigata, bar of river at, 279 
 
 note 
 Nikaido, murder of Prince 
 
 Moriyoshi in, 259 
 Nineteenth Century, The, 3 note 
 Nintoku, Emperor, shrine of, 
 
 253 
 Nobunaga, Ota, 165 
 
 his policy towards Chris- 
 tianity, 159, 1 60 
 Noel, Gerard, First Commis- 
 sioner of Works, 5, 31 
 Norfolk, Duchess of, her neglect 
 
 of Katherine Howard, 25 
 North-West Passage, the, 205 
 Northumberland, Earl of, 21 
 his grave in the Tower, 33, 
 
 34 
 weds his son to Lady Jane 
 
 Grey, 28 
 
 Nostradamus, 234 
 Nottingham, Lady, fails the 
 Earl of Essex, 21 
 
 OAK-TREES, on Mount Ida, 81 
 their claim to be indi- 
 genous, 95, 96 
 Oatlands Park, grotto at, 98, 
 
 99 
 Oberon, King, 46 
 
 Odawara, 282 
 
 ruled by the Hojo family, 
 
 ^ 244, 289-294,308, 311 
 
 Soga at, 304 
 
 visit to, 286-292 
 Office of Works, Secretaryship 
 
 of the, 4, 29 
 Ogilvy, Dr., his poems, 138, 
 
 '39 
 
 O Hana, Miss, 239 
 
 Oiso, Tora Gozen of, 304 
 Ojin, Emperor, God of War, 
 
 246, 253 
 Okura, 243 
 Oliphant, Laurence, on old 
 
 Japan, 179 
 
 Omori family at Odawara, 289 
 Onaka, Princess, shrine of, 247 
 Ono Goroye'mon, 265 
 Orange trees in tubs, 85 
 Originality the privilege of man, 
 
 140 
 Osaka, bar of river at, 279 note 
 
 Will Adams at, 197, 202 
 Osborne, Sherard, on old Japan, 
 
 179 
 
 Osman, Caliph of Bagdad, 109 
 O Take San at Hata, 310 
 Ota Nobunaga, 165 
 
 his attitude to Christianity, 
 
 159, 1 60 
 Othowerus, Constable of the 
 
 Tower, 9 
 Otsu, bride of Will Adams, 199, 
 
 200 
 
 Otto, Constable of the Tower, 9 
 Ovid, on Tarquin's lilies, 89 
 
 PALESTINE, manufacture of paper 
 
 in, 120 
 
 Pali characters, the, 307 
 Palmistry, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 on, 70 
 
 335
 
 INDEX 
 
 Pandora, legend of, 137 
 Panurge, moutons de, 46 
 Papal Bulls, 26 
 
 concerning Japan, 161, 
 
 163 
 
 Paper, Arabian, 115-117, 120 
 Aryan improvements in, 
 
 no, 114 
 Chinese invention of, 107, 
 
 no, 116, 121 
 precedes invention of 
 
 printing, 106 
 introduced into Europe by 
 
 Crusaders, 112 
 introduced into Japan, 121 
 manufactured in Samar- 
 kand and Bagdad, no, 
 in, 114-120 
 rag, first made in Europe, 
 
 no, 115, 118 
 secret industry of the East, 
 
 in, I2O 
 silk, 118 
 
 Papyrus, Egyptian, 107, 119 
 Paradise Lost^ 147 
 Paradhi in sole Paradisus ter- 
 
 restris, 85 note 
 Parchment used by the Caliphs, 
 
 119 
 
 Paris, city of, 231, 233, 276 
 Paris, Matthew, on the fortifi- 
 cation of the Tower by 
 Henry III., 11, 13 
 Paris, perennial youth of, 81 
 Parkinson, John, his Paradise, 
 
 85 
 Parr, Queen Catherine, her 
 
 household, 27 
 her husband, 21 
 Partridge, Nathaniel, gentleman 
 
 gaoler, 28 
 
 Pasqualigo visits the Tower 
 Armoury, 38 
 
 33 6 
 
 Pattenson, Sir T. More's jester, 
 
 232 
 possible portrait of, 24 
 
 note 
 Paul III., Pope, Copernicus 
 
 dedicates his book to, 66 
 Pavia, Francis I. at, 71 
 Peace, Charles, 45 
 Peking, Forest of Pencils, 182 
 Pendulum, invention of the, 
 
 144 
 
 Pera, 57 
 Percy, Dr., Bishop of Dromore, 
 
 138 
 
 Pericles, the age of, 59 
 Perry, Commodore, appears in 
 
 Japan, 164, 169 
 Persian art in the Cinque 
 
 Cento, 51 
 art of paper-making, no, 
 
 118, 120 
 Perspective, Leonardo da Vinci 
 
 on the value of, 72, 73 
 Peru, 193 
 Perugino, fellow pupil of Da 
 
 Vinci, 55 
 Philip IV., patron of Velasquez, 
 
 232 
 Photography, its scientific allies, 
 
 47 
 
 probable attitude of Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci to, 72- 
 
 75 
 
 Phyllotaxy, laws of, 68 
 Pine trees in Japan, 86, 87 
 
 on Mount Ida, 81 
 Pisa, 53 
 
 Cathedral of, 144 
 Planch^, J. R., his agitation for 
 the improvement of the 
 Tower Armoury, 40, 41 
 Plantagenet, Margaret, see 
 Countess of Salisbury
 
 INDEX 
 
 Plato contrasted with Kant, 49 
 
 his Phtsdo, 27 
 
 Poetry, definition of, 138, 139 
 Pole, Cardinal, his mother's 
 
 death, 26, 27 
 Ponsonby, Sir Henry, 29 
 Pope, Alexander, his grotto at 
 
 Twickenham, 98, 99 
 Port Arthur, siege of, 130, 172, 
 
 178,219 
 Portuguese traders in Japan, 
 
 158, 163, 200 
 denounce Will Adams, 
 
 194, 196, 201 
 wars with England, 196 
 Priam, King of Troy, 80 
 Priestcraft, its influence in 
 
 Japan, 158-164 
 usurps political power, 223 
 Prince Consort, the, 4 
 Princess- Water, spring of, 293 
 Pring, Captain Martin, 211 
 Printing, invention of, sub- 
 sequent to that of paper, 106, 
 114 
 
 Pyrenees, the, honeysuckle of, 
 93 
 
 RABELAIS, 51 
 
 Racine, Iphig6nie, 48 
 
 Rag paper, first made in Europe, 
 
 no, 115, 118 
 Rainer, Archduke, his collection 
 
 of MSS., 115, 117 
 Rainy season in Japan, 237 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 157, 191 
 Raphael of Urbino, 51 
 Ratcliffe, Will Adams in, 198 
 
 Highway, 227 
 
 Ravenburg, paper-mill at, 114 
 Reformation, origin of the, 25 
 Renard, Simon, 3 
 Restoration, the, 40 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 138 
 
 Rice paper, composition of, 109 
 
 Richard I., 10 
 
 Richard //., quoted, 5 note 
 
 Richard III., 1 8 
 
 Richard III., quoted, 5 note 
 
 Richik6in, temple of, 260 
 
 Richter on Leonardo da Vinci, 
 
 .56, 57, 67, 75 
 
 Rig Veda, hymns of the, 223 
 Riyukoji, temple of, 267, 268 
 Robert of Normandy contends 
 with Henry I. for England, 8 
 Roberts, Rev. E. Jordan, Chap- 
 lain of St. Peter's, Tower 
 Chapel, 35 
 Rocheford, Teravin de, his visit 
 
 to the Tower, 1672, 39, 40 
 Rochester, 192 
 
 Bishop of, John Fisher, in 
 
 the Tower, 21-23 
 Gundulf, Bishop of, archi- 
 tect of Cathedral and 
 Castle, 4, 6-8 
 Rochford, Lady, her grave in 
 
 the Tower, 34 
 Lord, his grave in the 
 
 Tower, 33 
 Rojdestvenski, Admiral, defeat 
 
 of, 172 
 
 Romaji hirome" kai, the, 183 
 Roman Catholic Church, its 
 
 attitude to Copernicus, 66 
 Roman comitatus, 229 
 
 fortifications on the site of 
 
 the Tower, 5, 36 
 ignorance of paper-making, 
 
 1 2O 
 
 lack of creative imagina- 
 tion, 139 
 
 Rome, Leonardo da Vinci in, 60 
 Michael Angelo in, 126, 
 127 
 
 337
 
 INDEX 
 
 Ronin, the, foreign policy of, 171 
 in Yedo, 185, 225 
 Iwai captures Will Adams, 
 
 199 
 
 Roper, Anne, portrait of, 232 
 Rossini, played in Japan, 179 
 Rowlandson, Thomas, his 
 aquatint of the Tower 
 Armoury, 40 
 
 Royal Photographic Society, 
 Presidential Address to, 45, 
 105 
 Royal Society of Antiquaries, 
 
 3 8 , 
 
 Royal Zoological Society, foun- 
 dation of, 17 
 Ruskin, John, 298 
 Russell, Lord, execution of, 22 
 
 note 
 
 Russian raids on Japan, 164 
 statesmen, political power 
 
 of, 50 
 
 Russo-Japanese War, the, 172 
 incident of, 130 
 
 SAGAMI, province of, 242, 243 
 
 note, 289, 304 
 story of the river, 280 
 Said, his capture of Samarkand, 
 
 109 
 
 Salih, Zijid, son of, 117 
 Salisbury, Margaret Plantagenet, 
 Countess of, her death in 
 the Tower, 26, 27 
 her grave in the Tower, 
 
 34 
 
 Salting Collection, the, 232 
 Salvin, Mr., as architectural 
 
 adviser on the Tower, 4, 5 
 Samarkand, capture of, by Bag- 
 dad, 109, 115 
 
 paper-makers in, no, ill, 
 114-120 
 
 338 
 
 Samurai, the, 153, 237 
 
 the spirit of the, 227, 234 
 their attitude to foreigners, 
 
 284 
 
 Sanehira hides Yoritomo, 312 
 San6tomo, Shogun, murder of, 
 
 248-252 
 San Felipe, 120 
 Santa Maria, Island of, 194 
 Sardinian pines, 93 
 Saris, Captain John, his embassy 
 
 to Japan, 192, 203-208 
 Sartoris, Mrs., essay of, quoted, 
 
 218 
 
 Sas6bo, arsenal of, 184 
 Satow, Sir Ernest, his work on 
 
 Japanese literature, 172 
 Satsuma, 213 
 
 Satsuma clan, the, 170, 185, 296 
 disciple of Xavier, 1 59 
 Princes of, 230, 257 
 revenue of, 224 
 Terashima of, 229 
 Scamander in flood, 80, 81 
 Schliemann, his discoveries, 80 
 Schopenhauer, his axiom on 
 
 genius and mathematics dis- 
 ^ proved, 47-49> 5* 
 Scipio Africanus, bas-relief of, 
 
 56 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 227 
 Sea Adventure, The, 209 
 Seailles, M., on Da Vinci, 58, 
 
 67, 69 
 Segar, Sir William, Garter 
 
 King-of-Arms, 22 note 
 Sessho, office of, 243 
 Sforza, Francesco, his monu- 
 ment, by Da Vinci, 56, 63, 
 ^ 64, 70 
 Sforza, Lodovico, II Moro, his 
 
 patronage of art, 61, 231 
 Shaka Niyorai, Shrine of, 265
 
 INDEX 
 
 Shakespeare, William, 51, 231 
 attributes Tower of Lon- 
 don to Julius Caesar, 
 5 note 
 his mathematical genius, 
 
 48 
 
 Shang Chuan, Island of 159 
 Shanghai, 218 
 
 sheep from, 287 note 
 Shatiba, paper-mill at, I2O 
 Shn Tien, 278 
 Sheppard, Jack, 45 
 Shidzuka Gozen, fidelity of, 
 ^ 253 
 Shig6nari, his festival attended 
 
 by Yoritomo, 280, 281 
 Shih Hwang Ti, Prince of Chin, 
 orders destruction of Chinese 
 classics, 113 
 Shimadzu Saburo, Prince of 
 
 Satsuma, 170, 225, 230 
 Shimosa, province of, 242 
 Shimotsuke, province of, 243 
 
 note 
 Shinagawa, Kataki-Uchi in, 
 
 226, 227 
 Shinto, Buddhism grafted on, 
 
 172 
 
 deities of, 247, 271 
 indigenous religion of 
 
 Japan, 271 
 Mikado High Priest of, 
 
 221, 222 note 
 Shiraki, as a horseman, 237, 
 
 241, 242, 267 
 as a travelling companion, 
 285, 288, 292, 293, 300, 
 310 
 
 at Kamakura, 244 
 his parable of the frog, 276 
 Shoguns, the, abolition of, 171 
 government of, 166-169, 
 !75> 223-229, 246 
 
 Shoguns, Tokugawa dynasty of, 
 
 156, 162, 163, 166 
 Will Adams's daily tribute 
 
 to, 202 
 
 Shojosenji, shrine of, 264 
 Siam, Buddhas of, 262 
 
 English trade in, 209 
 Japanese piratical raid on, 
 
 '57 
 Siebold, Doctor von, 154 
 
 Silk adulterated in Egypt, 120 
 
 Silk paper, manufacture of, 118 
 
 Sinbad the Sailor, in 
 
 Sion House, 25 
 
 Smith, W. H., 5 
 
 Smythe, Sir Thomas, Governor 
 
 of the East India Company, 
 
 203 
 Soga, the brothers, graves of, 
 
 33> 3 6 
 swords of, 308 
 
 their vendetta, 303-306 
 
 Somerset, Lord Protector, his 
 
 grave in the Tower, 21, 33, 
 
 , 34 
 
 Soranzo, visits the Tower 
 Armoury, 38 
 
 Sosanoo, Shinto deity, 271 
 
 Soun, see Nagauji 
 
 South Kensington Museum, 
 
 Da Vinci's Discord, 56 
 Salting Collection, 232 
 
 Spalding, Augustus, his inter- 
 course with Will Adams, 
 203, 204, 212 
 
 Spanish traders in Japan, 196, 
 201, 208 
 
 Spanish wars with England, 
 196 
 
 Sparkes, John, 214 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 51 
 
 St. Bernard on the woodland, 
 
 85 
 
 339
 
 INDEX 
 
 St. Edward the Confessor, 13, 
 
 H 
 
 St. Francis Xavier, see Xavier 
 St. George, festival of, A.D. 1240, 
 
 12 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola, 50 
 St. Katherine, brethren of, 
 
 compensated by Edward I., 
 
 10 
 
 St. Louis, 221 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, 20 
 Steam-power, discovery of, 59, 
 
 144 
 
 Stephen, King, 9 
 Storey, Mr., his story of Michael 
 
 Angelo, 126 
 Stow, his descriptions of the 
 
 Tower, quoted, 7, 8, II 
 Stromboli, 57 
 Sudeley, Thomas Seymour, 
 
 Lord, his burial in the Tower, 
 
 21 
 
 Suez Canal, the, 145 
 Suffolk, Duke of, father of 
 
 Lady Jane Grey, 27 
 Sugi-yama, Mount, 311 
 Suk^nari Soga, vendetta of, 303- 
 
 306 
 
 Suketsund, Kudo, Soga vendetta 
 ^ against, 303-306 
 Sukeyasu, murder of, avenged, 
 
 33-35 
 Swiss inscription at Kamakura, 
 
 261 
 
 Sydenham, fountains of, 83, 85 
 Syracuse, grottos at, 98 
 
 TAIJOKWAN conferred on Ka- 
 madari, 243 
 
 Taiko Hid6yoshi, the, his perse- 
 cution of the Jesuits, 160- 
 '63 
 
 340 
 
 Taiko Sama besieges Odawara, 
 
 290, 291, 311 
 Taira family at war with the 
 
 Minamoto, 223 
 Taira no Kiyomori, his hatred 
 
 of Yoritomo, 288 
 Takahashi, Mr., on the financial 
 
 position of Japan, 181, 182 
 Takauji, his plot against Prince 
 
 Moriyoshi, 258-260 
 relics of, 248 
 Taknouchi Sukun, shrine or, 
 
 247 
 Tamadare' no Kami, shrine of, 
 
 247 
 Tanka of the Manyoshiu, the, 
 
 172 
 
 Tarquin, his lilies, 89 
 Tasso, Balzac on, 51 
 Tatsu-no-Kuchi, 269 
 Taurus range, the, 57 
 Taylor, Sir John, his treatment 
 
 of the Tower, 5, 29, 37 
 Tengu of Japan, the, 279 
 Tenshi, the, 221 
 
 his toast, 179 
 
 Ten Thousand Leaves, Collec- 
 tion of the, 172, 173 
 Terashima of Satsuma, 229 
 Thames Embankment begun 
 
 by Henry III., 11-13 
 Thomas, the, 203 
 Thomas the Martyr, a vision 
 
 of, 12, 13 
 Thompson, SirEdward Maunde, 
 
 edits the diary of Captain 
 
 Cocks, 191, 214 
 Thouars, Admiral Du Petit, 
 
 171 note 
 
 Thynne family, sale of heir- 
 looms of, 21 note 
 Tihama, 120 
 Times, quoted, 230
 
 INDEX 
 
 Titian, 51 
 
 Togo, Admiral, his fleet, 157 
 Tokaido, the, 220 
 Tokimasa, H6jo, discovers 
 Yoritomo in hiding, 
 312 
 
 treachery of, 248-250 
 Tokimun6 Soga, vendetta of, 
 
 303-306 
 Tokiyori, Hojo, his opposition 
 
 to Nichiren, 267, 268 
 Tokugawa dynasty, the, 156, 
 
 l62, 211, 222, 224 
 Tokugawa Keiki, Prince, abdi- 
 cation of, 162 
 Tokyo, my garden at, 88 
 
 under the Shogunate, 225, 
 
 231 
 
 Will Adams honoured in, 
 199, 200, 210 
 see also Yedo 
 Topiary art, the, 97 
 Tora Gozen, aids the Soga 
 
 brothers, 304 
 becomes a nun, 306 
 grave of, 303 
 Tosa, Yodo of, 170, 185, 225, 
 
 229, 230 
 
 Totsuka, visit to, 238-241 
 Toyoiwamado, deity of Shinto, 
 
 247 
 Tower Green, 3 
 
 scaffold on, 28, 29 
 Tower Hill, 1 1 
 Tower of London, Armoury, 
 
 38-41 
 
 Ballium, 36, 37 
 Broad Arrow Tower, 36 
 Chapel of St. Edward the 
 
 Confessor, 14 
 Chapel of St. John, 14 
 Chapel of St. Peter ad 
 Vincula, 8, 14, 17 
 
 Tower ot London, Chapel of 
 St. Peter ad Vincula, 
 its nameless graves, 
 20-29 
 
 its restoration, 29-35 
 citizen guards at, 1 7 
 Cradle Tower, 36 
 early fascination of, 3 
 famous escapes from, 9 
 Gundulf, architect of, 6, 7 
 Henry III.'s additions to, 
 
 11-17 
 Lanthorn Tower, 14, 16, 
 
 1 8, 36, 37 
 Lion's Tower, 17 
 military stores at, 18, 19 
 restoration of, 4, 5, 18 
 Roman fortifications on its 
 
 site, 5, 6, 36 
 Salt Tower, 1 8, 36 
 Sir C. Wren's additions to, 
 
 17, 18 
 St. Thomas's Tower, 8, 
 
 J3 
 Wakefield Tower, 8, 17 
 
 Water Gate, 13 
 
 Well Tower, 36 
 
 White Tower, 4, 6, n, 
 
 *3> J 4> 4 1 
 
 its restoration, 18, 35- 
 
 37 
 
 Trafalgar, battle of, 178 
 Treaties with Japan, 169, 283 
 Troad, the, journey in, 80 
 Troy, discovery of, 80 
 
 fall of, 113 
 
 Tsar, autocracy of a, 50 
 Tsurugaoka, temple of, 246 
 Tunbridge Wells, Japanese 
 
 equivalent of, 294 
 Turpin, Dick, 45 
 Twickenham, Pope's grotto at, 
 
 98 
 
 341
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tycoon, power of the, 283, 
 3 8 > 309 
 
 UDAIJIN, office of, 250 
 Uga, the goddess, 271 
 Ujimasa, Hojo, his death as a 
 
 traitor, 290 
 Ujinao Hojo, 290 
 Ujiyasu, annexes the Kwanto, 
 
 290 
 
 U-Kitaru-Jima, 269 
 Ulysses, 9 
 Uraga, Commodore Perry at, 
 
 164 
 
 Utility wedded to Art, 141 
 Uwajima, Dat of, 230 
 Uyeno, concert at, 179 
 Uzielli, on Da Vinci's ancestry, 
 
 54 
 
 VALENCIA, 120 
 Vallombrosa, monks of, 56 
 Vander Hay, Peter, 193 
 Vander Veek, Hans, 193 
 Vannucci, Pietro, fellow pupil 
 
 with Da Vinci, 55 
 Vasari, Giorgio, on Leonardo da 
 
 Vinci, 55, 60 
 
 Vauban, fortifications of, 83 
 Velasquez, his patron, Philip 
 
 IV., 231 
 Venice, 143 
 
 Arsenal at, 40 
 art of printing in, 106 
 Colleone, 55, 56 
 Venus di Medici, copy of at 
 
 Oatlands, 99 
 
 Verrocchio, Andrea del, Leon- 
 ardo da Vinci a pupil of, 55, 
 56 
 
 Versailles, fountains of, 83, 85 
 Vespucci, Amerigo, 50 
 Vestris, Madame, 40 note 
 
 34 2 
 
 Victoria, Queen, her interest 
 
 in the Tower, 29 
 Vierge aux rochers^ /#, 74 
 Vikings of the East, 157 
 Vinci, Accatabriga di Piero del 
 
 Vacca di, 53 
 Leonardo, see Da Vinci 
 Ser Piero Antonio da, 
 father of Leonardo, 53, 
 
 54, 55 
 castle of, 53 
 Virgil, Balzac on, 51 
 
 inspires fashion for grottos, 
 
 98 
 Vorsterman, Lucas, 24 note 
 
 WAAGEN, Dr., 46 
 
 Wagner, played in Japan, 
 
 '79 
 
 Wakamatsu, siege of, 186 
 
 Waldenses, their knowledge of 
 
 the Bible, 112 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, 92 
 Walsh, Hall and Company, 128 
 Walter, Mr., discovers Adams's 
 
 tomb, 190 
 
 Wandering Jew, the, 218 
 War Office, its responsibility 
 
 for the Tower, 29 note, 40 
 Wars of the Roses, the, 223 
 Water-clock, in 
 Wattenbach on paper, 115 
 Wavemen of Japan, the, see 
 
 Ronin 
 
 Weever, quoted, 19 
 Westminster Abbey, compared 
 
 with the Tower Chapel, 20 
 Westminster Hall, William 
 
 Rufus's expenditure on, 8 
 Westminster Palace, Armoury 
 
 at, 38 
 
 Weymouth, Louisa, Vis- 
 countess, 21 note
 
 INDEX 
 
 Weymouth, Thomas Thynne, 
 
 2nd Viscount, 21 note 
 Wiesner, Professor, his dis- 
 coveries concerning paper, 
 105, 114, 115, 120 
 William the Conqueror, 145 
 builds the Tower of 
 
 London, 6, 37 
 his supposed armour in the 
 
 Tower, 39, 40 
 William Rufus, his additions to 
 
 the Tower, 8 
 Williams, Wells, on Chinese 
 
 memory, 113 
 The {Middle Kingdom, 
 
 quoted, 113 
 Willis, Dr., his school for 
 
 surgery at Yedo, 178, 296 
 Windsor Castle, 16 
 
 Da Vinci MSS. in library 
 
 of, 57, 67 
 Wolf, Lucien, presides at the 
 
 Authors' Club, 217 
 Wolfytt, 3 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 50 
 Worcester, Marquis of, first 
 
 utilises steam, 144 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, his 
 additions to the Tower, 17, 
 18 
 
 XAVIER, St. Francis, 50 
 
 his missionary labours in 
 
 Japan, 158, 159, 164 
 Xit the dwarf, 3 
 
 YAMATO, feudalism of, 220 
 
 Damashi, the spirit of 
 
 old Japan, 130, 227 
 its opposition to Western 
 
 influence, 171, 172 
 modern outlet for, 185 
 Yashikis, Japanese, 179 
 
 Yatsumato, ghosts on the moor 
 
 of, 281 
 
 Yedo, see also Tokyo, 165, 238 
 Bay of, 129 
 burial-ground of Shoguns 
 
 at, 257 
 
 Castle at, 179, 202 
 European civilisation in, 
 
 179 
 merchants of, 254, 263, 
 
 264 
 plain of, rainy season in, 
 
 237 
 under the Shogunate, 225, 
 
 231,291 
 Western architecture in, 
 
 244 
 Will Adams at, 198, 204, 
 
 205 
 Willis medical school at, 
 
 296 
 
 Yemen, 120 
 Yezo, Island of, 253 
 Yodo, Prince of Tosa, 1 70, 225, 
 
 230 
 Yokohama, 226 
 
 dialect of, 255, 285 
 European doctors of, 302 
 port of, 238, 240, 261 
 restrictions on foreigners 
 
 in, 283 
 Yokosuka, 164 
 
 arsenal of, 184, 213 
 Yonin, the Japanese, 229 
 Yoriiye, Shogun, murder of, 
 
 248-250 
 
 Yoritomo, Minamoto no, hides 
 on Mount Ishibashi, 
 
 . 
 
 his death and its portents, 
 
 219, 280, 281 
 his enmity against his 
 
 brother, 253 
 
 343
 
 INDEX 
 
 Yoritomo, his enmity against 
 Taira noKiyomori,288 
 his family god, 265 
 his grave, 257 
 his wife, 263 
 relics of, 248 
 Shogunate of, 246-248, 
 
 280 
 Soga vendetta against, 303- 
 
 306 
 
 statue of Buddha erected 
 in memory of, 263, 264 
 Yoritsune, relics of, 248 
 York, Duke of, his seat at Oat- 
 lands, 98, 99 
 Yoshimasa, Shogun Ashikaga, 
 
 289 
 at i Kyoto, 233 
 
 Yoshitoki, uncle of Sanetomo, 
 
 249-252 
 
 Yoshitsund, brother of Yorito- 
 mo, 253 
 ghost of, 281 
 murder of, 280 
 Yui in Sagami, 242, 246 
 Yukiaigawa, story of the river, 
 
 267 
 
 Yukiiye, ghost of, 281 
 Yumoto, visit to, 311, 313 
 Yusuf, son of Amru, 116 
 Yuten, priest at Fukazawa, 264 
 
 ZEN sect, Tokiyori, priest of the, 
 
 267 
 
 Zeus on Mount Ida, 82 
 Zijad, son of Salih, 117
 
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