When Israel came out of Egypt: and the house
of Jacob from among the strange people,
Judah was his sanctuary: and Israel his
dominion.

The sea saw that and fled: Jordan was
driven back.

The mountains skipped like rams: and the
little hills like young sheep.

&c. &c.

Of all such complications Japanese prosody knows nothing. It regards neither rhyme, tone, accent, quantity, nor alliteration, nor does its rather frequent parallelism follow any regular method. Its only essential rule is that every poem must consist of alternate lines of five and seven syllables, with, generally, an extra line of seven syllables to mark the close. It is, indeed, prosody reduced to its simplest expression. Yet so little artifice is needed to raise

* Here is an example. It is the original of the elegy on p. 71, beginning "Alas! poor mortal maid

5. Utsusemishi

5. Tama naraba,

5. Kinu naraba,

Nugu toki mo naku,

The fondness of the Japanese for brevity has led them to write an immense amount of poetry in a very short stanza of thirty-one syllables, thus

Some European writers have falsely supposed that the flights of the Japanese Muse were always bound down within these lilliputian limits. For a translation of the above stauza see p. 129 (No. 38).

prose to verse in this most musical of tongues, that such a primitive metre still satisfies the native ear to-day in every street-ballad, as it already did in the seventh century at the Mikado's court; and no serious attempt has ever been made to alter it in the slightest degree, even during the period of the greatest intellectual ascendancy of China.

Though not essential, there are, however, some usual additions to the means at the Japanese versifier's command. They are three in number, and altogether original, viz., what are styled "Pillow-words," "Prefaces," and "Pivots."

"

The Pillow-words" are meaningless expressions which are prefixed to other words merely for the sake of euphony. Almost every word of note has some "Pillow-word" on which it may, so to speak, rest its head; and dictionaries of them are often resorted to by the unready Japanese versifier, just as rhyming dictionaries come to the aid of the poetasters of modern Europe.

A "Preface" is but a "Pillow-word" on a more extensive scale, consisting, as it does, of a whole sentence prefixed to a poem, not on account of any connection with the sense of what follows, but merely as an introduction pleasing to the ear. This ornament is chiefly confined to the very early poetry, whereas the "Pillow-words" have flourished equally in every age.

The "Pivot" is a more complicated device, and one which, in any European language, would be not only insupportable, but impossible, resting, as it does, on a most peculiar kind of jeu de mots. A word having

two significations serves as a species of hinge on which two doors turn, so that while the first part of the poetical phrase has no logical end, the latter part has no logical beginning. They run into each other, and the sentence could not possibly be construed. To the English reader such a punning invention will doubtless seem the height of misapplied ingenuity, calculated to reduce poetry to the level of the acrostic and the bouts rimés. But, as a matter of fact, the impression produced by these linked verses is delightful in the extreme, passing, as they do, before the reader, like a series of dissolving views, vague, graceful, and suggestive. The Japanese, too, have their acrostics, and also their common puns, with the same stigma of vulgarity as is attached by ourselves to such lower sallies of wit; but the line between them and the poetical artifice just described, though difficult to define, is very sharply drawn. It rests, probably, chiefly on the fact that newness is an essential constituent of the ludicrous sensation excited by the jeu de mots properly so called, which newness forms no part of the "Pivot," it being, as a rule, in all poems the same half-dozen words that serve as the points of transition from clause to clause. This ornament especially characterises the old poetical dramas, and renders them a peculiarly arduous study to such as do not thoroughly appreciate its nature.*

So much for the independent character of the form of Japanese poetry. To prove conclusively that its

Those who may feel curious for more details on the subject of Japanese prosody should consult Aston's "Grammar of the Japanese Written Language." For a special essay on the "Pillow-words," &c., the present writer may be allowed to refer to a paper printed in the fifth volume of the "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan."

substance is equally autochthonous would be a harder task, though few, probably, of those competent to form an opinion on the point would deny that such is the case. Three facts may, however, be signalised as tending to show that such likenesses as do exist,-for instance, the absence of impersonation, and the very secondary place taken by the religious element,— should be attributed rather to a fundamental resemblance between the Chinese and the Altaic minds than to any direct influence of the former upon the latter.

In the first place, it seems scarcely doubtful that the earliest Japanese poetical compositions that have come down to us date from an age preceding the introduction of the art of writing, or at least its general diffusion, and when, consequently, the study of Chinese literary models was, if not impossible, unlikely in the extreme." Moreover, the earliest general teachers of Chinese learning were the Buddhist missionaries, who, we may presume, esteemed true doctrine much more highly than they did belles lettres, while the stray merchants, adventurers, and outlaws who preceded them, are still less likely to have thought of meddling with, or to have been able to inspire, the songs of either court or people. Yet in all essential respects the earliest poems resemble those produced by the bards of succeeding ages, when Chinese influence undoubtedly deeply swayed the national mind. Were this fact altogether indisputable, no further argument.

* Tradition places the arrival in Japan of the first Corean teacher in A.D. 284; but there is no reliable evidence to show that the Japanese studied with any profit till the time of the preaching of Buddhism in the sixth century.

would be required. But absolute proof of any assertion regarding so dim a past as that in which began the intercourse between China and Japan being unobtainable, no element of the discussion should be omitted.

Secondly, therefore, it may be stated that such differences of style and spirit as can be traced, clearly show us the more ancient poems as being also the simpler, the more natural, and intrinsically the better, which could scarcely have been the case had their inspiration been derived from abroad; for every copy is a parody, and the most salient peculiarities of the Chinese style would have been the first to be seized on. Then, little by little, the national mind would have shaken itself free from the foreign leading-strings which had guided its first faint efforts, as did, in fact, partially occur in the case of history, philosophy, and essay-writing; and the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries would have been the zenith of Japanese poetry, as they were of Japanese literature in all its other branches. As a matter of fact, however, the sources of true lyric poetry suddenly dried up at the commencement of that epoch. Thenceforward, instead of the heart-outpourings of the older poets, we find nothing but empty prettinesses and conceits, confined within the narrowest limits. The lyric drama, it is true, arose and flourished during the Middle Ages; but, though deeply tinged with Buddhist ideas, and though frequently quoting the Chinese poets, it is still, both in form, treatment, and choice of subjects, distinctly national and indigenous.

Lastly, the originality of the Japanese system of versification, which has been independently established,