grand historical scenes live again before the eyes of posterity; they have never, like the early Italian masters, drawn away men's hearts from earth to heaven in an ecstasy of adoration. In a word, Japanese art, as Mr. Alfred East tersely said, when lecturing on the subject in Tokyō, is "great in small things, but small in great things." (See also Articles on ARCHITECTURE, CARVING, METAL-WORK, MUSIC, and PORCELAIN.)

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,"craft,"

N.B. A curious fact, to which we have never seen attention drawn, is that the Japanese language has no genuine native word for "art." To translate the European term fine art," there has recently been invented the compound bi-jutsu, by putting together the two Chinese characters bi, "beautiful," and jutsu "device," "legerdemain ;" and there are two or three other such compounds which make an approach to the meaning, but none that satisfactorily cover it. The Japanese language is similarly devoid of any satisfactory word for "nature." The nearest equivalents are seishitsu, "characteristic qualities;" bambutsu, “all things;" tenner, "spontaneously." This curious philological fact makes it difficult, with the best will and skill in the world, to reproduce most of our discussions on art and nature in a manner that shall be intelligible to those Japanese who know no European language.

The lack of a proper word for “art” is unquestionably a weakness in Japanese. Perhaps the lack of a word for "nature" is a strength. For does not the word “nature” in our Western tongues serve to conceal, and therefore encourage, confusion of ideas? When we talk, for instance, of being "inspired by nature," what precise sense can be attached to the phrase? Sometimes "nature"especially with a big N-is a kind of deistic synonym or euphemism for the Creator, who becomes "she" for the nonce. At other times it denotes His creatures. Sometimes it is the universe minus man; sometimes it is man's impulses as opposed to his conscious acts. Sometimes it sums up all that is reasonable and proper; sometimes, as in theological parlance, the exact reverse. The word "nature" is a Proteus. It stands for everything in general and nothing in

particular,―impossible to define, and serving only as a will-o'-thewisp to mislead metaphysically minded persons.

Books recommended. The foregoing article is founded chiefly on Dr. Wm. Anderson's great work, The Pictorial Arts of Japan, which, with its companion work, the Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum, is the best authority on the subject. Failing these, see the same author's earlier History of Japanese Art, in Vol. VII. Part IV. of the Asiatic Transactions. The other most important book bearing on the subject is L'Art Japonais, by A. Gonse. It is somewhat perplexing to decide what briefer and cheaper book to recommend. Huish's handy little volume entitled Japan and its Art may perhaps be mentioned. Great things are expected by Professor Fenollosa's numerous friends from the exhaustive treatise on the subject which that learned connoisseur is believed to be preparing. But so far we have from his pen nothing but a Review of the Chapter on Paiating in Gonse, printed in the Japan Weekly Mail of the 12th July, 1881. None who are genuinely interested in Japanese art should fail to get hold of this elaborate critique, wherein is pleaded, with full knowledge of the subject, the cause of the Japanese old masters as against Hokusai and the modern Popular School whom Gonse had championed.-See also Artistie Japan, a now extinct illustrated journal, edited by S. Byng and to be obtained in volume form.

Asiatic Society of Japan. This society was founded in October, 1872, for "the collection of information and the investigation of subjects relating to Japan or other Asiatic countries." The two seats of the Society are Tokyo and Yokohama. The entrance fee is $5, and the yearly fee likewise $5 to residents, but $3 to non-residents. It is also optional to non-residents to become life-members by paying the entrance fee and an additional sum of $16. Members are elected by the Council of the Society. Persons desirous of becoming members should, therefore, apply to the Secretary or to some other member of the Council. Members receive the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan free, from the date of their election, and have the privilege of purchasing back numbers at half-price. These are the Asiatic Transactions, so often referred to in the course of the present work. Scarcely a subject connected with Japan but is to be found learnedly discussed in the pages of the

Asiatic Transactions. A General Index to the Asiatic Transactions, recently published by Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, of Yokohama, is invaluable for reference.

Besides the Asiatic Society, there is in Tōkyō a German Society, entitled Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, the scope of whose labours is closely similar, and whose valuable Mittheilungen, or German Asiatic Transactions, as we have ventured to call them when quoting them, are strongly recommended to readers. familiar with the German language. This Society was founded in 1873.

Bathing. Cleanliness is one of the few original items of Japanese civilisation. Almost all other Japanese institutions have their root in China, but not tubs. We read in the Japanese mythology that the god Izanagi, on returning from a visit to his dead wife in Hades, purified himself in the waters of a stream. Ceremonial purifications continue to form part of the Shinto ritual. But viewed generally, the eleanliness in which the Japanese excel the rest of mankind has nothing to do with godliness. They are clean for the personal satisfaction of being clean. Their hot baths-for they almost all bathe in very hot water of about 110° Fahrenheit also help to keep them warm in winter. For though moderately hot water gives a chilly reaction, this is not the case when the water is extremely hot, neither is there then any fear of catching cold. There are some eight hundred public baths in the city of Tokyo, in which it is calculated that three hundred thousand persons bathe daily, at a cost of 1 sen 3 rin (about a halfpenny of English money) per head. A reduction of 3 rin is made for children. In addition to this, every respectable private house has its own bath-room.

Other cities and even villages are similarly provided. Where there are neither bathing establishments nor private bathrooms, the people take their tubs out-of-doors, unless indeed a policeman, charged with carrying out the new regulations, happens to be prowling about the neighbourhood; for cleanliness is more esteemed by the Japanese than our artificial Western prudery.

Some Europeans have tried to pick holes in the Japanese. system, saying that the bathers put on their dirty clothes when they have dried themselves. True, the Japanese of the old school have nothing so perfect as our system of daily renovated linen. But as the bodies even of the men of the lowest class are constantly washed and scrubbed, it is hardly to be supposed that their garments, though perhaps dusty outside, can be very dirty within. A Japanese crowd is the sweetest in the world. The charm of the Japanese system of hot bathing is proved by the fact that almost all the foreigners resident in the country abandon their cold tubs in its favour. There seems, too, to be something in the climate which renders hot baths healthier than cold. By persisting in the use of cold water one man gets rheumatism, a second gets fever, a third a never-ending continuance of colds and coughs. So nearly all end by coming round to the Japanese plan, the chief foreign contribution to its perfectionment being the use of a separate bath by each person. In a Japanese family the same bath does for all the members; and as man is the nobler sex, the gentlemen usually take it first, in the order of their age or dignity, the ladies afterwards, and then the younger children, the servants enjoying it last at a late hour of the evening, unless indeed they be sent to a public bathhouse.

The Japanese passion for bathing leads all classes to make extensive use of the hot mineral springs in which their volcano-studded land abounds. Sometimes they carry their enjoyment of this natural luxury to an almost incredible extreme. At Kawanaka, a tiny spa not far from Ikao in the province of Jōshu-one of those places, of which there are many in Japan, which look as if they were at the very end of the world, so steep are the mountains shutting them in on every side-the bathers stay in the water for a month on end, with a stone on their lap to prevent them from floating in their sleep. The care-taker of the establishment, a hale old man of seventy, stays in the bath during the entire winter. To be sure, the water is, in this particular case, one or two degrees below blood-heat. Thus alone is so strange a life rendered possible. In another case, some of the inhabitants of a certain village famed for its hot springs excused themselves to the present writer for their dirtiness during the busy summer months: "For," said they, "we have only time to bathe twice a day." "How often, then, do you bathe in winter?" "Oh! about four or five times daily. The children get into the bath whenever they feel cold."

Sea-bathing was not formerly much practised; but since 1885 the upper classes have taken greatly to it, in imitation of European usage, and the coast is now studded with bathing establishments under medical supervision. Oiso on the Tokaido Railway, and Ushibuse near Numazu, are the favourite sea-side places of the gentry of Tōkyō.

Bibliography. Léon Pagès' Bibliographie Japonaise is excellent, so far as it goes, for European books on Japan;