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Notices of Japan, No. VIII.
APRIL,
gouns of the Gongen dynasty. Of these works, the first is by far the best; it is minute, and no doubt imparts accurate knowledge of the geography and form of administration of the three claimed dependencies of the Japanese empire, Corea› the Lewchew islands, and Yezo, including the Kurile archipelago. Its faults are dryness and dullness, unavoidable, perhaps, in a geographical description, and a great deficiency of statistical information. The Annals of the Dairi have been recently corrected and edited by Klaproth; and a more jejune account of births, marriages, accessions, abdications, and deaths, with a few sicknesses, pilgrimages, and rebellions—but even these last uninterestingly told-it would be difficult to conceive. The Annals of the Siogouns are similar in character, though inter. spersed with curious anecdotes; but even these are very heavily narrated, whilst some of them are evidently gleaned by Titsingh, or his Japanese translators, from other sources than the original Annals. Altogether, the three works, though valuable for the information they supply are such as it is a serious task to wade though.
Of the moral philosophy, all that can be gathered is, that it deals in cormmenta. ries* upon the moral precepts of the Chinese philosopher Kung footsze, or -Confu. cius, commentaries upon the Sintoo mythology, which the highest philosophy allegorizes into the epochs of creation. The encyclopedias (of which M. Rémusat has given an excellent speciment) appear to be little more than picture-books; with letter-press explanations, arranged, like other Japanese dictionaries, sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes according to a not very scientific classification of the subjects.
Of the Japanese art of poetry, of its metre or rhyme, or substitute for either, nothing is said by any of these writers; but presidents Meylan and Titsingh furnish some specimens, as far as prose translations can be said to afford a speci. men of poetry. A selection from these examples may be here introduced; and as these gentlemen give the originals, printed in Roman characters, the insertion of one or two of these will show the form of the stanza, rhyme, &c. They will also show that either the Japanese language has great power of compression, or the Dutch translation, from which ours is rendered line by line, is very diffuse.
Arta Kampei,
Kawo mita Kampei,
Mamani hanasiwo itasita Kampei,
Uchi siri tara yakamasi Kampei,
Sekenni waru Kampei.
Yes! eager is my longing
To look upon thy face,
With thee some words to speak;
But this I must renounce;
For should it in my dwelling
Once chance to be divulged, That I with thee had spoken, Then grievous were the trouble `On me would surely light. For certain my good name Were lost for evermore.
* Siebold and Fischer.
† MSS. de la Bibl. du Roi. vol. xi. p. 123,
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