Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/239

Rh remains to be seen. Up to the present their success has not been very conspicuous. It will require far more cultivation than has yet been bestowed upon it to make it equally concise and perspicuous, and to give it the same range of varied expression, as the ordinary literary language.

One of the earliest works of the Yedo period is the Taikōki, a biography of the Taikō, or Regent Hideyoshi, in twenty-two books (eleven volumes). Although written only twenty-seven years after Hideyoshi's death, there had already been time for his history to acquire a certain legendary quality. The first chapter exemplifies the propensity of ignorant mankind for surrounding the birth of great men with miraculous occurrences. The Taikōki cannot be given a high place as literature, but it is valuable for the contemporary documents which it contains, and has supplied material for a number of later works bearing the same or similar titles. It was written in 1625 by an unknown author.