Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/318

302 of the century this state of things became so unbearable that the reigning Shōgun, lyenari, was driven to apply a partial remedy. He prohibited all philosophical teaching whatever other than that of Chu-Hi and his adherents.

The Kangakusha, by their excesses and extravagances, were themselves responsible for the decay of their influence. Their admiration for things Chinese passed all reasonable bounds. Sorai, for example, spoke of himself as an "Eastern barbarian," and Chinese standards were blindly accepted as unquestionable rules of conduct both in private and public matters.

In the world of literature the most noticeable result of the Kangakusha craze (for such it ultimately became) was the neglect of Japanese composition. For all serious writings Chinese was preferred, and it was only for their lighter and more carelessly written works that these scholars condescended to use their own language. The native style was for a long time left mainly to the writers of fiction.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was at Kiōto a bookseller and publisher whose place of business was known as the Hachimonjiya or "Figure-of-eight-house." The principal of this establishment was also an author, and in that capacity signed himself (spontaneous laughter). Associated with him was a writer who styled himself. Kiseki was a broken-down tradesman of Kiōto, the heir of a long line of shopkeepers who had amassed wealth by the sale of a kind of sweetmeat or cake. Such part of their substance as had descended to him he wasted in riotous