Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/287

REFINEMENTS AND PASTIMES (1605–1623). This ruler devoted his life to the peaceful development of the Empire, and to the fortification and adornment of the northern capital, Yedo. To him his country owes two immortal monuments of national art, the tombs and mausolea of Shiba and of Uyeno. Appreciating the nature of the Cha-no-yu, the Shōgun appointed Furuta, Baron of Oribe, to be Court Instructor of the cult. But the tranquillity of the era inspired a taste for luxury, and the Cha-no-yu observances reverted to the costly refinement of Yoshimasa rather than to the simple thrift of Sen-no-Rikiu's warlike days. Nor was this tendency corrected under the succeeding Shōgun, Iyemitsu (1623–1651), one of the most energetic and uncompromising rulers that ever governed Japan. He indeed fully recognised the social influences of the Cha-no-yu, and conferred the office of Court Instructor on the celebrated Kobori. But the spirit of the time did not lend itself to asceticism in any form. Private persons were too prosperous and officials too free from care to be satisfied with the austere fashions of Jô-ô and Sen-no-Rikiu. Oribe and Kobori made no resolute efforts to correct the growing epicureanism of their cult. They appear to have understood that the purpose of the office conferred on them by the Court in Edo was rather to popularise than to purify the fashions of the Cha-no-yu. Thus, when one of Kobori's friends devised new models for both the tea pavilion and 257