Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/21



ITTLE change occurred, either in social conditions or in manners and customs, during the first part of the Tokugawa epoch. Iyeyasu and his grandson, Iyemitsu, preserved the best traditions of the military age, encouraging frugality and love of martial exercises. But the fifth Shōgun, Tsunayoshi (1680-1709), though up to the moment of his accession he seemed a model of virtue, became ultimately conspicuous for extravagant luxury and even unnatural lust, alternating with moods of delirious superstition. Many similar figures are found in Japanese history,—men who at one moment squandered great sums on the ministers of their vice, at another impoverished themselves to endow a temple. Tsunayoshi was among the most conspicuously selfish. Born in