Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/23

 moral tone of the time, that just as the fifth Shōgun's excesses had rendered the Genroku era proverbial for degraded customs, the virtues of the eleventh made the Kwansei era a bright landmark in the pages of history. After Iyenari's demise his successor, Iyeyoshi, sought to follow in his footsteps, and was assisted by Mizuno Tadakuni, generally known as "Echizen no Kami." Excessive zeal defeated the aims of this remarkable Minister. His heroic measures and drastic enactments, extending into every sphere of life, aroused such resentment that he ultimately resigned office, having deterred reform rather than encouraged it.

This general retrospect suggests that the Tokugawa epoch subdivides itself into alternating periods of moral elevation and depression. But in truth it was an era of material progress, not the least remarkable feature of which was the extension of refinement to the middle classes. If literature advanced perceptibly in the Nara and Heian epochs, and if polite accomplishments and amusements received much elaboration in the days of Kamakura and Muromachi, these improvements were limited mainly to the patrician orders, whereas, under the sway of the Tokugawa, it is in the condition of the middle and middle-lower classes that progress was most conspicuous. Thus while the samurai occupied themselves with researches into Chinese philosophy and Japanese history and theosophy, the hitherto illiterate