Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/328

 with considerable success. Among them was occasionally numbered Natsuo, who probably deserves to rank next to Ichijō among the masters of the nineteenth century. Ichijō has left it on record that in his youth he made a habit of praying at the shrine of Fushimi Inari that the deity would grant him skill. One night after his devotions, he fell asleep and saw in a dream a dragon carved by his illustrious ancestor, Gotō Yūjō. Thenceforth he had before his eyes a perfect model of a dragon. His workmanship, however, was finer than anything done by Yūjō. Japanese connoisseurs say that it combines the soft style of Gotō Kwōjō with the microscopic minuteness of Gotō Kenjō, and a story is told that a party of skilled experts being challenged to name the maker of a set of sword-mounts by Ichijō without seeing the name carved on the back, were divided in opinion as to whether the work should be ascribed to Kwojō or to Kenjō. These details furnish some indication of the career of a great Japanese carver, and of the honours extended to him. There was, indeed, no limit to the appreciation he received. Among the archives of Ichijō's family there is a letter addressed to the artist by Okubo Toshimitsu, one of the leading statesmen of the Restoration. It is couched in terms of the most profound politeness; it speaks of Ichijō's work as beautiful enough to "move the gods to tears;" it declares that the specimens just completed at the writer's request shall be treasured by him and his heirs so long as the house of Okubo lasts. The incentives that talent found in those days can thus be appreciated. Ichijō certainly deserved to be famous. He excelled in every kind of chiselling, though most of his finest work is in relief; he knew how to pro-