Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/51

 of Ōsaka, with its stupendous battlements built of blocks of granite which still excite the astonishment of foreign travellers. Here also Hideyoshi had his tea-pavilion and his art treasures, and here he was visited by Chinese merchants, who brought him the choicest keramic productions of their country. Many a noble pair of céladon vases thus came into the Chancellor's possession, and were presented by him to temples throughout the country, where several of them are still carefully preserved. Yet Hideyoshi was not satisfied. His object was not to collect gems from abroad or to surround himself with luxuries, but to develop the industries of his own country; and in this he experienced only disappointment. The standard of excellence attained by Tōshiro's successors at Seto, in the fourteenth century, had not been maintained. Shonzui's porcelain manufacture had proved an ephemeral affair, and the faience decorated in accordance with his processes was deservedly neglected. Japan, in short, was plainly outstripped by her neighbours, and to a practical ruler like Hideyoshi it seemed that the best way to remedy this was to import some foreign talent. It happened just then that he was about to despatch an expedition to Korea. Among the instructions issued to the leaders of this force is said to have been one directing them to bring back from the peninsula as many skilled potters as they could find.

To this order may be traced the origin of many of the wares which have earned for Japan her keramic celebrity abroad. All that she needed was instruction in elementary processes. Her own adaptive and eclectic genius supplied the rest. Very soon, at the factories opened by the Korean potters, there were