Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/213

18, 1860.] of with reverence throughout the empire. His valour, abilities, and devotion to the interests of Japan still form the theme of her poets and painters—and it pleases the idiosyncracy of this people that their great warrior-statesman—their second Sin-fuh—combined great talents with a rough, unpleasing exterior. All impartial foreign writers bear testimony to the abilities, and we almost say virtues, of this extraordinary man, who may be said to have reformed and reconstituted the Japanese Empire, and left it much as we now find it. When he ascended the throne—to use his own words—he found the kingdom distracted with civil wars, the native bonzes endeavouring to grasp the supreme power, so as to re-establish the Theocracy as founded of old, the Christianised chiefs attempting to throw off their allegiance to the imperial power, and the whole land a scene of turmoil. He devoted himself to the task of regenerating his country: he omitted nothing to make all men esteem him for valour and earnestness of purpose. By energy and firmness he fully succeeded, and lived to see the state ruled as one nation, instead of sixty petty kingdoms. “Severe I may be deemed,” says Taiko, “but I am only so to the evil doers: the good repose confidently under my protection, and Japan is now a rock which may not be easily shaken from its foundation.”

The martial spirit which Taiko called into existence amongst his followers, exists still throughout the whole of the upper classes. Military rank takes precedence of mere literary merit, contrary to what is the case in China, and we find the Japanese of the higher classes rank far before those of the neighbouring continent in personal bravery, and they possess in a great degree that spirit of chivalry, honour, and generosity which in this country is said to define a gentleman. The Jesuit records, as well the writings of Kaempffer and others, are replete with instances illustrative of these qualities in the Japanese, and under trials of no ordinary nature. We even find in the sketches and illustrations sold in the shops, abundant proof that these qualities are still looked upon with love and interest. We see a picture of two horsemen charging a host of enemies; in another place, a single-handed knight holds a drawbridge, and flings his foes into the moat: a royal army, under a great leader, quells a host of rebels. Women are not deficient in this quality of valour, or devotion to duty; and we see the lovely daughter of a great sea-king rewarding with her hand the gallant leader of a victorious army. Better still, we see, when war’s alarms are laid aside, little touches of nature, which make the whole world a-kin. We read of Japanese Portias, who will not survive disgrace;—of others, whose gentle wit saves a husband’s life and honour; and last, but not least, we hail such proofs of the civilisation of these Eastern people as are evinced in the little sketch on the opposite page.

A distinguished general—it may be the great Taiko-sama himself, although we fear the officer is not half ugly enough—encounters a beautiful maiden, in a heavy shower of rain. She has taken shelter under some rose-bushes;—most appropriate shelter for one so lovely. But in spite of rain, and despite of rank, the gallant son of the Japanese Mars uncovers to salute one so surpassingly beautiful—whilst she, blushing, trembling, with downcast looks, acknowledges his courtesy, by presenting flowers. A charming idyl—a picture of the combination of military and social virtues worth a whole book full of type. There is, of course, a dark side to Japanese, as well as European society; we will touch upon it hereafter, but let us for the present carry these traits to their credit.



the history of the intellect of any one of us, perhaps no stage is more strongly marked, or more vividly remembered, than that in which we first conceived of the subject-matter of Physics and Chemistry. It was the opening of a new world; or rather the ordinary world of our experience became altogether new, as if we had been translated into a different system of nature from that in which we had hitherto lived. We were all once children: and little children go through the same experience, all the world over, up to the point of which I am speaking; when some get no further, but remain children all their lives in their way of regarding the objects around them, while others obtain an insight, a revelation, which at once raises them to a higher rank of human intelligence.

The lowest stage of our minds, in regarding objects, is very like the notions that the higher brutes evidently have. An infant and a savage, like a monkey or a dog, supposes everything he sees to be alive as he is alive. In the early days of our race this notion was a permanent belief for a long period of time. Each tree, each hill, each brook, each cloud was supposed to be a separate existence, with a life of its own—with thoughts and feelings more or less like ours. The actions and passions of our higher domestic animals show now that they regard in this way any objects that puzzle or oppose them; and we need not go so far as to the Red Indians or the Patagonians to satisfy ourselves that the case is the same with human observers in their lowest stage of knowledge. We can remember the time when the starry sky was, in our opinion, alive and observing us, and when the bushes nodded intelligently to us; and when the clock stared at us, and when shadows crept round the wall to catch us. Not only does a dog greet a ticking watch as a live thing; but a Highlander who had taken on the battle-field the first watch he had ever seen, and gazed at the face and listened to the tick all day, had no conception that it was not a conscious being. When, next morning, it neither moved nor ticked, he whispered to a comrade, “She died in the night.” It might be going out of my way to inquire why the common people in Scotland and the North of England call a clock or a watch “she.” “I wound her up;” “she stopped this morning,” one hears in every kitchen there; and if one remarks upon it, one is asked why a ship is called “she.”