need not be taken to punctiliously."

conduct matters this story, one of the most characteristic is called "The Ghost of Sakura." It gives The account of the ceremony of hara- us the history of a farmer who was crucikiri, from which we have just quoted, and fied by the lord of his village for presentwhich is given in an appendix, has many ing a petition against excessive taxation curious details, and the frequent recur- to the Shogun, as the Tycoon is called in rence of the name in all the stories ren- these volumes. The tenants of this lord ders it necessary to have a clear under- had done all in their power to have their standing of the process. Whenever a Jap-grievances redressed, but ineffectually, anese of rank is condemned to death, it and as they were bowed to the ground by becomes his duty to perform hara-kiri, or the taxes laid upon them, they must in other words to disembowel himself, either starve or appeal to the Shogun. although it appears that a mere formal The appeal produced the desired effect; compliance with this part of the sentence the officers who had increased the taxes is sufficient. "If the principal," we are were removed and punished, some of them told, "urgently requests to be allowed having to perform hara-kiri, but the really to disembowel himself, his wish may, farmer, whose courage had righted this according to circumstances, be granted; wrong, was sentenced to crucifixion. His but the usual course is to strike off his wife, too, was crucified with him, and head when he leans forward to take the their three boys, aged thirteen, ten, and dagger. Great dignity attaches to this seven, were beheaded. So far the story is mode of death, and we read that it is sheer historical, but with the execution of the nonsense to look upon the place where family it takes a legendary aspect. The hara-kiri has been performed as polluted. lord is haunted by the ghost of the farmer, In the story which relates the vengeance and is tormented in so many ways that at of the retainers on the noble who caused length he has to canonize his victim. This their lord's death, the anxiety of these tardy repentance lays the ghost of the men not to dishonour their victim is con- farmer; the lord is no longer troubled; spicuous. They treat him with the great- the newly canonized saint befriends him; est courtesy, and entreat him over and and he is raised to higher honours when over again to perform hara-kiri. But as, the Shogun is "pleased to depart this life." at last, they find it vain to urge him to die If this story violates nearly all our notions the death of a nobleman, they force him of morality, it is significant of the power down and cut off his head simply. Hav- of the great nobles. In another place we ing done this, they go home and wait till find that the only way in which the Shogun the Government orders them to put them- could put a stop to a feud between two selves to death. The whole story is sig- mighty factions was to cause one of the nificant of Japanese customs. The fidelity leaders to be secretly poisoned. A physiof the retainers who cannot live under the cian was found who was willing to adminsame heaven with their lord's enemy; the ister the draught, although it was neceselaborate care with which they disguise sary that he himself should drink_half of themselves so as to become acquainted it. Such is the staple of these Japanese with the castle in which he lives; the manner in which the chief retainer gives himself up to drunken and dissolute ways, divorcing his wife and driving away his children, so as to lull suspicion; the repentance of a stranger who was deceived by such conduct, and who afterwards atones for an insult to this retainer by performing hara-kiri at his tomb, bear witness to a state of things with which we can have nothing in common. The relics of these retainers are still preserved, and comprise the armour made with their own hands out of wads of leather secured by pieces of iron; the plan of the enemy's house, which one of them obtained by marrying the builder's daughter; and the receipt given to the priests of a certain temple for the head which, after being cut off, was placed in their keeping. After

tales. Scarcely one is free from blood-shed, and while cruelty is received with submission and treachery with self-sacrifice, courage does not always meet with a fit reward.

The quaintness of the sermons which are translated by Mr. Mitford, and of some of the legends, superstitions, and fairy tales which he has collected, is a relief from the barbarity of ancient manners. We find the Japanese preachers great adepts in the art of illustrating their subject by lively and familiar anecdotes. "I have a little tale to tell you," is a phrase that recurs now and then; "be so good as to wake up from your drowsiness and listen attentively." And then follows the story about the shell-fish which prided itself on the security afforded by its thick shell till, on looking cautiously round after

an alarm, it found itself in a fishmonger's place, but as after a time it resumed its shop with a price-label on its back; or natural shape, they sold it for twenty that of the men who went to listen to the copper coins to a tinker. The new owner stags roaring, and found instead that a of the kettle was advised to take it about stag was listening to their lamentations; as a show, and make it dance on the tightor that of the frogs who climbed to the rope; he did this with such success that top of a hill to see a strange conntry, and, he grew very rich, and then the kettle was owing to their eyes being placed at the taken back to the temple, laid up there as back of their heads, were all the while a precious treasure, and worshipped as a looking at the one from whence they saint. We do not know how far the started. We should think that if Japanese miraculous powers of the kettle are to be congregations ever yielded to drowsiness, attributed to the badger's head, but that they would soon prick up their ears when animal plays an important part in Japanese such stories as these were promised. A legend. It is said to produce the most practical application is always added, and exquisite music by drumming delicately due reference is made to the sayings of on its distended belly, and by this means, wise men of old, amongst whom we recog- watching in lonely places, it lures benize Confucius under the name of Kôshi. nighted wayfarers to their destruction. Some of the fairy tales resemble those Sometimes it assumes the shape of a beauwith which we are familiar, while others tiful maiden in distress, but is detected by have features of novelty. In the first class the dryness of the clothes it wears in the we may rank the tongue-cut sparrow, the midst of a pelting shower. A grateful old couple and their dog, the two neigh- badger repays a priest's kindness by fusbours with wens on their foreheads. All ing the refuse of gold mines, and procuring these are marked by the grand principle him money enough to be spent on prayers of fairy retribution, which makes the same for his soul. A wicked badger boils a gift have exactly opposite workings, ac- man's wife for soup, and sets the dish becording to the character of the receiver. fore her husband. Magical powers are Thus in the tongue-cut sparrow, the old also ascribed to foxes, some of whom beman who has been kind to the bird witch a man and shave his head. The receives a basket full of gold and silver, story of "The Foxes' Wedding" is most while the old woman who has slit its remarkable for the drawing which accomtongue also receives a basket, but it turns panies it, and in which we see a little fox out to be full of hobgoblins. The two old being taken out of its bath-tub, while some people who are kind to their dog find a of its brothers and sisters are already buried treasure, while another old couple tucked in and laid on a mattress. The can dig up nothing but filth. The first figure of the little fox is quite delicious, man who has a wen on his forehead is as it stretches out its small forelegs with relieved of it by the elves, with whom he an infantine gesture, and looks up pleadhas a revel; the second, trying the same ingly in the face of the fox-nurse who has plan, has his neighbour's wen added to his been washing it. We have already spoken own. There is much greater originality of the other illustrations, all of which are in the story of a tea-kettle which belonged drawn and engraved by Japanese artists, to a priest in some temple, and which one and are the very strangest possible speciday put forth the head and tail of a badg- mens of design. But where everything is er, and began flying about the room. original some omissions must be excused, The priest and his pupils were so alarmed and one need merely open this book at any that they forced the kettle into a box, of the drawings to appreciate their charmeaning to throw it away in some distant acter.

A PARTY of workmen are performing miracle plays in the villages of Yorkshire. The strangest fact about their performance is, that they are mostly Congregationalists, and that at a late performance their stage manager was a Roman Catholic priest.

A LARGE and valuable deposit of limestone has been discovered by Mr. Read in the Sonthal Pergunnas, in Bengal, in the Banslo River. There is good communication with Calcutta by water or railway.

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From The North British Review.
MR. TENNYSON'S POETRY.

[poet eclipsed the divine; but as a poet he had much to teach which was semiMR. TENNYSON deserves an especial theological in its aspect, and was capable study, not only as a poet, but as a leader of giving a tone to a school of divines. and a landmark of popular thought and Take, for instance, what may be called his feeling. As a poet, he belongs to the natural sacramentalism, founded on the highest category of English writers; for opinion that the visible universe is the poetry is the strongest and most vigorous counterpart of the invisible, and that the branch of English literature. In this lit-seen is both the hieroglyphic which reerature his works are evidently destined veals and the veil which conceals the unto secure a permanent place; for they ex-seen-revealing by its significance, conpress, in language refined and artistic, but cealing by its substituting one thing for not unfamiliar, a large segment of the another. Then again this doctrine, which popular thought of the period over which favours the idea that the visible and tanthey range. He has also a clearly marked gible world is mainly significant of the inif not strongly individualized style, which visible, tends to the further doctrine that, has served as a model for imitators, and if not absolutely in themselves, at least in as a starting-point for poets who have comparison with the transcendent reality sought to improve upon it. Moreover, his of the invisible world, all material pheown poetical development is capable of nomena are unreal. This again is conbeing ascertained by a chronological ex- nected with the doctrine that the true amination of his poems, and, when ascer- forces of the universe are not the gross tained, affords material for a psycholog- and brutal energies which can be measical study of some interest. Here are points more than sufficient to constitute the subject-matter of a voluminous criticism of his works.

ucts.

ured by their visible effects, but those subtle unseen powers which seem to be ridden over in the furious charges of material forces, but emerge fresh and unhurt, He began publishing in 1830, at the age in all their former persistence, after the of twenty. It was a time of great political tempest has subsided; and that gentle as well as religious agitation. There were and divine force underlies the visible ideas in the air which entered variously works of nature, and manifests itself not into combination, and formed distinct prod- less completely, and much more persistThe two great English Universi-ently, in the commonest natural phenomties were, in the main, differently affected ena, than in the passing cataclysms which by these ideas. In both of them the spir- sometimes interrupt the settled course of itual revival of the early part of the nine- things. It is in weakness that this divine teenth century was strong against the force manifests its strength. The great materialism of the eighteenth. But at operations of the universe are accomCambridge these ideas were combined plished not by main force, but little by with a kind of liberalism which at Oxford little, by patience and slow growth. was abhorred and abjured. Mr. Tenny- These ideas are of course not original in son is a Cambridge man; and it is plain that his ideas were influenced by his University. But his poetic development was later than that of the poet who embodied the Oxonian idea, and who published The Christian Year in 1827. Keble, however narrow as a theologian, as a poet was The three points mentioned - the natwide enough in his sympathies: he lighted ural sacramentalism, the unreality of all his torch from the fire of Wordsworth, visible things, and the slow, gentle, gradScott, and Southey. Under their inspira-ual operation of all that is really strong tion he knew how to dispose of his classi- are ideas which were assimilated and cal knowledge, his Hebraic faith, and his harmonized at Oxford into a very different familiarity with nature. In his poetry the system from that which Mr. Tennyson

Keble. Mr. Tennyson may have got them from a common stock whence Keble had drawn them first; but the adoption of the same course of thought places the two poets in one line, in which the earlier writer has of course the precedence.