There are few countries upon which nature has lavished so much beauty as Japan, and her inhabitants have not shown themselves heedless of their privileges. In the domain of art the beauties of nature have been reproduced by Japanese artists in a way that has delighted the world, and effected a revolution in Western ideas of what constitutes beauty in ornament. In the domain of literature the Japanese have shown less power and originality. If the inhabitants of Europe have been fettered by conventionality in expression, this has been still more the case in Japan. It may be said with truth that except in a small department of composition, having an affinity with our sonnet,' they have furnished nothing new or fresh in the realm of literature. But still we should expect to find a certain amount of truthful utterance respecting the aspects of nature, such as we find in English poetry since the time of Cowper. BeforeCowper's time classical and Hebraic influences had been too strong in Europe for the growth of what we might call in a restricted sensenatural religion." A recluse in European countries, 1 The beautiful rhymeless short ode of Japanese poetry, for the knowledge of which we are indebted to Mr. Chamberlain.'-Theodore Watts on the Sonnet in Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed. Vol. xx.-13. till Rousseau took up his abode on St. Peter's isle in the Lake of Brienne, was always a religious devotee, a man of introspective habits who retired from the world to make up his account with his Maker. This habit of theological introspection, it is true, is absent in our Elizabethan poets, but then classical traditions were all powerful in their interpretation of nature. Shakespeare's world is not simple outside nature as he saw it, but a world semi-Italian in its ideas and vocabulary. The prettiest song which he wrote is the sevenade in Cymbeline; and it opens with a classical conceit:— Hark! hark the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their wondering eyes: With everything that pretty is, my lady sweet, arise; It was Wordsworth's mission in English poetry to remove this foreign element of nature interpretation, and with a mind wholly receptive to study nature at first-hand and record the impressions which his mind received. He wished as much as possible to be a child again, and with this view he ran a tilt against theological dogmas like that of Original Sin which seemed to him to cast a slur upon nature. He thus ignored in his treatment of the world the problems of sin and atonement, and brought himself in touch with all such as, in any land aud conforming to any religion, sought to enjoy the works of the great Creator. When, therefore, we find a Japanese literary character of the 12th century retiring to the hills and seeking to find communion with the mountains, the streams, with animate and inanimate life, we at once think of contrasting him with our high-priest of nature. This is why I have linked together Chōmei and the bard of Rydal Mount. Both were recluses; both were devout admirers of nature, and receptive in their attitude towards that her. Chōmei, the son of a priest in the province of Yamashiro, was born in the middle of the 12th century. Disappointed in his hopes of worldly promotion, he sought retirement in the sequestered village of Ohara. Afterwards he became for a time the guest of Sanetomo at Kamakura, but again withdraw from the world, passing the remainder of his life in the province of Etchu. He is highly esteemed as a poet, and many of his pieces are popular. The passage offered in translation gives a very fair example of his philosophy and style. Though a good Buddhist, he does not seem to have been in any way a devotee, but rather to have mildly conformed with the requirements of that religion, whose tenets were no doubt congenial to him. In one passage of the extract occurs a reference to sin, the appearance of snow suggesting to him sins which accumulate and then vanish away. To Christians the reference at once recalls the passage in Isaiah in which the promise is made "sins which are as scarlet shall be made white as snow." But there seems little beyond a surface connection between the two statements. According to the Buddhist creed, sins are washed away by devotion, by prayer, and by good deeds. Chōmei confesses that he was lax in attending to the rites of his religion; certainly Wordsworth was the reverse of punctilious in these matters. Both of them seem to have found their chief delight in studying the varying aspects of nature. But Wordsworth's attitude towards society was infinitely more sympathetic and kindly, while in the background of his solitary walks and musings among the hills were an affectionate household and the realization of all that is most delightful in home life. No doubt he was out of touch with town life, and disliked the din and rush of the city, but he was not indifferent to the sufferings and struggles of humanity and would have rejected the callous indifference of Chōmei as animalistic. Many of Chōmei's moral musings, indeed, remind us strongly of the sentimentalism of a mockantique balled like Edwin and Angelina :— |