scenery, and much more that the resources of a theatre, and especially of a marionette theatre, fail to convey.
On closer examination, however, it becomes apparent that Chikamatsu's works are not really romances, but stage-plays. They have a well-marked movement of plot from the opening scene up to the final catastrophe; they abound in dramatic situations, and many of the scenes are obviously designed with a view to spectacular effect. These things were new in Japan, and to Chikamatsu therefore belongs the credit of being the creator of the Japanese drama.
Chikamatsu's plays are classified by the Japanese as Jidai-Mono or historical plays, and Sewa-Mono or dramas of life and manners. With the exception of a few in three acts, they are all plays of five acts; but whether the choice of this consecrated number had anything to do with the fact that the Dutch were in the habit of visiting the theatres of Kiōto and Ōsaka on their periodical journeys to Yedo to pay their respects to the Shōgun, I have not been able to ascertain. Nor is it possible to verify a suspicion that the arrangements of the Japanese popular theatre, with its capacious pit and galleries, and a stage well furnished with scenery, trap-doors, turntables (as in ancient Greece), and other appliances, may owe something to hints given by these visitors. In these respects the Japanese popular theatre is certainly far in advance of any other in Asia, and more particularly of the Nō Shibai above described.
Chikamatsu was a voluminous writer. The modern edition of his selected works comprises fifty-one plays, and runs to more than two thousand closely printed pages. He is credited with the authorship of as many more. Each is of about the same length as one of
