really idle to compare Shakespeare with a writer whose portraiture of character is rudimentary, whose incidents are outrageously extravagant and improbable, whose philosophy of life is wholly wanting in originality or depth, and who is constantly introducing scenes brutal and revolting to a degree inconceivable to the Western mind. Of this last blemish his audiences must share the responsibility. Nothing seems to have given greater pleasure to these smug, unwarlike shopmen and mechanics with their womankind (no Samurai with any self-respect ever entered a theatre) than sanguinary combats, and scenes of torture, suicide, and murder. They loved to have their blood curdled, and their flesh made to creep, and Chikamatsu, like other writers of his day, took care to supply this demand in no stinted measure. Defects like these are only partially compensated for by a certain barbaric vigour and luxuriance which undoubtedly distinguishes his works. That such a writer should hold the position of the prince of Japanese dramatists only shows by what an imperfect standard this art is judged in Japan.
It is difficult for a Western reader to understand the esteem in which Chikamatsu is held by his countrymen as a poet. In that part of his plays which is chanted to music by the chorus we may, it is true, find metre, rhythmical cadence, fit language, and play of fancy, but all in a very modest degree. The metrical form adopted by him is the usual alternation of seven and five syllable phrases, which is even less substantial than our ordinary blank verse, or the irregular, unrhymed lines favoured by Southey. Nor does he adhere strictly even to this. Longer or shorter lines are introduced from time to time for no other apparent reason than the author's
