commanding a high price, and a favourite dish to set before the most honoured guests was a broth made of this fish powdered over with soot. These would not, of course, in this Land of Perennial Youth and Life, actually kill a man. But still the poison would have a certain slight effect, making him feel giddy for half-an-hour or so, and giving him sensations as pleasurable as that experienced by us Japanese after drinking rice-beer. 'Ah,' he would exclaim, 'this is what death must feel like!' and he would clap his hands and dance and sing, and believe himself to have attained the very acme of felicity. If, in trying to say something flattering about a friend's child, a caller were to remark on its apparent healthiness, both father and mother would remember his words with uneasiness; whereas, if he should say, 'The little thing doesn't look as if it would live long,' he would give the parents the greatest pleasure, and they would reply, 'Ah, if only what you say may come true!' "
The eighteenth century was the flourishing period of the Japanese popular drama. Nearly everything of note in this department of literature belongs to it. Chikamatsu, it is true, began his career somewhat earlier, but all his principal works date after 1700. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, the writing of Jōruri has almost altogether ceased.
Chikamatsu was succeeded by Takeda Idzumo, who wrote about the middle of the century. Most, however, of the plays commonly attributed to him were composed in collaboration with other writers, some being the work of as many as five or six authors. It seems to have been the usual practice at this time for playwrights to work
