words[1] and other artifices of Japanese rhetoric irritating to all plain-minded people. Nor can he always resist the temptation of bestowing on his readers tedious displays of his erudition, or of introducing foreign or obsolete words not understanded of the people.
It may be a question whether the rhythmical character of much that Bakin has written is a merit or a defect. It results from the more or less regular alternation of five and seven syllable phrases so often referred to, and produces much the same effect as the blank verse to which some English novelists are addicted. Bakin borrowed it from the popular dramatists of the preceding century; but while it is obviously in its proper place on the stage, where the words are chanted to a musical accompaniment, it seems a more doubtful kind of ornament in an ordinary romance. Japanese critics have an unqualified admiration for this feature of Bakin's works, and suggest that it entitles the Hakkenden to be classed among epic poems.
- ↑ The more frivolous of my readers will perhaps pardon the following attempt to give an example of the sort of thing which we might have if the pivot style were adopted in English. It illustrates the mode in which Japanese novelists and dramatists frequently slur over the transition from one scene to another by a use of this device; something on the same principle as their artists introduce a golden mist between different parts of the landscape in order to disguise defects of perspective.
"The sun went down, and the welcome, the thrice-wished for, the most fair, the best beloved night
knight sought a well-earned repose. On the morrow he rose from his couch at dawn
donned his armour and sallied forth in quest of fresh adventuresome as was his bold spirit, his courage was now to be put to a testy old fool
full of meat as an egg-shaped domes, slender minarets, and square-built towers rose in picturesque confusion from the summit of a hill where dwelt," &c., &c.
