JAPAN
of this school does not belong to a very remote era (1600 A.D.) and is remembered now chiefly for the sake of eight volumes of wit and humour, the first of their kind, compiled by him at the age of seventy. Society had opened its arms to him as a master of the dilettanteism known as cha-no-yu (the tea-clubs' cult), before it recognised him as a humourist, but in the end the most stately circles of aristocrats resigned themselves to laugh with him, and with a scarcely less celebrated contemporary whose extemporised songs suggested or supplemented the wit of the master. Succeeding generations did not neglect these models. Not merely an exceptional fund of humour and large powers of mimicry, but also considerable erudition was needed for the successful pursuit of the rakugo-ka's career, and though it formerly ranked below that of the koshaku-shi, the differentiation is scarcely perceptible in modern times. Often its votaries are broken-down gentlemen whose excesses have exhausted their fortunes, but much oftener they are men of no mean literary capacity, who can weave the events of their time into narratives where tragedy and comedy play equally artistic parts. For the rest, what has been written above about the koshaku-shi's earnings and his performance applies equally to the rakugo-ka. But the latter takes his subjects from the realm of romance or every-day life, and does not seek to inspire his audience with any higher sentiments than sympathy and merriment. It
104
