Perſons, employ’d in propagating of the Goſpel, who could not flatter themſelves with any hopes of ſucceſs, unleſs enabled, by a competent skill therein, to converſe and diſcourſe with the Natives, it may appear ſtrange, that ſo little hath been done to facilitate the underſtanding of it. There is indeed a ſpecimen of the Characters at the latter end of the ſecond edition of Maffeus his collection of Letters, (v. p. xxxii. of this Introduction) and another in Purchaſe, being a copy of the Privileges granted by the Emperor Ongoſchioſama to the Engliſh, but they were intended rather for curioſity than uſe. F. Didacus Collado, a Franciſcan, is the only one who publiſhed, A Grammar of the Japaneſe Language: as alſo a Dictionary, in Latin, Spaniſh, and Japaneſe, in two volumes, and likewiſe, the way of examining a Japaneſe in the auricular confeſſion, all which were printed at Rome, 1632, 4to. at the expence of the congregation de propaganda fide, but the Japaneſe words, in all theſe works, are expreſſed only in Latin Characters.
Beſides what is to be met with in ſeveral places of this Hiſtory of Japan, relating to the Language of the Country, I have added (Tab. XLV.) three Alphabets of the ſimple Characters, and ſome ſpecimens of the compound ones. But of this, more in my Explanation of the ſaid Table, to which I refer the Reader.
Liſt of the Japaneſe Writers.Before I quit this ſubject, it will not be improper to add a Liſt of the Japaneſe writers themſelves: I have met with the Titles of ſome in Dr. Kæmpfer’s manuſcript memoirs, but far the greateſt part, (which I have marked with a *) were brought by him into Europe, and are now in the valuable collection of Sir Hans Sloane.
* Nippon Odaiki. The Annals of the Japaneſe, giving an account of their origin and remarkable actions, of the ſucceſſion of all the Emperors of Japan from Sinmu to our days, and of what paſſed in every one’s reign.
* Nippon Okaitſu, in the literal ſenſe, an adumbration of the great things of Japan, is of kin a to the foregoing work, and relates likewiſe to the heroic and remarkable actions of the Japaneſe from the Foundation of their Empire. (An abſtract of the principal things, concontained in theſe two works, hath been given in the ſecond Book of this Hiſtory of Japan.
Tai
