Epoch; capital settled at Kyoto; Sugawara; Fujiwara family established in regency (888 A. D.). 4. Civil Strife [888-1603 A. D.]. Fujiwara bureaucracy; Taira supremacy (1156-1185); wars of red and white flags; Yoritomo and Yoshitsune; Minamoto supremacy (1185-1199); first Shōgunate; Hōjō tyranny (1199-1333); Tartar armada; Kusunoki and Nitta; Ashikaga supremacy (1333-1573); "War of the Chrysanthemums"; tribute to China; fine arts and architecture; cha-no-yu; Portuguese; Francis Xavier; spread of Christianity; Nobunaga, persecutor of Buddhists (1573-1582); Hideyoshi, “Napoleon of Japan" (1585-1598); persecution of Christianity; invasion of Korea; Iyeyasu; battle of Sekigahara (1600 A. D.).

5. Tokugawa Feudalism [1603-1868 A. D.]. Iyeyasu Shōgun (1603); capital Yedo, girdled by friendly fiefs; perfection of feudalism; Dutch; Will Adams; English; extermination of Christianity; seclusion and crystallization (1638-1853); Confucian influences. II. New Japan.

5 (continued). Perry's Expedition; treaties with foreign nations; internal strife; Richardson affair; Shimonoseki affair; resignation of Shōgun; abolition of Shōgunate; Revolutionary War; New Imperialism; Imperial capital Yedo, renamed Tōkyō; Meiji Era. 6. New Empire [1868- ]. Opening of ports and cities; "Charter Oath"; telegraphs, light-houses, postal system, mint, dockyard, etc.; outcasts acknowledged as human beings; abolition of feudalism; first railway, newspaper, and church; Imperial University; Yokohama Missionary Conference; Gregorian calendar; anti-Christian edicts removed; Saga rebellion; Formosan Expedition; assembly of governors; Senate; treaty with Korea; Satsuma rebellion; bi

metallism; Loo Choo annexed; new codes; prefectural assemblies; Bank of Japan; Ōsaka Missionary Conference; new nobility; Japan Mail Steamship Company; Privy Council; Prince Haru made Crown Prince; anti-foreign reaction; promulgation of Constitution; first Diet; Gifu earthquake; war with China; Formosa; tariff revision; gold standard; freedom of press and public meetings; opening of Japan by new treaties; war with China; Tōkyō Missionary Conference; Anglo-Japanese Alliance.

The student of Japanese history is confronted, at the outset, with a serious difficulty. In ancient times the Japanese had no literary script, so that all events had to be handed down from generation to generation by oral tradition. The art of writing was introduced into Japan, from China probably, in the latter part of the third century A. D.; but it was not used for recording events until the beginning of the fifth century. All these early records, moreover, were destroyed by fire; so that the only "reliance for information about . . . antiquity" has to be placed in the Kojiki,1 or "Records of Ancient Matters," and the Nihongi,2 or "Chronicles of Japan." The former, completed in 711 A. D., is written in a purer Japanese style; the latter, finished in 720 A. D., is "much more tinctured with Chinese philosophy"; though differing in some details, they

1 Chamberlain's English version is found in Transactions Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. x., Supplement.

2 Aston's English version is found in Transactions Japan Society, London, Supplement.

are practically concordant, and supply the data upon which the Japanese have constructed their "history." It is thus evident that the accounts of the period before Christ must be largely mythological, and the records of the first four centuries of the Christian era must be a thorough mixture of fact and fiction, which it is difficult carefully to separate.

According to Japanese chronology, the Empire of Japan was founded by Jimmu Tennō in 660 B. c. This was when Assyria, under Sardanapalus, was at the height of its power; not long after the ten tribes of Israel had been carried into captivity, and soon after the reign of the good Hezekiah in Judah; before Media had risen into prominence; a century later than Lycurgus, and a few decades before Draco; and during the period of the Roman kingdom. But according to a foreign scholar who has sifted the material at hand, the first absolutely authentic date in Japanese history is 461 A. D.,'- just the time when the Saxons were settling in England. If, therefore, the Japanese are given the benefit of more than a century, there yet remains a millennium which falls under the sacrificial knife of the historical critic. But while we cannot accept unchallenged the details of about a thousand years, and cannot withhold surprise that even the Constitution of New Japan maintains the "exploded religious fiction" of the foundation of the empire, we must acknowledge that the Imperial family of Japan has formed the oldest

1 See Transactions Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. xvi. pp. 39–75.