premature to suppose that only books belonging to light literature were welcomed by those who resided in districts where the military regime had the least hold. Serious works, such as ethical treatises, for instance, which abound in Chinese literature, were also read there, but rather for the purpose of occupying themselves with metaphysical speculations about moral questions, than in order to regulate their own conduct, private or public, according to the principles taught in them. In short, their thirst for knowledge was purely for the sake of enjoying an intellectual pleasure thereby, and therefore had been quite humanistic. It was here that the true inheritors of the culture of the later Ashikaga were to be sought, and not in places where the influence of the regular _samurai_ was paramount. Needless to say, the centre of this humanistic culture was Kyoto, whose significance as the political capital had already been lost, while Yedo represented at its best the culture of the _samurai_. The Chinese books preferred by these humanistic dilettanti were those pertaining to rhetoric and poetry. They were greatly addicted to practising these branches of literature. Art for art's sake also found a better patron among such people than in the courts of the Shogun and of influential _daimyo_, where art had rather an applied meaning, represented in ornamental things such as screen and wall paintings down to the miniature-art of the _tsuba_ and the _netsuke_. Wandering poets, rhetoricians, calligraphers, and artists of various crafts were wont to be far better harboured in districts where the humanistic culture prevailed, than in Yedo or in the residential towns of powerful _daimyo_, where politics and discipline were all-important. The most significant difference between the two sorts of culture was manifested in a special branch of art, that of painting. In the military circles, the painting of the Kano school was preferred, which was rather rigid in style and had some tincture of the taste highly prized by the Zen-sect priests. On the other hand, what was in vogue among the non-military circles was the so-called "Bunjin-gwa," or paintings of the school of "literati-painters," which were introduced at the beginning of the Tokugawa period from China, and were characterised by the mellowness of tone prevailing in them and also by a lack of the professional flavour.