The status of a great actor in the hearts of the people was not very different from that of a successful prize-fighter among us to-day. He was a popular idol; his movements were the subject of the eager curiosity of the gaping multitude; but his social rank was of the lowest. The prints of a later date show us pictures of actors with their gay companions on boating-parties or tea-house picnics, surrounded by inquisitive throngs of spectators. Famous and greatly sought after as these actors were, they occupied positions of even less esteem than the English players in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Nothing so well illustrates their ostracism from any kind of society as the words used by one of the greatest of actor-painters, Shunsho, in the preface to a book of drawings representing actors: "To be sure, I love the theatre, and greatly enjoy being a spectator, _but I have no connection with the actors themselves, and do not know them in private life_." Even Shunsho, who had created the heroic designs of these men in their great rôles, dared not acknowledge himself as their familiar. When they appeared on the stage, the faces of the actors were frequently painted with startling streaks of red and white, an effect reproduced in some of the prints. The elaborate robes worn when they represented heroic figures of bygone ages formed superb material for the designs of the artists. The Japanese stage of to-day probably does not differ very much from what it was in Shunsho's time; and we still see on it that florid elaboration of gesture, bombastic delivery, and intensification of facial expression which the prints have perpetuated. The actors were divided into clans or schools; the name of a famous head of a clan would be handed down for generations from master to pupil. Thus there were many of the name of Danjuro, Hanshiro, and Kikunojo in succession, who were not related to each other by blood. Certain clans such as the Kikunojo specialized exclusively in women's rôles. Each clan had its _mon_ or crest, worn on the sleeve, and each actor had a personal _mon_; in the prints these generally appear. In Plate 20, for example, the circle with eight crossed arrow-buts indicates the _mon_ of Nakamura Matsuye; in other prints, the three great concentric squares of Danjuro, the trisected concentric circles of Hanshiro, or the iris within a circle of Kikunojo (Plate 9), are easily identified. In the hands of Shunsho and his followers the figures of these actors were used as the material for brilliant designs. For the moment, however, we must return to the foremost artist of this period--one who never loved the actors--Harunobu. HARUNOBU. _Figure of a Girl._ Ye winds that somewhere in the West-- In gulfs of sunset, isles of rest-- Rise dewy from prenatal sleep To strew with little waves the deep-- Surely it is your breath that stirs These fluttering gauzy robes of hers!