in the earliest days. This great work of reconstruction was only one feature of the literary activity which marked the 17th and 18th centuries, when, under Tokugawa rule, the blessing of long-unknown peace came to the nation. Iyeyasu himself devoted the last years of his life to collecting ancient manuscripts. In his country retreat at Shizuoka he formed one of the richest libraries ever brought together in Japan, and by will he bequeathed the Japanese section of it to his eighth son, the feudal chief of Owari, and the Chinese section to his ninth son, the prince of Kishu, with the result that under the former feudatory's auspices two works of considerable merit were produced treating of ancient ceremonials and supplementing the _Nihongi_. Much more memorable, however, was a library formed by Iyeyasu's grandson the feudal chief of Mito (1662-1700), who not only collected a vast quantity of books hitherto scattered among Shinto and Buddhist monasteries and private houses, but also employed a number of scholars to compile a history unprecedented in magnitude, the _Dai-Nihon-shi_. It consisted of 240 volumes, and it became at once the standard in its own branch of literature. Still more comprehensive was a book emanating from the same source and treating of court ceremonials. It ran to more than 500 volumes, and the emperor honoured the work by bestowing on it the title _Reigi Ruiten_ (_Rules of Ceremonials_). These compilations together with the _Nihon Gwaishi_ (_History of Japan Outside the Court_), written by Rai Sanyo and published in 1827, constituted the chief sources of historical knowledge before the Meiji era. Rai Sanyo devoted twenty years to the preparation of his 22 volumes and took his materials from 259 Japanese and Chinese works. But neither he nor his predecessors recognized in history anything more than a vehicle for recording the mere sequence of events and their relations, together with some account of the personages concerned. Their volumes make profoundly dry reading. Vicarious interest, however, attaches to the productions of the Mito School on account of the political influence they exercised in rehabilitating the nation's respect for the throne by unveiling the picture of an epoch prior to the usurpations of military feudalism. The struggles of the great rival clans, replete with episodes of the most tragic and stirring character, inspired quasi-historical narrations of a more popular character, which often took the form of illuminated scrolls. But it was not until the Meiji era that history, in the modern sense of the term, began to be written. During recent times many students have turned their attention to this branch of literature. Works of wide scope and clear insight have been produced, and the Historiographers' section in the Imperial University of Tokyo has been for several years engaged in collecting and collating materials for a history which will probably rank with anything of the kind in existence. Poetry.