The Emperor's court, with its literary and æsthetic quiet, its simplicity of life and complexity of etiquette, was the centre of the culture and art of Japan, but never the centre of luxury. After the growth of the Tokugawa power had secured for that house and its retainers great hereditary possessions, the Emperor's court was a mere shadow in the presence of the magnificence in which the Tokugawas and the daimiōs chose to live. The wealth of the country was in the hands of those who held the real power, and the Emperor was dependent for his support upon his great vassal, who held the land, collected the taxes, made the laws, and gave to his master whatever seemed necessary for his maintenance in the simple style of the old days, keeping for himself and for his retainers enough to make Yedo, the Tokugawa capital, the centre of a luxury far surpassing anything ever seen at the Emperor's own court. While the _kugé_, the old imperial nobility, formerly the governors of the provinces under the Emperors, lived in respectable but often extreme poverty at Kyōto, the landed nobility, or daimiōs, brought, after many struggles, under the sway of the Tokugawas, built for themselves palaces and pleasure gardens in the moated city of Yedo. At Yedo with its castle, its gardens, its _yashikis_, and its fortifications, was established a new court, more luxurious, but less artistic and cultivated, than the old court of Kyōto. In the various provinces, too, at every castle town, a little court arose about the castle, and the daimiō became not only the feudal chief, but the patron of literature and art among his people, as the years went by filling his _kura_ with choice works of art, in lacquer, bronze, silver, and pottery, to be brought out on special occasions. These nobles, under a law of Iyémitsŭ, the third of the Tokugawa line, were compelled to spend half of each year at the city of the Shōguns; and each had his _yashiki_, or large house and garden, in the city. At this house, his family must reside permanently, as hostages for the loyalty of their lord while away. The annual journeys to and from Yedo were events not only in the lives of the daimiōs and their trains of retainers, but in the lives of the country people who lived along the roads by which they must travel. The time and style of each journey for each daimiō were rigidly prescribed in the laws of Iyémitsŭ, as well as the behavior of the country people who might meet the procession moving towards Yedo, or returning therefrom. When some noble, or any member of his family, was to pass through a certain section of the country, great preparations were made beforehand. Not only was traffic stopped along the route, but every door and window had to be closed. By no means was any one to show himself, or to look in any way upon the passing procession. To do so was to commit a profane deed, punishable by a fine. Among other things, no cooking was allowed on that day. All the food must be prepared the day