Tojuro’s ancestors lived in the northern province of Echigo, and his father owned a Kyoto theatre. He is said to have been born in 1645, and died in 1709, and was the most representative actor of Osaka and Kyoto for the whole of the Genroku period. Tojuro was the star of the Miyako-Mandayu-za, of Kyoto, for many years. Chikamatsu Monzaemon wrote plays for him, before he turned his entire attention to composing pieces for the marionettes. Kaneko Kichizaemon, another playwright of the time, was closely associated with Tojuro, and has left many impressions of him in his book _Jijinshu_—or Collection of the Year’s Dust—little stories about actors, chiefly Tojuro. “All these stories came to my insignificant ears,” he writes, “therefore I call this book a collection of the year’s dust.” Tojuro was a power in the transformation of Kabuki out of the chaotic state that followed the abolition of the Wakashu. He believed that art was long and time fleeting; he displayed broadmindedness toward his contemporaries, and did not criticise them. He was noble and refined in appearance, we are told, and had received a far better education than was the lot of most actors of his day. He had literary ability, and collaborated with his playwright friends in the composition of his plays, and wrote several dramas himself. Kaneko Kichizaburo writes that Tojuro learned to play the Nō drum from a Nō musician, so that he must have been familiar with the aristocratic stage, and the dignity and ceremonials of the Nō actors. His personal character was high, and he frowned upon the immorality of the actors, which was something that could hardly be avoided in such a loose and luxurious age. No record is left to tell of his wife and children. He had a sister whose son he adopted, but the son went to Yedo to live, and did not become an actor. His younger brother inherited his great name, yet only succeeded in imitating Tojuro, so that his talents stopped with himself and were not transmitted, as in the case of the Ichikawas of Yedo. Many anecdotes have been handed down relating to Tojuro’s extravagance. He received a large salary, but was not at all frugal, and was accustomed to say to those who remonstrated with him about his wastefulness that in order to be a great actor it was necessary to be generous-minded and reckless. He never wore a dress that had been washed; his room was lighted by candles, not by the oil wick which was general in those days. Moreover, he did not subsist on rice and vegetables, the diet of most families, then as now, but lived like a daimyo, partaking of fish and fowl. Every day he drank a cup of the rarest tea, while he warmed his sake with costly charcoal, all in the lordly manner of a feudal magnate. When actors repaired to his house for rehearsal, he received them seated on a beautiful silk cushion, with a gorgeous lacquered tobacco-box in front of him, and served his guests a sumptuous repast.