While playing in Osaka, a courier all the way from Yedo brought him sad news—the death of his adopted son. He had bestowed the name of Danjuro, the third, upon this young actor. As he had no son of his own, it was necessary to adopt another stage heir, and his choice fell on the second Matsumoto Koshiro, who thus became Ichikawa Danjuro, the fourth. The second Danjuro lived a long stage life, and died in his seventies. Like his father, he was small of stature, and his specialty was aragoto, or rough, imaginative acting. He was also good in plays demanding the real in acting, for he loved to represent an otokodate, or chivalrous commoner, and was popular as a lover and a fighter. Quick to feel the appeal of the marionettes in the Doll-theatre, he was one of the first actors to play in a doll-drama. His chief success in this direction was in Chikamatsu’s _Kokusenya Kassen_, or The Battle of Kokusenya. His art, however, was too unreal to suit the times. His whole tendency in acting was anti-real. To mimic the natural or represent the real did not enter his mind. Tojuro’s principle, the use of the real and natural, took hold and flourished in Yedo, and the audiences were quite carried away. Danjuro remained untouched by the popular acclaim of the real. The taste of the new generation was changed; they were tired of his father’s methods; they wanted the real, yet Danjuro, true to the artistic instinct within him, held steadfast to his own principles. He not only improved his father’s plays greatly, but collaborated in the composition of many new pieces to which he did not sign his name. Like his father, he was given to poetry, and was the best pupil of his poetry teacher. His diary, _Oyino Tanoshimi_, or Pleasures of Old Age, is a model of the diary composition of the Tokugawa age. He displayed much originality in the designing of costumes, and was an artist when it came to making up. Filial towards his mother, he was full of love and respect for his wife, and was so moral in those immoral days that he was regarded as a sage. His attitude towards the lower classes of society was generous and magnanimous. When receiving visitors, even to the humblest menials of the theatre, he treated them as honoured guests, wearing hakama, or the silk skirt, rather than customary attire, as he wished to improve the manners of the theatre folk. When invited to the residences of the great or wealthy he was never fawning. He was, however, very extravagant, and thought an actor should be as magnificent as possible.