arid then the man who can give and take
most will stand panting and victorious, and
will be led off in triumph.

The spectators meanwhile, instead of talking
slang and looking disreputable, like the
frequenters of English prize-fights, will go
home to music and poetry and water parties.
Perhaps in the evening of the same day we
shall find them in the company of ladies,
sitting by a cool running stream or in a shady
grove, each with a book. The book may be
of poetry, or containing religious and moral
apophthegms.

Japanese literature is as yet almost
unknown to us, and seems not to be of the
highest order. Indeed, depth of thought,
earnestness of purpose, or any large and
general views of society and humanity, we
could not expect to find among such a people.
Their civilisation has, emphatically, the heart
eaten out of it. It is external only, and has
long ceased to have any reality of inward
culture and development corresponding to it.
And thus we find refinement and barbarity,
consideration for others and the grossest
cruelty, existing not only in members of the
same nation, but in one and the same
individual.

In the dramas which attract and fascinate
them, they represent on the stage the most
astoundingly cruel punishments by torture;
and they take pleasure in witnessing not
only the representation, but the punishments
and tortures actually inflicted. Although
theatres are the favourite resort of Japanese
ladies and gentlemen, the actors are held in
great contempt; as it is magnificently said,
that " A man who will give up his own
character to assume that of another for pay and
profit, can have no sense of honour."

Indeed the Japanese can utter sentiments
that sound well, as, for example, the
following:

   Upright in heart be thou, and pure,
   So shall the blessing of God
   Through eternity be upon thee;
   Clamorous prayers shall not avail,
   But truly a clear conscience,
   That worships and fears in silence.

As a specimen of their light literature,
take the following quaint passage from the
preface to the Tale of the Six Folding
Screens:

The reader will find in this book nothing about
fighting with enemies, or about conjurers, or magical
works, or fairy discourses, or jackalls, or wolves, or
toads; nothing about pedigrees, or jewels, or any
other lost property.

Here are no stories of confusion between the
names of father and son, or elder and younger
brother [such confusion seems very natural when
we remember the numbers of times every Japanese
may, and does, change his name]; no sealed-up
boxes, or hair-pins, or mysterious revelations of the
gods and Buddhas by means of dreams; no mortal
swords pointed against each other; nothing which
makes the blood run cold can at all be found in it.
Convinced of the incorrectness of the adage, that
"Men and folding screens cannot stand unless they
be bent," we have here hastily put together upon
this perishable paper, covered with figures, the
brief notes of good counsel, as a border, or frame,
to the tale of six such folding screens, under the
new forms of this transitory world, who have wholly
disdained to bend; and we publish the same to the
world.

And so for the present we leave Japanese
literature, referring the reader curious for
further information to the interesting
compilation, to which we are much indebted,
entitled, Japan and her People, by Mr.
Andrew Steinmetz, and to the works quoted
and consulted by him.

MY SPANISH KALEIDOSCOPE.

IT is my certain belief that all the old
talismans mentioned so pleasantly in the
Arabian Nights, and other fairy books—to
wit, the purse of Fortunatus, the seven-league
boots of Hop o' my Thumb, the Sultan's carpet
that conveyed him wherever he wished: in
fact, the invisible cap, the sword that could
cut through stone, and other supernatural
trifles—are to be found in some of the marine-
store shops that one meets with in the
Moorish cities of Spain. No man of sense
for a moment can think, therefore, that I
was at all imaginative or too sanguine in
spending several days in Cordova, looking
for these invaluable curiosities, among heaps
of rusty bits, notched rapiers, dinted breast
and back pieces of soiled steel, Moorish
cushions worked with embroidery, old cocked
hats, ragged pack-saddles, cracked muskets,
and dagger-knives big as scythe-blades. I
turned over a great many greasy religious
books; such as The Garden of the Soul, and
The Ecstacies of Saint Barabbas; piles of prints
of victories won by the Spanish against the
French, cigar-cases without number, but all
in vain. The boots, the carpet, the purse,
the cap, it was not mine to find, though
my greedy and too sanguine hand literally
leaped at every old pair of jack-boots, piece
of faded matting, worn out nightcap, and
soiled money-bag, I saw in the vaults of
faded vanity.

But one thing I did bring home was a
treasure scarcely less magical than those
which I in vain searched for in the dusty
marine store-shops and curiosity warehouses
of Cordova. This was a simple kaleidoscope.
Yes, a simple telescope-looking tube, covered
with a sort of Indian orange mottle of paper,
with the usual tin peep-hole, the black
valves inside, and the little dark jeweller's
shop of jingling glass tumbling about
inside in a sort of harlequin puzzle of
dazzling colours, just as if a magician,
reduced in old age to go about in crimson
robe and yellow slippers, and to keep a stall
in the Lowther Arcade, had manufactured a