name to a system of life likewise derived from philosophical reasonings, and starting from an analysis and enumeration of the primary objects of desire, but differing from the other in several essential particulars. Both systems recognise human wellbeing as the end of living; but Epicurus, by taking a peculiar view of the elements of happiness, was led into conclusions widely different from the Stoical maxims. His examination of the human constitution led him to affirm that all pleasures and pains whatsoever took their rise in the body, and consequently that any species of enjoyment was but a form of bodily gratification. The pleasures of the mind were but reminiscences or anticipations of the pleasures of the body, and formed a peculiar class of those pleasures, distinguished by their greater extent and permanence, or by covering, as it were, a larger surface of life. Hence an actual bodily sensation, pleasurable or painful, was itself nothing in comparison of those recollections and hopes that made up the great bulk of human consciousness. The business of life consisted in choosing the least evils and the greatest good; which would imply the avoiding of such pleasures and the courting of such ills as were indispensable to the permanent good condition of the bodily consciousness. Ease of body and security or tranquillity of mind constituted the most perfect state of human nature, the most complete happiness which man was capable of enjoying.' The cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice were not desirable on their own account-they were but means of contributing to this flow of serene and tranquil existence. Religious terrors, so incompatible with this end, were to be surmounted by adopting a correct view of the machinery of the universe; and the system of Epicurus was the atomic theory started by the philosopher Democritus, which excluded an intelligent Creator, and supposed the world brought into its present shape by the conflux of a vast body of primeval atoms possessed of the properties and powers requisite to enable them to fill their places in the great machine.

Epicurus, therefore, was peculiar in his analysis of human nature, and differed from the Stoics and from other philosophers also in this-that they considered virtue desirable on its own account, and that 'man being born for action, his happiness must consist not merely in the agreeableness of his passive sensations, but also in the propriety of his active exertions.'

EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE WITH JAPAN.

THE HE Japanese group occupies on the eastern side of Asia a position in many respects analogous to that of Great Britain with respect to the European continent. It extends from the 31st to the 42d degree of north latitude, and from the 157th to the 175th degree of east longitude; or, in other words, lies in the very heart of the temperate zone. In conformity, however, with a natural law not easy to be explained, its climate is far more rigorous than that of countries lying farther west at the same distance from the equator. The same remark indeed applies to the eastern edge of all known continents, which has been found to be much colder than that lying towards the west.

The empire of Japan is composed of three main islands with innumerable smaller ones, which, studding the sea along its coasts, render navigation difficult, and in some measure, therefore, defend it from the sudden attacks of foreigners. Some protection also is derived from the rough and boisterous character of the sea itself, which, vexed by storms and beset with sunken rocks and shallows, suggests the idea of extreme danger to mariners, especially since the period at which, by an inhospitable decree of the government, strangers from all parts of the world were forbidden to touch upon its shores. Its external aspect is bleak and forbidding. In some places precipitous cliffs rise frowning from the water to a great height; while elsewhere chains of mountains, seemingly smitten with eternal barrenness, suggest the idea of a hungry, desolate, and repulsive region.

On a nearer approach it is discovered that whatever may be the qualities of the soil, the Japanese are not a people to abandon it to nature. With industry and pains incredible they cultivate the face of the most rugged seaward mountains, carrying up their fields and plantations terrace above terrace to their summits, and thus extorting subsistence from districts the least susceptible of improvement. Many attribute their persevering energy to the pressure of extreme poverty, which renders incessant toil necessary; but it is far more natural to believe that the Japanese are constitutionally energetic, and that to them, as to their neighbours the Chinese, active employment is a sort of necessity.

Though still so little known to the populations of the West, the existence of the Japanese islands was revealed to Europe towards the close of the thirteenth century by the great Venetian traveller Marco Polo, who left his native country in the year 1275, and after traversing Western Asia and

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the great steppes and deserts of Mongolia, entered China, where he rose to extraordinary eminence in the service of Kublai Khan. This conqueror, learning the existence of numerous large islands in the ocean contiguous to the Chinese shores, fitted out a powerful armament to reduce them to obedience; but his armada was unsuccessful: storms overtook the Mongol fleet, the natives also displayed heroic courage and resolution, and the lord of the Celestial Empire experienced the mortification of witnessing the failure of his designs. With this triumph, however, Zypangu, or Japan, fell back into its original obscurity, and for nearly three centuries was heard of no more.

At length the Portuguese, acting as the pioneers of European civilisation, brought back once more into the light the great islands of Japan, destined to play thenceforward a singular part in the history of the world. Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, whose imagination converted trivial adventures and actual experience into a romance, was driven by a storm on the coast of Bungo in the year 1542. There appears to be no good reason for doubting the fact or the date, though many of the circumstances, which grave historians have borrowed from the narrative of Pinto, would appear to belong to the mythical portion of Portuguese annals. We shall accordingly abstain from dwelling on them; especially as, if true, they could scarcely be said to throw any peculiar light on the intercourse of western nations with the Japanese.

In that age the discovery of a new country was regarded by the Roman Catholic Church, and more particularly by the Jesuits, almost entirely as an occasion for courting the honours of martyrdom. This at least was the fate to which the zeal of the ecclesiastical adventurers often led them. Viewing what they did from the philosophical level of the nineteenth century, we are apt to imagine them to have been actuated by political motives, particularly when we call to mind the answer made by a Spaniard to some Japanese officers, to whom, in the hope of producing an effect on their imagination, he had pointed out the extent of his master's dominions on a map of the globe. 'How is it that your king,' inquired the Japanese, ' has managed to possess himself of half the world?' 'He commences by sending priests,' replied the Spaniard, who win over the people; and when this is done, his troops are despatched to join the native Christians, and the conquest is easy and complete.'

Under the guidance of whatever ideas they acted, the priests and friars of that age were no sooner made acquainted with the discovery of Japan than they longed to be engaged there in the work of conversion. St Francis Xavier, called by his church the Apostle of the Indies, set out from Goa, according to some, in the year 1547, and arriving in the empire, was received with great marks of favour by the native princes. With a facility which must astonish the missionaries of these days, he made numerous converts, erected many churches, and laid the foundations of a system which promised, had it not been accidentally arrested, to bring the whole Japanese nation within the pale of the Romish Church. What renders the triumphs of those Jesuits more surprising, is the way in which, according to their own shewing, they went to work. Having found, or formed, a few interpreters, they wrote their sermons in some European language, and having caused them to be translated into Japanese, and

written out fairly in Roman characters, delivered them to the congregations, without themselves understanding a syllable of what they read. The effect may be conjectured. Hearing their language pronounced as strangers usually pronounce a foreign tongue, the Japanese were convulsed with laughter at the good fathers, and often, perhaps, professed to accept their doctrines in order to console them for having laughed at their eloquence.

It forms no part of our present object minutely to trace the history of Christianity in Japan, the progress of which, according to Catholic historians, was furthered by the working of innumerable miracles. Considered

simply in itself, the success of the missionaries was sufficiently astonishing. Multitudes perpetually came over to their creed, including several princes, and numbers of the most wealthy and influential nobles of the land; Jesuits and monks of all other orders poured into the country in a constantly expanding stream; native priests were multiplied; and these, with a zeal found frequently among new converts, spread themselves over the face of the country, animated by the most ardent desire to overthrow the temples of their forefathers, and give currency to the new faith. Buddhists and Sintoists, priests and bonzes, succumbed before their impetuous energy, until the Christians amounted to a million in number, and were found in every grade of society from the throne downwards. It was at one time believed that the emperor himself had deserted the ancient shrines of idolatry, and listened with approval to the doctrines of the new religion.

But in the history of the Romish Church it has often happened that an immoderate and ill-timed zeal has destroyed in a moment the work of years. Proverbially patient upon the whole, ecclesiastics sometimes suffer themselves to be transported by passion far beyond the limits of sound policy, accept their own wishes for proofs, and mistake doubtful phenomena for undeniable facts. It sometimes happens also, that pious men are tainted with pride, temporal as well as spiritual, and in sudden and overpowering accesses of this feeling are betrayed into errors inimical if not fatal to their views. This at least was the case in Japan, where bishops and other church dignitaries, in conformity with their established system of looking down with a certain degree of contempt upon the laity, roused the indignation of the unconverted nobles, who began seriously to apprehend that their humble foreign teachers might in the end prove to be their masters if care were not taken to check their encroachments at once.

The anger and resentment of the old nobility were brought to a climax by an incident that occurred on the road of Yedo. It is customary in Japan for princes, and governors of provinces, when departing for any distant portion of the empire, to leave behind them as hostages their wives and children in the metropolis. Ostensibly for the purpose of visiting them, though really in obedience to other maxims of policy, they are expected to make annual visits to the court; and on these occasions it is customary for all persons of inferior rank, clergy or laity, natives or strangers, to descend from their palanquins in token of respect, or, if on foot, to shew their reverence by certain forms of obeisance. One of these grandees returning from his distant government, was encountered by a Romish bishop, who, instead of conforming to the fashion of the country, ordered his bearers to pass by with disdainful indifference. Disgusted

by this display of prelatical pride, the prince, who possessed numerous friends at court, laid a complaint before the emperor; and at the same time succeeded in alarming the aristocracy of the country, whose kindly feelings had been already alienated by the pompous insolence and cupidity of the foreign clergy.

Something more, however, was wanting to kindle the fires of persecution against Catholicism. The spark was supplied by the reply, already quoted, of the Spaniard, who is said to have been enticed into the country on his way from Mexico to the Philippines. Taico, at that time emperor, when the Castilian's unguarded avowal was reported to him, exclaimed: 'What then! are my dominions filled with traitors?' The seeds of distrust once sown were nourished by various circumstances. The bonzes had always of course been hostile to the foreign clergy, whose superior influence and learning they naturally beheld with envy. The pride of the good fathers by degrees alienated from them even those among the nobles who had been once their friends; and therefore, when Taico's apprehensions had been excited, there was none found to stand in the breach between his indignation and those who were destined to become the victims of it. In the first outbreak of imperial vengeance twenty-six priests obtained the honours of martyrdom, and to the thoughtful and far-seeing a cloud became visible in the horizon which perpetually grew more lurid and threatening. To repress, however, not to extirpate Christianity, seems to have been at first all that was contemplated by the policy of the court. Its followers were now sufficiently numerous to excite alarm in the minds of its adversaries, who could scarcely hope to triumph over it without encountering the risks and horrors of a civil war.

While things were in this situation a new and unexpected event occurred to complicate the difficulties of Catholicism in Japan. The Dutch, who had long beheld with envy the golden harvest reaped by the Portuguese in the further East, determined, towards the close of the sixteenth century, to enter upon and dispute the field with them. Up till that moment the gains of the first discoverers would appear to have been so great as to be almost incredible. Japan abounds with the precious metals; and the Portuguese, whose cupidity was at least equal to their superstition, swept, as it were, with a drag-net all the gold they could collect into their galleons, and transported it to Macao-the creation and emporium of the riches they acquired in Japan. One ship alone is said to have carried 300 tons' weight of gold from Japan to their new settlement in China.

No wonder, therefore, that the Dutch, who have never been wanting in their respect for mammon, should have determined to dispute this rich prize with their rivals. About the year 1598 they fitted out an expedition consisting of several vessels, and sent it out by way of Magellan Straits and the Pacific towards the utopia of their commercial and political ambition. On board of one of these ships was William Adams, of Gillingham, in Kent, who had been a master in the navy in the service of Queen Elizabeth, but had been allured by tempting offers to direct the enterprise of our phlegmatic neighbours. One vessel alone of this expedition reached Japan, on whose shores it was wrecked apparently about the year 1600, with William Adams on board.

Within the last few years the name of this old navigator has acquired