or less historical character which appeared towards the close of the period.
The lower classes of the people had no share in the literary activity of this time. Culture had not as yet penetrated beyond a very narrow circle. Both writers and readers belonged exclusively to the official caste. The people from time to time showed their dissatisfaction with oppression and misgovernment, but their discontent found no expression in literature. It took the form of outbreaks and rebellions, robbery and piracy.
It is a remarkable and, I believe, unexampled fact, that a very large and important part of the best literature which Japan has produced was written by women. We have seen that a good share of the Nara poetry is of feminine authorship. In the Heian period the women took a still more conspicuous part in maintaining the honour of the native literature. The two greatest works which have come down to us from this time are both by women. This was no doubt partly due to the absorption of the masculine intellect in Chinese studies, and to the contempt of the stronger sex for such frivolous pursuits as the writing of poetry and romances. But there was still a more effective cause. The position of women in ancient Japan was very different from what it afterwards became when Chinese ideas were in the ascendant. The Japanese of this early period did not share the feeling common to most Eastern countries, that women should be kept in subjection, and, as far as possible, in seclusion. Feminine chieftains are frequently mentioned in the old histories, and several even of the Mikados were women. Indeed the Chinese seem to have thought that the "monstrous regiment of women" was
