Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/275

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[ 267 ]

AN


ACCOUNT


OF THE


COURT AND EMPIRE OF JAPAN.


WRITTEN IN 1728.


REGOGE[1] was the thirty-fourth emperor of Japan, and began his reign in the year 341 of the Christian era, succeeding to Nena[2], a princess who governed with great felicity.

There had been a revolution in that empire about twenty-six years before, which made some breaches in the hereditary line; and Regoge, successor to Nena, although of the royal family, was a distant relation.

There were two violent parties in the empire, which began in the time of the revolution above mentioned; and at the death of the empress Nena, were in the highest degree of animosity, each charging the other with a design of introducing new Gods, and changing the civil constitution. The names of these two parties were Husiges and Yortes[3]. The latter were those whom Nena the late empress most favoured toward the end of her reign, and by whose advice she governed.

The