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back as the time of Izanagi no mikoto. Mabuchi, who may be taken as a pretty safe guide in such matters, attributes the liturgy as it is preserved in the Yengishiki, to the reign of Temmu Tennô (673-686), by which period the words, in the earliest times composed by the Nakatomi on each occasion, had assumed a definite form consecrated by precedent. The Yengishiki, however, belongs to the 10th century, and therefore the date at which the Norito are actually known to have been committed to writing is two centuries later than that of the Kojiki and Nihongi. Still more ancient than the Ohobarai no kotoba is said to be the Idzumo kuni no miyatsako kamu yogoto, which Mabuchi assigns to the reign of Jomei Tennô (629–641), though the origin of the ceremony at which it was used is evidently far back in the prehistoric age. The Toshigohi, Hirose and Tatsuta Norito are later again than the Ohobarai. By a fortunate coincidence the study pf pure Shintô cannot be successfully prosecuted at first hand, without a previous acquaintance with the ancient forms of the language, and the result has been a natural tendency towards a combined devotion to the two subjects, which is explanatory of the wide meaning of the term Koku-gaku, ‘national learning,’ sometime erroneously used to signify the study of poetry alone.
This notice of Mabuchi’s writings is unavoidably deficient, owing to the difficulty of procuring copies of his works in the book-shops. Even the public library, recently removed to Asakusa, does not possess three volumes by this author which relate to the Kojiki, and it is much to be regretted that the means should therefore be wanting in order to form an estimate of what he accomplished towards the elucidation of this most important and ancient Shintô monument.
III.
The mantle of Mabuchi fell upon the shoulders of Motoöri Norinaga. This remarkable scholar and critic was born in 1730 at Matsuzaka in Isé, a town belonging to the prince of Kishiu. At the age of ten years he lost his
