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ancient language, and composed numerous works of great value in this department of learning. Mr. Aston has given the titles of several of these in the list appended to his Grammar of the Written Language, to which may be added the Kokinshiu Tôkagami, a commentary on the collection of poetry entitled Kokinshiu, notes on the Genji monogatari under the title of G.M. Tama no Ogushi, the Chimei Jion Tenyôrei, on the etymology of local names, the Manyô Tama no Ogoto and Manyôshiu haikun, and the Uiyama-bumi, a general introduction to Japanese studies. The Tamakushige is a highly interesting work on the philosophy of government written in 1787, in which the abuses that were even then beginning to sap the foundations of the feudal system are laid bare with an unsparing hand. A summary of its contents might be of value to those who are interested in modern Japanese politics, but would be foreign to the scope of this paper.
Motoöri’s style, less ornate than that of Mabuchi, is clear and correct, though sometimes wanting in terseness, and his controversial writings give evidence of his logical powers in dealing with his own premisses. He may be said almost to have created the modern literary Japanese language, and the influence of his example is seen even in the lighter literature of the present day. The violence of his prejudices in favour of everything native and antique is probably due to a reaction against the dominion of Chinese ideas and forms of expression, which at the time he thought and wrote bade fair to extinguish every trace of Japanese nationality. No author can be studied to such advantage by those who wish to acquire a mastery of written Japanese.
Hirata Atsutane, the fourth in chronological order of those scholars whom I have named as the founders of this school, was born in 1776 at the town of Kubota in Dewa, the capital of that remote district in the north of Japan commonly called Akita. His father was Ôwada Seibei, a samurai of the Satake family, who traced back his descent to the sun-goddess through Kuammu Tennô,
