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quartered himself in the house of a friend, and began the composition of the Koshi-seibun, or ‘Complete Text of the Ancient Record.’ After offering up a prayer[1] to all the gods for their aid he set to work on the 5th, and finished his labours at the end of the month. As proof of his remarkable memory, it is said that he composed the three volumes of the Text and several volumes of the prolegomena, entitled Koshi-chô, without making a single reference to the works from which his materials were drawn. The Koshi-seibun was apparently intended to been brought far down into what is usually called the historical period, but the part which relates to the Divine Age is all that has at present appeared. It is a compilation founded on the texts of the Kojiki, Nihongi, Kogoshiui, Fûdoki, Kujiki, Norito and several other of the ancient books, with some slight conjectural additions of his own, and is written in the style of the Kojiki. Many native scholars are of opinion that he has gone too far in altering the ancient texts, and prefer the originals, inconsistent and contradictory as they sometimes are, but this is a matter on which I have not had time to form an opinion. Those who care to investigate the subject will find in the last six volumes of the Koshichô[2] the grounds on which he adopted the text of each of the hundred and sixty five sections into which the Koshi-seibun is divided. In the course of the same year he began to work at the commentary, entitled Koshi-Den. It was to have extended to about one hundred volumes, but only twenty-eight have as yet been printed; they cover the first one hundred and forty three sections. The Kaidaiki, or introduction to the Koshichô, in five volumes, was begun in 1819 and printed shortly afterwards. Besides discussions on the authority and relative value of all the ancient records, it contains a great deal of information relative to the introduction of Buddhism, and the gradual
