to any one we could name in Europe. How many
artists worthy of a place in the rank are only known to us by a single
piece, but which is quite sufficient to evidence their power! From
1790 to 1840 art was at fever heat, the creative faculty produced
marvels."

Besides the making and ornamentation of swords the metal workers in
Japan attained great skill in the design and finish of many other
articles which were in constant use by the people--pipes, cases to
hold the Indian ink which formed the writing material, the clasps and
buttons of tobacco pouches, besides vases, &c. In reference to the
making of alloys these metal workers showed considerable ingenuity,
the alloys used, amalgams of gold, silver, copper, and other metals in
deft proportions, resulting in magnificent effects as regards
ornamentation and permanency. Japan has undoubtedly been greatly aided
in the height to which the art of the country of various kinds has
attained by the plentifulness of minerals therein. Gold, silver,
copper, iron, lead, tin, and many other minerals exist. Strange to
say, gold at one time was considered no more valuable than silver--a
fact which may account for the lavish manner in which it was used for
decorative purposes in art of all descriptions.

I fear that an inevitable result of Western influences and the great,
indeed drastic, changes which have been effected thereby in the ideas,
manners, and customs of the Japanese people has been the decay, if not
the destruction, of the art connected with metal work. Sword
manufacture and everything relating thereto is, of course, gone; other
metal industries are following suit. The result, as I have said, was
inevitable, but it is none the less deplorable. Although it requires
an expert to deal with and describe in all its infinite detail the
metal work of Japan, it does not need an expert's knowledge to
profoundly admire it and be lost in admiration at the skill displayed
and the pains taken in respect of every part of it. The workers in
this, as indeed in all the other art industries of Japan in the past,
were quite evidently not men in a hurry or much exercised concerning
their output, and scamping their work in order to establish a record.
Their hearts must have been in everything they undertook, and their
sole aim, whatever they did, to put into their work all their skill
and knowledge and love of the beautiful. They, in fact, worked not for
pelf but for sheer love of art, and so