pares the dwelling-places of the poorest inhabitants of
Japan with the hovels in this country, and more especially in Ireland,
occupied by the peasants, one is really lost in wonder at the
ignorance of those persons who call Japan, and no doubt still believe
it to have been, an uncivilised country until it was brought
intimately into association with Occidental nations.

[Illustration: TEA HOUSE, NEAR TOKIO
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]

As we ascend in the social scale in Japan we find, of course, a
difference in architecture. The principle remains very much the same,
but, as might be expected, the buildings are more elaborate and
there is a wealth of ornamentation which is absent from those of the
lower classes. I am inclined to think that what I may call
ecclesiastical art has largely influenced the decoration of the houses
of the nobles and upper classes in Japan. Many of the old feudal
castles, which were gems of Japanese architecture, no longer exist,
but some of those which still remain are exceedingly beautiful
specimens of wooden architecture. The castle of Nagoya, built in the
early part of the seventeenth century, is supposed to be the finest
specimen of the kind in Japan.

But the Japanese never seems to have been overmuch concerned
respecting his dwelling. To comprehend the beauty of Japanese
architecture, to see it in its purity and to realise all the grandeur
that can be crowded into it, it is necessary to study it in the
religious edifices of the country. Plainness is the characteristic of
the Shinto temple; built as a rule of pine, it has a thatched roof.
The fact of its being an edifice of the Shinto religion is
self-evident from the torii which stand before every Shinto temple.
There are no idols or exterior ornamentation of any kind. The walls
are left untouched by either the painter or the lacquerer. In the
Buddhist temples, on the contrary, the Japanese artist has had
afforded him full scope for the exercise of his ornamental ingenuity.
Numerous courtyards have to be traversed before reaching the temple
itself. These courtyards contain many small buildings, bronze or stone
lanterns, belfries, pavilions, pagodas, &c., &c., all elaborately
decorated. Amongst the supplementary buildings connected with, but
occasionally independent of, Buddhist temples, none is more
interesting than the pagoda so intimately associated with Buddhism in
every part of the Far East and so typically Oriental in its