Though highly valuable as a specimen of what Japanese histories are, and though Klaproth’s introduction and notes contain some curious information, this performance is, on the whole, exceedingly dry, while it adds but little to the abstract given by Kämpfer of this or some other similar work. A criticism which Titsingh himself makes upon it, in a letter to the prince of Tamba, to whom he had intended to dedicate his translation, is worthy of notice, as going to show how little, with all its formal precision of years and months, the earlier Japanese chronology is entitled to historical respect.
“Must we not suppose,” says Titsingh, “that the Japanese, so jealous of their neighbors, the Chinese, have, in writing their own history, endeavored to fill up many gaps in it by prolonging the reigns of their earlier Dairi? There is in your history a period of one thousand and sixty-one years occupied by the reigns of only sixteen Dairi. The duration of the life of Jimmu, of the reigns of Kōan, of Suijin, and the life of Ōjin, appear altogether improbable. The first died at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years. The second reigned one hundred and two years, the third ninety-nine years. The last lived one hundred and ten years. These statements are too extraordinary to be blindly believed. Grant, even, that a chaste and frugal way of living may have secured for these princes a very advanced age, but how does it happen that, after Nintoku Tennō (the seventeenth Dairi), none exceeded the ordinary limit of human life?
The Japanese still cling with tenacity to the formal recognition of the absolute rights of the Dairi. With as much warmth as a loyal Englishman would exhibit in maintaining the actual sovereignty of Queen Victoria, they insisted to Titsingh—and the same thing afterwards occurred to Golownin—that Europeans were mistaken in applying the term “emperor” to the Shōgun, the Dairi being the only legal emperor, and the Shōgun but an officer to whom the Dairi had entrusted the administration.[71]
The annual visit of the Shōgun to the Dairi, made in Caron’s time, had been discontinued; but mutual embassies are still exchanged, and the envoys sent from the Dairi are received by the Shōgun as if they were the Dairi himself. The Shōgun goes to meet them, and conducts them to the hall of audience, where he performs the kitō, bending before them till his head touches the mats, as if they were the very Dairi. This homage finished, the Shōgun resumes his rank, and the ambassadors then perform the kitō to him. During their stay they are entertained by two persons, who, from the allowance made for it, find this office very lucrative. The ambassadors also receive rich presents, not only at Yedo, but all along the route, and the attendance upon this service, even in an inferior capacity, is so lucrative as to be eagerly coveted by the poor courtiers of the Dairi. Titsingh encountered one of these embassies on his return from Yedo, in 1782, and was obliged to stop a whole day, and to lodge in a citizen’s house, all the horses, porters, and inns being taken up by the embassy. However poor and powerless, the courtiers of the Dairi still enjoy all the outward observances of superior rank. The first princes of the empire must pay them the homage of the kitō, and must lay aside their two swords in their presence. For this reason, these princes, in going and returning to Yedo, carefully avoid passing through Miyako.
A more interesting publication, from the manuscript of Titsingh, and one which appeared earlier, is “Memoirs of the Djogouns” [Shōguns], which had itself been preceded by a number of other pieces, translations and originals.[72] These memoirs profess to be compiled from Japanese manuscripts, of which Titsingh gives the following account: “Since the accession of Gongen, founder of the present dynasty, the printing of any work relating to the government has been prohibited. The curious, however, possess manuscript accounts of all the remarkable events that have occurred. These manuscripts are in great request. The conduct of persons of elevated rank is sometimes as freely censured in them as it would be in any country in Europe. The obstructions which the government throws in the way of the publication of historical works prevent these works from being known, and thus obviate whatever might make an obnoxious impression on the minds of the people, and endanger the interests of the reigning dynasty, as well as the tranquillity of the empire. From some of these manuscripts are extracted the particulars here submitted to the public. The Japanese, to whom they belong, keep them carefully concealed, so that it is difficult to procure a sight of them. If I was fortunate enough to obtain the communication of those from which I have extracted such curious notes, I am indebted for it to the ardent zeal with which my friends assisted me in all my researches.” M. Abel Rémusat, the learned Orientalist, who, at the request of the French publisher, prefixed some preliminary observations to this publication, observes that, “Thanks to the pains M. Titsingh has taken, we shall outstrip the Japanese themselves, and, by an extraordinary singularity, we shall be earlier and better informed than they concerning the events of their own history.” This publication in Europe of Japanese history is not, however, so much a singularity as M. Rémusat seems to suppose. The letters of the Jesuit missionaries furnished contemporary details of Japanese history extending over a period of more than seventy years, and including the establishment of the present system of government, far more full and authentic, we may well believe, than anything which the Japanese themselves possess, and far exceeding anything contained in this book of Titsingh’s whom M. Rémusat, perhaps in rather too complimentary a spirit, places on a level with Kämpfer, and in advance of Thunberg, as a contributor to our knowledge of Japan.
The memoirs of the Shōguns, made up of detached fragments, in general very jejune, contain, however, a few anecdotes, which serve to illustrate the ideas and manners of the Japanese. The Kubō-Sama reigning in Kämpfer’s time is stated to have been stabbed, in 1709, by his wife, a daughter of the Dairi, because, being childless, he persisted in selecting as his successor a person very disagreeable to all the princes—an act which causes her memory to be held in high honor.
One of the longest of these fragments relates to an alleged conspiracy, in the year 1767, against the reigning Shōgun, for which a number of persons suffered death. There is, also, an account of an extensive volcanic eruption, which took place in September, 1783, in the interior of the island of Nippon, in the province of Shinano, northwest of Yedo and north of Ōsaka. The mountain Asama vomited sand, ashes, and pumice-stones; the rivers flowing from it were heated boiling-hot, and their dammed-up waters inundated the country. Twenty-seven villages were swallowed up, and many people perished.
The councillor of state, Tanuma Yamashiro-no-Kami, was assassinated the next year (1784), in the emperor’s palace; but of this event, and of others connected with it, Titsingh gives a fuller explanation in his Introduction to the Japanese “Marriage Ceremonies.” He there informs us that “though many Japanese of the highest distinction, and intimately acquainted with matters of government, still consider Japan as the first empire of the world, and care but little for what passes out of it, yet such persons are denominated by the more enlightened I no uchi no Kayeru,—that is, ‘Frogs in a well,’—a metaphorical expression, which signifies that when they look up they can see no more of the sky than what the small circumference of the well allows them to perceive.” Of this more enlightened party was the extraordinary councillor, Matsudaira Tsu, who proposed, in 1769, the building of ships, and junks suitable for foreign voyages; but this plan was put a stop to by his death.
Tango-no-Kami, the governor of Nagasaki, one of this more liberal party, with whom Titsingh, while director, kept up a secret intercourse, proposed to him, in 1783, to bring carpenters from Batavia, to instruct the Japanese in building vessels, especially for the transport of copper from Ōsaki to Nagasaki, in which service many Japanese vessels had been lost, with their cargoes; but this Titsingh knew to be impossible, as skilful carpenters were too rare at Batavia to be spared. He therefore proposed to take with him, on his return to Batavia, a number of Japanese to be instructed there; but the prohibition against any native leaving the country proved an insurmountable obstacle. He then promised to have a model ship built at Batavia, and conveyed to Nagasaki, which was done by himself, on his last visit to Japan; but the assassination of Tanuma, above mentioned, which had happened during his absence at Batavia, put an end to all hopes that had been formed of a modification in the exclusive policy of the Japanese.
This Tanuma (uncle of the Shōgun) was, according to Titsingh’s account, a young man of uncommon merit and liberal ideas, and the anti-frog-in-a-well party flattered themselves that, when he should succeed his father, he would, as they expressed it, “widen the road.” After his appointment as extraordinary councillor, he and his father incurred, as Titsingh states, the hatred of the grandees of the court, by introducing various innovations, which the “Frogs in a well” censured as detrimental to the empire. It was to this feeling that his assassination was ascribed, a crime which put an end to the hopes which had begun to be entertained of seeing Japan opened to foreigners, and of its inhabitants being allowed to visit other countries.