ed the governing
power; had dethroned Emperors and chosen Empresses; had consulted
their own will alone in the administrations of justice and in the
appointment and removal of officials. Yet of these things Miyoshi
Kiyotsura says nothing whatever. The sole hope of their redress lay
in Michizane; but instead of supporting that ill-starred statesman,
Miyoshi had contributed to his downfall. Could a reformer with such a
record be regarded as altogether sincere?

ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPEROR DAIGO

The Emperor Daigo, who ruled thirty-two years--from 898 to 930--is
brought very close to us by the statement of a contemporary historian
that he was "wise, intelligent, and kind-hearted," and that he always
wore a smiling face, his own explanation of the latter habit being
that he found it much easier to converse with men familiarly than
solemnly. A celebrated incident of his career is that one winter's
night he took off his wadded silk garment to evince sympathy with the
poor who possessed no such protection against the cold. Partly
because of his debonair manner and charitable impulses he is
popularly remembered as "the wise Emperor of the Engi era." But close
readers of the annals do not fully endorse that tribute. They note
that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, on the celebrated occasion
of the latter's visit to the palace to intercede for Michizane, was
markedly unfilial; that his Majesty believed and acted upon slanders
which touched the honour of his father no less than that of his
well-proved servant, and that he made no resolute effort to correct
the abuses of his time, even when they had been clearly pointed out
by Miyoshi Kiyotsura. The usurpations of the Fujiwara; the
prostitution of Buddhism to evil ends; the growth of luxurious and
dissipated habits, and the subordination of practical ability to
pedantic scholarship--these four malignant growths upon the national
life found no healing treatment at Daigo's hands.

THE CLASSICAL AGE OF LITERATURE

The Engi era and the intervals of three or four decades before and
after it may be regarded as the classical age of literature in Japan.
Prose composition of a certain class was wholly in Chinese. All works
of a historical, scientific, legal, or theological nature were in
that language, and it cannot be said that they reached a very high
level. Yet their authors had much honour. During the reigns of Uda
and Daigo (888-930), Sugawara Michizane, Miyoshi Kiyotsura, K