tributes, it would not be amiss to consider briefly what are the necessities or expectations which lead honest folk into holy matrimony.

We can set on one side the young who marry strictly for love. They expect nothing, at least nothing that can be put into words, and so need not come into the calculation. But those of maturer years and soberer disposition must surely be able to give some coherent account of the reasons that led them deliberately to plunge into the unknown. Our ancestors, who were an unimaginative race, dismissed the question with the smallest exercise of thought. "Tom must marry at once, or there will be no heir to the family estate. It does not matter so much about Johnnie, but his shirts are getting into a terrible state." If these two reasons seemed inadequate in any particular case it was always possible to fall back upon the pious platitude that marriages were made in Heaven, and the situation was saved.

It has now become obvious that the supply of territorial magnates is not sufficient, and the ingenuity of man has suggested a simpler solution for the absence of buttons. After all, from the lady's point of view, the post of chief superintendent of the wardrobe, though honourable in itself, must have left something to be desired. It is evident that some stronger inducement must be found, or the Marriage Service would far less often be called into requisition than it is. Man, as Aristotle tells us, is a pairing animal and Nature will have her way. He is sick of solitude and needs a home; she has outgrown the paternal nest and longs for an establishment of her own; proximity and accident do the rest. The bells are set a-ringing, and they start together on a voyage of discovery which, though fertile in sur

prises at first, commonly lands them in the desired haven at the end. Each has shed a few illusions, but the sum of mutual satisfaction is not seriously diminished. It would be interesting to read a candid diary written by an ordinary couple before, and say six months after, marriage.

If a man does not know a pink from a pelargonium he frankly admits that he cares nothing about the matter, but every woman is supposed to be fond of flowers. Is she? We will admit at once that when a lady takes to gardening she makes the wilderness blossom like the rose. She has exactly the dainty touch that plants love and to which they respond. But to say that women in general are fond of flowers is a complete misconception. They like to use them as furniture for the adornment of their rooms, or to arrange them prettily in vases to deck their dining-tables; but as for their habits, their disposition, their history, whether they came from their own garden or from the florist round the corner, they care no more than the man in the moon. Has anyone ever seen a woman, not a professed gardener, cut a dead rose from a bush to improve the appearance of the tree? There are hundreds who will pick a live one and let it die a few moments later in their waist-bands. Fond of flowers indeed! As well call them fond of clothes because they like to be well dressed. The present writer is wearing at this moment a garment in which he has shot, fished, and golfed for the last ten years. He knows every crease and wrinkle in it, and would not change it for the latest production of Bond Street. Is any

woman equally faithful to an old friend out of her wardrobe ? It is true that her dressmaker never gives her the chance by letting her have material that will last a third of the

time. No, she values her dresses, as she values her flowers, or for the matter of that her horses, or her coachman's livery, not for their own intrinsic merits, but as a component part of her own equipage. The un

reasonable affection for his own entourage which man shares with the otherwise objectionable domestic cat is practically unknown to her. He is conservative by nature, and likes the arrangement of his study because it has always been so. She is conservative only in politics, and is never so happy as when effecting a radical change in the position of her drawingroom furniture.

It

On the other hand it is not fair to say that women attach too much importance to their equipage or to the adornment of their person. has pleased Providence, that in the male biped of the genus homo alone fine feathers should not make fine birds. Given a decent tailor to start with and his clothes may drop off his back with age without deteriorating seriously from such beauty as he may possess. Every woman knows, and some confess, that with them good looks depend upon good dressing, and are they to be blamed if they spend time and trouble in searching for a combination that may produce so desirable a result? It is well if they do not array themselves only with this end in view. We have known comely matron who stated thoughtfully, as one who had toiled painfully to an unsuspected truth, "The fact is you should look what the weather is before you dress to go out." But prescience such as this is rare, and would not affect the generality of the

sex.

It is obvious that this desire to do credit to her husband by her personal appearance results in a considerable expenditure of cash, and he is often heard to declare that his wife's bills

She

will land him in the workhouse. is not, however, as a rule willingly extravagant, and in some respects her conduct compares favourably with his own. When a man wants a pair of gloves he takes what the shopman offers, and walks away as a rule without enquiring the price. If it is a ready-money transaction and the cost is greater than he anticipated, he curses his luck but pays the money, resolving to try a cheaper shop in future. He would feel it beneath his dignity to haggle about shillings with a tradesman, or admit that he could wear anything except the best. His wife has no false shame in the matter. "Oh, but 3/6 is rather more than I care to give; can you find me a pair at 2/11?" And a pair at 2/11 is generally forthcoming.

But if by any chance it is a question not of buying but of selling, if they have a house to let, or a dinner service to dispose of through the Exchange and Mart, the assistance of the wife is invaluable. Her sanguine temperament and lively imagination paint the transaction in colours which fill the purchaser with ecstasy, and her husband's mind with awe. It is not for nothing that caveat emptor has become a proverb. Everybody knew that the emptrix could take care of herself. There would be a great future for women in the genteeler walks of commerce could they grapple with the mysteries of book-keeping. "You see, Philip dear, you owe me £2 10s. out of the weekly bills, and I paid Sarah's washing with cook's beer-money because I advanced her 10/- out of my own purse last week to send a post-office order to her mother who is ill, so if you give me a cheque for £2 15s. now it will be all right." Philip does not see, but he has been to Cambridge and is not going to be beaten at mathematics by a woman, so he signs the cheque.

ON one of the beautiful hills that overlook Tokio Bay is the grave of an Englishman who died nearly three hundred years ago in remote Japan, infinitely more remote then than now. When the American squadron of Commodore Perry came knocking at the long closed doors of the Morning Land in 1853, his ships anchored in the very shadow of the pioneer's tomb. Pioneer he truly was, the first man of English race to set foot in the far eastern Empire which since his day has enlisted so many of his countrymen in her service; and to the present time an annual celebration is held in his honour by the people of Anjin Cho, a thoroughfare in Tokio. Anjin, the Japanese word for pilot, was the name by which he was known in his adopted country, where there are those who still claim descent from him; his actual name was William Adams, and Gillingham, near Rochester, had the honour of giving him birth.

He was born into an age and nation, the dominant characteristic of which was enterprise. In commerce, discovery, and, one may add perhaps, piracy, that characteristic had its most striking results, as every reader of Hakluyt and Purchas knows; and Adams was a typical Englishman of his time. It was, however, in the Dutch service that he left Europe, never to return. must then have been an experienced navigator in the prime of life. the age of twelve he had been apprenticed to Nicholas Diggins of Limehouse, who seems both to have built ships and owned them, had afterwards

He

At

served in the Royal Navy as master and pilot, and, later still, had been in the employment of the Company of Barbary Merchants for eleven or twelve years. In 1598, the first ascertainable date in his career, he went over to Holland to act as pilotmajor of a squadron which was being fitted out at Rotterdam for a voyage to the East by the Dutch Company of Merchants, no doubt inspired by the tales told by Linschoten, on his return from these regions, of their immense wealth and the decadence of the Portuguese. The little fleet, consisting of five small vessels overcrowded with men, left the Texel on June 24th under the command of Captain Jacob Mahu or Maihore. Space does not permit an account of the adventurous voyage, described with much vigour by Adams in his correspondence; it lasted nearly two years, the ship in which he sailed anchoring off the feudal principality of Bungo in the island of Kiushiu, Japan, on April 19th, 1600, “at which time," observes Adams, "there were no more than six besides myself that could stand upon his feet."

The natives crowded aboard, but in perfect friendliness, the only drawbacks being that neither party could understand the other, and that the Japanese, with too keen an interest in the strangers' belongings, helped themselves to all they could lay hands on. A day or two later some Portuguese and Spaniards arrived from

1 A pilot-major was a seaman of approved skill and experience who directed the navi. gation of an expeditionary squadron, a post of great responsibility.

Langasacke (which we know now as Nagasaki), who acted as interpreters, and also, Adams tells us, as traitors. They doubtless disliked the idea of this Anglo-Dutch party poaching on what had hitherto been a Spanish and Portuguese preserve, denounced its members as pirates, and incensed the populace against them. The daimyo or feudal lord (Adams calls him king) of Bungo seems, however, to have shown friendliness to the two dozen travel-worn seafarers who had reached his shore, three of whom died soon after landing.

Meanwhile their arrival had come to the ears of the ruler of Japan, Ieyasu. I purposely use the word ruler, for Ieyasu was not emperor, albeit Adams and other old writers call him so, but was at this time only regent, though three years later he was proclaimed Shogun, a position which he had virtually held since his decisive victory at Sekigahara. The real sovereigns, the emperors de facto of Japan from 1192, when Yoritomo received the title of Sei-i Tai Shogun (Barbarian-subjugating-great-general) from the emperor de jure, to the restoration in 1868, were the Shoguns, members of various aristocratic families, Minamoto, Hojo, Ashikaga, Nobunaga, and Tokugawa, Ieyasu being the first Shogun of the last-named dynasty. During almost the whole of this long period the emperors de jure were persons of no account, possessing but the shadow of sovereignty, living a secluded life in their palaces, and being generally murdered at an early age. Ieyasu was probably the greatest Japanese who ever lived. A skilful general, he was still more eminent as statesman and reformer, did much for education and scholarship, took an interest in what he could learn from the few Europeans who found their way to Japan, and left behind him a book of maxims and

reflections on statecraft called THE LEGACY OF IEYASU.

On hearing of the Dutch ship and her crew, he sent for the latter to to come to him, and on their arrival at Osaka, where he was in residence, Adams had an audience in "a wonderful, costly house gilded with gold in abundance." He gave the great man an account of his wanderings, tracing them on a chart, and was asked many questions on whence he had come, his objects in coming, and so forth. To that regarding intentions, "I answered: We were a people that sought all friendship with all nations, and to have trade in all countries, bringing such merchandise as our country did afford into strange lands in the way of traffic." We are not told how this interview was conducted, but it was presumably interpreted by a Portuguese, and he may have malevolently tampered with Adams's words, for Ieyasu was anything but gracious and showed decided scepticism about the chart. For thirty-nine days afterwards Adams was kept a prisoner, and, not unreasonably, had disquieting fears of crucifixion, which, he had learnt, was the customary native method of execution. Meanwhile Portuguese and Spaniard were poisoning the Shogun's mind against him and his comrades. Naturally irritated that those late refractory subjects of theirs, the Dutch, should encroach on their Japanese monopoly, they lost no opportunity of impressing on the Shogun how ill it became him to favour rebels to the authority of His Catholic Majesty. But Ieyasu was not the man to be dictated to by Catholic Majesties thousands of miles distant, and his invariable answer to such appeals was that he denied the right of any foreign power to dictate his attitude to strangers visiting his dominions, that European wars and revolts were