in that each is so laid out that the distant natural scenery appears a part of it, giving the effect of unlimited expanse. Although the actual size of a garden may be but a small fraction of an acre, it is so constructed as to appear to extend to the distant hills.”
Other great exponents of Cha-no-yu (‘Tea Ceremony’) became, because of the bearing of the one on the other, the veritable dictators of the art. Enshiu and Sen-no-Rikiu were the most famous. The latter is named with the great general patron of all the arts, Hideyoshi, for whom he designed many gardens, and who made him in return an abbot. However, even in Japan, the favour of princes is not to be depended on, for the poor man ended by having to commit Hara-kiri, when he was over seventy years of age. Sen-no-Rikiu’s mandates have become law, but, as they are rules founded on common sense, as well as informed by poetical and ethical sentiment, they have deservedly been long-lived.
Kobori Enshiu has left many gardens to carry on his fame that, even in their present state of comparative neglect, are lovely as a poet’s dream. The Konchi-in gardens of the Nanzenji Temple, the Kodaiji Temple grounds, and a part of the old Awata Palace, all in Kyoto, may be named as beautiful monuments of his artistic genius. The first is said by the
