day in his life without reading something. It is related of him that once, when obliged to flee from his house by a great conflagration, he took some books with him in his kago, and continued his work of annotation on the way. The list of his publications comprises one hundred and seventy separate treatises, mostly of a scholastic or moral character. There are also some memoirs useful to the historian, and one hundred and fifty volumes of miscellanies, essays, &c. He held an official position under the Shōgun's Government, by which he was employed in drafting laws, and in giving advice on knotty questions which required learning for their solution. He was the founder of a long line of official Kangakusha which lasted until the downfall of the Shōgunate in 1867.
His son, Hayashi Shunsai (1618–1680) compiled about 1652 a history of Japan entitled Ō-dai-ichi-ran. It is in every respect a very poor production, and is only mentioned here because a translation into French by Klaproth was published by the Oriental Translation Fund in 1835.
Passing over a number of scholars deservedly remembered with gratitude in their own country for their services to learning and good morals, we come to Kaibara Yekken (1630–1714), who was born at Fukuoka, in Chikuzen, of the Daimios of which province his family were hereditary retainers. His father held an official appointment as physician, and Yekken himself acquired some proficiency in the art of medicine. His first teacher was his elder brother, under whose instructions he was weaned of a liking for Buddhism, and devoted himself to the study of the Chinese classics. When he grew up to manhood he went to reside in Kiōto, where he benefited by the instruction of Kinoshita Junan and
