blaming Mr. Kawakami for these alterations, it is evident that he erred on the right side, and that we should thank him for lopping away several excrescences which disfigure the drama of his native land.
"Zingoro, an Earnest Statue Carver," narrates the pretty legend of Pygmalion and Galatea, with the addition of a jealous wife. Galatea is a famous geisha, of whom Zingoro carves a statue and falls in love with his own handiwork. The transformation from wood to womanhood is familiar; one has seen it in "Niobe," in "La Poupée," in "Pygmalion and Galatea," but here it is accomplished by a fanciful piece of satire. "Mirror is the spirit of woman," says the proverb, and the sculptor has merely to slip a kagami into the bosom of his feminine figure, whom vanity at once stirs to life. Zingoro's delighted astonishment and the doll's awakening consciousness are vividly portrayed, culminating in a mimetic dance, in which Galatea copies all her maker's movements. But the climax is reached when the jealous wife enters, and, seeking to reach her rival, is arrested by the simultaneous animation of the God of Thunder, the Carpenter, the Spearman, and the Dwarf, who had up to that moment remained so motionless that most of the audience believed them to be lay-figures. I fancy none but Oriental actors could have achieved this coup de théatre, involving the strain of prolonged muscular tension in attitudes of fantastic violence.
Muscular feats were also prominent, too prominent, in "Kojima Takanori" or "The Loyalist." This historical drama, which should have occupied three hours, and was compressed into half-an-hour, is founded on a famous instance of feudal loyalty. In the beginning of the thirteenth century Yoshitoki, the
