decorated with paintings by a celebrated artist, and the whole interior of the third storey, ceiling, walls, floor, balcony-railing, and projecting rafters, covered with gilding which was thickly applied over varnish composed of lacquer and hone-powder. Traces alone of the gold can now be seen, but the effect when the edifice was in full preservation must have been dazzling. Yoshimasa, who succeeded to the Shōgunate in

1449 and is remembered as Japan's foremost dilettante, erected a Silver Pavilion (Ginkakuji) in imitation of his predecessor's foible, but never carried it to completion. Of Kyoto as it was in his days, at the middle of the fifteenth century, before long years of war reduced it once more to ruins, only a faint conception can be formed from the descriptions of subsequent writers, for they employ adjectives of admiration instead of recording intelligible facts. Here is what one of them says:—