The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare Part 4

[30] "La doncques, Francoys, marchez couraigeus.e.m.e.nt vers ceste superbe cite romaine; & des serves depouilles d'elle, comme vous avez fait plus d'une fois, ornez vos temples & autelz.... Pillez moi sans conscience les sacrez thesors de ce temple Delphique ... Vous souvienne de vostre ancienne Ma.r.s.eille, secondes Athenes!" ("La Deffense et ill.u.s.tration de la langue Francoyse," 1549).

[31] "The Scholemaster," London, 1570, 4to, p. 26; Arber's reprint, 1870, 4to, pp. 83, _et seq._ Ascham had died in 1568; this work was published by his widow.

[32] Preface dated 1581 to "Civile Conversation," London, 1586, 4to.

[33] The novelist Greene, for example, and the novelist Lyly. The latter writes in his "Euphues," 1579: "Let not your mindes be caryed away with vaine delights, as with travailing into farre & straunge countries, wher you shal see more wickednesse then learn vertue & wit" (Arber's reprint, 1868, p. 152). As for Greene, see _infra_, chap. iv. One of the most curious of these denunciations of travel was the "Quo vadis? a juste censure of travel," by Bishop Joseph Hall, 1617, 12mo. The author demonstrates that most of the vices of the English are of foreign importation, chiefly from France and Italy; good qualities alone are native and national. The best thing to do, then, is to keep at home.

[34] Letter (in Latin) to the Archbishop of York, 1544. "Works," ed.

Giles, London, 1865, 4 vol. 16mo, vol. i. p. 35.

[35] "Toxophilus," 1545, in "Works," ed. Giles, vol. ii. p. 5.

[36] "Scholemaster," 1570, Arber's reprint, p. 77.

[37] "The Scholemaster," Arber's reprint, pp. 79, 80.

[38] "A pleasant disport of divers n.o.ble personages ... int.i.tuled Philocopo ... englished by H. G[ifford?]," London, 1567, 4to; "Amorous Fiametta, wherein is sette downe a catalogue of all & singular pa.s.sions of love and jealosie incident to an enamoured yong gentlewoman ... done into English by B. Giovano [_i.e._, B. Young]," London, 1587; "The Decameron, containing an hundred pleasant novels," London, 1620, fol.

(with woodcuts); "The Civile Conversation ... translated ... by G.

Pettie ... and B. Yong," London, 1586, 4to; "The lamentations of Amyntas ... translated out of latine into english hexameters," by Abraham Fraunce, London, 1587, 4to; "G.o.dfray of Bulloigne, or the recoverie of Hierusalem ... translated by R. C[arew] ... imprinted in both languages," London, 1594; "The courtier of Count Baldesar Castillo ...

done into English by Th. Hobby," London, 1588, 8vo (contains an Italian, English and French text); "Diana of George of Montemayor, translated by B. Yong," London, 1598, fol. Among other translations three of the most important were Lord Berners' "Froysshart," "translated out of Frenche into our maternall Englysshe tonge," 1522, North's translation of Plutarch after the French of Amyot (1579), and Florio's translation of Montaigne, 1603, fol., which were well known to the dramatists, and went through several editions. The British Museum possesses a copy of Florio's Montaigne, which was the property of Ben Jonson. A far more satisfactory translation of the same author was made by Cotton, 1685-6, 3 vol. 8vo.

[39] Sig. F. f. 1.

[40] "Orlando Furioso, in English heroical verse," by John Harington, London, 1591, fol. The plates were used in the Italian edition: "Orlando Furioso ... novamente adornato di Figure di Rame da Girolamo Porro Padouano," Venice, 1588, 4to. There is, however, a difference in the frontispiece, where the allegorical figure of Peace is replaced in the English edition by a portrait of Harington, engraved by Thomas c.o.xon, who signed as if the whole frontispiece was by his hand. We give a reduced fac-simile of this frontispiece.

[41] He had written in his "Scholemaster": These "fond books" are "dedicated over boldlie to vertuous and honourable personages, the easelier to beguile simple and innocent wittes. It is pitie that those which have authority and charge to allow and dissallow bookes to be printed, be no more circ.u.mspect herein than they are." (Arber's reprint, p. 79).

[42] Old Style. The dedication is dated: "Nere the Tower of London the first of Januarie 1566."

[43] First published in Gascoigne's "Hundreth sundrie flowres bound up in one small poesie," London, 1572, 4to.

[44] Translated from the French of Belleforest, who had himself translated it from Bandello. Though the date of the only known edition of the story in English is later than the production of "Hamlet," it seems to have been known before, and to have been used by Shakespeare.

See Furnivall's "Leopold Shakspere," p. lxix.

[45] "The historie of ... Plasidas and other rare pieces," ed. H. H.

Gibbs, Roxburghe Club, London, 1873, 4to. One of these "pieces,"

prefaced with an important introduction, is the "Goodli history" of Lady Lucrece.

[46] _Ut supra_, p. 119.

[47] Here is Piccolomini's text: "Sed ut ipse Caesarem, sic eum Lucretia sequebatur in somnis, nullamque noctem sibi quietam permittebat. Quam ut obiisse verus amator cognovit, magno dolore permotus, lugubrem vestem recepit; nec consolationem admisit, nisi postquam Caesar ex ducalo sanguine virginem sibi c.u.m formosam tum castissimam atque prudentem matrimonio junxit." The French translator did not alter this end. It will be remembered that the conclusion of Chaucer's "Troilus" compares in the same way with Boccaccio's and with the French translator's, Pierre de Beauveau.

[48] "Captain c.o.x, his ballads and books, or Robert Laneham's Letter ...

1575," ed. F. J. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1871, 8vo, p. 29.

[49] Epistle to the reader, prefacing the "Palace of Pleasure."

[50] That there was also in London a public for Italian books is shown, among many other proofs, by the early publication thereof an edition of the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini in the original, London, 1591, 12mo.

[51] "Epistolarum ... libri x.x.xi.," London, 1642, fol., col. 308, 533, 364, &c. A.D. 1497 and 1519.

[52] "The Scholemaster," p. 2, and Letter to Brandesby (in Latin), 1542-3; "Works," ed. Giles, tom. i. p. 25.

[53] "Equidem aureum quoddam seculum exoriri video, quo mihi forta.s.sis non continget frui, quippe qui jam ad fabulae meae catastrophem accedam"

(Letter to Henry of Guildford, May, 1519, "Epistolarum ... libri x.x.xi.,"

London, 1642, fol., col. 368)

[54] "The Scholemaster," p. 21.

[55] "Description of Britaine," 1577, ed. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, part i, p. 271.

[56] "Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Sive quo venias omnium osculis exciperis; sive discedas aliquo, osculis dimitteris; redis, redduntur suavia ... denique quoc.u.mque te moveas, suaviorum plena sunt omnia" ("Epistolarum ... libri.," London, 1642, col. 315, A.D. 1499).

[57] "The second book of the travels of Nicander Nucius," ed. Cramer, London, Camden Society, 1841, 4to, p. 10. Nucius resided in England in 1545-6.

[58] "The Memoires of Sir James Melvil, of Hal-hill," ed. G. Scott.

London, 1683, fol. p. 47.

[59] The autograph ma.n.u.script of her translations, which comprise a part of the works of Plutarch, Horace and Boetius, was found in 1883, at the Record Office.

[60] "Memoires," London, 1683, pp. 49 _et seq._

[61] "Travels in England," ed. H. Morley, London, 1889, p. 47.

[62] "Antony and Cleopatra," act ii. sc. 5. As for a reproduction of Rogers' engraving, see Frontispiece of this volume.

[63] An alb.u.m of sketches of this sort, made by Inigo Jones while in Italy, 1614, was reproduced in fac-simile by the care of the Duke of Devonshire, London, 1832. See also drawings, by the same, for scenery and costumes in masks in the "Portfolio," May, June, and July, 1889, three articles by Mr. R. T. Blomfield. Isaac Oliver the famous Elizabethan miniature painter, has left also drawings, one of which is reproduced at the head of this chapter, testifying to his careful study of Italian models.

[64] A view of this court, with the caryatides, is to be seen in W.

Kent, "The Designs of Inigo Jones," London, 1835, two vol. fol. We give a reproduction of the caryatides.

[65] It was built on the plans, as is supposed, of J. Thorpe, possibly with the help of the Italian John of Padua. Above one of the doors of the inner court is the date 1577; the clock tower is dated 1585; see the engraving p. 69. Hatfield bears on its facade the date 1611. Audley End was built 1603-1616.

[66] "Description of Britaine," ed. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, part i. pp. 268 and 338.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DRAGON, ACCORDING TO TOPSELL, 1608.]

CHAPTER III.

LYLY AND HIS "EUPHUES."

I.

The romance which, at this period, received a new life, and was to come nearer to our novels than anything that had gone before, has many traits in common with the fanciful style of the architecture, costume, and conversation described above. What have we to do, thought men, with things practical, convenient, or of ordinary use? We wish for nothing but what is brilliant, unexpected, extraordinary. What is the good of setting down in writing the incidents of commonplace lives? Are they not sufficiently known to us? does not their triviality sadden us enough every day? If we are told stories of imaginary lives, let them at least be dissimilar from our own; let them offer unforeseen incidents; let the author be free to turn aside from reality provided that he leaves the trivial and the ordinary. Let him lead us to Verona, Athens, into Arcadia, where he will, but as far as possible from Fleet Street! And if by ill-luck he sets foot in Fleet Street, let him at least speak the language of Arcadia!