CHAPTER II.
TUDOR TIMES, THE FASHIONS AND THE NOVEL.
I.
One of the most remarkable effects of the Renaissance was the awakeningof a slumbering curiosity. The _regime_ of the Middle Ages was justended; its springs were exhausted, its mysteries unveiled, its terrorsridiculed. Armour was beginning to be thought troublesome; the towers ofthe strong castles, dark and too much confined for the pleasures oflife; the reasonings of the schoolmen had grown old: blind faith wasout of fashion; a world was ending, and all that was sinking with itappeared in the eyes of the young generation, out of season and "tediousas a twice-told tale." The rupture between the Middle Ages and moderntimes was complete in certain countries, partial in others, andconsequently the Renaissance had very different results among thevarious peoples of Europe. But the same characteristic symptoms of aneager, newly awakened curiosity manifested itself in all. There was nolonger question of continuing, but of comparing and of discovering. Whatdid the ancient Greeks and the old Romans say? What do our neighboursthink? What are their forms of style, their recent inventions? Englandcompeted with France in her youthful curiosity, and English poets andtravellers following the example of their rivals beyond the seas,"plundered" (in the words of Joachim du Bellay's famous manifesto[30]),not only Athens and Rome, but Florence, Paris, Venice, and all theenlightened towns of France, Italy, and Spain.
This curiosity spurred on the English in the different paths of humanknowledge and activity with an audacity worthy of the ScandinavianVikings. After having destroyed the Armada, they were going to burn theSpanish fleet at Cadiz, to discover new lands in America and to givethem the name of "Virginia" in honour of their queen, and to attemptthe impossible task of discovering a way to China through the icyregions of the North Pole. The fine gentlemen and the fine wits, eventhe lack-dinner, lack-penny Bohemians of literature crossed the Channel,the Alps, and the Pyrenees, seeking, they too, for gold mines to work,gathering ideas, listening to stories, noting down recent discoveries,and often appropriating the elegant vices and the light morals of thesouthern nations. "An italianized Englishman is a devil incarnate" is apopular proverb which quiet home-keeping men were never tired ofrepeating.
Kindly Ascham who had personally visited Italy, had come back as muchhorrified with the sights he had seen as Luther had been when hereturned from Rome. Of the masterpieces of art, of madonnas and palaceshe has little to say; but he has much to note concerning the loosemorals of the inhabitants. He beseeches his compatriots not to continueto visit this dangerous country: they will meet "Circe" there, and willcertainly greatly enjoy themselves; but, behold, they will come back totheir native land with an ass's head and a swine's belly. In Italy,according to his experience, a man may sin to his heart's content and noone will in any way interfere. He is free to do so, "as it is free inthe citie of London to chose without all blame, whether a man lust toweare shoo or pantocle." Yet he speaks of what he has seen with his owneyes: "I was once in Italie my selfe; but I thanke God my abode therewas but ix dayes. And yet I sawe in that little tyme in one citie morelibertie to sinne than ever I heard tell of in our noble citie of Londonin ix yeare ... The lord maior of London, being but a civill officer,is commonlie for his tyme more diligent in punishing sinne ... than allthe bloodie inquisitors in Italie be in seaven yeare."
When Englishmen come back from Italy they are full of smiles; they havea ready wit, and delight in vain talk. They give up all idea of gettingmarried; love and no marriage is their only wish; they arrangeassignations; they behave most improperly. "They be the greatest makersof love, the daylie daliers, with such pleasant wordes, with suchsmilyng & secret countenances, with such signes, tokens, wagers,purposed to be lost before they were purposed to be made, with bargainesof wearing colours, floures & herbes, to breede occasion of oftenmeeting of him & her & bolder talking of this & that, &c."[31]
According to some, travelling increased, in a certain number ofEnglishmen, the tendency we have already noticed, to feel contempttowards their mother tongue. There are persons, wrote George Pettie in1581, "who will set light by my labours, because I write in English: andthose are some nice travailours who retourne home with such queasiestomachs that nothing will downe with them but French, Italian orSpanish ... They count [our tongue] barren: they count it barbarous:they count it unworthy to be accounted of." The more reason, thinksPettie, to try to polish it; if it is barren it can be enriched byborrowing from other languages, especially the Latin: "It is indeed thereadie waie to inrich our tongue and make it copious; and it is thewaie which all tongues have taken to inrich themselves."[32] Pettie, aswe see, wished Du Bellay's advice to be followed, and Rome to be"plundered."
But Ascham's pleading, though many others spoke to the same effect,[33]had very little result. Learned and well informed as he was, his"conservatism" in all things was so intense that much might be laid tothe account of this tendency of his mind. Had he not written that "hissoul had such an horror of English or Latin books containing newdoctrines that, except the psalter and the New Testament, this last,too, in the Greek text, he had never taken any book, 'either small orbig,' to use Plato's words, concerning Christian religion"?[34] Had henot recommended the bow as, even in those gunpowder times, the bestweapon in war? "If I were of authority, I would counsel all thegentlemen and yeomen of England not to change it with any other thing,how good soever it seems to be; but that still, according to the oldwont of England, youths should use it for the most honest pastime inpeace, that men might handle it as a most sure weapon in war."[35] Theother "strong weapons" must not lead men to forget this one: a thingthey have nevertheless done.
Nothing dismayed by the threat of the dire consequences of Circe'swiles, travellers eager to see her crowded to the south. They continuednot to "exchewe the way to Circes court, but go & ryde & runne & fliethether."[36] No education was complete without a sojourn on thecontinent. Surrey, Wyatt, Sidney, penniless Robert Greene, and hundredsif not thousands of others went there. There was an eagerness to see andto learn that no sight and no knowledge could satisfy, that no threatnor sermon could stop. Paris, Venice, Rome, Vienna, the Low Countries,received an ever-increasing flood of English visitors.
II.
England in her turn, not to mention the classics of antiquity that werebeing speedily translated, was flooded with French, Spanish, and Italianbooks, again to the great dismay of good Ascham. If "Morte d'Arthur" wasbad, nothing worse could well be imagined than Italian books in general."Ten 'Morte d'Arthures' do not the tenth part so much harme as one ofthese bookes made in Italie and translated in England." They are to befound "in every shop in London," and each of them can do more mischiefthan ten sermons at St. Paul's Cross can do good. They introduce intothe land such refinements in vice "as the single head of an Englishmanis not hable to invent."[37]
FRONTISPIECE TO HARINGTON'S TRANSLATION OF ARIOSTO, 1591,BY COXON AND GIROLAMO PORRO.]
But, if unable to invent, the English seemed at least determined toenjoy and imitate, for translating and adapting went on at a marvellouspace. Boccaccio's "Filocopo,"[38] for instance, to speak only of thebetter known of these works, was translated in 1567, his "AmorousFiametta, wherein is sette downe a catalogue of all and singularpassions of love," in 1587; his "Decameron" in 1620. Guazzo's "CivileConversation" was translated in 1586; Tasso's "Amynta" in 1587, and his"Recoverie of Hierusalem" in 1594. Castiglione's "Courtier ... verynecessary and profitable for young gentlemen abiding in court, palace orplace" was published in English in 1588. It was "profitable" in a ratherdifferent sense from the one Ascham would have given the word, for itcontains lengthy precepts concerning assignations and love-making: "Inmy minde, the way which the courtier ought to take, to make his loveknowne to the woman, me think should be to declare them in figures andtokens more than in wordes. For assuredly there is otherwhile a greateraffection of love perceived in a sigh, in a respect, in a feare, than ina thousand wordes. Afterwarde, to make the eyes the trustie messengersthat may carrie the Ambassades of t
he hart."[39] Many heroes in theEnglish novels we shall have to study were apparently well read inCastiglione's "Courtier." Montemayor's Spanish "Diana," a tale ofprinces and shepherds, well known to Sidney, was published in 1598.Ariosto's "Orlando furioso" appeared in 1591, in a magnificentlyillustrated edition, and was dedicated to the Queen. The engravings,though sometimes said to be English, were in fact printed from theItalian plates of Girolamo Porro, of Padua, and had been used before inItaly.[40] Their circulation in England is none the less remarkable,and the influence such a publication may have had in the diffusing ofItalian tastes in this country cannot be exaggerated. For those who hadnot been able to leave their native land, it was the best revelation yetplaced before the public of the art of the Renaissance. That it was animportant undertaking and a rather risky one, the translator, JohnHarington, was well aware; for he prefaced his book not only with hisdedication to the Queen, a sort of thing to which Ascham had had greatobjection,[41] but by a "briefe apologie of poetrie," especially of thatof Ariosto. It must be confessed that his arguments are far fromconvincing, and it would have been much better to have left the thingalone than to have defended the moral purposes of his author by suchobservations as these: "It may be and is by some objected that, althoughhe writes christianly in some places, yet in some other, he is toolascivious.... Alas if this be a fault pardon him this one fault; thoughI doubt too many of you, gentle readers, wil be to exorable in thispoint, yea me thinks I see some of you searching already for thoseplaces of the booke and you are halfe offended that I have not made somedirections that you might finde out and reade them immediately. But Ibeseech you ... to read them as my author ment them, to breeddetestation and not delectation," &c. And he then appends to his book atable, by means of which the gentle readers will have no trouble infinding the objectionable passages enumerated in the "Apologie" itself.
At the same time as translations proper, many imitations were published,especially imitations of those shorter prose stories which were sonumerous on the continent, and which had never been properlyacclimatized in England during the Middle Ages. Their introduction intothis country had a great influence on the further development of thenovel; their success showed that there was a public for such literature;hence the writing of original tales of this sort in English. Amongcollections of foreign tales translated or imitated may be quotedPaynter's "Palace of Pleasure," 1566,[42] containing histories fromBoccaccio, Bandello, Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, Straparole, the SpaniardGuevara, the Queen of Navarre, "and other italian and french authours."One of them is the history of "Rhomeo and Iulietta," from whichShakespeare derived his immortal drama; another tale in the samecollection supplied the plot of "All's Well," and another the mainevents of "Measure for Measure." Then came G. Fenton's "TragicallDiscourses," 1567, finished at Paris and published by the author as thefirst-fruits of his travels; T. Fortescue's "Foreste or collection ofhistories ... done out of French," 1571; George Pettie's "Pettie Pallaceof Pettie his pleasure," 1576; Robert Smyth's "Straunge and tragicallhistories translated out of french," 1577; Barnabe Rich's "Farewell tomilitarie profession," 1584, where Shakespeare found the plot of"Twelfth Night"; G. Whetstone's "Heptameron of civill discourses," 1582;Ed. Grimeston's translation of the "Admirable and memorable histories"of Goulart, 1607, and several others.
Besides such collections many stories were separately translated andwidely circulated. A number have been lost, but some remain, such, forinstance, as "The adventures passed by Master F. I.," adapted byGascoigne from the Italian,[43] or a certain "Hystorie of Hamblet,"1608,[44] which was destined to have great importance in Englishliterature, or the "Goodli history of the ... Ladye Lucres of Scene inTuskane and of her lover Eurialus," a translation from the Latin ofAEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, and one of the most popular novels of thetime. It went through twenty-three editions in the fifteenth century,and was eight times translated, one of the French translations beingmade "a la priere et requeste des dames." A German translation byNicolaus von Wyle is embellished with coloured woodcuts of the mostnaive and amusing description. Three English translations werepublished, one before 1550, another in 1669, and a third in 1741.[45]
THE KNIGHT EURIALUS GETTING SECRETLY INTO HIS LADY-LOVE'SCHAMBER, 1477.]
It is a tale of unlawful love, and tells how Lucrece a married lady ofSienna, fell in love with Eurialus, a knight of the court of the EmperorSigismond. It is, we are told, a story of real life under fictitiousnames. The dialogue is easy, vigorous, and passionate, and thetranslator has well succeeded in transmuting these qualities into hisyet unbroken mother tongue. Here, for instance, Lucrece is discussingwith the faithful Zosias the subject of her love.
"Houlde thy peace quod Lucrece, there is no feare at all. Nothynge hefeareth that feareth not death ...
"Oh! unhappie quod Zosias, thou shalt shame thy house, and onlye of allthy kynne thou shalte be adulteresse. Thinkest thou the deede can besecreate? A thousand eyne are about thee. Thy mother, if shee doaccordinge, shall not suffer thy outrage to be prevye, not thy husbande,not thy cousyns, not thy maidens, ye, and thoughe thy servauntes wouldeholde theyr peace, the bestes would speake it, y^e dogges, the poostesand the marble stones, and thoughe thou hyde all, thou canste not hydeit from God that seeth all ...
"I knowe quod she it is accordinge as thou sayest, but the rage makethme folow the worse. My mynde knoweth howe I fall hedling, but furourhath overcom and reygneth, and over all my thought ruleth love. I amdetermined to folow the commandement of love. Overmuche alas have Iwrestled in vaine; if thou have pytie on me, carye my mesage."[46]
If the German translation was adorned with woodcuts, the English texthad an embellishment of a greater value; it consisted in the conclusionof the tale as altered by the English writer. In the Latin original ofthe future pope, Pius II., Lucrece dies, and Eurialus, having followedthe Emperor back to Germany, mourns for her "till the time when Caesarmarried him to a virgin of a ducal house not less beautiful than chasteand wise," a very commonplace way of mourning for a dead mistress. Thisseemed insufferable to the English translator. Faithful as he isthroughout, he would not take upon himself to alter actual facts, yet hethought right to give a different account of his hero's feelings: "Butlyke as he folowed the Emperoure so dyd Lucres folow hym in hys sleepand suffred hym no nygtes rest, whom when he knew hys true lover to bedeed, meaved by extreme dolour, clothed him in mournynge apparell, andutterly excluded all comforte, and yet though the Emperoure gave hym inmariage a ryghte noble and excellente Ladye, yet he never enjoyed after,but in conclusyon pitifully wasted his painful lyfe."[47]
The greater the display of feeling in such tales of Italian origin, thebitterer were the denunciations of moral censors, and the greater at thesame time their popularity with the public. The quarrel did not abatefor one minute during the whole of the century; the period is filledwith condemnations of novels, dramas and poems, answered by no lessnumerous apologies for the same. The quarrel went on even beyond thecentury, the adverse parties meeting with various success as Cromwellruled or Charles reigned; it can scarcely be said to have ever beenentirely dropped, and the very same arguments used by Ascham against theItalian books of his time are daily resorted to against the French booksof our own age.
Be this as it may, the Italian novels had the better of it inElizabethan times; they were found not only "in every shop," but inevery house; translations of them were the daily reading of Shakespeare,and as they had an immense influence not only in emancipating the geniusof the dramatists of the period, but, what was of equal importance, inpreparing an audience for them, we may be permitted to look at them witha more indulgent eye than the pre-Shakespearean moralists.
A curious list of books, belonging during this same period (1575) to aman of the lower middle class, an average member of a Shakespeareanaudience, has been preserved for us. It is to be found in a very quaintaccount of the Kenilworth festivities, sent by Robert Laneham, a Londonmercer, to a brother mercer of the same city. Laneham states how anacquaintance of his, Captain Cox, a
mason by trade, had in hispossession, not only "Kyng Arthurz book, Huon of Burdeaus, The fooursuns of Aymon, Bevis of Hampton," and many of those popular romances,illustrated with woodcuts of which a few specimens are to be seen above,but also, mason as he was, the very same Italian book, the "Lucres andEurialus," of which we have just given an account.[48]
With the diffusion of these small handy volumes of tales of all kinds,from all countries, a quite modern sort of literature, a literature fortravellers, was being set on foot. Manuscript books did not easily lendthemselves to be carried about; but it was otherwise with the printedpamphlets. Authors began to recommend their productions as convenienttravelling companions, very much in the same manner as the publishersrecommend them now as suitable to be taken to the Alps or to theseaside. Paynter, for example, who circulated in England from the year1566 his collection of tales translated or imitated from Boccaccio andBandello, Apuleius and Xenophon, the Queen of Navarre, and BonaventureDesperriers, Belleforest and Froissart, Guevara and many others, assureshis reader that: "Pleasaunt they be for that they recreate, and refresheweried mindes defatigated either with painefull travaile or withcontinuall care, occasioning them to shunne and to avoid heavinesse ofminde, vaine fantasies and idle cogitations. Pleasaunt so well abroad asat home, to avoide the griefe of winters night and length of sommersday, which the travailers on foote may use for a staye to ease theirweried bodye, and the journeours on horsback, for a chariot or lessepainful meane of travaile in steade of a merie companion to shorten thetedious toyle of wearie wayes."[49]
It is pleasant to think of Shakespeare in some journey from Stratford toLondon, sitting under a tree, and in order to forget "the tedious toyleof wearie wayes," taking out of his pocket Paynter's book to dream offuture Romeos and possible Helenas.
III.
The Italian and French languages were held in great honour; both weretaught at Oxford and Cambridge; the latter especially was of common usein England, and this peculiarity attracted the notice of foreigners. "Asregards their manners and mode of living, ornaments, garments andvestments," writes the Greek Nicander Nucius, in 1545, "they resemblethe French more than others, and, for the most part, they use theirlanguage."[50] But besides these elegant languages, Greek and Latin werebecoming courtly. They were taught in the schools and out of theschools; the nobles, following the example of King Henry VIII. and hischildren, made a parade of their knowledge. Ignorance was no longer thefashion, no more than the old towers without windows. The grave Erasmuswent to hear Colet, the Dean of St. Paul's, and "he thought he washearing Plato"; Sir T. More, according to Erasmus, is the "sweetest,softest, happiest genius nature has ever shaped." In a word, "literatureis triumphant among the English. The king himself, the two cardinals,almost all the bishops, favour with all their soul and adornLetters."[51] To learn Greek and Latin was to move with the times and tofollow the fashion. "All men," says Ascham, less displeased with thisnovelty than with the travelling propensities of his compatriots,"covet to have their children speake latin"; and "Sophocles andEuripides are more familiar now here than Plautus was formerly."[52]Dazzled by what he saw and heard, Erasmus was announcing to the world inenthusiastic letters that "the golden age" was to be born again in thisfortunate island.[53] His only regret was that he would perhaps not livelong enough to see it. Well might he regret it, even though it were notto follow exactly as he had foreseen; for the golden apple of the goldenage was not to be plucked in the Greek Hesperides' garden, but in aplain Warwickshire orchard: nor was it the less golden.
This fermentation of mind lasted for more than a century; lives wereoften shortened by it, but they had been doubly well filled. From thisrestless curiosity, bent towards past ages and foreign countries,towards everything that was remote, unknown and different, came thatstriking appearance of omniscience and universality, and that prodigiouswealth of imagery, allusions and ideas of every kind that are to befound in all the authors of that time, small as well as great, and whichunites in one common bond Rabelais and Shakespeare, Cervantes and Sidneyand the "master of the enchanters of the ear," Ronsard.
When the armour, worn less often, began to grow rusty in the greathalls, and the nobles, coming forth from their coats-of-mail like thebutterfly from the chrysalis, showed themselves all glistening in silk,pearls in their ears, their heads full of Italian madrigals andmythological similes, a new society was formed, salons of a kind wereorganized, and the role of the women was enlarged. English mediaevaltimes had been by no means sparing of compliments to them. But there isa great difference between celebrating in verse fair, slim-neckedladies, and writing books expressly for them: and it is one of thepoints in which, during the Middle Ages and even until the middle of thesixteenth century, England differed from the nations of the south. InEngland no Lady Oisille had gathered round her in the depth of greenvalleys tellers of amorous stories; no thickly-shaded parks had seenFiammettas or Philomenas listening to all kinds of narratives, forgetfulof the actual world and its sorrows. The only group of story-tellers,bound together by a true artist's fancy, Chaucer's pilgrims, had riddenin broad daylight on the high road to Canterbury, led by Harry Bailly,the jovial innkeeper of Southwark, a blustering, red-faced dictator, whohad regulated the pace of the nags, and silenced the tedious babblers:very different in all things from Fiammetta and the Lady Oisille.
Under the influence of Italy, France and mythology, the England of theTudors, changed all that. Women appeared in the foreground: a movementof general curiosity animated the age, and they participated in it quitenaturally. They will become learned, if necessary, rather than remain inthe shade; they will no longer rest contented with permission to readbooks written for their fathers, brothers, lovers, or husbands; somemust be written especially on their account, consulting theirpreferences and personal caprices; and they had good reason to command:one of them sat on the throne.
They, too, began to read Greek, Latin, Italian and French; knowledge wasso much the fashion that it extended to women. Here Ascham bearstestimony in their favour; the Queen herself gives the example: "Shereadeth now at Windsore more Greeke every day than some prebendarie ofthis chirch doth read Latin in a wole weeke."[54] In this she hasinnumerable imitators, so much so that Harrison sums up as follows hisjudgment concerning English ladies: "To saie how many gentlewomen andladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latintoongs are thereto no lesse skilfull in the Spanish, Italian and Frenchor in some one of them, it resteth not in me."[55]
It must not be believed, however, that so much Greek and Latin in anyway imperilled the grace and ease of their manners, or that when you metthem you would be welcomed with a quotation from Plato and dismissedwith a verse from Virgil. Far from it. It was the custom at that timewith English ladies to greet their friends and relations, and evenstrangers, with kisses, and strange as it may appear to our modernideas, accustomed as we are to stare in amazement at such practices whenby any chance we observe them in southern countries, the custom was sostrikingly prevalent in England that travellers noticed it as one ofthe strange sights of the land; grave Erasmus cynically calls it one ofits attractions. "This custom," says he, "will never be praisedenough."[56] The above-named Nicander Nucius, of Corcyra, who came toEngland some fifty years later, notices the same habit as a great localcuriosity. According to him, the English "display great simplicity andabsence of jealousy in their usages towards females. For not only dothose who are of the same family and household kiss them ... withsalutations and embraces, but even those, too, who have never seen them.And to themselves this appears by no means indecent."[57] The very Queenherself, even in the middle of the most imposing ceremonies, could nothelp indulging in familiarities contrary to our ideas of decorum, butquite in accordance with the freedom of manners then prevalent. SirJames Melville relates in his memoirs how he was present when RobertDudley was made "Earl of Leicester and baron of Denbigh; which was doneat Westminster with great solemnity, the Queen herself helping to put onhis ceremonial, he sitting upon his knees before he
r with a greatgravity. But she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck,smilingly tickling him, the French Ambassadour and I standing by. Thenshe turned, asking at me, 'how I liked him?'"[58]
The earliest attempts at the novel in the modern style bore aresemblance to these social and intellectual manners. Let us not besurprised if these works are too heavily bedizened for our liking: thetoilettes and fashions of that time were less sober than those ofto-day; it was the same with literature. Queen Elizabeth, who was whollyrepresentative of her age, and shared even its follies, liked andencouraged finery in everything. All that was ornament and pageantryheld her favour; in spite of public affairs, she remained all her lifethe most feminine of women; on her gowns, in her palaces, with herpoets, she liked to find ornaments and embellishments in profusion. Thelearned queen who read Plutarch in Greek, a thing Shakespeare couldnever do, and translated Boetius into English,[59] found, in spite ofher philosophy, an immense delight in having herself painted infantastic costumes, her thin person hidden in a silken sheath, coveredby a light gauze, over which birds ran. Around her was a perpetual fieldof cloth of gold, and the nobles sold their lands in order to appear atCourt sufficiently embroidered. She liked nothing better than to hearand take part in conversations on dresses and fashions. This was so wellknown, that when Mary, Queen of Scots, sent the same Sir James Melvilleon his mission to the English Court, in 1564, she was careful to advisehim not to forget such means to propitiate her "dear sister." Theaccount left by Melville of the way in which he carried into effect thispart of his instructions is highly characteristic of the times, andgives an idea of the way in which a courtly conversation was thenconducted:
"The Queen my mistress," says Melville, in his "Memoires," "hadinstructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merrypurposes, lest otherwise I should be wearied [wearying], she being wellinformed of that queens natural temper. Therefore in declaring myobservations of the customs of Dutchland, Poland and Italy, the buskinsof the women was not forgot, and what countrey weed I thought bestbecoming gentlewomen. The Queen said she had cloths of every sort, whichevery day thereafter, so long as I was there, she changed. One day shehad the English weed, another the French, and another the Italian and soforth.
"She asked me which of them became her best?
"I answered, in my judgment the Italian dress, which answer I foundpleased her well, for she delighted to shew her golden coloured hair,wearing a caul and bonnet as they do in Italy. Her hair was more reddishthan yellow, curled in appearance naturally.
"She desired to know of me what colour of hair was reputed best, andwhich of them two was fairest.
"I answered the fairness of them both was not their worst faults.
"But she was earnest with me to declare which of them I judged fairest?
"I said she was the fairest Queen of England, and mine the fairest Queenof Scotland.
"Yet she appeared earnest.
"I answered they were both the fairest Ladies in their countries; thatHer Majesty was whiter, but my Queen was very lovely.
"She inquired which of them was of highest stature?
"I said my Queen.
"Then saith she, she is too high, for I, my self, am neither too highnor too low. Then she asked what kind of exercise she used?
"I answered that when I received my dispatch, the Queen was lately comefrom the High-land hunting. That when her more serious affairspermitted, she was taken up with reading of histories; that sometimesshe recreated her self in playing upon the lute and virginals.
"She asked if she played well? I said reasonably, for a Queen.
"That same day after dinner my Lord of Hunsdean drew me up to a quietgallery, that I might hear some musick, but he said that he durst notavow it, where I might hear the Queen play upon the virginals. After Ihad hearkned a while, I took up the tapistry that hung before the doorof the chamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, I enteredwithin the chamber, and stood a pretty space hearing her playexcellently well, but she left off immediately, so soon as she turnedher about and saw me. She appeared to be surprized to see me, and cameforward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alledging she used not toplay before men, but when she was solitary to shun melancholly."
Fortunately she does not strike the ambassador, and is easily pacified.She wants to dazzle him also with her knowledge of languages:
"She said my French was good, and asked if I could speak Italian whichshe spoke reasonably well.... Then she spake to me in Dutch [_i.e._,German], which was not good; and would know what kind of books I mostdelighted in, whether theology, history, or love matters." She managesto keep Melville two days longer than he had intended to stay "till Imight see her dance, as I was afterward informed. Which being over, sheinquired of me whether she or my Queen danced best? I answered the Queendanced not so high and disposedly as she did."
This woman, nevertheless, with so many frailties and ultra-femininevanities, was a sovereign with a will and a purpose. Even in the midstof this talk about buskins, love-books and virginals, it shone out. Somuch so, that hearing she is resolved not to marry, the Scottishambassador immediately retorts in somewhat blunt fashion: "I know thetruth of that, madam, said I, and you need not tell it me. Your Majestythinks if you were married, you would be but Queen of England, and nowyou are both King and Queen. I know your spirit cannot endure acommander."[60]
The same singular combination may be observed in the literary works ofher time: flowers of speech and vanities abound, but they are notwithout an aim. Rarely was any sovereign so completely emblematic of hisor her period. She may almost be said to be the key to it; and it may bevery well asserted that whatever the branch of art or literature of thisepoch you wish to understand, you must first study Elizabeth.
Her taste for finery and jewels remained to the last. Hentzner, aGerman, who saw her many years after Melville, describes her coming outof her chapel at Greenwich Palace, in 1598. She has greatly altered; sheis no longer the young princess that would publicly forget etiquette atWestminster for the sake of Robert Dudley; but she still glitters withjewels and ornaments. "Next came the Queen, in the sixty-fifth year ofher age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, butwrinkled, her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a littlehooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black.... She had in her ears twopearls, with very rich drops; she wore false hair and that red; upon herhead she had a small crown.... Her bosom was uncovered as all theEnglish ladies have till they marry, and she had on a necklace ofexceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her fingers long, and herstature neither tall nor low; her air was stately, her manner ofspeaking kind and obliging. That day she was dressed in white silk,bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of blacksilk, shot with silver threads ... Instead of a chain, she had an oblongcollar of gold and jewels."[61]
QUEEN CLEOPATRA, AS REPRESENTED ON THE ENGLISH STAGE INTHE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]
These descriptions of her by Melville and Hentzner are supplemented, inhighly characteristic fashion, not only by such fancy portraits as theone alluded to before, where she is represented as a shepherdess, anymph, an imaginary being from Arcady, from mythology, or from nowhere,but by such grave, dignified, official portraitures as the very fineengraving left by Rogers. Round the sharp-featured face, with closed,wilful lips, weary eyes, open, intelligent forehead, lace ruffs ofvarious shapes, some very bushy, some quite flat and round-shaped likebutterfly wings, are displayed in most imposing array. No imaginablekind of gum or starch could keep them straight; they were spread on ironwires. The gown itself, of cylindric shape, expanded by means of afarthingale, is covered with knobs, knots, pearls, ribbons, fringes, andornaments of all sorts. Well does this figure deserve the attention ofthe student of Shakespeare, for in this and no other fashion wasCleopatra, the Egyptian queen, dressed, when she appeared on the boardsof the Globe Theatre. Never did the author of "Antony" dream ofDenderah's temple, and of the soft, voluptuous face, peacock-covered,representing
there Isis-Cleopatra; but he dressed his Egyptian queen asthe queen he had known had been dressed, and it was in the costumes ofRogers' engraving, and most appropriately too, that the Cleopatra of theGlobe was heard to make the remarkable proposal, "Let's tobilliards."[62]
Does this seem very strange or in any way incredible? But we mustremember that many years, nay, several centuries, were to elapse beforeanything like historical accuracy was to affect dresses on the stage.Another Cleopatra trod the boards of the English theatre in theeighteenth century; she was very different from her Elizabethan eldersister; she wore _paniers_ and a Louis XV. wig, and, as may be seen inour engraving, came in no way nearer the model at Denderah.
SKETCHES MADE BY INIGO JONES IN ITALY.]
INIGO JONES'S PERSIANS STANDING AS CARYATIDES.]
The architecture of this period corresponded with the richness and pompof the costumes. A new style, partly from Italy, partly from dreamland,was introduced into England during the Tudor and early Jacobean times.There was lace, and knots and knobs and curious holes, pillars, andpilasters. The sincerest admirers of antiquity, such as Inigo Jones, whowent to Italy with such good purpose, and there filled his albums withmany exquisite sketches of antique and Renaissance masterpieces,[63]could not refrain from sometimes introducing Arcady and dreamland intotheir architecture. Inigo Jones died before finishing his Whitehallpalace, and we know from his drawings that he intended to embellish thecentral circular court with a row of gigantic caryatides representingPersians, six or seven yards high.[64] A contriver of masks for theCourt, Inigo Jones, was in this way tempted to build palaces, if one maysay so, in _mask-style_. Such houses as Audley End, Hatfield, andespecially Burghley, this last being mostly Elizabethan,[65] areexcellent representations of the architectural tastes of the time; thethick windowless towers of a former age are replaced by palatialfacades, where countless enormous windows occupy more space in the wallthan the bricks and stones themselves. Not a few people of aconservative turn of mind were heard to grumble at these novelties: "Andalbeit," said Harrison, in 1577, at the very time when Lord Burghley wasbusy building his house in Northamptonshire, "that in these daies therebe manie goodlie houses erected in the sundrie quarters of this Iland;yet they are rather curious to the eie, _like paper worke_ thansubstantiall for continuance; whereas such as he [Henry VIII.] did setup, excel in both and therefore may justlie be preferred farre above allthe rest." But notwithstanding such a threatening prophecy neither atBurghley nor at Hatfield has the "paper worke" put there been yet blownaway by storm or time, and these houses continue to afford a saferesidence to the descendants of the Cecils. According to Harrison'sjudgment the interior of the new houses, no less than the exterior,testified to a decadence: "Now have we manie chimnies; and yet ourtenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs and poses. Then had we nonebut reredosses; and our heads did never ake. For as the smoke in thosedaies was supposed to be a sufficient hardening of the timber of thehouse, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman andhis familie from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then verie few wereacquainted."[66]
But Harrison's blame does not seem to have greatly affected the tastefor chimneys, any more than his sinister prophecies concerningElizabethan houses have been fulfilled; chimneys have continued, andpaper-work houses remain still to help us if need be to understand thepoetry, the drama, and the novel of the period.
VIRGO.]
FOOTNOTES:
[30] "La doncques, Francoys, marchez couraigeusement vers ceste superbecite romaine; & des serves depouilles d'elle, comme vous avez fait plusd'une fois, ornez vos temples & autelz.... Pillez moi sans conscienceles sacrez thesors de ce temple Delphique ... Vous souvienne de vostreancienne Marseille, secondes Athenes!" ("La Deffense et illustration dela 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 waspublished by his widow.
[32] Preface dated 1581 to "Civile Conversation," London, 1586, 4to.
[33] The novelist Greene, for example, and the novelist Lyly. The latterwrites in his "Euphues," 1579: "Let not your mindes be caryed away withvaine delights, as with travailing into farre & straunge countries, wheryou shal see more wickednesse then learn vertue & wit" (Arber's reprint,1868, p. 152). As for Greene, see _infra_, chap. iv. One of the mostcurious of these denunciations of travel was the "Quo vadis? a justecensure of travel," by Bishop Joseph Hall, 1617, 12mo. The authordemonstrates that most of the vices of the English are of foreignimportation, chiefly from France and Italy; good qualities alone arenative 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 noble personages ... intituledPhilocopo ... englished by H. G[ifford?]," London, 1567, 4to; "AmorousFiametta, wherein is sette downe a catalogue of all & singular passionsof love and jealosie incident to an enamoured yong gentlewoman ... doneinto English by B. Giovano [_i.e._, B. Young]," London, 1587; "TheDecameron, 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 AbrahamFraunce, London, 1587, 4to; "Godfray of Bulloigne, or the recoverie ofHierusalem ... translated by R. C[arew] ... imprinted in bothlanguages," 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 byB. Yong," London, 1598, fol. Among other translations three of the mostimportant were Lord Berners' "Froysshart," "translated out of Frencheinto our maternall Englysshe tonge," 1522, North's translation ofPlutarch after the French of Amyot (1579), and Florio's translation ofMontaigne, 1603, fol., which were well known to the dramatists, and wentthrough several editions. The British Museum possesses a copy ofFlorio's Montaigne, which was the property of Ben Jonson. A far moresatisfactory 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: "OrlandoFurioso ... novamente adornato di Figure di Rame da Girolamo PorroPadouano," Venice, 1588, 4to. There is, however, a difference in thefrontispiece, where the allegorical figure of Peace is replaced in theEnglish edition by a portrait of Harington, engraved by Thomas Coxon,who signed as if the whole frontispiece was by his hand. We give areduced fac-simile of this frontispiece.
[41] He had written in his "Scholemaster": These "fond books" are"dedicated over boldlie to vertuous and honourable personages, theeaselier to beguile simple and innocent wittes. It is pitie that thosewhich have authority and charge to allow and dissallow bookes to beprinted, be no more circumspect herein than they are." (Arber's reprint,p. 79).
[42] Old Style. The dedication is dated: "Nere the Tower of London thefirst of Januarie 1566."
[43] First published in Gascoigne's "Hundreth sundrie flowres bound upin one small poesie," London, 1572, 4to.
[44] Translated from the French of Belleforest, who had himselftranslated it from Bandello. Though the date of the only known editionof the story in English is later than the production of "Hamlet," itseems 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 LadyLucrece.
[46] _Ut supra_, p. 119.
[47] Here is Piccolomini's text: "Sed ut ips
e Caesarem, sic eum Lucretiasequebatur in somnis, nullamque noctem sibi quietam permittebat. Quam utobiisse verus amator cognovit, magno dolore permotus, lugubrem vestemrecepit; nec consolationem admisit, nisi postquam Caesar ex ducalosanguine virginem sibi cum formosam tum castissimam atque prudentemmatrimonio junxit." The French translator did not alter this end. Itwill be remembered that the conclusion of Chaucer's "Troilus" comparesin the same way with Boccaccio's and with the French translator's,Pierre de Beauveau.
[48] "Captain Cox, 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 ofthe "Pastor Fido" of Guarini in the original, London, 1591, 12mo.
[51] "Epistolarum ... libri xxxi.," 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 fortassisnon continget frui, quippe qui jam ad fabulae meae catastrophem accedam"(Letter to Henry of Guildford, May, 1519, "Epistolarum ... libri xxxi.,"London, 1642, fol., col. 368)
[54] "The Scholemaster," p. 21.
[55] "Description of Britaine," 1577, ed. Furnivall, New ShakspereSociety, part i, p. 271.
[56] "Est praeterea mos nunquam satis laudatus. Sive quo venias omniumosculis exciperis; sive discedas aliquo, osculis dimitteris; redis,redduntur suavia ... denique quocumque te moveas, suaviorum plena suntomnia" ("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 in1545-6.
[58] "The Memoires of Sir James Melvil, of Hal-hill," ed. G. Scott.London, 1683, fol. p. 47.
[59] The autograph manuscript of her translations, which comprise a partof the works of Plutarch, Horace and Boetius, was found in 1883, at theRecord 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 ofRogers' engraving, see Frontispiece of this volume.
[63] An album of sketches of this sort, made by Inigo Jones while inItaly, 1614, was reproduced in fac-simile by the care of the Duke ofDevonshire, London, 1832. See also drawings, by the same, for sceneryand costumes in masks in the "Portfolio," May, June, and July, 1889,three articles by Mr. R. T. Blomfield. Isaac Oliver the famousElizabethan miniature painter, has left also drawings, one of which isreproduced at the head of this chapter, testifying to his careful studyof 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 givea reproduction of the caryatides.
[65] It was built on the plans, as is supposed, of J. Thorpe, possiblywith the help of the Italian John of Padua. Above one of the doors ofthe inner court is the date 1577; the clock tower is dated 1585; see theengraving p. 69. Hatfield bears on its facade the date 1611. Audley Endwas built 1603-1616.
[66] "Description of Britaine," ed. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society,part i. pp. 268 and 338.
A DRAGON, ACCORDING TO TOPSELL, 1608.]