Chapter XVI (2)

34. A superior writer to Webbe was George Puttenham, whose “Art of English Poesie,” published in 1589, is a small quarto of 258 pages in three books. It is in many parts very well written, in a measured prose, rather elaborate and diffuse. He quotes occasionally a little Greek. Among the contemporary English poets, Puttenham extols “for eclogue and pastoral poetry Sir Philip Sydney and Master Chaloner, and that other gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd’s Kalendar. For ditty and amorous ode I find Sir Walter Rawleigh’s vein most lofty, _insolent_, [bold? or uncommon?] and passionate; Master Edward Dyer for elegy most sweet, solemn, and of high conceit; Gascon [Gascoyne] for a good metre and for a plentiful vein; Phaer and Golding for a learned and well connected verse, specially in translation, clear, and very faithfully answering their author’s intent. Others have also written with much facility, but more commendably perhaps, if they had not written so much nor so popularly. But last in recital and first in degree is the queen our sovereign lady, whose learned, delicate, noble muse easily surmounteth all the rest that have written before her time or since, for sense, sweetness, and subtilty, be it in ode, elegy, epigram, or any other kind of poem, heroic or lyric, wherein it shall please her majesty to employ her pen, even by so much odds as her own excellent estate and degree exceedeth all the rest of her most humble vassals.”[1333] On this it may be remarked, that the only specimen of Elizabeth’s poetry which, as far as I know, remains, is prodigiously bad.[1334] In some passages of Puttenham, we find an approach to the higher province of philosophical criticism.

[1333] Puttenham, p. 51. of Haslewood’s edition, or in Censura
Literaria, i. 348.

[1334] Ellis’s Specimens, ii. 162.

|Sydney’s Defence of Poesy.|

35. These treatises of Webbe and Puttenham may have been preceded in order of writing, though not of publication, by the performance of a more illustrious author, Sir Philip Sydney. His Defence of Poesy was not published till 1595. The Defence of Poesy has already been reckoned among the polite writings of the Elizabethan age, to which class it rather belongs than to that of criticism; for Sydney rarely comes to any literary censure, and is still farther removed from any profound philosophy. His sense is good, but not ingenious, and the declamatory tone weakens its effect.

SECT. III.--ON WORKS OF FICTION.

_Novels and Romances in Italy and Spain--Sydney’s Arcadia._

|Novels of Bandello;|

36. The novels of Bandello, three parts of which were published in 1554, and a fourth in 1573, are perhaps the best known and the most admired in that species of composition after those of Boccaccio. They have been censured as licentious, but are far less so than any of preceding times, and the reflections are usually of a moral cast. These however, as well as the speeches, are very tedious. There is not a little predilection in Bandello for sanguinary stories. Ginguéné praises these novels for just sentiments, adherence to probability, and choice of interesting subjects. In these respects, we often find a superiority in the older novels above those of the nineteenth century, the golden age, as it is generally thought, of fictitious story. But, in the management of these subjects, the Italian and Spanish novelists show little skill; they are worse cooks of better meat; they exert no power over the emotions beyond what the intrinsic nature of the events related must produce; they sometimes describe well, but with no great imagination; they have no strong conception of character, no deep acquaintance with mankind, not often much humour, no vivacity and spirit of dialogue.

|of Cinthio.|

37. The Hecatomithi, or Hundred Tales, of Giraldi Cinthio have become known in England by the recourse that Shakspeare has had to them in two instances, Cymbeline and Measure for Measure, for the subjects of his plays. Cinthio has also borrowed from himself in his own tragedies. He is still more fond of dark tales of blood than Bandello. He seems consequently to have possessed an unfortunate influence over the stage; and to him, as well as his brethren of the Italian novel, we trace those scenes of improbable and disgusting horror, from which, though the native taste and gentleness of Shakspeare for the most part disdained such helps, we recoil in almost all the other tragedians of the old English school. Of the remaining Italian novelists that belong to this period, it is enough to mention Erizzo, better known as one of the founders of medallic science. His Sei Giornate contain thirty-six novels, called Avvenimenti. They are written with intolerable prolixity, but in a pure and even elevated tone of morality. This character does not apply to the novels of Lasca.

|of the Queen of Navarre.|

38. The French novels, ascribed to Margaret Queen of Navarre, and first published in 1558, with the title “Histoire des Amans fortunés,” are principally taken from the Italian collections or from the fabliaux of the trouveurs. Though free in language, they are written in a much less licentious spirit than many of the former, but breathe throughout that anxiety to exhibit the clergy, especially the regulars, in an odious or ridiculous light, which the principles of their illustrious authoress might lead us to expect. Belleforest translated, perhaps with some variation, the novels of Bandello into French.[1335]

[1335] Bouterwek, v. 286, mentions by name several other French
novelists of the sixteenth century: I do not know anything of them.

|Spanish romances of chivalry.|

39. Few probably will now dispute, that the Italian novel, a picture of real life, and sometimes of true circumstances, is perused with less weariness than the Spanish romance, the alternative then offered to the lovers of easy reading. But this had very numerous admirers in that generation, nor was the taste confined to Spain. The popularity of Amadis de Gaul and Palmerin of Oliva, with their various continuators, has been already mentioned.[1336] One of these, “Palmerin of England,” appeared in French at Lyons in 1555. It is uncertain who was the original author, or in what language it was first written. Cervantes has honoured it with a place next to Amadis. Mr. Southey, though he condescended to abridge Palmerin of England, thinks it inferior to that Iliad of romantic adventure. Several of the tales of knight-errantry that are recorded to have stood on the unfortunate shelves of Don Quixote, belong to this latter part of the century, among which Don Bellianis of Greece is better known by name than any other. These romances were not condemned by Cervantes alone. “Every poet and prose writer,” says Bouterwek, “of cultivated talent, laboured to oppose the contagion.”[1337]

[1336] La Noue, a severe Protestant, thinks them as pernicious to the
young as the writings of Machiavel had been to the old. This he
dwells upon in his sixth discourse. “De tout temps,” this honest
and sensible writer says, “il y a eu des hommes, qui ont esté
diligens d’escrire et mettre en lumière des choses vaines. Ce qui
plus les y a conviez est, que ils sçavoient que leurs labeurs
seroient agréables a ceux de leurs siècles, dont la plus part a
toujours heimé [aimé] la vanité, comme le poisson fait l’eau. Les
vieux romans dont nous voyons encor les fragmens par-ci et par-la,
a savoir de Lancelot du Lac, de Perceforest, Tristan, Giron le
courtois, et autres, font foy de ceste vanité antique. On s’en est
repeu l’espace de plus de cinq cens ans, jusques à ce que nostre
langage estant devenu plus orné, et nostres esprits plus
fretillans, il a fallu inventer quelque nouveauté pour les egayer.
Voila comment les livres d’Amadis sont venus en evidence parmi nous
en ce dernier siècle. Mais pour en parler au vrai, l’Espagne les a
engendrez, et la France les a seulement revetus de plus beaux
habillemens. Sous le regne du roy Henry second, ils ont eu leur
principale vogue; et croy qui si quelqu’un les eust voulu alors
blasmer, en luy eust craché au visage,” &c. p. 153, edit. 1588.

[1337] In the opinion of Bouterwek (v. 282), the taste for chivalrous
romance declined in the latter part of the century, through the
prevalence of a classical spirit in literature, which exposed the
mediæval fictions to derision. The number of shorter and more
amusing novels might probably have more to do with it; the serious
romance has a terrible enemy in the lively. But it revived, with a
little modification, in the next age.

|Diana of Montemayor.|

40. Spain was the parent of a romance in a very different style, but, if less absurd and better written, not perhaps much more interesting to us than those of chivalry, the Diana of Montemayor. Sannazaro’s beautiful model of pastoral romance, the Arcadia, and some which had been written in Portugal, take away the merit of originality from this celebrated fiction. It formed, however, a school in this department of literature, hardly less numerous, according to Bouterwek, than the imitators of Amadis.[1338] The language of Montemayor is neither laboured nor affected, and though sometimes of rather too formal a solemnity, especially in what the author thought philosophy, is remarkably harmonious and elevated; nor is he deficient in depth of feeling or fertility of imagination. Yet the story seems incapable of attracting any reader of this age. The Diana, like Sannazaro’s Arcadia, is mingled with much lyric poetry, which Bouterwek thinks, is the soul of the whole composition. Cervantes indeed condemns all the longer of these poems to the flames, and gives but limited praise to the Diana. Yet this romance, and a continuation of it by Gil Polo, had inspired his own youthful genius in the Galatea. The chief merit of the Galatea, published in 1584, consists in the poetry which the story seems intended to hold together. In the Diana of Montemayor, and even in the Galatea, it has been supposed that real adventures and characters were generally shadowed--a practice not already without precedent, and which, by the French especially, was carried to a much greater length in later times.

[1338] Hist. Span. Lit. p. 305.

|Novels in the picaresque style.|

|Guzman d’Alfarache.|

41. Spain became celebrated about the end of this century for her novels in the _picaresque_ style, of which Lazarillo de Tormes is the oldest extant specimen. The continuation of this little work is reckoned inferior to the part written by Mendoza himself; but both together are amusing and inimitably short.[1339] The first edition of the most celebrated romance of this class, Guzman d’Alfarache, falls within the sixteenth century. It was written by Matthew Aleman, who is said to have lived long at court. He might there have acquired, not a knowledge of the tricks of common rogues, but an experience of mankind, which is reckoned one of the chief merits of his romance. Many of his stories also relate to the manners of a higher class than that of his hero. Guzman d’Alfarache is a sort of prototype of Gilblas, though, in fact, La Sage has borrowed very freely from all the Spanish novels of this school. The adventures are numerous and diversified enough to amuse an idle reader, and Aleman has displayed a great deal of good sense in his reflections, which are expressed in the pointed condensed style affected by most writers of Spain. Cervantes has not hesitated to borrow from him one of Sancho’s celebrated adjudications, in the well-known case of the lady, who was less pugnacious in defence of her honour than of the purse awarded by the court as its compensation. This story is, however, if I am not mistaken, older than either of them.[1340]

[1339] In a former chapter, on the authority of Nicolas Antonio, which
I do not find very trustworthy, I have said that the first edition
of Lazarillo de Tormes was in 1586. It seems, however, to be
doubtful, from what we read in Brunet, whether this edition exists.
In return he mentions one printed at Burgos in 1554, and three at
Antwerp in 1553 and 1555. Supplement au Manuel du Libraire, art.
Hurtado. The following early edition is also in the British Museum,
of which I transcribe the title-page. La Vida de Lazarillo de
Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades, nuevamente impressa,
corregida, y de nuevo anadida en este segunda impression. Vendense
en Alcala de Henares en casa de Salzedo librero año de N.D. 1554. A
colophon recites the same date and place of impression. The
above-mentioned Antwerp edition of 1553 seems to be rather
apocryphal. If it exists, it must be the first; and is it likely
that the first should have been printed out of Spain?

Though the continuation of Lazarillo de Tormes is reckoned inferior
to the original, it contains the only story in the whole novel
which has made its fortune, that of the man who was exhibited as a
sea-monster.

[1340] The following passage, which I extract from the Retrospective
Review, vol. v. p. 199, is a fair and favourable specimen of Aleman
as a moralist, who is however apt to be tedious, as moralists
usually are.

“The poor man is a kind of money that is not current, the subject
of every idle housewife’s chat, the offscum of the people, the dust
of the street, first trampled under foot, and then thrown on the
dunghill; in conclusion, the poor man is the rich man’s ass. He
dineth with the last, fareth with the worst, and payeth dearest;
his sixpence will not go so far as the rich man’s threepence; his
opinion is ignorance, his discretion foolishness, his suffrage
scorn, his stock upon the common, abused by many, and abhorred by
all. If he come into company he is not heard; if any chance to meet
him, they seek to shun him; if he advise, though never so wisely,
they grudge and murmur at him; if he work miracles, they say he is
a witch; if virtuous, that he goeth about to deceive; his venial
sin is a blasphemy; his thought is made treason; his cause, be it
never so just, is not regarded; and to have his wrongs righted, he
must appeal to that other life. All men crush him; no man favoureth
him. There is no man that will relieve his wants; no man that will
bear him company when he is alone and oppressed with grief. None
help him, all hinder him; none give him, all take from him; he is
debtor to none, and yet must make payment to all. O the unfortunate
and poor condition of him that is poor, to whom even the very hours
are sold which the clock striketh, and payeth custom for the
sunshine in August.”

This is much in the style of our English writers in the first part
of the seventeenth century, and confirms what I have suspected,
that they formed it in a great measure on the Spanish school.
Though this sententiousness and antithetical balancing of clauses
is not pleasant to read, it is less insipid than the nerveless
elegance of the Italians. Guzman d’Alfarache was early translated
into English, as most other Spanish books were; and the language
itself was more familiar in the reigns of James and Charles than it
became afterwards.

|Las Guerras de Granada.|

42. It may require some excuse that I insert in this place Las Guerras de Granada, a history of certain Moorish factions in the last days of that kingdom, both because it has been usually referred to the seventeenth century, and because many have conceived it to be a true relation of events. It purports to have been translated by Gines Perez de la Hita, an inhabitant of the city of Murcia, from an Arabic original of one Aben Hamili. Its late English translator seems to entertain no doubt of its authenticity; and it has been sagaciously observed that no Christian could have known the long genealogies of Moorish nobles which the book contains. Most of those, however, who read it without credulity, will feel, I presume, little difficulty in agreeing with Antonio, who ranks it “among Milesian fables, though very pleasing to those who have nothing to do.” The Zegris and Abencerrages, with all their romantic exploits, seem to be mere creations of Castilian imagination; nor has Conde, in his excellent history of the Moors in Spain, once deigned to notice them even as fabulous; so much did he reckon this famous production of Perez de la Hita below the historian’s regard. Antonio mentions no edition earlier than that of Alcala in 1604; the English translator names 1601 for the date of its publication, an edition of which year is in the Museum; nor do I find that any one has been aware of an earlier, published at Saragoça in 1595, except Brunet, who mentions it as rare and little known. It appears by the same authority that there is another edition of 1598.

|Sydney’s Arcadia.|

43. The heroic and pastoral romance of Spain contributed something, yet hardly so much as has been supposed, to Sir Philip Sydney’s Arcadia, the only original production of this kind, except such wretched and obscure attempts at story as are beneath notice, which our older literature can boast. The Arcadia was published in 1590, having been written, probably, by its highly accomplished author about ten years before.

|Its character.|

44. Walpole, who thought fit to display the dimensions of his own mind, by announcing that he could perceive nothing remarkable in Sir Philip Sydney (as if the suffrage of Europe in what he admits to be an age of heroes were not a decisive proof that Sydney himself over-topped those sons of Anak), says of the Arcadia, that it is “a tedious lamentable pedantic pastoral romance, which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade through.” We may doubt whether Walpole could altogether estimate the patience of a reader so extremely unlike himself; and his epithets, except perhaps the first, are inapplicable; the Arcadia is more free from pedantry than most books of that age; and though we are now so accustomed to a more stimulant diet in fiction, that few would read it through with pleasure, the story is as sprightly as most other romances, sometimes indeed a little too much so, for the Arcadia is not quite a book for “young virgins,” of which some of its admirers by hearsay seem not to have been aware. By the epithet “pastoral,” we may doubt whether Walpole knew much of this romance beyond its name; for it has far less to do with shepherds than with courtiers, though the idea might probably be suggested by the popularity of the Diana. It does not appear to me that the Arcadia is more tiresome and uninteresting than the generality of that class of long romances, proverbially among the most tiresome of all books; and, in a less fastidious age, it was read, no doubt, even as a story, with some delight.[1341] It displays a superior mind, rather complying with a temporary taste than affected by it, and many pleasing passages occur, especially in the tender and innocent loves of Pyrocles and Philoclea. I think it, nevertheless, on the whole inferior in sense, style, and spirit, to the Defence of Poesy. The following passage has some appearance of having suggested a well-known poem in the next age to the lover of Sacharissa; we may readily believe that Waller had turned over, in the glades of Penshurst, the honoured pages of her immortal uncle.[1342]

[1341] “It appears,” says Drake, “to have been suggested to the mind
of Sir Philip by two models of very different ages, and to have
been built, in fact, on their admixture; these are the Ethiopic
History of Heliodorus, bishop of Tricca in Thessaly, and the
Arcadia of Sannazaro,” p. 549. A translation of Heliodorus had been
published a short time before.

[1342] The poem I mean is that addressed to Amoret, “Fair! that you may
truly know,” drawing a comparison between her and Sacharissa.

45. “The elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferior to her sister; for my part, when I marked them both, methought there was (if at least such perfections may receive the word of more) more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela: methought love played in Philoclea’s eyes, and threatened in Pamela’s; methought Philoclea’s beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must yield; Pamela’s beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart could resist, and it seems that such proportion is between their minds. Philoclea so bashful, as if her excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware; so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but teach hope good manners; Pamela, of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of her excellencies to be void of pride; her mother’s wisdom, greatness, nobility, but, if I can guess aright, knit with a more constant temper.”

|Inferiority of other English fictions.|

46. The Arcadia stands quite alone among English fictions of this century. But many were translated in the reign of Elizabeth from the Italian, French, Spanish, and even Latin, among which Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, whence Shakspeare took several of his plots, and the numerous labours of Antony Munday may be mentioned. Palmerin of England in 1580, and Amadis of Gaul in 1592, were among these; others of less value, were transferred from the Spanish text by the same industrious hand; and since these, while still new, were sufficient to furnish all the gratification required by the public, our own writers did not much task their invention to augment the stock. They would not have been very successful, if we may judge by such deplorable specimens as Breton and Greene, two men of considerable poetical talent, have left us.[1343] The once famous story of the Seven Champions of Christendom, by one Johnson, is of rather a superior class; the adventures are not original, but it is by no means a translation from any single work.[1344] Mallory’s famous romance, La Morte d’Arthur, is of much earlier date, and was first printed by Caxton. It is, however, a translation from several French romances, though written in very spirited language.

[1343] The Mavilia of Breton, the Dorastus and Fawnia of Greene, will
be found in the collections of the indefatigable Sir Egerton
Brydges. The first is below contempt; the second, if not quite so
ridiculous, is written with a quaint affected and empty Euphuism.
British Bibliographer, i. 508. But as truth is generally more
faithful to natural sympathies than fiction, a little tale, called
Never too Late, in which Greene has related his own story, is
unaffected and pathetic. Drake’s Shakspeare and his Times, i. 489.

[1344] Drake, i. 529.