most likely to prize, and at the same time was written in a tone sufficiently high to explain the readiness of a schoolmaster-printer to edit and publish it. But its main interest can hardly be called literary.

The Paston Letters.

To offer a similar judgment on the famous collection of letters which passed between members of the Paston family during the best part of a century (1424-1506) would be superfluous. Private letters, interspersed with law papers, have no pretensions to be regarded as literature, but these possess an interest which compels literature to take cognizance of them, in much the same way as the secret diary which Samuel Pepys wrote for no one's reading save his own has become a classic. The Pastons

were a Norfolk family, belonging to the little village of that name near the coast, some twenty miles north of Norwich. Their origin was SO obscure that their enemies, of whom they had many, tried to fasten on them the disabilities which attached to servile descent, but in the fifteenth century a William Paston (d. 1444) was a justice of the Common Pleas; and his son John, also a lawyer, as executor and heir to the estates of Sir John Fastolf, rose to a very perilous and unstable importance. This John Paston (d. 1466) had five sons, of whom both the first and the second bore his own name and succeeded to his estate.

From the second son was descended Robert Paston, first Earl of Yarmouth (d. 1683), and the second Earl sold the family papers to the famous antiquary Peter Le Neve. After passing through other hands, a selection from the letters was published by Sir John Fenn in 1787, and aroused immediate interest. They present, indeed, the most vivid picture which we possess of life in the gloomy days of the fifteenth century, when, over and above the convulsions of civil war, private disputes were carried on by armed forces, and the forms of law were merely the instruments of oppression. William Paston, the judge, was noted for his uprightness; but his son John was a hard man, and in his unceasing quarrels, in which his houses were more than once formally besieged, he may have been as often wrong as right. His parents contracted him to Margaret Mauteby, who, though she had never seen him till the marriage was arranged, speedily proved herself a loving and even heroic wife. The second John was a softer and more pleasure-loving person than his father, and his mother worked hard, sometimes not without bitterness, to protect the family interests from his fits of neglect. This John's letters often contain references to his books; through another section of the correspondence there runs a whole love-story; we have accounts of tourneys and public events, notably one of the murder of the Duke of Suffolk on board ship (May 1450); the constant theme of legal struggles, with their violent incidents; and abundant references to food, clothes, and

other matters which help to bring the daily life of the time close to us. The most interesting letters of the series are those of Margaret Paston, whose passionate devotion to the interests of her husband and family often gives her correspondence a literary value, which even her painfully bad spelling can only slightly obscure. For our quotations we will take two of her letters, and precede them by this account given by her future mother-in-law of her reception of her bridegroom. Our extracts are all taken from Mr. James Gairdner's edition (The Paston Letters, 1872-75):

Agnes Paston to William Paston (about 1440).—To my worshepefull housbond, W. Paston, be this letter takyn,— Dere housbond, I recomaunde me to yow &c. Blessyd be God I sende yow gode tydynggs of the comyng, and the brynggyn hoom, of the gentylwomman that ye wetyn of fro Redham, this same nyght, acordyng to poyntmen [appointment] that ye made ther for yowr self.

And as for the furste aqweyntaunce be-twhen John Paston and the seyde gentylwomman, she made hym gentil chere in gyntyl wise, and seyde, he was verrayly your son. And so I hope ther shall nede no gret trete [negotiations] be-twyxe hym.

The parson of Stocton toold me, yif ye wolde byin [buy] her a goune, here moder wolde yeve ther-to a godely furre. The goune nedyth for to be had; and of colour it wolde be a godely blew, or erlys [else] a bryghte sangueyn. I prey yow do byen for me ij pypys of gold [rolls of gold thread]. Your stewes [fish-ponds] do weel. The Holy Trinite have you in governaunce. Wretyn at Paston, in hast, the Wednesday next after Deus qui errantibus [the third Sunday after Easter] for defaute of a good secretarye.-Youres,

AGN. PASTON.

Our next letter (No. 36), written some three years later (28th September 1443), shows that the readiness with which Margaret Paston had accepted her husband had soon ripened into anxious affection :

Margaret Paston to John Paston.—To my rygth worchepful husbond, John Paston, dwellyng in the Inner Temple at London, in hast :-Ryth worchipful husbon, I recomande me to yow, desyryng hertely to her [hear] of yowr wilfar, thanckyng God of yowr a-mendyng of the grete dysese that ye have hade; and I thancke yow for the letter that ye sent me, for be [by] my trowthe my moder and I wer nowth in hertys es [not in heart's ease] fro the tyme that we woste [knew] of yowr sekenesse, tyl we woste verely of your a-mendyng. My moder be hestyd [vowed] a nodyr [another] ymmage of wax of the weytte of yow to oyer Lady of Walsyngham, and sche sent iiii nobelys [nobles, 6s. 8d.] to the iiii Orderys of Frerys at Norweche to pray for yow, and I have be hestyd to gon on pylgreymmays to Walsingham, and to Sent Levenardys [St Leonard's shrine at Norwich] for yow; be my trowth I had never so hevy a sesyn [season] as I had from the tyme that I wost of yowr sekenesse tyl I woste of yowr a-mendyng, and zyth [since] myn hert is in no grete esse [ease], ne nowth xal [shall] be, tyl I wott that ze [ye] ben very hal [really whole, or well]. Your fader and myn was dysday sevenyth [this day se'nnight or week] at Bekelys for a matyr of the Pryor of Bromholme, and he lay at Gerlyston

that nyth [night], and was ther tyl it was ix. of the cloke [clock], and the toder day. And I sentte thedyr for a goune, and my moder seyde that I xulde have dan [then], tyl I had be ther a non, and so thei cowde non gete.

My fader [godfather] Garneyss senttee me worde that he xulde ben her [here] the nexch weke, and my emme [uncle] also, and pleyn hem [amuse themselves] her with herr [their] hawkys, and thei xulde have me hom with hem; and so God help me, I xal exscusse me of myn goyng dedyr [thither] yf I may, for I sopose that I xal redelyer have tydyngys from yow herr dan I xulde have ther. I xal sende my modyr a tokyn that sche toke [gave] me, for I sopose the time is cum that I xulde sendeth her, yf I kepe the be-hest [promise] that I have made; I sopose I have tolde yow wat it was. I pray yow hertely that [ye] wol wochesaf [will vouchsafe] to sende me a letter as hastely as ze may, yf wryhyn [writing] be non dysesse [trouble] to yow, and that ye wollen wochesaf to sende me worde quowe your sor doth [how your sore does]. Yf I mythe have had my wylle, I xulde a seyne yow er dys tyme [have seen you before this]; I wolde ye wern at hom, yf it wer your ese, and your sor myth ben as wyl lokyth to [looked after] her as it tys ther ze ben [where you are], now lever dan a goune zow [I would rather have this than a gown though] it were of scarlette. I pray yow yf your sor be hol, and so that ze may indur [endure] to ryde, wan my fader com to London, that ze wol askyn leve, and com hom wan the hors xul be sentte hom a-zeyn [again], for I hope ze xulde be kepte as tenderly herr as ze ben at London. I may non leyser have to do wrytyn half a quarter so meche as I xulde sey to yow yf I myth speke with yow. I xall sende yow a nothyr letter as hastely as I may. I thanke yow that ze wolde wochesaffe to remember my gyrdyl, and that ze wolde wryte to me at the tyme, for I sopose that wrytyng was non esse to yow. All-myth [Almighty] God have yow in his kepyn, and sende yow helth. Wretyn at Oxenede, in ryth grete hast, on Sent Mikyllys Evyn.-Yorys, M. PASTON.

My modyr grette [greets] yow wel, and sendyth yow Goddys blyssyng and hers; and sche prayeth yow, and I pray yow also, that ye be wel dyetyd of mete and drynke, for that is the grettest helpe that ye may have now to your helthe ward. Your sone faryth wel, blyssyd be God.

Lastly, we may take this letter (No. 685) of 29th November 1471 to her son, in which the cry, ‘It is a death to me to think upon it,' shows how the prosperity of the family had become the passion of the woman's life:

Margaret Paston to John Paston.-To John Paston, Esquier [the second son], be this delyverd in hast :I grete zow welle, and send zow Goddes blyssyng and myn, letyng zow wete that I have a letter from zour brother, wherby I undyrstand that he cannot, ner may, make no porveyans [provision] for the C. mark [£66, 13s. 4d.]; the wyche causythe me to be rythgh hevy, and for other thynges that he wrytht to me of that he is in dawnger. For remembering wat we have had befor thys and ho symppylly [how foolishly] yt hath be spente and to lytyl profythe to any of us, and now arn in soche casse that non of us may welle helpe other with-owte that we schuld do that wer to gret a dysworschip [that which would be too great a

disgrace] for us to do, owther to selle wood or lond or soche stuffe that were nessessary for us to have in our howsys; so mot I answer a-for God, I wot not how to do for the seyde money, and for other thyngges that I have to do of scharge, and my worshup saved. Yt is a deth to me to thynk up on yt. Me thynkyth be zour brothers wrythtyng, that he thynkyth that I am informed [instructed] be sume that be a-bowthe me to do and to sey as I have be for thys, but be my trowthe he demyth a-mysse; yt nedyth me not to be informed of no soche thengges. I construe in my owyn mend [mind], and conseyve i-now [enough] and to myche [too much], and whan I have brokyn my conseyte to sume that in happe he deniythe yt too [communicated my counsel to some that perhaps he refuses to consult with], they have put me in cownforth [comfort] more than I kowde have be any imajynasyon in my owyn conseythe. He wrythetyth [writes] to me also, that he hath spend thys terme xl li. [£40]. Yt is a gret thyng; me thynkyth be good dyscresyon ther mythe myche ther of aben [have been] sparyd. Your fadyr, God blysse hys sowle, hathe had as gret maters to do as I trowe he hathe had thys terme [session], and hath not spend halfe the mony up-on them in so lytyl tyme, and hath do ryth well. At the reverens of God, avyse hym zet [yet] to be war of hys expences and gydyng that yt be no schame to us alle. Yt is a schame and a thyng that is myche spokyn of in thys contre that zour faders graveston is not mad. For Goddes love, late yt be remembyrd and porveyde [provided] for in hast. Ther hathe be mych mor spend in waste than schuld have mad that.

The urgent need of money; the shame of raising it by any means that would show the straits to which she was reduced; the fear that her eldest son was suspicious of the friends she consulted, and was wasting money in London and managing his case worse than his father would have done; the grief that for years after that father's death no stone had been set up to his memory-what a picture of an anxious woman's heart it all makes, and how clearly it speaks to us across the centuries! If this is not literature, it is at least the stuff of which literature is made.

Caxton's Successors.

Returning from this episode of family letters to more formal attempts at literature, we may continue to take an interest in the work of the printers, not for its own sake, but because the industry with which it has been registered enables us to take a general survey of the literary output of the time, and to form some idea of the wants of the reading public and how they were supplied. To obtain such a survey we need not concern ourselves with small firms like Julyan Notary (1496– 1520) or Richard Faques (1509-1530), each of whom issued a few English books in addition to liturgies and legal works. For the forty years

which followed the deaths of Caxton and Machlinia the English book-trade was mainly in the hands of two men-Jan Wynkyn de Worde (d. 1534) and Richard Pynson (d. 1530). From

the presses of the former some five hundred different editions can still be traced, from that of Pynson some three hundred; or an average for Wynkyn of about twelve books a year, and for Pynson of about eight. Even if we allow liberally for books issued by the smaller firms, and for those which have perished so absolutely as not to leave any trace behind, it is probable that a 'Publishers' Catalogue' of those days would not have contained more than forty entries a year, or a total for the whole of England of about a fifth, as near as we can reckon, of the contemporary output of Venice alone. Deficient in quantity, it cannot be said that in quality English books took any higher rank. It is noteworthy that the earliest references we have to our book-trade are both highly uncomplimentary. In the Interlude of the Four Elements (see infra, page 152), probably written about 1520, the unknown author asks his readers

To regard his only intent and good wyll
Whiche in his mynde hath oft tymes ponderyd,
What nombre of bokes in our tonge maternall
Of toyes and trifellys be made and impryntyd,
And few of them of matter substancyall;
For though many make bokes, yet uneeth
In our Englysshe tonge fynde any warkes
Of connynge, that is regarded by clerkes.
1 Hardly.

ye shall

I

There may have been a pedantic view of literature in the mind of a man who goes on to complain that

Now so it is in our Englyshe tonge

Many one there is, that can but rede and wryte,
For his pleasure wyll oft presume amonge

New bokys to compyle and balades to indyte,
Some of love or other matter, not worth a myte.

Presumption in literature is often a virtue rather than a crime, but the fact remains that there is little trace of scholarship of any kind in the books printed in England during this long period. No doubt many such books were imported, and the handful of learned Englishmen by writing in Latin were able to have their books printed abroad;1 but it is clear evidence of the low state of English

1 As examples of books written in Latin by Englishmen at this period and printed abroad we may note More's Utopia (Louvain, 1517), Progymnasmata Tho. Mori et Gul. Lilii sodalium (Basel, 1518), More's Epigrammata (Basel, 1520), Fisher's De unica Magdalena (Paris, 1519), Assertionis Lutherana Confutatio (Basel, 1523), Sacri Sacerdotii Defensio (Cologne, 1528), Linacre's editions of Galen's De Temperamentis (Venice, 1498, reprinted at Cambridge in 1521) and De Methodo Medendi (Paris, 1525). Another proof of the difficulty of getting learned books printed in England at this time may be found in the important works which were left lying unprinted. Practically the whole of Dean Colet's theological works had to wait till Mr J. H. Lupton published them in five volumes between 1847 and 1876; More's History of Richard III. was first published in a continuation of Harding's Chronicle in 1543; even some of Lord Berners' translations had to wait for a publisher. In the reign of Elizabeth it became the fashion to keep poems and essays in manuscript, but at this period it would seem as if English readers cared so little for new works of any learning that publishers and authors were genuinely deterred from printing them.

scholarship when we find so few books of any pretence to learning printed in all England, and that neither of the universities could provide work to maintain a printer.1 Our other reference to the printing-trade is from a Dialogue in verse prefixed by Robert Copland to an edition of the chapbook, Seven Sorrows that women have when theyr husbandes be deade, which must have been written soon after 1525. The dialogue is between a customer who lays down, as an axiom, 'A peny, I trow, is ynough on bokes,' and a printer who replies to the criticism

By my soule, ye prynters make such Englyshe,
So yll spelled, so yll poynted, and so pevyshe,
That scantly one can redé lynés two

But to fynde sentence he hath ynough to do; the meaning with the kindred sentiment

I care not greatly, so that I nowe and than
May get a peny as wel as I can.

It can only be said that the printers and readers were worthy of each other, and the ignorance and indifference which they shared in common show how low literature had fallen in England. Unless we are to reckon Barclay's translation of Sallust's Jugurtha, which has the text printed in small type at the side, Pynson's edition of Terence (1497) was not followed by any other Latin classic till Wynkyn's Bucolica Virgilii of 1512, and an edition of Cicero's Philippics by Pynson in 1521 completed the two printers' contributions to classical learning, no Greek book being printed in England until 1543. Of Latin schoolbooks there is a steady increase after 1510, and the appearance among them of works by Colet, Erasmus, and Linacre, as well as the manuals of the prolific Whittinton, was a good omen for the future of English schools. Historical books, with the exception of Fabyan's New Chronicles of England and France (Pynson, 1516) and Lord Berners' translation of Froissart (Pynson, 1523-25), are confined to reprints of Caxton's editions. The court historiographers of this period were the Frenchman Bernard André and the Italian Polydore Vergil, but the royal munificence did not go so far as to subsidise an English printer to publish their Latin annals. Travel was represented by Mandeville, of which it seems probable that Caxton himself had planned an edition; by the Pylgrymage of Sir Rychard Guylforde (Pynson, 1511); and by little handbooks of ‘informacyon for pylgrymes.' The stately and delightful but rather antiquated De Proprietatibus Rerum of Bartholomew the Englishman in Trevisa's translation (Wynkyn, before 1500) until 1521 was almost the only printed book on science, but was then honourably reinforced by several medical treatises by Linacre. Of theology, properly so called, there is little till we come to the king's

1 A press was started at Oxford in 1517, and closed in 1519 after printing six books. After this there is no Oxford press till 1585. At Cambridge nine books were printed in 1521-22, and then no more until 1583.

Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, nor any edition of the Bible, unless we should mention the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus' which was frequently printed. In religious literature we may note a good many Lives of the Saints, from reprints of Caxton's Golden Legend and the Vita Patrum, which he had left unfinished, to thin quartos, in verse and prose, on the miracles of our Lady and the Lives of St Katharine, St Margaret, St Bridget, St Werburg, St Francis, St George, St Thomas of Canterbury, and a few others. Edification of another kind was provided in religious treatises, also extending from works of some size, like the Dives and Pauper of Henry Parker, an exposition of the Ten Commandments, of which Wynkyn and Pynson issued rival editions early in their career, down to little manuals of no literary interest. With these we may especially notice a translation of the De Imitatione Christi, of which the first three books were rendered by William Atkinson, chaplain to the Lady Margaret, Henry VII.'s mother, and the fourth by that princess herself. Of liturgies a good many were printed in England, though the foreign supply still continued; and we meet also with a fair number of law-books-not learned treatises like those printed in Italy, but summaries and manuals. In poetry Chaucer was reprinted, and some of Lydgate; and Skelton, Barclay, and Hawes, first among English poets in this one respect, enjoyed the pleasure of seeing some of their works in print. Plays also began to be printed, a few by Pynson and Wynkyn, and quite a little handful by John and William Rastell, a father and son, who, though both lawyers, were printers also, and took a personal interest in the stage. The books of light reading which Pynson and Wynkyn supplied on their own initiative were abridged and beprosed romances, such as Richarde Cuer de Lyon, The Byrth of Marlyn, Torrent of Portingal, &c.; or chapbooks, in verse or prose, such as the Complaynte of a lovers lyfe, Complaynte of the too late maryed, the Fifteen Joys of Marriage, the Smith and his Dame, the Treatise of a Galaunt, the Gestes of the Wydowe Edith, or the already mentioned Seven Sorrows that women have when theyr husbandes be deade, whose titles afford a fair index to their contents. All these popular books are anonymous, and it is probable that they were mostly produced by humble imitators of Caxton whom the printers kept in their employ. Robert Copland, who belonged to this class, was a printer on his own account, as well as an assistant to Wynkyn de Worde. For himself or Wynkyn he translated from the French the Kalendar of Shepherdes (a miscellany of weather-lore, morality, and devotion), the History of Kynge Apollyon of Thyre, and the History of Helyas Knyght of the Swanne, and to these and other works contributed prologues, both in verse and prose, which gave him a respectable position among his not very distinguished contemporaries. The Knyght of the

Swanne was translated 'at the instygacion of the Puyssaunt illustryous Prynce Lorde Edwarde Duke of Buckyngham;' but the commission was not given directly to the humble Copland, but to Wynkyn de Worde, who used to style himself in his books 'prynter unto the moost excellent pryncesse the kynges graundame' (the Lady Margaret). Had Copland been a man of higher position he would probably have carried on Caxton's work as editor-publisher with far more enterprise than the two foreigners, Wynkyn and Pynson, who nearly monopolised the English booktrade. But Caxton's real successor as a translator was no poor printer, but a nobleman and diplomatist, who took an active part in pageants as glittering as those he described.

John Bourchier, Lord Berners, was born in 1467, four years before the death of his father in the battle of Barnet, and succeeded to the title on the death of his grandfather in 1474. His grand-uncle, who had been appointed to the see of Canterbury in 1454, was still Archbishop on the accession of Henry VII., and the young noble was much at court, and intimate with Henry VIII. On the latter's accession he was constantly employed both in diplomacy and war. Thus he took part in the campaign of Terouenne, acted as chamberlain to the Princess Mary when she married Louis XII., negotiated in 1518 for an alliance with Charles V., and on his return from Spain attended the king at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 1520 he was made Deputy of Calais, and held this office till his death in 1533, amid constant money troubles, despite grants of manors in Surrey, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Oxfordshire which Henry VIII. made him in 1528. His Deputyship left him leisure for literary work, and at the king's suggestion he carried through a translation of the Chronicles of Froissart, which Pynson published for him, the first volume in 1523, the second in 1525. Lord Berners also translated from the French The History of the moost noble and valyaunt Knight, Arthur of Lytell Brytaine (i.e. Brittany); the Charlemagne romance, Huon of Bordeaux; and the Spanish treatise of Guevara, El Reloj de Principes, under the title The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius. His translation of the Castel d'Amor (The Castell of Love) of Diego de San Pedro was translated direct from the Spanish, 'at the instaunce of Lady Elizabeth Carew, late wyfe to Syr Nicholas Carewe, Knight.' All these minor translations were probably made late in his life, and fell into the hands of different printers after his death. His fame rests on the great Froissart, or, to give it its full title, the volumes of Sir John Froyssart of the Cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne, Portyngale, Scotland, Bretayne, Flaunders, and other places adjoynynge, translated out of Frenche into our maternall Englysshe tonge, which form a history of the courts and wars of Europe during the fourteenth century. When in Spain, Lord Berners

had himself sent Henry VIII. an account of a Spanish bull-fight, and for his letters to the Privy Council describing the Field of the Cloth of Gold he was accorded the Council's thanks. No translator could have been more thoroughly in sympathy with his original, or have caught its spirit more happily without tedious adherence to the letter. Only the great size of the Chronicle has prevented it from vying with Mandeville as one of the most popular of English translations, and from its vivid pages picturesque extracts might be given almost without number. That which we have here chosen (from Chap. 1.) describes the sea-fight of Sluys :

Of the batell on the see before Sluse in Flaunders, bytwene the kynge of England and the Frenchmen.— Nowe let us leave som what to speke of therle of Henalt [the Earl of Hainault] and of the duke of Normandy and speke of the kyng of England, who was on the see to the intent to arryve in Flaunders, and so into Heynalt to make war agaynst the French

men.

:

This was on mydsomer evyn, in the yer of our Lorde M.CCC.xl., all the Englyssh flete was departed out of the ryver of Tames and toke the way to Sluse. And the same tyme, bytwene Blanqueberque and Sluse on the see, was sir Hewe Kyryell, sir Peter Bahuchet, and Barbnoyr and mo than sixscore greate vessels besyde other, and they wer of Normaynes, bydaulx [lightly armed peasants], Genowes [Genoese], and Pycardes: about the nombre of xl. m. Ther they were layd by the French kyng to defend [forbid] the kyng of Englandes passage. The kyng of England and his came saylyng tyll he came before Sluse: and when he sawe so great a nombre of shippes that their mastes semed to be lyke a gret wood, he demaunded of the maister of his shyp what peple he thought they were: he answered and sayd, ‘Sir, I thynke they be Normayns layd here by the Frenche kyng, and hath done gret dyspleasur in Englande, brent [burnt] your towne of Hampton and taken your great shyppe the Christofer.' 'A,' quoth the kyng, ‘I have long desyred to fyght with the Frenchmen: and nowe shall I fyght with some of them by the grace of God and saynt George, for truly they have done me so many dyspleasurs that I shall be revenged and I may.' Than the king sett all his shyppes in order, the grettest befor, well furnysshed with archers, and ever bytwene two shyppes of archers he had one shypp with men of armes, and than he made an other batell [division] to ly a-lofe [aloof] with archers to confort [reinforce] ever them that were moost wery, yf nede were. And ther were a great nombre of countesses, ladyes, knyghts' wyves and other damosels that were goyng to se the quene at Gaunt [Ghent]. These ladyes the kyng caused to be well kept with thre hundred men of armes and five hundred archers.

Whan the kyng and his marshals had ordered his batayls, he drewe up the seales [sails] and cam with a quarter wynde to have the vauntage of the sonne. And so at last they tourned a lytell to get the wynde at wyll : and when the Normayns sawe them recule [withdraw] back, they had marvell why they dyde so. And some sayd, 'They thynke themselfe nat mete to medyll with us: wherfore they woll go backe.' They sawe well howe the kyng of England was ther personally, by reason of his baners. Than they dyd appareyle [make ready] their flete in order, for they wer sage and good

men of warr on the see: and dyd set the Christofer, the which they had won the yer before, to be formast, with many trumpettes and instrumentes; and so set on their ennemies. Ther began a sore batell on bothe partes: archers and crosbowes began to shote, and men of armes aproched and fought hande to hande, and the better to come togyder they had great hokes and grapers [grapplers] of yron to cast out of one shyppe into an other, and so tyed them fast togyder. Ther were many dedes of armes done, takyng and rescuyng agayne, and at last the great Christofer was first won by the Englysshmen, and all that were within it taken or slayne. Then ther was great noyse and cry, and the Englysshmen aproched and fortifyed the Christofer with archers, and made hym to passe on byfore to fyght with the Genoweys. This batayle was right fierse and terryble: for the batayls on the see ar more dangerous and fierser than the batayls by lande. For on the see ther is no reculyng nor fleyng; ther is no remedy but to fight and to abyde fortune, and every man to shewe his prowes. Of a trouthe sir Hewe Kyriell and sir Bahuchet and Barbe Noyer were ryght good and expert men of warre. This batayle endured from the mornyng tyll it was noone, and the Englysshmen endured moche payne, for their ennemies were foure agaynst one and all good men on the see. Ther the kyng of England was a noble knight of his owne hands; he was in the flower of his youth. In likewyse so was the erle of Derby, Pembroke, Herforde, Huntyngdon, Northampton, and Glocetter, Sir Raynolde Cobham, sir Richard Stafforde, the lorde Percy, sir Water of Manny, sir Henry of Flaunders, sir John Beauchamp, the lorde Felton, the lorde Brasseton, sir Chandos, the lorde Dalawarre, the lorde of Multon, sir Robert Dartoys, called erle of Rychmont, and dyverse other lordes and knyghtes, who bare themselfe so valyantly with some socours that they had of Bruges and of the countrey there about, that they obtayned the vyctorie. So that the Frenchmen, Normayns, and other were dysconfetted, slayne, and drowned; there was not one that scaped, but all were slayne. Whanne this vyctorie was atchyved the kyng all that nyght abode in his shyppe before Sluse with great noyse of trumpettes and other

instrumentes.

Our second example of Lord Berners' happiness in translation shall be taken from a book very unlike the Froissart, but in its own day quite as famous. The official chronicler of Charles V.-Lord Berners may have known him personally-was a Franciscan monk, Antonio de Guevara, Bishop of Mondoñedo (d. 1545). His Reloj de Principes, or 'Dial of Princes,' has been attractively described as 'a didactic novel with Marcus Aurelius for its hero,' and was designed for the edification of the Emperor Charles. A rather transparent pretence that it was translated from a Greek manuscript in a library at Florence was virulently exposed in Spain, but passed muster in France and England; and Lord Berners' translation, made from an intermediate French version at the request of Sir Francis Bryan, and completed at Calais a week before the translator's death, was called The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius, Emperour and Eloquent Oratour. First published in 1539, it went through at least seven editions, of which the