id="Page_32" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[32]"/> world for the institution of the human life is history. Once the continual reading thereof maketh young men equal in prudence to old men, and to old fathers striken in age it ministereth experience of things. More it yieldeth private persons worthy of dignity, rule and governance: it compelleth the emperors, high rulers, and governors to do noble deeds to the end they may obtain immortal glory: it exciteth, moveth and stirreth the strong, hardy warriors, for the great laud that they have after they lie dead, promptly to go in hand with great and hard perils in defence of their country: and it prohibiteth reproveable persons to do mischievous deeds for fear of infamy and shame. So thus through the monuments of writing which is the testimony unto virtue many men have been moved, some to build cities, some to devise and establish laws right, profitable, necessary and behoveful for the human life, some other to find new arts, crafts and sciences, very requisite to the use of mankind. But above all things, whereby man's wealth riseth, special laud and praise ought to be given to history: it is the keeper of such things as have been virtuously done, and the witness of evil deeds, and by the benefit of history all noble, high and virtuous acts be immortal. What moved the strong and fierce Hercules to enterprise in his life so many great incomparable labours and perils? Certainly nought else but that for his great merit immortality might be given him of all folk.… Why moved and stirred Phalerius the King Ptolemy oft and diligently to read books? Forsooth for no other cause but that those things are found written in books that the friends dare not show to the prince[46]." This is of course far from being the full-blown euphuism of Lyly or Pettie, yet we cannot but agree with Mr Lee, when he declares that "the parallelism of the sentences, the repetition of the same thought differently expressed, the rhetorical question, the accumulation of synonyms, the classical references, are irrefutable witnesses to the presence of euphuism[47]." But Mr Lee appeared to be quite unconscious of the full significance of his discovery. It means that Berners was writing euphuism in 1524, five years before Guevara published his book in Spain. No critic, as far as I have been able to discover, has shown any consciousness of this significant fact[48], which is of course of the utmost importance in this connexion; as, if it is to carry all the weight that is at first sight due to it, the theory that euphuism was a mere borrowing from the Spanish must be pronounced entirely exploded. But it is as well not to be over-confident. Guevara's Libro Aureo, his earliest work, was undoubtedly first published by his authority in 1529, but there seems to be a general feeling that the book had previously appeared in pirated form. This feeling is based upon the title of the 1529 edition[49], which describes the book as "nueuamente reuisto por su señoria," and upon certain remarks of Hallam in his Literature of Europe. Though I can find no confirmation for the statements he makes upon the authority of a certain Dr West of Dublin, yet the words of so well known a writer cannot be ignored. He quotes Dr West in a footnote as follows: "There are some circumstances connected with the Relox (i.e. the sub-title of the Libro Aureo) not generally known, which satisfactorily account for various erroneous statements that have been made on the subject by writers of high authority. The fact is that Guevara, about the year 1518, commenced a life and letters of M. Aurelius which purported to be a translation of a Greek work found in Florence. Having sometime afterwards lent this MS. to the emperor it was surreptitiously copied and printed, as he informs us himself, first in Seville and afterwards in Portugal.… Guevara himself subsequently published it (1529) with considerable additions[50]." From this it appears that previous unauthorised editions of Guevara's book had been published before 1529. Might not Berners therefore have come under Guevara's influence as early as 1524? We must concede that it is possible, but, on the other hand, the difficulties in the way of such a contingency seem almost insuperable. In the first place, if we are to believe Dr West, Guevara did not begin to write his work before 1518, and it was not until "some time afterwards" (whatever this may mean) that it was "surreptitiously copied and printed." It would require a bold man to assert that a book thus published could be influencing the style of an English writer as early as 1524. But further it must be remembered that Berners almost certainly could not read Castilian[51]. Now the earliest known French translation of Guevara is one by Réné Bertaut in 1531, which Berners himself is known to have used[52]. Therefore, if Berners was already under Guevara's influence in 1524, he must have known of an earlier French pirated translation of an earlier pirated edition of the Libro Aureo. To sum up; if the euphuistic tendency in English prose is to be ascribed entirely, or even mainly, to the influence of Guevara's Libro Aureo, we must digest four improbabilities: (i) that there existed a pirated edition of the book in Spain earlier than 1524: (ii) that this had been translated into French, also before 1524, although the version of Bertaut in 1531 is the earliest French translation we have any trace of: (iii) that Berners himself had come across this hypothetical French edition, again before 1524: and (iv) that the French translation had so faithfully reproduced the style of the original, that Berners was able to translate it from French into English, for the purpose of his prologue to Froissart.