Fraunce quoted freely from him as early as 1579.1 The first five cantos of the Jerusalem Delivered were translated by Richard Carew, who attempted to follow the original line for line. There are many passages of great beauty in this rendering, although it is by no means accurate. The more famous version by Edward Fairfax appeared a few years later.3 His poem has almost the ring of the original, and far surpassed Carew's translation, of which he made considerable

use.

VI

The classical influence in English literature came largely from Italy. Classical metres, which Tolomei had long before attempted to revive in Italy, were tried by Sidney and Spenser, and found apologists in Drant and Gabriel Harvey. Roger Ascham was, however, the first to advocate the use of quantity in English poetry. From Gabriel Harvey's letters' one can realize the extent of this movement, as well as the attempt which was made then to introduce such metres into English verse.5 Sidney, Spenser, Dyer and Greville formed a society bearing the name of the Areopagus, perhaps in imitation of the Florentine Academy

1 Arcadian Rhetorike. Vide Koeppel, Anglia, XI, XII, XIII. 2 Godfrey of Bulloigne, translated by R. C., 1594. 8 Godfrey of Bulloigne, translated by Edward Fairfax, 1600. Three proper and wittie familiar letters; Two other very commendable letters, in Haslewood, Arte of English Poesy.

5 Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, p. 299 et seq.

in the time of Lorenzo, which bore the same name,1 although probably based on the one which Baïf had founded in Paris shortly before. The original model for all such learned societies was Italian, but the idea of academies had long been present to the English mind. William Thomas, so far back as 1549, described the Academy in Florence as among the most interesting things he saw in all Italy. Later, Edmund Bolton advocated an English Academy, and Richard Carew deplored the lack of such an institution in his own country. The idea of an Academy in England was even present in the mind of Milton.3

The dominant influence in Elizabethan criticism was Italian, and the introduction of the poetic canons of Aristotle into England resulted from the influence of Italian critics. Sir Philip Sidney introduced Italian criticism just as Wyatt and Surrey had introduced the Italian lyric. His Defense of Poesy has been called an "epitome of the literary criticism of the Italian Renaissance," and its sources have been laid bare in the treatises of Minturno and Scaliger; Dolce, Trissino and Daniello were all placed by Sidney under contribution. Puttenham, likewise, as he was careful to inform the reader, had lived at the Italian courts; his conception of the poet was based directly on that 1 Cf. Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, XXV, 117.

2 Richard Carew in a letter to Cotton (1605), cited by Ellis, Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden Society, P. 99.

3 Prose Works, edited by St. John, 1848, II, pp. 477, 480. 4 Spingarn, op. cit., p. 268 et seq.

of Scaliger.1 The Italianated Harington, in his defence of the Orlando Furioso against the attacks made on it, gave for the first time in English the Aristotelian theory of the epic as revived in Italy. Italian poetic criticism was also to have its influence in Elizabethan literature. The dramatic unities of time and place, formulated for the first time by Lodovico Castelvetro in 1570, were copied by Sidney in his Defense,3 and utilized later in the classical plays of Daniel and Fulke Greville. The Senecan tragedy also in part through the Italian medium influenced English attempts at classical tragedy; Gascoigne's translation of Jocasta, for instance, was made, not from the original Greek of Euripides, but from Dolce's Italian rendering.

5

A set-back was, however, experienced in the attempt to classicize English poetry; Hall satirized the movement, and it received its death-blow in Daniel's Defense of Rhyme. It was a part of a similar reaction felt no less in other directions. With the growth of the Renaissance in Europe, Italian words and expressions had been introduced into other languages

1 Spingarn, op. cit., p. 264.

2 Ibid., p. 293. Jacopo Castelvetro, who had lectured on poetics in Paris (where he may have met Sidney), published in London, in 1585, Julius Cæsar Stella's Epic on Columbus, and dedicated it to Raleigh in appreciation of his exploits.

8 Ibid., p. 290.

* Vide Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on the Elizabethan Drama, London, 1893.

❝ Satires, I, 6.

6 Spingarn, p. 298.

classical or Italian

In

and this movement was now opposed in its turn; thus, in France, Henri Estienne ridiculed such imitation in his celebrated Dialogues du Françoys Italianizé. The feeling was undoubtedly growing that every nation should take pride in developing its language, without borrowing from sources. This movement, which was intended as a reaction against Italy, was really the counterpart of a similar one begun by Bembo1 and the Purists. England, however, the problem was somewhat different. Not only was the English language burdened by "inkhorn" terms as they were then known, but the different continental languages, especially the Italian, contributed to form its vocabulary. This tendency had begun already with Wyatt, who borrowed words here and there.2 Thomas Wilson had complained of those who, returning from foreign travel, "powder their talk with oversea language; some seek so far for outlandish English, that they forget altogether their mother's language; . . another chops in with English Italianated and applieth the Italian phrase to our English speaking." E. K. likewise, in his defence of the Shepheard's Calendar, spoke of the English language as a "hodge-podge of all other speeches," and alluded to those who desired to patch

1 Harvey was familiar with the works of Bembo. The first lectures he gave at Cambridge were based on his ideas. Vide Morley, English Writers, 1892, IX, 17 et seq.

"1

up its holes "with pieces and rags of other languages." There were Englishmen who proclaimed their tongue to be "barren" and "barbarous." On the other hand, John Kepers spoke of the necessity of making new words, and thought this could best be effected by those "conversant in foreign writers." 2 Greene's language was interlarded with Italian words and expressions. Nash, however, was the great example of this tendency. He wrote of those who objected to "the multitude of my boisterous compound word, and the often coining of Italianate verbs, which end all in ize, as mummianize, tympanize, tyrannize." He had made use of such words because, more than any other language, English swarmed with monosyllables, which he likened to small currency in a shopkeeper's box. His task had been to exchange these small coins "four into one and others into more, according to the Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian." Harvey, however, accused Nash of quite renouncing his natural English accent in his affectation of Tuscanism. Others likewise wrote against the foreign danger in the language. Sir John Cheke argued for English to be written "clean and pure," and without borrowing from other tongues. Mulcaster and Ascham both advocated its use without foreign expressions. Even Gascoigne, who had taken much from the Italian, prided himself on retaining old English words rather "than in

1 Guazzo, preface.

4

2 The Courtier's Academy, introduction.

8 Nash, IV, 6 et seq.

4 Castiglione, op. cit., p. 12.