of cream, 2 flaggons of frumenty, 200 oysters, and herbs. Aside from the quantity and the variety, the list is remarkable also for the fact that, except for the last item "herbs", there are no vegetables. Englishmen were still in the carnivorous age. The manner of preparation may be illustrated from the well-known Life of Wolsey by Cavendish.

Ye must understand that my lord was not there, nor yet come, but they being merry and pleasant with their fare, devising and wondering upon the subtleties. Before the second course, my Lord Cardinal came in. . . . Anon came up the second course, with so many dishes, subtleties, and curious devices, which were above a hundred in number, of so goodly proportion and costly, that I suppose the Frenchmen never saw the like. The wonder was no less than it was worthy indeed. There were castles with images in the same; Paul's church and steeple, in proportion for the quantity as well counterfeited as the painter should have painted it upon a cloth or wall. There were beasts, birds, fowls of divers kinds, and personages, most lively made and counterfeit in dishes; some fighting as it were, with swords, some with guns and crossbows, some vaulting and leaping; some dancing with ladies, some in complete harness, jousting with spears, and with many more devices than I am able with my wit (to) describe. Among all, one I noted: there was a chessboard subtilely made of spiced plate, with men to the same; and for the good proportion, because that Frenchmen be very expert in that play, my lord gave the same to a gentleman of France, commanding that a case should be made for the same in all haste, to preserve it from perishing in the conveyance thereof into his country. . . . Then went cups merrily about, that many of the Frenchmen were fain to be led to their beds...

The last survival of such culinary art is to be found in the ornaments for wedding-cakes, the little bride and groom under the bell, which most of us have seen only through confectioners' windows. It belongs to a past age, an age when the appeal was made to the eye rather than to the palate, just as children are delighted with ice-cream in fancy moulds. In general, in all this emphasis upon externality during the Renaissance there is a child-like quality.

Lack of restraint in the manner of life was symptomatic of the internal change in the philosophy of the period. In reaction against Semitic ideals taught by the Bible the moral code was relaxed. Intellectually, vertu lost the meaning of virtue to become synonymous with ability; emotionally, the bounds of decency were overstepped in a worship of beauty. In the first direction,

1 "Diese wichtige Konsequenz besteht darin, as prinzipielle, also grundstürzende Umwälzungen im seitherigen Produkyionsmechanismus der Menschen unbedingt

lying became a political accomplishment and assassination a legitimate weapon. One of the keenest books of any age, Il Principe of Macchiavelli, has for hero the notorious Cesar Borgia whose masterpiece of diplomacy was the murder of two hundred of his opponents who were his guests at a banquet in Sinigaglia. But Macchiavellianism was not peculiar to Macchiavelli; it pervades the age. In the second direction, to gratify the lusts of the flesh was considered admirable and done in the name of Hellenism. For, while we have behind us centuries of criticism, they accepted the whole without discrimination. Nor is this to be wondered at. Ancient Greece and Rome presented a complex ordered civilization beyond the conception of feudalism. The descriptions of Athens at the time of Pericles, or Rome at the time of Augustus, with broad portico-lined streets, seemed of the very fabric of dreams to the 15th century dweller in muddy, unsanitary London, or Paris. To us with our stadiums seating seventy thousand people there is nothing colossal about the Coliseum; its interest is in its historical associations. To them it was the work of supermen, the memorial of an age when life was finer than any that they knew. Now there are certain features of classic life, however much we may tacitly ignore them, that unquestionably existed, for although Greek culture is represented by the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles and by the statues of Phidias and Lysippus, the same culture in another phase is given in the erotic writers and the vase-paintings. Nor had the Renaissance sufficient perspective to differentiate. To them the Priapeia, equally with the Aeneid, was the work of Vergil and worthy of imitation, perhaps even more worthy of imitation by persons of culture because it presented conceptions opposed to the conventional ideas taught by the Church and held by the common herd. Much of the Renaissance immorality is merely an artistic pose. In proportion to the progress of humanism there follows concomitantly a freedom of expression in literature and in art, and Italy, the center of humanistic culture, was also the center of pagan morality. There, a wide divergence from Christian ethics is exhibited in all classes of society. The unedifying

auch zu einem völlig neuen geistigen Inhalt des Lebens, je nachdem sogar, wenn man, so sagen will, zu einer völligen Neugeburt der Idee führen müssen." Edward Fuchs, Sittengeschichte, Renaissance, 99.

entries in Burckhardt's Diary show a state of affairs in the Vatican scarcely suggestive of St. Peter. The measure of the Italian prince is given by the lives of the Baglioni, the Sforzas, or the D'Estes, and the novelle give us that of the citizen. All testimony points to a general decline in the moral code. It is not that there were sporadic outbursts, such as followed the Restoration in England, or the Regency in France, or that there was any consciousness of wrong-doing, or any sense of shame. When a Duchess of Urbino allows herself to be painted nude, even by a Titian, it must mean a conception of decency very different from our own, or when Cardinal Bandello feels it fitting to introduce exceedingly free tales by short prayers, or when the author of the obscene Ragionamenti could expect to be made a prince of the Church, a state of morality is posited in which the modern distinctions between right and wrong do not exist.

As humanism radiated from Italy to the northern nations, its progress was marked by an increased appreciation of the beautiful and a relaxation of morality. In France, the expedition of Charles VIII in 1494, when the French court en masse promenaded the length of Italy, introduced southern culture to the generality. Actually dates mean little when used in connection with a great movement. As early as 1478 the facetious tales in Latin of Poggio and Valla were published at Paris, and continuously Italian influence dribbled into France through Lyons. Yet, broadly speaking, owing to the strong personality of Clément Marot and the influence of his school, French literature does not become Italianate before the publication of the Deffense et Illustration de la langue française in 1549. On the other hand Francis First's patronage of Italian artists, such as Leonardo and Cellini for example, and his love for Italian architecture, as at Fontainebleau, are too well known to need comment. Almost equally well known through Brantôme are the scandalous conditions at the Valois courts. In France the generai proposition holds.

In England the proposition does not hold for the first half of the sixteenth century. Not until Nash and Shakespeare and Marlowe do we find literature at all comparable in sensuousness with the Italian. And, unless English prudery has suppressed such work, it seems probable that then, as now, the Anglo-Saxon was repelled rather than attracted by the artistic excesses of the

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Latin nations. The movement was slow. Just as England had no painters to compare with the great Italians, on the other hand her literature had no analogies to the Italian capitoli or writers of the type of Aretino. Even at the end of the century Nash feels it necessary to excuse himself for his "lascivious rhymes," and Gascoigne apologizes for the looseness of his poems,-a looseness largely imaginary and defended by foreign precedent. Humanism in England for the first half of the century was on the side of morality. Ascham protests violently against the introduction of Italian culture and of "baudy" Italian books. An additional reason for this attitude may be found in the character of the protagonists of English humanism. To associate Sir Thomas More, Cheke, Lilly, or Linacre with dissolute living is impossible. The result is that humanism there became primarily intellectual in character; for the first half of the century at least its freedom was that of the mind only.

In freeing English humanism from the responsibility of the introduction of refined vice, it must, however, be confessed that the effect was largely negative. The spiritual uplift of the age of faith had gone, and the contagion of European example produced a low moral tone. The grossness of the age is illustrated in the letters of Henry to Anne Boleyn. Skelton, a royal tutor, laureated by three universities, and ordained priest, allows himself to use words that today are to be found only in the slums and stews. Writers use the unadorned substantive whose place in the language of more polite peoples is taken by a suggestive paraphrase. They call a spade a spade, partly because they know no other expression, and partly because they see no objection to stating the fact. This coarseness caught the attention of the Venetian traveller.1

And altho their dispositions are somewhat licentious, I have never noticed any one, either at court or amongst the lower orders, to be in love, . . . I say this of the men, for I understand it is quite the contrary with the women, who are very violent in their passions. Howbeit the English keep a very jealous guard over their wives, though any thing may be compensated in the end, by the power of money.

The general effect of humanism upon the English morals in the sixteenth century was to make the age one of transition from a coarseness in expression, which is brutal and repelling, to a refinement, which, by concealing, is suggestive.

1 Italian Relation, ibid, 24.

One phase of this almost animal attitude on the part of the early Tudors deserves careful consideration by the student of literature, namely their ideas concerning the treatment of children and their attitude toward the marriage relation. These fundamental conceptions necessarily underlie all love poetry, such as the sonnet sequences of Wyatt and of Surrey. Our belief in the importance of the child and the sanctity of marriage causes us to read into their words meanings that are not there. We are sentimental over the presence of the child in the home; they were not. To illustrate from a familiar case, I think that it shocks the modern reader that Lorenzo in eloping with Jessica should allow her to rob Shylock; the elopement is excused by the power of love "on such a night", but what can excuse the theft of the jewels? To the sixteenth century mind both the elopement and the theft were on the same plane. If Lorenzo stole the daughter, why should he stickle at taking what was of less value? The relation between the parent and the child was sternly practical. Let the Italian continue.1

The want of affection in the English is strongly manifested towards their children; for after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age of 7 or 9 years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them generally for another 7 or 9 years. And these are called apprentices, and during that time they perform all the most menial offices; and few are born who are exempted from this fate, for every one, however rich he may be, sends away his children into the houses of others, whilst he, in return, receives those of strangers into his own. And on inquiring their reason for this severity, they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners. But I, for my part, believe that they do it because they like to enjoy all their comforts themselves, and that they are better served by strangers than they would be by their own children. Besides which the English being great epicures, and very avaricious by nature, indulge in the most delicate fare themselves and give their household the coarsest bread, and beer, and cold meat baked on Sunday for the week, which, however, they allow them in great abundance. That if they had their own children at home, they would be obliged to give them the same food they made use of for themselves. That if the English sent their children away from home to learn virtue and good manners, and took them back again when their apprenticeship was over, they might, perhaps, be excused; but they never return, for the girls are settled by their patrons, and the boys make the best marriages they can, and, assisted by their patrons, not by their fathers, they also open a house and strive diligently by this means to make some fortune for themselves; whence it proceeds

1 Italian Relation, ibid, 24. On this whole subject, compare The Age of Erasmus, P. S. Allen, Oxford, 1914.

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