There is one side of personal manners, however, in which the

Transcriber's Notes: In this text, a caret character indicates that the

following letter is superscripted in the original. Other notes follow

the text.

THE HUMANIST'S LIBRARY

Edited by Lewis Einstein

VIII

GALATEO

OF MANNERS AND

BEHAVIOURS

A

RENAISSANCE

COURTESY-BOOK

GALATEO

OF MANNERS & BEHAVIOURS

BY

GIOVANNI DELLA CASA

With an Introduction by

J. E. SPINGARN

GRANT RICHARDS LTD.

LONDON

Copyright, 1914, by D. B. Updike

A TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ix

The Dedication 3

Commendatory Verses 6

The Treatise of Master Jhon Della Casa 13

Bibliographical Note 121

INTRODUCTION

One day, in Rome, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the Bishop

of Sessa suggested to the Archbishop of Benevento that he write a

treatise on good manners. Many books had touched the subject on one

or more of its sides, but no single book had attempted to formulate

the whole code of refined conduct for their time and indeed for all

time. And who could deal with the subject more exquisitely than the

Archbishop of Benevento? As a scion of two distinguished Florentine

families (his mother was a Tornabuoni), as an eminent prelate and

diplomatist, an accomplished poet and orator, a master of Tuscan prose,

a frequenter of all the fashionable circles of his day, the author

of licentious capitoli, and more especially as one whose morals were

distinctly not above reproach, he seemed eminently fitted for the

office of arbiter elegantiarum.

So it was that some years later, in disfavour with the new Pope, and

in the retirement of his town house in Venice and his villa in the

Marca Trivigiana, with a gallant company of gentlemen and ladies to

share his enforced but charming leisure, the Archbishop composed the

little book that had been suggested by the Bishop of Sessa, and that,

as a compliment to its "only begetter," bears as a title his poetic or

academic name.

There have been modern scholars who have wondered that so eminent a

prelate, and so austere and passionate a lyric poet (for the licentious

capitoli were best forgotten), "should have thought it worthy of his

pains to formulate so many rules of simple decency," descending even

to such trifles as the use of the napkin, the avoidance of immodest

topics, and the details of personal apparel. It might, however, be

pointed out that it is just because such distinguished men as our

Archbishop formulated these details for us in the Renaissance that they

have become part and parcel of our social code; that to quarrel with

the Archbishop on this score were not unlike quarrelling with Euclid

because he formulated laws of geometry which mathematicians nowadays

leave to schoolboys; and that the serious preoccupation with manners,

characteristic of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, made it possible

for modern European society to form an organic social whole, with a

model of the finished gentleman, more or less the same in all countries

and all periods.

But the fact is that it is the didactic form and tone, and not the

content, of the Archbishop's treatise with which our modern taste has

its quarrel. If books on etiquette are no longer in fashion, it is not

because preoccupation with the details of social conduct has ceased,

but because we no longer express it in the form of rules or codes. Our

plays, our novels, our essays, are mosaics of reflections on the very

things that interested the courts and coteries of the Renaissance. When

a modern writer wishes to enforce the idea that such apparent trifles

are of real concern, he no longer says: "It is important that every

young man should pay careful heed to the little tricks of manners,"

but he puts into the mouth of one of his characters, as Mr. Galsworthy

does, such a speech as this: "For people brought up as we are, to have

different manners is worse than to have different souls.... How are you

going to stand it; with a woman who----? It's the little things." The

Archbishop of Benevento, if permitted to read passages like this in

modern plays and essays, would recognize his own ideas in all of them;

he could point to dialogues and discourses of his own time in which

dogmatic precepts were in like manner disguised as witty and elegant

conversation; but because he was the product of an age of formal

treatises, exquisitely written, he would have insisted on his right to

state precepts as precepts, and to sum them up in such a rounded code

as he has given us in the "Galateo."

The "Galateo," then, is a summary of the refined manners of the later

Renaissance. For centuries such books had been written, but out of

them, and from the practices of his own age, Della Casa attempted to

select the essential details, and to develop, for the first time, a

norm of social conduct,--in a book, above all, that should be a work

of art, and should conform to all the graces and elegancies of Tuscan

speech. The details are subordinated to a philosophy of manners, which

is lightly sketched, on the assumption that subtle reasoning would

be unintelligible to the youthful auditor to whom the precepts are

theoretically addressed, but which has an importance of its own, as

characteristic of the attitude of a whole epoch. When Della Casa calls

good manners "a virtue, or something closely akin to virtue," he is

making a mere concession to the ideals of his day. The moralists of the

later Renaissance, or Catholic Reaction, felt it necessary to defend

every social practice on the ground of its real or imaginary relation

to virtue, as the only thing which can ever justify anything to a

moralist. So the sixteenth century theorists of "honour" called honour

a form of virtue; those who argued about the nature of true nobility

made it to consist of virtue (a theory, indeed, as old as Menander and

Juvenal); just as the moralists of the Middle Ages had justified "love"

by calling it a virtue, too.

For Della Casa, however, the real foundation of good manners is to be

found in the desire to please. This desire is the aim or end of all

manners, teaching us alike to follow what pleases others and to avoid

what displeases them. This is a far cry from virtue, which in its

very essence would seem to be divorced from the idea of conciliating

the moods or whims of those about us; unless we assume that perhaps

the slight personal sacrifice involved in yielding to such whims was

the only form of virtue which a fashionable prelate might care to

recognize. In order to give pleasure, we are told, it is essential to

pay heed to the way a thing is done as well as to what is done; it is

not enough to do a good deed, but it must be done with a good grace.

That is to say, good manners are concerned with the form which actions

take, as morals are concerned with their content; and from the social

standpoint, the manner as well as the content of an act must be passed

upon in any judgement of it. And, finally, if the desire to please is

the aim of good manners, the guide, or test, or norm is common usage or

custom, which no less than reason furnishes the laws of courtesy, and

which in a sense may be said to be the equivalent in manners of what

duty is in morals.

It will be seen that Della Casa does not concern himself with that

conception of manners which relates it to a sense of personal dignity,

and which is summed up in Locke's dictum that the foundation of good

breeding is "not to think meanly of ourselves and not to think meanly

of others." This side of the social ideal was summed up for the later

Renaissance in the term "honour," which formed the theme of many

separate treatises in the sixteenth century. The "Galateo" deals solely

with those little concessions to the tastes and whims of those around

us which are necessitated by the fact that cultivated gentlemen are not

hermits, and must consider the customs and habits of others if they

wish to form part of a smoothly organized and polished society. We

may prefer to call this "considerateness for the feelings of others,"

but, essentially, most justifications of good manners depend on the

same idea of conciliating the accidental and immediate circle in

which we happen to move, at the expense of wider interests or larger

groups; and both "considerateness" and "the desire to please" fail as

justifications, or at least as incitements, as soon as the idea of

success within a definite circle is eliminated or submerged.

It is unnecessary, however, to break so fragile a butterfly as Della

Casa's philosophy on any wheel of serious argument. He is interested

solely in the superficial aspects of life, and an intricate or

consistent philosophy would have served no other purpose than to

alienate or confuse minds concerned, like his own, solely with life on

its superficial side. On the basis of such ideas,--to please others;

to win their good graces and one's own ultimate success; to be sweetly

reasonable in conforming to custom; to perform every act with an eye

to its effect on those about us,--on the basis of ideas as elementary

yet appealing as these, he formulates in detail the precepts of conduct

for daily human intercourse in a refined society.

In the first place, there are the things that are to be avoided because

they offend the senses. Coughing, sneezing, or yawning in someone's

face, greediness or carelessness in eating, and various sides of our

physical life fall within this category. We are not only to avoid

indiscretion in such matters, but we are to refrain from mentioning in

conversation whatever might be indelicate as a physical act. In the

second place, there are other indiscretions that have no such basis in

the mere senses, and refer solely to the mental attitude or to the mere

personal pride of our neighbours. To read a letter or to fall asleep

in company, to turn your back to your neighbour, to be careless about

one's way of standing or sitting, to be absent-minded or touchy about

trifles, are social sins of this second kind. The art of conversation

was the mainstay of social life in the Italian Renaissance, and to it

Della Casa naturally, at this point, devotes most of his attention. To

be obscene, or blasphemous, or too subtle; to dwell on inappropriate

things (as when repeating a friar's sermon to a young lady); to brag or

lie; to be too ceremonious or too servile; to tell a story awkwardly or

to mention indelicate matters without some polite periphrasis;--these

are some of the chief sins against this art of arts. There is very much

that is modern in the diatribe against the ceremoniousness that was

then creeping into Italy from Spain, for sixteenth century Venice was

not unlike nineteenth century England in its preference for ease and

simplicity, and a grave and reasonable charm of manner. Finally, there

are the details of individual conduct dictated essentially by custom,

without apparent regard to the physical comfort or personal pride of

those about us; and under this third heading, Della Casa summarizes the

various problems of personal apparel, table manners, and the like.

Della Casa invents no new laws for conduct, deduces no new theories

of courtesy or manners; even the details are to be found in many of

his mediaeval and Renaissance predecessors. What he adds, in precept

or dictum or anecdote, is the fruit both of his own social experience

and of his classical studies. His book is, like Castiglione's

"Cortegiano" and Sannazzaro's "Arcadia," almost a mosaic of Greek

and Latin borrowings. Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics," Plutarch's

moral treatises, the "Characters" of Theophrastus, and the moral and

rhetorical works of Cicero are the chief sources, although none of

these books is devoted solely, like his, to the superficial conduct

of men among their equals and superiors. But even to these he adds

something that was born out of those refinements of life which in

Renaissance Italy had been developed more highly than elsewhere, and

had made the fashions of Urbino, Mantua, and Ferrara the models of

all courts and coteries, wherever the Renaissance gained a foothold

beyond the Alps. In the courts and cities of Italy, combining alike the

atmosphere of the mediaeval court and the ancient city,--combining,

that is to say, "courtoisie" and "civilitas" (urbanitas),--the modern

"gentleman," as distinguished from his classical or romantic forbears,

may be said to have been born.

"Courtesy," as its very name indicates, is the flowering of that spirit

which first shone in the little courts of mediaeval Provence and

France, but which did not, perhaps, find its most complete expression,

as a philosophy of life, until Castiglione wrote the "Cortegiano" at

the beginning of the sixteenth century. By that time the small court

was already beginning to give way to the larger court or the cultivated

coterie as the overwhelming centre of social influence in Europe,

although the glory of Ferrara and Mantua and Urbino did not wane for

two or three generations. But even before Castiglione's day the more

humane and graceful of courtly manners had spread beyond the confines

of courts; and almost before he was dead, the name "courtesy," in so

far as it still suggested a definite locus, no longer expressed the

new wide range of polished manners. Other words crept into cultivated

speech, so that, by the first half of the seventeenth century, we find

in a little French treatise on manners, the "Loix de la Galanterie,"

four distinct terms for man regarded simply as a creature of social

manners,--courtisain, honnête homme, galant, and homme du monde. The

first of these, as described by Castiglione, seemed to this author

Italianate and obsolete, and the second, which had just furnished

the title to a treatise on "L'Honnête Homme, ou l'Art de Plaire à la

Cour," still retained something of its original moral significance,

so that "gallant" and "man of the world" summed up, best of all, the

social qualities of the life of the day. It is no longer the court

but the "monde" about which social life centres, not that other men

do not belong to the world (as this author naïvely explains), but

because we are concerned solely with that great world which is the home

of fashion. This was the age of précieux and précieuses, and their

code was no longer that of the court of Urbino, as it flourished in

Castiglione's day; it was the over-refined manners of the academies

and coteries of Siena and Ferrara during the later sixteenth century

that furnished all that was essential in French préciosité. For the

moment "gallantry" sufficed to express good manners; but gradually it

too became obsolete, and the Latin term "civility," with its inclusion

of all civil society rather than any group or class, superseded both

"gallantry" and "courtesy." "Courtois is scarcely any longer used

in cultivated conversation," Callières, a French wit of the end of

the seventeenth century, tells us, "just as civilité has replaced

courtoisie." Indeed, the word "courtoisie" no longer finds a place

in any but elevated or poetic language in France to-day; and English

speech, which has retained it after its original meaning has been lost,

now finds it necessary to distinguish between the courtly and the

courteous, by the former suggesting the content of what once, at least

in part, belonged to the latter.

It is the "civilitas" of ancient Rome no less than the "civilité" of

seventeenth century France that is summed up in the "Galateo." As

Castiglione expresses the courtly ideals of the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance, so Della Casa expresses the ideals of manners no longer

restricted to courts and courtiers, but common to all cultivated

civilians, the manners that were to form the basis of the European

code from that time to this. A long line of Italian predecessors had

prepared the way for its coming. Indeed, every encyclopaedia, every

romance of chivalry of the Middle Ages, contains precepts which find

a place in its pages. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth

centuries, Provence and Italy had already begun to furnish books on

such subjects. The "Breviari d'Amor" of Matfre Ermengaud includes

instruction in social conduct; the Italian, Bonvesin da Riva, had

written a treatise on "Fifty Courtesies of the Table;" Francesco da

Barberino had dealt at length with "The Manners and Behaviour of

Women;" still later, Sulpizio Verulano had written a treatise on the

table manners of children, which had found currency beyond the Alps;

and most influential of all, the great Erasmus, in 1526, had dealt at

length with children's manners in his "De Civilitate Morum Puerilium

Libellus." Della Casa follows tradition, or is moved by the example

of Erasmus, to the extent of representing his book as the discourse

of an old man to a young one; but this is a mere subterfuge, and

neither youth nor age figures in the precepts that follow. Unlike

his predecessors, he is concerned not merely with children, or with

women, or with the ideals of a narrow class like the courtier, or with

the general moral life of which manners are only an ornament or a

garment. He has written a book that touches on the essentials of good

manners as they affect all classes and groups which aim at individual

perfection,--not merely the young, but the mature; not merely men or

women, but both sexes; not merely the courtier, but all cultivated

classes. In this sense, it is the first of its kind. It is a trifling

and perhaps negligible kind, but at least this much distinction belongs

to the book.

The "Galateo" is a product of the Catholic Reaction. It is one of

the results of the casuistry and the scholastic spirit which in every

field of intellectual activity were applied to the life and art that

had found creative expression in the age of the Renaissance. What

the Renaissance did or wrote, the Catholic Reaction reasoned about,

codified, and stereotyped. The creative poetry of the Renaissance was

reduced to formulae in the treatises on the art of poetry of the later

sixteenth century; politics and history found reasoned expression in

treatises on political theory and historical method; and in similar

fashion, the social life of earlier Italy resulted in this age in

treatises on the practice and theory of society. It would be idle to

catalogue the various examples of this curious intellectual activity,

for the works of the sixteenth century dealing with this subject may

be numbered by hundreds, indeed by thousands. There were of course

treatises on court life and the ideals of the courtier, from the

"Cortegiano" of Castiglione to the discourses of Domenichi and Tasso;

treatises on honour and the duel, of which Possevino's "Dell'Onore"

is the type; treatises on the gentleman, his nature, his education,

and his occupations, like "Il Gentiluomo" of Muzio Justinipolitano,

the quality of which may be tasted in English in Peacham's "Compleat

Gentleman;" treatises on love and the relations of the sexes, all

summed up in Equicola's encyclopaedic "Libro di Natura d'Amore;"

treatises on social amusements, parlor games, and the like, such as

Scipione Bargagli's "I Trattenimenti" and Ringhieri's "Cento Giuochi

Liberali e d'Ingegno;" treatises on conversation, like Guazzo's "Civil

Conversatione;" and finally, a large number of treatises on the

education of women and children.

Among all these the "Cortegiano," one of the earliest, stands out

preëminently, just because it is the spontaneous product of the age of

which it is also a reasoned expression; that is to say, because it is a

work of art of the Renaissance rather than a mere scholastic treatise

of the Catholic Reaction. It is in no sense a courtesy-book; it is

concerned with principles of social conduct rather than with details

of etiquette. But of all the mere courtesy-books, the "Galateo" alone

survives; its name is current coin in Italian speech to-day; and in the

eighteenth century Dr. Johnson coupled it with the "Cortegiano" as "two

books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance."

A French scholar of our own day has said that for modern culture

"antiquity" means ancient Greece and Rome, but that for modern manners

"antiquity" means mediaeval France. Yet this is only in part true, and

these sixteenth century books sum up that combination of "courtoisie"

and "civilitas" which gives its special note to Renaissance manners,

and which distinguishes such books from their predecessors of the

twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. We have but to examine any

typical discussion of manners in mediaeval literature, such as the

famous description of the exquisite table manners of the Prioress in

the Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales," or the passage in the "Roman

de la Rose" from which Chaucer borrowed his own details, to note a

characteristic distinction. Both of these passages are concerned with

women; in the Middle Ages it was only a woman who was supposed to

exhibit such refined delicacy in the details of conduct. Liberality,

magnanimity, courage, loyalty, chivalrousness to women, and courtesy

in its larger sense,--these and other social virtues the mediaeval

man was supposed to possess; but even in the courtly circles of

Provence, it may be doubted whether the delicacy and refinement of

every movement which Chaucer ascribes to his Prioress would have been

expected of the courtliest knight. Moderation and discretion--called

"measure" or "manner"--were the nearest mediaeval approach to these

requirements for men. Moderation may be said to be implicit in the

ideal of the gentleman in every age (indeed, it may be said to express

the limitations of the ideal, for moderation is as often a vice as a

virtue); but it was never more insisted on than in those ages when

it was heeded least. For the Middle Ages, measure and good manners

were almost synonymous terms. "Courtesy and measure are the same

thing,"--we are told in the fourteenth century French romance of

"Perceforest,"--"for manner and measure must be added to all your deeds

if you would have great virtue." This may seem to be closely akin to

Della Casa's statement that polished behaviour consists in adding a

good grace to a good deed; but to the hero of "Perceforest," it would

have argued lack of "measure," or discretion, for any man to adopt

graces and refinements so essentially feminine and unmanly as the table

manners of Chaucer's Prioress.

It was in the Renaissance, and in the courts and cities of Italy, that

the larger virtues of measure and magnanimity and liberality were first

felt to be inadequate, in men no less than in women and children,

without the minor nuances of good manners. It was first felt there that

in such matters as yawning or coughing in another's face, carelessness

and greediness in eating, and other annoying traits, there could be

only one standard for both sexes and for all ages. If the mediaeval

ideal of "courtoisie" was based essentially on the relation of the

sexes, without regard to individual instinct or social agreement in

the wider sense, the "Galateo," in basing good manners on the desire

to please others, wholly regardless of sex, represents a real advance,

or at least a widening of social interest. On a basis of mediaeval

manners, then, the Renaissance superimposed the classical ideal of

"urbanitas" or "civilitas." In keeping with the spirit of his time,

Della Casa rounded all this practice and precept into a code; and

because to codify is to stereotype, he is in part responsible for the

fact that the pattern he formulated has scarcely been altered from his

day to ours.

There is one side of personal manners, however, in which there has

been much change. When Bacon says that "cleanness of body was ever

deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God," he can hardly be said

to summarize theological opinion on the subject of cleanliness in the

preceding fifteen hundred years. The rules of St. Benedict permit

bathing only to invalids and the very old, except on rare occasions;

although an eighteenth century French ecclesiastic insists that the

church never objected to bathing, "provided one indulges in it because

of necessity and not for the sake of pleasure." But our concern is

only with secular society, and there we find that cleanliness was

considered only in so far as it was a social necessity, if indeed then;

as an individual necessity or habit it scarcely appears at all. Della

Casa's standard of social manners applies here, too: cleanliness was

dictated by the need of pleasing others, and not because of any inner

demand of individual instinct. But even in this Italy was in advance of

her neighbours, if personal cleanliness represents social advance. In

France, odorous greatness was the rule, and contemporary chronicles

record the filthy personal habits of Henry of Navarre, the great Condé,

and Louis XIII. The "Loix de la Galanterie," nearly a century after

the "Galateo," advises the gallant to wash his hands every day--and

"his face almost as often." All this has changed. Personal cleanliness,

because of its complete acceptance as an individual necessity, has

virtually ceased to touch the problem of social manners at any point;

and cultivated society simply acts from time to time by formulating

new delicacies of neatness and cleanliness, makes them the habit of

life, and, forgetting them completely, passes on to new trifles of

perfection. Perhaps we can judge this modern change without too great

an exaggeration of its importance, if we bear in mind the paradox of

the modern wit, that "dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth, but

the fact remains that the classes that wash most are those that work

least."

I have already pointed out that one of the limitations of that code of

good breeding which we have inherited from the Renaissance and which

it is almost the mission of modern life to destroy, is that it looks

merely to the comfort of those around us at any accidental point of

time or place, often if not always at the expense of other groups,

other classes, and wider interests. Those who inveigh against democracy

as destructive of the "finer graces" of life have hit upon what is, for

good or evil, the very essence of its reformative programme. A modern

idealist sums up this newer attitude when he says of the old code

that it asks us "rather to let a million pine than hurt the feelings

of a single man." But wholly apart from this, codes and rules have no

more justification in the art of life than in the arts of poetry and

painting. Each individual soul must express its past and its present,

its inheritance and its aspiration, in its own way; and it is as futile

and vulgar to apply "rules" in the estimate of a life as it is in the

criticism of a poem or a picture. Children and novices and immature

societies may obtain practical guidance from the empirical observations

of those who have had experience, but in order to create a real life of

their own, a real social atmosphere, they must reach the point where

the very rules that nurtured them no longer apply. To disregard every

rule of good breeding is the symbol of real attainment in the creative

art of living.

But this is no place to wage a battle for old codes or new ones. The

"Galateo" describes habits and impulses that for centuries have moved

the souls of men, dictated their conduct, given them pleasure and pain,

and that probably for centuries will continue to do so. Nothing that

has so stirred men and women, however trifling it may seem, can fail to

hold a little human interest for those who call themselves Humanists.

J. E. S.

New York, February, 1914.

Galateo of Maister John Della Casa, Archebishop of Benevento.

Or rather, A Treatise of the Manners and Behaviours, it behoveth a

Man to use and eschewe, in his Familiar Conversation. A Worke very

necessary & profitable for all Gentlemen, or Other.

First written in the Italian Tongue, and now done into English by

Robert Peterson, of Lincolnes Inne Gentleman. Satis, si sapienter.

Imprinted at London for Raufe Newbery dwelling in Fleetestreate litle

above the Conduit. An. Do. 1576.

THE DEDICATION

To the Right Honorable my singular good Lord, the Lord Robert Dudley,

Earle of Leicester, Baron of Denbigh, Knight of the Honorable order of

the Garter, Maister of the Queenes Majesties Horses, and one of her

Highnesse privie Counsell: Robert Peterson wisheth perfect felicitie.

Lighting of late (Right Honorable) upon this treatise of courtesie,

penned by an experienced Italian, & drawn for the profit therof, in to

so many languages: I thought his lessons fit for our store, & sought to

make him speake Englishe.

Wise was that Cato, that ended bothe his learning, and living day

together. And truly, Courtesie and Courtiership, be like Hippocrates

twinnes, that laughe together, and grow together: and are so one

affected, that who so divorceth them, destroyeth them. But yet, seeing

moe redie to condemne the least trip then commend the best meaning,

and knowing that the Scarre sticketh thogh good desert do hele the

wound: & perceiving that Naevus in articulo pueri delectat Alcaeum, &

Roscii oculi perversissimi catulum, That is, many dote on their fansie:

I durst not send this, mine Heire and firste fruites of my toile, to

the view of the world, without the guarde of your Patronage, wherin

there is no presumption to teach them that are perfected, but may serve

either as Simonides Characters, to stablish memory, or as an Index, to

point them to other behaviours enrolled whersoever. Spread therefore (I

beseeche your honour) the winges of wel liking over this worke, which

presseth to you, as not only the patrone to protect, but the patterne

to expresse any courtesie therin conteined. Mine Authour reporteth one

Maestro Chiarissimo a perfect Mason, when he had described the finest

precepts of his art, to have made his Regolo a piller so exactly, as

would beare the proofe of every demonstration, thinking it learned

speedely, where the mind and the eye, precept and experience joined

hands together: whose steps I tread (though with better successe then

mine Author, who could not finde a Regolo) hoping, when others shall

come to trie these preceptes, not by showe or sound, as fooles do

their Golde: but, by your behaviour, as by the touchstone: when they

shal come, not to ken aloofe, but at hand, to view your so singular

demeanour, so civil, so courteous, as maketh you renoumed abrode, and

honored at home: coveted of the Noblest, & wonderful of the learnedst:

when they shall in the glasse of your courtesie, see the blots that

blemishe the dignitie of their estate: when they compare these lessons

with the Regolo, they shal herein see no lesse commoditie, then was

in Alcibiades Sileni (whereunto Socrates was compared) whiche though

they bare not, in the front, any shewe of singularitie: yet within,

bare they pictures of excellent wit & delight. This worke, if it

please your honour to vouchsafe as a companion of ease to trace the

pathes, which you have already so well beaten, (which presumeth not

to be guide for conduction) or if your honour daine at highe leasure

to peruse it (whiche is not cunningly but faithfully translated) I

doubt not, but your countenance will so credit the Author, as wil

embolden him to presse amongst the thickest throng of Courtiers: And

herewithall beseeche your honour, to accept the humble and dutifull

meaning minde of him: who, not satisfied, till he might by some meanes

give shewe of his thankefull minde, for your honorable favours shewed

unto him, hathe offered this small, though as faithfull a gifte as

Sinaetes did to Cyrus: hoping, that your honour will take it as well

in worth, as Artaxerxes did his poore Persians handfull of water. Thus

with hartie prayer, for the advauncement of your estate, increase of

honor, & attainement of perfect and perpetual felicitie: I commend

your Lordship, to the patronage and protection of the Almightie. Your

Lordships moste humble to dispose and commaunde.

Robert Peterson

COMMENDATORY VERSES

Al Signor Ruberto Peterson, esortandolo A

tradurre in Inghilese il Galateo

Ben posson dirsi avventurate carte

Quelle ch' el dotto, e gentil Casa spese:

Quand' in breve discors' à insegnar prese

Del honesta creanza la prima arte.

Poi che tanto si apprezz' in ogni parte

Quel ch' ei ne scrisse, e ch' ei si ben intese

E ch' ogn' un con maniére più cortese

Dal bel trattato suo tosto si parte.

Esso à Donn' e donzelle, & cavallieri

Non sol d'Italia: ma di Francia, e Spagna

Di gentilezza mostr' i modi veri.

Venga per voi felice anco in Brettagna

E parli Inglese ne Palazzi alteri

Del regn' invitto che 'l Tamigi bagna.

Francesco Pucci

Le creanze, e i costumi,

Tanto splendenti lumi,

Ch'a gli huomini fan l'huom superiore,

Eccoli tratti fore

De l'Italico seno

E piantati ne l'Anglico terreno.

Or se li goda ogniun, che porta amore

A 'l suo decoro, e a 'l suo compiuto onore.

Alessandro Citolini

Edouardus Cradoccus, S. Theologiae Doctor & Professor

Moribus quisquis rudis est ineptis,

Nescit is vitam placidam tueri:

Nemini gratus, sociusque nulli

Charus habetur.

Quisquis at pulchre simul & decore

Se gerit, mentis studio repellens

Rusticos mores, popularis ille

Jure videtur.

Hoc Petersoni liber hic venustus

Praestat, ostendens habitu decoro

Possit ut quisque probitate splendens

Utilis esse.

Idque dum magno satagit labore,

Italum fecit patria loquela

Hunc perornatas meus hic amicus

Fundere voces.

Thomas Drant, Archedeacon in praise of this Booke

An happy turne that Casa once did hatche,

Of haviours choice this booke in Ital' phrase:

An Archebishop, and writer without matche

In this he was, and peereles pight with praise.

Such he his lore so well and wise doth lend:

It heare ne reade we can, but must amend.

This booke by Tiber, and by Po hath past,

Through all Italia Townes and Country lands.

Iberus, throughe thy Spanishe coasts as fast

It after yoade: and Gauls it held in hands,

Throughe Rhenus realmes it spred in prosperous speede,

To Lordes and Ladies reaching comly reede.

It Peterson, to Britain eyes doth bring

Translated true and trimme: and fit to frame

Faire maners fine for men. This prety Ring

Bedecketh feate our life: discourse and game

It ordereth apt with grace. The booke is grave,

Eke wise and good, for civil folke to have.

To his friend Maister Robert Peterson Gent.

Thy Galateo (Peterson) doth shrowd him selfe to long.

What? shall it sleepe Endymions yeares? thou dost thy countrie wrong.

She hath a childs parte, Plato saies, and with the Author cries,

That both thy toile, and this her gaine, may reare his skill to skies.

What thoughe thou thinke thy present small, for view of gallant ones

This litle Diamond, shall out prize, a quarry full of stones.

And Noble Cyrus (Man) will daine cold water in Sinaetaes hand:

Then fray not, if thy booke, in pure, unfiled termes doe stand.

Translatours can not mount: for though, their armes with wings be

spread,

In vaine they toile to take the flight, their feete are clogd with

lead.

This faith, that makes the Authour, speake his owne in language new:

Renoumes the more, then if thou blazdst it out, in painted hew.

For, serpents lurke in greenest grasse, and with a garishe gloze,

The Strumpet pounts in pride, where matrones marche in comelie

clothes.

Go publishe it, and dreade not scowling Momus poisond spite.

And though Archilochus Iambes fly, or Theons taunts doe bite:

Thinke, winds doe haunt the gallauntst trees, and Envy things of

state.

And lightning checks, Cerauniaes tops, whome no hils els do mate.

The best have borne the bob, and Zoiles brutes durst geve the charge:

But Zoile hangs, and Callisthen keepes in cage for talking large.

And yet, wordes they be winde: but as erst Plinies Draconite

No toole could pierce or carve: or as the gemme Chalazias hight,

Keepes cold, though it in Aetna frie, or Adiantons flowers

Drawes not a drop, though skies distill downe everlasting showers:

So good desert, doth chalenge good reporte by reasons rate,

Though oft they beare the checkes and taunts, they cannot take the

mate.

Yet seeke Mecaenas wings to shroude thy toile: Virgilio

Found his Augustus: Ennie thou maist finde thy Scipio.

This trump shall sound thy praise. Sir Phoebus golden rayes shall

turne

To foggie mistes, and seas that beare their ysie crust, shall burne:

And lumpishe lowte, with country shares shall salte Sea fome divide,

And sowe his graine in Afrik Syrtes that wallow every tide,

Before this worke shall die: which neither Joves thundering threate,

Nor fierie flames shall waste, nor rustie, cankred age shall freate.

Nolo Persium nolo Laelium.

Your friend. I. Stoughton

Student

The vine is praisde, that daintie grape doth give

Although the fruite more please then holsome be,

Each fertil tree, is favord for the fruite,

So is the hearb that gallant is to see.

If this be trueth, he needes must merit well,

That gives us groundes to guide our erring wayes,

And trades us truely in the golden maze,

Where vertue growes, and courtlike manner stayes.

Galateo first did frame this golden booke

In Ital land. From thence it went to Spaine.

And after came into the coasts of Fraunce.

And nowe at last in England doth remaine.

The Authour sure deserveth more renoume,

That so could spend his time for our behoofe,

Then my poore wit or cunning can recite,

As thou thy selfe by reading shalt finde proofe.

And as the Authour merits passing well,

So doth my friend deserve as greate a meede:

That makes a worke so hard to understand,

So easie that each simple may it reede.

I say no more: for (lo) it were in vaine

To praise good wine by hanging up a bushe,

The best will give (I hope) my friende his due.

As for the bad, I way them not a rushe.

Thomas Browne of L. I. Gent.

THE TREATISE OF MASTER JHON DELLA CASA

Wherin under the person of an old unlearned man, instructing a youthe

of his, he hath talke of the maners and fashions, it behoves a man to

use or eschewe, in his familiar conversation: intituled Galateo, of

fashions and maners.

For as muche as thou doste now enter the journy, wherof I have allredy

ronne forth the better parte (as thou seest) I meane the transitorie

waye of this mortall life: I have determined (such is the Love I beare

thee) to shewe all the daungerous straights thou must passe: For my

experience maketh me feare, y^t walking that way thou mayst easily

either fall, or by some meanes or other go astray. To the ende thou

maist once, taughte both by my instructions and experience, be able

to keepe the right waye, as well for the helthe of thy Soule, as the

commendation and praise of the Honourable and Noble house thou doest

come of. And bycause thy tender Age, is unfit (as yet) to receave

more principall and higher precepts, reserving them for fitter time,

I will beginn to discourse of such things as many men will deeme,

perchaunce, but trifles: I meane what manner of Countenance and grace,

behoveth a man to use, that hee may be able in Communication and

familiar acquaintance with men, to shewe him selfe plesant, courteous,

and gentle: which neverthelesse is either a vertue, or the thing that

comes very nere to vertue. And albeit Liberalitie, or magnanimitie, of

themselves beare a greater praise, then, to be a well taught or manored

man: yet perchaunce, the courteous behaviour and entertainement with

good maners and words, helpe no lesse, him that hath them: then the

high minde and courage, advaunceth him in whome they be. For these

be such things as a man shall neede alwayes at all hands to use,

because a man must necessarily be familiar with men at all times, &

ever have talk & communication with them: But justice, fortitude, and

the other greater, and more noble vertues, are seldome put in uze.

Neither is y^e liberall and noble minded man, caused every hower

to doe bountifull things: for to use it often, cannot any man beare

the charge, by any meanes. And these valiant men y^t be so full of

highe minde and courage: are very seldome driven to trye their valour

& vertue by their deeds. Then as muche as these last, doe passe those

first, in greatnes (as it were) & in weight: so much do the other

surmount these in number, & often occasion to use them. And, if I

could wel intend it, I could name you many, whoe, (being otherwise

of litle account) have ben & be still, muche estemed & made of, for

their cherefull & plesaunt behaviour alone: which hath bin suche

a helpe & advauncement unto them, that they have gotten greate

preferments, leaving farre behinde them, such men as have bin endowed

with those other noble and better vertues, spoken of before. And as

these plesaunt & gentle behaviours, have power to draw their harts &

minds unto us, with whome we live: so contrariwise, grosse and rude

maners, procure men to hate and despise us. Wherby albeit the lawes,

have injoined no paine for unmanerly & grose behaviours, as the fault

that is thought but light (& to saye a trueth, it is not greate) yet we

see notwithstanding, y^t nature herselfe punisheth them w^t sharpe &

shrewde correction, putting them by this meanes, besydes y^e companie

& favour of men. And truly even as greate & foule faults, doe muche

harme: so doe these light, much hurt, or hurte at least more often.

For, as men doe commonly fere y^e beasts y^t be cruell & wild, & have

no maner of feare of som litle ones, as y^e gnats and the flies, & yet

by y^e continual noiaunce they find by them, complaine them selves

more of thes then of y^e other: so it chaunceth y^t most men do hate

in maner asmuche, y^e unmanerly & untaught, as y^e wicked, & more.

So y^t there is no doubte, but who so disposeth himselfe to live,

not in solitarie and deserte places, as Heremites, but in fellowship

with men, and in populous Cities, will think it a very necessarie

thing, to have skill to put himselfe forth comely and seemely, in his

fashions, gestures and maners: the lacke of which parts doth make those

other vertues lame, and litle or nothing can they work to good effect,

without other helpes: wheare this civilitie and courtesie, without

other releefe or patrimonie, is riche of it selfe, & hath substance

enough, as a thing y^t standeth in speache and gestures alone.

And that y^u mayst now more easily learne the way unto it, thou must

understand, it behoves thee, to frame and order thy maners and doings,

not according to thine owne minde and fashion: but to please those,

with whome thou livest, and after that sort direct thy doings: And this

must be done by Discretion and Measure. For who so applieth himself

to much, to feede other mens humors, in his familiar conversation,

and behaviour with men, is rather to be thought a Jester, a Jugler or

flatterer, then a gentleman wel taught and nourtured: As contrariwise,

whoe so hath no care or mind to please, or displese, is a rude,

untaught, and uncourteous fellowe. For asmuche then, as our maners,

have some pleasure in them when we respect other men, and not our owne

pleasure: if we diligently searche forthe what those things be, that

most men do generally like or dislike: we shall in suche sorte wisely

and easily finde out, the meanes & wayes, to choose and eschewe, those

fashions and maners, we are to leave or take, to live amongest men.

We say then, that every act that offendeth any the common senses,

or overthwarteth a mans will and desire, or els presenteth to the

Imagination and conceite, matters unpleasaunt, & that likewise, which

y^e minde doth abhorre, such things I say bee naught, and must not be

used: for we must not only refraine from such thinges as be fowle,

filthy, lothsome and nastie: but we must not so muche as name them. And

it is not only a fault to dooe such things, but against good maner, by

any act or signe to put a man in minde of them. And therefore, it is an

ilfavoured fashion, that some men use, openly to thrust their hands in

what parte of their bodye they list.

Likwise, I like it as ill to see a Gentleman settle him selfe, to do

the needes of Nature, in presence of men: And after he hath doone, to

trusse him selfe againe before them. Neither would I have him (if I may

geve him councell) when he comes from suche an occupation, so much as

washe his hands, in the sight of honest company: for y^t the cause of

his washing, puts them in minde of some filthy matter that hath bene

done aparte. And by the same reason, it is no good maner, when a man

chaunceth to see, as he passeth the waye (as many times it happeneth)

a lothesome thing, y^t wil make a man to cast his stomacke, to tourne

unto the company, & shewe it them. And much worse I like it, to reache

some stinking thing unto a man to smell unto it: as it is many a mans

fashion to do, w^t importunate meanes, yea, thrusting it unto their

nose, saying: "Foh, feele I pray you, how this doth stink:" where they

should rather say, "smell not unto it: for it hath an ill sent." And as

these and like fashions offend the senses, to which they appertaine:

so to grinde the teethe, to whistle, to make pitifull cries, to rubb

sharpe stones together, and to file uppon Iron, do muche offend the

Eares and would be lefte in any case. Neither must wee refraine those

things alone, but we must also beware we do not sing, and specialy

alone, if we have an untuneable voice, which is a common fault with

moste men: And yet, hee that is of nature least apt unto it, doth use

it moste. So there be some kinde of men, that in coffing or neesing,

make suche noise, that they make a man deafe to here them: other some

use in like things, so little discretion, that they spit in mens faces

that stand about them: besides these there be some, that in yauning,

braye and crye out like Asses. And yet such, with open mouth wil

ever say and do what they list, and make such noise, or rather such

roaring, as the dumme man doth, when he striveth with him selfe to

speake. All these yllfavoured fashions, a man must leave, as lothsome

to the eare and the eye. And a man must leave to yawne muche, not

only for the respect of the matter I have saide alreadye, as that it

seemes to proceede, of a certaine werines, that shewes that he that

yawneth, could better like to be els where, then there in that place:

as wearied with the companie, their talke, and their doings. And sure,

albeit a man be many times disposed to yawne, yet if he be occupied

with any delight, or earnest matter to think uppon: he shall have no

minde to doe it. But if he be lumpishe & idle: it is an easy matter

to fall in to it. And therefore, When a man yawneth, in place where

there bee slouthfull and Idle folkes, that have nothing to doe, the

rest, as you may see many times, yawne againe for companie by & by:

as if he that yawned, had put them in minde to doe it, which of them

selves they would have done first, if hee had not be-goone unto them.

And I have many times heard learned and wise men say, that A yawner

meaneth as much in Latin as a careles and Idle bodie. Let us then flye

these condicions, that loathe (as I said) the eyes, the Eares, & the

Stomacke. For in using these fashions, we doe not only shewe that we

take litle pleasure in the company, but we geve them occasion withall,

to judge amis of us: I meane y^t we have a drowsye & hevie nowle, which

makes us ill wellcom, to all companies we come unto. And when thou

hast blowne thy nose, use not to open thy handkercheif, to glare uppon

thy snot, as if y^u hadst pearles and Rubies fallen from thy braynes:

for these be slovenly parts, ynough to cause men, not so much not to

love us, as if they did love us, to unlove us againe. As the Sprite

of Labirintho doth testifie (who soever he were that made it) who (to

quenche y^e heate wherwith Master John Boccase burned in desire and

Love of his Lady unknowne) tells, come ella covaua la cenere, sedendosi

insu le calcagna; & tossiua, & isputaua farfalloni.

It is also an unmanerly parte, for a man to lay his nose uppon the cup

where another must drinke: or uppon the meate y^t another must eate,

to the end to smell unto it: But rather, I would wish he should not

smell at all, no not to that which he himselfe should eate and drinke:

because it may chaunce there might fall some droppe from his nose, that

would make a man to loath it: although there fall nothing at all in

deede. Neither, by mine advise, shalt thou reache to any man, that cup

of wine wherof thy selfe hast first dronke and tasted: w^tout he be

more then a familiar friend unto thee. And much lesse must thou give

any parte of the peare or the fruite, which thou hast bitten in thy

mouth before. And esteeme not light of my talke, for that these things

be of little account: For even light stripes (their number may be such)

be able to slaye fast ynoughe.