The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1

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Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey "The Dioscuri of the Dawn" as
they have been called, are the representatives of this new movement in
English thought and literature, which came close on the heels of the New
Learning represented by Colet, More, Henry VIII. himself and Roger
Ascham. The adherents of the New Learning did not look with too
favourable eyes on the favourers of the Newest Learning. They took their
ground not only on literary lines, but with distinct reference to
manners and morals. The corruption of the Papal Court which had been the
chief motive cause of the Reformation--men judge creeds by the character
they produce, not by the logical consistency of their tenets--had spread
throughout Italian society. The Englishmen who came to know Italian
society could not avoid being contaminated by the contact. The Italians
themselves observed the effect and summed it up in their proverb,
_Inglese italianato e un diabolo incarnato_. What struck the Italians
must have been still more noticeable to Englishmen. We have a remarkable
proof of this in an interpolation made by Roger Ascham at the end of the
first part of his _Schoolmaster_, which from internal evidence must have
been written about 1568, the year after the appearance of Painter's
Second Tome.[8] The whole passage is so significant of the relations of
the chief living exponent of the New Learning to the appearance of what
I have called the Newest Learning that it deserves to be quoted in full
in any introduction to the book in which the Newest Learning found its
most characteristic embodiment. I think too I shall be able to prove
that there is a distinct and significant reference to Painter in the
passage (pp. 77-85 of Arber's edition, slightly abridged).

[Footnote 8: See Prof. Arber's reprint, p. 8.]

But I am affraide, that ouer many of our trauelers into _Italie_, do
not exchewe the way to _Circes_ Court: but go, and ryde, and runne,
and flie thether, they make great hast to cum to her: they make
great sute to serue her: yea, I could point out some with my finger,
that neuer had gone out of England, but onelie to serue _Circes_, in
_Italie_. Vanitie and vice, and any licence to ill liuyng in England
was counted stale and rude vnto them. And so, beyng Mules and Horses
before they went, returned verie Swyne and Asses home agayne; yet
euerie where verie Foxes with as suttle and busie heades; and where
they may, verie Woolues, with cruell malicious hartes.

[Sidenote: A trewe Picture of a knight of Circes Court.]

A maruelous monster, which, for filthines of liuyng, for dulnes to
learning him selfe, for wilinesse in dealing with others, for malice
in hurting without cause, should carie at once in one bodie, the
belie of a Swyne, the head of an Asse, the brayne of a Foxe, the
wombe of a wolfe. If you thinke, we iudge amisse, and write to sore
against you, heare,

[Sidenote: The Italians iudgement of Englishmen brought vp in Italie.]

what the _Italian_ sayth of the English Man, what the master
reporteth of the scholer: who vttereth playnlie, what is taught by
him, and what learned by you, saying _Englese Italianato, e vn
diabolo incarnato_, that is to say, you remaine men in shape and
facion, but becum deuils in life and condition. This is not, the
opinion of one, for some priuate spite, but the iudgement of all, in
a common Prouerbe, which riseth, of that learnyng, and those maners,
which you gather in _Italie_:

[Sidenote: The Italian diffameth them selfe, to shame the Englishe
man.]

a good Scholehouse of wholesome doctrine, and worthy Masters of
commendable Scholers, where the Master had rather diffame hym selfe
for hys teachyng, than not shame his Scholer for his learnyng.
A good nature of the maister, and faire conditions of the scholers.
And now chose you, you _Italian_ Englishe men, whether you will be
angrie with vs, for calling you monsters, or with the _Italianes_,
for callyng you deuils, or else with your owne selues, that take so
much paines, and go so farre, to make your selues both. If some yet
do not well vnderstand,

[Sidenote: An English man Italianated.]

what is an English man Italianated, I will plainlie tell him. He,
that by liuing, and traueling in _Italie_, bringeth home into
England out of _Italie_, the Religion, the learning, the policie,
the experience, the maners of _Italie_.... These be the
inchantements of _Circes_, brought out of _Italie_, to marre mens
maners in England; much, by example of ill life, but more by
preceptes of fonde bookes,

[Sidenote: _Italian_ bokes translated into English.]

of late translated out of _Italian_ into English, sold in euery shop
in London, commended by honest titles the soner to corrupt honest
maners: dedicated ouer boldlie to vertuous and honourable
personages, the easielier to begile simple and innocent wittes.

[Sidenote: pointing finger]

It is pitie, that those, which haue authoritie and charge, to allow
and dissalow bookes to be printed, be no more circumspect herein,
than they are. Ten Sermons at Paules Crosse do not so moch good for
mouyng men to trewe doctrine, as one of those bookes do harme, with
inticing men to ill liuing. Yea, I say farder, those bookes, tend
not so moch to corrupt honest liuing, as they do, to subuert trewe
Religion. Mo Papistes be made, by your mery bookes of _Italie_, than
by your earnest bookes of _Louain_....

[Sidenote: pointing finger]

Therfore, when the busie and open Papistes abroad, could not, by
their contentious bookes, turne men in England fast enough, from
troth and right iudgement in doctrine, than the sutle and secrete
Papistes at home, procured bawdie bookes to be translated out of the
_Italian_ tonge, whereby ouer many yong willes and wittes allured to
wantonnes, do now boldly contemne all seuere bookes that founde to
honestie and godlines. In our forefathers tyme, whan Papistrie, as a
standyng poole, couered and ouerflowed all England, fewe bookes were
read in our tong, sauyng certaine bookes of Cheualrie, as they sayd,
for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in
Monasteries, by idle Monkes, or wanton Chanons: as one for example,

[Sidenote: Morte Arthur.]

_Morte Arthure_: the whole pleasure of which booke standeth in two
speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold bawdrye: In which
booke those be counted the noblest Knightes, that do kill most men
without any quarrell, and commit fowlest aduoulteres by subtlest
shiftes: as Sir _Launcelote_, with the wife of king _Arthure_ his
master: Syr _Tristram_ with the wife of king _Marke_ his vncle: Syr
_Lamerocke_ with the wife of king _Lote_, that was his owne aunte.

[Sidenote: pointing finger]

This is good stuffe, for wise men to laughe att or honest men to
take pleasure at. Yet I know, when Gods Bible was banished the
Court, and _Morte Arthure_ receiued into the Princes chamber. What
toyes, the dayly readyng of such a booke, may worke in the will of a
yong ientleman, or a yong mayde, that liueth welthelie and idlelie,
wise men can iudge, and honest men do pitie. And yet ten _Morte
Arthures_ do not the tenth part so much harme, as one of these
bookes, made in _Italie_, and translated in England.

[Sidenote: pointing finger]

They open, not fond and common ways to vice, but such subtle,
cunnyng, new, and diuerse shiftes, to cary yong willes to vanitie,
and yong wittes to mischief, to teach old bawdes new schole poyntes,
as the simple head of an Englishman is not hable to inuent, nor
neuer was hard of in England before, yea when Papistrie ouerflowed
all. Suffer these bookes to be read, and they shall soone displace
all bookes of godly learnyng. For they, carying the will to vanitie
and marryng good maners,

[Sidenote: pointing finger]

shall easily corrupt the mynde with ill opinions, and false
iudgement in doctrine: first, to thinke nothyng of God hym selfe,
one speciall pointe that is to be learned in _Italie_, and _Italian_
bookes.

[Sidenote: pointing finger]

And that which is most to be lamented, and therfore more nedefull to
be looked to, there be moe of these vngratious bookes set out in
Printe within these fewe monethes, than haue bene sene in England
many score yeare before. And bicause our English men made _Italians_
can not hurt, but certaine persons, and in certaine places, therfore
these _Italian_ bookes are made English, to bryng mischief enough
openly and boldly, to all states great and meane, yong and old,
euery where.

And thus yow see, how will intised to wantonnes, doth easelie allure
the mynde to false opinions: and how corrupt maners in liuinge, breede
false iudgement in doctrine: how sinne and fleshlines, bring forth
sectes and heresies: And therefore suffer not vaine bookes to breede
vanitie in mens wills, if yow would haue Goddes trothe take roote in
mens myndes....

They geuing themselues vp to vanitie, shakinge of the motions of
Grace, driuing from them the feare of God, and running headlong into
all sinne, first, lustelie contemne God, than scornefullie mocke his
worde, and also spitefullie hate and hurte all well willers thereof.
Then they haue in more reuerence the triumphes of Petrarche: than
the Genesis of Moses: They make more account of _Tullies_ offices,
than _S. Paules_ epistles: of a tale in _Bocace_, than a storie of
the Bible. Than they counte as Fables, the holie misteries of
Christian Religion. They make Christ and his Gospell, onelie serue
Ciuill pollicie: Than neyther Religion cummeth amisse to them....

For where they dare, in cumpanie where they like, they boldlie
laughe to scorne both protestant and Papist. They care for no
scripture: They make no counte of generall councels: they contemne
the consent of the Chirch: They passe for no Doctores: They mocke
the Pope: They raile on _Luther_: They allow neyther side: They like
none, but onelie themselues: The marke they shote at, the ende they
looke for, the heauen they desire, is onelie, their owne present
pleasure, and priuate proffit: whereby, they plainlie declare, of
whose schole, of what Religion they be: that is, Epicures in liuing,
and +atheoi+ in doctrine: this last worde, is no more vnknowne now to
plaine Englishe men, than the Person was vnknown somtyme in England,
vntill som Englishe man tooke peines to fetch that deuelish opinin
out of Italie....

I was once in Italie my selfe: but I thanke God, my abode there, was
but ix. dayes:

[Sidenote: _Venice_.]

And yet I sawe in that litle time, in one Citie, more libertie to
sinne, than euer I hard tell of in our noble

[Sidenote: _London_.]

Citie of London in ix. yeare. I sawe, it was there, as free to
sinne, not onelie without all punishment, but also without any mans
marking, as it is free in the Citie of London, to chose, without all
blame, whether a man lust to weare Shoo or Pantocle....

Our Italians bring home with them other faultes from Italie, though
not so great as this of Religion, yet a great deale greater, than
many good men will beare.

[Sidenote: Contempt of mariage.]

For commonlie they cum home, common contemners of mariage and readie
persuaders of all other to the same: not because they loue
virginitie, nor yet because they hate prettie yong virgines, but,
being free in Italie, to go whither so euer lust will cary them,
they do not like, that lawe and honestie should be soche a barre to
their like libertie at home in England. And yet they be, the
greatest makers of loue, the daylie daliers, with such pleasant
wordes, with such smilyng and secret countenances, with such signes,
tokens, wagers, purposed to be lost, before they were purposed to be
made, with bargaines of wearing colours, floures and herbes, to
breede occasion of ofter meeting of him and her, and bolder talking
of this and that, etc. And although I haue seene some, innocent of
ill, and stayde in all honestie, that haue vsed these thinges
without all harme, without all suspicion of harme, yet these knackes
were brought first into England by them, that learned them before in
_Italie_ in _Circes_ Court: and how Courtlie curtesses so euer they
be counted now, yet, if the meaning and maners of some that do vse
them, were somewhat amended, it were no great hurt, neither to them
selues, nor to others....

An other propertie of this our English _Italians_ is, to be
meruelous singular in all their matters: Singular in knowledge,
ignorant in nothyng: So singular in wisedome (in their owne opinion)
as scarse they counte the best Counsellor the Prince hath,
comparable with them: Common discoursers of all matters: busie
searchers of most secret affaires: open flatterers of great men:
priuie mislikers of good men: Faire speakers, with smiling
countenances, and much curtessie openlie to all men. Ready
bakbiters, sore nippers, and spitefull reporters priuily of good
men. And beyng brought vp in _Italie_, in some free Citie, as all
Cities be there: where a man may freelie discourse against what he
will, against whom he lust: against any Prince, agaynst any
gouernement, yea against God him selfe, and his whole Religion:
where he must be, either _Guelphe_ or _Gibiline_, either _French_ or
_Spanish_: and alwayes compelled to be of some partie, of some
faction, he shall neuer be compelled to be of any Religion: And if
he medle not ouer much with Christes true Religion, he shall haue
free libertie to embrace all Religions, and becum, if he lust at
once, without any let or punishment, Iewish, Turkish, Papish, and
Deuilish.

It is the old quarrel of classicists and Romanticists, of the _ancien
regime_ and the new school in literature, which runs nearly through
every age. It might be Victor Cousin reproving Victor Hugo, or, say,
M. Renan protesting, if he could protest, against M. Zola. Nor is the
diatribe against the evil communication that had corrupted good manners
any novelty in the quarrel. Critics have practically recognised that
letters are a reflex of life long before Matthew Arnold formulated the
relation. And in the disputing between Classicists and Romanticists it
has invariably happened that the Classicists were the earlier
generation, and therefore more given to convention, while the
Romanticists were likely to be experimental in life as in literature.
Altogether then, we must discount somewhat Ascham's fierce denunciation,
of the Italianate Englishman, and of the Englishing of Italian books.

There can be little doubt, I think, that in the denunciation of the
"bawdie stories" introduced from Italy, Ascham was thinking mainly and
chiefly of Painter's "Palace of Pleasure." The whole passage is later
than the death of Sir Thomas Sackville in 1566, and necessarily before
the death of Ascham in December 1568. Painter's First Tome appeared in
1566, and his Second Tome in 1567. Of its immediate and striking success
there can be no doubt. A second edition of the first Tome appeared in
1569, the year after Ascham's death, and a second edition of the whole
work in 1575, the first Tome thus going through three editions in nine
years. It is therefore practically certain that Ascham had Painter's
book in his mind[9] in the above passage, which may be taken as a
contemporary criticism of Painter, from the point of view of an adherent
of the New-Old Learning, who conveniently forgot that scarcely a single
one of the Latin classics is free from somewhat similar blemishes to
those he found in Painter and his fellow-translators from the Italian.

[Footnote 9: Ascham was shrewd enough not to advertise the book he
was denouncing by referring to it by name. I have failed to find
in the Stationer's Register of 1566-8 any similar book to which
his remarks could apply, except Fenton's _Tragicall Discourses_,
and that was from the French.]

But it is time to turn to the book which roused Ascham's ire so greatly,
and to learn something of it and its author.[10] William Painter was
probably a Kentishman, born somewhere about 1525.[11] He seems to have
taken his degree at one of the Universities, as we find him head master
of Sevenoaks' school about 1560, and the head master had to be a
Bachelor of Arts. In the next year, however, he left the paedagogic toga
for some connection with arms, for on 9 Feb. 1561, he was appointed
Clerk of the Ordnance, with a stipend of eightpence per diem, and it is
in that character that he figures on his title page. He soon after
married Dorothy Bonham of Dowling (born about 1537, died 1617), and had
a family of at least five children. He acquired two important manors in
Gillingham, co. Kent, East Court and Twidall. Haslewood is somewhat at a
loss to account for these possessions. From documents I have discovered
and printed in an Appendix, it becomes only too clear, I fear, that
Painter's fortune had the same origin as too many private fortunes, in
peculation of public funds.

[Footnote 10: See Haslewood's account, reprinted _infra_,
p. xxxvii., to which I have been able to add a few documents in
the Appendix.]

[Footnote 11: His son, in a document of 1591, speaks of him as his
aged father (Appendix _infra_, p. lvii.).]

So far as we can judge from the materials at our disposal, it would seem
that Painter obtained his money by a very barefaced procedure. He seems
to have moved powder and other materials of war from Windsor to the
Tower, charged for them on delivery at the latter place as if they had
been freshly bought, and pocketed the proceeds. On the other hand, it is
fair to Painter to say that we only have the word of his accusers for
the statement, though both he and his son own to certain undefined
irregularities. It is, at any rate, something in his favour that he
remained in office till his death, unless he was kept there on the
principle of setting a peculator to catch a peculator. I fancy, too,
that the Earl of Warwick was implicated in his misdeeds, and saved him
from their consequences.

His works are but few. A translation from the Latin account, by Nicholas
Moffan, of the death of the Sultan Solyman,[12] was made by him in 1557.
In 1560 an address in prose, prefixed to Dr. W. Fulke's
_Antiprognosticon_, was signed "Your familiar friend, William
Paynter,"[13] and dated "From Sevenoke xxii. of Octobre;" and the same
volume contains Latin verses entitled "Gulielmi Painteri, ludimagistri
Seuenochensis Tetrastichon." It is perhaps worth while remarking that
this _Antiprognosticon_ was directed against Anthony Ascham, Roger's
brother, which may perhaps account for some of the bitterness in the
above passage from the _Scholemaster_. These slight productions,
however, sink into insignificance in comparison with his chief work,
"The Palace of Pleasure."

[Footnote 12: Reprinted in the Second Tome of the "Palace,"
_infra_, vol. iii. p. 395.]

[Footnote 13: In his own book, and in the document signed by him,
the name is always "Painter."]

He seems to have started work on this before he left Seven Oaks in 1561.
For as early as 1562 he got a licence for a work to be entitled "The
Citye of Cyuelite," as we know from the following entry in the
_Stationers' Registers:_--

W. Jonnes--Receyued of Wylliam Jonnes for his lycense for pryntinge
of a boke intituled _The Cytie of Cyuelitie_ translated
into englisshe by WILLIAM PAYNTER.

From his own history of the work given in the dedication of the first
Tome to his patron, the Earl of Warwick, it is probable that this was
originally intended to include only tales from Livy and the Latin
historians. He seems later to have determined on adding certain of
Boccaccio's novels, and the opportune appearance of a French translation
of Bandello in 1559 caused him to add half a dozen or so from the Bishop
of Agen. Thus a book which was originally intended to be another
contribution to the New Learning of classical antiquity turned out to be
the most important representative in English of the Newest Learning of
Italy. With the change of plan came a change of title, and the "City of
Civility," which was to have appeared in 1562, was replaced by the
"Palace of Pleasure" in 1566.[14]

[Footnote 14: The Dedication is dated near the Tower of London
1 January 1566, which must have been new style (introduced into
France two years before).]

The success of the book seems to have been immediate. We have seen above
Ascham's indignant testimony to this, and the appearance of the Second
Tome, half as large again as the other, within about eighteen months of
the First, confirms his account. This Second Tome was practically the
Bandello volume; more than half of the tales, and those by far the
longest, were taken from him, through the medium of his French
translators, Boaistuau and Belleforest. Within a couple of years another
edition was called for of the First Tome, which appeared in 1569, with
the addition of five more stories from the Heptameron, from which eleven
were already in the first edition. Thus the First Tome might be called
the Heptameron volume, and the second, that of Bandello. Boccaccio is
pretty evenly divided between the two, and the remainder is made up of
classic tales and anecdotes and a few _novelle_ of Ser Giovanni and
Straparola. Both Tomes were reprinted in what may be called the
definitive edition of the work in 1575.

Quite apart from its popularity and its influence on the English stage,
on which we shall have more to say shortly, Painter's book deserves a
larger place in the history of English Literature than has as yet been
given to it. It introduced to England some of the best novels of
Boccaccio, Bandello, and Queen Margaret, three of the best _raconteurs_
of short stories the world has ever had. It is besides the largest work
in English prose that appeared between the _Morte Darthur_ and North's
Plutarch.[15] Painter's style bears the impress of French models. Though
professing to be from Italian _novellieri_, it is mainly derived from
French translations of them. Indeed, but for the presence of
translations from Ser Giovanni and Straparola, it might be doubtful
whether Painter translated from the Italian at all. He claims however to
do this from Boccaccio, and as he owns the aid of a French "crib" in the
case of Bandello, the claim may be admitted. His translations from the
French are very accurate, and only err in the way of too much
literalness.[16] From a former dominie one would have expected a far
larger proportion of Latinisms than we actually find. As a rule, his
sentences are relatively short, and he is tolerably free from the vice
of the long periods that were brought into vogue by "Ciceronianism." He
is naturally free from Euphuism and for a very good reason, since
_Euphues and his Englande_ was not published for another dozen years or
so. The recent suggestion of Dr. Landmann and others that Euphuism came
from the influence of Guevara would seem to be negatived by the fact
that the "Letters of Trajan" in the Second Tome of Painter are taken
from Guevara and are no more Euphuistic than the rest of the volume.

[Footnote 15: Always with the exception of exceptions, the
Bishop's Bible.]

[Footnote 16: Mr. P. A. Daniel, in his edition of Painter's
"Romeo and Juliet," in the New Shakespere Society's _Originals and
Analogues_, i., 1876, gives the few passages in which Painter has
misunderstood Boaistuau. For lexicographical use, however, it
would be well to consult Painter's original for any very striking
peculiarities of his vocabulary.]

Painter's volume is practically the earliest volume of prose
translations from a modern language into English in the true Elizabethan
period after the influence of Caxton in literary importation had died
away with Bourchier the translator of Froissart and of Huon of Bordeaux.
It set the ball rolling in this direction, and found many followers,
some of whom may be referred to as having had an influence only second
to that of Painter in providing plots for the Elizabethan Drama. There
can be little doubt that it was Painter set the fashion, and one of his
chief followers recognised this, as we shall see, on his title page.

The year in which Painter's Second Tome appeared saw George (afterwards
Sir George) Fenton's _Certaine Tragicall Discourses writtene oute of
Frenche and Latine_ containing fourteen "histories." As four of these
are identical with tales contained in Painter's Second Tome it is
probable that Fenton worked independently, though it was doubtless the
success of the "Palace of Pleasure" that induced Thomas Marshe,
Painter's printer, to undertake a similar volume from Fenton. The
_Tragicall Discourses_ ran into a second edition in 1569. T. Fortescue's
_Foreste or Collection of Histories ... dooen oute of Frenche_ appeared
in 1571 and reached a second edition in 1576. In the latter year
appeared a work of G. Pettie that bore on its title page--_A Petite
Palace of Pettie his Pleasure_--a clear reference to Painter's book.
Notwithstanding Anthony a Wood's contemptuous judgment of his
great-uncle's book it ran through no less than six editions between 1576
and 1613.[17] The year after Pettie's first edition appeared R. Smyth's
_Stravnge and Tragicall histories Translated out of French_. In 1576 was
also published the first of George Whetstone's collections of tales, the
four parts of _The Rocke of Regard_, in which he told over again in
verse several stories already better told by Painter. In the same year,
1576, appeared G. Turberville's _Tragical Tales, translated out of
sundrie Italians_--ten tales in verse, chiefly from Boccaccio.
Whetstone's _Heptameron of Ciuill Discourses_ in 1582 was however a more
important contribution to the English _Novella_, and it ran through two
further editions by 1593.[18] Thus in the quarter of a century 1565-1590
no less than eight collections, most of them running into a second
edition, made their appearance in England. Painter's work contains more
than all the rest put together, and its success was the cause of the
whole movement. It clearly answered a want and thus created a demand. It
remains to consider the want which was thus satisfied by Painter and his
school.

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