FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[155]Preface to Genesis, in Pollard,Records of the English Bible, p. 94.[156]Pollard, p. 266.[157]Ibid., p. 112.[158]Ibid., p. 187.[159]Ibid., p. 205.[160]Coverdale,Prologueto Bible of 1535.[161]Pollard, p. 196.[162]Ibid., p. 259.[163]Ibid., p. 365.[164]Ibid., p. 360.[165]Pollard, p. 220.[166]Ibid., p. 239.[167]Ibid., p. 163.[168]Ibid., p. 126.[169]Ibid., p. 203.[170]Ibid., p. 371.[171]Pollard, p. 280.[172]Pollard, p. 241.[173]Strype,Life of Parker, London, 1711, p. 536.[174]For a further account of Aelfric's theories, see Chapter I.[175]The Psalter translated by Richard Rolle of Hampole, ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884.[176]Chapter 15, in Pollard,Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse.[177]Prologue, Chapter 15.[178]Prologue to the New Testament, printed in Matthew's Bible, 1551.[179]Strype,Life of Parker, p. 208.[180]Pollard, p. 116.[181]Preface toThe Obedience of a Christian Man, inDoctrinal Treatises, Parker Society, 1848, p. 390.[182]Pollard, p. 211.[183]Ibid., p. 277.[184]Ibid., p. 306.[185]Life of Cheke, p. 212.[186]Strype,Life of Parker, p. 404.[187]Pollard, p. 361.[188]Fulke,Defence, Parker Society, p. 552.[189]Defence, p. 552.[190]Ibid., p. 97.[191]Ibid., p. 408.[192]Pollard, p. 375.[193]E.g., Fulke,Defence, p. 163.[194]Pollard, p. 349.[195]Ibid., p. 303.[196]Ibid., p. 277.[197]Pollard, p. 281.[198]Ibid., p. 309.[199]Preface toThe Obedience of a Christian Man, Doctrinal Treatises, pp. 148-9.[200]Life of Cheke, p. 212.[201]Ibid., p. 212.[202]An interesting comment of later date than the Authorized Version is found in the preface to William L'Isle'sDivers Ancient Monuments of the Saxon Tongue, published in 1638. L'Isle writes: "These monuments of reverend antiquity, I mean the Saxon Bibles, to him that understandingly reads and well considers the time wherein they were written, will in many places convince of affected obscurity some late translations." After criticizing the inkhorn terms of the Rhemish translators, he says, "The Saxon hath words for Trinity, Unity, and all such foreign words as we are now fain to use, because we have forgot better of our own." (In J. L. Moore,Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, and Destiny of the English Language.)[203]Prologueto Bible of 1535.[204]Pollard, p. 212.[205]Fulke, pp. 337-8.[206]Pollard, p. 291.[207]Ibid., p. 374.[208]Prologue, Chapter 15.[209]Pollard, p. 298.[210]Strype,Life of Grindal, Oxford, 1821, p. 19.[211]Pollard, p. 127.[212]Ibid., p. 124.[213]Pollard, p. 274.[214]Ibid., p. 305.[215]Translated inRemains of Archbishop Grindal, Parker Society, 1843, p. 234.[216]Pollard, pp. 375-6.[217]More,Confutation of Tyndale,Works, p. 417.[218]Ibid., p. 427.[219]Pollard, p. 307.[220]Pollard, p. 291.[221]Defence, p. 42.[222]Ibid., p. 507.[223]Defence, p. 210.[224]Confutation of the Rhemish Testament, New York, 1834, p. 21.[225]Defence, p. 118.[226]Ibid., p. 160.[227]Ibid., p. 217.[228]Defence, p. 217.[229]Ibid., p. 162.[230]Ibid., p. 161.[231]Ibid., p. 58.[232]Ibid., p. 267.[233]Defence, p. 217.[234]Ibid., p. 179.[235]Ibid., p. 90.[236]Defence, p. 206.[237]Ibid., p. 549.[238]Ibid., p. 89.[239]Pollard,Introduction, p. 37.[240]See Holland,The Psalmists of Britain, London, 1843, for a detailed account of such translations.[241]Preface toThe Psalms of David translated into lyric verse, 1632, reprinted by the Spenser Society, 1881.[242]Holland, p. 251.[243]Epistle Dedicatory, toThe Psalms with M. John Calvin's Commentaries, 1571.[244]Op. cit.[245]SeeThe Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff and Wace, New York, 1893, p. 491.[246]Holland, Note, p. 89.[247]Published at the end of hisVirgil.[248]InThe Countess of Pembroke's Emanuell, 1591.[249]Reprinted, New York, 1903.

[155]Preface to Genesis, in Pollard,Records of the English Bible, p. 94.

[156]Pollard, p. 266.

[157]Ibid., p. 112.

[158]Ibid., p. 187.

[159]Ibid., p. 205.

[160]Coverdale,Prologueto Bible of 1535.

[161]Pollard, p. 196.

[162]Ibid., p. 259.

[163]Ibid., p. 365.

[164]Ibid., p. 360.

[165]Pollard, p. 220.

[166]Ibid., p. 239.

[167]Ibid., p. 163.

[168]Ibid., p. 126.

[169]Ibid., p. 203.

[170]Ibid., p. 371.

[171]Pollard, p. 280.

[172]Pollard, p. 241.

[173]Strype,Life of Parker, London, 1711, p. 536.

[174]For a further account of Aelfric's theories, see Chapter I.

[175]The Psalter translated by Richard Rolle of Hampole, ed. Bramley, Oxford, 1884.

[176]Chapter 15, in Pollard,Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse.

[177]Prologue, Chapter 15.

[178]Prologue to the New Testament, printed in Matthew's Bible, 1551.

[179]Strype,Life of Parker, p. 208.

[180]Pollard, p. 116.

[181]Preface toThe Obedience of a Christian Man, inDoctrinal Treatises, Parker Society, 1848, p. 390.

[182]Pollard, p. 211.

[183]Ibid., p. 277.

[184]Ibid., p. 306.

[185]Life of Cheke, p. 212.

[186]Strype,Life of Parker, p. 404.

[187]Pollard, p. 361.

[188]Fulke,Defence, Parker Society, p. 552.

[189]Defence, p. 552.

[190]Ibid., p. 97.

[191]Ibid., p. 408.

[192]Pollard, p. 375.

[193]E.g., Fulke,Defence, p. 163.

[194]Pollard, p. 349.

[195]Ibid., p. 303.

[196]Ibid., p. 277.

[197]Pollard, p. 281.

[198]Ibid., p. 309.

[199]Preface toThe Obedience of a Christian Man, Doctrinal Treatises, pp. 148-9.

[200]Life of Cheke, p. 212.

[201]Ibid., p. 212.

[202]An interesting comment of later date than the Authorized Version is found in the preface to William L'Isle'sDivers Ancient Monuments of the Saxon Tongue, published in 1638. L'Isle writes: "These monuments of reverend antiquity, I mean the Saxon Bibles, to him that understandingly reads and well considers the time wherein they were written, will in many places convince of affected obscurity some late translations." After criticizing the inkhorn terms of the Rhemish translators, he says, "The Saxon hath words for Trinity, Unity, and all such foreign words as we are now fain to use, because we have forgot better of our own." (In J. L. Moore,Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, and Destiny of the English Language.)

[203]Prologueto Bible of 1535.

[204]Pollard, p. 212.

[205]Fulke, pp. 337-8.

[206]Pollard, p. 291.

[207]Ibid., p. 374.

[208]Prologue, Chapter 15.

[209]Pollard, p. 298.

[210]Strype,Life of Grindal, Oxford, 1821, p. 19.

[211]Pollard, p. 127.

[212]Ibid., p. 124.

[213]Pollard, p. 274.

[214]Ibid., p. 305.

[215]Translated inRemains of Archbishop Grindal, Parker Society, 1843, p. 234.

[216]Pollard, pp. 375-6.

[217]More,Confutation of Tyndale,Works, p. 417.

[218]Ibid., p. 427.

[219]Pollard, p. 307.

[220]Pollard, p. 291.

[221]Defence, p. 42.

[222]Ibid., p. 507.

[223]Defence, p. 210.

[224]Confutation of the Rhemish Testament, New York, 1834, p. 21.

[225]Defence, p. 118.

[226]Ibid., p. 160.

[227]Ibid., p. 217.

[228]Defence, p. 217.

[229]Ibid., p. 162.

[230]Ibid., p. 161.

[231]Ibid., p. 58.

[232]Ibid., p. 267.

[233]Defence, p. 217.

[234]Ibid., p. 179.

[235]Ibid., p. 90.

[236]Defence, p. 206.

[237]Ibid., p. 549.

[238]Ibid., p. 89.

[239]Pollard,Introduction, p. 37.

[240]See Holland,The Psalmists of Britain, London, 1843, for a detailed account of such translations.

[241]Preface toThe Psalms of David translated into lyric verse, 1632, reprinted by the Spenser Society, 1881.

[242]Holland, p. 251.

[243]Epistle Dedicatory, toThe Psalms with M. John Calvin's Commentaries, 1571.

[244]Op. cit.

[245]SeeThe Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Schaff and Wace, New York, 1893, p. 491.

[246]Holland, Note, p. 89.

[247]Published at the end of hisVirgil.

[248]InThe Countess of Pembroke's Emanuell, 1591.

[249]Reprinted, New York, 1903.

The Elizabethan period presents translations in astonishing number and variety. As the spirit of the Renaissance began to inspire England, translators responded to its stimulus with an enthusiasm denied to later times. It was work that appealed to persons of varying ranks and of varying degrees of learning. In the early part of the century, according to Nash, "every private scholar, William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250]Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard Hyrde says of the translation of Erasmus'sTreatise on the Lord's Prayer, made by Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, "And as for the translation thereof, I dare be bold to say it, that whoso list and well can confer and examine the translation with the original, he shall not fail to find that she hath showed herself not only erudite and elegant in either tongue, but hath also used such wisdom, such discreet and substantial judgment, in expressing lively the Latin, as a man may peradventure miss in many things translated and turned by them that bear the name of right wise and very well learned men."[251]Nicholas Udall writes to Queen Katherine that there are a number of women in England who know Greek and Latin and are "in theholy scriptures and theology so ripe that they are able aptly, cunningly, and with much grace either to endite or translate into the vulgar tongue for the public instruction and edifying of the unlearned multitude."[252]

The greatness of the field was fitted to arouse and sustain the ardor of English translators. In contrast with the number of manuscripts at command in earlier days, the sixteenth century must have seemed endlessly rich in books. Printing was making the Greek and Latin classics newly accessible, and France and Italy, awake before England to the new life, were storing the vernacular with translations and with new creations. Translators might find their tasks difficult enough and they might flag by the way, as Hoby confesses to have done at the end of the third book ofThe Courtier, but plucking up courage, they went on to the end. Hoby declares, with a vigor that suggests Bunyan's Pilgrim, "I whetted my style and settled myself to take in hand the other three books";[253]Edward Hellowes, after the hesitation which he describes in the Dedication to the 1574 edition of Guevara'sFamiliar Epistles, "began to call to mind my God, my Prince, my country, and also your worship," and so adequately upheld, went on with his undertaking; Arthur Golding, with a breath of relief, sees his rendering of Ovid'sMetamorphosesat last complete.

Through Ovid's work of turned shapes I have with painful pacePassed on, until I had attained the end of all my race.And now I have him made so well acquainted with our tongue,As that he may in English verse as in his own be sung.[254]

Sometimes the toilsomeness of the journey was lightened by companionship. Now and then, especially in the caseof religious works, there was collaboration. Luther'sCommentary on Galatianswas undertaken by "certain godly men," of whom "some began it according to such skill as they had. Others godly affected, not suffering so good a matter in handling to be marred, put to their helping hands for the better framing and furthering of so worthy a work."[255]From Thomas Norton's record of the conditions under which he translated Calvin'sInstitution of the Christian Religion, it is not difficult to feel the atmosphere of sympathy and encouragement in which he worked. "Therefore in the very beginning of the Queen's Majesty's most blessed reign," he writes, "I translated it out of Latin into English, for the commodity of the Church of Christ, at the special request of my dear friends of worthy memory, Reginald Wolfe and Edward Whitchurch, the one Her Majesty's Printer for the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues, the other her Highness' Printer of the books of Common Prayer. I performed my work in the house of my said friend, Edward Whitchurch, a man well known of upright heart and dealing, an ancient zealous Gospeller, as plain and true a friend as ever I knew living, and as desirous to do anything to common good, specially to the advancement of true religion.... In the doing hereof I did not only trust mine own wit or ability, but examined my whole doing from sentence to sentence throughout the whole book with conference and overlooking of such learned men, as my translation being allowed by their judgment, I did both satisfy mine own conscience that I had done truly, and their approving of it might be a good warrant to the reader that nothing should herein be delivered him but sound, unmingled and uncorrupted doctrine, even in such sort as the author himself had first framed it. All that I wrote, the grave, learned, and virtuous man, M.David Whitehead (whom I name with honorable remembrance) did among others, compare with the Latin, examining every sentence throughout the whole book. Beside all this, I privately required many, and generally all men with whom I ever had any talk of this matter, that if they found anything either not truly translated or not plainly Englished, they would inform me thereof, promising either to satisfy them or to amend it."[256]Norton's next sentence, "Since which time I have not been advertised by any man of anything which they would require to be altered" probably expresses the fate of most of the many requests for criticism that accompany translations, but does not essentially modify the impression he conveys of unusually favorable conditions for such work. One remembers that Tyndale originally anticipated with some confidence a residence in the Bishop of London's house while he translated the Bible. Thomas Wilson, again, says of his translation of some of the orations of Demosthenes that "even in these my small travails both Cambridge and Oxford men have given me their learned advice and in some things have set to their helping hand,"[257]and Florio declares that it is owing to the help and encouragement of "two supporters of knowledge and friendship," Theodore Diodati and Dr. Gwinne, that "upheld and armed" he has "passed the pikes."[258]

The translator was also sustained by a conception of the importance of his work, a conception sometimes exaggerated, but becoming, as the century progressed, clearly and truly defined. Between the lines of the dedication which Henry Parker, Lord Morley, prefixes to his translation of Petrarch'sTriumphs,[259]one reads a pathetic story of an appreciation which can hardly have equaled the hopesof the author. He writes of "one of late days that was groom of the chamber with that renowned and valiant prince of high memory, Francis the French king, whose name I have forgotten, that did translate these triumphs to that said king, which he took so thankfully that he gave to him for his pains an hundred crowns, to him and to his heirs of inheritance to enjoy to that value in land forever, and took such pleasure in it that wheresoever he went, among his precious jewels that book always carried with him for his pastime to look upon, and as much esteemed by him as the richest diamond he had." Moved by patriotic emulation, Lord Morley "translated the said book to that most worthy king, our late sovereign lord of perpetual memory, King Henry the Eighth, who as he was a prince above all others most excellent, so took he the work very thankfully, marvelling much that I could do it, and thinking verily I had not done it without help of some other, better knowing in the Italian tongue than I; but when he knew the very truth, that I had translated the work myself, he was more pleased therewith than he was before, and so what his highness did with it is to me unknown."

Hyperbole in estimating the value of the translator's work is not common among Lord Morley's successors, but their very recognition of the secondary importance of translation often resulted in a modest yet dignified insistence on its real value. Richard Eden says that he has labored "not as an author but as a translator, lest I be injurious to any man in ascribing to myself the travail of other."[260]Nicholas Grimald qualifies a translation of Cicero as "my work," and immediately adds, "I call it mine as Plautus and Terence called the comedies theirs which they made out of Greek."[261]Harrington, the translator ofOrlandoFurioso, says of his work: "I had rather men should see and know that I borrow at all than that I steal any, and I would wish to be called rather one of the worst translators than one of the meaner makers, specially since the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wiat, that are yet called the first refiners of the English tongue, were both translators out of the Italian. Now for those that count it such a contemptible and trifling matter to translate, I will but say to them as M. Bartholomew Clarke, an excellent learned man and a right good translator, said in a manner of pretty challenge, in his Preface (as I remember) upon the Courtier, which book he translated out of Italian into Latin. 'You,' saith he, 'that think it such a toy, lay aside my book, and take my author in hand, and try a leaf or such a matter, and compare it with mine.'"[262]Philemon Holland, the "translator general" of his time, writes of his art: "As for myself, since it is neither my hap nor hope to attain to such perfection as to bring forth something of mine own which may quit the pains of a reader, and much less to perform any action that might minister matter to a writer, and yet so far bound unto my native country and the blessed state wherein I have lived, as to render an account of my years passed and studies employed, during this long time of peace and tranquillity, wherein (under the most gracious and happy government of a peerless princess, assisted with so prudent, politic, and learned Counsel) all good literature hath had free progress and flourished in no age so much: methought I owed this duty, to leave for my part also (after many others) some small memorial, that might give testimony another day what fruits generally this peaceable age of ours hath produced. Endeavored I have therefore to stand in the third rank, and bestowed those hours which might be spared from the practice of my profession and the necessary cares of life, to satisfy my countrymen now livingand to gratify the age ensuing in this kind."[263]To Holland's simple acceptance of his rightful place, it is pleasant to add the lines of the poet Daniel, whose imagination was stirred in true Elizabethan fashion by the larger relations of the translator. Addressing Florio, the interpreter of Montaigne to the English people, he thanks him on behalf of both author and readers for

... his studious careWho both of him and us doth merit much,Having as sumptuously as he is rarePlaced him in the best lodging of our speech,And made him now as free as if born here,And as well ours as theirs, who may be proudTo have the franchise of his worth allowed.It being the proportion of a happy pen,Not to b'invassal'd to one monarchy,But dwell with all the better world of menWhose spirits are of one community,Whom neither Ocean, Deserts, Rocks, nor SandsCan keep from th' intertraffic of the mind.[264]

In a less exalted strain come suggestions that the translator's work is valuable enough to deserve some tangible recognition. Thomas Fortescue urges his reader to consider the case of workmen like himself, "assuring thyself that none in any sort do better deserve of their country, that none swink or sweat with like pain and anguish, that none in like sort hazard or adventure their credit, that none desire less stipend or salary for their travail, that none in fine are worse in this age recompensed."[265]Nicholas Udall presents detailed reasons why it is to be desired that "some able, worthy, and meet persons for doing such public benefit to the commonweal as translating of good worksand writing of chronicles might by some good provision and means have some condign sustentation in the same."[266]"Besides," he argues, "that such a translator travaileth not to his own private commodity, but to the benefit and public use of his country: besides that the thing is such as must so thoroughly occupy and possess the doer, and must have him so attent to apply that same exercise only, that he may not during that season take in hand any other trade of business whereby to purchase his living: besides that the thing cannot be done without bestowing of long time, great watching, much pains, diligent study, no small charges, as well of meat, drink, books, as also of other necessaries, the labor self is of itself a more painful and more tedious thing than for a man to write or prosecute any argument of his own invention. A man hath his own invention ready at his own pleasure without lets or stops, to make such discourse as his argument requireth: but a translator must ... at every other word stay, and suspend both his cogitation and his pen to look upon his author, so that he might in equal time make thrice as much as he can be able to translate."

The belief present in the comment of both Fortescue and Udall that the work of the translator is of peculiar service to the state is expressed in connection with translations of every sort. Richard Taverner declares that he has been incited to put into English part of theChiliadesof Erasmus by "the love I bear to the furtherance and adornment of my native country."[267]William Warde translatesThe Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piemontin order that "as well Englishmen as Italians, Frenchmen, or Dutchmen may suck knowledge and profit hereof."[268]John Brende, in theDedication of hisHistory of Quintus Curtius, insists on the importance of historical knowledge, his appreciation of which has made him desire "that we Englishmen might be found as forward in that behalf as other nations, which have brought all worthy histories into their natural language."[269]Patriotic emulation of what has been done in other countries is everywhere present as a motive. Occasionally the Englishman shows that he has studied foreign translations for his own guidance. Adlington, in his preface to his rendering ofThe Golden Assof Apuleius, says that he does not follow the original in certain respects, "for so the French and Spanish translators have not done";[270]Hoby says of his translation ofThe Courtier, "I have endeavored myself to follow the very meaning and words of the author, without being misled by fantasy or leaving out any parcel one or other, whereof I know not how some interpreters of this book into other languages can excuse themselves, and the more they be conferred, the more it will perchance appear."[271]On the whole, however, the comment confines itself to general statements like that of Grimald, who in translating Cicero is endeavoring "to do likewise for my countrymen as Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Dutchmen, and other foreigners have liberally done for theirs."[272]In spite of the remarkable output England lagged behind other countries. Lord Morley complains that the printing of a merry jest is more profitable than the putting forth of such excellent works as those of Petrarch, of which England has "very few or none, which I do lament in my heart, considering that as well in French as in the Italian (in the which both tongues I have some little knowledge) there is no excellent work in the Latin, but that straightway they set it forth in the vulgar."[273]Morley wrote in the early daysof the movement for translation, but later translators made similar complaints. Hoby says in the preface toThe Courtier: "In this point (I know not by what destiny) Englishmen are most inferior to most of all other nations: for where they set their delight and bend themselves with an honest strife of matching others to turn into their mother tongue not only the witty writings of other languages but also of all philosophers, and all sciences both Greek and Latin, our men ween it sufficient to have a perfect knowledge to no other end but to profit themselves and (as it were) after much pains in breaking up a gap bestow no less to close it up again." To the end of the century translation is encouraged or defended on the ground that it is a public duty. Thomas Danett is urged to translate theHistoryof Philip de Comines by certain gentlemen who think it "a great dishonor to our native land that so worthy a history being extant in all languages almost in Christendom should be suppressed in ours";[274]Chapman writes indignantly of Homer, "And if Italian, French, and Spanish have not made it dainty, nor thought it any presumption to turn him into their languages, but a fit and honorable labor and (in respect of their country's profit and their prince's credit) almost necessary, what curious, proud, and poor shamefastness should let an English muse to traduce him?"[275]

Besides all this, the translator's conception of his audience encouraged and guided his pen. While translations in general could not pretend to the strength and universality of appeal which belonged to the Bible, nevertheless taken in the mass and judged only by the comment associated with them, they suggest a varied public and a surprising contact with the essential interests of mankind. The appeals on title pages and in prefaces to all kinds of people,from ladies and gentlemen of rank to the common and simple sort, not infrequently resemble the calculated praises of the advertiser, but admitting this, there still remains much that implies a simple confidence in the response of friendly readers. Rightly or wrongly, the translator presupposes for himself in many cases an audience far removed from academic preoccupations. Richard Eden, translating from the Spanish Martin Cortes'Arte de Navigar, says, "Now therefore this work of the Art of Navigation being published in our vulgar tongue, you may be assured to have more store of skilful pilots."[276]Golding's translations of Pomponius Mela and Julius Solinus Polyhistor are described as, "Right pleasant and profitable for Gentlemen, Merchants, Mariners, and Travellers."[277]Hellowes, with an excess of rhetoric which takes from his convincingness, presents Guevara'sFamiliar Epistlesas teaching "rules for kings to rule, counselors to counsel, prelates to practise, captains to execute, soldiers to perform, the married to follow, the prosperous to prosecute, and the poor in adversity to be comforted, how to write and talk with all men in all matters at large."[278]Holland's honest simplicity gives greater weight to a similarly sweeping characterization of Pliny'sNatural Historyas "not appropriate to the learned only, but accommodate to the rude peasant of the country; fitted for the painful artisan in town or city; pertinent to the bodily health of man, woman, or child; and in one word suiting with all sorts of people living in a society and commonweal."[279]In the same preface the need for replying to those who oppose translation leads Holland to insist further on the practical applicability of his matter. Alternating his own with his critics' position, he writes: "It is a shame (quoth one) thatLivyspeaketh English as he doth; Latinistsonly owe to be acquainted with him: as who should say the soldier were to have recourse to the university for military skill and knowledge, or the scholar to put on arms and pitch a camp. What shouldPliny(saith another) be read in English and the mysteries couched in his books divulged; as if the husbandman, the mason, carpenter, goldsmith, lapidary, and engraver, with other artificers, were bound to seek unto great clerks or linguists for instructions in their several arts." Wilson's translation of Demosthenes, again, undertaken, it has been said, with a view to rousing a national resistance against Spain, is described on the title page as "most needful to be read in these dangerous days of all them that love their country's liberty."[280]

Naturally enough, however, especially in the case of translations from the Latin and Greek, the academic interest bulks largely in the audience, and sometimes makes an unexpected demand for recognition in the midst of the more practical appeal. Holland'sPliny, for example, addresses itself not only to peasants and artisans but to young students, who "by the light of the English ... shall be able more readily to go away with the dark phrase and obscure constructions of the Latin." Chapman, refusing to be burdened with a popular audience, begins a preface with the insidious compliment, "I suppose you to be no mere reader, since you intend to read Homer."[281]On the other hand, the academic reader, whether student or critic, is, if one accepts the translator's view, very much on the alert, anxious to confer the English version with the original, either that he may improve his own knowledge of the foreign language or that he may pick faults in the new rendering. Wilson attacks the critics as "drones and no bees, lubbers and no learners," but the fault he finds in these "croakingpaddocks and manifest overweeners of themselves" is that they are "out of reason curious judges over the travail and painstaking of others" instead of being themselves producers.[282]Apparently there was little fear of the indifference which is more discouraging than hostile criticism, and though, as is to be expected, it is the hostile criticism that is most often reflected in prefaces, there must have been much kindly comment like that of Webbe, who, after discussing the relations of Phaer'sVirgilto the Latin, concludes, "There is not one book among the twelve which will not yield you most excellent pleasure in conferring the translation with the copy and marking the gallant grace which our English speech affordeth."[283]

Such encouragements and incentives are enough to awaken the envy of the modern translator. But the sixteenth century had also its peculiar difficulties. The English language was neither so rich in resources nor so carefully standardized as it has become of later times. It was often necessary, indeed, to defend it against the charge that it was not equal to translation. Pettie is driven to reply to those who oppose the use of the vernacular because "they count it barren, they count it barbarous, they count it unworthy to be accounted of."[284]Chapman says in his preface toAchilles' Shield: "Some will convey their imperfections under his Greek shield, and from thence bestow bitter arrows against the traduction, affirming their want of admiration grows from the defect of our language, not able to express the copiousness (coppie) and elegancy of the original." Richard Greenway, who translated theAnnalsof Tacitus, admits cautiously that his medium is "perchance not so fit to set out a piece drawn with so curious a pencil."[285]One cannot, indeed, help recognizing thatas compared with modern English Elizabethan English was weak in resources, limited in vocabulary, and somewhat uncertain in sentence structure. These disadvantages probably account in part for such explanations of the relative difficulty of translation as that of Nicholas Udall in his plea that translators should be suitably recompensed or that of John Brende in his preface to the translation of Quintus Curtius that "in translation a man cannot always use his own vein, but shall be compelled to tread in the author's steps, which is a harder and more difficult thing to do, than to walk his own pace."[286]

Of his difficulties with sentence structure the translator says little, a fact rather surprising to the modern reader, conscious as he is of the awkwardness of the Elizabethan sentence. Now and then, however, he hints at the problems which have arisen in the handling of the Latin period. Udall writes of his translation of Erasmus: "I have in some places been driven to use mine own judgment in rendering the true sense of the book, to speak nothing of a great number of sentences, which by reason of so many members, or parentheses, or digressions as have come in places, are so long that unless they had been somewhat divided, they would have been too hard for an unlearned brain to conceive, much more hard to contain and keep it still."[287]Adlington, the translator ofThe Golden Assof Apuleius, says, "I have not so exactly passed through the author as to point every sentence exactly as it is in the Latin."[288]A comment of Foxe on his difficulty in translating contemporary English into Latin suggests that he at least was conscious of the weakness of the English sentence as compared with the Latin. Writing to Peter Martyr of his Latin version of the controversy between Cranmer and Gardiner, he says of the latter: "In his periods, for the most part, he is soprofuse, that he seems twice to forget himself, rather than to find his end. The whole phrase hath in effect that structure that consisting for the most part of relatives, it refuses almost all the grace of translation."[289]

Though the question of sentence structure was not given prominence, the problem of rectifying deficiencies in vocabulary touched the translator very nearly. The possibility of augmenting the language was a vital issue in the reign of Elizabeth, but it had a peculiar significance where translation was concerned. Here, if anywhere, the need for a large vocabulary was felt, and in translations many new words first made their appearance. Sir Thomas Elyot early made the connection between translation and the movement for increase in vocabulary. In theProhemetoThe Knowledge which maketh a wise manhe explains that inThe Governorhe intended "to augment the English tongue, whereby men should ... interpret out of Greek, Latin, or any other tongue into English."[290]Later in the century Peele praises the translator Harrington,

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