The
atmosphere
is more spacious and
the interest wider than in part I.
the interest wider than in part I.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v04
But the practice of profuse quotation
was not peculiar to Burton. It was an age when appeal lay to
tradition and authority, and the tendency was fostered by the
formation of libraries. The attitude of a typical scholar of the
day has been summed up by his modern biographer, “If a great
writer has said a thing, it is so? ' It was the fashion of the time
* Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, p. 442.
## p. 247 (#269) ############################################
His Reading
247
to quote by way of proof or illustration, in talk, in writing, from
the pulpit. No exposition or argument could be conducted 'With-
out refreshment on the road From Jerome or from Athanasius. '
In enforcing the most familiar of truisms, men appealed to the
classics without fear of consequences. The pretender to learning
had perforce ‘his sentences for Company, some scatterings of
Seneca and Tacitus' The difference between Burton and his
1.
contemporaries is one of degree:
No man in his time did surpass him for his ready and dextrous inter-
larding his common discourses among them with verses from the poets, or
sentences from classical authors. Which being then all the fashion in the
university made his company more acceptable.
Indeed, if the occasion be considered, the wealth of ancient in-
stances, of Greek and Latin in Taylor's sermon, "The House of
Feasting,' is as surprising a phenomenon as anything in Burton.
Taine, 'superseding the facts by a statement of his own subjective
consciousness,' has spoken of Burton's casting on paper 'a folio
column of heraldry' and 'the history of the particle que,' but, though
Burton modestly spoke of his work as a 'cento' that he had
‘collected out of divers writers,' there is always reason and method
in his borrowings. He never flung bis commonplace book in the
face of the public.
Undoubtedly, Burton possessed an inordinate appetite for
books, a cacoethes legendi. He confesses to a 'want of art' and
'order' in his reading ; 'I have confusedly tumbled over divers
authors in our libraries,' 'rambling amongst authors (as often
I do). ' So Boswell wrote of Johnson in his youth, ‘he read a great
deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance
threw books in his way and inclination directed him through them. '
But Burton in his ramblings must have been ready to suck
melancholy out of all that he met. For all his omnivorous reading,
he was no bookworm. It was the human interest in the printed
page for which his eye was open. Modern critics, unversed in
a literature familiar to Burton's day, have dwelt pleasantly on
dusty folios, and made merry over the names of authors of whose
works they were ignorant, as though what is obsolete for us was
already rare and far-fetched in the 'seventeenth century. Taine
pictured Burton sporting with antediluvian monsters, the first
being Besler of Nürnberg! and an English writer seems to
imagine that Codronchus was a special find for him. There was
1 Earle, Micro-Cosmographie, character 31.
? Anthony · Wood, Ath. Ox. ed. Bliss, 11, 653.
## p. 248 (#270) ############################################
248
Robert Burton
little remoteness in the newly printed text-books of medicine and
botany.
In the case of a reader so all engulfing as Burton, it is not
easy to sum up his sources with precision, but the following heads
will afford a rough notion of the field covered: medical writers
of all periods, and scientific works; the Bible, the fathers,
theologians; Greek and Latin classics (the former 'cited out of
their interpreters'): some few are largely or wholly neglected,
such as Aeschylus : to others, such as Horace, he has frequent
recourse; historians and chroniclers; travels, descriptions of
cities and countries (Burton was 'ever addicted to the study
of cosmography'); treatises on government and politics; the
miscellanea of scholars and Latin belles lettres from the revival of
learning : poems, orations, epistles, satires, facetiae and the like;
English poetry: Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson,
Daniel, Drayton; Harington's Ariosto, Florio's Montaigne,
Rabelais and others. Interesting light is thrown on Burton's
reading by the list of the books given to the Bodleian in accord-
ance with his will, which includes a large number of pamphlets and
controversial tracts.
Burton was anxious on principle to indicate his obligations.
'I have wronged no Authors,' he protested from the first; 'I cite
and quote mine Authors,' he adds, in the third edition, continuing,
in the fourth, 'which howsoever some illiterate scriblers accompt
pedanticall as a cloake of ignorance, and opposite to their affected
fine stile, I must and will use. ' Burton, it would seem, is here
glancing at writers such as Owen Feltham, who, in the second
edition of Resolves (1628), wrote 'I am to answer two Objections,
One, that I have made use of Story yet not quoted my Authorities,
and this I have purposely done. Yet, while Burton renders to his
medical writers what is theirs, to a great number of the illustrative
and literary quotations in The Anatomy, as is only natural, no
name is attached; to pause at the end of each borrowed phrase to
interject a ‘Shakespeare, ahem ! ' was clearly impossible. But
there is unconscious humour when, in the famous passage conveyed
by Sterne, Burton declares that ‘as Apothecaries we make new
mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another'; and
forgets to refer his readers to Andreae's Menippus. In many
instances, the quotations embedded in Burton's text have not
been drawn directly from their original sources. Not that Burton
had any need to fall back on florilegia, a practice that he
expressly disclaims; but it often happens that what in itself is
## p. 249 (#271) ############################################
His Methods of Quotation 249
a quotation, especially if it be an island of verse in the midst
of prose, has caught his eye as it faced him on the page of another
writer and found its way to his own. Lines that stand out in
Xylander's Latin version of Plutarch's Moralia, in Lilius Gyraldus,
in Cornelius Agrippa, in Cardan, in Lipsius, have thus recruited
his ranks ; English writers, too, are made to pay tribute of their
spoil. At times, we may track him down a whole page of a pre-
decessor. The protest, in the preface to Love-Melancholy, against
forbidding the reading of the Canticles, the Ballade of Ballades,
as 'too light and amorous a tract,' has been borrowed from an
oration of Beroaldus. Elsewhere, successive quotations from
Aulus Gellius, Pliny the elder and the philosopher Seneca hail
from a controversial piece by Justus Baronius, and Burton
commits a curious error through misreading his original. When
he protests in his preface that his collection has been sine injuria,
that he has given every man his own, it can be shown, from
passages he refers to, that he is recalling Camerarius's emblem
under that motto. The insertion of supplementary matter in later
editions has here, by separating these quotations, helped to conceal
their provenance. Burton's reading was so wide and devious, his
paths of association so unexpected, that it is rarely safe to assume
by what road a quotation has reached him. One more example
must suffice. It might be supposed that the two lines
Virgines nondum thalamis jugatae
Et comis nondum positis ephoebi
came directly from Seneca's Hercules Furens. This is not so.
Burton took them from Gaulmin's Latin translation of the Greek
romance of Theodorus Prodromus'. The ways in which he inter-
laces the words of others into his own fabric are very various.
Sometimes, a quotation stands in his text, sometimes, in the
margin; at times, through inadvertence, in both. The margin,
again, may supply the original of the rendering that figures on the
page. His translations often are 'paraphrases rather than inter-
pretations. ' Burton's racy restatements by the side of the Latin
have, at times, a humorous effect akin to that of the advocates'
speeches in The Ring and the Book-or in Calverley's parody.
Burton exercises an author's privilege in taking only what is to
his purpose and in combining separate excerpts into one period.
Naturally, among the thousands of passages that he has occasion
to quote, he has not been able to avoid errors. His memory plays
him false. He slips in a rendering, assigns words of Silius to
· N. and Q. 10 S. x1, 101.
## p. 250 (#272) ############################################
250
Robert Burton
Statius, is led astray by his authorities. If Lipsius refers a sentence
of Plato to the wrong dialogue, Burton takes it on trust. Lipsius
says 'Horace' when he should have said 'Ovid,' Burton copies his
mistake. The number of reference marks in the text and margin
become a source of error when complicated by fresh insertions
in successive issues. Although each edition has a list of errata,
these bear but an insignificant proportion to what may be detected.
It is obvious that Burton's modus operandi was not always the
same. He often quotes from memory; there are places, apparently,
where the book from which he cites lay open before him; at times,
he made use of memoranda. In his introduction, he represents
himself as writing 'out of a confused company of notes. ' Several
books containing his autograph show strokes of the pen against
words or passages utilised in The Anatomy.
Everywhere there is evidence that Burton's brain was soaked
in literature. In his elegiacs ad librum suum, echoes are to be
heard from Nicholas Gerbelius, Palingenius, Claudian, Ausonius,
Juvenal, Martial, Ovid, Vergil. Elia's 'I cannot sit and think.
Books think for me, can be applied to Burton. His constant
habit was to express himself in terms of quotation. But in this
method lies dizziness for the reader and a danger, at times, that
the real strength and individuality of the author's own thoughts
may be overlooked.
Burton himself describes his style when he confesses that his
book was writ with as small deliberation as I do usually speak. '
What we are listening to is the intimate persuasive ring of
vigorous and unaffected talk. He never shrinks from homely
metaphors:
The whole world belike should be new-moulded when it seemed good to
those all-commanding Powers, and turned inside out as we do haycocks in
harvest . . . , or as we turn apples to the fire, move the world upon his centre.
6
"The world is tossed in a blanket amongst them. ' 'As common
as a barber's chair. ' 'As a tinker stops one hole and makes two. '
a
It was because of his expressing himself in such terms as these
that, two generations later, the Christ Church men complained of
Bentley’s ‘low and mean ways of speech. '
It would be an error to suppose that Burton was not consciously
concerned for his vocabulary and the rhythmical movement of his
English. Comparing his book to a bear's whelp, he laments that
he has no time to lick it into form, but the changes introduced in
each new edition prove his anxiety on re-reading to prune away
## p. 251 (#273) ############################################
His Influence
251
pleonasms, to escape awkward repetitions and, by numerous slight
touches, to ease the running of his sentences. When further
additions have affected what was previously in place, he is at pains
to alter it. Only a complete collation could exhibit the amount of
care that Burton bestowed on revision.
The success of his Melancholy, instead of prompting Burton to
the production of any new work, caused him to concentrate his energy
on improving what he had already printed. Additional references
or the names of other authors were adduced to support or illustrate
statements already made. The insertion of entirely new matter is
frequent. In more than one edition, he records a resolve to make
no further change, but the method of the book invited fresh
touches and Burton found it hard to abstain. He pleads in excuse
that 'many good authors in all kinds are come to my hands since,'
and his treatise is continually being made new by contributions
that had been published since the last edition, while he explains of
certain earlier books that they had not been seen by him till now.
From the first, The Anatomy of Melancholy found a ready audi-
ence, and its vogue, to judge from the number of editions absorbed,
lasted for half a century. As its success was due to its having
suited, rather than originated, the taste of the time, it is not always
easy to trace its direct influence. Resemblances have often been
pointed out between Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso and 'The
Author's Abstract of Melancholy,' verses which Burton prefixed to
his third and following editions. John Rous, the Bodleian librarian,
was a friend of Burton as well as of Milton. It has been suggested
that the song in Fletcher's Nice Valour was Milton's immediate
source and that Fletcher owed hints to Burton. The authorship
of the play is matter of controversy, and Fletcher himself died three
years before Burton's verses were printed. The anonymous Vulgar
Errors in Practice Censured (1659) shows extensive borrowings.
The author copies without much intelligence and goes astray through
mechanically repeating Burton's references. Greenwood's’Amoypaon
otopyñs, or Passion of Love, that appeared in 1657, makes con-
siderable use of The Anatomy, but the extent of his acknowledgment
is very slight, though Burton's name is mentioned. At the close of
the century, the passion for accumulating authorities was growing
fainter, and Burton's book was less in touch with the prevailing
literary tone. Indebtedness to The Anatomy was now less likely
to be detected. Archbishop Herring, in an often-repeated passage,
asserted that the wits of queen Anne's reign and the beginning
of George I's were not a little beholden to Burton. Swift, it
would seem, had some acquaintance with him. However little in
## p. 252 (#274) ############################################
252
Robert Burton
accordance with literary fashion, The Anatomy could hardly fail, if
only by reason of its title, and the more obvious peculiarities
of its contents, to attract the attention of any curious reader who
encountered it; and, in the middle of the century, two authors
of importance fell under its fascination. Samuel Johnson, whose
wide reading and hypochondriacal taint instinctively drew him
to The Anatomy, was emphatic in its praise, and affords another
instance of admiration extended at the same time to Browne and
Burton. The influence of The Anatomy is apparent in several
passages of Johnson's talk and writing, although Burton was not
among the English authors from whom the examples for his
dictionary were selected. His definition of oats, his conversational
comparison of a ship to a prison and the Vergilian quotation
by which he points the miseries of a literary life, are all reminiscent
of Burton.
But one name in eighteenth century literature is inseparably
linked with his. Sterne's cast of mind inclined him to reading that
which was curious and away from the common track, and he turned
over The Anatomy with a special gusto. To the literary taste of
the day, Burton was obsolete, and Sterne freely transferred his
thoughts and phrases to Tristram Shandy. Ferriar's list of
passages is far from exhaustive. At the end of the century, the
real revival of Burton began. He was a favourite with Coleridge,
Lamb and Southey. Coleridge annotated his friend's copy of The
Anatomy. Lamb, besides producing an imitation which has
deceived some readers, though with less excuse than was the case
with Crossley's imitation of Sir Thomas Browne, gives frequent
tokens of his fondness for Burton, with whose thought and
expression, as with those of many seventeenth century writers,
he was in close sympathy. Southey was a diligent reader of
The Anatomy and noted many passages from it in his common-
place book. The year 1800 saw the first reprint of The Anatomy
since 1676, and the book thus became more accessible. Keats,
with his Lamia, gave the passage of Burton that suggested the
poem, and a volume of the edition which he used, containing notes
from his hand, has been preserved. Byron praised it as the most
entertaining of literary miscellanies. But criticisms on Burton
are too often evidence that the book has been thought of as an
amusing collection of isolated anecdotes, a vast quarry for quaint
phrases and quotations, and seldom viewed in its purpose and
entirety.
Thackeray, who, in Pendennis, had represented captain Shandon
as putting The Anatomy to base uses of journalism, made it the
## p. 253 (#275) ############################################
John Barclay
253
favourite reading of Martin Lambert in The Virginians-a book
over a great part of which the spirit of Burton is felt to brood. But
the second volume of The Virginians is largely made up of essays,
and it is in the essay of today, if anywhere, that the influence of
Burton yet lingers.
The Scot abroad, winning success in arms or commerce, has
long been a familiar figure. In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the countrymen of Buchanan and Dempster are often
found in foreign lands as scholars of fortune. William Barclay, of
an old Aberdeenshire family, a Catholic and an adherent of queen
Mary, after some years' legal study in France, accepted a chair at
Pont-à-Mousson in the territory of the duke of Lorraine, and
married a lady of that country. Their son, John Barclay, born in
1582, counted himself a subject of king James, though circum-
stances gave a cosmopolitan tinge to his character. Himself
married to a Frenchwoman, a resident successively in England
and Italy, suing for the patronage of the sovereigns of different
realms, Barclay nowhere achieved the position his powers might
have won. Too little is known of his life in London and his eleven
years' connection with the English court. That he was employed
on important missions is certainly an exaggeration, though passages
in his work appear to indicate some official errand.
To the modern reader, Barclay's yearning for the favour of the
great is, doubtless, distasteful. Each royal personage in turn is
posed as the noblest and pleasantest prince of his acquaint-
ance; but, in his days, to touch without adorning was unpardonable,
and we have the testimony of such men as Casaubon and Peiresc and
Thorie to the real charm of his character. Intellectually, Barclay
was a compound of the student, the man of letters and the curious
observer of affairs, and his highest work combines 'the scholar's
learning with the courtier's ease. '
His first performance, at the age of eighteen, was in the
character of a scholar, a commentary on four books of Statius's
Thebais, with notes on the four following. It has been asserted
that subsequent editors have neglected this book: but Barth refers
to it frequently, and, while criticising it severely at times, styles the
author vir doctissimus, and applauds several of his suggestions? .
Barclay was a fluent and pleasing master of Latin verse, and some
lines of his were published as early as 15992. His collected poems
1 Barth’s Statius (1664), tom. II, p. 514. See Barth’s indexes.
In the Tacitus edited by William Barclay, M. D.
>
## p. 254 (#276) ############################################
254
John Barclay
contain matter of autobiographical interest, and also much adula-
tion of James and others, with an occasional touch of grotesqueness.
In his hexameters on the Gunpowder plot, the poet expresses his
horror that men should have proposed to send the king piecemeal
to the skies, when his own soaring virtues would more rightly
bear him thither.
The first part of Euphormionis Satyricon was published when
Barclay was only one-and-twenty. Before considering this, it is
convenient to note briefly some other productions. His short
account of the 1605 plot was written in the November of that year,
but its appearance was postponed because of James's own manifesto.
The king's sagacity is, of course, applauded ; at the end are placed
the lines already referred to.
In 1609, Barclay introduced a posthumous work of his father,
De Potestate Papae, in which William Barclay, already known as
the champion of the rights of monarchy against Buchanan, was
now seen as the opponent of the papal court in its claims to over-
rule the secular power. In reply to the attacks provoked by the
work, Barclay wrote his Pietas, sive publicae pro regibus ac
principibus et privatae, pro G. Barclaio contra Bellarminum
Vindiciae. In 1614 appeared Icon Animorum, Englished by
Thomas May in 1631 as The Mirrour of Mindes. In this, he
treats of the principal nations of Europe and their characteristics,
beginning with the French, the various dispositions of mankind
and the qualities peculiar to times of life, station and profession.
It shows Barclay's alertness of observation, soundness of judgment
and happiness in expression, and has caused him to be compared
with Montaigne. Merits and failings are skilfully presented, habits
of thought as well as of demeanour. Of the English, he writes: se
ip808, et suae gentis mores, ingenia, animos, eximie mirantur. The
practice of the duello in France here condemned was glanced at in
Euphormio, and its discouragement by Louis XIII made a merit
of that king in the dedication to Argenis. The criticisms are in
no unkindly spirit, but, some thirty years later, a Pole was moved
to protest against Barclay's account of his country?
Much in Barclay's writings had been eagerly welcomed by the
opponents of Catholicism, but his Paraenesis ad sectarios, written
soon after his settlement at Rome in 1617, served to justify his
attitude in the eyes of the Catholic church.
Barclay's main importance, however, for the history of literature
1 Polonia Defensa contra Joan: Barclaium etc. (Dantzig, 1648, anon. [by
L. Opalinsky]).
## p. 255 (#277) ############################################
Euphormionis Satyricon 255
rests on his two adventures in fiction, Euphormionis Satyricon
and Argenis, the one a contribution to the development of the
picaresque novel of real life, the other a finished example of a type
of ideal romance. The first part of Euphormio is said to have
appeared in London in 1603, but no copy is forthcoming. The
1605 edition (Paris) of this part is described on the title as Nunc
primum recognitum, emendatum, et variis in locis auctum. Until
the earlier edition is found, the extent of the changes must remain
unknown. In his Apologia Euphormionis pro se, Barclay has
ingenuously confessed his reasons for choosing satire : youth and
desire for fame. “I decided,' he says, “to accuse the whole world
with guiltless yiolence, more in the hope of winning praise for
myself than of bringing shame on others. ' In plot, Barclay's
satirical novel is a string of adventures. In the first part, the
narrator Euphormio becomes, in a foreign land, the slave of an
ennobled parvenu, Callio. He is persecuted, feigns insanity and
wins his master's favour. Sent on journeys with a fellow slave, he
undergoes a variety of experiences, is flogged and branded and
escapes. The narrative breaks off on a sudden. Interspersed are
an account of a lecture on Roman law, details of supernatural
phenomena, ghost stories and witchcraft, a play acted in a Jesuit
college, an attack on physicians (whose pretensions Barclay was as
ready to satirise as Fielding) and a long dissertation on the present
state of learning, on the faults of verbal and antiquarian scholarship,
and the extremists in Latin style, whether erring through obscurity
or ultra-Ciceronianism, on mistakes in systems of education; in
which last there is excellent good sense. Besides unworthy nobles,
there are many other objects of the author's satire; and we have
in especial an account of the eager and intrusive ambition of the
followers of Acignius, who typifies the Society of Jesus. With
much that is vigorous and interesting, there is a lack of connection.
An elaborate episode in the earlier pages, which shows promise of
continuance, is abruptly dropped, and we miss sureness in tone and
touch. The saeva indignatio of the opening is not sustained, and
one can understand, without accepting, Scaliger's criticism: il y a
un pédant à Angers qui a fait un Satyricon qui au com-
mencement semble estre quelque chose mais puis n'est rien du tout.
Through the second part of Euphormio (1607), there runs a more
distinct clue. We have Euphormio's first impulse to follow the
life of the philosophers (enter a religious order), his recognition of
his mistake, his pursuit of fortune and pleasure, his fresh attraction
to 'philosophy' and the wiles by which Acignius attempts to
## p. 256 (#278) ############################################
256
John Barclay
secure him for his Society. From these, he frees himself with
difficulty, and, finally, reaches the court of Tessaranactus (James),
who admits his service. The scene is laid in Delphium (Pont-à-
Mousson), Marcia (Venice), Ilium (Paris), Boeotia (Germany) and
Scolimorrhodia (England).
The atmosphere is more spacious and
the interest wider than in part I. There are again many episodes—
a long dramatic performance, a literary display at a Jesuit college,
an account of the habits of the emperor Rudolf and a puritan
household in England. Euphormio was placed on the Index; the
latter part gave especial offence, and, in reply to attacks, Barclay
wrote his Apologia. He justifies his satire, never scurrilous, on
the Jesuits, and adheres to the view he had given of the dispute
between Venice and the papal court. On the charge of libelling
individuals, he tries to show the absurdity of some identifications;
in other cases, he maintains that the praise outweighs the blame,
but, at times, his defence is disingenuous. Hoping for the favour
of princes, he felt bound to explain away what might prejudice his
career. How far was fact blended with fiction ? According to one
view, part I closely follows the elder Barclay's experiences, part II
the son's, the characters being largely based on originals. This is
supported by Père Abram's Histoire de l'université et du collège
de Pont-à-Mousson! A recent critic has endeavoured to minimise
the element of exact imitation. Certain characters (for example,
Protagon = Henri IV) and incidents are, undoubtedly, real, and,
without following any 'headstrong allegory,' the safer course is not
to assign too important a share to imagination pure and simple.
Barclay's habit was to build fiction on fact.
It is a separate task to trace the indebtedness of Euphormio
to preceding writers and its influence in subsequent literature.
In the mixture of verse with prose, and in style and expression,
Barclay betrays frequent reminiscences of Petronius, while adhering
to his own standard of decency. Echoes of other writers are
frequent and two most prominent qualities are a display of
erudition and a taste for rhetoric. His annotator of 1674 was
ludicrously unable to cope with his references to Greek history.
There is a general resemblance between Euphormio and the
picaresque novels of Spain, but the chief of these were later than
Barclay's satire, and, as yet, few had appeared in a French form.
Some effects of Euphormio may be felt not only in subsequent
Latin writings, but in the vernacular literature of France and
Germany, for example in Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus. It is
1 In MS. See Collignon, Notes sur l'Euphormion,' pp. 9–21.
## p. 257 (#279) ############################################
Argenis
257
a curious fact that those who have written on Euphormio in recent
times have often failed to read it through. Körting, in describing
the first part, believed that he was giving an account of the whole,
and Dukas, in his useful contribution to the bibliography, confessed
he had left some pages unread.
Apologia Euphormionis pro se was printed later as a third part
of Euphormio; to this was added, as a fourth, Icon Animorum, though
it had no connection with the other three. After Barclay's death,
the publishers included as part V Alitophili Veritatis Lachrymae,
nominally a continuation of Euphormio, though the connection is
of the slightest. Claude Morisot was the author of this indifferent
piece, which Robert Burton quoted several times without naming
the source.
A sixth part, Alitophilus castigatus, appeared in the
1674 annotated edition of Euphormio. It is a slight production,
giving the stories and discussions of a group of friends who meet at
one another's houses during a three days' vacation. Dukas, who
refrained from reading it, gives a completely erroneous account,
and, in dealing with the question of the authorship, attributed
to L. G. Bugnot, overlooks the most important pieces of evidence.
Argenis is a far more mature work than Euphormio; its author's
intention is clearer, it has a carefully constructed plot, and, in
style too, a distinct advance is perceptible. The work was written
at Rome where Barclay had settled in 1617, and Rome is recalled
by some of the details in description. Light is thrown on the
composition of Argenis by Barclay's own letters and by those of
Peiresc and others. They show us quite plainly that Argenis must
not be regarded as a purely artistic work of imagination, but, at
least in part, as inspired by political motives. In a letter to de
Puysieu, dated Rome, 12 July 1620, Barclay writes:
Le suiet du liure ou je pretends faire entrer au bon escient Monseigneur
le Chancellier et vous aussy, est une inuention assés gaye comprise en cing
liures ou se traitte de la pluspart des affaires de nostre temps. J'y
adjousteray cette preface de laquelle je vous ay parlé si le Roy accepte
mon service et tourneray aisement le stile de tous les cinq liures à l'honneur
de la France.
In a letter which Barclay sent to Louis XIII with a copy of Argenis
a
a few days before his death, he says of his book:
son principal but est de traicter des guerres et des amours d'un jeune et
chaste Prince qui semblent estre tirees sur le modelle de vostre courage
et genie.
This time, Barclay was anxious to avoid giving offence, and
specimens of what he had written were submitted to the judgment
of others. In his dedication to Louis XIII, he speaks of his work
E. L. IV. CH. XIII.
17
## p. 258 (#280) ############################################
258
John Barclay
as a new kind of writing and, in the course of the book, expounds
its principles in the person of Nicopompus. The poet describes
how he proposes to write a story in the style of a history. The
fictitious element, the exciting and unexpected incidents, are to
attract readers: the pictures of virtues and vices with their
appropriate rewards are to compel men to self-criticism and self-
condemnation. He is careful to add that no persons will be por-
trayed to the exact life, but that disguise will be secured by fictitious
details; consequently, to take offence will be a confession of the
reader's own guilt. It will be an equal error to assume that every-
thing or that nothing corresponds to real fact. As, in Euphormio,
the satirical element was dominant, in the later fiction it is the
didactic.
There is no need to repeat the details of the story. Argenis,
daughter and heir presumptive of Meleander, king of Sicily, has
four aspirants to her hand : Lycogenes, the rebel whose attempt
to carry her off is frustrated by Poliarchus, disguised as a girl;
Radirobanes, king of Sardinia, her father's ally against the rebels,
who fails in an attempt to seize Argenis and is afterwards slain in
single combat by Poliarchus; Archombrotus, a prince who arrives
in Sicily incognito, but proves to be Meleander's son by a secret
marriage; and the hero Poliarchus, a Gallic king, whose union with
Argenis is celebrated at the conclusion.
According to one view, Argenis is simply a political treatise cast
in the form of a novel. According to another, it is a perpetual his-
torical allegory; while a third would make it, in all that is essential,
a romance. That there is really a fusion of romantic, political and
historical motives is proved, if proof be needed, by the author's
own words.
Like his father, Barclay was a strong but not unreasoning
supporter of the power of the crown. The abuses of monarchy are
debated, but he is careful not to let the Whig dogs have the best
of the argument. His was evidently that acute and cautious type
of mind that sides with authority and shows resourcefulness in
opposing the advocates of less arbitrary rule. In the remedies
suggested for strengthening the crown against too powerful nobles,
there is a curious anticipation of Richelieu's measures.
The political questions are those of the day, but how far are the
principal characters and situations historical ? The detail and
order of the action is imaginary and a precise allegory is out of the
question, but it would certainly seem that, in describing the condi-
tion and relation of various countries, Barclay had in mind the
## p. 259 (#281) ############################################
Argenis
259
recent history of Europe. The troubles of Sicily, it is reasonable to
suppose, were at least suggested by those of France during the wars
of the League. To give an exact picture was no part of Barclay's
intention; but Sardinia, under the ambitious and encroaching
Radirobanes, recalls Spain, while Mauretania, which repels Radiro-
banes's attack and is governed by a queen unable to take her
subjects' money without their consent, has its analogue in England.
The chief characters are no portraits. Lycogenes may correspond
to the duke of Guise, but Henri III would be flattered in Meleander.
Argenis, in a sense, typifies the succession to the crown, and
Barclay may have thought of Marguerite of Valois, the subject of
his touching verses in Euphormio. Poliarchus has usually been taken
to represent Henry of Navarre; that Archombrotus is his under-
study illustrates the danger of demanding an exact resemblance.
Barclay's claim that his hero is meant for Louis XIII is not in-
consistent, as he elsewhere attributes the father's merits to the son.
Certain minor characters are easily recognised-Ibburranes and
Dunalbius are the cardinals Barberini and Ubaldini; Hieroleander
is Hieronymus Aleander; Antenorius, Antonio Querenghi. Nico-
pompus, ever ready with occasional verse, is Barclay's self. One of
Barclay's letters gives his intention of introducing Sillery, who may
be Cleobulus. There are undisputed references to historical
incidents—the story of Concini, of Somerset and lady Essex; the
dispute between the emperor Ferdinand and the Pfalzgraf Friedrich.
The narrative, though never lost sight of, is relieved by poems, by
discussions, in which the parts maintained are in skilful keeping
with the characters, by descriptions of scenery, works of art and
pageants, in which, perhaps, we may see recollections of the
masques at James's court. There are lighter passages and some
attempts at mirth, but the prevailing tone is elevated and serious,
at times approaching the epic. Consistency is maintained in the
characters, with little development. Of Barclay's reading, there is
continual evidence. We are reminded of the Greek novelists with
whom the pirate is often the diabolus ex machina; of Polybius, to
whom the description of Epeircte is due; of Xenophon's Cyro-
paedia (the name Gobrias, however, may be taken from Theodorus
Prodromus, the Vatican MS of which writer Barclay examined
for Gaulmin's edition). But a list of authors who colour his
.
poetry, and prose would be endless.
Barclay's Latin style has been lauded without limit by Grotius
and Coleridge, and severely dealt with by Scaliger, the author of
1 N. and Q. 10 S. X, 101.
17-2
## p. 260 (#282) ############################################
260
John Barclay
а
Censura Euphormionis, Scioppius and others. If we judge by a
classical standard, it is easy to smell false Latin. ' The vocabulary is
not pure. There are lapses in usage. Among his merits can scarcely
be counted 'a witty and dexterous use of the subjunctive mood. '
But, as an example of the application of Latin to modern use,
Barclay's language deserves high praise. While no Ciceronian, he
has not affiliated 'Lipsius his hopping style. ' His own is ready,
flexible and expressive, and has the inestimable merit of con-
veying the author's meaning.
To whatever degree the belief in a clavis may have contributed
to the success of Argenis, its literary merits are beyond question.
Sorel criticised it with some animosity in his Remarques sur le
Berger extravagant, but its popularity is proved by translations
into ten languages and more than one continuation!
While there is little direct imitation of Argenis, it was among
the influences that passed into the heroic novel, and separate signs
of it are frequent in the literature of the seventeenth century. We
may trace them in other Latin works of fiction, in Erythraeus's
Eudemia and in Nova Solyma. The story yielded material for
dramas in French, Spanish, Italian and German. Fénelon's
indebtedness has been doubted. Burton quotes from Argenis, as
well as from Euphormio and Icon Animorum. Crashaw translated
verses from Argenis. There are touches of it in Boyle's Par-
thenissa. Katherine Philips addresses a friend as Poliarchus.
Barclay's works were even employed for purposes of instruction.
A selection was made of his political aphorisms. In Earle's Micro-
Cosmographie, a college tutor sets his pupil an extract from
Euphormio, and the suitability of Barclay as a Latin author for
boys' reading was discussed in a school programme of Schulpforte
(1729). It has been often repeated that Argenis appealed to
Richelieu and Leibniz: we know that Rousseau read it. Cowper's
praise and Coleridge's are familiar.
Before the close of the seventeenth century, the Latin text of
Argenis was reprinted between forty and fifty times. The demand
during the next hundred years was satisfied with half-a-dozen
editions, all proceeding from Nürnberg, since the last of which no
publisher has thought it worth his while to issue it. Recently,
several monographs dealing with Barclay's life, bibliography
and chief works have appeared in France and Germany. But
published statements in the bibliographies still require some
corrections; there are important particulars in his life which have
See the bibliograpby.
1
## p. 261 (#283) ############################################
Medieval and Modern Latin Verse 261
not been exhaustively investigated; and the full influence of his
works on subsequent literature still requires to be traced in detail.
The bulk of medieval and modern Latin verse is enormously
greater than the whole of extant classical poetry. In England, during
the past century, while the art has been greatly exercised and has
formed a prominent item in higher education, the usual aim of
its adepts has been to display their ingenuity and scholarship in
devising the most appropriate equivalents by which to give a Latin
metrical dress to the thoughts and expressions of English poets.
As a rule, the renderings are of short poems or isolated extracts.
Widely different from this was the method in vogue at the time
of the renascence, when, while translation from the Greek was
not unknown, most Latin verse was an attempt on the part of
scholars and men of letters to express their own thoughts and
feelings. Some, like Petrarch, Vida, Fracastorius and Sannazarius,
aspired to produce works of permanent value; in the case of
others, such as J. C. Scaliger, verse was a conscious relaxation
from severer labours. Too often, instead of careful finish, we find
fluent improvisation. For a century and a half, Italy, France,
Germany and the Netherlands lisped in Latin numbers. In our
own country, where the effect of the renascence was less and
later, the amount of Latin verse was inferior. Still, during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is a succession of
Latin versifiers from Sir Thomas More to Abraham Cowley. Nor
is production confined to lighter and more occasional pieces:
poems of more ambitious scope were attempted, such as the
De Re Publica Anglorum instauranda of Sir Thomas Chaloner
the elder (1521–62), some lines of which are familiar through
Burton's quotation.
In the north, the art was cultivated with success; Buchanan
won the highest praise from J. J. Scaliger; and Arthur Jonston,
himself a Latin poet of merit, edited Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum
under the patronage of Scot of Scotstarvet, as a pendant to
Gruter's collections.
The making of Latin verses was an essential part of the
curriculum of a good English grammar school in the sixteenth
century. John Owen, both as boy and as master, must have had
plenty of experience in ‘longs and shorts. ' Leach has pointed
out, in his History of Warwick School, that the education
at Winchester when Owen was a scholar was largely devoted to
the production of Latin epigrams, and the lines on Drake,
## p. 262 (#284) ############################################
262
John Owen
composed while their author was yet a schoolboy, had the honour
of a place in Camden's Annales.
The date conventionally assigned to Owen's birth is c. 1560,
but Leach has shown from the evidence of his age when admitted
a scholar at Winchester that the right year is 1563 or 1564. This
inference is supported by the pedigree supplied by H. R. Hughes
of Kinmell, according to which Owen had three elder brothers,
the first born in 1560. Another account makes him the third son.
His father, Thomas Owen of Plas dû, was sheriff of Carnarvonshire
in 1569, and it seems certain that Hugh Owen, the conspirator,
who died at Rome in 1618, was his uncle. Whatever the truth of
the story that the poet was disinherited by an uncle because of
an epigram reflecting on the church of Rome, we learn from Hugh
Owen’s monument that his heir was his sister's son, a Gwynne.
Although several of his epigrams are earlier, Owen's first
volume did not appear till 1606, three other volumes following
within the next six years. His success was immediate and
extraordinary; his admirers hailed him as the equal, if not
the superior, of Martial; and the comparison, though too often
repeated in an uncritical fashion, undoubtedly contains some
slight element of truth. It must be confessed at once that, in
Owen, one looks in vain for the poetic side of Martial, for his
pathos and tenderness. One misses, too, the variety of metre,
above all the hendecasyllables in which Martial's hand is exceed-
ingly light, the great majority of Owen's epigrams consisting of
a single elegiac distich. Wherein, then, lies his merit? He is
the very embodiment of that 'quick venew of wit: snip, snap,
quick and home, which finds its fittest expression in the brief
compass of two Latin lines, as Latin, too, has no rival as the
language for terse inscription. If, without profanity, Owen's name
may be set by Martial's, it is because he has caught something of
the spirit of one class of Martial's epigrams—the couplets which
are all point with no room for poetry. If we apply the familiar
precept, Owen's performances possess the aculeus and are corporis
exigui, but the honey is to seek.
It was the point and brevity which captivated his auditors;
the tastes of that audience are seen in Manningham's Diary
The Epigrammata would especially be welcomed by members of
the universities and inns of court, daily conversant with Latin
enamoured of verbal quips, impresses and anagrams. They would
1 Y Cymmrodor, xvi, 177.
Archaeologia Cambrensis, vol. 10 (second series), pp. 130, 131.
## p. 263 (#285) ############################################
His Epigrams
263
find Owen singularly free from the two faults which rendered
much modern Latin verse intolerable, namely: insipidity and
tediousness. In a quatrain prefixed to Owen's second volume
(1607), Sir John Harington pays his friend the curious compliment
of saying that his verses do not make the reader sick'. This is
no faint praise. Owen is eminently readable; his very faults are
rarely associated with ineffectiveness. They are, for the most
part, due to devices for arresting the reader's attention. Among
the least satisfactory is the selection of words of similar sound,
where, without point enough for a pun, the result is a jingle-
Mars and mors; audiret and auderet; Venetiae and divitiae; A
summo sumo Principe principium. But there are times when
his mere dexterity in playing with the letter compels admiration,
as in the line describing the care of physicians and lawyers for
their clients :
Dant patienter opem, dum potiuntur opum,
We have in him a concise Latin counterpart of the punning and
alliterative titles of contemporary controversial tracts. Owen
abounds in the tricks by which a word is written backwards or
stripped of a syllable or letter. His alertness in detecting his
opportunity is only paralleled by De Morgan's prompt discovery,
when Burgon had repudiated an invitation to a public dinner,
that curt refusal was spelt by the reversal of the dean's name.
In keeping with the fashion of his age, Owen is great in anagrams,
ringing the changes to the fifth degree? There is juggling with
figures, as when he shows that the digits of prince Henry's birth
year, when added together, make up the golden number, nineteen?
In the higher paronomasia, Owen is supreme; his happiest efforts
have all the shock and the inevitableness of the famous neque
benefecit neque male fecit, sed interfecit. Hood's inexhaustible
fertility would have found in him a rival. Akin to this is the
readiness with ingenious comparisons, and the skill by which a
new and unexpected turn is given to familiar proverbs and quo-
tations, or new light shed on a familiar truth, as in the epigram
Ad Juvenem :
Quisque senectutem, mortem tibi nemo precatur ;
Optatur morbus, non medicina tibi.
It was hardly to be expected that, in his criticisms of social life,
1 Provenit ex versu nausea nulla tuo.
2 Epigrammata, lib. VI, 12. (The books are numbered consecutively, as in
Renouard's edition. )
3 V, 51. * Attributed to Porson in Facetiae Cantabrigienses (1825), p. 184.
## p. 264 (#286) ############################################
264
John Owen
Owen would refrain from claiming the licence traditionally en-
joyed by the epigrammatist, and he has Sterne’s unedifying trick
of making a sentence in itself innocent the vehicle of an unseemly
meaning. Whatever the method employed, Owen's perpetual aim
is to startle the reader by the flash of his wit, whether the result
be reached by the soaring of a rocket or the splutter of a squib.
As befits a schoolmaster, he affords us scraps from the feast of
languages; besides Latin and English, Greek, Welsh, Hebrew,
French and Italian all have a part in his jests. Nor is learning
absent; to a hasty reader, satisfied with seeing that a point is
complete in itself, the echoes from the classics may remain un-
heard. It is not always recognised that his praise of Thomas
Neville, his patroness's son,
Qui puerum laudat, spem, non rem, laudat in illo,
Non spes, ingenium res probat ipsa tuum
is based on a saying of Cicero, quoted in Servius's commentary to
Vergil. The words Semper in incerta re tu mihi certus amicus
are suggested by a line of Ennius, quoted in De Amicitia. The
epigram on Sir Philip Sidney has been cited as 'an example of
Owen's power; it is really the versification of the younger Pliny's
panegyric on his uncle. Owen takes his profit where he finds it.
An etymology of Varro, a line of Persius, a hexameter proverb,
and an aphorism of Matthaeus Borbonius, are alike pressed into his
service. It is not always easy to distinguish between imitation and
coincidence nor to decide whether indebtedness is unconscious
or intentional. The remark on Nicholas Borbonius's Nugael has
a parallel in Joachim du Bellay: elsewhere, we meet with an appa-
rent reminiscence of Johannes Secundus. The distich obnoxious
to quotation on Peter and Simon at Rome embodies a jest pre-
sumably ancient. It may be seen in Euricius Cordus. Another
epigram of Cordus on our attitude to a physician closely resembles
one of Owen's? There are many such parallels in the vast litera-
ture of modern Latin. The remarkable instance of the lines of
Geronimo Amalteo and Passerat is given in Hallam. Similarity
of theme must often have involved similarity of treatment.
Owen's epigrams are no mere imitative exercises in Latin
style. He must pack his meaning in a small space and he feels the
difficulty of his task. Crede mihi, labor est non levis esse brevem.
He is bent on making his point and makes it often at the cost of
correctness. He is not infallible in the order of his words and
II, 42.
was not peculiar to Burton. It was an age when appeal lay to
tradition and authority, and the tendency was fostered by the
formation of libraries. The attitude of a typical scholar of the
day has been summed up by his modern biographer, “If a great
writer has said a thing, it is so? ' It was the fashion of the time
* Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, p. 442.
## p. 247 (#269) ############################################
His Reading
247
to quote by way of proof or illustration, in talk, in writing, from
the pulpit. No exposition or argument could be conducted 'With-
out refreshment on the road From Jerome or from Athanasius. '
In enforcing the most familiar of truisms, men appealed to the
classics without fear of consequences. The pretender to learning
had perforce ‘his sentences for Company, some scatterings of
Seneca and Tacitus' The difference between Burton and his
1.
contemporaries is one of degree:
No man in his time did surpass him for his ready and dextrous inter-
larding his common discourses among them with verses from the poets, or
sentences from classical authors. Which being then all the fashion in the
university made his company more acceptable.
Indeed, if the occasion be considered, the wealth of ancient in-
stances, of Greek and Latin in Taylor's sermon, "The House of
Feasting,' is as surprising a phenomenon as anything in Burton.
Taine, 'superseding the facts by a statement of his own subjective
consciousness,' has spoken of Burton's casting on paper 'a folio
column of heraldry' and 'the history of the particle que,' but, though
Burton modestly spoke of his work as a 'cento' that he had
‘collected out of divers writers,' there is always reason and method
in his borrowings. He never flung bis commonplace book in the
face of the public.
Undoubtedly, Burton possessed an inordinate appetite for
books, a cacoethes legendi. He confesses to a 'want of art' and
'order' in his reading ; 'I have confusedly tumbled over divers
authors in our libraries,' 'rambling amongst authors (as often
I do). ' So Boswell wrote of Johnson in his youth, ‘he read a great
deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance
threw books in his way and inclination directed him through them. '
But Burton in his ramblings must have been ready to suck
melancholy out of all that he met. For all his omnivorous reading,
he was no bookworm. It was the human interest in the printed
page for which his eye was open. Modern critics, unversed in
a literature familiar to Burton's day, have dwelt pleasantly on
dusty folios, and made merry over the names of authors of whose
works they were ignorant, as though what is obsolete for us was
already rare and far-fetched in the 'seventeenth century. Taine
pictured Burton sporting with antediluvian monsters, the first
being Besler of Nürnberg! and an English writer seems to
imagine that Codronchus was a special find for him. There was
1 Earle, Micro-Cosmographie, character 31.
? Anthony · Wood, Ath. Ox. ed. Bliss, 11, 653.
## p. 248 (#270) ############################################
248
Robert Burton
little remoteness in the newly printed text-books of medicine and
botany.
In the case of a reader so all engulfing as Burton, it is not
easy to sum up his sources with precision, but the following heads
will afford a rough notion of the field covered: medical writers
of all periods, and scientific works; the Bible, the fathers,
theologians; Greek and Latin classics (the former 'cited out of
their interpreters'): some few are largely or wholly neglected,
such as Aeschylus : to others, such as Horace, he has frequent
recourse; historians and chroniclers; travels, descriptions of
cities and countries (Burton was 'ever addicted to the study
of cosmography'); treatises on government and politics; the
miscellanea of scholars and Latin belles lettres from the revival of
learning : poems, orations, epistles, satires, facetiae and the like;
English poetry: Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson,
Daniel, Drayton; Harington's Ariosto, Florio's Montaigne,
Rabelais and others. Interesting light is thrown on Burton's
reading by the list of the books given to the Bodleian in accord-
ance with his will, which includes a large number of pamphlets and
controversial tracts.
Burton was anxious on principle to indicate his obligations.
'I have wronged no Authors,' he protested from the first; 'I cite
and quote mine Authors,' he adds, in the third edition, continuing,
in the fourth, 'which howsoever some illiterate scriblers accompt
pedanticall as a cloake of ignorance, and opposite to their affected
fine stile, I must and will use. ' Burton, it would seem, is here
glancing at writers such as Owen Feltham, who, in the second
edition of Resolves (1628), wrote 'I am to answer two Objections,
One, that I have made use of Story yet not quoted my Authorities,
and this I have purposely done. Yet, while Burton renders to his
medical writers what is theirs, to a great number of the illustrative
and literary quotations in The Anatomy, as is only natural, no
name is attached; to pause at the end of each borrowed phrase to
interject a ‘Shakespeare, ahem ! ' was clearly impossible. But
there is unconscious humour when, in the famous passage conveyed
by Sterne, Burton declares that ‘as Apothecaries we make new
mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another'; and
forgets to refer his readers to Andreae's Menippus. In many
instances, the quotations embedded in Burton's text have not
been drawn directly from their original sources. Not that Burton
had any need to fall back on florilegia, a practice that he
expressly disclaims; but it often happens that what in itself is
## p. 249 (#271) ############################################
His Methods of Quotation 249
a quotation, especially if it be an island of verse in the midst
of prose, has caught his eye as it faced him on the page of another
writer and found its way to his own. Lines that stand out in
Xylander's Latin version of Plutarch's Moralia, in Lilius Gyraldus,
in Cornelius Agrippa, in Cardan, in Lipsius, have thus recruited
his ranks ; English writers, too, are made to pay tribute of their
spoil. At times, we may track him down a whole page of a pre-
decessor. The protest, in the preface to Love-Melancholy, against
forbidding the reading of the Canticles, the Ballade of Ballades,
as 'too light and amorous a tract,' has been borrowed from an
oration of Beroaldus. Elsewhere, successive quotations from
Aulus Gellius, Pliny the elder and the philosopher Seneca hail
from a controversial piece by Justus Baronius, and Burton
commits a curious error through misreading his original. When
he protests in his preface that his collection has been sine injuria,
that he has given every man his own, it can be shown, from
passages he refers to, that he is recalling Camerarius's emblem
under that motto. The insertion of supplementary matter in later
editions has here, by separating these quotations, helped to conceal
their provenance. Burton's reading was so wide and devious, his
paths of association so unexpected, that it is rarely safe to assume
by what road a quotation has reached him. One more example
must suffice. It might be supposed that the two lines
Virgines nondum thalamis jugatae
Et comis nondum positis ephoebi
came directly from Seneca's Hercules Furens. This is not so.
Burton took them from Gaulmin's Latin translation of the Greek
romance of Theodorus Prodromus'. The ways in which he inter-
laces the words of others into his own fabric are very various.
Sometimes, a quotation stands in his text, sometimes, in the
margin; at times, through inadvertence, in both. The margin,
again, may supply the original of the rendering that figures on the
page. His translations often are 'paraphrases rather than inter-
pretations. ' Burton's racy restatements by the side of the Latin
have, at times, a humorous effect akin to that of the advocates'
speeches in The Ring and the Book-or in Calverley's parody.
Burton exercises an author's privilege in taking only what is to
his purpose and in combining separate excerpts into one period.
Naturally, among the thousands of passages that he has occasion
to quote, he has not been able to avoid errors. His memory plays
him false. He slips in a rendering, assigns words of Silius to
· N. and Q. 10 S. x1, 101.
## p. 250 (#272) ############################################
250
Robert Burton
Statius, is led astray by his authorities. If Lipsius refers a sentence
of Plato to the wrong dialogue, Burton takes it on trust. Lipsius
says 'Horace' when he should have said 'Ovid,' Burton copies his
mistake. The number of reference marks in the text and margin
become a source of error when complicated by fresh insertions
in successive issues. Although each edition has a list of errata,
these bear but an insignificant proportion to what may be detected.
It is obvious that Burton's modus operandi was not always the
same. He often quotes from memory; there are places, apparently,
where the book from which he cites lay open before him; at times,
he made use of memoranda. In his introduction, he represents
himself as writing 'out of a confused company of notes. ' Several
books containing his autograph show strokes of the pen against
words or passages utilised in The Anatomy.
Everywhere there is evidence that Burton's brain was soaked
in literature. In his elegiacs ad librum suum, echoes are to be
heard from Nicholas Gerbelius, Palingenius, Claudian, Ausonius,
Juvenal, Martial, Ovid, Vergil. Elia's 'I cannot sit and think.
Books think for me, can be applied to Burton. His constant
habit was to express himself in terms of quotation. But in this
method lies dizziness for the reader and a danger, at times, that
the real strength and individuality of the author's own thoughts
may be overlooked.
Burton himself describes his style when he confesses that his
book was writ with as small deliberation as I do usually speak. '
What we are listening to is the intimate persuasive ring of
vigorous and unaffected talk. He never shrinks from homely
metaphors:
The whole world belike should be new-moulded when it seemed good to
those all-commanding Powers, and turned inside out as we do haycocks in
harvest . . . , or as we turn apples to the fire, move the world upon his centre.
6
"The world is tossed in a blanket amongst them. ' 'As common
as a barber's chair. ' 'As a tinker stops one hole and makes two. '
a
It was because of his expressing himself in such terms as these
that, two generations later, the Christ Church men complained of
Bentley’s ‘low and mean ways of speech. '
It would be an error to suppose that Burton was not consciously
concerned for his vocabulary and the rhythmical movement of his
English. Comparing his book to a bear's whelp, he laments that
he has no time to lick it into form, but the changes introduced in
each new edition prove his anxiety on re-reading to prune away
## p. 251 (#273) ############################################
His Influence
251
pleonasms, to escape awkward repetitions and, by numerous slight
touches, to ease the running of his sentences. When further
additions have affected what was previously in place, he is at pains
to alter it. Only a complete collation could exhibit the amount of
care that Burton bestowed on revision.
The success of his Melancholy, instead of prompting Burton to
the production of any new work, caused him to concentrate his energy
on improving what he had already printed. Additional references
or the names of other authors were adduced to support or illustrate
statements already made. The insertion of entirely new matter is
frequent. In more than one edition, he records a resolve to make
no further change, but the method of the book invited fresh
touches and Burton found it hard to abstain. He pleads in excuse
that 'many good authors in all kinds are come to my hands since,'
and his treatise is continually being made new by contributions
that had been published since the last edition, while he explains of
certain earlier books that they had not been seen by him till now.
From the first, The Anatomy of Melancholy found a ready audi-
ence, and its vogue, to judge from the number of editions absorbed,
lasted for half a century. As its success was due to its having
suited, rather than originated, the taste of the time, it is not always
easy to trace its direct influence. Resemblances have often been
pointed out between Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso and 'The
Author's Abstract of Melancholy,' verses which Burton prefixed to
his third and following editions. John Rous, the Bodleian librarian,
was a friend of Burton as well as of Milton. It has been suggested
that the song in Fletcher's Nice Valour was Milton's immediate
source and that Fletcher owed hints to Burton. The authorship
of the play is matter of controversy, and Fletcher himself died three
years before Burton's verses were printed. The anonymous Vulgar
Errors in Practice Censured (1659) shows extensive borrowings.
The author copies without much intelligence and goes astray through
mechanically repeating Burton's references. Greenwood's’Amoypaon
otopyñs, or Passion of Love, that appeared in 1657, makes con-
siderable use of The Anatomy, but the extent of his acknowledgment
is very slight, though Burton's name is mentioned. At the close of
the century, the passion for accumulating authorities was growing
fainter, and Burton's book was less in touch with the prevailing
literary tone. Indebtedness to The Anatomy was now less likely
to be detected. Archbishop Herring, in an often-repeated passage,
asserted that the wits of queen Anne's reign and the beginning
of George I's were not a little beholden to Burton. Swift, it
would seem, had some acquaintance with him. However little in
## p. 252 (#274) ############################################
252
Robert Burton
accordance with literary fashion, The Anatomy could hardly fail, if
only by reason of its title, and the more obvious peculiarities
of its contents, to attract the attention of any curious reader who
encountered it; and, in the middle of the century, two authors
of importance fell under its fascination. Samuel Johnson, whose
wide reading and hypochondriacal taint instinctively drew him
to The Anatomy, was emphatic in its praise, and affords another
instance of admiration extended at the same time to Browne and
Burton. The influence of The Anatomy is apparent in several
passages of Johnson's talk and writing, although Burton was not
among the English authors from whom the examples for his
dictionary were selected. His definition of oats, his conversational
comparison of a ship to a prison and the Vergilian quotation
by which he points the miseries of a literary life, are all reminiscent
of Burton.
But one name in eighteenth century literature is inseparably
linked with his. Sterne's cast of mind inclined him to reading that
which was curious and away from the common track, and he turned
over The Anatomy with a special gusto. To the literary taste of
the day, Burton was obsolete, and Sterne freely transferred his
thoughts and phrases to Tristram Shandy. Ferriar's list of
passages is far from exhaustive. At the end of the century, the
real revival of Burton began. He was a favourite with Coleridge,
Lamb and Southey. Coleridge annotated his friend's copy of The
Anatomy. Lamb, besides producing an imitation which has
deceived some readers, though with less excuse than was the case
with Crossley's imitation of Sir Thomas Browne, gives frequent
tokens of his fondness for Burton, with whose thought and
expression, as with those of many seventeenth century writers,
he was in close sympathy. Southey was a diligent reader of
The Anatomy and noted many passages from it in his common-
place book. The year 1800 saw the first reprint of The Anatomy
since 1676, and the book thus became more accessible. Keats,
with his Lamia, gave the passage of Burton that suggested the
poem, and a volume of the edition which he used, containing notes
from his hand, has been preserved. Byron praised it as the most
entertaining of literary miscellanies. But criticisms on Burton
are too often evidence that the book has been thought of as an
amusing collection of isolated anecdotes, a vast quarry for quaint
phrases and quotations, and seldom viewed in its purpose and
entirety.
Thackeray, who, in Pendennis, had represented captain Shandon
as putting The Anatomy to base uses of journalism, made it the
## p. 253 (#275) ############################################
John Barclay
253
favourite reading of Martin Lambert in The Virginians-a book
over a great part of which the spirit of Burton is felt to brood. But
the second volume of The Virginians is largely made up of essays,
and it is in the essay of today, if anywhere, that the influence of
Burton yet lingers.
The Scot abroad, winning success in arms or commerce, has
long been a familiar figure. In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the countrymen of Buchanan and Dempster are often
found in foreign lands as scholars of fortune. William Barclay, of
an old Aberdeenshire family, a Catholic and an adherent of queen
Mary, after some years' legal study in France, accepted a chair at
Pont-à-Mousson in the territory of the duke of Lorraine, and
married a lady of that country. Their son, John Barclay, born in
1582, counted himself a subject of king James, though circum-
stances gave a cosmopolitan tinge to his character. Himself
married to a Frenchwoman, a resident successively in England
and Italy, suing for the patronage of the sovereigns of different
realms, Barclay nowhere achieved the position his powers might
have won. Too little is known of his life in London and his eleven
years' connection with the English court. That he was employed
on important missions is certainly an exaggeration, though passages
in his work appear to indicate some official errand.
To the modern reader, Barclay's yearning for the favour of the
great is, doubtless, distasteful. Each royal personage in turn is
posed as the noblest and pleasantest prince of his acquaint-
ance; but, in his days, to touch without adorning was unpardonable,
and we have the testimony of such men as Casaubon and Peiresc and
Thorie to the real charm of his character. Intellectually, Barclay
was a compound of the student, the man of letters and the curious
observer of affairs, and his highest work combines 'the scholar's
learning with the courtier's ease. '
His first performance, at the age of eighteen, was in the
character of a scholar, a commentary on four books of Statius's
Thebais, with notes on the four following. It has been asserted
that subsequent editors have neglected this book: but Barth refers
to it frequently, and, while criticising it severely at times, styles the
author vir doctissimus, and applauds several of his suggestions? .
Barclay was a fluent and pleasing master of Latin verse, and some
lines of his were published as early as 15992. His collected poems
1 Barth’s Statius (1664), tom. II, p. 514. See Barth’s indexes.
In the Tacitus edited by William Barclay, M. D.
>
## p. 254 (#276) ############################################
254
John Barclay
contain matter of autobiographical interest, and also much adula-
tion of James and others, with an occasional touch of grotesqueness.
In his hexameters on the Gunpowder plot, the poet expresses his
horror that men should have proposed to send the king piecemeal
to the skies, when his own soaring virtues would more rightly
bear him thither.
The first part of Euphormionis Satyricon was published when
Barclay was only one-and-twenty. Before considering this, it is
convenient to note briefly some other productions. His short
account of the 1605 plot was written in the November of that year,
but its appearance was postponed because of James's own manifesto.
The king's sagacity is, of course, applauded ; at the end are placed
the lines already referred to.
In 1609, Barclay introduced a posthumous work of his father,
De Potestate Papae, in which William Barclay, already known as
the champion of the rights of monarchy against Buchanan, was
now seen as the opponent of the papal court in its claims to over-
rule the secular power. In reply to the attacks provoked by the
work, Barclay wrote his Pietas, sive publicae pro regibus ac
principibus et privatae, pro G. Barclaio contra Bellarminum
Vindiciae. In 1614 appeared Icon Animorum, Englished by
Thomas May in 1631 as The Mirrour of Mindes. In this, he
treats of the principal nations of Europe and their characteristics,
beginning with the French, the various dispositions of mankind
and the qualities peculiar to times of life, station and profession.
It shows Barclay's alertness of observation, soundness of judgment
and happiness in expression, and has caused him to be compared
with Montaigne. Merits and failings are skilfully presented, habits
of thought as well as of demeanour. Of the English, he writes: se
ip808, et suae gentis mores, ingenia, animos, eximie mirantur. The
practice of the duello in France here condemned was glanced at in
Euphormio, and its discouragement by Louis XIII made a merit
of that king in the dedication to Argenis. The criticisms are in
no unkindly spirit, but, some thirty years later, a Pole was moved
to protest against Barclay's account of his country?
Much in Barclay's writings had been eagerly welcomed by the
opponents of Catholicism, but his Paraenesis ad sectarios, written
soon after his settlement at Rome in 1617, served to justify his
attitude in the eyes of the Catholic church.
Barclay's main importance, however, for the history of literature
1 Polonia Defensa contra Joan: Barclaium etc. (Dantzig, 1648, anon. [by
L. Opalinsky]).
## p. 255 (#277) ############################################
Euphormionis Satyricon 255
rests on his two adventures in fiction, Euphormionis Satyricon
and Argenis, the one a contribution to the development of the
picaresque novel of real life, the other a finished example of a type
of ideal romance. The first part of Euphormio is said to have
appeared in London in 1603, but no copy is forthcoming. The
1605 edition (Paris) of this part is described on the title as Nunc
primum recognitum, emendatum, et variis in locis auctum. Until
the earlier edition is found, the extent of the changes must remain
unknown. In his Apologia Euphormionis pro se, Barclay has
ingenuously confessed his reasons for choosing satire : youth and
desire for fame. “I decided,' he says, “to accuse the whole world
with guiltless yiolence, more in the hope of winning praise for
myself than of bringing shame on others. ' In plot, Barclay's
satirical novel is a string of adventures. In the first part, the
narrator Euphormio becomes, in a foreign land, the slave of an
ennobled parvenu, Callio. He is persecuted, feigns insanity and
wins his master's favour. Sent on journeys with a fellow slave, he
undergoes a variety of experiences, is flogged and branded and
escapes. The narrative breaks off on a sudden. Interspersed are
an account of a lecture on Roman law, details of supernatural
phenomena, ghost stories and witchcraft, a play acted in a Jesuit
college, an attack on physicians (whose pretensions Barclay was as
ready to satirise as Fielding) and a long dissertation on the present
state of learning, on the faults of verbal and antiquarian scholarship,
and the extremists in Latin style, whether erring through obscurity
or ultra-Ciceronianism, on mistakes in systems of education; in
which last there is excellent good sense. Besides unworthy nobles,
there are many other objects of the author's satire; and we have
in especial an account of the eager and intrusive ambition of the
followers of Acignius, who typifies the Society of Jesus. With
much that is vigorous and interesting, there is a lack of connection.
An elaborate episode in the earlier pages, which shows promise of
continuance, is abruptly dropped, and we miss sureness in tone and
touch. The saeva indignatio of the opening is not sustained, and
one can understand, without accepting, Scaliger's criticism: il y a
un pédant à Angers qui a fait un Satyricon qui au com-
mencement semble estre quelque chose mais puis n'est rien du tout.
Through the second part of Euphormio (1607), there runs a more
distinct clue. We have Euphormio's first impulse to follow the
life of the philosophers (enter a religious order), his recognition of
his mistake, his pursuit of fortune and pleasure, his fresh attraction
to 'philosophy' and the wiles by which Acignius attempts to
## p. 256 (#278) ############################################
256
John Barclay
secure him for his Society. From these, he frees himself with
difficulty, and, finally, reaches the court of Tessaranactus (James),
who admits his service. The scene is laid in Delphium (Pont-à-
Mousson), Marcia (Venice), Ilium (Paris), Boeotia (Germany) and
Scolimorrhodia (England).
The atmosphere is more spacious and
the interest wider than in part I. There are again many episodes—
a long dramatic performance, a literary display at a Jesuit college,
an account of the habits of the emperor Rudolf and a puritan
household in England. Euphormio was placed on the Index; the
latter part gave especial offence, and, in reply to attacks, Barclay
wrote his Apologia. He justifies his satire, never scurrilous, on
the Jesuits, and adheres to the view he had given of the dispute
between Venice and the papal court. On the charge of libelling
individuals, he tries to show the absurdity of some identifications;
in other cases, he maintains that the praise outweighs the blame,
but, at times, his defence is disingenuous. Hoping for the favour
of princes, he felt bound to explain away what might prejudice his
career. How far was fact blended with fiction ? According to one
view, part I closely follows the elder Barclay's experiences, part II
the son's, the characters being largely based on originals. This is
supported by Père Abram's Histoire de l'université et du collège
de Pont-à-Mousson! A recent critic has endeavoured to minimise
the element of exact imitation. Certain characters (for example,
Protagon = Henri IV) and incidents are, undoubtedly, real, and,
without following any 'headstrong allegory,' the safer course is not
to assign too important a share to imagination pure and simple.
Barclay's habit was to build fiction on fact.
It is a separate task to trace the indebtedness of Euphormio
to preceding writers and its influence in subsequent literature.
In the mixture of verse with prose, and in style and expression,
Barclay betrays frequent reminiscences of Petronius, while adhering
to his own standard of decency. Echoes of other writers are
frequent and two most prominent qualities are a display of
erudition and a taste for rhetoric. His annotator of 1674 was
ludicrously unable to cope with his references to Greek history.
There is a general resemblance between Euphormio and the
picaresque novels of Spain, but the chief of these were later than
Barclay's satire, and, as yet, few had appeared in a French form.
Some effects of Euphormio may be felt not only in subsequent
Latin writings, but in the vernacular literature of France and
Germany, for example in Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus. It is
1 In MS. See Collignon, Notes sur l'Euphormion,' pp. 9–21.
## p. 257 (#279) ############################################
Argenis
257
a curious fact that those who have written on Euphormio in recent
times have often failed to read it through. Körting, in describing
the first part, believed that he was giving an account of the whole,
and Dukas, in his useful contribution to the bibliography, confessed
he had left some pages unread.
Apologia Euphormionis pro se was printed later as a third part
of Euphormio; to this was added, as a fourth, Icon Animorum, though
it had no connection with the other three. After Barclay's death,
the publishers included as part V Alitophili Veritatis Lachrymae,
nominally a continuation of Euphormio, though the connection is
of the slightest. Claude Morisot was the author of this indifferent
piece, which Robert Burton quoted several times without naming
the source.
A sixth part, Alitophilus castigatus, appeared in the
1674 annotated edition of Euphormio. It is a slight production,
giving the stories and discussions of a group of friends who meet at
one another's houses during a three days' vacation. Dukas, who
refrained from reading it, gives a completely erroneous account,
and, in dealing with the question of the authorship, attributed
to L. G. Bugnot, overlooks the most important pieces of evidence.
Argenis is a far more mature work than Euphormio; its author's
intention is clearer, it has a carefully constructed plot, and, in
style too, a distinct advance is perceptible. The work was written
at Rome where Barclay had settled in 1617, and Rome is recalled
by some of the details in description. Light is thrown on the
composition of Argenis by Barclay's own letters and by those of
Peiresc and others. They show us quite plainly that Argenis must
not be regarded as a purely artistic work of imagination, but, at
least in part, as inspired by political motives. In a letter to de
Puysieu, dated Rome, 12 July 1620, Barclay writes:
Le suiet du liure ou je pretends faire entrer au bon escient Monseigneur
le Chancellier et vous aussy, est une inuention assés gaye comprise en cing
liures ou se traitte de la pluspart des affaires de nostre temps. J'y
adjousteray cette preface de laquelle je vous ay parlé si le Roy accepte
mon service et tourneray aisement le stile de tous les cinq liures à l'honneur
de la France.
In a letter which Barclay sent to Louis XIII with a copy of Argenis
a
a few days before his death, he says of his book:
son principal but est de traicter des guerres et des amours d'un jeune et
chaste Prince qui semblent estre tirees sur le modelle de vostre courage
et genie.
This time, Barclay was anxious to avoid giving offence, and
specimens of what he had written were submitted to the judgment
of others. In his dedication to Louis XIII, he speaks of his work
E. L. IV. CH. XIII.
17
## p. 258 (#280) ############################################
258
John Barclay
as a new kind of writing and, in the course of the book, expounds
its principles in the person of Nicopompus. The poet describes
how he proposes to write a story in the style of a history. The
fictitious element, the exciting and unexpected incidents, are to
attract readers: the pictures of virtues and vices with their
appropriate rewards are to compel men to self-criticism and self-
condemnation. He is careful to add that no persons will be por-
trayed to the exact life, but that disguise will be secured by fictitious
details; consequently, to take offence will be a confession of the
reader's own guilt. It will be an equal error to assume that every-
thing or that nothing corresponds to real fact. As, in Euphormio,
the satirical element was dominant, in the later fiction it is the
didactic.
There is no need to repeat the details of the story. Argenis,
daughter and heir presumptive of Meleander, king of Sicily, has
four aspirants to her hand : Lycogenes, the rebel whose attempt
to carry her off is frustrated by Poliarchus, disguised as a girl;
Radirobanes, king of Sardinia, her father's ally against the rebels,
who fails in an attempt to seize Argenis and is afterwards slain in
single combat by Poliarchus; Archombrotus, a prince who arrives
in Sicily incognito, but proves to be Meleander's son by a secret
marriage; and the hero Poliarchus, a Gallic king, whose union with
Argenis is celebrated at the conclusion.
According to one view, Argenis is simply a political treatise cast
in the form of a novel. According to another, it is a perpetual his-
torical allegory; while a third would make it, in all that is essential,
a romance. That there is really a fusion of romantic, political and
historical motives is proved, if proof be needed, by the author's
own words.
Like his father, Barclay was a strong but not unreasoning
supporter of the power of the crown. The abuses of monarchy are
debated, but he is careful not to let the Whig dogs have the best
of the argument. His was evidently that acute and cautious type
of mind that sides with authority and shows resourcefulness in
opposing the advocates of less arbitrary rule. In the remedies
suggested for strengthening the crown against too powerful nobles,
there is a curious anticipation of Richelieu's measures.
The political questions are those of the day, but how far are the
principal characters and situations historical ? The detail and
order of the action is imaginary and a precise allegory is out of the
question, but it would certainly seem that, in describing the condi-
tion and relation of various countries, Barclay had in mind the
## p. 259 (#281) ############################################
Argenis
259
recent history of Europe. The troubles of Sicily, it is reasonable to
suppose, were at least suggested by those of France during the wars
of the League. To give an exact picture was no part of Barclay's
intention; but Sardinia, under the ambitious and encroaching
Radirobanes, recalls Spain, while Mauretania, which repels Radiro-
banes's attack and is governed by a queen unable to take her
subjects' money without their consent, has its analogue in England.
The chief characters are no portraits. Lycogenes may correspond
to the duke of Guise, but Henri III would be flattered in Meleander.
Argenis, in a sense, typifies the succession to the crown, and
Barclay may have thought of Marguerite of Valois, the subject of
his touching verses in Euphormio. Poliarchus has usually been taken
to represent Henry of Navarre; that Archombrotus is his under-
study illustrates the danger of demanding an exact resemblance.
Barclay's claim that his hero is meant for Louis XIII is not in-
consistent, as he elsewhere attributes the father's merits to the son.
Certain minor characters are easily recognised-Ibburranes and
Dunalbius are the cardinals Barberini and Ubaldini; Hieroleander
is Hieronymus Aleander; Antenorius, Antonio Querenghi. Nico-
pompus, ever ready with occasional verse, is Barclay's self. One of
Barclay's letters gives his intention of introducing Sillery, who may
be Cleobulus. There are undisputed references to historical
incidents—the story of Concini, of Somerset and lady Essex; the
dispute between the emperor Ferdinand and the Pfalzgraf Friedrich.
The narrative, though never lost sight of, is relieved by poems, by
discussions, in which the parts maintained are in skilful keeping
with the characters, by descriptions of scenery, works of art and
pageants, in which, perhaps, we may see recollections of the
masques at James's court. There are lighter passages and some
attempts at mirth, but the prevailing tone is elevated and serious,
at times approaching the epic. Consistency is maintained in the
characters, with little development. Of Barclay's reading, there is
continual evidence. We are reminded of the Greek novelists with
whom the pirate is often the diabolus ex machina; of Polybius, to
whom the description of Epeircte is due; of Xenophon's Cyro-
paedia (the name Gobrias, however, may be taken from Theodorus
Prodromus, the Vatican MS of which writer Barclay examined
for Gaulmin's edition). But a list of authors who colour his
.
poetry, and prose would be endless.
Barclay's Latin style has been lauded without limit by Grotius
and Coleridge, and severely dealt with by Scaliger, the author of
1 N. and Q. 10 S. X, 101.
17-2
## p. 260 (#282) ############################################
260
John Barclay
а
Censura Euphormionis, Scioppius and others. If we judge by a
classical standard, it is easy to smell false Latin. ' The vocabulary is
not pure. There are lapses in usage. Among his merits can scarcely
be counted 'a witty and dexterous use of the subjunctive mood. '
But, as an example of the application of Latin to modern use,
Barclay's language deserves high praise. While no Ciceronian, he
has not affiliated 'Lipsius his hopping style. ' His own is ready,
flexible and expressive, and has the inestimable merit of con-
veying the author's meaning.
To whatever degree the belief in a clavis may have contributed
to the success of Argenis, its literary merits are beyond question.
Sorel criticised it with some animosity in his Remarques sur le
Berger extravagant, but its popularity is proved by translations
into ten languages and more than one continuation!
While there is little direct imitation of Argenis, it was among
the influences that passed into the heroic novel, and separate signs
of it are frequent in the literature of the seventeenth century. We
may trace them in other Latin works of fiction, in Erythraeus's
Eudemia and in Nova Solyma. The story yielded material for
dramas in French, Spanish, Italian and German. Fénelon's
indebtedness has been doubted. Burton quotes from Argenis, as
well as from Euphormio and Icon Animorum. Crashaw translated
verses from Argenis. There are touches of it in Boyle's Par-
thenissa. Katherine Philips addresses a friend as Poliarchus.
Barclay's works were even employed for purposes of instruction.
A selection was made of his political aphorisms. In Earle's Micro-
Cosmographie, a college tutor sets his pupil an extract from
Euphormio, and the suitability of Barclay as a Latin author for
boys' reading was discussed in a school programme of Schulpforte
(1729). It has been often repeated that Argenis appealed to
Richelieu and Leibniz: we know that Rousseau read it. Cowper's
praise and Coleridge's are familiar.
Before the close of the seventeenth century, the Latin text of
Argenis was reprinted between forty and fifty times. The demand
during the next hundred years was satisfied with half-a-dozen
editions, all proceeding from Nürnberg, since the last of which no
publisher has thought it worth his while to issue it. Recently,
several monographs dealing with Barclay's life, bibliography
and chief works have appeared in France and Germany. But
published statements in the bibliographies still require some
corrections; there are important particulars in his life which have
See the bibliograpby.
1
## p. 261 (#283) ############################################
Medieval and Modern Latin Verse 261
not been exhaustively investigated; and the full influence of his
works on subsequent literature still requires to be traced in detail.
The bulk of medieval and modern Latin verse is enormously
greater than the whole of extant classical poetry. In England, during
the past century, while the art has been greatly exercised and has
formed a prominent item in higher education, the usual aim of
its adepts has been to display their ingenuity and scholarship in
devising the most appropriate equivalents by which to give a Latin
metrical dress to the thoughts and expressions of English poets.
As a rule, the renderings are of short poems or isolated extracts.
Widely different from this was the method in vogue at the time
of the renascence, when, while translation from the Greek was
not unknown, most Latin verse was an attempt on the part of
scholars and men of letters to express their own thoughts and
feelings. Some, like Petrarch, Vida, Fracastorius and Sannazarius,
aspired to produce works of permanent value; in the case of
others, such as J. C. Scaliger, verse was a conscious relaxation
from severer labours. Too often, instead of careful finish, we find
fluent improvisation. For a century and a half, Italy, France,
Germany and the Netherlands lisped in Latin numbers. In our
own country, where the effect of the renascence was less and
later, the amount of Latin verse was inferior. Still, during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is a succession of
Latin versifiers from Sir Thomas More to Abraham Cowley. Nor
is production confined to lighter and more occasional pieces:
poems of more ambitious scope were attempted, such as the
De Re Publica Anglorum instauranda of Sir Thomas Chaloner
the elder (1521–62), some lines of which are familiar through
Burton's quotation.
In the north, the art was cultivated with success; Buchanan
won the highest praise from J. J. Scaliger; and Arthur Jonston,
himself a Latin poet of merit, edited Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum
under the patronage of Scot of Scotstarvet, as a pendant to
Gruter's collections.
The making of Latin verses was an essential part of the
curriculum of a good English grammar school in the sixteenth
century. John Owen, both as boy and as master, must have had
plenty of experience in ‘longs and shorts. ' Leach has pointed
out, in his History of Warwick School, that the education
at Winchester when Owen was a scholar was largely devoted to
the production of Latin epigrams, and the lines on Drake,
## p. 262 (#284) ############################################
262
John Owen
composed while their author was yet a schoolboy, had the honour
of a place in Camden's Annales.
The date conventionally assigned to Owen's birth is c. 1560,
but Leach has shown from the evidence of his age when admitted
a scholar at Winchester that the right year is 1563 or 1564. This
inference is supported by the pedigree supplied by H. R. Hughes
of Kinmell, according to which Owen had three elder brothers,
the first born in 1560. Another account makes him the third son.
His father, Thomas Owen of Plas dû, was sheriff of Carnarvonshire
in 1569, and it seems certain that Hugh Owen, the conspirator,
who died at Rome in 1618, was his uncle. Whatever the truth of
the story that the poet was disinherited by an uncle because of
an epigram reflecting on the church of Rome, we learn from Hugh
Owen’s monument that his heir was his sister's son, a Gwynne.
Although several of his epigrams are earlier, Owen's first
volume did not appear till 1606, three other volumes following
within the next six years. His success was immediate and
extraordinary; his admirers hailed him as the equal, if not
the superior, of Martial; and the comparison, though too often
repeated in an uncritical fashion, undoubtedly contains some
slight element of truth. It must be confessed at once that, in
Owen, one looks in vain for the poetic side of Martial, for his
pathos and tenderness. One misses, too, the variety of metre,
above all the hendecasyllables in which Martial's hand is exceed-
ingly light, the great majority of Owen's epigrams consisting of
a single elegiac distich. Wherein, then, lies his merit? He is
the very embodiment of that 'quick venew of wit: snip, snap,
quick and home, which finds its fittest expression in the brief
compass of two Latin lines, as Latin, too, has no rival as the
language for terse inscription. If, without profanity, Owen's name
may be set by Martial's, it is because he has caught something of
the spirit of one class of Martial's epigrams—the couplets which
are all point with no room for poetry. If we apply the familiar
precept, Owen's performances possess the aculeus and are corporis
exigui, but the honey is to seek.
It was the point and brevity which captivated his auditors;
the tastes of that audience are seen in Manningham's Diary
The Epigrammata would especially be welcomed by members of
the universities and inns of court, daily conversant with Latin
enamoured of verbal quips, impresses and anagrams. They would
1 Y Cymmrodor, xvi, 177.
Archaeologia Cambrensis, vol. 10 (second series), pp. 130, 131.
## p. 263 (#285) ############################################
His Epigrams
263
find Owen singularly free from the two faults which rendered
much modern Latin verse intolerable, namely: insipidity and
tediousness. In a quatrain prefixed to Owen's second volume
(1607), Sir John Harington pays his friend the curious compliment
of saying that his verses do not make the reader sick'. This is
no faint praise. Owen is eminently readable; his very faults are
rarely associated with ineffectiveness. They are, for the most
part, due to devices for arresting the reader's attention. Among
the least satisfactory is the selection of words of similar sound,
where, without point enough for a pun, the result is a jingle-
Mars and mors; audiret and auderet; Venetiae and divitiae; A
summo sumo Principe principium. But there are times when
his mere dexterity in playing with the letter compels admiration,
as in the line describing the care of physicians and lawyers for
their clients :
Dant patienter opem, dum potiuntur opum,
We have in him a concise Latin counterpart of the punning and
alliterative titles of contemporary controversial tracts. Owen
abounds in the tricks by which a word is written backwards or
stripped of a syllable or letter. His alertness in detecting his
opportunity is only paralleled by De Morgan's prompt discovery,
when Burgon had repudiated an invitation to a public dinner,
that curt refusal was spelt by the reversal of the dean's name.
In keeping with the fashion of his age, Owen is great in anagrams,
ringing the changes to the fifth degree? There is juggling with
figures, as when he shows that the digits of prince Henry's birth
year, when added together, make up the golden number, nineteen?
In the higher paronomasia, Owen is supreme; his happiest efforts
have all the shock and the inevitableness of the famous neque
benefecit neque male fecit, sed interfecit. Hood's inexhaustible
fertility would have found in him a rival. Akin to this is the
readiness with ingenious comparisons, and the skill by which a
new and unexpected turn is given to familiar proverbs and quo-
tations, or new light shed on a familiar truth, as in the epigram
Ad Juvenem :
Quisque senectutem, mortem tibi nemo precatur ;
Optatur morbus, non medicina tibi.
It was hardly to be expected that, in his criticisms of social life,
1 Provenit ex versu nausea nulla tuo.
2 Epigrammata, lib. VI, 12. (The books are numbered consecutively, as in
Renouard's edition. )
3 V, 51. * Attributed to Porson in Facetiae Cantabrigienses (1825), p. 184.
## p. 264 (#286) ############################################
264
John Owen
Owen would refrain from claiming the licence traditionally en-
joyed by the epigrammatist, and he has Sterne’s unedifying trick
of making a sentence in itself innocent the vehicle of an unseemly
meaning. Whatever the method employed, Owen's perpetual aim
is to startle the reader by the flash of his wit, whether the result
be reached by the soaring of a rocket or the splutter of a squib.
As befits a schoolmaster, he affords us scraps from the feast of
languages; besides Latin and English, Greek, Welsh, Hebrew,
French and Italian all have a part in his jests. Nor is learning
absent; to a hasty reader, satisfied with seeing that a point is
complete in itself, the echoes from the classics may remain un-
heard. It is not always recognised that his praise of Thomas
Neville, his patroness's son,
Qui puerum laudat, spem, non rem, laudat in illo,
Non spes, ingenium res probat ipsa tuum
is based on a saying of Cicero, quoted in Servius's commentary to
Vergil. The words Semper in incerta re tu mihi certus amicus
are suggested by a line of Ennius, quoted in De Amicitia. The
epigram on Sir Philip Sidney has been cited as 'an example of
Owen's power; it is really the versification of the younger Pliny's
panegyric on his uncle. Owen takes his profit where he finds it.
An etymology of Varro, a line of Persius, a hexameter proverb,
and an aphorism of Matthaeus Borbonius, are alike pressed into his
service. It is not always easy to distinguish between imitation and
coincidence nor to decide whether indebtedness is unconscious
or intentional. The remark on Nicholas Borbonius's Nugael has
a parallel in Joachim du Bellay: elsewhere, we meet with an appa-
rent reminiscence of Johannes Secundus. The distich obnoxious
to quotation on Peter and Simon at Rome embodies a jest pre-
sumably ancient. It may be seen in Euricius Cordus. Another
epigram of Cordus on our attitude to a physician closely resembles
one of Owen's? There are many such parallels in the vast litera-
ture of modern Latin. The remarkable instance of the lines of
Geronimo Amalteo and Passerat is given in Hallam. Similarity
of theme must often have involved similarity of treatment.
Owen's epigrams are no mere imitative exercises in Latin
style. He must pack his meaning in a small space and he feels the
difficulty of his task. Crede mihi, labor est non levis esse brevem.
He is bent on making his point and makes it often at the cost of
correctness. He is not infallible in the order of his words and
II, 42.
