Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles | Page 9

of Tacitus, first published in 1591, and five editions of Richard Grenewey's Annals and _Germany_, first published in 1598. See H.R. Palmer's _English Editions and Translations of Greek and Latin Classics printed before 1641_, Bibliographical Society, 1911.]
[Footnote 2: 'Thucydides ... in whom (I beleeve with many others) the Faculty of writing History is at the Highest.' Thucydides, 1629, 'To the Readers.']
[Footnote 3: Philemon Holland's Livy, 1600, 'Dedication to Elizabeth.']
[Footnote 4: Sir Henry Savile's Tacitus, 1591, 'A.B. To the Reader.']
[Footnote 5: _Supplement to Burnet's History_, ed. H.C. Foxcroft, p. 451.]
[Footnote 6: In 'Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and Moral, by Way of Essays', printed in _A Collection of several Tracts of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, 1727, pp. 80-1.]
[Footnote 7: Letter to the Earl of Bristol, February 1, 1646 (_State Papers_, vol. ii, p. 334). Davila was very well known in England--better, it would appear, than the other three--and was credited with being more than a mere literary model. Clarendon says that from his account of the civil wars of France 'no question our Gamesters learned much of their play'. Sir Philip Warwick, after remarking that Hampden was well read in history, tells us that the first time he ever saw Davila's book it was lent to him 'under the title of Mr. Hambden's _Vade Mecum_' (_M��moires_, 1701, p. 240). A translation was published by the authority of the Parliament in 1647-8. Translations of Strada, Bentivoglio, and Grotius followed in 1650, 1654, and 1665. Only parts of Thuanus were translated. The size of his history was against a complete version.]
[Footnote 8: See the _M��moires_ of Monluc, Brant?me, La Noue, &c. The fifty-two volumes in Petitot's incomplete series entitled _Collection des M��moires relatifs �� l'histoire de France jusqu'au commencement du dix-septi��me si��cle_ show at a glance the remarkable richness of French literature in the _m��moire_ at an early date.]
[Footnote 9: _La Soc����t�� fran?aise au XVIIe si��cle_, 1858 vol. i, p. 7. The 'key' drawn up in 1657 is printed as an appendix.]
[Footnote 10: _Art po��tique_, iii. 115-18.]
[Footnote 11: Cousin, _Madame de Sabl��_, 1854, pp. 42-8.]
[Footnote 12: Edited by Edouard de Barth��lemy in 1860 under the title La Galerie des Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier.]
[Footnote 13: Edited by Ch. Livet, 1856 (Biblioth��que Elzevirienne. 2 vols.).]
[Footnote 14: Sc. x, where Madelon says 'Je vous avoue que je suis furieusement pour les portraits: je ne vois rien de si galant que cela', and Mascarille replies, 'Les portraits sont difficiles, et demandent un esprit profond: vous en verrez de ma mani��re qui ne vous d��plairont pas.']
[Footnote 15: Joseph Hall's Characters of Vertues and Vices appeared in 1608 Overbury's Characters 1614-22. For Earle, see pp. 168-70.]

III. Clarendon.
Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England is made up of two works composed with different purposes and at a distance of twenty years. The first, which may be called the 'Manuscript History', belongs to 1646-8; the second, the 'Manuscript Life', to 1668-70. They were combined to form the History as we now read it in 1671, when new sections were added to give continuity and to complete the narrative. On Clarendon's death in 1674 the manuscripts passed to his two sons, Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester; and under the supervision of the latter a transcript of the History was made for the printers. The work was published at Oxford in three handsome folio volumes in 1702, 1703, and 1704, and became the property of the University. The portions of the 'Manuscript Life' which Clarendon had not incorporated in the History as being too personal, were published by the University in 1759, under the title _The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon_, and were likewise printed from a transcript.[1]
The original manuscripts, now also in the possession of the University of which Clarendon's family were such generous benefactors, enable us to fix the dates of composition. We know whether a part belongs originally to the 'Manuscript History' or the 'Manuscript Life', or whether it was pieced in later. More than this, Clarendon every now and again inserts the month and the day on which he began or ended a section. We can thus trace the stages by which his great work was built up, and learn how his art developed. We can also judge how closely the printed texts represent what Clarendon had written. The old controversy on the authenticity of the first edition has long been settled.[2] The original editors did their work faithfully according to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when they occasionally omitted a passage, or when they exercised their somewhat prim and cautious taste in altering and polishing phrases that Clarendon had dashed down as quickly as his pen could move.[3] Later