Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles | Page 9

age, as Fuller called him, brought out his Livy
in 1600, and his Suetonius in 1606; Sallust was translated by Thomas
Heywood in 1608, and by William Crosse in 1629; Velleius Paterculus
was 'rendred English by Sir Robert Le Grys' in 1632; and by 1640 there
had been six editions of Sir Henry Savile's Histories and Agricola 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_' (_Mémoires_, 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 _Mémoires_ of Monluc, Brantôme, La Noue, &c.
The fifty-two volumes in Petitot's incomplete series entitled
_Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France jusqu'au
commencement du dix-septième siècle_ show at a glance the
remarkable richness of French literature in the _mémoire_ at an early
date.]
[Footnote 9: _La Socíété française au XVIIe siècle_, 1858 vol. i, p. 7.
The 'key' drawn up in 1657 is printed as an appendix.]
[Footnote 10: _Art poétique_, iii. 115-18.]
[Footnote 11: Cousin, _Madame de Sablé_, 1854, pp. 42-8.]
[Footnote 12: Edited by Edouard de Barthélemy in 1860 under the title
La Galerie des Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier.]
[Footnote 13: Edited by Ch. Livet, 1856 (Bibliothèque 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 manière qui ne vous déplairont
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