INTRO- example of Italian literary style, though he has a good DUCTION deal to say in praise of the valuable instructions to be gathered from it. It is at least somewhat strange, if the Professor's opinion be well founded, that John Florio in earlier days should have unhesitatingly coupled Guazzo with a writer of such high standing as Castiglione.1 GEORGE PETTIE: LIFE George Pettie, the first to translate the Civile Conversation into English, was a younger son of John le Petite, or Pettie, of Tetsworth and Stoke-Taimach in Oxfordshire, and was born in 1548. When about sixteen years of age he was a scholar or student of Christ Church, Oxford, under Canon Thomas Barnard, and he took one degree in Arts at the end of 1568. After leaving the university he travelled beyond seas, and, in the words of his grand-nephew, Anthony à Wood,2 at length became excellent for his 'passionate penning of amorous stories, equal for poetical 'invention with his dear friend William Gager, and as 'much commended for his neat stile as any of his time.' 3 Impressed apparently with the success which had attended William Painter's Palace of Pleasure (1566-7), Pettie composed the work by which he is at present best known, A Petite Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, the title of which was obviously plagiarised from Painter's volume of romances. 1 See Florio's Second Frutes (1591); and A Worlde of Wordes, Epistle dedicatorie (1598). 2 Athenae Oxon., ed. Bliss, I. 552. 3 This criticism apparently refers to some unknown writings of G. Pettie. See note on next page op. cit. This work of Pettie's was licensed on the 6th of August INTRO1576, and was widely read as soon as published-no less DUCTION than three editions appearing in the year of its first publication. By 1613 four other editions had been published. Encouraged by the popularity attained by his first effort in literature—although he himself styles it a trifling woorke' 1-Pettie set about another volume of a more serious kind, intending, as he says in the Preface to the Readers' of the Civile Conversation, to purchase some better fame by some better woorke, and to countervayle my former Vanitie, with some formal gravitie.' This was his translation of Guazzo's Civile Conversation, which appeared in print in 1581. 6 The first reference to the Civile Conversation in the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London is of a distinctly curious nature. It runs as follows: 1579. 11 Novembris Master Watkins Lycenced unto him to be Translated into xvid and a copie paid to master coldok 27 februarii 1580 [i.e. 1581].' 2 1 Wood's description of the work is as follows: 'The aforesaid Petite Palace I have in my study, and for the respect I bear to the name of the author (he having been uncle to my mother Maria la Petite) I will keep it; but it is so far from being excellent or fine, that it is more fit to be read by a school-boy, or rustical amoretto, than by a gent. of mode or language.' Op. cit. Arber's Transcript, vol. ii. Then under date 27 Feb. 1581: INTRO- Received of him for the civill conversation which was The November 1579 entry is an extremely important one, clearing up, as it does, a point on which some illfounded views have been entertained by a few writers who have without authority ventured to assert that Pettie made use of Belleforest's French version when translating Guazzo's work. The entry also suggests very forcibly that Pettie, having heard that the Civile Conversation had been a great literary success both in Italy and France, was determined to be first in the field with an English version, and had procured a copy of Chappuys' translation for the purpose. The words to be translated into English' show pretty plainly also that very little of the translator's work had then been done; and, indeed, apart from the evidence of the Stationers' entry, it would not have been at all likely that Pettie in the middle of November could have done much translation of a French book which had only been published some time after July 15 in the same year, that being the date of Chappuys' Dedication to Seigneur Jean Pierre Duszo, with which the French volume begins. Although the title of Pettie's Civile Conversation states that it was translated out of French,' the author was careful to let us know that he had consulted Guazzo's original for the purpose of making his rendering as com 1 When the money was paid and the copy of the finished work handed in, the later entry was apparently added to the previous one, which was without any record of payment up till then. plete as possible. As he himself says (Preface, ad fin.), ‘I INTRO'have supplyed divers thinges out of the Italian original, DUCTION 6 ' whiche were left out by the French translator, with what 'judgment, I referre to your judgement. I have included the places within two starres, as you may see throughout the Booke.' He might, at the same time, have told us, but does not do so, that he had occasionally added ' divers thinges' which were no part of the original; and, in one notable instance, about two pages of matter which were altogether his own-this interpolation consisting of an eulogium on Queen Elizabeth,2 which, although a remarkable example of Pettie's prose at its best, seems to be somewhat out of place in an Italian work such as the Civile Conversation. But to continue the story of his life. Pettie seems to have been a soldier by profession, but we have no definite knowledge as to his having taken any active part in the army. The metaphorical allusions to military matters contained in the Preface to the Civile Conversation would seem to suggest that he had had some experience of service in the field; but Anthony à Wood, his grand-nephew, is silent on the subject, although mentioning that he was a captain and a man of note' at the time of his death. Wood's account of the chief literary work of his own grand-uncle is a singularly disappointing contribution to English biography: The said Pettie translated from 1 These stars are retained in the reprinted text. There are no stars used in Book IV. 2 See Bk. II. 201-2. Francis Bacon's eulogium on the same monarch may be read with interest in conjunction with that of Pettie. It will be found in Spedding's edition of Bacon's Works, vol. iii. 306-7. INTRO 'French into English (with a preface of his own put to DUCTION 'it) The Civil Conversation of M. Stephen Guazzo, in 4 books; written originally in the Italian tongue, which 6 'I have also. Three of the said books were translated by the said Pettie, the fourth was begun by him, but finished by Bartholomew Young of the Middle-Temple, gentle'man, being the same Bartholomew, as I think, who lived 'afterwards at Ashhurst in Kent, and died there in 1621. What other matters G. Pettie hath written, or trans'lated, I cannot tell, nor do I know anything material of him besides, only that he died in the prime of his years at Plymouth in Devonshire (being then a captain and a man of note) about the latter end of July in fifteen ' hundred eighty and nine, and was buried, as I have been เ told, in the great church there. The lands which he had by his father's gift in Aston-Rowant in Kingston in 'the parish thereof, and at Tetsworth in Oxfordshire, he 'gave to his brother Christopher Pettie.'1 It will be noticed in this meagre story that there is no information on the subject of the Civile Conversation beyond what was already in print on the title-page and in the Preface of the 1586 edition of that work. Wood, although a member of the family, and as such entitled to make inquiries of any reasonable kind, does not seem to have made any effort to collect further details relating to the life of the author of a book that had become extremely popular in England, and the original of which had in 1579 been twice translated into French. He was also apparently ignorant of the fact that his own copy of the 1 Op. cit. p. 552. |