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for searching only. TERENCE, MANT UIIN, PIILINGENI US 643 about 1523, which was reprinted in 1570. Bercley also thinks most highly of the work. Embroidering the original, he says,
Wherfore olde Curius / and Cato most moral].
With Senecke sad and sage / Tully and Petrarke
Pontane / And other most noble auctours all
Whiche in tymes passed / were vsed in lyke warke
All these may well knowlege / them selfe diffuse or darke Them both and theyr warke / submyttyng to Mancyne Whiche this frutefull treatyse / composed in latyne.¬
George Turberville tried his hand at translating the work so late as 1568 under the title d plaine path to perfect vertue. Ben Jonson had a copy of the Latin Mancinus, which passed to Sir Kenelm Digby, and thence before 1668 to the Earl of Bristol.¬ Mancinus was by 1668 "out of print," but he had enjoyed a long vogue.
Shakspere has been at least once connected with the translation of Mancinus. In Much "Ida occurs the sentence, "it is a world to see."' White notes,
And, in The Myrrour of Good Manners compyled in Latyn by Domynike Mancyn and translate into Englyshe by Alexander Bercley prest. Imprynted by Rychard Pynson, bl. 1. no date, the line "Est operae pretiurn doctos spectare colonos"-is rendered "A world it is to se wyse tyllers of the grounde."e
I take it that White considered this merely a verbal parallel and not an evidence of borrowing.
I know, therefore, of nothing to indicate that Shakspere had read Mancinus, but Mantuan receives the highest praise from Holofernes. As Sir Nathaniel is glancing over Berowne's letter, Holofernes is keeping himself at ease.
Fauste, preeor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra Ruminat,-and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as the traveller cloth of
Venice;
Venetia, Venetia,
Chi non ti vede non ti pretia.
Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.¬
a Myrrour of Good Mailers, U. M. *1468 from B. M., G. 11565; S. T. C. 17242.
a Denham, John, Poems and Translations (1668), preface to a translation of the first two cardinal virtues from the Latin of Mancinus, p. 145. See Bentley, C. E., Huntington Library tarterly, Vol. V, p. 93. Says Denham, "The Author was a Person of Quality in Italy, his name Mancini, which Family matched since with the Sister of Cardinal Mazarinte he was co-temporary to Petrarch, and Mantuan, and not long before Torquato Tasso; which shews, that the Age they lived in, was not so unlearned, as that which preceded, or that which followed." Denham's ignorance here is only surpassed by his patronizing tone.
' Muth Ada, III, 5, 38. a Malone, Variorum (t821), Vol. VII, p. 104.
' Love's Labor's Lost, IV, 2, 95-102. See Baldwin, Petty School, pp. 155 if.
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