OCRed data provided
for searching only. VIRGIL 459
be in a delectable gardeine or paradise. What ploughe man knoweth so moche of husbandry / as there is expressed ? who delitynge in good horsis / shall nat be therm more enflamed / reding there / of the bredyng / chesinge / and kepyng of them? In the declaration wherof / Virgile leaueth farre behynde hym all breders / hakney men / and skosers. Is there any astronomer / that more exactly setteth out the ordre and course of the celestial) bodies; or that more truelydothe deuine in his prognostications of the tymes of the yere / in their qualities / with the future astate of all thinges prouided by husbandry / than Virgile cloth recite in that warke?
If the childe haue a delite in huntyng / what pleasure shall he take of the fable of Aristeus: semblably in the huntynge of Dido and Eneas / whiche is discriued moste elegantly in his bake of Eneidos.
If he haue pleasure in wrastling / rennyng / or other lyke exercise / where shall he se any more plesant esbatementes / than that whiche was done by Eurealus & other troyas / whiche accompanyed Eneas?
If he take solace in hearynge minstrelles / what minstrel may be compared to Jopas / whiche sange before Dido and Eneas ? or to blinde Demodot-us / that played & sange moste swetely at the dyner / that the kynge Alcinous made to Misses: whose dities & melodie excelled as farre the songes of our minstrelles / as Homere and Virgile excelle all other poetes.
If he be more desirous (as the most parte of children be) to here thinges marueilous and exquisite / whiche bath in it a visage of some thinges in. credible: wherat shall he more wonder / than whan he shall beholde Eneas folowe &ibille in to helle? what shal he more drede / than the terrible visages of Cerberous / Gorgon / Megera / and other furies & monsters: howe shall he abhorre tyranny / fraude / & auarice / whan he doth se the paynes of duke Theseus / Prometheus / Sisiphus / and suehe other / tourmented for their dissolute and vicious lyuyng: Howe glad soone after shall he be / whan he shall beholde in the pleasat feldes of Elisius / the soules of noble princes & capitaines / which for their vertue and labours / in aduauncing the publike weales of their coutrayes / do lyue eternally in pleasure inexplicable: And in the laste bodes of Eneidos / shall he finde matter to ministre to hym audacite / valiaunt courage / and policie / to take and susteyne noble enterprises / if any shall be nedefull for the assailynge of his enemies. Finally (as I haue saide) this noble Virgile / like to a good norise / giueth to a childe / if he wyll take it / euery thinge apte for his witte and capacitie. wherfore he is in the ordere of lernyng to be preferred before any other autor latine s
This is the broader and more literary view of the function of Virgil.
The translations also throw light on grammar school idealsĪ We may begin with Abraham Fleming, who had a hand in several school-books. In his dedication of his first edition of the Bucolics in 1575, Fleming says he undertook the translation "partly for my priuate practise . . . & partly for the benefite of young learners of the latine
Elyot, Goutrnour (1s31), tots. 32v 34r; Croft, Vol. I, pp. 61-66.
[ Volume
One ] 
