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for searching only. SOME ENGLISH TREATMENTS 67
It is clear that Harvey studied carefully and keenly the originals of Cicero and Quintilian with the aid of all the outstanding moderns, such as Ramus and Talaeus of the Protestant-French school, Agri-cola of the German school, etc. He also knew and evaluated critically the really solid work of his English contemporaries. It was a sensible man who wrote,
Mr Ascham in his fine discourse of Imitation, sumwhat too precise & scrupulous for Tullie onlie in all points. Wee hauing such excellent & daintie choice in the Latin toung; worthie to be regarded & resembled in fitting place. Especially Caesar mightie in acts, & stile; weightie & speedie Salust; pithie & pregnant Liuie; fine Velleius; ritch Valerius; deep Tacitus; sharp Seneca; gallant Portius; more gallant Quintilian; industrious Plinie; worthie Celsus; compendious Justine; free Suetonius; trim & sweet Curtius; cunning Frontine; braue Vegetius; sage Boethus [sic]; & whosoeuer deserue ro be reputed of like worth, or of anie special note. As I esteem elegant Lactantius: pithie Augustine: morall Gregorie; sententious Cassiodorus; quick Sidonius; & divers such."
Harvey considers Ascham, however, "Noster Isocrates,"99 and in other ways shows just appreciation of him and of other notable con-temporaries. Harvey refers also to
Wilsons Rhetorique & Logique, the dailie bread of owr common pleaders, . & discoursers. With his dialogue of usurie, fine, & pleasant 160
There is an interesting suggestion here as to where Wilson's work had been found so useful as to demand several editions, and as to why Fraunce in 7588 chose to write a Larviers Logike. One may find in Fraunce's preface also the reason that lawyers needed their logic in English. But our other English popularizers in rhetoric and logic preceding Harvey failed to attract his attention, as was right. They had nought of solid worth to offer.
Harvey himself published Rhetor and Ciceranianus in 15'77; both eminently sane and able works. It is unfortunate that a man of such real worth as Harvey should have been laughed out of court by Nashe on account of alleged peculiarities. No more concrete illustration for England of the best tradition in rhetorical knowledge can be found in the time of Shakspere's formative period than in the various surviving works of Harvey. Shakspere never received a more re-
"Smith, Marginalia, pp. x17-118. Cf. a similar passage in Ciceranianus, p. 31, as well as the whole tendency of that work.
" Smith, Marginalia, p. 127; cf. p. 158, etc.
100 Smith, Marginalia, p. 122.
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