Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/29

 described as 'full of worldly wisdom'. It was a favourite book of Montaigne's father, though he himself disliked the euphuistic style of Guevara, as well probably as his absurd matter. The Golden Book and the Diall had so great a vogue in the sixteenth century (being more often translated than any book except the Holy Scriptures) that they created in the reading public an entirely erroneous judgement of Marcus' character and especially of his relations with Faustina. Only gradually, in the seventeenth century, as the Meditations became known, and the public taste altered, was this romantic judgement corrected. A curious problem is suggested by Guevara's two books. When he says that he had translated a Greek original in Florence, had he some hazy knowledge of the existence in the Laurentian library of a manuscript of extracts from the Meditations? It is impossible to know, but apparently he was ignorant of Greek, on his own confession, and vehement protests were made, in his lifetime, against his romancing.

It looks as if even the learned were, at this date, unfamiliar with the Meditations themselves, although they were aware of the existence of the book and some few possessed copies of extracts from the work. This comparative oblivion is also shown by five references to the actual book in the middle of the sixteenth century, just before the issue of the editio princeps. In his Bibliotheca xxi