Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 14.djvu/19

Rh home in thy house Fonseca of the Love of God, wherein is deciphered all that either thou or the most ingenious capacity can desire to learn of that subject. In conclusion, there is nothing else to be done, but that thou only endeavour to name those names, or to touch those histories, in thine own, which I have here related, and leave the adding of annotations and citations unto me; for I do promise thee that I will both fill up the margent, and also spend four or five sheets of advantage at the end of the book.

'Now let us come to the citation of authors, which other books have, and thine wanteth; the remedy hereof is very easy; for thou needst do nought else but seek out a book that doth quote them all from the letter A until Z, as thou saidst thyself but even now, and thou shalt set that very same alphabet to thine own book; for, although the little necessity that thou hadst to use their assistance in thy work will presently convict thee of falsehood, it makes no matter, and perhaps there may not a few be found so simple as to believe that thou hast holp thyself in the narration of thy most simple and sincere history with all their authorities. And, though that large catalogue of authors do serve to none other purpose, yet will it, at least, give some authority to the book, at the first blush; and the rather, because none will be so mad as to stand to examine whether thou dost follow them or no, seeing they can gain nothing by the matter. Yet, if I do not err in the consideration of so weighty an affair, this book of thine needs none of all these things, forasmuch as it is only an invective against books of knighthood, a subject whereof Aristotle never dreamed, St. Basil said nothing, Cicero never heard any word; nor do the punctualities of truth, nor observations of astrology, fall within the sphere of such fabulous jestings; nor do geometrical dimensions impart it anything, nor the confutation of arguments usurped by rhetoric; nor ought it to preach unto any the mixture of holy matters with profane (a motley wherewith no Christian well should be attired), only it hath need to help itself with imitation; for, by how much the more it shall excel therein, by so much the more will the work be esteemed. And, since that thy labour doth aim at no more than to diminish the authority and acceptance that books of chivalry have in the world, and among the vulgar, there is no reason why thou shouldest go begging of sentences from philosophers, fables from poets, orations from rhetoricians, or miracles from the saints, but only endeavour to deliver with significant, plain, honest, and well-ordered words, thy jovial and cheerful discourse, expressing as near as thou mayst possibly thy intention, making thy conceits clear, and not intricate or dark; and labour also that