alone, so far as I know, had ease with dignity, and so ranks rightly as the first great master of English prose. He alone of his era had the art of saying great things simply, as he does so often in his Plutarch.
If I mistake not, the book here brought again to light displays these qualities in no less a degree. It comes as a happy medium between the stateliness of his Guevara and the grandeur of his Plutarch, with its Italian vivacity tempered with far off echoes of Oriental gravity. It argues a master of language to have been equal to so many styles.[1] Let us hear a couple of his sentences: "To be alone it griueth vs: to be accompanied it troubleth vs: to live long it werieth vs: and sufficient contenteth vs not." That might have come from one of the finest of the Homilies: notice the subtle turn of the last clause just when the parallelism is beginning to cloy. Again: "His Moyleship brauely yerked out with both legges and liuely shook his eares and head. He brayed and flong as he had bene madde." There is vigour and crispness.
- ↑ North's French prototype, Amyot, showed the same versatility of style, being equally successful with Plutarch and with Daphnis and Chloe. (Saintsbury, French Lit., 232.)
