Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XVIII.SIRTHOMAS ELYOT.A.D. 1531.Sir Thomas Elyot, an eminent physician of the reign ofHenry VIII, was born about 1495, and died in 1546. His principalworks are ' The Castle of Health/ on the subjects of diet,regimen, and exercise, and ' The Governour,' the first edition ofwhich appeared in 153 1. For the rest, I may quote the wordsof Hallam, in his ' Introduction to the Literature of Europe,'Pt. I. ch. vii. '§ 31 : The author was a gentleman of good family,and had been employed by the king in several embassies. . . . Theplan of Sir Thomas Elyot in his " Governor," as laid down in hisdedication to the king, is bold enough. It is " to describe in ourvulgar tongue the form of a just public weal, which matter Ihavegathered as well of the sayings of most noble authors Greek andLatin, as by mine own experience, I being continually pained insome daily affairs of the public weal of this most noble realm almostfrom my childhood." But it is far from answering to this promise.After a few pages on the superiority of regal over every othergovernment, he passes to the subject of education, not of a princeonly, but any gentleman's son, with which he fills up the rest ofhis fii-st book,' &c. See the whole passage. The ' Governour'is divided into three books, and has been frequently reprinted.Igive the seventeenth chapter of the first book entire, and a partof the eighteenth chapter, from the rare first edition of 1531.The mark / answers nearly to our modern comma.