Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II LITERATURE OF THE COTERIE THE medieval conception of the true gentleman excluded j books, and culture by means of books. "When amongst knights or gentlemen," says Guevara, "talk is of arms, a gentleman ought to have great shame to say, that he read it, but rather that he saw it. For it is very convenient for the philosopher to recount what he hath read, but the knight or gentleman it becomes to speak of things that he hath done." (The gentleman of the Renaissance added to the medieval virtues, which were prowess in war and wisdom at the council table, the new qualities of a love of learning and a taste and knowledge in the arts.] The large and diverse interests of Sir Philip Sidney, the mirror and pattern of the Elizabethan gentleman, included athletic address on the tilting field, the theory and practice of war, the training of the courtier and the diplomat, a deep seated veneration for the classics, and the modern man's acquaintance with his own and foreign modern literatures. To Sidney were dedicated, among many other books, Spenser's Shepherds' Calendar, the first edition of Hakluyt's Voyages, and philosophical writings of the Italian skeptic and philosopher, Giordano Bruno; for Sidney was equally interested in the future of English letters and of English colonial empire beyond the seas, in the introduction of foreign meters to beautify English poetry, and in the preservation of the balance of Protestant power against the intrigues and encroachments of Philip of Spain. In that beautiful book, The Courtier of Baldassare Castig- lione, we have an engaging picture of the little court of Urbino in the early years of the sixteenth century. There the graces of conduct and the virtues of kindliness abounded; and a sweet and unaffected converse, combined with innocent m... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.