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Machiavelli's writings appear not to have been translated into English until some years had elapsed after his death. The first work mentioned by Lowndes is "The Arte of Warre," as "set forth in Englisshe" by Peter Whitehaorne, published in 1560. Another translation appeared in 1608, under the title "Discourse upon the Meanes of wel Governing and Maintaining in good peace a Kingdome."

Of all the Italian comedies composed in the sixteenth century, however, scarcely one was the work of eminent genius. A species of comic drama, known under the name of Commedia dell' arte, took its rise in this century. The characteristic of these plays is that the story only belongs to the poet, the dialogue being improvised by the actors.

Mr W. Bourne, the son of an eminent mathematician, has left a curious little book on "The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnance," first published in London, in 1587, the year before the Armada. Its author, W. Bourne, was at one time a gunner of the bulwark at Gravesend. The art of shooting in great guns did not improve very much during the century following; nor did the guns change materially.

To say truth, he was in the wavering condition so finely described by Claudian: labefacta cadelat Religio, causaeque viam non sponte sequebar Alterius; vacua quae currere semina motu Affirmat; magnumque novas fer inane figures Fortuna, non arte, regi; quae numina sensu Ambiguo, vel nulla futat, vel nescia nostri.

That the system succeeded for centuries is evident from the organisation of the companies remaining so long in its vitality; but the efficiency of this organisation for the maintenance of fair dealing could exist only so long as the companies themselves their wardens and their other officials, who alone, quisque in suâ arte, were competent to judge what was right and what was wrong could be trusted, at the same time being interested parties, to give a disinterested judgment.

5 In Persia there are that staine linnen cloth: it is not amisse you learne it if you can: it hath bene an olde trade in England, whereof some excellent clothes yet remaine: but the arte is now lost, and not to be found in the Realme.

In some of the larger towns there are artels of a much more complex kind permanent associations, possessing large capital, and pecuniarily responsible for the acts of the individual members." The word "artel," despite its apparent similarity, has, Mr Aylmer Maude assures me, no connection with "ars" or "arte."

"Ay, but consider the accomplishments in the culinary art in re vel in arte culinaria which will be necessary for my housekeeper to know. How would you, for instance, dress a dinner for the bishop if he happened to pay me a visit, as you may be certain he will? How would you make pies and puddings, and disport your fancy through all the varieties of roast and boil?

These are to be couered with doubles of course linnen artificially wrought, to defend the arrow or the dart of the sauage from the rower. Since euery soile of the worlde by arte may be made to yeeld things to feede and to clothe man, bring in your returne a perfect note of the soile without and within, and we shall deuise if neede require to amend the same, and to draw it to more perfection.

Finally, in 2 or 1 B.C., he published what is perhaps on the whole his most remarkable work, the three books De Arte Amatoria. Just about the time of the publication of the Art of Love, the exile of the elder Julia fell like a thunderbolt on Roman society.