rers of the Newest Learning. They took their
ground not only on literary lines, but with distinct reference to
manners and morals. The corruption of the Papal Court which had been the
chief motive cause of the Reformation--men judge creeds by the character
they produce, not by the logical consistency of their tenets--had spread
throughout Italian society. The Englishmen who came to know Italian
society could not avoid being contaminated by the contact. The Italians
themselves observed the effect and summed it up in their proverb,
_Inglese italianato e un diabolo incarnato_. What struck the Italians
must have been still more noticeable to Englishmen. We have a remarkable
proof of this in an interpolation made by Roger Ascham at the end of the
first part of his _Schoolmaster_, which from internal evidence must have
been written about 1568, the year after the appearance of Painter's
Second Tome.[8] The whole passage is so significant of the relations of
the chief living exponent of the New Learning to the appearance of what
I have called the Newest Learning that it deserves to be quoted in full
in any introduction to the book in which the Newest Learning found its
most characteristic embodiment. I think too I shall be able to prove
that there is a distinct and significant reference to Painter in the
passage (pp. 77-85 of Arber's edition, slightly abridged).

[Footnote 8: See Prof. Arber's reprint, p. 8.]

But I am affraide, that ouer many of our trauelers into _Italie_, do
not exchewe the way to _Circes_ Court: but go, and ryde, and runne,
and flie thether, they make great hast to cum to her: they make
great sute to serue her: yea, I could point out some with my finger,
that neuer had gone out of England, but onelie to serue _Circes_, in
_Italie_. Vanitie and vice, and any licence to ill liuyng in England
was counted stale and rude vnto them. And so, beyng Mules and Horses
before they went, returned verie Swyne and Asses home agayne; yet
euerie where verie Foxes with as suttle and busie heades; and where
they may, verie Woolues, with cruell malicious hartes.

[Sidenote: A trewe Picture of a knight of Circes Court.]

A maruelous monster, which, for filthines of liuyng, for dulnes to
learning him selfe, for wilinesse in dealing with others, for malice
in hurting without cause, should carie at once in one bodie, the
belie of a Swyne, the head of an Asse, the brayne of a Foxe, the
wombe o