writyng passynge excellence.
For he enlumyneth by craft & cadence
This noble story with many fresch colour
Of rethorik, & many riche flour
Of eloquence to make it sownde bet
He in the story hath ymped in and set,
That in good feyth I trowe he hath no pere.[125]

None of these men point out the relationship between the style of the
original and the style to be employed in the English rendering. Caxton,
the last writer to be considered in this connection, remarks in his
preface to _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_ on the "fair language
of the French, which was in prose so well and compendiously set and
written," and in the prologue to the _Eneydos_ tells how he was
attracted by the "fair and honest terms and words in French," and how,
after writing a leaf or two, he noted that his English was characterized
by "fair and strange terms." While it may be that both Caxton and
Lydgate were trying to reproduce in English the peculiar quality of
their originals, it is more probable that they beautified their own
versions as best they could, without feeling it incumbent upon them to
make their rhetorical devices correspond with those of their
predecessors. Elsewhere Caxton expresses concern only for his own
language, as it is to be judged by English readers without regard for
the qualities of the French. In most cases he characterizes his
renderings of romance as "simple and rude"; in the preface to _Charles
the Great_ he says that he uses "no gay terms, nor subtle, nor new
eloquence"; and in the preface to _Blanchardyn and Eglantine_ he
declares that he does not know "the art of rhetoric nor of such gay
terms as now be said in these days and used," and that his only desire
is to be understood by his readers. The prologue to the _Eneydos_,
however, tells a different story. According to this he has been blamed
for expressing himself in "over curious terms which could not be
understood of the common people" and requested to use "old and homely
terms." But Caxton objects to the latter as being also unintelligible.
"In my judgment," he says, "the common terms that be daily used, are
lighter to be understood than the old and ancient English." He is
writing, not for the ignorant man, but "only for a clerk and a noble
gentleman that feeleth and understandeth in feats of arms, in love, and
in noble chivalry." For this reason, he concludes, "in a mean have I
reduced and translated this said book into our Eng