Lydgate does not present an isolated case of this meaning of rhetoric. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England the term rhetoric and its related words regularly connoted skill in diction. A rhetor was one who was a master of style.[[122]] Henryson, for instance, calls rhetoric sweet, and Dunbar, ornate.[[123]] Chaucer admired Petrarch for his "rethorike sweete" which illumined the poetry of Italy,[[124]] and was himself in turn loved by Lydgate as the "nobler rethor poete of brytagne,"[[125]] who is called "floure of rethoryk in Englisshe tong," by John Walton.[[126]] According to James I both Gower and Chaucer sat on the steps of rhetoric,[[127]] while Lyndesay includes Lydgate in the number and asserts that all three rang the bell of rhetoric.[[128]] Bokenham calls Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate the "first rethoryens";[[129]] and as late as 1590, Chaucer and Lydgate are called "The first that ever elumined our language with flowers of rethorick eloquence."[[130]] The entire period was thus in substantial agreement that rhetoric was honeyed speech exhibited at its best in the works of the poets.
The best example of this view of rhetoric is furnished by Stephen Hawes in his delectable educational allegory of the seven liberal arts which he calls The Pastime of Pleasure (1506). He begins, of course, with an apology for
Thys lytle boke, opprest wyth rudenes
Without rethorycke or coloure crafty;
Nothinge I am experte in poetry
As the monke of Bury, floure of eloquence.[[131]]
And in another place, again addressing Lydgate, he exclaims:
O mayster Lydgate, the most dulcet sprynge
Of famous rethoryke, wyth balade ryall.[[132]]
The poem records the experiences of Grande Amour, who, accompanied by two greyhounds, seeks knowledge. After visiting Grammar and Logic in their rooms, he goes upstairs to see Dame Rhetoric. Rhetoric sits in a chamber gaily glorified and strewn with flowers. She is very large, finely gowned and garlanded with laurel. About her are mirrors and the fragrant fumes of incense. Grande Amour asks her to paint his tongue with the royal flowers of delicate odors, that he may gladden his auditors and "moralize his literal senses." She pretends to understand him, but when he asks her what rhetoric is,
Rethoryke, she sayde, was founde by reason
Man for to governe wel and prudently;
His wordes to ordre his speche to purify.[[133]]
It has five parts,--and so on. The introduction, however, to the beflowered dwelling place of the fair lady and the request of Grande Amour to have his tongue perfumed are much more characteristic of the temper of the age than are the professed reasons for the origin of rhetoric. Rhetoric in their hearts they felt to be gay paint and sweet smells.
Hawes's five parts have the same names as the five parts of classical rhetoric.[[134]] The first part of rhetoric, he says, is "Invencyon," the classical inventio. It is derived from the "V inward wittes," discernment, fantasy, imagination, judgment, and memory. Anyone, however, who is familiar with the inventio of classical rhetoric, concerned as it is with exploring subject matter, will be at a loss to see the connection with Hawes. In fact the whole chapter, and the one following, are devoted not to rhetoric, but to the theory of poetical composition, and explanation of the allegorical conception of the end of poetry, and a defense of the poets against detractors. The classical term inventio is thus lifted over bodily, with both change and extension in meaning, from rhetoric to poetic.
In the chapter on Disposicion, instead of discussing the arrangement of a speech, Hawes devotes most of his space to praise of the rhetoricians because they turned the guidance of the drifting barge, the world, over to competent pilots, the kings. Here, perhaps, Hawes is using the word rhetorician more closely than usual in its classical sense. He may even have known that the fact of kingship had robbed rhetoric of its purpose. At any rate, his Disposicion is like the classical dispositio only in name, and again it is transferred from rhetoric to poetic.