the answer is
Continue here? what else? he has bought the great farm;
A great man2 with a great inheritance
And all the ground about it, all the woods too
And stock'd it like an Emperor. Now all our sports again
And all our merry gambols, our May Ladies,
Our evening dances on the green, our songs,
Our holiday good cheer; our bagpipes now, boys,
Shall make the wanton lasses skip again,
Our sheep-shearings and all our knacks.
2 Southey has inserted a query here. “Qy Manor or Mansion.” It is usually printed as in the text.—See Act v. Sc. iii.
It is said however in the Cortegiano, che non saria conveniente che un gentilhuomo andasse ad honorare con la persona sua una festa di contado, dove i spettatori, et i compagni fussero gente ignobile. What follows is curious to the history of manners. Disse allhor' il S. Gasparo Pallavicino, nel paese nostro di Lombardia non s'hanno queste rispetti: anzi molti gentil'huomini giovani trovansi, che le feste ballano tuttol' di nel Sole co i villani, et con esti giocano a lanciar la barra, lottare, correre et saltare; et io non credo che sia male, perche ivi non si fa paragone della nobiltà, ma della forza, e destrezza, nelle quai cose spesso gli huomini di villa non vaglion meno che i nobili; et par che que quella domestichezza habbia in se una certa liberalità amabile.—An objection is made to this; Quel ballar nel Sole, rispose M. Federico, a me non piace per modo alcuno; ne so che guadagno vi si trovi. Ma chi vuol pur lottar, correr et saltar co i villani, dee (al parer mio) farlo in modo di provarsi, et (come si suol dir) per gentilezza, non per contender con loro, et dee l'huomo esser quasi sicuro di vincere; altramente non vi si metta; perche sta troppo male, et troppo è brutta cosa, et fuor de la dignità vedere un gentilhuomo vinto da un villano, et massimamente alla lotta; però credo io che sia ben astenersi almano in presentia di molti, perche il guadagno nel vincere è pochissimo, et la perdita nell' esse vinto è grandissima.
That is, in the old version of Master Thomas Hoby; “it were not meet that a gentleman should be present in person, and a doer in such a matter in the country, where the lookers-on and the doers were of a base sort. Then said the Lord Gasper Pallavicino, in our country of Lombardy these matters are not passed upon; for you shall see there young gentlemen, upon the holydays, come dance all the day long in the sun with them of the country, and pass the time with them in casting the bar, in wrestling, running and leaping. And I believe it is not ill done; for no comparison is there made of nobleness of birth, but of force and slight; in which things many times the men of the country are not a whit inferior to gentlemen: and it seemeth this familiar conversation containeth in it a certain lovely freeness.” “The dancing in the sun,” answered Sir Frederick, “can I in no case away withal; and I cannot see what a man shall gain by it. But whoso will wrestle, run and leap with men of the country, ought, in my judgement, to do it after a sort; to prove himself, and (as they are wont to say) for courtesy, not to try mastery with them. And a man ought (in a manner) to be assured to get the upper hand, else let him not meddle withal; for it is too ill a sight, and too foul a matter, and without estimation, to see a gentleman overcome by a carter, and especially in wrestling. Therefore I believe it is well done to abstain from it, at the leastwise in the presence of many; if he be overcome, his gain is small, and his loss in being overcome very great.”
This translation is remarkable for having a Sonnet, or more correctly speaking, a quatorzain by Sackville prefixed to it, and at the end of the volume a letter of Sir John Cheke's to the translator, curious for its peculiar spelling, and for the opinion expressed in it that our language ought as much as possible to be kept pure and unmixed.
“I have taken sum pain,” he says, “at your request, cheflie in your preface; not in the reading of it, for that was pleasaunt unto me, boath for the roundnes of your saienges and welspeakinges of the saam, but in changing certein wordes which might verie wel be let aloan, but that I am verie curious in mi freendes matters, not to determijn, but to debaat what is best. Whearin I seek not the bestnes haplie bi truth, but bi mijn own phansie and sheo of goodnes.
“I am of this opinion that our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, unmixt and unmangeled with borowing of other tunges; wherein if we take not heed bi tijm, ever borowing and never payeng, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt. For then doth our tung naturallie and praiseablie utter her meaning, when she boroweth no conterfectness of other tunges to attire her self withall, but useth plainlie her own with such shift as nature, craft, experiens, and folowing of other excellent doth lead her unto; and if she went at ani tijm (as being unperfight she must) yet let her borow with suche bashfulnes, that it mai appear, that if either the mould of our own tung could serve us to fascion a woord of our own, or if the old denisoned wordes could content and ease this neede, we wold not boldly venture of unknoven wordes. This I say, not for reproof of you, who have scarslie and necessarily used, whear occasion serveth, a strange word so, as it seemeth to grow out of the matter and not to be sought for; but for mijn our defens, who might be counted overstraight a deemer of thinges, if I gave not thys accompt to you, my freend and wijs, of mi marring this your handiwork.
“But I am called awai. I prai you pardon mi shortnes; the rest of my saienges should be but praise and exhortacion in this your doinges, which at moar leisor I shold do better.
From my house in Wood street
the 16 of July 1557.