The First Printed Translations into English of the Great Foreign Classics / A Supplement to Text-Books of English Literature

by William James Harris

For other copyings from B. it may be enough to mention Lydgate's 'Falls of Princes' and the 'Mirror for Magistrates' (1559) based on the 'De Casibus Illustrium Virorum' of the Italian.

BODIN, JEAN. b. 1530, d. 1596. French representative and political writer.

THE SIX BOOKES OF A COMMONWEALE, OUT OF THE FRENCH AND LATINE COPIES. Done into English by Richard Knolles, 1606.

This work was once read at our universities.

BOETHIUS. b. 470, d. 525. Roman philosopher and statesman.

THE BOKE OF CONSOLACION OF PHILOSOPHIE. Tr. by Geoffrey Chaucer. [1490]. Printed by Caxton.

[This work was first translated by King Alfred into Anglo-Saxon.]

'Boethius stood to the Dark Ages for the exemplar of the philosopher. His place in mediaeval reading was very high, and may be gauged from the fact that in England Alfred the Great translated his "Consolations" into Anglo-Saxon. To Chaucer, as to all the mediaeval world, "Boece" was part of the staple library'.

BOIARDO, MATTIO MARIA. b. 1434, d. 1494. Italian poet.