Note 139 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

The translater was afterwards knighted. Who was the first person to ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain 'very painful minister of God's word,' I am not sure. The mistake has, however, been constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on Spanish Literature in England, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this country. The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 18,638, and contains the translator's name perfectly clearly written, both on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke Greville. This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name 'Dorothy Grevell.' The title-page is worth transcribing: 'Diana de Monte mayor done out of Spanish by Thomas Wilsõ Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle of Southamptõ who was then uppon ye Spanish voiage wth my Lord of Essex--Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish nation, as is of ye English of [sic] yt admirable & never enough praised booke of S'r. Phil: Sidneyes Arcadia.'