Note 70 — Chapter III

The "Libro aureo" appeared in 1529; it was translated into French in 1531, and went through a great many editions, entitled sometimes "Le Livre doré de Marc-Aurèle"; sometimes "L'Horloge des princes." North's translation, which followed the French editions, is entitled, "The Diall of Princes, by Guevara, englyshed out of the Frenche," London, 1557, fol.; it had several editions. It is to the Marcus Aurelius of Guevara that La Fontaine alludes in his "Paysan du Danube"; the story of the peasant was one of the most popular of the "Golden Boke." Guevara's style, with all the supplementary embellishments that Lyly has added, was already to be seen in the collection of short stories by Pettie, 1576 (supra, p. 81) of which one of the early editions begins like "Euphues," with an epistle to the "gentlewomen readers."