The influence of the Great Chain of Being on the rhetoric manuals of sixteenth century Tudor England

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

The Influence of the Great Chain of Being on the Rhetoric Manuals of Sixteenth Century Tudor England

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

for the degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Field of Communication Studies

By Stephen Collins EVANSTON, ILLINOIS December 2001

UM! Number: 3033462

Copyright 2001 by Collins, Stephen All rights reserved.

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ABSTRACT The Influence of the Great Chain of Being on the Rhetoric Manuals of Sixteenth Century Tudor England Stephen Collins

This study calls attention to the way in which Tudor rhetorical theory was both influenced by the Great Chain of Being and used in its behalf. The rhetoric manuals studied—Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique, Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence, and Angel Day's The English Secretorie—are viewed as palimpsests, layers of appropriated classical rhetorical theory overlaid with contemporary insights, theory, and exempla imbued with cosmological attributes characteristic of the Great Chain of Being. Wilson's manual promoted unity in the English language while simultaneously stressing the need for variety in rhetoric in order to adapt to the varying societal levels of his hierarchical culture. Peacham sought to use the copia of rhetoric as a means to describe the copia of his world and reinforce its divinely ordained order. Day saw rhetoric as a tool primarily of praise for both lifting people up and closer to God as well as a means for keeping them in their appropriate God-given station assigned at birth. As the manuals integrated classical rhetorical theory with contemporary ideas influenced heavily by cosmology, they also had to contend with paradoxes in

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that same cosmology, in particular, the impulse to assimilate with God, achieving a oneness or unity with Him, and the impulse to celebrate and maintain the existing plenitude of God's divine hierarchy. These two contradictory and paradoxical impulses existed in tenuous proximity to each other only because theorists of the time kept them from being articulated together simultaneously through strategic evasion or judicious inattention according to Arthur O. Lovejoy. The melding of Sixteenth Century cosmological ideas on to particular classical, rhetorical tenets risked bringing the two paradoxical impulses together in a classical rhetorical taxonomy not designed to keep the two impulses in avoidance of each other. The result in the Arte of Rhétorique was an unusual amending of the classical theory of the three styles. In the English Secretorie, the result was an awkward and direct statement of the cosmological paradox within Day's rhetorical theory. The integration of contemporary and classical ideas reinforces the importance of exploring the connections between rhetorics and their culture.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I must begin by thanking my advisor, Michael C. Leff, who showed me the value of looking closely at text in any analysis. His thoughts on theory, criticism, and teaching have helped me to understand better the path I wish to take in my own career. Thomas B. Farrell also offered me valuable insights as I worked on this project from conception to closure. I am grateful to David Zarefsky who not only gave me some important critiques of this work, but also showed me the value of looking at history in general through rhetorical eyes. James Irvine, a mentor and friend for many years, inspired me to explore the hidden treasures that the history of rhetoric had to offer and for that I am deeply indebted. He is a continual inspiration. I must also thank my parents, Robert J. Collins and Audrey Collins, for caring so much about my education and helping me on so many reports and projects and for empowering me whenever they could to search not only for the answers, but for the questions too. Jim and Barbara Wightman also offered me considerable encouragement along the way. I also cannot forget the many friends who encouraged and supported me and listened to my arguments and concerns on many occasions—Bryan Brito and Wendy Hicks, in particular.

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Finally, I must thank the two most important people in my life, my wife Cathy who offered me encouragement and support when I needed it most, and my beautiful little daughter Elise who had a hug and a kiss for me everyday. They both saw the best in me even when I could not. They are my will to live and ever more my dreams and aspirations.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 The Great Chain of Being 14 Envisioning the Great Chain of Being as a Fractal 20 Discerning the Presence and Influence of the Hierarchy within the Manuals 26 The Ordering of the Chapters 31 CHAPTER TWO: THOMAS WILSON'S ARTE OF RHETORIQUE 38 The Paradox of the Great Chain of Being 41 Rhetoric and Paradox in Wilson's Conception of God's Plan 45 The Symbiotic Relationship Between Rhetoric and the Law of Nature 51 Wilson as a Youth: the Significance of the Pilgrimage of Grace 56 Wilson's Demonstrative Speech in Praise of King David 59 Managing Diversity: Cosmological Influence in Books I and II of the Arte of Rhetorique 62 Encompassing and Fulfilling the Law of Nature: Wilson's Definition of Rhetoric and the Orator's Profession 64 Deliberation: Managing the Hierarchy through Counsel 68 Praise and Dispraise 73 Nothing without Order 78 Book III: Elocution and the Management of a Diverse Society and a Diverse Language 83 A Unified Standard of Language 87 Unity vs. Diversity: the Four Parts of Elocution 90 Managing the Diversity of the Hierarchy through Elocution: Wilson's Unusual Treatment of the Three Styles 103 Conclusion 111

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CHAPTER THREE: THE NEAR OMNIPOTENCE OF PEACHAM'S ORATOR: ARTICULATING THE CORRESPONDENCES OF THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD VIEW 115 The near omnipotent orator 122 A God-like Understanding: Discerning and Articulating the Distinctions in the Hierarchy 129 Recognizing and articulating the correspondences in nature 136 The detection of evil that cannot truly hide itself 142 All 's Well That Ends Well, found true by Lafeu 145 Peacham and Lafeu: separating and isolating good from evil 148 When almost all goes wrong: the case of Richard III 155 A final note on metaphor 168 Conclusion 175 CHAPTER FOUR: ANGEL DAY'S THE ENGLISH SECRETORIE 177 The break of the mind-body duality: assimilation as a heavenly progression towards God 185 The function of rhetoric: the role of praise in drawing men up 194 The duty of man to practice Godliness to those above and below him: the role of God-given social disparities and their impact on rhetoric 202 Style and the Maintenance of Hierarchy 207 Subject Matter and Social Status 208 The Clustering of Figures 210 The manipulation of social distance 213 The paradox of the secretary: a microcosm of two conflicting cosmic impulses 217 Conclusion 220 CONCLUSION 223 Summary 223 Implications 231 Giving voice to silenced connections betw een rhetorics and culture 234 The palimpsest as a tool of analysis 236 The rhetorical act of negotiating space and intertextuality A final thought 251 REFERENCES 253

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This study is in great part about diversity, the diversity that permeated the Tudor world and influenced the rhetoric manuals of the time. It is about the way the Tudor individual viewed the vast multi-layered hierarchy of which he or she was a part—a cosmic order beginning with God at the top and descending down through the angels to mankind, the King, his subjects, the animal kingdom, the plants, the earth, and ending in Hell—and how that great ladder, that Great Chain of Being influenced not only everyday life, but also the role of rhetoric in the Tudor world. This study in particular seeks to call attention to the way in which rhetorical manuals were both influenced by the Great Chain of Being and used in its behalf. It requires a close look at the way the Tudors viewed the diversity of their world and the ways in which they articulated that diversity to each other. The rhetoric manuals at the heart of this study are three: Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique (the 1553 and 1560 editions in particular), Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence ( 1577 and 1593), and Angel Day's The English Secretorie ( 1586 and 1599). Each, different both in form and emphasis, is sufficiently voluminous to show us a picture of the hierarchy as it appeared in the Sixteenth Century as well as the signs of that hierarchy's influence on the classical rhetorical precepts that each rhetoric manual sought to appropriate. l

The first manual, Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique, was released in 1553 as a follow up to Wilson's publication two years earlier of The Rule of Reason, a manual devoted to rhetoric's traditional counterpart, dialectic. His Arte of Rhetorique was the first rhetoric manual to treat all five of the classical canons of rhetoric in English and was aimed at an educated audience of professionals, most likely lawyers and merchants, who were desirous to rise in Tudor society. The most significant influences on the manual were both Cicero and Quintilian though Erasmus too played a significant part in Wilson's formulation of the work. Although Wilson undoubtedly produced the manual in order to empower the Englishman who did not necessarily have a mastery of Latin, Wilson made quite clear early in his treatise that "it behouveth everye man [including, it would seem, the reader who would be empowered by his manual] to lyve in his owne vocation, and not seke anye hygher rowme, then whereunto he was at the first appoynted." ( 177/42) As we will see, the publication of a rhetoric manual which empowered its reader, yet simultaneously praised rhetoric's ability to keep men in their original calling, owed much to the influence of the Great Chain of Being. The second manual considered in this examination, Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence, was first published in I 577 and then greatly revised and expanded in 1593. Heavily influenced by Susenbrotus as well as Cicero and Quintilian, the treatise is obstensibly the most detailed treatment of elocutio, the third classical canon of rhetoric, in the Tudor period. The treatise loosely divides

the approximately two hundred stylistic figures discussed in the 1593 edition into tropes and schemes. The work is perhaps best known for its bold boast in the 1593 edition that the orator is "in a maner the emperour of mens minds & affections, and next to the omnipotent God in power of perswasion, by grace & diuine assistance."' Investing the orator with near-omnipotent power as an "emperour of mens minds & affections" seems counter to the frequent cautions made by Peacham throughout the 1593 edition warning against the orator's manipulative abuse of the stylistic figures. The importance of the Great Chain of Being for Peacham in empowering the orator with near-omnipotence while simultaneously reigning in any potential abuse of power will be a significant part of my investigation. The third rhetoric manual examined in this study, Angel Day's The English Secretorie, was first published in 1586 and addressed the needs primarily of secretaries desirous to learn the art of letter writing. The primarily formulary treatise presented example after example of letters exemplifying the three classical types of rhetoric, the deliberative, the judicial, and the demonstrative. The second edition published in 1599 added a significant addition entitled "Of the partes, place and Office of a Secretorie" which discussed the quite problematic, close relationship 1

Henry Peacham, Garden of Eloquence (1593). Introduction by William G. Crane (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1954), ABiijv. All fliture citations of Peacham will be to this (second and more expansive) edition and page numbers will be referenced in the text. All underlining made within the citations is mine.

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of the secretary to the Lord he serves. Of the three manuals addressed in this study it is the least dependent on a taxonomic framework. The ability of Angel Day's rhetoric to uncover a relationship between rhetoric and the Tudor, cosmic hierarchy, not seen in the other more taxonomically structured manuals, will shape a significant portion of this study . 2 This study looks at the above three rhetoric manuals from a rhetorical perspective. The manuals are rhetorical artifacts responding to the exigencies of their time. Those exigencies were governed in great part by a humanism flourishing in Tudor England which emphasized learning as a means of spiritual, intellectual, and social advancement. That humanism was, in turn, governed considerably by the spiritual and metaphysical dictates of the Great Chain of Being. Humanism operated within the cosmological framework which placed some men above others by divine sanction. Social distinctions were the intended will of God and both humanism and rhetoric needed to answer to the constraints demanded by the ordained cosmic hierarchy. The rhetoric manuals considered were thus a response to the needs of aspiring, educated men seeking advancement in a society which was coming to understand that reason and wisdom knew no class, but which at the same time was

- I say that Day's treatise is less taxonomic than the other texts considered, because Day proportionately devoted much more of his treatise to the presentation of examples than he did towards a commentary on those examples. Additionally, his treatise is the least overt in terms of an overall classical taxonomy.

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distrustful, if not paranoid, about any course of action which undermined the divinely sanctioned hierarchy. The manuals in question were an uneasy rhetorical balancing act between the need to promote advancement and the need to preserve (and serve) the prevailing hierarchy. As such, the manuals supported a two-fold agenda within a hierarchical Christian cosmology by appropriating a classical rhetorical set of precepts never originally intended for that purpose. The struggle to balance the rhetorical responses of these manuals to the conflicting needs of the time impacted, in turn, the manner in which these texts cohered as compositions. Conflicting exigencies at times created conflicting responses within the manuals. The classical rhetoric that each of these manuals appropriated was reshaped at times in ways not typically seen in the classical source texts. The structures, alignments, and precepts we would expect to see in a manual drawing heavily on classical sources were either downplayed at times or amended in ways incongruent with the original taxonomy. As this study will show, more than one significant change to the appropriated classical precepts was due to the contradictory demands of humanism and the hierarchy (which will be discussed in more depth later in the introduction). Previous studies of Renaissance rhetoric in England have focused on the rhetoric manual's role in the continual evolution of rhetoric throughout history. That evolution has at times been seen either as a progressive improvement over time or simply as a continual adaptation to immediate and changing contexts while

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imparting no overall, timeless betterment to rhetorical theory. ^ Studies of the evolution of rhetoric exhibit one or more of the following characteristics individually or in hybrid form^: ( 1 ) They compare historically situated rhetorics to their classical predecessors in order to determine differences over time and the reasons for those differences;

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Douglas Ehninger, who first coined the term "evolution" in relation to the study of rhetorical theory over time, has inadvertently given the term a bad name. A close look at Ehninger's work on systems historiography reveals that his ideas on rhetorical evolution incorporated two distinct, though not entirely clear, kinds of evolution. His systems historiography is most well known for a progressive (and improving) sense of evolution for which he has been frequently and summarily criticized. (See Floyd D. Anderson, "On Systems of Western Rhetoric: A Response to 'Whig' Mistreadings," Pennsylvania Speech Communication Annual 38 (1982): 15-19. Ehninger's work, however, also suggests a form of evolution in which rhetorical theory renders a service to the environment of which it is a part. A biological example of the latter form of evolution is the insect which over time comes to feed less and less on the farmer's crops and more and more on the insecticides designed to kill it. Such an adaptation is not so much a progressive and encompassing improvement in the insect, but an adaptive shift from one food source to another. My intent in this discussion is to use the term "evolution" to refer to both its possible forms, the progressive or the adaptive. "Evolution" denotes change over time and not necessarily an improvement over time for my purposes. 4 The taxonomy that I use to distinguish between different historiographie approaches is not meant to delineate mutually exclusive categories. Individual histories of rhetoric may fall under one or more of these classifications. The taxonomy employed, while ultimately reductionistic, offers an imperfect, but workable breakdown of historiographie approaches. No one taxonomy is adequate to account for all variances in historiographie method.

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(2) They seek to identify persistent, if not essential, core elements of rhetoric which survive through time regardless of any time-bound permutations in the overall appearance of the rhetoric; (3) They view rhetorics as time-bound, culturally situated artifacts responding to the needs of their environment either to improve upon all preceding rhetorical theory or simply to answer the questions posed by a particular, social context. Such investigations study a particular period or the rhetorical transitions between periods; (4) They, alternatively, seek to emancipate previously silenced histories of rhetoric. Such histories of rhetoric often work towards two related goals: first, the identification of ways in which rhetoric has preserved the prevailing social and intellectual power structures and, second, the liberation and expression of previously suppressed and unheard counterrhetorical voices. 5

5 Several scholars have attempted to classify various, different historiographie approaches and suggest alternative ones. Their taxonomies at times complement or countermand each other. Carole Blair ("Contested Histories of Rhetoric: the Politics of Preservation, Progress, and Change," Quarterly Journal of Speech 78 (November 1992): 403-428) classified historiographie method in terms of its focus either on patterns of continuity—the study of past (classical) influences—or discontinuity—the study of (period bound) rhetorical systems—and recommended a third "critical history" based in Foucault which emphasizes ( 1 ) the treatment of historical events as texts rather than monuments or relics (418), (2) the significance of a text's particularity in relation to others (419), (3) change as a phenomenon independent of a sense of preservation or progress (420), and (4) criticism which

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A good example of the first form of historiography is the body of scholarship conducted by Russell Wagner.

Wagner's detailed studies of Tudor rhetoric

primarily analyzed Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique in terms of its appropriation of classical antecedents. Wagner's analysis thoroughly compared the form and content of Wilson's rhetoric to its classical sources. Deviations from classical

allows for the comparative assessment of theories in the study of rhetoric (420). Christine Oravec and Michael Salvador ("The Duality of Rhetoric: Theory as Discursive Practice," in Rethinking the History of Rhetoric: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Rhetorical Tradition, Takis Poulakos, ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993), 173-192) similarly identified two existing classifications of historiography and offered a third alternative. They distinguished between those rhetorical histories which view rhetoric as a unified structure subtending any particular manifestation and emphasize the progression of rhetorical theory through time (175)—philosophical idealism—and those histories which see rhetorical theories as an assortment of distinct attempts to answer questions unique to a particular era or group ( 177)—historical realism. As an alternative, Oravec and Salvador recommended a third historiographie approach, discursive dialectics, which "does not merely see rhetoric as a reflection of its historical context, nor does it see rhetoric as independent of structural regularities," but recognizes that "the structure of discourse depends upon historical variability and how particular historical contexts in turn are generated by associated discursive and political structures." (179-180) Discursive dialectics, in other words, recognizes that rhetorics are constituted by society and that rhetorics, in turn, constitute societies. (180) 6 Russell Wagner, "The Meaning of Dispositio" in Studies in Speech and Drama (Ithaca, New York. Cornell University Press, 1944), 285 - 294; "The Texts and Editions of Wilson's Arte of R/ietorique," Modern Ixaiguage Notes 44 ( 1929). 421 428; "Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1928); "Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique," Speech Monographs 27, no. 1 (March 1960): 1-32; "Thomas Wilson's Contribution to Rhetoric," in Papers in Rhetoric, edited by Donald C. Bryant (Saint Louis, Missouri: N.p.: printed by subscription, 1940), 1 - 7; "Wilson and His Sources," Quarterly Journal of Speech 15 (1929): 525-537.

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precedents observed by Wagner were viewed primarily as misunderstandings on the part of Wilson. Wilbur Samuel Howell's study of Renaissance rhetoric in England from 1500-1700 fulfilled both the first and second functions of historiography identified above and is the most comprehensive, if not seminal, history written to date on the period.? His comprehensive, synoptic rhetoric amounted to what Carole Blair identifies as an influence study and what Oravec and Salvador call historical realism. Blair notes that Howell's assessment of Thomas Wilson (and other rhetoricians) exclusively in light of classical rhetoric served to "render all variations on earlier theories confused or wrong." (407) Though such an influence study may indeed run such a risk, it is a useful way to trace sources and identify rhetorical principles enduring over time. Howell's catalogue of the rhetorics published between 1500 and 1700 is to a large degree a detailed comparative survey of the rhetorics of the period in terms of their place in a classical trajectory beginning with Greek and Roman origins. More recent scholarship under the second category has shifted away from a point by point comparison of particular rhetorics with their classical predecessors and instead seeks to identify persistent, core elements of rhetoric enduring over 7

Wilbur Samuel Howell, Logic and Rhetoric in England: Princeton University Press, 1956).

1500 - 1700 (Princeton.

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time. One such recent study is Thomas O. Sloane's On the Contrary: The Protocol of Traditional Rhetoric, an effort to identify and endorse an enduring contrarianism persisting throughout our rhetorical history from Cicero through the Renaissance and into the present.® Scholarship by Victoria Kahn typifies the third category of historiography The Renaissance according to Kahn, acted as a distinct period of transition bridging the Middle Ages of the Quattrocento with the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries. Kahn studied the Renaissance as a three hundred year, slowly progressing collapse of prudential reasoning through a close analysis of three of the most exemplary figures of the time: Desiderius Erasmus, Michel de Montagne, and Thomas Hobbes.^ Scholarship within the fourth category by figures such as Wayne Rebhorn seeks to identify both period characteristics and timeless rhetorical qualities while simultaneously seeking to emancipate previously silent histories of rhetoric and give them a voice in the present. Rebhorn, whose recent book, TheEmperor of Men's Minds, takes its title from a line in Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence, views the rhetoric of the Renaissance as a whole unified by its concern for

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Thomas O. Sloane, On the Contrary: The Protocol of Traditional Rhetoric (Washington, DC.: Catholic University of America Press, 1997). 9 Victoria Kahn, Rhetoric, Prudence, and Skepticism in the Renaissance (Ithaca, New York and London. Cornell University Press, 1985).

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controlling and gaining power over the society of which it was a part. The history of Renaissance rhetoric was a history of the power struggle between different, competing, rhetorical forces. As Rebhorn states, "the rhetor is imagined as a ruler, his audience become his subjects, and power and control are the central issues. This is not the usual view of Renaissance rhetoric." 10 The Renaissance rhetorician, taught to argue issues in utramque partem, had as his primary goal the control and manipulation of his audience. (15) The drive to seize power via rhetorical prowess made rhetoric appear ambiguous and fundamentally "contradictory and selfdivided," a means to undermine one social order while promoting and preserving another. (15-16) Such a rhetoric pitted an invasive and conquering masculinity— "the aggressively phallic rhetor"—against a succumbing and passive femininity in such a manner that the behavior of the rhetor came to look "disturbingly similar to rape." (21) According to Rebhorn, the reading of such a rhetoric uncovers not only a Renaissance struggle for power, but also identifies a "trans-historical rhetoric" which transcends any particular time and place (situating Rebhorn's rhetoric also within the second historiographie classification). (19) Such a rhetoric reaches back to Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, and forward into the present. (19)

10 Wayne A. Rebhorn, The Emperor of Men's Minds: Literature and the Renaissance Discourse of Rhetoric (Ithaca, New York and London: Cornell University Press. 1995).

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Mary Thomas Crane in her effort to show that Renaissance rhetoric like logic grounded itself on the gathering and framing of textual fragments similarly sought to identify the way in which rhetoric sought to preserve and undermine the existing social and intellectual power structures. Her historiographical approach acknowledges what she calls the "dangerous secret" of rhetorics in the Renaissance, the chance that an audience could be moved by the style of the speech and not the matter, a secret few writers supposedly were willing to share: To do so would be to admit that they were teaching the production of discourse that was ungrounded in truth, only as stable as words which were twisted out of their normal meanings, and designed to manipulate audience reactions purely through style. Of course, we would now recognize this as precisely a description of the aims of rhetoric. ' ' Crane, assuming that we (all) now recognize this "dangerous secret" as "precisely a description of the aims of rhetoric," views rhetoric as necessarily artificial and a supplement to nature: "artificial rhetoric simply supplements a natural gift of eloquence." (47) Rhetoric is also "a dangerous supplement to plain speaking logic." (46) According to Crane, since rhetoric by its very nature seeks to teach the artificial—the unnatural and the uncommon—it loses touch with the very

* 'Mary Thomas Crane, Framing Authority: Sayings, Self, and Society in Sixteenth-Century England. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 45-46.

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authenticity it attempts to establish and undermines the prevailing social constraints on power: When rhetoric offers the power to supersede common language, it threatens to lose touch with the basis of its authenticity and with the social constraints that keep the potentially dangerous power of language under control. (48) For Crane, the study of Renaissance rhetoric is particularly an investigation of the way in which instruction in any form—though particularly rhetoric—is by its nature artificial and therefore a threat to society. ' In comparison to these historical analyses, this study operates within the realm of the first, third, and fourth historiographie formats. First, it seeks in part to compare the three Tudor rhetoric manuals in question with their classical antecedents in order to uncover differences which may directly or indirectly reveal

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- The notion that "rhetoric"—distinct from "eloquence" in that it was a form of instruction that must be taught—was artificial and that the artificial as supplément undermined the prevailing social constraints on power—seems problematic. All cultural instruction, if not all culture, would seem to undermine 16th Century society. Debora Shuger made such a point in her review of Crane's work: "Crane.. attempts to read humanist logics and rhetorics as exemplifying Derrida's paradoxes of supplementation, but here too the argument seems strained. Her claim that sixteenth-century educational treatises 'express the familiar dilemma of education as supplement' (p. 66)—as both natural and learned—depends on reading 'nature' as excluding culture rather than as fulfilled by it; on Crane's account, the Aristotelean commonplace that 'man is by nature a social animal' would be a Derridean paradox." (Deborah Shuger, a review of Framing Authority: Sayings, Self, and Society in Sixteenth-Century England, by Mary Thomas Crane, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 93 no. 3 (July 1994): 411).

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the imprint of a Sixteenth Century environment on the manuals. The absence of a standard of classical precept, a classical "predictability" we might expect to find in a manual might mean that the rhetor simply differed in opinion with the classical antecedent he appropriated; it may however be a potential sign that some other environmental influence is at work on the rhetorical precepts. Second, such anomalies—absences of predictability—in comparison to classical antecedents, amount to potential "imprints" revealing the time-bound influence that the contemporary environment holds over the rhetoric manuals and the way in which these manuals sought to answer questions posed by their particular social context. And third, that context, cosmically driven in many ways, often sought to preserve a static sense of the prevailing hierarchical power structures even as rhetoric manuals sought to improve the lives (and social statures) of their readers. This study thus also seeks to identify ways in which the three manuals draw upon contemporary material which illustrates and reinforces the hierarchical world view. In order to explain more specifically how this study perceives the influence of the hierarchy within the manuals, we must first explore the Great Chain of Being in more depth.

The Great Chain of Being

E.M.W. Tillyard described well the significance of the Great Chain of Being to the Tudor Elizabethan populace. It was the supreme guardian against chaos:

If the Elizabethans believed in an ideal order animating earthly order, they were terrified lest is should be upset, and appalled by the visible tokens of disorder that suggested its upsetting. They were obsessed by the fear of chaos and the fact of mutability; and the obsession was powerful in proportion as their faith in the cosmic order was strong. To us chaos means hardly more than confusion on a large scale; to an Elizabethan it meant the cosmic anarchy before creation and the wholesale dissolution that would result if the pressure of Providence relaxed and allowed the law of nature to cease functioning. 13 The importance of the Great Chain of Being and its immense cosmic, allencompassing hierarchy in Sixteenth Century England is difficult to overestimate. A sense of hierarchy permeated the life of the Tudor individual on all levels. Even the most innocuous acts of nature were seen as evidence of God's active hand in the daily life of the Tudor subject. Furthermore, the world and its order were physically sensitive to the moral conduct of human beings. 1 4 The Elizabethan would not have been at all surprised that Shakespeare portrayed someone as evil as Richard III as

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E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (New York: Vintage, 1960),

16. 14

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), 91; W.H. Greenleaf, Order, Empiricism, and Politics: Two Traditions of English Political Thought: 1500-1700 (London. Oxford University Press, 1964), 26-32.

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physically deformed or that Henry VI' s corpse gushed forth blood in the presence of Richard, his murderer. The Elizabethan commonly accepted that corpses bled in the presence of their killer; cosmic sympathies and antipathies between different elements of the cosmos manifested themselves at all levels of the hierarchy. Any evil or goodness in one part of the Great Chain rippled throughout the rest. Sir Walter Raleigh articulated the belief succinctly in the following poem written to his son (the "wag"). The son's sin affects not only himself, but also the realm of nature: Three things there be that prosper up apace, And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far, but on a day, they meet all in one place, And when they meet they one another mar. And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag. The wood is that, which makes the gallow tree; The weed is that, which strings the hangman's bag; The wag, my pretty knave, betokeneth thee. Mark well, dear boy, whilst these assemble not, Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild; But when they meet, it makes the timber rot, It frets the halter, and it chokes the child. Then bless thee, and beware, and let us pray,

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We part not with thee at this meeting day. ' ^ The wag's knavery not only brings about his own demise, but also the demise of the tree and the hemp; every action causes a reaction that impacts the hierarchy and nature on multiple levels. The Tudor individual also knew that evil, if it went unchecked could undo all order and decorum within the Great Chain. As Shakespeare's Duke Vincentio stated in Measure for Measure, when the enforcement of justice was too lax and moral conduct was allowed to go astray, all order and decorum went amiss: [When we as] fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum (1,3)

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Sir Walter Raleigh, "Sir Walter Raleigh to his son," in The New Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse, ed. by Emrys Jones (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 369.

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Without order and decorum the world was nothing but chaos. Conversely, the maintenance of decorum was critical to the preservation of the hierarchy. Decorum was second only to piety in Sixteenth Century England—what was the good of believing in God if you did not also believe in God's order? ^ The diligent Tudor individual, the one who took seriously the adage, nosce teipsum. "know thyself," recognized that he or she was a full microcosm of the larger world. ' 7 The numerous levels within the hierarchy thus in a corresponding manner presented decorous models of instruction for man's physical, social, and moral well being; the entire cosmos was a text designed to be read by the Tudor person for his or her betterment. As Thomas Elyot demonstrated in The Book Named the Governor, the order of man (the God-given superiority of one man to another) was clearly written in the order of animals; it was a point of instruction and comparative departure; man was both similar and dissimilar to the lower species: In semblable manner the inferior person or subject ought to consider that albeit (as I have spoken) he in the substance of soul and body be equal with his superior, yet for else much as the powers and qualities of the soul and body, with the disposition of reason, be not in every man equal, therefore

Lacey Baldwin Smith, Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 86. ' 7 Rolf Soellner, Shakespeare's Patterns of Self-Knowledge (N.p. : Ohio State University Press, 1972), 14,43-61.

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God ordained a diversity or pre-eminence in degrees to be among men for the necessary direction and preservation of them in conformity of living. Whereof nature ministereth to us examples abundantly, as in bees.. cranes, red deer, wolves, and divers other fowls and beasts which herdeth or flocketh (too long here to be rehearsed), among whom is a governor or leader, towards whom all the other have a vigilant eye, awaiting his signs or tokens, and according thereto preparing themselves most diligently. ' ^ And so the Tudor scrutinized the hierarchy for the sympathies, antipathies, correspondences, and patterns it disclosed and he looked for instruction in leadership from the leaders of the animal kingdom. Furthermore, the Christian humanist in great part heeded the writings of Cicero in the De Officiis which stipulated that man should heed both the decorum generale, a sense of propriety as a whole which harmonized with man's superiority over the animal kingdom, and the decorum speciale which harmonized man's sense of propriety with nature (quod ita naturae consentaneum sit) (I. 96) with the result being that man, if he followed Nature, would not go astray (ad convenientiam conservationemque naturae quam si se que mur duce m numquam aberrabimus) (I. 100). Thus, the man wishing to preserve decorum had to know himself and know

18

Thomas Elyot, The Book named The Governor ( 1531 ), ed. S.E. Lehmberg, Everyman's Library (London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1962), 166-167. Future references will be made in the text.

20

that he was part of Nature, indeed a microcosm of it with the result being, as Rolf Soellner put it, that "the classical concept of decorum was a useful weapon in the Christian humanists' fight against the flesh and the devil, who always took

advantage of men who did not know what it truly meant to be a man." 1 9

Envisioning the Great Chain of Being as a Fractal Although the image of the Sixteenth Century cosmos as a Great Chain of Being helps us to understand how the Tudor individual used cosmology to understand his place within Nature, we might better conceptualize it as a Great Fractal of Being. Though the fractal is definitely a Twentieth-Century construct, it does serve to explain the Tudor conception of their cosmos quite well. Proportion, sequence, multiplicity, and patterning ran throughout the cosmic hierarchy at all levels and in all aspects of life and the numerous (if not infinite) correspondences observable to the Tudor individual, though typically represented by the image of a chain, are more readily accessible for our purposes by the modern concept of the mathematical fractal. Though the image of the chain does present the sense of proportionality, sequence, multiplicity, and patterning inherent in the cosmology, the Sixteenth-Century multiplicity was not nearly as linear as the chain image indicates.

19

Soellner, 12.

21

The five senses, for instance, might have been used to exhibit a hierarchical correspondence within the queen's court (courtiers charged with being the queen's eyes in the kingdom as well as sniffing out treachery in her midst, etc.). but the five senses were found both in the most noble man and the lowliest pig. The four constitutive elements of the universe, fire, air, water, and earth, permeated the entire chain and not just four links at any one location along i t / T h i s is to say that the chain image does not do a very good job of accounting for elements that often appear at more than one location along the chain since there are an inordinate number of overlapping and duplicative linkages and patterns. On the other hand, the fractal gives us a means for conceptualizing the recurring patterns of the hierarchy in an instructive and promising manner. The primary characteristic of the fractal is that it repeats the same pattern over and over again. To look at a fractal (Fig. 1 ) and then examine it a second time much more closely, perhaps by a thousand-fold magnification, is to see the exact same pattern repeating itself regardless of the scale chosen. An attempt to understand the larger pattern of the fractal by looking microscopically at one portion of it is to see the same pattern once more: a closer look into the pattern reveals more of the same pattern.

20

Greenleaf, 21-26, espec. 25.

22

Though Sixteenth Century cosmology changed the form of the element(s) at any one level of the hierarchy (a pig is certainly different from a peasant or a rock), the patterns of proportionality and sequence repeated themselves over and over regardless of the scale being considered in a manner similar to the fractal. The queen ruled her subjects just like fire ruled and clarified other elements in the universe or the eyes

Figure 1 : an example of a spiraling Julia fractal showing the infinite repetitions of the spiral pattern within the arms of each and every spiral.

ruled over the other senses in clarity of perception or the lion ruled over other animals: no matter what the scale or segment of the cosmos scrutinized, the pattern of rule repeated itself over and over again both in its preservation of order or in its potential for cascading disruption. Shakespeare's Ulysses, of course, gave us perhaps the most famous account of the multi-layered, self-repeating pattern in its ordered harmony and in its cascading discord: The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,

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Office and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil. And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors. Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked. Which is the ladder to all high designs, Then enterprise is sick! How could communities. Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividabie shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

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But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility. And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong. Between whose endless jar justice resides. Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then every thing includes itself in power. Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf. So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey. And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is

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That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd By him one step below, he by the next. That next by him beneath; so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation. . . . ( Troihts and Cressida I, 3) The repetition of a persistent, patterned hierarchy throughout the entire cosmos significantly influences the way I approach the study of the three rhetorics at the heart of this study. The patterning of the hierarchy permeated all aspects of society as well as all descriptions of society including those found in the rhetoric manuals. The rhetorical precepts in those manuals furthermore repeated the hierarchical patterning of the cosmos. Peacham, for instance, discussed figures of speech at times in terms of their male or female qualities. ([61])21 The Tudor rhetor and his readers could not escape the hierarchy that surrounded them. It permeated the books they wrote and read and offers us a unique means by which to understand the close connection between their rhetorics and their world.

-1 Pages incorrectly numbered are corrected by me and shown in square brackets within parentheses as so: ([61]). The particular page in question is incorrectly paginated with the "6" upside-down mistakenly giving us "91" and so the need to correct it in this citation.

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Discerning the Presence and Influence of the Hierarchy within the Manuals

Any ability on our part to discern the hierarchy within the manuals depends on our capacity to see past the classical rhetorical precepts appropriated by the manuals. We need to look at ways in which the hierarchical world view manifested itself in or under the classical superstructures comprising the manuals. The treatises in their different forms act as unique palimpsests: the hierarchy must be read through and among each rhetorical manual's particular tenets and examples. We must look for ways in which the predictable tenets or patterns of classical rhetorical taxonomy overlay and intertwine with Tudor hierarchical p a t t e r n s . 22

Each treatise offers a differing degree of legibility for the hierarchy and

each text must be analyzed as a whole and treated as its own separate puzzle with its own internal overlay of patterns and anomalies if the influence of the hierarchy is to be more fully understood.

—" In regards to classical rhetorical precepts, I use the term "pattern" to refer to its "predictable" tenets. We expect any appropriation of classical precepts to preserve such basic tenets as three types of discourse or the five canons of rhetoric. Any deviation from these tenets I simply want to acknowledge as anomalies from the basic, predictable pattern of classical rhetoric. For my purposes throughout this study, I will refer to the classical precepts appropriated by the Tudor rhetoricians at times as a "text" regardless of the source(s) of those precepts. 1 will also refer to the body of contemporary material generated by the Tudor theorist as a "text ."

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Determining the influence of the Great Chain of Being on rhetoric manuals of the Sixteenth Century depends to a great degree on that legibility of the hierarchy within the manuals. The visibility of the hierarchy and its markers—discussions of proportion, sequence, degree, order, and vertical, social and moral progression— within the three texts studied varies from manual to manual depending on the length of the work and the degree to which the manual adheres to a rigid and classical taxonomic framework. The hierarchy is not made visible with the mere appropriation of classical precepts by the rhetor, but in the copious and illustrative expansion, interplay, and overlay of those precepts with contemporary Tudor examples and prescriptions exhibiting the hierarchy's multiple and repeated patterning. When the hierarchy does show through the classical superstructure, as it does in the case of Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique, it is only the highly delineated and expanded, contemporary discussion of classical precepts which reveals the influence. The hierarchy creates the subtle pattern or relief which shows through the predominant classical framework of Wilson's treatise. Just as an ancient Mayan city may go unnoticed by an explorer walking among the dense undergrowth of a forest in the Yucatan peninsula, if enough prominences or anomalies in the tree canopy are spotted by someone flying above the region in an airplane, then the patterned and ordered contouring of the land—indicative of an ancient, abandoned city—may become visible. Only when a treatise of the period offers us a vast expanse of rhetorical territory widespread in both contemporary precepts and

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exempta does the texture of the hierarchy really have an opportunity to show through the appropriated classical rhetoric. The hierarchy is not nearly as apparent in the shorter appropriations of the period and it is for this reason that manuals such as Dudley Fenner's 1584 The Ar tes of Logicke and Rhetorike were not selected for study. Additionally, the form of the rhetoric can play a significant role in determining how much of the underlying hierarchical influence shows through a particular rhetoric: the more rigid the structuring of classical taxonomy, the more hidden the hierarchical influence is within the classical structuring. Wilson's complete discussion of the five classical canons and his own illustrative exempla is extensive, but the classical taxonomy creates a superstructure that partially obstructs a view of the hierarchy and its important influence in the text. In the case of Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence which discusses the classical canon of style alone with only some loose structuring of the nearly two hundred stylistic devices presented, the illustrative exempla and contemporary, Tudor cautions put forth allow for a much less obstructed view of the hierarchy's presence and patterning in the text. Angel Day's formulaic rhetoric, The English Secretorie, with its almost complete reliance on examples and its less prominent discussion of classical precepts, allows for the clearest view of the Sixteenth Century's hierarchical presence out of the three rhetoric manuals chosen for study.

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While a rhetorical treatise relying heavily on classical taxonomy may partially obfuscate any view of the hierarchy within a manual, the classical precepts themselves also may give indirect clues to the presence of a hierarchical influence. The interplay of classical rhetorical precepts with contemporary Tudor sensibilities creates anomalous permutations in the original precepts. When the influence of the Great Chain of Being does makes itself apparent in the permutation of classical precepts, it does so sometimes in dramatic and anomalous ways by sharply reconfiguring some traditional classical conceptions of rhetoric. In the case of Angel Day's work, as we will see, the treatise collapses the distinctions between deliberative, judicial, and demonstrative rhetoric and basically subsumes each within a broader discussion of praise. He did so, I will argue in Chapter 4, in large measure because he viewed (intentionally or unintentionally) each of the three types of rhetoric in terms of vertical movement within the hierarchy. Each of the three forms of rhetoric depended heavily on the use of praise as an attractive force, almost like a magnet, for the maintenance of justice and right action which could help a person maintain his or her worthy position within the hierarchy instead of slipping down the chain closer to Hell and a greater state of moral depravity. The permutation of a traditional, rhetorical classification signals a potential, contemporary influence on the appropriated classical precepts worth investigation.

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In the case of The Arte of Rhetorique, one of the most unusual manifestations of the hierarchy comes in Thomas Wilson's permutation of the threefold, classical division of style. In a prescription Russell Wagner believes illustrates a lack of understanding of classical style 23 and Peter Medine labels "distinctly unCiceronian," 24 Wilson decreed that once an orator picks one of the three styles for his speech—high, middle, or low. or as he termed them, high, small, and low—he must not switch styles at any point in his oration. As we will see, Wilson's unusual recommendation did not result so much from a misunderstanding of classical precepts, but rather a permutation of those precepts made in light of his views on the prevailing social hierarchy. The discernment of the hierarchy's presence within the rhetoric manuals allows me to draw conclusions about the role of the hierarchy in formulating the manuals and the manner in which rhetoric supported, served, or constructed Tudor conceptions of the hierarchy

23

Russell H. Wagner, "Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1928), 73.

24

Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique [ 1560], edited by Peter E. Medine. Commentary. (University Park, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 281 n. 195/9-12.

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The Ordering of the Chapters

The ordering of the chapters from Wilson in Chapter 2 to Peacham in Chapter 3 to Day in Chapter 4 reflects several considerations. First, the chapters follow the chronological order of production: Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique was written in 1553 and minimally revised in 1560; Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence in 1577 and revised in 1593; Day's The English Secretorie in 1586 and revised in 1599.25 Second, the treatises investigated move from a greater to lesser degree of classical taxonomic constraint. Wilson fits his views closely to the classical model of the five canons and the three branches of oratory borrowing substantially from the Ad Herennium, De Inventione, and De Oratore.

Peacham is constrained only by

basic distinctions between orders of tropes, schemates (schemes), and figures. Day, presenting a wide range of exemplary letters, constrains his treatise only by the purpose he assigns to each letter. Third, each subsequent treatise appears to rely more heavily on convention over any natural normative constraints. The difference is especially noticeable in the move to Day who claims to have little use for prescriptions since no one norm can

25

Though Wilson, Peacham, and Day all revised second editions, only Wilson's treatise continued on for another six editions during the century though none of them were further revised by Wilson.

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fît all the possible experiences a man can expect to encounter in the writing of letters. Fourth, each chapter progressively strips away more of the antecedent classical taxonomy thus revealing more of the Sixteenth Century cosmology present in each of the manuals. In particular, each manual reveals more of the cosmological impulse to assimilate with God, to achieve a oneness or unity with him. by moving beyond the God-given social position assigned to an individual at birth. Wilson gives us the Biblical example of the Israelite David which only touches briefly on assimilation in terms of the grace of God elevating him to the status of king. Peacham shows us how figures of praise, dispraise, reprehension, etc. suggest a directional impetus to a Tudor individual's life and his or her movement towards Heaven or Hell. Day, furthermore, makes assimilation one of the primary concerns of his treatise and substantiates it within a rather highly developed and more readily visible theory of attraction of likes to likes which will seek to use praise to lift man up towards the good and Godly life instead of a wicked. Hellish existence. The prominence of assimilation in the treatises increases as each subsequent treatise strips away more of the antecedent, classical, rhetorical taxonomy and exposes more of the contemporary cosmological influence. Fifth, each subsequent treatise deals more directly with the problematic conflation of spiritual and social assimilation. It was one thing to achieve a spiritual unity with God, but another to move up the Great Chain socially. Wilson leaves the

JJ

issue unanswered when he presents us with the exemplar of David, a man who achieves social and spiritual assimilation as a worldly king and a religious leader simply by obeying a sense of duty to his country. Peacham gives some passing references in his discussion of stylistic figures to the humanist ideal to which the most learned and worthy should aim for and find advancement in Tudor society. Day, much more noticeably than either predecessor, directly confronts the ideal in his consideration of the paradoxical and intimate relationship between a lord and his secretorie, who are simultaneously both superior and subordinate, but also equals and friends in everyday practicality. And so, the discussion in Chapter 2 of Thomas Wilson's The Arte of Rhetorique will introduce concepts applying to all three treatises, but which receive clearest articulation in this work. In particular, the chapter will pay close attention to Wilson's discussion of the Law of Nature—the belief that people are created unequal in order that individuals should practice Godliness by seeking aid from or giving aid to their fellow human beings. The Law of Nature, as we will see, finds root in Arthur Lovejoy's identification of two competing late-Medieval impulses facing the individual as he reckons himself to his hierarchical world: one, a desire to assimilate towards a single, unified perfection with God, and the other, a desire to preserve the non-unified and richly diverse plenitude of God's Great Chain of Being. Each impulse will greatly influence the way we view the three treatises under investigation. Wilson, as we will see, struggles to balance an agenda that maintains

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the rigidity of the social hierarchy while at the same time empowering men to have a greater control over their lives and social position. The paradox is resolved only partially in one of two ways within the treatise: one, in Wilson's example speech in praise of King David, a figure who, as noted already, achieves social and spiritual assimilation through total devotion to duty and his country by slaying Goliath, and second, in Wilson's call for one unified standard of language, the King's English, to be spoken by the whole realm of England. The recommendation that one manner of language be adopted creates a scenario which simultaneously preserves the plenitude of the social hierarchy—in part by improving the efficiency by which the Law of Nature is fulfilled among superiors and inferiors—while also undermining the hierarchy by creating a linguistic social assimilation towards (and mimesis of) the King's English. The struggle faced by Wilson reaches its height in his attempts to balance the stylistic virtues of one manner of langnage with the need for variety within a rhetorical act in order not only to delight and move, but also to adapt to the needs of socially diverse audiences. As we will see, Wilson's recommendation that an orator use one style only in a speech though three be available to him is a rhetorical paradox clearly analogous to Wilson's view of nature and humankind's social hierarchy. The discussion of Henry Peacham's Garden of Eloquence in Chapter 3 looks at similar contextual issues as those affecting Wilson, but does so in light of a much less classically constrained rhetoric. Peacham's compendium of nearly 200 stylistic

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devices with accompanying examples and cautions reflects considerations addressed in Chapter Two: many of Peacham's figures align themselves with different Tudor social obligations or duties dictated by the Law of Nature so eloquently articulated by Wilson. Peacham additionally has more of an opportunity to address the preservation of plenitude in the hierarchy simply because he has such an abundance of figures at his disposal for revealing difference, degree, and delineation. As we will see. the copia allowed by the stylistic devices enables Peacham and the orator to describe the hierarchical diversity of the world in fruitful detail. Additionally, Peacham's treatise is unique for the emphasis which it places on the power of the orator. His infamous boast that the orator is in a manner "the empereur of mens minds & affections, and next to the omnipotent God in the power of perswasion" has been touted more than once as proof of the socially disruptive nature of Renaissance rhetoric, but as this chapter will show, the power which Peacham attributes to the rhetor is God-like not only in its potency, but also in its purpose, it aims at preserving social order by allowing for the instructive, rhetorical elaboration of the hierarchy (and a more Godly understanding of the whole), the detection of hierarchical anomalies, the articulation of those anomalies, and their subsequent redress, condemnation, and casting aside. In the process, Peacham expresses a neardeific power in casting the wicked towards the more hellish and the good towards the more heavenly. The God-like orator wielding near-omnipotent power is not a Machiavel, but a noble preserver of social order.

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Angel Day's The English Secretorie presents us in Chapter 4 with the least overtly classical, taxonomic treatise of the three studied. The chapter will focus on Day's collapse of classical deliberative and judicial forms into an overall, encompassing demonstrative set of precepts that treats praise as the underlying, predominant force in rhetoric. Through the presentation of example after example. Day presents precepts of a hierarchical rhetoric which strongly stress the attraction and assimilation of likes to likes, a theory of attraction reflected in the Elizabethans' perception of their own mind-body duality: the mind or soul strives more and more as people age to move towards a noble and heavenly state of being until at death it hopefully can break from its earthly and more hellish body and make the final climb towards Heaven. The clarity with which Day's rhetoric expresses assimilation, however, also brings with it a greater clarity in the paradox first presented in Chapter 2: the desire for assimilation abruptly collides with the desire to maintain the plenitude of the cosmos as Day tries to no avail to resolve the God-given distinctions between a Lord and his inferior secretary with the inevitable assimilation of the two as the inferior becomes increasingly the intimate friend, confidant, and embodiment of his Lord. Thus, in each of these chapters we will see the overlapping and sometimes disparate pulls of two different strains of influence—the classical and the contemporary—attempting to find legible coexistence in palimpsests which obscure complete views of either influence. Additionally, we will see an agenda promoted

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by each of the three writers which to varying degrees attempted to manage and balance an assimilation towards God with a preservation of a vast and divinely created cosmos and social order.

CHAPTER TWO: THOMAS WILSON'S ARTE OF RHETORIQUE

Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique, at first glance a rather standard five canon classical treatment of rhetoric, carries with it a distinct imprint of the cosmic hierarchy governing Tudor society, behavior, and thought. Wilson's rather lengthy treatise includes many exempla unique to his culture and world view. This expansive text provides us with a rich and curious interconnection of classical and Sixteenth Century ideas and confluences. Previous studies of Wilson have not investigated the dynamic relationship between Tudor cosmology and classical rhetorical elements and its effect on the structure of the manual itself, but instead have used the Arte to elucidate various aspects of society' or simply noted changes to the classical rhetorical tenets over time. Peter Medine's new edition of the 1560 version of the Arte of Rhetorique invoked the standard classical analysis:

'Marie Cornelia, "Donne's Humour and Wilson's 'Arte of Rhetorique.' Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 15, no. I (January, 1984): 31-43; Thomas J. Derrick, "Merry Tales in Much Ado About Nothing " Thalia: Studies in Literary Humor 8, no.2 (Fall and Winter, 1985): 21-26; Winifred Nowottny, "Some Features of Shakespeare's Poetic Language Considered in Light of Quintilian and Thomas Wilson." Hebrew University Studies in Literature 4, no.2 (Autumn, 1976): 125-137; Mark E. Wildermuth, "The Rhetoric ofWilson's Arte: Reclaiming the Classical Heritage for English Protestants." Philosophy and Rhetoric 22, no.l (1989): 43-58. 38

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Wilson's chief innovations in the treatment of invention, then, are two: he removes the parts of the oration from the discussion of the invention of rhetorical argument, and he includes an extended examination of amplification and humor. . . . No comparable innovation appears in Wilson's treatment of materials within the other rhetorical divisions of disposition, style, memory, and delivery. The materials come from the standard authorities, and though condensed they are for the most pan presented in the A

traditional manner. Though it is true that Wilson's work structures itself primarily around the classical canons, such analyses tend to foreground only the traditional elements of rhetorical theory. In a similar vein, Russell H. Wagner's seminal analysis of Wilson's rhetoric clearly placed the classical tradition in the position of a touchstone: Wilson's leading ideas are to be found, first, by observing what of ancient rhetoric he retained, what he omitted, what he emphasized, and how he condensed, expanded, or applied ancient doctrine to English speech and the needs of his times. . .

-Thomas Wilson, 77te Arte of Rhetorique [1560], ed. Peter E. Medine. Introduction. (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 18-19. •'Russell H. Wagner, "Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique," Speech Monographs 27, no. 1 (March, 1960): 31.

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When Wagner did encounter an anomaly or contradiction within the appropriated Greco-Roman framework—most noticeably Wilson's unique treatment of the three speaking styles—Wagner's privileging of the classical touchstone led him to diminish the significance of the incongruence: Why did not Wilson follow his apparent model, the Ad Herennium, and deal with the styles for speaking separately from qualities of elocution? It is difficult to answer this question. If one is to judge from the very brief space given to the "kinds" of style, from the very slight amplification and illustration used here, and from the admixture of his doctrine of plainness and propriety even in this section, Wilson apparently did not understand very fully the doctrine of genus grande, medium, and tenue, or, if he did, he considered it of slight value. It is certain that it was not a part of his own working theory, as it is in Cicero. 4 [Underlining added ] Wagner's privileging of the classical framework invaluably aided him in identifying the sources of Wilson's rhetoric—primarily the Ad Herennium, Cicero's De Oratore, and Quintilian's institutio Oratorio—and the deviations of the Arte from the earlier tradition, but such analysis only diminished the deviance rather than explain it. As this chapter will show, Wilson's treatment of the three styles was not so much the result of a misunderstanding of classical doctrine (which Wilson

4

Wagner, "Thomas Wilson's Arte," 27.

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followed quite closely at times), but the product of a Tudor cosmological tension manifesting itself in and among the classical tenets. This chapter will first investigate the impact of cosmology on The Arte of Rhetorique by identifying the tension underlying Wilson's world view, a tension manifested in the two antithetical and paradoxical cosmological impulses faced by the late Medieval and early Renaissance individual. The chapter will then investigate the manner in which Wilson integrated the cosmology, in particular, a cosmological construct he identified as the Law of Nature, into his rhetoric. The chapter will then consider how Wilson attempted to resolve the paradoxical impulses that cosmology imposed on his rhetoric manual and the effect that such an attempt had on the rhetoric itself.

The Paradox of the Great Chain of Being

The Great Chain of Being governing the Medieval and early Renaissance periods described a cosmos of (potentially) infinite stratification in which every element of the inanimate and the animate world, both natural and supernatural, occupied a unique place in the universe with God as the ultimate force reigning over

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all. 3 The Great Chain allowed people to describe the intricacies of their world in copious detail and to explain that diversity in terms of an overall, deifïc, great plan. Such a vast cosmic stratification suggested varying degrees of perfection in each cosmic element. Animals had an intelligence not present in plants; man had wisdom and speech denied other animals; and some men had more intelligence and resources than other men. A divinely created universe comprised of a potentially infinite number of variously perfect (or imperfect) levels immediately raises several questions which ought to influence impact our understanding of Wilson's rhetoric. In a cosmos that acknowledged God's omnipotence and perfection, how could God create an entire realm that varied so much in its apparent imperfections? In a world where man strived to achieve perfection and a oneness with God, why would one man be made more perfect than the next or one animal more perfect than another? Could a perfect God have created an imperfect universe? Arthur O. Lovejoy's landmark study. The Great Chain of Being, addressed this question in considerable depth,

5

The influence of the Great Chain of Being continued to be felt well into the Eighteenth Century. See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936); Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971); and Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 15001800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).

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especially in relation to the work of the great Medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas.^ Lovejoy identified two incompatible impulses running through Medieval philosophy: one was the belief that man should attempt to remove himself from the (imperfect) world and strive to assimilate with God and achieve a unity or oneness with Him; the other was a belief that the earth in its vast and varied multiplicity could not be conceived as anything but ideal in itself and, consequently, that man had a duty to celebrate and participate in the ordained multiplicity of which he was a part instead of trying to move beyond it. This perfectly planned, cosmic multiplicity, otherwise known as the Principle of Plenitude, gave man an explanation for the diversity in his world: the apparent imperfections surrounding man were designed not to encourage an assimilation towards God and the singular Good within Him, but rather to facilitate acts of Goodness among men of differing abilities, talents, and resources. Man achieved perfection by practicing Goodness as the 'imperfections' or disparities of the world such as hunger and poverty demanded. The use of Goodness to achieve Godliness in a varied and imperfect world, however, was antithetical to the efforts of man to achieve an assimilation with God

6

Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936).

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and a perfect Good. The impulse of man to assimilate towards God would entail a ruination of the perfect multiplicity God created throughout the world and the cosmos. 7 Assimilation towards God and simultaneous immersion within the plenitude could not coexist harmoniously: There was no way in which the flight from the Many to the One, the quest of a perfection defined wholly in terms of contrast with the created world, could be effectually harmonized with the imitation of a Goodness that delights in diversity and manifests itself in the emanation of the Many out of the One. The one program demanded a withdrawal from all "attachment to creatures" and culminated in the ecstatic contemplation of the indivisible Divine Essence; the other, if it had been formulated, would have summoned men to participate, in some finite measure, in the creative passion of God, to collaborate consciously in the processes by which the diversity of things, the fullness of the universe, is achieved. 8 While man strived to attain a "blissful absorption" with God and the Good, 9 he still had to acknowledge that the inequalities and apparent imperfections among people were themselves designed to make people issue forth in Goodness towards each other: "it is well that 'there is in the creatures plurality and inequality'; if all were in 7

Ibid., 82-83. Ibid„ 84. 9 Ibid., 86. 8

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all respects equal, none could 'act for the advantage of a n o t h e r . " ' 1 0 Wilson, as we will see next, was caught up in the very same paradox.

Rhetoric and Paradox in Wilson's Conception of God's Plan

Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique frequently reflected cosmological concerns for both an assimilation towards God and a preservation of plenitude. Wilson's famous discussion of "Eloquence first geven by God, after loste by man, and last repayred by God agayne," for example, emphasized the impulse to assimilate. Wilson described the post-lapsarian darkness that followed the transgressions of Adam and Eve as a time during which God, feeling pity for mankind, gave his appointed ministers eloquence in order to lift up man and persuade him through reason to form civil society: . . . even nowe when man was thus paste all hope of amendemente, God still tendering his owne workemanship, stirred up his faythfull and elect, to perswade with reason, all men to societye. And gave his appoynted ministers knowledge both to se the natures of men, and also graunted them

1

0 Ibid. Lovejoy is summarizing Aquinas.

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the gift of utteraunce, that they mighte with ease wynne folke at their will, and frame theim by reason to all good order. ( 175-176/41 ) 1 1 And so it was that man was lifted up from a state of depraved darkness where he languished as a lowly beast to an enlightened position more fit for the title of man. . . . being somewhat drawen and delighted with the pleasauntnes of reason, and the swetenes of utteraunce: after a certaine space, thei became through nurture and good advisement, of wilde, sober: of cruel, gentle: of foles, wise: and of beastes, men. ( 176/42) 12 The very act of giving man eloquence lifted man out of darkness and brought him to a closer state of unity and assimilation with God. Those men, in turn, who excelled others in the use of eloquence moved even closer to the Almighty in assimilation: And emonge all other, I thinke him worthye fame, and emongest menne to be taken for hälfe a God, that therein dothe chiefelye, and above all other,

11

The first page number cited refers to the Crafton edition of Wilson's Arte: John M. Crafton, "A Critical Old-Spelling Edition of Thomas Wilsons 'The Arte of Rhetorique' (1553)" 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., Univeristy of Tennessee, 1985). The second page number cited refers to the more readily available Peter Medine text ( The Arte or Rhetorique (1560) (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). Future page references will be made in the text; the first reference will always refer to the Crafton edition, the second reference to the Medine edition. All underlining made within the Wilson references is mine. ' -Crafton's "Critical old-spelling" edition occasionally makes a spelling error. I have taken the liberty to correct those errors I detect with the Gainsville, Florida, Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1962 reprint of the 1553 text of the Newberry Library edition. Crafton shows "sover." SF & R shows "sober." I still believe that Crafton's edition is the easier one with which to work, however.

exceil menne, wherin men do excell beastes. For he that is emonge the reasonable, of all moste reasonable, and emonge the wittye, of all moste wittye, and emonge the eloquente, of all mooste eloquente: him thincke I emonge all menne, not onelye to be taken for a singuler manne, but rather to be counted for hälfe a God. For in sekynge the excellencve hereof, the soner he draweth to perfection, the nvgher he commeth to GOD who is the chief wisdome, and therefore called God, because he is most wise, or rather wisdome it selfe. (178/42-43) 1 3 Nevertheless, even though God's ministers were given the gift of eloquence in order to lift mankind out of darkness and promote an assimilation with the Almighty, their duty was still to bring harmony out of chaos and preserve a state of plenitude in the world and "frame theim by reason to all good order." (175-176/41) Rhetoric recognized and reinforced the social disparities among men; it kept them in base subjection to the station to which they were "first appoynted" by God: For what manne I praye you beinge better able to maintayne him selfe by valeante courage, then by living in base subjection: would not rather loke to rule like a lord, then to lyve lyke an underlynge: if by reason he were not perswaded that it behouveth everve man to lyve in his owne vocation, and

13 Wilson is Christianizing an image of the orator as God found in Cicero's De Oratore (3.53).

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not to seke anye hygher rowme. then whereunto he was at the first appovnted? (177/42) 1 4 God determined the stations to which people were "first appoynted" and eloquence gave man the means to maintain the diversity as the Almighty originally had seen fit. Reason helped frame the lives of men in terms of duty to the hierarchy, their callings, their country, and their God: Who woulde digge and delve from morne till evening? Who woulde travaile and toyle with the sweate of his browes? Yes, who woulde for his kynges pleasure adventure and hasarde his life, if witte hadde not so wonne men, that they thought nothing more nedefull in this world, nor anye thing

,4

This sounds somewhat similar to Cicero's account of calling in De Officiis (I,xxxi,l 10-111). "Everybody, however, must resolutely hold fast to his own peculiar gifts, in so far as they are peculiar only and not vicious, in order that propriety, which is the object of our inquiry, may the more easily be secured. For we must so act as not to oppose the universal laws of human nature, but, while safeguarding those, to follow the bent of our own particular nature; and even if other careers should be better and nobler, we many still regulate our own pursuits by the standard of our own nature. For it is of no avail to fight against one's nature or to aim at what is impossible of attainment. . . . If there is any such thing as propriety at all, it can be nothing more that uniform consistency in the course of our life as a whole and all its individual actions. And this uniform consistency one could not maintain by copying the personal traits of others and eliminating one's own." Cicero's account, however, is less rigid than Wilson's, because it at least offers four criteria by which someone could choose their career: inheritance, choice, accident, and natural bias. (I,xxxii-xxxiii, 115-120) Wilson's only break from the rigidity came when he advocated that a youth take up the study of law as a career, implying that the youth had some choice, but Wilson offered no further clarification. The Tudor belief in the Great Chain of Being precluded much exercise of choice and appears to be the case in the Arte of Rhetorique.

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whereunto they were more bounden: then here to live in their duty, and to traine their whole lyfe accordvnge to their callynge. (177/42)15 And so we see both paradoxical impulses at work in Wilson's rhetoric: one, the lifting of man to a state closer to God through the mastery of eloquence and the other, the effort to preserve an "appoynted" hierarchical plenitude throughout society and the cosmos. Still, Frank Whigham believes that this last passage above shows a complete undermining of the hierarchy. The packaging by Wilson of the rhetorical tools for controlling society granted anyone with the desire to learn them access to the very power which had previously kept them in obeisance: The presumptive link between rhetoric and the current God-given order of things snaps when the Wilsons of the age, with fully conservative selfconsciousness, convert the tools of rule, of domination and self-

1 ^ Wilson notes later in the treatise that one way to gain favour with an audience is to speak out against one's adversaries. One of his suggested tactics is to attack their adherence to their position or calling within the social hierarchy: "We shall make theim to bee sette naught by, if we declare what luskes [sluggards] thei are, how unthriftely thei live, how thei do nothyng from daie to daie, but eate, drinke, and slepe, rather sekyng to live like beastes, then myndyng to live like men, either in profityng their countrey. or in tenderyng their awne commoditie. as by right thei ought to do." (396/136)

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determination, into a commodity packaged for the open market of the literate. 16 But for Whigham to say that Wilson's rhetoric "snaps" the very order of which it was a part is to underestimate vastly the dynamic underlying the cosmology of the Great Chain and Wilson's belief in both the competing impulses of order and assimilation. Whigham's critique of Wilson still gives us reason to pause. Can we really imagine that Wilson wrote a rhetoric manual with the hope that everyone would remain in their original, God-appointed calling and not "seke anye hygher rowme"? The answer to this question is a resounding, "yes," reinforced by three considerations: ( 1 ) the interconnectivity of rhetoric and the Great Chain of Being, particularly the symbiotic relationship between rhetoric and the Law of Nature, (2) an understanding of Wilson's own personal life and the factors which brought him up through society and into a position of greater social prominence than that to which he was born, and (3) the use of King David in the Arte of Rhetorique as an example of a man capable of resolving the two paradoxical cosmic impulses and the apparent irony brought to our attention by Whigham. Each of these considerations not only illustrates Wilson's capacity for balancing the impulse to assimilate with God and the impulse to preserve God's plenitude, but also sets the stage for us to

16

Frank Whigham, Ambition and Privilege: The Social Tropes of Elizabethan Courtesy Theory (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1984), 2.

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consider how the two contradictory impulses actually interact with the classical rhetorical precepts at the center of Wilson's manual.

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Rhetoric and the Law of Nature

Rhetoric for Wilson received its justification and entitlement from the Great Chain of Being. God created the plenitude of society and the greater cosmos (in order that one man might help another as needed), and rhetoric became a divinely sanctioned means by which that plenitude was preserved. The role of plenitude in facilitating acts of Goodness among men received clear articulation in Wilson's demonstrative illustration, "An example in commendacion of Justice, or true dealyng." Wilson referred to this mandate for plenitude or diversity as the Law of Nature. God hath created al thynges for mans use, and ordeined man for mannes sake, that one man might helpe another. For thoughe some one have giftes more plentifully then the commune sorte, yet no man can live alone without helpe of other. Therfore we shoulde strive one to helpe another by juste dealyng, some this way, and some that way, as every one shal have nede, and as we shalbe alwaies best able, wherein the lawe of nature is fulfilled, and Goddes commaundement folowed. (235/67-68)

The Law of Nature was the raison d'etre sustaining the Principle of Plenitude and all justice in the world. One man was made greater than another in resources and wisdom in order than a lesser man might serve him and seek aid and advice from him. Both superior and inferior had duties prescribed to them under this law: And here upon it is that when men desire the lawe for trial of a matter, they meane nothyng elles but to have justice, the which justice is a vertue that yeldeth to every man, his owne: to the ever livyng God. love above al thynges. to the Kyng, obedience: to the inferiour. good counsel: to the poore man, mercie: to the hateful and wicked, sufferaunce: to it self, truthe: and to al men, perfite peace, and charitie. Now what can be more said in praise of this vertue, or what thyng can be like praised? (232-233/67) As the above passage makes clear, one of the duties of the superior was to supply the inferior with "good counsel" and this was the mandate for rhetoric. Rhetoric (in the form of advisement to the inferior) helped the superior fulfill the Law of Nature. Even as Wilson invoked the popular mythos of Hercules leading all men around "Iincked together by the eares in a chaine" through the power of eloquence, that power was portrayed as advisement given from a superior to inferiors: "everye one was rather driven to do that whiche he woulde, and to wil that whych he did, agreing to his advise both in word and worke, in all that ever they were able." (177/42)

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The Law of Nature, in prescribing a superior's duty to advise and counsel inferiors, enabled and created a space for rhetoric. Rhetoric maintained the vast hierarchy of man's world by operating dutifully within the plenitude in a manner prescribed by the plenitude. In other words, the plenitude expressed by Wilson in the Law of Nature gave rhetoric its justification for being. The God-given social disparity displayed in the hierarchy obligated superiors to counsel inferiors and rhetoric was the tool required to administer that counsel. That rhetoric, in turn, reinforced the same God-given social disparity, plenitude, and law. Rhetoric thus reinforced the very hierarchy which gave it its justification for being. Rhetoric and the Law of Nature coexisted in a necessary symbiosis. Rhetoric also reinforced the dutiful and symbiotic relationship between superior and inferior by emphasizing the analogous relationship between God and man. God gave His wisdom to his ministers in the form of eloquence; those ministers, in a similar turn, through eloquence gave their wisdom to other people below them. And just as God sought the obedience of man, so each man sought the obedience of those people below him. '7 Thus, each man found himself in a relative position of ( 1 ) obedience to God and those men who were above him and (2) caretaking and advisement to those who were below him. The hierarchical patterning

17

Lacey Baldwin Smith describes this upward and downward looking quality in the Tudor individual as "Janus-faced." ( Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 86.)

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ran throughout the Great Chain and man, in simply enacting and repeating the downward, vertical relationship between God and himself, became "as a God" to his fellow man: Man shoulde be unto man as a God, and shal man be unto man as a Devil? Hath God created us, and made us to his owne likenesse, endewyng us with al the riches of the yearth, that we might be obedient to his wil, and shal we neither love him, nor like his? How can we say that we love God. if there be no charitie in us? (236/68) Thus, the virtuous superior could not help but enact a hierarchical patterning through his charity and advisement to his subordinates that made him God-like. On that account it is more understandable that Wilson would refer to a master of eloquence as "hälfe a God" among men. ( 178/42) 18 Wilson's self-analysis of his "example in commendacion of Justice" shows that he viewed himself as a God-like eloquent man. Wilson saw himself as God's persuader, one who "wil bestow" his virtuous counsel into hearts made receptive by God: But woulde God I were so wel able to perswade all men to Justice, as al men know the necessarie use therof: and then undoubtedly I woulde be muche boulder, and force some by violence, which by faire wordes can not be

18

Wilson Christianized an image first found in Cicero's De Oratore (3.53).

entreated. And yet what nedes any perswasion for that thyng, whiche by nature is so nedeful, and by experience so profitable, that looke what we want, without justice we get not, loke what we have, without justice we kepe not. God graunt his grace so to worke in the hartes of al men, that they may aswel practise well doyng in their owne lyfe, as they would that other should folowe justice in their lyfe: I for my part wil bestow some labor to set forth the goodnes of upright dealing that al other men the rather may do therafter. (231-232/66) As Wilson went on to observe, his bestowal of counsel could not help but have an impact on men since the Law of Nature already had primed their spirits towards his rhetoric: That if through my wordes. God shal worke with any man, than may I thynke my self in happy case, and rejoyce much in the travaile of my wit. And how can it be otherwvse. but that al men shalbe forced inwardly to allowe that [counsel], whiche in outwarde acte many do not folowe: seyng God poured first this law of nature into mans hart, and graunted it as a meane wherby we might know his wil, and (as I might saie) talke with him, groundyng stil his doinges upon this poinct, that man should do as he would be done unto, the whiche is nothyng elles, but to lyve uprightly, without any wil to hurte his neighbor. (232/66)

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The Law of Nature first poured into man's heart prepared him inwardly perforce to accept the counsel given to him through rhetoric. Thus, Wilson enacted and promoted the symbiotic relationship between rhetoric and the Law of Nature. "God poured first this law of nature into mans hart" and man, consequently, became receptive to rhetoric. For Wilson, that rhetoric was the primary means for reinforcing the Law of Nature.

Wilson as a Youth: the Significance of the Pilgrimage of Grace

The idea that Wilson would write a rhetoric while still calling for everyone to remain in their original calling and not "seke anye hygher rowme" also finds support in the events of Wilson's own life. His own social position had improved since birth and though this may at first seem contradictory for someone calling for the maintenance of order and calling, Wilson's recommendations did not eliminate all avenues for advancement in society. Though a man could not seek any higher room, the grace of God or a superior could raise up a man as merit warranted. Wilson, himself, likely had been the recipient of such grace. When Wilson was only thirteen years old, the rebellion of a substantial number of noblemen, clergy, and peasantry took place in the northern county of Lincolnshire. Known as the "Pilgrimage of Grace," it was one of the most volatile rebellions of the Sixteenth Century, beginning on October 2, 1536, only eight miles

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from young Thomas' boyhood home of Strabby.

According to historian John

Guy, Henry VIII was not toppled only because a handful of nobles refused to join the large number rebelling against the king. 2 0 One of those few noblemen was the Duke of Suffolk (whose children Wilson would later tutor and whose wife Wilson would later console in the Arte of Rhetorique). Wilson's favor with the Suffolk household was likely due to his father's obedience to the duke and king during that rebellion. Medine speculates that such loyalty was the likely cause of Thomas' admittance to Eton College on a King's scholarship immediately after the rebellion in 1537.21 If the rewards for obedience were not apparent enough for Wilson, the punishments for disobedience could not be ignored.

Henry VIII punished the rebels

in Wilson's home county with a swift, God-like vengeance that undoubtedly would have had an impact on him. Dismembered and displayed bodies were the call of the day: Punishment administered in blood was regarded in the sixteenth century as sound politics, but the retribution which Henry visited upon the luckless peasantry who defied his majesty during the Pilgrimage of Grace was 19

PeterE. Medine, Thomas Wilson, Twayne's English Author Series, no. 431 (Boston: G.K. Hall and Co., Twayne Publishers, 1986), 2-4. 20 John Guy, Tudor England ( 1988, reprint, Oxford University Press, 1991), 152. 21 Peter E. Medine, Thomas Wilson, 4.

patterned directly after Jehovah. His majestic anger made the Duke of Norfolk shudder when he was ordered to 'cause such dreadfull execution to be done upon a good number of the inhabitants of every town, village, and hamlet.

. as well as by the hanging of them up on trees as by the quartering

of them and the setting of their heads and quarters in every town, great and s m a l l . . . as they may be a fearful spectacle to all others hereafter that would practise any like matter; which we require you to do, without any pity or respect.' 22 The displaying of heads and quartered bodies in towns throughout all of Lincolnshire undoubtedly would have caught Wilson's attention. This, coupled with the apparent favor his family received from the Duke of Suffolk and King Henry VIII, would surely have imprinted on Wilson the benefits of a strict social order and obedience to superiors. We can see such resonance in his critique of treason both within the earthly realm and towards God: If the subject rebell against his kyng, we crie with one voyce, hang hym, hang hym, and shall wee not thynke hym worthy the vilest death of all, that beeyng a creature, contempneth his creatour, beyng a mortall manne,

—Lacey Baldwin Smith, Henry Mil: The Mask of Royality, 2nd ed. (Chicago, Illinois: Acedemy Chicago Publishers, 1982), 63.

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negle[c]teth his heavenly maker, beyng a vile moulde of claie, setteth lighte by so mightie a God, and ever livyng Kyng? (424-425/148)

23

Though such an exposure to the rewards for obedience and punishments for rebellion had to have had a great impact on him, Wilson moreover would have undoubtedly learned that obedience to one's station (a preservation of the plenitude) and superiors could result in advancement (an assimilation) through the grace of the superior.

Wilson's Demonstrative Speech in Praise of King David

Wilson's belief in the power of grace to lift up and advance a man who seeks no higher calling resonates no more clearly than in his demonstrative sample speech in praise of King David. As a man who sought no advancement in life and aimed for resolute obedience to God, prince, and country, David appears to have been an ideal

-•'Wilson even makes one specific reference to the Lincolnshire rebellion in his treatise though it tells little about rhetoric or his views on rebellion. The focus is on one man in the rebellion who after being hit on the head, could no longer correctly write certain letters of the alphabet. Interesting enough, an entire article as been written on this rather obscure example, recognizing it as possibly the first documented neurological case of acquired disgraphia. See David Cram and Ruth Campbell, "A 16th-Century Case of Acquired Disgraphia." Historiographia Linguistica 19, no. 1 (1992), 57-64.

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model for Wilson's Tudor man and an analog for a rhetoric that sought to keep a man true to his original calling: . . . what man wil not saie, but that David did mynde nothyng els herein, but the saufegarde of his countrey, thinkyng it better for himself to die, and his countrey to live, then hymself to live, and his countrey to die. What gain got David, by the death of Goliah, or what could he hope, by the death of such a monster, but onely that the love whiche he bare to the Israelites, forced hym to hasard his awne life. . . Therefore he hassaradyng this attempe, considered with hymself, the saufegard of the Israelites, the mainteinaunce of justice, his duetie towardes God, his obedience to his prince, and his love to his countrey. (222-223/62) Wilson, in a critique of his own exemplar speech and its commonplaces, explained that selflessness was the key to understanding David's actions: Wherefore did he it? He adventured his life, for the love of his countrey, for the maintenaunce of justice, for thadvauncement of Gods true glory, and for the quietnesse of all Israeli, neither seekvng fame, nor yet lokvng for any gain. I used this circumstaunce, when I shewed what profite he sought, in adventuryng this deede. (227-228/64) David thus represented the ideal for Thomas Wilson, he was a man who sought no advancement, no fame or gain, but only obedience to his God, prince, and country. As a result of his obedience and selflessness, David was lifted by grace to the

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position of king. He achieved an assimilation (both social and spiritual advancement) with the Almighty while at no time ever seeking to upset the plenitude of God's established order through personal gain. The example of David also reflected two contemporary parallels for Wilson: first, David likely represented Wilson's family and the grace extended to him for the obedience of his father to king and country; second, it was widely accepted that King Henry VIII was himself a modern day David who by the grace of God vanquished the Catholic Goliath in Rome and by the grace of God assumed the leadership of the Almighty's true church. 24 Wilson, by invoking David as an example worthy of commendation, thus in all likelihood strengthened the justification for his own advancement while simultaneously praising his beneficent patron, the late King Henry VIII, father of the reigning Edward VI. And perhaps most importantly of all, David represented an ideal to the readers of Wilson's rhetoric: he had used the tools at his disposal, in this case a mere sling, to maintain order and serve God, prince, and country while not seeking any higher room or gain for himself and yet still achieved greatness through the grace of God.

24

John H. King, "Henry VIII as David: The King's Image and Reformation Politics" in Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts, ed. Peter C. Herman (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 78-92.

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Wilson's manual, in analogous fashion, became the rhetorical sling for all the wouldbe Davids who would read his book. And so we see through ( 1 ) the close symbiosis between the Law of Nature and eloquence, (2) the events in Wilson's own life, and (3) the use of David as a praiseworthy exemplar, that Wilson did believe in a rhetoric incorporating both cosmological impulses—a rhetoric that would lift man out of the post-lapsarian darkness and bring him closer to God while simultaneously maintaining the plenitude and order of God's cosmos by persuading man to seek no higher calling than that to which he was first appointed. I will now consider how Wilson integrated the two competing cosmological impulses into a classical taxonomic framework. Having aligned rhetoric with the Law of Nature and God's divine plan for man, Wilson needed to formulate a working core of rhetorical precepts capable of sustaining the noble office he had accorded rhetoric.

Managing Diversity: Cosmological Influence in Books I and II of the Arte of Rhetorique

The challenge facing Wilson throughout the Arte of Rhetorique was to preserve rhetoric's ability to uplift man while simultaneously preserving the diversity of society. David may have been able to transcend the paradox, but he was, after

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all, an ideal. How could Wilson infuse both cosmic impulses into his rhetoric without creating irresolvable conflict? A person could, like David, remain obedient and seek no higher calling and then be raised up by the grace of a superior, but how could the same two impusles practically be brought to bear on one rhetoric manual? For Wilson, they could not. Wilson's rhetoric did incorporate both cosmological impulses (knowingly or unknowingly) in various places, but often not at the same time. The management of the paradox within a classical framework was not particularly difficult so long as Wilson kept one of the two contradictory impulses in abatement at any given moment. When Wilson did bring the two paradoxical impulses together in his discussion of precepts, the result was an unusual break with the predictability we expect to find with classically based rhetorical precepts. In the case of Books I and II, Wilson discussed invention and disposition in a manner that managed diversity quite well by stressing the impulse to maintain plenitude much more than the impulse to assimilate towards God (though the latter was not neglected entirely). Books I and II never really brought the paradox to a head. Book III as we will see could not keep one or the other impulses in check, but brought them together in an uneasy union which resulted in an unusual innovation (or compromise) in the classical conception of the three styles. I will first look at Wilson's (more harmonious) management of diversity in Books I and II and then later at his more troublesome difficulties in Book III.

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Wilson in Books I and II managed the diversity of the hierarchy—the impulse to preserve cosmic plenitude—by four different means. First, he formulated a definition of rhetoric capable of encompassing and fulfilling the Law of Nature; second, he treated deliberation primarily as counsel aimed at advising inferiors; third, he emphasized praise (and dispraise) as tools of judicial and demonstrative rhetoric and amplification; fourth, he established a correspondence between the cosmic order and the order of an oration.

Encompassing and Fulfilling the Law of Nature: Wilson's Definition of Rhetoric and the Orator's Profession

Wilson first defined rhetoric within the framework of his 1551 Rule of Reason and then developed a more mature and encompassing definitition in his 1553 Arte of Rhetorique. His later views on rhetoric portrayed it as a broad art encompassing all questions surrounding man and his place in the world. His 1553 Arte of Rhetorique opened with the following definition of rhetoric attributed to Cicero: Rhetorique is an art to set furthe by utteraunce of wordes, matter at large, or (as Cicero doeth saie) it is a learned, or rather an artificial! declaration of the

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mynde, in the handelyng of any cause, called in contencion, that maie through reason largely be discussed. (180)25 As an art concerned with causes, it overlapped a great deal with logic; his opening remarks in The Rule of Reason were quite similar: In euery cause that man dooeth handle, this one Lesson should first bee learned. Neuer to entre upon any matier nor yet ones to talke, without good aduisement.26 The two arts both relied heavily on the use of reason to help man evaluate every cause with which he was faced. Wilson's distinctions between logic and rhetoric varied depending on the work consulted. In The Rule of Reason, Wilson noted that logic was naked while rhetoric was embellished: Bothe these Artes are muche like, sauyng that Logique is occupied about al matters, and dooeth plainly and nakedly setfoorth with apt woordes, the summe of thinges, by the waie of argumentation. Again of thother side, Rethorique useth gaie painted sentences, and setteth foorth those matters with freshe colours, and goodly Ornamentes, and that at large. (Rule, 11 )

25 This definition of rhetoric likely pulls from more than one Ciceronian source though perhaps most notably, De Oraiore 1.59. 2 6 Thomas Wilson, The Rule of Reason [1553 ed.], ed. Richard S. Sprague. (Northridge, California. San Fernando State College, 1972), 7. Future references will be made in the text.

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Rhetoric, then, presented similar material but with more embellishment. In the Arte of Rhetoric Wilson again noted that logic worked by "plaine teachying" and rhetoric primarily by "large amplification and beautifiyng of his cause," but he also went further than the Rule of Reason by explaining how rhetoric's function moved beyond just teaching to include 'commending' (229/165). He also stated that logic's role was to deal with infinite questions without regard to time, place, or person while rhetoric was to focus on definite questions and draw upon infinite questions and logic when needed. (181-182/45-46) In fact, the rhetorician could not profit in his art until he had first sought to make his logic perfect. (418/145) Wilson's views on rhetoric thus seem far from one-dimensional: rhetoric amplified and beautified logic, but it also handled a realm of questions (the particular) not under the purview of logic, while at the same time relying on (and encompassing) questions and commonplaces falling within the scope of logical reasoning. The expanded 1553 definition of rhetoric in the Arte of Rhetorique thus went considerably further than the decorative embellishment assigned to it in the 1551 Rule of Reason by presenting a much broader conception of persuasion. Wagner believes that the shift in the definition of rhetoric between 1551 and 1553 was due either to the influence of prominent Tudor humanists such as Sir John Cheke or to the fact that once Wilson took the time to compose a rhetoric, he realized how much it fully

67 entailed.i

n

a

dedication to the 1553 Arte, Gaulterus Haddonus bore out the

significance that rhetoric had come to carry for Wilson by calling rhetoric the sister of logic. "Rhetoriken, Logike soror ." ( 167/44) Wilson's broader 1553 definition of rhetoric also reflected the expansive scope Wilson allotted to matters rhetorical. Under his discussion of "The matter whereupon an Oratour must speake," Wilson noted that the orator's scope should include all such questions concerning law and man's ordinance: An Orator muste be able to speake fully of all those questions, which by lawe and mannes ordinaunce are enacted, and appoyncted for the use and profite of man, suche as are thought apte for the tongue to set forward. (180/45) Marginal annotation accompanying this passage made clear that such ordinances would have included all law, including the Law of Nature: "Rhetorique [is] occupied aboute all lawes. concernyng man." (180/45) And in the broadest defining statement of rhetoric and its purpose, Wilson observed that rhetoric was concerned with all matters for man's benefit or "behove":

Wagner, "Thomas Wilson's Arte," 27. For our purposes we need just note that the 1551 definition was not replaced, but merely expanded.

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Therefore an Orators profession, is to speake onely, of all suche matters as maie largely be expounded, for mannes behove, and maie with much grace be set out, for all men to heare theim. (180-181/45) Wilson's broadly defined conception of rhetoric thus further reinforced the noble office assigned to rhetoric as the civilizing catalyst for social harmony; it encompassed all laws—including the Law of Nature—designed "for mannes behove."

Deliberation: Managing the Hierarchy through Counsel

Wilson presented rhetoric as a tool for managing diversity by conceiving deliberation primarily as a downward, individualized act of counsel which was much less a tool for generating political policy and more a means for advising one's neighbors: An Oration deliberative, is a meane, wherby we do perswade, or disswade, entreate, or rebuke, exhorte, or dehorte, commende, or comforte any man. In this kynd of Oration we doe not purpose wholly to praise any body nor yet to determine any matter in controversie, but the whole compassé of this cause is either to advise our neighbour to that thyng. which we thynke most nedeful for hvm or els to cal him backe from that folie, which hindereth muche his estimacion. As for example, if I would counseil my frende to

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travaile beyond the Seas for knowlege of the toungues, and experience in foreign countries: I might resorte to this kinde of Oration. . . (242/70-71 ) In each case offered by Wilson, the counsel was offered to someone who was in some way inferior to the rhetor either in age, sex, class, experience, or wisdom. For instance, he gave the example of how he comforted the Duchess of Suffolk for the loss of her two children. Though she was in one sense his social better, Wilson spoke to her as a rationally superior man counselling an overly emotional and irrational, grieving woman. Another lengthy example of deliberation he took from Erasmus: "An Epistle to perswade a young ientleman to Mariage, devised by Erasmus in the behalfe of his frende." (264/79) Though the "young ientleman" is called a "frende," the rhetor is clearly the superior in both age and wisdom. The same is true of the other key example in the treatise advising a youth to study the laws of England. (246/72) In each of these examples, Wilson illustrated the counsel offered by a superior to someone inferior to him either in age, sex, class, or wisdom. 28 j n e a c h case, Wilson's conception of deliberation ran close to his adage, "to the inferiour, good

28

c o u n s e l , " 2 9 a nd

that counsel was moral and personal and

The advice to the "frende to travaile beyond the Seas for knowlege" seems addressed at an equal in class, but someone inferior to Wilson in life's experiences or aue. 29 A t one moment in "An example of commendyng a noble personage," Wilson takes the opportunity to praise the father of his two lost pupils, the late Duke of Suffolk, who, as we have seen, stood up for Henry VIII during the Pilgrimage of Grace. The Duke's ability to counsel his inferiors is a key component in Wilson

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proceeded from someone with the requisite wisdom to someone without. Wilson's explication of deliberation did not discuss in any depth or positive manner the possibility of counsel given to a superior.3® This downward view of counsel aimed at the individual, according to Arthur Ferguson, was part of a Medieval system of deliberation designed to maintain the justice, order, and morality of society. The Tudor policy making mechanism was pan of a slowly changing social system gradually moving away from a highly structured and reified medieval hierarchy in which the king alone made all decisions to a system in which the influence of Parliament was allowing many men increasingly to make policy decisions in England. 3 ' Ferguson believes that the slow shift began in the Fifteenth and continued through the Sixteenth-Century. 32 Wilson laudatory effort: "The father called Duke Charles. . . was in such favour, and did such service, that all Englande at this houre, doeth finde his lacke, and Fraunce yet doth fele, that suche a duke there was, whom in his life tyme, the godly, loved: the evil, feared: the wise men, honored for his wit, and the simple, used alwaies for their counsaill" (212/57) 3 ® In one rare reference to the political system, Wilson did write about "wycked counsayle" given to a prince or king, but he made no elaboration of it: "they that infecte a prynce or a kinge wyth wycked counsayle, are not they more wycked enchaunters, considerynge they doe as muche as if one shoulde Poyson a Conduite head, or River from whence al men featche their water." This reference suggests that counsel could be directed upward at the "Conduite head," but the very image of the conduit suggests that counsel mainly flowed downward from it. (440-441/155) 31

Arthur B. Ferguson, The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance. (Durham, North Carolina. Duke University Press, 1965). 32 Stephen Collins also notices a shift in the Tudor social system, but of a slightly different nature. For Collins the shift begins near the middle of the SixteenthCentury and continues well into the Seventeenth-Century. It is a gradual move from

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was writing in the midst of any such change and Ferguson's conception of the Medieval view of counsel or advice-giving sheds light on Wilson's discussion. Foremost, counsel within the rather rigid, cosmological world view was seen as something given to the wayward individual and not something given to the nation as a whole: It was . . . easier for men of that day to think in terms either of the universal order or the local instance rather than of the national entity. They tended, almost instinctively, to treat social problems either in terms of class divisions characteristic of all Christendom or (what was pretty much the same thing) the individual's failure to act as his position in the body politic would require. They accordingly traced the ills of that body to their ultimate source in the moral nature of man and found remedy in a return to virtue on the part of those whose sinful action had been the cause of the trouble in the first place. 3 3 [emphasis added] Counsel was seen as a necessary moral advisement or correction that would often come as a response to a complaint or explanation of some inferior's ill-condition which a governing superior was then supposed to rectify. In this way, counsel was

a highly structured society which denies social movement and improvement to one which recognized a new individualism and personal autonomy. From Divine Cosmos to Sovereign State: An Intellectual History of Consciousness and the Idea of Order in Renaissance England {New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 33

Ferguson, Articulate Citizen, 32.

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not forward looking or upward, but sought only to maintain peace, justice, and morality. Government was "protective rather than creative." 34 The slowing shifting, late Medieval and Early Renaissance English mind, then, was marked primarily by three elements: ( 1 ) its emphasis on addressing particular local ills and impacts on the universal order, (2) its focus on individual moral failure, and (3) its primarily protective rather than creative view of the government. These late-Medieval elements of deliberation or counsel appeared in Wilson's examples. The "example of comforte" addressed to the irrational, mourning Duchess of Suffolk, for instance, aimed its deliberation and counsel at individual moral failings and local ills. Wilson, in addressing the grieving Duchess, gave four reasons for the sudden deaths of her two sons from disease and all to an extent illustrate the medieval moral critique of individuals failing to act as their position in the body politic would require. First, the deaths were portrayed as a form of punishment: "they were taken awaye from us for our wretched sinnes, and mooste vile naughtines of life." (325/105) Second, the deaths were seen as a rescuing of the uncorrupted: "The righteous man (meaning Enoch and other the chosen of God [such as her sons]) is sodainely taken away, to the entente that wickednes shoulde not alter his understandinge, and that hypocrisie shoulde not begile his soul." (334/109) Third, the sudden demise of the children was viewed as j4

Ferguson, Articulate Citizen, 63.

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a test of the Duchess* own individual, moral fortitude and faith: "God punisheth, partly to trie your constancie." (344/113) And finally, the deaths were rationalized as a moral maturation: "Therfore beeyng both now ripe, they were now most ready for God." (356/118) Wilson saw deliberation as a counsel aimed primarily at advising individuals and neighbors lacking in wisdom for the purpose of moral betterment. It was this downward deliberative counsel which managed the great hierarchical plenitude by bringing men into a civil society and protecting them against a falling away into chaos. Counsel as a downward act aimed at moral critique will be discussed further in my analysis of Peacham's Garden of Eloquence in Chapter Three.

Praise and Dispraise

Wilson additionally managed diversity by stressing the role that praise and dispraise played in preserving the social and moral order of society. Wilson's forumulations of amplification as well as demonstrative and judicial rhetoric depended on praise and dispraise to illustrate where any person should or should not be within the social and moral hierarchy. The hierarchy was both social and moral in the eyes of the Tudors who believed that God generally placed the wisest, most virtuously upright, and Godly individuals higher in the hierarchy than others. With

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this in mind praise and dispraise preserved the hierarchy in two manners. First, praise and dispraise shifted an individual's positioning in the hierarchy depending on the virtuousness or wickedness of his life. Wilson, in particular, used dispraise to show how men lived like beasts instead of men. He did this in order to shame such men back into proper hierarchical alignment. Second, a particularly unpraiseworthy comparison with life in the lower regions of the hierarchy could be used to create an a fortiori argument about man's life and how it should be lived—i.e. if an animal can practice affection towards another animal, then man should be able to do at least as much towards his fellow man. Wilson in the first regard contrasted both the virtuous, noble gentleman with the proud, disdainful man; the latter was compared to a mere beast: I mighte in commendyng a noble ientlemanne for his lowlinesse, declare at large howe commendable, and howe profitable a thyng, ientle behaviore is, and of the other side, how hatefull and howe harmefiill. a proude disdainful! manne is. and howe beastly a nature he hath, that beeyng but a manne, thinketh hymself better then any other manne is, and also over good to have a matche or felowe in this life. If lowelinesse and Charitee maintavne life, what a beaste is he. that throughe hatered will purchace deathe? If God warneth us to love one another, and learne of him to be gentle, because he was ientle and humble in harte: howe cruel! are thei, that dare withstande his commaundement? (424/148)

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The turn away from God and his commandment pushed man further away from the heavenly and the Almighty and closer towards the more beastly, earthly, and hellish realms below. In its second use, amplification of dispraise created an instructive a fortiori point of comparison with the animals: Beastes and birdes without reason, love one another, thei shroude. and thei flocke together, and shall men endued with such gifres, hate his even christian, and eschewe companie? When Shepe dooe straie, or cattell doo strive one against another, there are Dogges ready to call them in. yea, thei wil bite them (as it hath been full often seen) if twoo fight together: and shall man wante reason, to barke against his lewde affeccions. or at the least shal he have none to checke hym for his faultes, and force him to forgeve? (425/148) In this above example, man was meant to realize that his nature shared some common denominator with the animals below him that he in the least should live up too, if not move beyond. As Wilson continued with an illustration attacking slanderers, he made it clear that man, in acting like a beast, was actually worse than a beast, because the beast, at least, was not fighting against its nature: Likewise if you would rebuke one that geveth eare to backbiters and slaunderers, ye muste declare what a greate mischief an evill tongue is, what a poysone it is, yea, what a murder, to take mannes good name from hym.

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We compte hym worthy death, that poysoneth a mannes body, and shal not he suffer the like pain that poysoneth a mannes honestie, and seketh to obscure and darken his estimacion? Menne bee well accepted emong the wise, not for their bodies, but for their vertues. Now take awaie the thyng. whereby menne are commended: and what are menne. other then brute beastes? For beastes do nothyng against nature, but he that goeth against honestie. the same manne fighteth against nature, whiche would that all menne should live well. (425-426/148-149) Of course, through immoral, personal acts, a man not only lived like a beast, but also failed to live up to his duties to his proper station—his "awne commoditie"— and also his country: We shall make theim to bee sette naught by, if we declare what luskes [sluggards] thei are, how unthriftely thei live, how thei do nothyng from daie to daie, but eate, drinke, and slepe, rather sekyng to live like beastes, then myndyng to live like men, either in profityng their countrey. or in tenderyng their awne commoditie. as by right thei ought to do. (396/136) The man refusing to live the upright, virtuous, and dutiful life lived the condemnable existence of a mere beast lower down the chain and further away from God. Praise and dispraise served to amplify an individual's anticipated movement or moral trajectory (in this life or the next) along the chain towards one pole or the other, an acknowledgment of an individual's ultimate assimilation towards Heaven or Hell

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even as the orator was trying to preserve morality and positioning in the hierarchy. As we will see in Chapter Four, praise in Angel Day's The English Secretorie acted simultaneously as both a tool of assimilation and a preserver of plenitude depending on whether praise or dispraise were used to bring a person up (or back) to his or her original state of virtue (and calling) or beyond that original positioning by suggesting a (future) assimilative trajectory towards Heaven. While the degree of praise one received usually varied directly with one's social position, the degree to which someone could be suspected of wickedness (and thus become the target of dispraise) varied inversely with social stature. The orator's task in judicial matters was to understand Nature's will and the ordained placement of less perfect and more wicked individuals diversely throughout the hierarchy. The orator was supposed to look for the causes of wickedness in the places where nature first put the more wicked: Yea, we shall make our doynges seme reasonable, if we frame our worke to natures wil. and seke none other meanes, but suche onely, as the honest and wyse have ever used and allowed, bryngyng in, and blamyng the evil alwaies for suche faultes chiefely, wherunto thei most of al are like to be subject, as to accuse a spend al, of thefte: a whoremunger, of adulterie: a rash quareller, of manslaughter: and so of other. (406/140) Though people throughout time have aimed accusations at others based on their apparent flaws in character, Wilson's recommendation is interesting because it

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suggested that people were created evil by Nature's (or God's) will. Thus, the same rhetoric that created order and justice by giving a superior the means to bring his inferiors into social alignment also instructed the superior on whom to heap dispraise when chaos or injustice did break out: the lower and naturally more viceladen levels of the hierarchy. In a similar manner, Wilson observed that different natural inclinations often depended on where (and into what station) someone was born: " . . . [in a case of law for example,] if he wer borne or brought up emong the Tindale, and Riddesdale menne, he may the soner be suspected." (371-372/125) And so Wilson used praise and dispraise to regulate the hierarchy and bring men back into moral and social alignment. Dispraise could be used to foreshadow a future, disquieting move towards a more beastly and ultimately hellish state. The hierarchy also could suggest targets of accusation and dispraise in cases of criminal behavior. Praise and dispraise thus furthered Wilson's efforts to regulate and preserve the plenitude of the hierarchy.

Nothing without Order

Wilson's treatment of disposition followed his explication of deliberative, judicial, and demonstrative invention by similarly integrating cosmology into the overall, rhetorical schema in an effort to manage diversity. Wilson acknowledged that an oration must contain the proper order, for without order, "nothyng can be":

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And now, nexte and immediatly after invention, I thinke meete to speake of framyng and piacyng an Oration in order, that the matter beeyng aptely satteide, and couched together: might better please the hearers, and with more ease be learned of all men. And the rather I am earnest in this behaulfe, because I knowe that al thynges stände by order, and without order nothvng can be. (504/183) Indeed, Roger Ascham claimed that it was the corruption of the Greek and Latin tongues which led to the corruption and downfall of Greek and Roman civilizations: . . when apt word and good words began to be neglected and properties of those two tongues to be confounded, then also began ill deeds to spring, strange manners to oppress good orders, new and fond opinions to strive with old and true doctrine, first in philosophy and after in religion, right judgment of all things to be perverted, and so virtue with learning is contemned and study left off. Of ill thoughts cometh perverse judgment; of ill deeds springeth lewd talk. Which four misorders, as they mar man's life, so destroy they good learning withal. 3 ^

35

Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster (1570), Edited by Lawrence V. Ryan, Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization 13 (1967; reprint, Charlottesville, North Carolina: The University Press of Virginia in association with The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1974), 115.

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And so, Wilson argued, the order of the oration was the same order which governed all aspects of man's life and Nature's elements, indeed, the entire cosmos: For by an order wee are borne, by an order wee lyve, and by an order wee make our end. By an order one ruleth as head, and other obey as members. By an order Realmes stände, and lawes take force. Yea by an order the whole worke of nature and the perfite state of al the dementes have their appointed course. By an order we devise, we leame, and frame our dooynges to good purpose. (504-505/183) That same order which framed an oration and maintained Nature's elements on their "appointed course" also kept man in alignment with his appointed calling: By an order the Carpenter hath his Squyre, his Rule, and his Plummet. The Tailour his mette Yarde, and his measure. The Mason his Former, and his Plaine, and every one accordyng to his callvng frameth thynges thereafter. (505/183) And so it followed that the orator that did not order his oration descended back into a darkness reminiscent of man's state before eloquence was bestowed upon him: So an Oration hath litle force with it, and dothe smally profite, whiche is utterde without all order. And needes must he wander, that knowes not howe to eoe. neither can he otherwvse chouse, but stumble: that gropyng in the darke. can not tel where he is. (505-506/183 Ï

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Those that did not order their orations ignored the "right way of advised cousell" offered by Wilson: Yea he must nedes both leave muche unspoken, repeate often, thynges spoken before, not knowing what, nor wher to speake best: that geves hym selfe rather to take the chaunce of fortune, than to folowe the right way of advised counsel!. (506/183-184) Ideally, the perfect orator would follow nature in ordering his oration in a manner "wholy fashioned by the discretion of hym that makes the Oration." (507/184) Such a rare man would not have needed Wilson's rhetorical precepts, but would have relied instead on his own discretion and a knowledge more complete than that offered by any manual: And therfore a certain learned man, and of muche excellencie, beeyng asked what was suche a figure, and suche a trope in Rhetorique: I cannot tell (quoth he) but I am assured, if you loke in the boke of myne oracions, you shall not faile but finde theim. So that though he knew not the name of suche and suche figures, vet the nature of them was so familiar to his knowlege. that he had thuse of them, whensoever he had nede. Now though this man could well thus doo, beyng of suche notable understandyng, yet it were foly that all should folowe his waie, whiche want so good a wit." (510:17-511:11)

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Those men not wise enough to understand nature and the nature of rhetorical precepts, needed the guidance of the rhetoric manual, "the appointed rule of Rhetorique which nature doth almost teache us." (507/184) The Arte of Rhetorique offered respectable instruction according to Wilson in the ways of the natural order by which orations were framed and all the elements had their appointed course. Rhetoric allowed for a close approximation of the natural order found throughout the cosmos. Books I and II of the Arte thus gave Wilson the means to sustain the noble office he had assigned to rhetoric ( 1 ) by presenting an expansive and open definition of rhetoric that concerned itself with all laws within the cosmos (including the Law of Nature) for the purpose of man's moral and civic betterment, (2) by formulating deliberation primarily as a downward focused presentation of moral counsel, (3) by emphasizing the role of praise and dispraise within Judicial and Demonstrative rhetoric for projecting or anticipating the trajectory of any individual in this life or the next towards one or the other pole of the Great Chain as well as creating a fortiori comparisons within the hierarhcy for the moral instruction of all people, and (4) by utilizing the full hierarchy as a guide to every aspect of life including the internal ordering of any oration. Books I and II of Wilson's rhetorical treatise thus illustrate the importance of rhetoric in the management of hierarchical diversity. They stressed the plenitude at almost the complete expense of assimilation. Book III as we will see brought the two impulses into much more direct conflict.

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Book III: Elocution and the Management of a Diverse Society and a Diverse Language

The difficulty facing Wilson in Book III of the Arte was the nature of style itself. It was an integral part of the hierarchy—each class of individual within the hierarchy spoke differently than the next—but it was also anathema to the proper functioning of the hierarchy as envisioned by Wilson. Wilson believed that there were so many different Englishes being spoken throughout the realm that the functioning of the hierarchy was actually in some jeopardy—inferiors risked not adequately expressing their needs to superiors and superiors risked not adequately advising their subordinates since each possibly spoke a considerably different English. Not only did these different Englishes result in communicative dysfunction, but they also caused subordinate individuals to adopt language more properly suited to their superiors, the result often being a foolish abuse and misuse of language. As we will see, Wilson's solution to this perceived Tudor, communicative dysfunction was to recommend the adoption of "one maner of language" (519/190), a unified standard which would alleviate miscommunication. Paradoxically, this unified standard of language sought to improve the functioning of the hierarchy by leveling out (and invalidating) the varied language usage which characterized the plenitude of the hierarchy.

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Wilson from the very beginning of Book III expressed concern over the inability of the common Englishman to express himself adequately to someone of higher social stature. Wilson's concern was most colorfully reflected in his story of one man he met in Cambridge: When I was in Cambrige, and student in the kynges College, there came a man out of the toune, with a pinte of wine in a pottle pot, to welcome the provoste ofthat house, that lately came from the courte. And because he would bestow his present like a clerke, dwellyng emong the schoolers: he made humble his thre curtesies, and said in this maner. Cha good even my good lorde, and well might your lordship vare: Understandyng that your lordeship was come, and knowyng that you are a worshipfull Pilate, and keptes a bominable house: I thought it my duetie to come incantivantee, and bring you a pott el I a wine, the whiche I beseche your lordeship take in good worthe. Here the simple man beyng desirous to amende his mothers tongue, shewed hymself not to bee the wisest manne, that ever spake with tongue. (519/190) Clearly as Wilson described the situation, the man was not capable of addressing his better in an articulate manner appropriate to his station, but instead spoke like "a clerke, dwellyng emong the schoolers." This example showed a disdain for not keeping to one's station, but also a concern for the weakness of this man's communicative condition. Immediately after this example Wilson criticized a mayor

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who inappropriately rebuked a "runnegate fellow" because the mayor was "desirous to speake like a fine learned man" (520/190). Again we see a desire to have the mayor speak like a mayor and not a "fine learned man," but additionally a concern for improving communication. Another example addressed one man's inability to communicate effectively with his superior. The inferior in question lacked the basic language (and rhetorical) tools needed to obtain a half year forbearance on his rent: Another standyng in muche nede of money, and desirous to have some helpe at a ientlemanns hand, made his complaint in this wise. I praie you sir be so good unto me, as forbeare this hälfe yeres rent. For so helpe me God and halidome, we are so taken on with contrary Bishoppes, with revives, and with southsides to the kyng, that al our money is cleane gone. These wordes he spake for contribucion, relief, and subsidie. And thus we see that poore simple men are muche troubled, and talke oftentymes, thei knowe not what, for lacke of wit and want of Latine and Frenche, wherof many of our straunge woordes full often are derived. (520/190) If the man had been able to articulate effectively his needs to his superior, then that superior indeed might have dutifully offered the "contibucion, relief, and subsidie" to the poorer man required by the Law of Nature. Such communicative dysfunction on the part of the inferior undermined the Law of Nature implemented by God.

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All of these examples showed a pity on Wilson's part for the common man who could not adequately articulate himself within English society. Though the inferior under the Law of Nature was entitled to seek the aid of his superior and the superior was obligated to offer relief or advice, Wilson's examples suggest that the inferior met with an inconsistent degree of success. He frequently either knew not what to say or how to say it or foolishly misspoke himself by trying to bring his language up to his superior's standard of usage. The hierarchy was not functioning as the Law of Nature intended it should. Man could not help his fellow man if neither could communicate effectively to each other. The challenge for Wilson was to empower these individuals while simultaneously keeping them from straying above their stations. In essence, the problem was an inability to communicate effectively while maintaining language usage appropriate to one's station in life. The examples he presented of the man with the pottle pot, the foolish mayor, and the man seeking leniency in the payment of his rent all revolved around individuals who did not share an everyday language with their betters. When they did communicate, they were far from eloquent, if not laughable. Alternatively, some men of considerable stature also used language highly peppered with verbose, latinate terms and phrasings which not only risked extending them above their station, but also diminished the likelihood of meaningful comprehension by others, especially people of inferior

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social stature. Further complicating the dilemma were the numerous and sometimes near-incomprehensible variants of dialect encountered throughout the realm.

A Unified Standard of Language

The solution to this communicative disorder—"one maner of language"— came in the critique Wilson made of a verbose and nearly incomprehensible letter included in Book III of the Arte. The letter was supposedly penned by a Lincolnshire man to a courtier of the Lord Chancellor. Wilson complained that the letter used "ynkehorne" language which no common man could comprehend. As this letter helped suggest, the language of the realm varied so greatly, was open to such abuse, and impeded understanding so much that Wilson recommended only two courses of action: either endorse a variety of different "affected" Englishes (and perpetuate the problem) or else adopt "one maner of language" which all people could understand: And what unlearned man can tell, what half this letter signifieth? Therefore, either we must make a difference of Englishe, and saie some is learned Englishe, and other some is rude Englishe, or the one is courte talke, the

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other is countrey speache, or els we must of necessitee, banishe al suche affected Rhetorique. and use altogether one maner of language. (519/190) 36 Wilson's proposition for "one maner of language" paralleled a similar recommendation made at the end of his 1551 Rule of Reason when he expressed his hope that mankind would adopt one manner of doctrine in its reasoning: And where as God is the aucthour of peace and concorde, and love them, that vnfeignedly call vpon him in trueth: I shal hartely praie to God, that all we maie drawe after one line, and seke one vniform and sound doctrine, to the praise of God, and the coumfort of our soulles (Rule, 217). Uniformity in doctrine and language held out the possibility of eliminating misunderstanding. The "one maner of language" that Wilson wished to adopt was that used by the King himself. Wilson criticized the verbose and latinate individuals that most pompously violated the manifest standard of usage offered by the "kynges English": Some seke so farre for outlandishe Englishe, that thei forget altogether their mothers language. And I dare swere this, if some of their mothers were 36

Mark Wildermuth in his article, "The Rhetoric of Wilson's Arte: Reclaiming the Classical Heritage for English Protestants," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 22, no. 1 (1989), p. 53, seems to interpret "affected" differently. He quotes part of a defense of rhetoric by Wilson — "I knowe them that thynke Rhetorique, to stand wholy upon darke wordes" — and notes that Wilson instead wishes to "banishe al suche affected Rhetorique." "Affected," however, appears not to refer to "darke wordes," but simply to the diversity of dialects or 'Englishes.'

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alive, thei were not able to tell, what thei say, and yet these fine Englishe Clerkes, wil say thei speake in their mother tongue, if a man should charge them for counterfeityng the kynges English. (515/188) The "kynges English" was the standard of judgment and decorum for all others; it seemed suitable that the "sovereigne meane" (189/48) 3 7 should be found in the King himself. The difficulty for Wilson, however, came in reconciling this one, unified standard of language with the diversity of language required by the plenitude of the hierarchy. Just as man was supposed to seek a unity with God, he was also supposed to celebrate the plenitude of God's vast creation. Wilson was recommending the adoption of the King's English as the unified standard for the realm, a vast form of leveling assimilation which moved everyone socially closer to the King at least in language usage while simultaneously having to recognize traditional social distinctions in style and language. Wilson's effort at managing the diversity of the hierarchy by making it function more efficiently needed to account for both the need for unity and plenitude within the language of the realm. He tried to accomplish this by grafting his

"Sovereigne" meaning superlative: " . . . before arte was invented, eloquence was used, and through practise made perfecte, the whiche in all thynges is a sovereigne meane, most highly to excell." (189/48)

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recommendations for language usage onto the four classical qualities (or virtues) of style: plainness, aptness, composition, and exornation.

Unity vs. Diversity: the Four Parts of Elocution

The four parts of elocution—plainness, aptness, composition, and exornation—provided Wilson with a framework for a discussion of language which espoused unity and plentitude. Wilson aligned his doctrine of "one maner of language" primarily with his explanation of plainness, and his discussion of plenitude under his description of composition and exornation. Aptness, the second of the four parts, received minimal treatment by Wilson and really amounted to a continuation of his discussion of plainness. Wilson was attempting to rectify the communicative dysfunction he perceived in society by addessing the need for "one maner of language" under the discussion of plainness. To communicate plainly meant to be understood in a commonly accepted manner: "Emong al other lessons, this should first be learned, that we never affect any straunge ynkehorne termes, but so speake as is commonly received. . .

(515/188). One plain standard of language would have empowered

both the inferior and the superior. In the case of the fool with the pottle pot or the tenant seeking alleviation of one-half year's rent, if each had the ability to speak in a standard English common to all men, then each would be able to realize a more

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productive relationship with his superiors. "One maner of language" would have allowed the inferior to articulate more clearly his needs to his superior. Consequently, through such improved articulation of needs, the superior could more adequately meet the inferior's needs as required by the Law of Nature. "One maner of language" also improved the superior's ability to convey his will (and presumably God's also) to the inferior. One plain standard would have also reinforced the hierarchy by combating any potential subversiveness caused by ambiguous and obscure language usage. Wilson had already shown great concern over the risks of ambiguity in the Rule of Reason. The ambiguity of a single word, for instance, might lead man to accept even the most heretical of claims if the ambiguous word in question was a well placed term in a syllogism.3® Ambiguity, if not kept in check, could lead men to a

3

®Wilson placed great emphasis on the danger of ambiguity in the syllogism's double repeat term: . . . soche Argumentes are not good, because there are fower termes in the twoo Proposicions, for the double repeate, signifieth one thing in the first Proposicion, and an other in the seconde Proposicion . . . An example, [where "arme" is the double repeat] Euery arme is a substaunce made of fleshe, bloude, bones, sinues, and veines. God the father hath an arme. Ergo god the father is one that hath a substaunce of fleshe, bloude, bones, sinues, and veines. I aunswere: this knitting is not good, and therefore I denighe the whole. The reason is, because it is a subtiltie, of a doubtful woorde, for in the first Proposicion, the arme is considered to be soche a one, as manne hath, but in

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terrible life of vice. A statement virtuously admonishing against the vice of robbery such as A roberie dooe not: feare thy God, thy maker Wil punishe: not one God spareth, be thou suer, could be turned to evil purposes by the most mundane change in punctuation: A robberie dooe not feare: thy God, the maker Wil punishe not one: God spareth, be thou suer. (Rule, 165) Wilson recommended "one unified and sound doctrine" in the Rule of Reason to combat ambiguity; his recommendation of "one maner of language" in the Arte was a stylistic extension of that same

doctrine.3^

the seconde Proposicion, it is not so ment, for it signifieth by a Métaphore the power, strength, or might of God." (Rule, 162 - 163) One of the single most significant examples of this type of ambiguity in punctuation is found in Nicholas Udall's play Roister Doister Joseph Quincy Adams noted that the play was most likely written while Udall was headmaster at Eton, around the same time that Wilson attended the school. Wilson, as a close aquaintance of Udall, would probably have been familiar with this comedic source of mispunctuation. Roister, in an effort to woe a widow, writes her a romantic letter detailing his affections only to have it read to her by another man in a manner which turns the meaning completely to the contrary. The intent of his words was as follows ". . .That ye be worthie fauour; of no liuing man to be abhorred; of euery honest man to be taken for a woman enclined to vice nothing at all; to vertue giuing hir due price. Wherfore, concerning mariage, ye are thought suche a fine paragon as nere honest man bought. And now by these presents I doe you aduertise That 1 am minded to marie you—in no wyse for your goodes and substance. .. " But when Roister's letter was read to the lady by another man attempting to undermine his efforts it was read as follows: "For (as I heare say) suche your conditions are that ye be worthie fauour of no liuing man. To be abhorred of euery honest man; to be taken for a woman enclined to vice; nothing at all to vertue gyuing hir due price.

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By aligning his unified standard of language with the virtue of plainness, Wilson additionally combated the ambiguity he associated with Iatinate language and Roman Catholicism. Wilson wanted to avoid the pomposity of inkhorn terms and a doctrine of one plain standard allowed him to keep not only verbose language in check, but also the Catholic elements of his society which he saw shrouded in equal obscurity and ambiguity. With "one maner of language," Wilson simultaneously could improve the efficiency of the hierarchy, reduce the threat that ambiguity and obscurity posed to society, and fight against a Catholicism he saw shrouding his country in darkness. Wilson identified archaic Latin and verbose Iatinate English derivatives that he associated with Catholicism as primary sources of ambiguity and obscurity. The Catholic darkness Wilson saw threatening his country was typified by the clerks of the time: The mistical! wise menne, and Poeticall Clerkes, will speake nothyng but quaint proverbes, and blynde allegories, delityng muche in their awne darkenesse, especially, when none can tell what thei dooe saie. (516/188)

Wherfore concerning mariage, ye are thought suche a fine paragon, as nere honest man bought. And now by these presented I do you aduertise that I am minded to marrie you in no wise. . . " Nicholas Udall, "Roister Doister," in Chief PreShakespearean Dramas: A Selection of Plays Illustrating the History of the English Drama from Its Origin Down to Shakespeare, ed. Joseph Quincy Adams (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), 448-452.

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He also criticized the "Frenche Englishe" and "Englishe Italianated" of gentlemen who would return from the continent and "pouder their talke with oversea language." (515/188) He was further wary of the temptation to fall back into the obscure Latin of antiquity (515-516/188-189). The allegories Wilson addressed were "blynde" because the Sixteenth Century man could no longer understand their contexts. Wilson connected his attack on archaic, latinate usages with a potent criticism of Roman Catholicism and though the connection between the arcane latinate and the Roman Catholic church was not explicity stated, it would have been hard to miss. Just as Wilson attacked the "blynde allegories" of the clerks, he attacked the "blynde custome" of the Catholic church: . . . where we are taught by nature, to knowe the ever livyng God, and to worship him in spirite, we turnyng natures light, into blynde custome, without Goddes will, have used at lengthe to beleve, that he was really with us here in yearthe, and worshipped hym not in spirite, but in Copes, in Candlestickes, in Belles, in Tapers, and in Censers, in Crosses, in Banners, in shaven Crounes and long Gounes, and many good morowes els, devised onely by the phantasie of manne, without the expresse will of God. (252253/74-75) That blindness also took on the form of needless digression and was typified, according to Wilson, by the Catholic foregrounding of Mary often at the expense of

Jesus. Digression or a "rovyng with out reason" (363/~) 4 ® was seen by Wilson as an errant wandering which could possibly lead one as far astray as the "Rome gates": . . . [One] talking of the general resurrection hath made a large matter of our blessed Lady, praisyng her to be so ientle, so courtise, and so kynd, that it were better a thousandfould to make sute to her alone then to Christ her sonne. And what needed (I pray you) any suche rehersal beyng both ungodly, and nothyng at al to the purpose? for what maketh the praise of our lady to the confirmacion of the general dowme? Would not a man thinke him mad that havyng an earnest errand from London to Dover, would take it the next way to ride first into Northfolke. next into Essex, and last into Kent? And yet assuredly many an unlearned and wittelesse man hath straied in his talke much farther a great deale. yea truelv as farre. as hence to Rome gates. (364/121-122) Obscurity and digression would have lead the orator eventually to the very threshold of Catholicism for Wilson.

My primary criticism of the Medine edition of the Arte is that it does not include marginalia found in the original. If Medine had included the marginal comment, "Rovyng with out reason," it would be found on p. 121 of his edition. Crafton includes it on p. 363.

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Wilson did not stop here, however, but made the web of correspondences even stronger by connecting obscurity and darkness to that which was surely evil: Some burden their talke with nedelesse copye, and will seme plentiful!, when they shoulde be shorte. An other is so curious and so fine of his tongue, that he can not tell in all the worlde what to speake. Everie sentence semeth commune, and everye worde generallye used, is thought to be folyshe, in his wise judgemente. Some use so manye interpositions bothe in their talke and in their writinge, that they make their sayinges as darke as hell. Thus whan faultes be knowen, they may be avoyded: and vertue the soner may take place, when vice is forsene, and eschewed as evill. (529/194) Wilson thus connected obscurity, latinate language, darkness, Catholicism, and evil together in an intricate correspondence that interwove his discussion of language and decorum into the whole fabric of his Reformation society. His stylistic recommendations, of course, prescribed just the opposite set of connectionsunderstanding, a unified standard of language, light or enZ/gÄ/enment, Protestantism, and goodness. Wilson's "one maner of language," a sweeping reform designed to bring plainness to the Tudor world, thus reinforced the hierarchy by ( 1 ) increasing the efficiency of communication between a superior and inferior and (2) combatting the use of ambiguity and obscurity by weaving the doctrine of a unified language into a series of accepted Protestant correspondences.

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Wilson, however, was possibly uncomfortable with the assimilative implications of recommending "one maner of language," particularly when that one standard was the "kynges English." The unified standard suggested by Wilson acted as a form of assimilation towards God and the more godly. The king, in the hierarchy of the Great Chain was the most perfect and godly of all mortals and imitation of the King in any manner would have lifted the Tudor individual closer to God, the unity in language leading man towards a closer unity with God. The possibility that Wilson was aware of such an assimilative effect and uncomfortable with it is suggested by a rather interesting omission in Wilson's treatise: the lack of any reference to the Tower of Babel. The omission is curious on two accounts. First, the Arte is replete with Biblical references used at almost every opportunity within the work. Second, Wilson was not afraid to make references to man overstepping his divinely determined bounds. In fact, Wilson referred to giants that defy nature on three different occasions in the Arte. One reference was to Goliath (221/61), the second mentioned how "It were a fowle thinge, that brute beastes shoulde obeye the lawe of Nature, and menne like Gyauntes shoulde fighte againste Nature" (280/86), and the third recalled a striking story from Ovid about giants which "were bom of thearth, builded greate hilles that mounted up to heaven, minding thereby to be at utter defiaunce with God and al his aungelles." (281/86) And yet, Wilson at no time mentioned the Tower of Babel, a reference which at the least would have been the perfect compliment to the example from Ovid. Wilson

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may have avoided any reference to the Tower of Babel in the Arte because the sin perpetrated at Babel was completely antithetical to Wilson's agenda: the assimilation attempted by the tower builders at Babel was a sin in God's eye made possible by one manner of language shared among men. Any reference to the Tower of Babel in the Arte immediately would have suggested the wickedness of espousing "one maner of language." God after the sin committed at Babel kept people in their rightful place in the Great Chain by diversifying language, not unifying it. Though we will never know with certainty his mind on this matter, the omission by Wilson of a such a well known reference in a work overflowing with Biblical citations and references to man's arrogant attempts to reach above his Godgiven bounds suggests that Wilson could have been uneasy about the assimilation implied by his "one maner of language." This potential omission does bring up an interesting point: Wilson, regardless of his views on the Tower of Babel account, still had to acknowledge that God had created a hierarchy within which language was diversified, not unified. God had created language and that language contained variety. Variety was, first, not only symptomatic and descriptive of the Great Chain; it was also, second, a necessary instrument for adapting to hierarchical diveristy, and, third, a rhetorical tool designated for use by God's elect to raise up the lumpish wits of the common man so that he could be kept in a state of civility and brought closer to God.

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Wilson's addressed the importance of language diversity and variety under the stylistic virtues of composition and exornation. Composition, for Wilson, was a matter of maintaining a natural order and diversity as well as the God-given sense of degree inherent within the hierarchy: Who is so folyshe as to saye the counsayle and the kynge, but rather the Kinge and his counsayle. the father and the sonne, and not the contrary. And so likewise in al other, as they are in degree firste. evermore to set them formoste. (527/193) Proper composition reflected the natural order of the society and the cosmos: Some will set the carte before the horse, as thus. My mother and my father are both at home, even as thoughe the good man of the house ware no breaches, or that the graye Mare were the better Horse. And what thoughe it so happeneth (God wotte the more pitye) yet in speakinge at the leaste, let us kepe a natural order, and set the man before the woman for maners sake. (526/193) Additionally, even though an orator might use a natural order, he might use the wrong natural order on any one particular speaking occasion. Language too precise, delicate, and poetic in its order and structuring might be used on gentlemen when it was more fit for ladies: Some will speake oracles, that a man cannot tell, whiche waie to take th[ei]m, some will be so fine, and so Poeticall with all, that to their semyng,

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there shall not stände one heire amisse, and yet every body els shall thinke them meter for a ladies chamber, then for an earnest matter, in any open assemblie. (525/192) In this example, the overly poetic and unintended deviation from the appropriate natural word order resulted in an unintended cosmic consequence: speech that should have been ordered to target men in the hierarchy instead targeted women. A speech that deviated from an appropriate internal organization resulted in an inappropriate externa! target audience of women. Language diversity thus reflected the variety of different orders within the hierarchy: order for men was different than order for women. Diversity of language, for Wilson, also kept composition from remaining uninteresting. Variety was necessary to avoid tediousness: Some will tell one thinge xx. times, nowe in, nowe out, and when a man would thinke they had almost ended, they are ready to beginne againe as freshe as ever they were. Suche vayne repetitions declare both wante of witte and lacke of learninge. Some are so homely in all their doynges, and so grosse for their invention, that they use althogether one manner of trade, and seke no varietie to eschewe tediousnes. (528-529/194) Wilson needed to acknowledge the fact that his unified standard of language needed variety in order to maintain the interest of audiences. His "one maner of language" needed to avoid using only "one manner of trade."

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His discussion of exornation, the fourth part of elocution, placed an even greater emphasis on variety: Exornation is a gorgiousse beautifiynge of the tongue with borowed wordes, and chaung of sentence of speache, with muche varietie. (530/194-195) Variety in exornation, like composition, was a means of avoiding tediousness and quickening the dullness of a man's brain. Wilson recommended that the orator not speak "al in one sort": . . varietie doth muche good to avoide tediousenes, for he that speaketh al in one sort though he spake thinges never so wittely shal sone wery his hearers. Figures therfore wer invented to avoide sacietie, and cause delite: to refreshe with pleasure and quicken with grace, the dulnesse of mans braine. Who wil Ioke of a whit waul an houre together, where no workemanship is at al? (553/205) Wilson found that those first given the gift of utterance to uplift man, the preachers, were often the very ones that neglected to delight the common people with variety: Yea, the preachers of God, mynd so muche edefiying of soules, that thei often forget, we have any bodies. And therefore, some doo not so muche good with tellyng the truthe, as thei doe harme with dullyng the hearers. . . (464/166)

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Variety allowed the preacher to delight his audience and simultaneously encourage an assimilation by lifting towards God the "heavie loden wittes" typical of "our lompishe and unweldie natures": . . . assuredly nothyng is more nedefull, then to quicken these heavie loden wittes of ours, and muche to cherishe these our lompishe and unweldie natures, for except menne finde delight, thei will not long abide: delight theim, and wynne theim: werie theim, and you lose theim for ever. . . . Therefore, even these auncient preachers, must now and then plaie the fooles in the pulpite, to serve the tickle eares of their fleetyng audience, or els thei are like some tymes to preache to the bare walles, for though the spirite bee apte, and our will prone, yet our fleshe is so heavie, and humours so overwhelme us, that wee cannot without refreshyng, long abide to heare any one thyng. Thus we se, that to delight is nedefull, without the whiche, weightier matters will not be heard at all. . . ( 186/47) Variety was seen by Wilson as a way to uplift man and he created a series of overlapping images and correspondences suggesting the possibility of assimilation. Man's condition was serious and "weightie"; his flesh, too, was "heavie" with sin and bodily desires brought about by an imbalance of humours. From this condition, often compared to 'darkness', the preacher had to persuade a base man to follow the righteous light of God. In short, the delight that came from variety caused man to rise out of darkness, enlightened by seeing God's light, with the result being that the

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heavy flesh would be made more light. Diversity of language reinforced Wilson's desire to uplift man. Wilson also acknowledged in Book III under his discussion of fable as a scheme of exornation that variety was needed simply in order to address the diversity of the multitude: The multitude (as Horace doth say) is a beast, or rather a monster that hath many heades and therefore like unto the diversitie of natures, varietie of invencion must alwaies be used. . . . The multitude must needes be made mery: and the more foolish your talke is, the more wise wil they counte it to be. And yet it is no foolishesse, but rather wisedome to wynne men by tellyng of fables to heare of Gods goodnesse. (592-593/222) Where he once criticized distinctions in language amidst the different people of England, because they thwarted understanding, here he acknowledged that variety must be used because of the "diversitie of natures."

Managing the Diversity of the Hierarchy through Elocution: Wilson's Unusual Treatment of the Three Styles

Wilson faced a dilemma: social diversity brought with it language diversity and communicative dysfunction among different levels of the hierarchy. Wilson thus recommended one manner of language in order to improve communication and the

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functioning of the hierarchy. Unity in language, however, threatened to undermine the very variety inherent in language usage. Wilson's discussion of the three styles offered an unusual, if not forced, resolution of this dilemma. We must first look at Wilson's brief description of the three styles and then investigate how that explanation acted in part to resolve Wilson's dilemma. Wilson appropriated the classical three-fold breakdown of style, but made one, unusual innovation. The orator, even though he had three different styles at his disposal, was supposed to select one style for his oration and never stray from it once throughout his entire oration: Ther are iii. maner of styles or enditinges, the greate or mighty kind, when we use great wordes, or vehement figures: The smal kinde, when we moderate our heate by meaner wordes, and use not the most stirring sentences: The low kinde, when we use no Métaphores, nor translated wordes, nor yet use any amplifications, but go plainelye to worke, and speake altogether in commune wordes. Nowe in all these three kindes, the Oration is muche commended, and appeareth notable, when wee kepe us styll to that style, whiche wee firste professed, and use suche wordes as seme for that kinde of writinge most convenient. Yea, if we minde to encrease, or diminish: to be in a heate, or to use moderation: to speake pleasauntly, or speake gravelye: to be sharpe, or to

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be softe: to talke lordlye, or to speake finelie: to waxe auncient, or familiar (which al are comprehended under one of the other three:) we muste ever make oure wordes apte and agreable to that kinde of stile, whiche we firste ganne to use. For as frenche hodes do not become Lordes: so Parliament Robes are unfitting for Ladies. (530-531/195) Wilson was recommending that once we decide to use a particular style, we must use that one style throughout the entire oration and make our words "apte and agreable to that kinde of stile, which we first ganne to use" and that style only. There could be no jumping from one style to another. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Wagner is unconvinced that Wilson fully understood the concept of the three styles. 4 ' Medine notes that Wilson's discussion was "distinctly un-Ciceronian." 42 Though both of these assessments may have some merit, Wilson was not working in ignorance of classical doctrine. Wilson, instead, was attempting to marry language unity and language diversity together into one doctrine. Wilson on more than one occasion had failed to divorce the doctrines of unity and diversity. Even though he declared a desire for "one maner of language"

41

Wagner, "Thomas Wilson," 73. Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique [1560J, ed. Peter E. Medine. Commentary. (University Park, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 281 n. 195/9-12. 42

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instead of the numerous variations such as "courte talke" (519/190), he still ended up espousing distinctions in style, including one by which to "talke lordlye." (531/195) In the first passage we should rid ourselves of the distinction of "courte talke": . . . either we must make a difference of Englishe, and saie some is learned Englishe, and other some is rude Englishe, or the one is courte talke. the other is countrey speache, or els we must of necessitee, banishe al suche affected Rhetorique, and use altogether one maner of language. (519/190) But in the other passage, lordly talk is an agreeable distinction. . . . to talke lordlye. or to speake finelie: to waxe auncient, or familiar (which al are comprehended under one of the other three:) we muste ever make oure wordes apte and agreable to that kinde of stile, whiche we firste ganne to use. (531/195) He reacted against the diversity of language by recommending "one maner of language," but still recommended that we avoid using only "one manner of trade." (528-529/194) Wilson espoused "one maner of language" as a solution to the communicative dysfuntion he found operating between individuals of differing social distinction, and yet, he still acknowledged an essential need for variety when addressing individuals of diverse social stature. Wilson made an uneasy compromise between these two divergent needs when he formulated his doctrine of the three styles.

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Wilson, by keeping the three styles distinct from each other essentially separated the two opposing doctrines. The "greate or mighty" style used "great wordes, or vehement figures" which incorporated the variety Wilson deemed necessary in language. The "low kinde" of style used "no Métaphores, nor translated wordes, nor. . . any amplifications," but instead went "plainelye to worke" and used nothing but "commune wordes." Wilson thus aligned the stylistic virtues of composition and exornation with the great style and the stylistic virtue of plainness with the low style. Wilson essentially separated all matters pertaining to variety from all matters pertaining to "one maner of language." The "smal" or moderate style essentially acted as a vaguely defined "buffer" between the two opposing doctrines. Wilson's doctrine of the three styles also offers us some look at a rhetorical precept linked to social status. As we have already seen, Wilson discussed those individuals who would speak "so fine, and so Poetical!" as "meter for a ladies chamber" than for an "open assemblie." (525/192) Although he does not specifically link a particular social status to the users of each of the three styles, Wilson noted that the desires "to talke lordlye, or to speake finelie" were each incorporated under one or the other of the three styles (531/195). Fineness appears to have been the realm of the lady while lordly talk the realm of the man in the open assembly. Furthermore, Wilson also noted that "For as frenche hodes do not become Lordes: so Parliament Robes are unfitting for Ladies." (531/195) Wilson's

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separation of styles implies an unspecified, parallel, social separation. Wilson clearly believed that some language was more suitable for men than ladies and then more suitable for those noble men within parliament than lesser men without. The brief passage on the three styles also offers us a glimpse at his conception of subject matter. The three styles allow the orator some flexibility in the presentation of subject matter if he should wish "to encrease, or diminish: to be in a heate, or to use moderation: to speake pleasauntlv. or speake eravelve: to be sharpe, or to be softe: to talke lordlye. or to speake finelie: to waxe auncient, or familiar. . . . (530/195) Grave matters or matters befitting a Lord would likely be handled under a different style than pleasant matters. Wilson never explicitly aligned categories of subject matter with each of the three styles, but we can imagine—and really go no further than imagine—a probable alignment of grave or lordly matters with the great or mighty style and pleasant matters with one of the lower two styles. Regardless of our speculation, there is still an allusion to a combined alignment between style, subject matter, and social status even though Wilson never explicitly told us the sequence of that alignment. What we do find in Wilson's discussion of the three styles is a strong parallel to the paradox of the Great Chain of Being. Just as man sought a unity with God while simultaneously celebrating the vast plenitude of God's creation, Wilson was seeking unity in language while simultaneously recognizing the necessity of its

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diversity. The parallel between style and the hierarchy becomes clear when we compare the paradoxes more closely in form. The paradox of the Great Chain of Being revolved around the concept of perfection. God's cosmos was nothing short of a singular perfection and yet that overall perfection was made up of an almost infinite number of less-than-perfect states or levels. God was more perfect than the king who was more perfect than his subjects and those subjects were more perfect than the animals and vegetation which were more perfect than the inanimate rocks, etc. The one, overall, perfect universe manifested itself in many different imperfections. Similarly, Wilson believed in one manner of language which manifested itself in many different manners (no "one manner of trade"). In short, we have the following analogy: One perfection (in the cosmos)

manifested in many varying degrees of

perfection and One manner (in langnage) manifested in many varying degrees of manner. Another way for us to view understand the parallel paradox is to compare them syllogistically. The cosmic paradox can be summed up by the following syllogisms: There is a unity (or oneness) in God's created cosmos. God's created cosmos contains a vast plenitude.

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Therefore, there is a unity (or oneness) in a vast plenitude. The cosmic paradox might also be written in the following form: The many emanate out of God's creation. God's creation is a singular oneness. Therefore, the many emanate out of a singular oneness. In a similar manner, we can phrase the stylistic paradox manifested in Wilson's rhetoric: A unified constancy is needed in language. Language contains variety. Therefore, a unified constancy is needed in variety. 43 Just as Wilson had claimed that there were a variety of individuals who must each remain constant to their position in the hierarchy, so too did Wilson claim that there were a variety of styles which must each remain constant to themselves. In short, Wilson needed to isolate his call for unity from the doctrine of variety or at least contain it in some manner. He did this by isolating the three styles from each other. The isolation of the three styles also served to reinforce social distinctions that the unity of language risked leveling. The encroachment between

43

Another variant of this syllogism might be: A unified constancy is to be found in language. Language contains variety. Therefore, a unified constancy is to be found in variety.

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unity and variety was prevented while also reinforcing distinctions in style which were reminiscent of social demarcations. On a final note, we should consider the close harmony and parallel between Wilson's remarks on style and his early remarks made regarding a person's social calling: just as "it behouveth everye man to lyve in his owne vocation. . . whereunto he was at the first appoynted" ( 177/42), so too it behooved all to "kepe us styll to that style, whiche wee firste professed" (530/195) and "make oure wordes apte and agreable to that kinde of stile, which we firste ganne to use." (531/195) Language contained an inherent diversity due in large part to a divinely prescribed social diversity. The static diversity described in Wilson's account of the three styles was a reflection of the static social diversity defended by Wilson at the beginning of the Arte.

Conclusion

This chapter investigated the manner in which Thomas Wilson integrated the cosmology of the Great Chain of Being into the basic structure of his Arte of Rhetorique. Specifically, we looked at the ways Wilson sought to manage the diversity of his society in light of the two paradoxical impulses governing cosmology: ( 1 ) the desire to assimilate towards an ultimate unity with God and (2) the desire to celebrate and preserve the vast plenitude comprising God's creation. As long as Wilson could manage the diversity of his society as he did in Books I and

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II without bringing the two, paradoxical impulses into direct conflict with each other, Wilson's reworking of classical rhetorical precepts adapted to the needs of his Sixteenth Century society without "violating" the major classical taxonomies or prescriptions for rhetoric. When, however, he brought the two, contradictory impulses into direct conflict as he did in Book III by prescribing unity and variety, Wilson was forced to rework classical rhetorical precepts in a decidely unclassical manner. Without the ability to downplay one of the two contradictory impulses, Wilson was forced to integrate both impulses into one classical taxonomy of style (under the four parts or qualities of elocution) while still keeping the two as isolated as possible from each other (through their separation within the three styles). Wilson's attempt at resolving the paradox also mirrored his views on society. Unity was a goal for both man and language, but both required a serious committment to the diversity inherent in each of them. Wilson was, in large part, caught up in a paradox that affected many humanists in Tudor England. Wilson, like many contemporaries of his time, was at heart a staunch humanist, a man concerned with lifting his fellow man out of darkness and ignorance and towards a more enlightened and uplifted state in the eyes of God and His civil society. Wilson, however, was also inextricably tied to that rather rigid, cosmological view of society which did not relish the social mobility that humanism ideally proffered. He was part of a budding humanist impulse which gave him room for upward, social growth and yet it was very likely

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the favor that Wilson's family gained in suppressing the Pilgrimage of Grace, thus preserving the hierarchy and order of the kingdom, which made possible Wilson's initial upward mobility. Advancement was an ideal, but order, more often than not, was the rule of the day. Arthur Ferguson summed up the dilemma perhaps better than anyone: On the one hand they liked to think that status, dignity, and true nobility should come from virtue and accomplishments rather than from birth or inherited wealth. On the other they held to the conservative ideal of a society of strict hierarchy. As scholars they could hardly help but see, like More's Utopians, that reason and the protean quality of human nature knew no class. As Renaissance Englishmen, they found it difficult, often impossible, not to recognize the customary social divisions and to fear an equalitarianism that they identified with the wildest religious radicalism and saw periodically erupting in actual unrest, even rebellion. 44 Wilson, as we have already seen, found an ideal exemplar in David, the enlightened, but completely obedient and selfless servant who became king through the grace of God, his ultimate superior. David, however, was an elusive, ideal answer to an

44

Ferguson, Articulate Citizen, 187-188. See also Fritz Caspari, Humanism and the Social Order in Tudor England, Classics in Education, ed. by Lawrence A. Cremin, no. 34 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954; New York: Columbia University, Teachers College Press, 1968), 19.

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enigmatic paradox. Wilson's conception of rhetoric, particularly his concept of style, did not share such a luxury.

CHAPTER THREE: THE NEAR-OMNIPOTENCE OF PEACHAM'S ORATOR

ARTICULATING

THE CORRESPONDENCES OF THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD VIEW

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. The secret mischiefs that I set abroach I lay unto the grievous charge of others. Clarence, who I, indeed, have cast in darkness, I do beweep to many simple gulls, Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham; And tell them t'is the Queen and her allies That stir the King against the Duke my brother. Now, they believe it; and withal whet me To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey. But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil; And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ, And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. (RichardIII. I.iii.324-338)1

1

All references to the play are from King Richard III, ed. Antony Hammond, The Arden Shakespeare (London and New York: Routledge, 1981 ). All underlining in subsequent references is mine. 115

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If there was anything that terrified the Tudors more than the presence of evil in their world, it was the presence of evil that could not be detected. Richard III, as portrayed by Shakespeare, was the quintessence of that nearly undetectable evil. I say nearly undetectable, because in Shakespeare's account, Richard III was eventually detected and destroyed, albeit only after he had ruined many lives and nearly the entire English realm. What made Shakespeare's Richard III so dangerous was his ability to avoid detection. He was a master at disguising and hiding his wickedness. The only way that anyone could have expected to stop Richard or anyone else of wicked ilk was to pay close attention to the righteously ordered world of God's creation and hope to discern some anomaly in the world indicative of the presence of evil. The wickedness of such a malevolent individual would stand out in some manner, however small, against the backdrop of a virtuous world. What made Shakespeare's Richard III so tragic was the inability of so many Tudor individuals to recognize the signs of Richard's wickedness in their world in time to avoid a premature demise. What ultimately did stop Richard III in Shakespeare's account was the attentiveness of a rather minor character, Lord Stanley, who first detected Richard's wickedness and then helped to instigate his downfall. In large part, when Henry Peacham described the ideal orator in his Garden of Eloquence, he was describing the Lord Stanleys of the world, men who understood their world in its most minute detail, men who could detect the anomalies of evil in their midst, and finally articulate their observations in a manner sufficiently timely to preserve the order of God's world. The orator was the man who understood the delineation of the hierarchy and could articulate it as needed.

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He could differentiate the duties assigned to different individuals in the hierarchy and the manners in which superiors and inferiors should communicate. He was a man who understood that the copia generated through stylistic devices could be used to describe the copia of his own world. And the more he understood the delineation of his own world, the closer he came to a God-like understanding of the divinely planned cosmic plenitude. Unlike Thomas Wilson, Henry Peacham was not constrained to work within a five-canon, classical, rhetorical taxonomy.

The Garden of Eloquence, addressing

only the stylistic canon of rhetoric, contained considerably less structure than the Arte of Rhetorique. Whereas the latter integrated a large number of coordinate and subordinate ideas into a full-fledged, classical taxonomic structure, the former brought together nearly two hundred stylistic devices with considerably less organization. The treatise divided figures into two primary sections, the first dealing the tropes and the second dealing with schemes. A trope was defined as "an artificiall alteration of a work, or a sentence, from the proper and natural signification to another not proper, but yet nigh, & likely." 2 Schemes or "schemates" as Peacham called them were defined as "those figures or forms of speaking, which do take away the wearisomnesse of our common speech, and do fashion a pleasant, sharpe,

2

Henry Peacham, Garden of Eloquence ( 1593). Introduction by William G. Crane (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1954), 1. All future citations of Peacham will be to this (second and more expansive) edition and page numbers will be referenced in the text. Pages incorrectly numbered are corrected by me and shown in square brackets within parentheses as so: ([61]) All underlining made within the citations is mine.

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and euident kind of expressing our meaning." (40) 3 Tropes were divided into those dealing with words (including metaphora) and those dealing with sentences (including allegoria). Schemes were divided into three "orders": the first order included schemes dealing with words which was further divided into figures of repetition, omission, conjunction, and separation. The second order included schemes dealing with sentences which were divided into figures of exclamation, moderation, consultation, and permission; the third order was devoted entirely to amplification and was divided four-fold into distributio, descriptio, comparatio, and co/leciio. The Garden of Eloquence formally devoted entries to one hundred and seventy two stylistic figures. It is difficult to identify the total number of figures actually covered in the treatise, however, because Peacham often discussed more than one figure under more than one name. In some cases two figures shared a common third name. In others, two differently named figures in completely different sections of the text shared a similar definition and even identical examples. For instance, paroemia (or proverbe) "a sentence or forme of speech much used, and commonly knowen," was designated as a trope of sentences, while gnome, "a saying pertaining to the maners and common practises of men" about what "in this life ought to be done, or left vndone," was designated as a figure of collectio under the third order of amplification. Similarly, hyperbole, the ability to "amplifie the greatnesse or smalnesse of things by exceeding similitude" was classified as a trope of sentences while auxesis, "amplifying by putting a greater word for a lesse" was 3

Figure is defined as a "forme of words, oration, or sentence made new by art, differing from the Vulgar maner & custome of writing or speaking." (1)

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classified as a figure of comparatio under the third order of amplification. Numerous other figures of close similarity were spread across many of the categories. Several figures were identified simply as abuses or misuses of other figures included in the above count. Such abuses were often only mentioned in passing and not given full entries of their own. With the potential redundancies in terms and the brief naming of figurai abuses, the total number of figures mentioned in the Garden of Eloquence totals somewhere around two hundred in what was a loose taxonomy at best. Additionally, the form and content of Peacham's Garden of Eloquence further contrasts with Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique in the manner in which Peacham treated the two cosmological impulses. Peacham's engagement of both plenitude and assimilation differed from Wilson's in three significant respects. First of all, Peacham's conception of Godly assimilation was not necessarily at complete odds with the impulse to celebrate the plenitude of God's creation. Though Peacham did address assimilation as a movement towards a heavenly pole in more than one instance, he also believed that we grew closer to God by simply increasing our understanding of the cosmic plenitude established by God. The more we understood the hierarchy as God intended it to exist, the more we became like God. Thus, the orator became one with God by becoming more familiar with God's ultimate blueprint for the world. This conception of movement towards God diminished the conflict between the impulses to assimilate and celebrate plenitude, by integrally relating assimilation to an understanding of plenitude. Peacham's broadened treatment of assimilation, thus, was two-fold: it still included a conception of assimilation as (1) a movement up the chain towards the more

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heavenly pole, but also included (2) assimilation as a greater understanding of the plenitude as God understood it. Peacham's conceptions of the two cosmic impulses were thus no longer mutually exclusive. Second, even when Peacham did emphasize the paradoxical aspects of the two impulses, his taxonomic structure was well suited to avoid a direct conflict. The Garden of Eloquence was so loosely structured that no stylistic device was linked to any other in any great manner. As we saw. Wilson could not link his "one maner of language" to the classical virtue of plainness without acknowledging the accompanying classical virtue of exornation. Wilson was forced by the highly structured, classical taxonomy he appropriated to bring notions of unity and diversity into near conflict with each other under the four virtues or parts of elocution and the three styles. Peacham, on the other hand, was able to address both the impulse to assimilate towards God (through movement up the chain) and the impulse to celebrate plenitude without bringing either into much direct conflict with the other. Peacham, for instance, focused on the plenitude of the hierarchy when he announced under the figure of taxis that different roles in society required different duties among men such that The diuine wisedome hath assigned Kings to raigne, Iudges to heare causes and give sentence, Aduocates to plead, subiects to obey, the wise to give counsell, and the rich to give almes. ([61]) Peacham, however, was also able to address the impulse to assimilate up the chain towards God under the figure of hyperbole: . . . by this figure the Orator either lifteth vp high or casteth downe low, either stretcheth things to the vttermost length, or presseth them to the least

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quantitie: so high is the reach, and so wide is the compassé of this figure that it mounteth to the highest things, compasseth the widest, and comprehendeth the greatest. (33) Because each of the stylistic devices essentially stood alone in the Garden of Eloquence—taxis, for instance, was not linked in any obvious manner to hyperbole—Peacham was able to present potentially conflicting ideas without much regard to their eventual confrontation. Third, Peacham's rhetorical manual was much more inclined towards an emphasis on plenitude than assimilation. His discussion of stylistic copia simply married itself better to a consideration of plenitude—the copia of the world—rather than assimilation. In other words, though there may have been many different ways to describe the near infinite number of rungs on the ladder, there were considerably less ways to describe going up and down that ladder. The purpose of this chapter will be to explore the manner in which Peacham's rhetoric was influenced by the overwhelming sense of hierarchy permeating the Sixteenth Century world view. The chapter will focus first on Peacham's description of the orator as a near-omnipotent figure capable of manipulating individuals at will and then show how such a figure served not as a Machiavel, but rather as a noble God-on-earth for the preservation of the hierarchy. As we will see, an understanding of God's cosmos and the minute particulars of the physical and social world by Peacham's orator, consummate with his position in the grand cosmic scheme, not only helped the orator fulfill his duty as messenger and counselor of God in bringing order to the regions of the hierarchy below him, but also helped him to perceive any disorder in that hierarchy. It was, furthermore, an

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ability to articulate any disorder, allowing for its subsequent correction, which was the mark of Peacham's Godly orator. We find such an orator in the character of Lafeu in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well which will be discussed in this chapter. And since Brian Vickers posited that no Renaissance rhetorician was a match for Shakespeare's Richard III, we will use Richard III as a litmus test by which to validate the power of Peacham's orator. The ability to discern the hierarchy and then detect, articulate, and vanquish evil within it defined Peacham's orator and the character of Lord Stanley in Shakespeare's Richard III. The chapter will conclude with a final look at how Peacham's conception of metaphors of the senses corresponded with the duties of the Godly orator to discern, detect, articulate, and correct his hierarchy.

The near-omnipotent orator

A look at the first and second editions of Henry Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence quickly reveals the emphasis placed on the orator as a force of truly great power. In the first edition ( 1577), the dedicatory epistle made the following boastful claim: . . . the Orator may leade his hearers which way he list, and draw them to what affection he will. . . briefly to be moued with any affection that shall serve but for his purpose. By figures he may make his speech as clear as the noone day: or contraywyse, as were with cloudes and foggy mistes, he may couer it with darkenesse, he may stirre up stormes, & troublesome tempestes, or contrariwyse, he may set forth any matter with a goodly

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perspecuitie, and paynt out any person, deede or thing, so cunninglye with these colores, that it shall seeme rather a lyuely Image paynted in tables, then a reporte expressed with the tongue. 4 The orator's power was clearly demonstrated by this passage. The orator amounted to an early predecessor of Shakespeare's Prospero. He was a man with near magical abilities to control the cosmos with his speech. Peacham's second edition ( 1593) acknowledged that the audience was truly at the disposal of the eloquent orator: . . . he may preuaile much in drawing the mindes of his hearers to his owne will and affection: he may winde them from their former opinions, and quite alter the former state of their mindes, he may moue them to be of his side, to hold with him, to be led by him, as to moume or to maruel, to loue or to hate, to be pleased or to be angry, to fauour, to desire or to be satisfied, to feare or to hope, to enuy, to abhorre, to pittie, to reioyce, to be ashamed, to repent, and finally to be subiect to the power of his speech whither soeuer it tendeth. (121) He was a man with a potent ability to achieve his goals and at times he could resemble a wrathful or compassionate God: The Orator by helpe hereof either renteth all in pieces like the thunder, or else by little and little, like the flowing water creepeth by gentle meanes into the consent of his hearers. (121) But just in case the reader missed the significance of these potent claims, Peacham made the near-deific power of the orator quite explicit: 4

Henry Peacham, Garden of Eloquence.

London, 1577.

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. . . so mighty is the power of this happie vnion, (I meane of wisdom & eloquence) that by the one the Oratory forceth, and by the other he allureth, and by both so worketh, that what he commendeth is beloued, what he dispraiseth is abhorred, what he perswadeth is obeied, & what he disswadeth is auoided, so that he is in a maner the emperour of mens minds & affections, and next to the omnipotent God in the power of perswasion. by grace & diuine assistance. (ABiijv) The near-omnipotent orator clearly was supported by "grace and diuine assistance", but it is still hard to imagine that Peacham would have published a book designed to create an educated body of orators spread throughout England "next to omnipotent God [and possibly above the monarch?] in the power of perswasion." If this was all Peacham had to say about the orator and his power then this might be problematic, but The Garden of Eloquence does supply us with two more useful insights. First, under his discussion of metaphor (which will be covered in more depth later), Peacham described an entire category of metaphors which depicted man as God. His description of these metaphors revealed a God-like quality (similar to that found in Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique) infused in all people regardless of social rank: . . . by calling the Gods he signifieth from whom they have their authoritie, whose place they supply, whose person they present, and whose example they ought to follow, both in executing of iustice, and in shewing of mercy. Thus in one word they are put in mind what they are, or what they ought to be, and being as they should be, that they ought so to continue. (13) Peacham like Wilson recognized that the God-like "executing of justice" and the "shewing of mercy" were not activities reserved by the Tudors solely for those at

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the top of the social hierarchy. Both justice and mercy could be dispensed by any superior to any inferior whether that inferior was a wife, a son or daughter, a servant, a courtier, or a criminal. The converse was also implicitly indicated: one should practice obedience to one's superior just as one should practice obedience to God regardless of one's social rank. The second assumption Peacham made about the near-omnipotent orator came under his discussion of diatyposis, the commanding of profitable rules and precepts, and reflected the commonly held belief first seen in Wilson that rhetoric and language were the gifts of God for the betterment of mankind, gifts that helped bring order and civilization out of chaos and a reasoned life out of a beastly existence. It was under this figure that the reader saw orators as recognized messengers or counselors of God, as "conduits of wisedom." dutifully keeping the socio-cosmic hierarchy below them in the Great Chain from falling into a state of chaos: The practice and vse of this forme doth necessarily require grauity and authoritie in the speaker and rule giuer: Examples hereof are the Patriarks, Apostles, Lawmakers, magistrates, parents & gouernours, for from these (as conduits of wisedom. ordeined by almightie God for our direction) we receiue the holesome rules and profitable counsell of life, by which we are guided through f wilderness of this life illuminated in the middest of our darkenesse, and supported from falling into wilful confusion. By this forme, the wisdome of the Creator giueth preceptes to his creatures, Patriarcks to their posterity, Prophets to their people, Princes to their subiects, Parents to their children, and old age to tender youth. (92)

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The orator as this passage indicates was only one part of a long, repetitively patterned, Godly conduit extending down from the Almighty through the hierarchy and passing from each superior to each inferior regardless of their stations in life. As God gave rhetoric to mankind in order to establish order, each man in turn used rhetoric on those below him to further establish God's order. If all of the superiors kept all of their respective inferiors in order through the skillful use of rhetoric, then the whole hierarchy would work together as it was naturally intended by God. 5 As a consequence of the downward focus given to Peacham's nearomnipotent orator, it followed that the orator nearer the top of the hierarchy was going to have a much greater sense of order and understanding than the orator below him in social rank; the superior, after all, was closer to God in the Great Chain. To understand how the superior was more perfect and closer in similitude to God while all ranks still maintained the ability to be Godly, we must turn to the standard work on governance in the Sixteenth Century, Thomas Elyot's The Book named The Governor. Elyot articulated the commonly held view that the superior was endowed with a more perfect sense of order and disposition than the inferior. Now to return to the estate of mankind, for whose use all the said creatures were ordained of God, and also excelleth them all by prerogative of knowledge and wisdom. It seemeth that in him [the superior] should be no 5

And so Shakespeare's The Tempest brought restored order from chaos under the wise and Godly guidance of Prospero who controlled all men below him from the most noble to the most base. His magical and noble power placed him at the cusp between the human and the divine while the lowest man under his rule, Caliban, existed at the boundary between human and beast. Also see W.H. Greenleaf, Order, Empiricism, and Politics: Two Traditions of English Political Thought: 1500-1700 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 17.

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less providence of God declared than in the inferior creatures, but rather with a more perfect order and disposition. And therefore it appeareth that God giveth not to every man like gifts of grace, or of nature, but to some more, some less, as it liketh His Divine Majesty. 6 In addition to the "more perfect order and disposition" given to some men by God. those same men were also given a greater understanding. It was this greater understanding, given to one man over another at his creation, which Elyot used to justify the superior's position in the hierarchy. The man with this greater gift, closer in similitude to God's understanding than others, was entitled to a high social position where all below him could readily profit from his God-given abilities: . . . for as much as understanding is the most excellent gift that man can receive in his creation, whereby he doth approach most nigh unto the similitude of God, which understanding is the principal part of the soul, it is therefore congruent and according that as one excelleth another in that influence, as thereby being next to the similitude of his maker, so should the estate of his person be advanced in degree of place where understanding may profit; which is also distributed into sundry uses, faculties, and offices, necessary for the living and governance of mankind. (Governor, 4) Superiors, made greater by God in understanding, were dutifully required to disperse and distribute prudent advice to those below them in the chain. They were in essence the "conduits of wisdom" described by Henry Peacham. The superiors in

^Thomas Elyot, The Book named The Governor ( 1531 ), ed. S.E. Lehmberg, Everyman's Library (London: Dent; New York: Dutton, 1962), 4. Future references will be made in the text.

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Elyot's description were likened unto angels and the elemental fire which each occupied high positions in the great cosmic chain: And like as the angels which be most fervent in contemplation be highest exalted in glory (after the opinion of holy doctors), and also the fire, which is the most pure of elements and also doth clarify the inferior elements, is deputed to the highest sphere or place, so in this world they which excel other in this influence of understanding, and do employ it to the detaining of other within the bounds of reason and show them how to provide for their necessary living, such ought to be set in a more high place than the residue where they may see and also be seen, that by the beams of their excellent wit, showed through the glass of authority, other of inferior understanding may be directed to the way of virtue and commodious living. (Governor, 4) Elyot's The Castel of Helth also discussed fire as a means to "clarify the inferior elements" and supported the belief that the superior brought order to the more chaotic state below him. Fire, the most superior and celestial of the four basic constituents of matter was "the clarifier of other dementes [air, water, and earth], if they be vycyate or out of their naturall temperaunce" 7 Just as fire clarified the unnatural elements beneath, so did those men that excelled in understanding 'clarify' the unnatural, more chaotic, disruptions of those people below them that did not have the "more perfect order and disposition." (Governor, 4) 8 Thus, Elyot's 7

Thomas Elyot, The Castel of Helth ( 1541 ) (n.p.: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, n.d), B.i.v. Future references will be made in the text. 8 Peacham portrayed the figure ofparoemia, proverb, in a similar celestial manner. The figure was Godly in all its light and glory. ". . . in them [proverbs] there is contained a general! doctrine of direction, and particular rules for all duties in all persons. Finally, for their perspicuitie they are like the most bright and glorious

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discussions help to elucidate our view of Peacham's near-omnipotent orator, he was a man acting as a functionary of God, as a conduit for God's wisdom and a clarifier of disorder, who existed at all levels of the social hierarchy, but he was inherently more gifted in his understanding, order, and disposition, when he was higher up the chain.

A God-like Understanding: Discerning and Articulating the Distinctions in the Hierarchy

The orator (and the governor) who perceived and understood the multifaceted diversity of God's divine cosmos understood not only his own role in the world, but also the role of all other people. He understood the nature of different animals, and even different physical environs. His understanding of the world helped him not only to realize his own place in the vast cosmic scheme, but also guided him in recognizing and avoiding dangers in the world of which the less attentive man would be unaware. Again, Thomas Elyot offers us a useful example which will help us to understand Peacham on this point. Elyot, in a discussion of the importance of mapping our world, offered his readers Alexander the Great as an example of the wisest, discerning individual. What Elyot showed his reader about Alexander was the importance of understanding the copia of the world:

starres of the firmament, which as they are more excellent then others in brightnesse and glorie, so are they more looked vpon, more admired, and more beloued, and as they excell others in the dignitie of light, so are they more distantly remoued and more thinly dispersed." (30-31 )

. . . there is none so good learning as the demonstration of cosmography of material figures and instruments, having a good instructor. And surely this lesson is both pleasant and necessary. For what pleasure is it in one hour to behold those realms, cities, seas, rivers, and mountains, that unneth in an old man's life cannot be journeyed and pursued; what incredible delight is taken in beholding the diversities of people, beasts, fowls, fishes, trees, fruits, and herbs; to know the sundry manners and conditions of people, and the variety of their natures, and that in a warm study or parlour, without peril of the sea or danger of long and painful journeys: I cannot tell what more pleasure should happen to a gentle wit, than to behold in his own house everything that within all the world is contained. The commodity thereof knew the great King Alexander, as some writers do remember. For he caused the countries whereunto he purposed any enterprise diligently and cunningly to be described and painted, that beholding the picture, he might perceive which places were most dangerous, and where he and his host might have most easy and covenable passage. (Governor, 35-36) As the governor or navigator could map "the sundry manners and conditions of people and the variety of their natures" that he might "perceive which places were most dangerous," so the orator in a similar vein, studied the figures in the Garden of Eloquence in part to aid him in mapping the diversity and variety of nature. The Godly orator could more readily maintain order if he could map that order as minutely as possible. He was a wise man of God, an orator with the discerning powers of King Solomon as Peacham observed in his discussion of partitio, the dividing of the whole into parts:

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Salomon diuideth his whole knowledge thus: for he hath geuen me the true knowledge of the things that are, so that I know how the world was made, & the powers of the elements, the beginning, the end & middlest of times, how the times alter, and the change of seasons, the course of the yeare & situation of the starres, the nature of liuing things, the fùriousnes of beastes. the power of the winds, the imaginations of men, the diuersities of plants, and vertues of roots, & all things both secret and knowen do 1 know: for wisedome the worker of all thinges hath taught it me. ( 124)9 Figures that aided the Solomon-like orator in understanding the immense diversity of the Great Chain and its secrets included onomatopeia, descriptio, diaresis, taxis, hotysmus, epitheton, and hypozeuxis among others. A look at these figures will illustrate the orator's ability to discern and articulate the distinctions found throughout the hierarchy. Under onomatopeia, Peacham distinguished between different animals throughout the chain by the characteristic features of their voices: . . the roaring of lvons, the bellowing of buls, the blating of sheepe, the grunting of swine, the croking of frogs, the chattering of [mag] Pies, the

9 Peacham was quoting the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (Book of Sapience) 7:17-22: "For it was he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements; the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons, the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars, the natures of animals and the tempers of wild animals, the powers of spirits and the thoughts of human beings, the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots; I learned both what is secret and what is manifest, for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me." (Text taken from the NRSV. The Garden of Eloquence cites a slightly different range of verses: Sapience 7:17-20.)

churping of sparrows, the howling of dogs, the neighing of horses, y hissing of serpents. (14) Under the figure of diaresis (or divisio) Peacham announced that the discerning orator could discover the many secret causes of nature: By this figure not only liuing creatures, but also pläts, trees [,] flowers, the lights of heavê, the stones of the earth, mettais and all other such like may be divided into their several kinds, whereby the large and bountiful! worke of nature is spread abroad, and many secret causes are plainly discovered and brought into open light. (123) The power of descriptio was so great that . . . there is no creature vnder heauen, no action, no passion, no frame in art, nor countenance in man, whose true proportion and external forme is not finely counterfeited, and wonderfully imitated. ( 134) The figures could also elucidate the various proper virtues associated with each ordained level of the social hierarchy. This was especially the case in Peacham's discussion of taxis, the distribution of every subject with its "proper and naturall adiunct": Princes for their dignities, magistrates for their authoritie, rich men for their wealth, captains for their courage, counsellors for their wisdome, and holy men for their profession, are assaulted of the mightie, and enuied of the wicked, from whence it commeth that they are often either depriued of their lives or spoiled of that they possesse. (60) J axis, furthermore, could be used to announce God's intended duties for a diverse number of individuals.

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The diuine wisedome hath assigned Kings to raigne, Iudges to heare causes and give sentence, Aduocates to plead, subiects to obey, the wise to give counsell, and the rich to give almes. ([61]) Taxis, in short, could "presenteth proper countenances of persons to the eye of the minde" as well as note "the adiuncts of persons, duties of degrees, and proper words with their proper relations." ([61]) In Peacham's discussion of horysmus, a division which declared the "proper pith" of some thing, usually by the comparison of two competing definitions, the orator could discern and articulate the appropriate virtue or vice for any given act. For instance, concerning the glory of battle, Glorious victorie consisteth not in slaying of poore people, as women, children and impotent persons, with hunger and famine, wherein resteth neither fortitude, prudence, nor pollicie, but in subduing of couragious captaines, overcoming of valiant souldiers, and winning of strong and mightie cities. To this distinction, a lyke answere is made, a glorious victorie consisteth not so much in crueltie as in humanitie, not so much in shedding of blood, as in shewing of mercy. (128) Addressing the wickedness of cursing, Peacham paired wicked acts with the vices best describing them: To pore forth thy curse against thy adversary is malignity, against an innocent crueltie, against thy parent impietie, against God blasphemie. (128)10 10

As with many other figures, Peacham stressed a near-deific quality to the figure of horysmus. It was the means by which "euerie seuerall matter is euidently expressed, plainly distinguished, and brightly adorned with the shining beames of glorious eloquence." ([ 129])

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In a similar fashion, epitheton, the joining of adjectives to their proper substantives, could discern and articulate a vice associated with any particular rank of individual. In the example given by Peacham, each vice described a failure of duty associated with a particular rank of individual: To dispraise thus: Wicked counsell, rash consent, and cursed slaughter. To dispraise persons thus: Euil counselors, vnnatural parents, disobedient children, ignorant teachers, blinde guides, hypocriticall professors, etc. (147) Each adjective was distinctly suited to a unique, socially located substantive. Conversely, epitheton could also join an object or quality with its appropriate virtue: To amplifie in praise thus: Heauenly musicke, famous memorie, wonderfiill art. glorious fame. (147) And finally, under the figure of hypozeuxis, the joining of a due verb to everything, Peacham identified those acts which signaled the appearance of vice in our midst. For example, scorn of religion signaled impiety; a disdain for obedience signaled pride: Such is mans depraued nature and peruerse inclination, that taking away the vse of gouemment, euery kind of euill shal quickly oppresse euery part of goodnes, ambition shal striue for honor, pride shall disdaine obedience, malice proceede to murder, theft depriue true possessors, idlenes neglect labor, impietie scorne religion, and raging tumults violate peace, and turne a happie state into a miserable confusion. . . . (60) Hypozeuxis also could lead the orator to an understanding of the precipitous ripple effect that vice could have if allowed to run rampant throughout the Great Chain.

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Hypozeuxis helped to identify the ominous verb (or act) associated with the destruction of any and all objects or people from the more minor to the most holy: . . . wherevpon it insueth that open rebellion is raised, good men murdered, virgins defloured, holy places polluted, houses burned, cities defaced, lawes despised, the whole earth confounded, and the omnipotent power of God either little regarded or vtterly forgotten. (60) Peacham's earlier conclusion that metaphors linking God to man helped men keep in mind "what they are, or what they ought to be, and being as they should be. that they ought so to continue" (13) also applied broadly to all of the figures mentioned above. In a very real sense the detailed delineations of nature and its associated virtues and vices put in mind for the orator and his audience what God already knew: what the ordered structure of life is, or what it ought to be, and being as it should be, that it ought so to continue. 11 The orator who had a more complete understanding of the ordered structure of life was closer to omnipotent God in envisioning the Great Chain; his understanding, however, had the potential to be even greater.

' 1 And so Peacham selected an example which delineated the proper distinctions between man and Christ under homoeoteleuton, the repetition of similar ending words (which are not nouns), by placing like with like: "The first man was of the earth earthy, the second man was the Lord from Heauen heauenly." (Peacham identified the passage as ICor. 15:45. KJV identifies it as ICor. 15:47.)

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Recognizing and articulating the correspondences in nature

The ability to see the natural diversity of the hierarchy in all its glory would have been incomplete to the Tudor individual if it did not include a knowledge of the correspondences and patternings created by God throughout the entire Great Chain of Being. The Tudors believed that the entire cosmos was meant to been seen in terms of many instructive parallels existing at different levels of the hierarchy. As E.M.W. Tillyard described the world: [it] consisted of a number of planes, arranged one below another in order of dignity but connected by an immense net of correspondences. . . . The different planes were the divine and angelic, the universe or macrocosm, the commonwealth or body politic, man or the microcosm, and the lower creation. 1 2 The purpose of these planes was to present man with different models that could instruct him in the proper manner to live his own life. Even the most minute details in nature were seen as purposeful instruction by God. The lower chain, according to Tillyard, existed primarily for the moral benefit of mankind: . . . the Elizabethans looked on the lower end of the chain of being mainly in the light of themselves. Its great variety and ingenuity were indeed testimonies of the creator's wonderful power, but its main function was to provide symbols or to point morals for the benefit of man. ' 3

12

E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (New York: Vintage, 1960),

83. 13

Tillyard, 80.

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The Elizabethans believed that the animal world functioned in a manner similar to that of man's world. Keith Thomas closely documented the Elizabethans' attention to these animal parallels in his work, Man and the Natural World, 1500-1800, including their use of individual species to justify the social stratification: . . . it was not merely the hierarchy of natural species which was invoked to justify social inequalities with the human species. Even within individual natural species there were believed to be social and political divisions closely paralleling those in the human world. 14 As the Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out in Shakespeare's Henry 1', nature was a means by which to teach order to the people: Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt. Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts; •4 Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800 (n.p.: Allen Lane, 1983; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 61. Thomas even reports of an incident in the court of Elizabeth's grandfather, Henry VII, where the king supposedly got so upset at an unnatural competition among animals that the offending canines were put to death: ". . . there was at least some symbolic truth in the story that King Henry VII once ordered the execution of all mastiffs, after they had baited a lion, "being deeply displeased. . . that an illfavoured rascal cur should with such violent villainy assault the valiant lion, king of all beasts." (Man and the Natural World, 60-61 )

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Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold. The civil citizens kneading up the honey, The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate. The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, That many things, having full reference To one consent, may work contrariously: As many arrows, loosed several ways, Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's centre; So may a thousand actions, once afoot. End in one purpose, and be all well borne Without defeat. (Henry V, 1,2)

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Roger Ascham on a similar note observed that a youth should cultivate not just an understanding of nature, but also of the role of nature in himself: Young grafts grow not only soonest but also fairest, and bring always forth the best and sweetest fruit; young whelps leam easily to carry; young popinjays learn quickly to speak—and so, to be short, if in all other things, though they lack reason, sense, and life, the similitude of youth is fittest to all goodness, surely nature in mankind is most beneficial and effectual in this behalf! 5 The hierarchy was a detailed textbook that mapped out the correspondences within the Great Chain designed for Tudor instruction. Peacham's rhetoric also shared a concern for understanding and respecting the intricate connections between the various different levels of the hierarchy. Rhetoric was well suited for articulating the correspondences found in nature. In The Garden of Eloquence, the concern for identifying correspondences fell mainly to the figure of metaphor, the most thoroughly discussed of all one hundred and seventy two stylistic devices. Peacham divided his discussion of metaphor into the following sixteenth areas: metaphors from the sight from the hearing from the smelling 15

Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster (1570), edited by Lawrence V. Ryan, Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization 13 (1967; reprint, Charlottesville, North Carolina: The University Press of Virginia in association with The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1974), 34-35. All future citations to Ascham refer to this work and will be referenced in the text. All underlining made within the citations is mine.

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from feeling or touching from the tasting from the mind to the bodie from living creatures without reason, to man partaker of reason from man to the brute creature from the living to things without life from things without life to things hauing life from things senslesse to things senslesse from the offices and actions of men from certaine Substantiues very much used in translation from the foure elements from men to God from God to men (4-13) Several of these categories addressed correspondences found in nature (including Peacham's treatment of the five metaphors from the senses). Peacham's discussion of metaphors from man to brute creature most clearly demonstrated the instructive nature of correspondences: From the reasonable to the vnreasonable the vsuall translations are these and such like, as to say, the mourning doue, the musicall nightingale, the proud peacocke, the flattering dogge. By the same forme of speech we may call the emmet prouident, the cat circumspect, the spider diligent, the toad mistrustful, the rauen wise, the serpent subtle. These particular translations serve to shew how neare these creatures do come to man in these rehearsed properties. (8-9)

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The metaphors from man to brute creature immediately made the correspondence between man and animal accessible and understandable to people and it was not just a matter of ornament, but an important point of instruction for those not as familiar with the hierarchy as the orator. Metaphor exposed man to nature in all its proportion: In respect of their aptnesse to make descriptions, they are not only as pleasant colours of all kinds, but also as readie pensils pliable to line out and shadow any maner of proportion in nature. (14) The instruction that the near-omnipotent orator could give to the more ignorant inferior, indeed, could be quite useful if it was heeded and shows us the value the Tudor individual garnered from using correspondences in speech. One of the best examples occurs in Richard III when the widowed Lancastrian, Queen Margaret, cursed many of the men and women associated with Richard and the rise of the Yorkist faction to power. Although she cursed almost all, she reserved a caring thought for Lord Buckingham who, if he was not careful, would one day come to rue his close support of Richard. Her careful warning to Buckingham made good use of the lower animal sphere for instruction: O.Mar. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy hand, In sign of league and amity with thee: Now fair befall thee and thy noble house! Thy garments are not spotted with our blood, Nor thou within the compass of my curse. Buck. Nor no one here; for curses never pass The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

O.Mar. I will not think but they ascent the sky, And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace. O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog! Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites, His venom tooth will rankle to the death. Have not to do with him, beware of him; Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him, And all their ministers attend on him. (I.iii.280-294) She was one of the few who saw the signs of evil doing in her midst. Her warning that the cosmos and its order was compromised by Richard profited from her observations of nature in the lower animal chain. Margaret's close attention to the details of a dog's behavior showed her using the lower chain as it was meant to be used, as a site of instruction informing the Tudor world. ^

The detection of evil that cannot truly hide itself

Queen Margaret was one of a few characters in Richard HI who could see Richard for truly what he was throughout the play: the embodiment of all that was evil. The lack of insight into the character of this morally and physically hideous man by almost all the other characters makes this drama one of the most compelling in Shakespeare's corpus. Unfortunately, Queen Margaret was already a victim of Richard's wickedness by the time she began warning others of his foulness. If 16

Queen Margaret was also using what Peacham referred to as ominasio, the foretelling of the likeliest effects of some evil cause (90-91 ).

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people had only paid close attention to the language and the actions of Richard, his reign of havoc would likely have never occurred, because to the Tudor individual, evil was not something that could remain hidden for very long. We noted at the beginning of this chapter that it was not so much evil, but evil that could not be detected that would have most troubled the Tudor. If the evil effectively remained hidden, then it was not just a testament to the power of evil, but also a sign of fault in the person who should have been able to detect it. The attentive Tudor individual should not only have been able to recognize delineations and correspondences within the hierarchy, but also evil anomalies. The inability of evil to remain undetected for any considerable length of time was due in large part to God's simple intolerance of evil. Lacey Smith touched on this idea when he described the crime of treason in his book, Treason in Tudor England:

Politics and Paranoia: . traitors reckoned with God as well as man. Their treachery could not

long remain hidden, for 'God will have that most detestable vice both opened and punished.'" [Smith is quoting from 'An Exhortation Concerning Obedience' (1574), p.113.] 1 7 Vice would be made open and punishable, but it was never fully hidden to begin with. Evil could not hide itself completely from the view of the discerning person. Evil was, after all, a corruption of the natural state of affairs and the God-given order of the cosmos. It was a displacement or a misalignment of the copia inherent in the hierarchy, and a discriminating man or woman would (or at least should) have 17

Lacey Baldwin Smith, Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 2.

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been able to see such a distortion of the natural order. As Angel Day noted in his example ofparalepsis in The English Secretorie, a vice should be visible and not require the orator to expose it, but if necessary, he clearly could: . . . for my part I haue no pleasure to laie open other mens errors, it is inough vnto me, that by themselues they are made apparent, and that the whole worlde may see them. ' 8 Once the orator had detected wickedness in his midst, he was well prepared to handle the offender in question. He could in very Godly fashion invoke ara, a divinely ordained detestation or cursing, against a culprit for it was a figure well suited to expresse the bitternesse of the detestation within vs against some euill person, or euill thing. . . . assigned by the diuine sentence, not to curse for reward. . . but to signifie whome God doth curse, as doth the Prophets and Apostles. (64) He could also have used cataplexis (comminatio), a threatening of punishments on a person, people, city, or country, in order "to deterre and driue men from sinne and wickednesse, and to force them to repentence. . . ." (79-80) He could alternately invoke categoria (accusatio), the detecting and accusing of someone of evil to their faces. (80-81 ) One play that documents the successful detection and accusation of wickedness and sheds light on Peacham's orator is Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well. 18

Angel Day, The English Secretary ( 1599). Introduction by Robert O. Evans (Gainesville, Florida. Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1967), II, 95. Unlike the 1586 edition, the 1599 edition has two books and the page reference in this case refers to Book II of the treatise.

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All 's Well That Ends Well, found true by Lafeu

The character of Lafeu in All's Well That Ends Well as we will see acted in a manner congruent with Peacham's near-omnipotent orator. The character of Lafeu stands out in Shakespeare's corpus as a model for the Tudor man. By exposing the courtier Parolles as a fraud, Lafeu demonstrated that he could discern and articulate the anomalies associated with vice and then rectify the hierarchy as needed. He was a dramatic exemplar of Peacham's orator. All's Well That Ends Well revolved primarily around the efforts of a young man, Bertram, to avoid marriage to a young lady of lower social status, Helena, who sought throughout the play to win her lover's hand.

[ n the midst of this action,

there is an interesting subplot revolving around the superficial and odious courtier, Parolles, who seeks to overstep his social bounds. And though Parolles is somewhat of a comedic element in this play, the detection of his wicked insincerity by the upstanding courtier, Lafeu, illustrates the seriousness of this type of detection to the well being of the state. Lafeu, with a resolution befitting Peacham's orator or Elyot's Alexander in observing the finer details of his world's hierarchy, first detected the deceit of Parolles after noticing the incongruity between his dress and his apparent social status: Lafeu: I did think thee, for two ordinaries, Interestingly enough, it was the grace extended by the king to the lowly Helena which permitted her to marry someone of higher social rank. As with Wilson's David, grace in this example was the vehicle by which the inferior was advanced along the social chain.

to be a pretty wise fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might pass: yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burthen. I have now found thee; when I lose thee again, I care not: yet art thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou'rt scarce worth. (II.iii.211-220) Lafeu, in a role similar to what Peacham would assign to the orator, found the wicked Parolles. That detection by Lafeu was depicted two more times by Shakespeare in scenes involving the deceitful courtier. In one of the cases, a group of Lords in the employ of Bertram decided to see if Parolles really could live up to all his boasts of fighting prowess, knowing full well that Parolles had already been "smoked": First Lord. We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him. He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu: when his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you shall see this very night. (III.vi. 110-114) In the second case, Parolles, himself, in an effort to make amends and win the grace of Lafeu, admitted that he was 'found out': Parolles. O my good lord, vou were the first that found me!

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Lafeu: Was I, in sooth? and I was the first that lost thee. Parolles: It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for you did bring me out. (V.ii.45-50) Lafeu was a Tudor example of a virtuous man that successfully confronted another of wicked deceit that sought more advancement than his nature allowed. Lafeu, as the near-omnipotent orator, not only detected the misalignment of the natural hierarchy, but also brought it under control, back into a maintainable state of order, fulfilling the role of the superior in carrying God's order to those inferiors beneath him. Lafeu confronted Parolles in a manner akin to Peacham's recommended use of sarcasmus, a bitter derision commonly used on an enemy: The best and most lawfull vse of this Trope is to represse proud folly and wicked insolencie, and sometime leud miserie. . . . euen so the benefit of an enemies mock to a wise man, is the knowledge of his fault, and the amending of it. (38) For Lafeu, the understanding of men's natures and the taming of disorder were the keys to overcoming evil: Lafeu: . . believe this of me, there can be no kernel in this light nut [Parolles]; the soul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them tame, and know their natures. . . . we must do good against evil. (II.v.46-53)

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Peacham and Lafeu: separating and isolating good from evil

The power of Lafeu was grounded in his ability to detect the evil in his midst, adequately label it, and then separate it from the good. By detecting and articulating what was wicked, evil could be isolated and avoided, thus losing some of its power to threaten the good. Such was the case when Lafeu expressed his sentiments above: Parolles. O my good lord, you were the first that found me! Lafeu. Was I, in sooth? and I was the first that lost thee. (V.ii.45-48) Having once 'found out' Parolles, Lafeu's goal was to get rid of him as soon as possible. For as Roger Ascham warned, "ill-doings breed ill-thinkings, and of corrupted manners spring perverted judgments." (68) It was a very common concern of Elizabethans that evil could spread or infect other good people like a poison and draw down their souls into a state of depravity which would eventually lead them closer and closer to Hell.2® Wilson in the Arte of Rhetorique articulated the paranoia which would drive men like Lafeu to expose and banish (if not vanquish) evil in their midst: "they that infecte a prynce or a kinge wyth wycked counsayle, are not they more wycked enchaunters, considerynge they doe as muche as if one shoulde Poyson a Conduite head, or River from whence al men featche their water. And yet they do more, for it is a greater faulte to poison the mynde, than the bodie." (440-441/155) The Tudor paranoia explains the emphasis placed on accusation by Peacham. It was better to accuse an innocent man than to risk letting a guilty one roam free: "An innocent alhough hee be accused he may be acquited, but the guiltie, except he be accused he cannot be condemned." (An example of compar or isoco/on, similar length phrases, 59)

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This paranoia was based on a belief that the Tudors held in the mind-body duality present in every person. The body was earthly and corrupt while the mind or soul was the more perfect and heavenly component of man. The ultimate goal of the mind or soul was its separation from the body and the earthly elements and a return to the heavenly surroundings so much in common with its own nature. The belief that like approached like meant that the individual's mortal frame was essentially involved in a "tug of war" during his or her lifetime between the corrupt, hellish and earthly, and the more perfect and heavenly. If one was not careful, the corrupting sway of evil could unduly influence the pull between the two poles and drag the soul down towards the earth and Hell. "For if we suffer the eye of a young gentleman once to be entangled with vain sights, and the ear to be corrupted with fond or filthy talk," observed Roger Ascham, then "the mind shall quickly fall sick and soon vomit and cast up all the wholesome doctrine that he received in childhood, though he were never so well brought up before." (39) Thomas Wilson expressed the Tudor concern more succinctly in the Arte of Rhetorique: When a manne is killed secretly, wee aske Judgement for the offendour, and shall thei escape without Judgement, that covertyly murder a mannes soule? That separate hym from G O P , that Judge hym to helle, whose life hath ever been moste heavenly? (426/149) And so, the detection and isolation of evil from the good, unmasking its never entirely perfect guise, had the effect of helping the eventual, successful separation of the mind-body duality since a soul uncorrupted or untouched by evil would be more "like" the heavenly when the body died. The untainted soul would approach Heaven instead of being separated from God and dragged down to Hell.

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In Peacham's rhetoric we see just such an ardor to isolate the evil from the good or at least expose the path down which evil would lead people if evil was not shirked. The Garden of Eloquence illustrated the Tudor desire to let the evil and more earthly approach the earth, leaving the more heavenly to approach the heavens. We find that predilection in the figures of correctio, auxesis, hyperbole, and antiphrasis. Under the figure of correctio, Peacham offered two examples of wicked men brought before judges which emphasized the path of wickedness in this world: We have here brought before you Iudges, to have your judgement, not a theefe, but a violent robber, not an adulterer, but a breaker of all chastitie, not a spoiler of church goods, but an ranke enemie to al godly religion, not a quarelling ruffin, but a most cruel murderer. (172) and For this thy shamfùll and most cursed fact, what shall I call thee, a wretch, nay a beast, a beast, nay a poisnnous serpent, yet none of these are fit enough for thee, a devil, thou are both in respect of thy malice which thou doest possesse, and of the sundry mischiefes which thou doest daily commit. (172) In both these cases, correctio made the crime of the individual worse as the accusation went on, but there was also a sense of momentum built into each statement. The correctio in the above case not only emphasized the separation of evil from the good, but also illuminated the path that evil would take in approaching its Mike' in Hell and the path that all of the judges and the rest of society might take if the wicked man was not vanquished immediately. The latter example, in

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particular, was reminiscent of the lapse of man in the Garden of Eden: the cause of mankind's corruption went down from man to woman to serpent to devil. In Peacham's example the momentum drove the accused down through the hierarchy. This directional impetus would have appealed to a culture that would have seen Adam's downfall as the fault of an already corrupted Eve. It was Adam's association with Eve which pulled him down into wickedness. We see a similar effort at facilitating the approach of like to like and increasing the separation of good and evil in the figure of auxesis, the putting of a greater word for a lesser one. The greater word replaced the lesser and positioned the subject further along the hierarchy toward the direction of its most appropriate 'like': [It is] to call a proude man a Lucifer, a drunkard a swine, an angrie man mad, a couetous man a cutthroate: In praising, as to call an honest man a Sainte, a faire Virgin an Angell, good musicke heauenly harmonie. ( 167) This sense of directional impulse or distillation also appears clearly in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus when Titus plots to have the supremely wicked Tamara unknowingly eat her own children because they, like her, are "like to the earth." After the ensuing round of murders in which both Titus and Tamara are killed, Lucius (Titus' son) orders that Tamara, since she was like unto a beast, should be fed to the beasts: As for that heinous tiger, Tamora, No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weeds, No mournful bell shall ring her burial; But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey:

Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity; And, being so, shall have like want of pity. . . . (Titus Andronicus, V,3) Wickedness is separated from the good and made to return to the earth. The accused metaphorical beast, Tamara, eats her children and the beasts, in turn, eat her. Ultimately, the earth then consumes those beasts. The effort to separate good from evil distilled each person or object into a more pure and polar form. It polarized the two opposing forces present in the mind-body duality and reminded the individual of the two quite disjunct natures and the need to keep the baser from contaminating the nobler. 2 1 In his account of antiphrasis, the expression of a word which signifies its contrary, Peacham showed his reader an example of what happened when a like was compared with its opposite in ironic fashion: The especiall vse of this figure is to reprehend vice, and mock folly: for by expressing a vertue, and signifying a vice, it striketh the mind of the offender with the sharpe edge of contrarie comparison, whereby he is compelled to see the great differëce betweene what he is, and what he ought to be, betweene what he hath done and what he ought to haue done, and so by looking in the cleare glasse he may be ashamed of his foule face, I meane his foule fact. (24-25)

21

As we have already noted in Chapter Two, Wilson suggested that the death of the Duchess of Suffolk's two boys might well have been God's way of preventing the evil contamination of the children: "The righteous man (meaning Enoch and other the chosen of God [such as her sons]) is sodainely taken away, to the entente that wickednes shoulde not alter his understandinge, and that hypocrisie shoulde not begile his soul." (334/109)

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The goal was still the same: separate the good as much as possible from the evil. In this case it was the repelling of dislikes instead of the attraction of likes which helped to achieve that goal. The God-like aspects of these momentum building figures of separation were best expressed in the figure of hyperbole, an amplifying by exceeding similitude. There was a distinct God-like quality to Peacham's treatment of this device: . . . by this figure the Orator either lifteth vp high or casteth downe low, either stretcheth things to the vttermost length, or presseth them to the least quantitie: so high is the reach, and so wide is the compassé of this figure that it mounteth to the highest things, compasseth the widest, and comprehendeth the greatest. (33) Peacham certainly did see the near-omnipotent orator as a person capable of such near-deific acts of lifting up or casting down. In a world governed by justice, as Peacham explained under paradigma (example), there existed ...a most iust iustice in GOD, by whose wisedome, loue, and fauour, and mercie good men are protected, aduaunced. and made happie: and contrariwise, the euill and wicked by his iudgement and power are iustly punished. (187) 2 2 The God-like orator promoted the lifting up of good men and the casting down of the wicked.

— The "advancement" here is completely in keeping with Wilson's example of King David. It is the superior (in this case, God) who through his "fauour" advances the inferior.

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Peacham depicted Cicero as an orator with just such a God-like power to expose wickedness and cast it down. In a description of Cicero's eloquence under the topic of amplification, there was a not-so-veiled reference to the Christ-like quality of the justice enacted by the orator in identifying and isolating the wicked: By his eloquence he oft cast downe his aduersaries from their estate and dignitie. oftentimes by his copious speech and vehemencie of pleading, he frayed most excellent Orators from their frends defence, by the force of his speech he compelled Caesar to pardon Legarius, whom he came most greedily to condemne, and made Catiline (a most audacious traitor) dumbe in the Senate. . . . (122) The Biblically literate individual would have likely seen the similarity between Cicero's treatment of Cataline and the isolation of the evil in the gospels at Luke 11:14, "And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb." Cicero's accusation against Cataline also meets Peacham's criteria for the figure of categoria (accusatio), the detecting and accusing of someone of evil to their faces, which Peacham observed was used by Christ against Judas and the Scribes and Pharisees. (80-81 ) Cicero was also, like Solomon, a man who understood the complexity of the hierarchy and could detect, articulate, and then vanquish evil with God-like alacrity as Peacham's example under Enumeratio illustrated. That Cicero repressed the purposes of Cataline, thus it may be set foorth. The mischieuous enterprises of Cataline, who went about the vtter destruction of Rome, Marcus Tuilius Cicero the Consull, by his prudent foresight did quickly smel out[.] by his singular vigilance sought out, by his high prouidence found out, and by his maruellous loue to the common

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wealth shewed out. And then by his incredible eloquence he conuicted them. by his graue authoritie repressed them, by his might abolished them, and by his great happinesse quite ouerthrew them. (125-126) The near-omnipotence of Cicero the orator was also supported by Angel Day's The English Secretorie which compared Cicero's abilities to those of King David in maintaining civic order. 2 3 And so the near-omnipotent orator, the one paying so much close attention to the hierarchy and its correspondences, the one with "prudent foresight," detected the disorder and misalignment in the cosmos brought about by the presence of evil, articulated the evil, and effectively labeled it and separated it from the good by placing the wicked and the virtuous further apart along the chain toward the more pure versions of their like natures, Hell and Heaven respectively. Thus the rhetoric of Henry Peacham helped the Tudors to see what they could not discern before and showed them clearly what they should avoid and to what they should aim. Sadly, the near-omnipotent orator was rarely present when Richard Ill's inattentive victims needed his guidance the most.

When almost all goes wrong: the case of Richard III

Richard III is a valuable text for helping us to understand Peacham's orator. The play demonstrated to the Tudor what could go wrong with the world if evil succeeded, even temporarily, in going undetected. Shakespeare's play was replete 23

Angel Day, The English Secretary ( 1599). Introduction by Robert O. Evans (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1967), 32-34.

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with depictions of cosmic misalignments and disorders of which a Tudor audience would have been aware. The wickedness of a Richard was to be found in the details, details which Peacham's master of copia was trained to articulate, details of which Shakespeare's characters tragically were unaware or unconcerned. Richard III thus illuminated a world almost devoid of the cosmically aware individual capable of detecting and articulating wicked anomalies and hierarchical correspondences. His play in great part demonstrated the need for the discerning orator, an orator which Brian Vickers stated did not exist to counter the great wickedness of a Richard III. 2 4 Granted, Richard III was a master of an evil eloquence (if that is not an oxymoron) and he certainly appeared to be the quintessence of undetectable evil, and yet, he should not have been. Even though the hierarchy might have appeared well ordered to the undisceming eye and Richard quite genuine, Richard's well hidden deceit could not have hoped to remain completely hidden as long as the correspondences running through the entire cosmos felt some type of 'ripple effect' from evil's displacement or misalignment of the natural order. Such ripples were indeed found throughout Richard III but hardly anybody paid to much heed to them until it was too late. A look at several examples will be instructive. To start with, Richard's very shape, or rather his misshapen form, was a very visible sign of a correspondence and cosmic sympathy between Richard's immoral condition and his physical body. Keith Thomas's exhaustive study, Religion and the 24

'"Power of Persuasion': Images of the Orator, Elyot to Shakespeare," in Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric, ed. James J. Murphy (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1983), 431. Future references will be made in the text.

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Decline of Magic and Alan Macfarlane's Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: a Regional and Comparative Study, both identified a similar sympathy expressed in witchcraft accusations. Targeted individuals were often accused of witchcraft simply because they exhibited some physical deformity. 25 Richard, himself, stated in the very opening monologue of the play that if he could not have the perfect shape, that of a lover, then he was determined to play the villain: . . . I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph: I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up— And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, And descant on mine own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover 25

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), 567, and Alan J.D. Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: a Regional and Comparative Study (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 158.

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To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days. (I .i. 14-31 ) Richard, according to this monologue, was basically compelled to do evil in part, because of his physical deformity's sympathy with the wicked. 2 ^ The monologue also reveals another Tudor belief associated with correspondences, that of cosmic antipathy. The barking dogs described by Richard were an example of a cosmic antipathy between Richard and the lower animal sphere of influence. This type of antipathy or reaction against some disorder present in another level of the hierarchy was something to which the Tudors paid close attention since they believed it was a trustworthy indicator of an evil presence in their midst. Keith Thomas gives us one of the best descriptions of this type of correspondence: [One] practice was that of compelling a person suspected of murder to touch the victim's corpse, on the assumption that, if he were guilty, the body would gush forth anew with blood. Contemporary scientists who believed in doctrines of sympathy and antipathy had no difficulty in accepting the validity of this procedure; and it is known to have been formally employed

The following description of Richard appeared in The tragical doynges of Kyng Richard the thirde, in Hall's Union: "[fol. Lixr] As [Richard] was small and little of stature so was he of body grately deformed, the one shoulder higher then the other, his face small but his countenaunce was cruel, and such, that a man at the first aspect would judge it to savor and smell of malice, fraude, and deceite. . . ." (Found in "Appendix I I F to King Richard III, ed. Antony Hammond, The Arden Shakespeare (London and New York: Routledge, 1981), 374.) Shakespeare also reinforced a similar correspondence in The Tempest when Prospero, looking upon the beastly and wicked Caliban, pointed to him and remarked, "He is as disproportion'd in his manners/ As in his shape." (V, i)

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by judges and coroners on a number of occasions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both Reginald Scot and Francis Bacon were prepared to believe that it worked. 2 7 And so we have one of the greatest examples of cosmic antipathy in all of Shakespeare's plays: the bleeding of Henry VI in the presence of Richard, his murderer. Lady Anne, the dead king's daughter-in-law confronted Richard when he interrupted the procession of the corpse: Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not; For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell, Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims. If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds. Behold this pattern of thy butcheries. O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh! Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity; F o r ' t is thy presence that exhales this blood From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells. Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural. Provokes this deluge most unnatural. (I.ii.50-61) The visible signs of sympathy and antipathy that signposted Richard's evil nature could not be denied. His very shape, a sympathy with evil, and the bleeding of the murdered king, an antipathy between the good king's corpse and the wicked Richard, proved that Richard was indeed a heinous villian. 27

Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 220.

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And yet, despite the visible cosmic sympathies and antipathies which belied Richard's evil nature, different characters in the play fell victim to Richard's deceit time and time again. Lady Anne, who mourned the death of her husband, Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father-in-law, Henry VI, at the hands of Richard, the same Lady Anne who witnessed the bleeding of Henry VI's body in Richard's presence, still went on to marry Richard. The audacious and supremely deceitful Richard began wooing Lady Anne within moments of the bleeding corpse's departure in Act I, Scene ii. Lady Anne, despite signs to the contrary, allowed her guard to drop and believed the amorous words that Richard used to gain her affection despite the obvious, revealed signs of evil in her midst. Richard's evil wooing of a widow who should have felt an antipathy to courtship by her husband's murderer, showed what could happen when an individual failed to give heed to the cosmic signs of evil: the world was left vulnerable to collapse. Richard expressed the repercussions that his own successful deceit (and courtship) had on the world: Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll have her; but I will not keep her long. What! I, that kill'd her husband and his father, To take her in her heart's extremest hate, With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, The bleeding witness of my hatred by; Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, And I no friends to back my suit withal But the plain devil and dissembling looks,

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And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! (I.ii.229-238) If Richard could overcome so many of the cosmic antipathies which should have stood in his way or at least signaled his evil intents, then the whole world was not safe. Ironically, it was Richard who articulated most effectively the misalignment of the cosmos when once accused of wickedness by Queen Elizabeth, Lord Gray, and Lord Rivers. He portrayed himself as a victim of deceit in a world upended by evil: I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Since every Jack became a gentleman. There's many a gentle person made a Jack. (I.iii.70-73) Richard here articulated a displacement in the world using what Peacham would have identified as hypozeuxis, the joining of everything to a due verb, but in reverse; Richard supplied the wrong verbs for the wrens and the eagles. He also articulated an illustrative chiasmus in the reversal of "Jack" and "gentleman." The person, however, that best illustrated the terrible lack of attention or concern over Richard's deceits was Lord Hastings. Hastings was the perfect example of the courtier inattentive to the disruptions and the correspondent sympathies and antipathies of his world. When asked by Richard's close ally, Sir William Catesby, if he would support Richard as the legitimate heir to the throne even though the two small princes in line for the throne still lived, Hastings, unaware of any ill propriety, remarked, I'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd. (III.ii.42-43)

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Hastings, of course, lost his head three scenes later, totally unaware of the evil doing working in his world despite numerous signs forewarning him to the contrary. For one, he had the warning of Lord Stanley, the only virtuous and attentive man in the entire play, who told Hastings that he had had a terrible dream about a boar, the heraldic symbol of Richard's family, that "razed off his helm" and destroyed his family line. In addition he had a warning from Lord Stanley about Richard's unusual initiative as Lord Protector to hold two separate Royal Council meetings for those in Richard's inner circle and those without, a clear sign of double dealing. Hastings paid no attention to either warning, both given to him on the morning of his death. Furthermore, Hastings failed to recognize other ominous signs including a sympathetic meeting with a "pursuivant" who he had not seen since his last trip to the tower under the reign of Richard's older brother, the late Edward IV: Hastings: . . . how goes the world with thee? H. Pursuivant: The better than you lordship please to ask. Hastings: I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now Than when I met thee last, where now we meet: Then was I going prisoner to the Tower. . . . (III.ii.94-98) Even when Richard's ally, Buckingham, inappropriately labeled men imprisoned at Pomfret Castle as "friends" of Hastings, Hastings did not realize that he was being set up as a traitor. The enemies of Richard imprisoned at Pomfret sympathetically popped into Hastings' head, even as Buckingham brought them up in conversation. Hastings did not recognize the danger: Buckingham. What, talking with a priest, Lord Chamberlain [Hastings]? Your friends at Pomfret. they do need the priest;

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Your honour hath no shriving work [confessing] in hand! Hastings: Good faith, and when I met this holy man, The men you talk of came into my mind. What, go you toward the Tower? Buckingham. I do, my Lord, but long I cannot stay there: I shall return before your lordship thence. Hastings. Nay, like enough, for 1 stay dinner there. Buckingham: [Aside] And supper too, although thou know'st it not. Come, will you go? (III.ii.111-121) Hastings could not see the sympathy between his accidental meeting with the priest to whom he was speaking and Buckingham's discussion of Hasting's imprisoned "friends." Hastings, indeed, did share one thing in common with the condemned men at Pomfret other than their mutual impending deaths: he had been warned by Lord Stanley not to naively believe that all was well like the men at Pomfret had: The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London, Were jocund, and suppos'd their states were sure. And they indeed had no cause to mistrust: But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast. This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt; Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward. (III.ii.81-86) When Hastings finally was condemned to death for treason by Richard, he was completely stunned and only then saw the disorders of nature and the ripples throughout the chain that should have warned him earlier of his impending doom: Woe, woe for England; not a whit for me—

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For I. too fond, might have prevented this. Stanley did dream the boar did raze his helm, And I did scorn it and disdain to fly; Three times today my foot-cloth horse did stumble, And started when he look'd upon the Tower, As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house. O, now I need the priest that spake to me; I now repent I told the pursuivant, As too triumphing, how mine enemies Today at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd, And I myself secure in grace and favour. (HI.iv.80-91) 28 Hastings certainly was the most inattentive character in the entire play, but he was also quite similar to many others who met their demise. The general blindness throughout the entire play by almost all the characters lead a scrivener in Act III, Scene vi to make the crucial insight to which Shakespeare's audience would have surely agreed. The scrivener reacted suspiciously to the death of Lord Hastings after preparing the indictment against him: Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings, Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd, That it may be today read o'er in Paul's.

28

The following monologue of Hastings appeared in The Mirror for Magistrates, Tragedy 21 : "Securitye causelesse through my carelesse frende,/ Reft me foresvght of my approchyng end. . . ./Never had realme so open signes of wrack./ As I had shewed me of my heavy happ." (Found in "Appendix III" to King Richard III, ed. Antony Hammond, 377. Underlining added.)

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And mark how well the sequel hangs together. Eleven hours I have spent to write it over, For yesternight by Catesby was it sent to me; The precedent was full as long a-doing And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd, Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty. Here's a good world the while! Who is so gross That cannot see this palpable device? Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not? Bad is the world, and all will come to naught When such ill-dealing must be seen in thought. (III.vi. 1-14) Antony Hammond interpreted these last lines to mean that "a world in which men can only think about such things, rather than speak their minds, will come to disaster." 29 So went the world of Richard III, it was a play lacking in great part the talents of Peacham's orator to see evil and speak out at many key junctures during the play. It was significant that the only man of any importance in the play who saw Richard Ill's evil in time to avoid its destructive power was Lord Stanley, for it was he who sent word to his nephew, Richmond, the future Henry VII, in France that all was not well for England. It was also significant that at the Battle of Bosworth field, in one of the most crucial moments in the battle. Lord Stanley refused to send his promised troops to the aid of Richard when they were most needed, but instead 29

King Richard III, ed. Antony Hammond, The Arden Shakespeare (London and New York: Routledge, 1981), 245n.vi.14.

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watched his nephew, Richmond, defeat the deformed and evil king. Lord Stanley with prudent foresight and well chosen discreet actions against Richard III based on detected, subtle signs of wickedness throughout his world was the only character in the play that reacted to Richard's evil before any significant bad tidings affected him. Though Henry VTs widowed wife, Queen Margaret, pronounced curses on all that keep their acquaintance with Richard, she could only do it as a past victim of his evil cruelty. The fact that all her curses did eventually come true was simply proof of one more cosmic sympathy that all her condemned enemies refused to see, a sympathy that she in her grieving shared with a grieving cosmos. The tragedies brought about by Richard III in the play of the same name poignantly would have reminded the Tudors of the need to pay close attention to their world. Though both Queen Margaret and other victims of Richard did articulate his wickedness to others, it was not before Richard had brought about their full or partial destruction, with the exception of Lord Stanley. Stanley represented what was so lacking in the other characters, the ability to first detect and then articulate the wickedness of Richard in time to avoid his malevolent impact. In so doing, he represented those qualities so important to the nearomnipotent orator. He may not have been the most vocal of Shakespeare's characters; indeed, he had comparatively few lines in the entire play, but he was the only character of significance to come away relatively unscathed and in a position to have a great part in Richard's downfall. Brian Vickers has suggested in his article, '"The Power of Persuasion': Images of the Orator, Elyot to Shakespeare," that the only thing that eventually could stop Richard III was Good itself, an interesting comment on the

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powerlessness of any man to stop Richard before his evil plans could run their full course: . . . Richard goes through his career of evil, predicting every step of his machinations until he reaches the crown. Once his ambition is realized, though, the purpose and energy of his speech fail him; the goal is attained, the language loses its function. And once his pretence is exposed, so is his illegitimacy as a ruler. In the optimistic world of Renaissance orthodoxy, since he has no right to rule he is unable to do so. Good deeds and good works will supplant him. (431 ) Richard's defeat, though, came down to more than just some dens ex machina of "good deeds and good works." It came down to the work of an individual with the ability to detect, articulate, and thwart his evil. In the same article, Vickers went on to note that the Tudor rhetoricians, including Henry Peacham and Thomas Wilson, were "bad rhetoricians," because of their inability to understand evil in society: What the theorists utterly failed to consider—and showed themselves to be bad rhetoricians and bad psychologists—is the nature of human dissimulation, an activity that is especially suited to representation in drama, and above all, in tragedy. (434) Vickers offered Richard III as the orator's ultimate challenge, a man who could not be brought down by an orator, but only by "good deeds and good works." Peacham's orator, however, was up to the challenge. He could appropriately align and conjoin people with their qualities and actions with character types; he could articulate correspondences within the hierarchy and assign duties to men depending on social position as we have already observed in our discussion of diaresis, taxis,

horysmus, hypozeuxis, and metaphor. Peacham's near-omnipotent orator had the ability "to line out and shadow any manner of proportion in nature" (14). He was not a "bad rhetorician" or "bad psychologist" who knew nothing about "the nature of human dissimulation," but rather a person who understood the Tudor cosmos in its diverse multiplicity as well as how to classify good and evil within that hierarchy and then act to preserve good and vanquish evil. Lord Stanley, a man of similar ilk to Peacham's orator, satisfies the litmus test set by Vickers. It was the attentive, articulate, and morally upright Stanley and not just "good deeds and good works" which brought down the towering Richard III. God's agent or agency in bringing down Richard III was none other than the Godly orator discerning, articulating, and acting against evil.

A final note on metaphor

Throughout this chapter we have observed the emphasis put on seeing the world as it should be or seeing the world in some disordered and misaligned state, each misalignment or displacement setting off a ripple effect of sympathies or antipathies in some other level or correspondence, ripples and misalignments rarely detected in Richard III. With all this emphasis on the interconnectivity of the cosmos, we should not be surprised to find some correspondences present even within Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence. Peacham wanted his orator to see the nature of his world with all its hierarchical details and correspondences, but those details were also to be found in his very own discussions of rhetoric. Certainly one of the most interesting and subtle correspondences can be found in Peacham's

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treatment of metaphors of the senses. His description of metaphors of the senses identified a subtle correspondence between the hierarchy of the senses and the duties of the Godly orator. Peacham's discussion of the senses explicitly identified (if only partially) a degree of hierarchy. His most definitive statement of that hierarchy came in his discussion of sight; in the first edition it was identified as the most perfect sense: "[it] is the most principall & perfect sense." (Biir) The description suggests that sight was part of a hierarchy determined in great part by the perfection of each sense. In the second edition, Peacham refered to sight as that sense which was most sure and the one that came closest to having an affinity with the mind: As the sight among the rest of the senses is most sharpe, and pierceth furthest, so is it proued most sure, and least deceiued, and therefore is very nigh to the mind in the affinitie of nature, so farre foorth as an external! sense of the bodie may be compared to an internall vertue of the mind. (4) What Peacham was sketching here was a similitude between the sense of sight and the internal mind or soul of man; it corresponded to man's placement at the cusp between the heavenly realm and the worldly realm; he had a dual nature which partook of two different realms of the cosmos. In a similar way, sight occupied a point of duality as an external sense but also an inward element of the mind. The idea was expressed quite well in Sir John Davies' poem, Nosce Teipsum: That Powre which gave my eyes, the world to view; To view myself enfiis'd an inward light; Whereby my Soule, as by a Mirror true, Of her owne forme may take a perfect sight. (193-196)

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The fact that sight was seen as a part of the internal workings of the mind or soul as well as part of the external senses suggests that just as man was the lower end of a higher, heavenly hierarchy, and the top of a lower, worldly hierarchy, so sight was the lower end of an internal hierarchy of the mind and the top of a sensual hierarchy governing the senses. Thomas Elyot expressed the belief that sight was part of an internal hierarchy in the medical treatise, The Castel of Helth, which depicted the internal structuring of the brain: [The] Power Animall [as in animus] [comprises:] That whych ordeyneth, dyscerneth, and composeth. That moueth by voluntarye mocyon. That whyche is called sensyble, whereof do procédé the fyue wyttes [senses]. Of that which ordeineth [referred to above] do pcede[:] Imagination in the foreed. Reason in the braine. Remembrance in the nodell. (Castel of Helth, D.iv.v.) In other words, the senses were part of a hierarchy beginning with imagination, reason, and remembrance, and then moving down to the site of voluntary motion and then to the senses. In such a system, the senses were not distinct from the mind, but part of it. In Elyot's other major work, The Book called The Governor, the senses were seen as part of a three fold hierarchy of the soul which started with the intellectual (understanding) at the top, then proceeded down to the sensitive which includes the five senses, and finally to the vegetative which governed the growth of

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the body. In this system, sight, as the highest and most perfect sense, abutted (and shared a common border with) its immediate neighbor above. Neither Peacham nor Elyot went any further explicitly in telling us much about the other senses. A close look, however, at Peacham's discussion of the five senses, particularly in the second edition, does reveal an interesting, predictable, patterned, implicit hierarchy. As Peacham described each sense metaphor for our instruction, he identified the main concepts with which each was associated. Sight dealt mainly with the virtues of the mind and these in turn were virtues which were associated with comprehending the hierarchy of man's world as it was meant to exist; it involved providence, understanding, knowledge, and judgment: The consideration hereof causeth men to vse the words which are proper to this sense and that very often, as fit to signifie many vertues of the mind, as the vnderstanding. knowledge, prouidence. carefulness, hope, opinion, judgement and such like. (4) Hearing dealt mainly with aspects of the ideal structured hierarchy put into practice and laid out topics associated with vertical duties in society such as counsel or reproof given, justice meted out, pity or compassion felt (towards the needy), as well as "ayd" and "succour", all of which were part of the duties a superior had to an inferior. Hearing also stood for obedience which was a necessary duty of the inferior to the superior: He that is scornfiill will not heare when he is reproued. in this translation refusing to heare signifieth disdaine of correction, and hatred of doctrine. Heare no counsell against innocent blood, that is, consent not to that counsell which induceth to shed the blood of innocent persons.

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My sonne heare thy fathers doctrine, that is, obey it. Heare the small as well as the great, the word heare in this place signifieth the action and execution equitie. . . . from this sense as you see translations be taken to signifie pitie. compassion, avd. succour, consent, obedience, equitie. attention, foresight, and granting. (5-6) Smelling, in turn, carried on the themes of providence and foresight, but went further by dealing with the detection of disorder within the ideal hierarchy: From smelling these translations and such like may be taken. Being wise & prouident, by his singular foresight did timely smell out the vngratious practises, and priuie conspiracies of the enemies bent against the citie and cö mon wealth. Here by smelling out, is signified knowledge gathered by prudent suspition. and wittie coniectures. An example of the holy Scripture, A sacrifice of a sweet sauour, that is, a sacrifice acceptable to God. The things which do please this sense, are sweete sauours, and pleasant odors, and therfore the vse of this sense in translation is commonly vsed to signifie the pleasure of the mind, as the contraries are vsed to expresse the hatred and offence of mans heart, as when it is said, that abominations of sinne do stinke and are odious to God and all good men. As also the property of smelling findeth oftentimes the effect before the eye can discerne the cause; so prouidence and foresight, which this sense doth most aptly signifie in translation, do manie times espie and preuent secret practises and priuie conspiracies before they take effect. (6)

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Touch, though quite various in its uses, often stood for punishment which suggested the correction of any disorder to the hierarchy: . . . for Sathan by touching vnderstandeth a piercing, and plaguing of lobs bodie with grieuous and lothsome diseases. In the same signification lob afterwards vseth the same word, saying, the hand of God hath touched me. that is. hath grieuously smitten and wounded me. Another example, And they were pricked in their hearts, meaning, pierced with sorrow and repentance. Art thou so senselesse, that thou neither feelest hurt by thy foe, nor benefit by thy friend? Here by feeling is signified vnderstanding, and by the want of feeling is vnderstood the astonishment of mind or lack of wit. . . . (6-7) Taste, which mainly signified experience, was the only sense which departed from the predictable scheme. The discussion of these senses shows an interesting and partially hidden societal hierarchy. The societal correspondence started with the ideal and worked its way down to a less perfect state of affairs. ( 1 ) sight—the understanding of the ideal state of the hierarchy—lead to (2) hearing—the ideal put into practice in dutiful actions—which lead to (3) smelling—a detection of any faults in that practice which in turn lead to (4) touching—a correction or punishment of those faults in practice. This hierarchy to a great degree matched the task of the near-omnipotent orator who needed to first have an understanding of the hierarchy as it was meant to exist as well as the dutiful interactions between its different levels in addition to a knowledge of the correspondences existing throughout the chain if he was then to

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detect any misalignments of the cosmic order and make any subsequent corrections.3® There was also a sympathetic, vertical hierarchy of the senses here: the eyes are above the ears which are above the nose which is above any part generally involved in touch. Taste as we have already noted was the anomaly here, but it was also a sense located in the mouth and resided at the boundary of the above hierarchy with the digestive hierarchy below it. 3 * And so we see a Tudor In one late painting of Queen Elizabeth, the Rainbow Portrait, her Majesty is shown wrapped in an orange cloak which is covered with ears and eyes. Roy Strong argued that the eyes and ears represented those in the court who watched and listened on her behalf and, in essence, enveloped her. (Roy Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth (Berkeley and Los Angeles. University of California press, 1977), 8, 52.) I would add that the same eyes and ears represent the ideal: a perfect sense of understanding put into a most perfect practice by the most perfect mortal in the realm, her Majesty the Queen. See also David Howarth, Images of Rule: Art and Politics in the English Renaissance, 1485-1649 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1997), 114-115. -> I J1

According to Elyot's Castel of Helth, taste is the start of a digestive hierarchy in the body classified under "Thynges naturall" as part of a series of "operations" . appetite (by the hot and dry (fire)), digestion (by the hot and moist (air)), retainynge (by the cold and dry (earth)), expulsion (by cold and moist (water)). There is an inherent hierarchy in this list involving the nobility of the elements as well as a vertical ordering. After the body has taken in food or drink at the mouth, it is then digested for use in the body. What is left over is bad for the body and throws the humours into imbalance. The body, thus, expels the bad substances from the body. In the end, the lowest material, the "matter superfluous and unsavory," the cold and the dry retained by the body until it is expulsed, returns to that which it is most like in elemental form and nobility, the earth. This desire of earth to return to earth is seen in Nosce Teipsum: "All moving things to other things do move, Of the same kind, which shewes their nature such: So earth fais downe, and fire doth mount above, Till both their proper Elements do touch." (1341-1344) And though Peacham did not suggest it, the mouth was the means by which correctives were issued forth or pardon granted often in conjunction with the punishing or forgiving hand.

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correspondence immersed within a rhetoric designed to illuminate the ordered structure of the cosmos.

Conclusion

The presence of evil was not feared nearly as much as the evil that could not be detected. That detection depended in great part on the ability of the Tudor individual to see the signs of evil in a disordered hierarchy or the ripples caused by the disorder in the correspondences that permeated the whole of the Great Chain of Being. The person in the best position to detect that evil and articulate it was someone akin to Henry Peacham's orator who was "next to the omnipotent God in the power of perswasion." As we have seen, The Garden of Eloquence gave the orator figures by which to articulate a sense of hierarchy as glimpsed by the individual in everyday life. If those details which aided an attentive Lafeu in thwarting a dissembling Parolles had been detected early enough by the many inattentive characters in Richard III, then Richard may have been thwarted long before he ruined so many lives. In this way, Richard III stood as an example of the world's potential decline in the absence of keenly discerning and articulate, nearomnipotent orators. The ripples and correspondences which permeated the Great Chain of Being even made their way subtly into Peacham's rhetoric and discussion of metaphor. Peacham thus offers us a different perspective on Renaissance rhetoric than Thomas Wilson's Arie of Rhetorique. Peacham discussed assimilation in a limited capacity, but primarily illustrated the importance in Tudor England of paying

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attention to the vast plenitude of the hierarchy. Angel Day's rhetoric, as we will see, integrated rhetoric and Tudor cosmology in a manner different from both Wilson and Peacham. Almost totally stripped of any classical taxonomy, Day's rhetoric exposed a significant dependence on the cosmology and paradox of the Great Chain of Being.

CHAPTER FOUR: ANGEL DAY'S THE ENGLISH SECRETORIE

Angel Day wrote The English Secretorie in 1586 and revised it extensively in 1599. As a formulary rhetoric designed to teach secretaries how to write better letters on behalf of their lords, it emphasized the wide variety of situations facing the oratorwriter. It privileged the presentation of numerous examples over the presentation of any one encompassing taxonomy of rhetoric. To use the terminology of Lawrence Manley, it appeared to privilege convention over nature, convention over the belief that all things had their proper "natural" place which could be encapsulated by an overarching rhetoric. The emphasis on example after example in the absence of any overt rhetorical precepts would appear to support Manley's claim that the rhetorical arts in Sixteenth Century England were undergoing a "gradual displacement" from a standard of rhetorical fitness based in nature to one based primarily on convention: . . . like the moral and political arts, the arts of speech in sixteenth-century England witnessed the gradual displacement of the criterion of natural fitness by the idea that rectitude arises from the often arbitrary and unpredictable character of experience engendered by the power of human habit. Though 'nature' continued to be asserted as the object of artistic expression and the test of artistic fitness, it was increasingly modified by concessions to the power of convention. . . . If the integrity of nature was to continue to be asserted as the norm and justification of the arts of speech, it would be

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necessary to relate this norm, by a 'separation of opinions,' to the apparent complexity of artistic practice. 1 We should expect to find such evidence of a displacement of natural norms by conventional norms in the Sixteenth Century distinctly in a formulary rhetoric where the emphasis seems to be on no one rule or natural norm, but rather on conventional examples gathered from experience. Angel Day's formulary work, The English Secretorie appears to confirm just such a displacement. The apparent primacy of convention appeared in the opening remark of Chapter I of the 1586 edition: Touchinge an Epistle, which usually we terme a letter, no other definition needeth therof, then that which vse and common experience hath induced vnto us. 2 The same view was reinforced later in the chapter: To grow into the particularities of euerye benefite receaued by the common vse hereof, and the commoditye thereby ensuing, what might be sayde more, then that which by due course euery man hath almost in practize. If you aske of the learned, the vniuersall contentment receaued thereby, expressed in sundry their authorities will testifie, who the rather to aduaunce the

1

Lawrence Manley, Convention: 1500-1750. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980), 139. Manley, drawing on the work of Nicolas Grimald, characterizes "natural fitness" as the standard of propriety in which everything has its proper place: "Underlying its extensiveness . is the basic notion of fitness or 'harmony,' according to which all things are disposed to their 'proper place.'" (138) 2 Angel Day, The English Secretorie ( 1586). (Menston, England: Scolar Press, 1967), 1. All subsequent references to this treatise will be made in the text and will identify the year of this edition followed by the page number. Ail underlining reflects my own added emphases. All italicized text was originally offset by Day.

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efficacie hereof, haue by diuers methodes and orders prescribed in wrytinge, set downe the perfect instruction, vse and meane, wherby men the rather may be induced to the skilfull perfection that in a matter of such excellency is to be required. (1586, 2) Day made it clear that his multiple examples were meant to account for the many speaking situations or "accidents" which a single rhetorical "president" could not adequately address: As nothing therefore in the common vse and conuersation of men deserueth more praise, then that which is well ordered, and according to the time place and presence vsually appointed and discreetly furnished, so in this matter of writing Epistles, nothing is more disordered, fonde, or vaine, then for anye one, of a thinge well done, to take forth a president, and thinke to make vnto him selfe therof a common platforme for euery other accident, who without consideration of the grauity or lightnes of the cause he taketh in hand (much like vnto a foolish Shoemaker, that making his shoes after one fashion, quantitye and proportion: supposeth the same forthwith of abilitie fitte to serue euery mans foot) includeth in like sort a common methode vnto euerye matter. (1586, 4) And so Day supplied the Tudor man with a great many shoes - no one "proportion" would suffice for the rhetorical needs of the orator-secretorie. His method, as he noted near the end of the 1599 edition, was "varietie": Thus haue I led along, as you see, this promised Methode by varietie of directions and examples, fitting to euerv purpose I hope to the pleasing and

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content of all the indifferent readers: and here as a limit sufficient to that determined labour, doe I laie downe my rest. 3 Day thus appeared to espouse a conventional normative standard over one that stressed a standard based in nature. Unlike Wilson who wrote a highly taxonomic, classically based rhetoric and Peacham who discussed "uses" and "cautions" for almost every figure, Day made a concerted effort to divorce his treatment of letters from any single precedent or set of norms whether classical or natural. Though he did classify his thirty-six different types of letters under either deliberative, judicial, demonstrative, or familiar groupings, his rhetoric was otherwise unencumbered by any classical taxonomic underpinnings. Even this basic, classical distinction was called into question by Day at one point in his treatise as we will see. By stripping away almost all classical 3

Angel Day, The English Secretary (1599) Introduction by Robert O. Evans (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1967), II, 73. All subsequent references to this edition will be made in the text and will identify the year of this edition followed by the book and page number (unlike the 1586 edition, the 1599 edition has two books). All underlining reflects my own added emphases. All italicized text was originally offset by Day. The 1599 edition additionally includes a reference to a letter written by a kinsman to a young apprentice recently moved to London which suggested that the city had its own conventional usages with which the boy must learn to cope: ". . . as you haue now bequeathed your selfe to this place of seruice [under a maister], so must you for any feare of hard vsage, bitternesse of speech, or other mislike of tauntes or rebukes, make account to endure and continue. It may be, being yet vnacquainted with the customs and vsaees of London, you doe now at the beginning thinke well ofthat, which hereafter maie turne to a discontentment: but good Coosen, so be it you haue no want of things needful and necessarie, frame your selfe to forbeare all other crosse matters whatsoeuer, and giue you wholie on Gods name, to the benefite of your seruice." (From "A letter Gratulatorie from one to his kinsman seruing in London," 1599, II, 68)

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taxonomy and celebrating the power of examples and convention, Day in part did avoid the presentation of any one (classical) precedent, but he did not escape normative precedent altogether. The stripping away of one obvious layer of classical taxonomy only helped to expose another layer of natural precedent more clearly. As Day attempted to minimize the influence of one normative (classical) system on his rhetoric, he more readily exposed a second normative system embedded in the hierarchical cosmology of his time. By downplaying classical taxonomy, Day essentially minimized the visibility of one layer of a Tudor, rhetorical palimpsest. Without a substantial, classical overlay imposing itself on Day's rhetoric, the influence of Tudor cosmology becomes readily visible in The English Secretorie. What he left us was a view of rhetoric that incorporated the Tudor cosmological order (and its two paradoxical impulses) with little overlay of classical taxonomy to clutter our view. But for us to say that Day privileged conventional norms over norms based in nature ultimately would be a misnomer, especially in a world deeply indebted to (and imbedded in) a rigidly structured and hierarchical world view. Day could not have espoused conventional norms completely independent of a natural normative standard even if he had tried. In a world governed by an imposing sense of cosmic hierarchy, the seemingly conventional aspects of rhetoric were inextricably dependent on hierarchical norms. Conventional norms may indeed have reflected the numerous situations encountered socially by the orator or writer, but this vast and almost random assortment of encounters was necessarily embedded in a society rigidly structured by degree and proportion. Each seemingly conventional encounter

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immediately called upon natural reference points throughout the ordered hierarchy that in turn governed rhetorical usage. The inability to divorce conventional norms from their natural underpinnings may best be explained by a simple mathematical analogy. Though we may pick any combination of two numbers between 1 and 100 in an apparently random or conventional manner, these two numbers, perhaps 30 and 60, are immediately placed within a rigidly uniform set of equally spaced and delineated numbers which all share principled rules of proportion and difference. Though 30 and 60 may be random, we know that 30 is to 60 as 20 is to 50 or 68 is to 98 under a principle of subtraction or difference, while 30 is to 60 as 1 is to 2 or 27 is to 54 or 3 is to 6 by a principle of proportion. Thus any variety in the "conventional" (or random) choices made between 1 and 100 immediately invokes principles naturally inherent in a number system governed by degree. Similar natural principles pervaded the proportioned and hierarchical Sixteenth Century cosmology of the Great Chain of Being, which held the entire cosmos together from the heights of Heaven to the depths of Hell. Accordingly, the apparently conventional norms espoused by Day turned out to be rooted in deeper natural norms permeating The English Secretorie. Day could argue that any particular situation had to be treated differently than another, but each situation immediately located the orator-letter writer and his audience-recipient within a structured hierarchy which was governed by natural norms and principles of degree, proportion, and social distance as we will later see. These natural norms in turn were governed by the two ennobling and contradictory impulses of humankind

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within the Great Chain of Being discussed in previous chapters: the first being a desire to become Godly by assimilating toward a complete unity with God and the second being a desire to practice Godliness by preserving a world of plenitude which required the fulfillment of duties between superiors and inferiors. Thus, the purpose of this chapter will be to show how these two paradoxical impulses generated natural normative tests of fitness for Day even though he clearly appeared to be espousing a rhetoric governed predominantly by convention. The first impulse, the desire to assimilate with God, manifested itself in Day's effort to nurture sparks of virtue in the Elizabethan which eventually would help the soul break loose from the mind-body duality which kept it earth bound, thus allowing it more freely to approach the heavenly. The second impulse, the desire to preserve plenitude and fulfill the duties of a God-given calling in the divinely diverse cosmos, appeared in Day's efforts to use epistles to reinforce the social distinctions between letter writer and recipient. These two impulses often, though not always, manifested themselves in two different, but related theories of attraction, theories in which "like" elements in the cosmos strive to move towards other "like" elements. As we will see, both these impulses appropriated praise as a rhetorical tool and drew on a theory of attraction that drew one likeness closer to another likeness, a theory of like -to-like attraction fundamental to the Tudor view of the cosmos. Day's discussion of style and decorum also reinforced the impulse to practice Godliness and maintain social disparity by emphasizing the distinction and distance between dislikes. Day, however, did not escape the cosmological paradox. A theory of attraction which drew like towards like simultaneously sought to ( 1 ) draw people

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towards each cosmological pole while also arguing (2) that like-imperfect individuals should remain ensconced and attracted to one another instead of seeking the company of individuals above or below their station in the hierarchy. Attraction of like to like could not simultaneously attract a man to his God-given station in the hierarchy and also to the poles of Heaven and Hell. The chapter will first outline the cosmological theory of like-to-like attraction that made assimilation with God possible as elucidated by both the Tudor poet Sir John Davies and Angel Day. The chapter will then look at how Day's rhetoric functioned to support such an assimilative theory of like-to-like attraction. We will then focus on the way in which rhetoric paradoxically countered assimilation by keeping people in (or bringing them back to) their assigned station in life through the same like-to-like attraction. Whereas rhetoric in the first use, encouraged an attraction of the virtuous man (and soul) towards God and the more heavenly, the second use of rhetoric encouraged man to remain attracted to like imperfect individuals unique to any one stratum of Tudor society. The chapter will then survey the unique role Day's limited discussion of style played in maintaining and manipulating social distinctions within the hierarchy. As we will see at the end of the chapter, Day's admission that social distance may be manipulated (and most importantly, shortened), inadvertently brought the impulse to preserve plenitude into direct conflict with the impulse to assimilate in a manner not seen in the previous two chapters.

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The break of the mind-bodv duality: assimilation as a heavenly progression towards God

The natural desire of all men and women to assimilate with God manifested itself in a principle found in the earliest Greek cosmologies, the natural desire of all things in the universe to approach other things of like nature. For humankind in a Christian, Sixteenth Century England, such an assimilation with like moving towards like meant the eventual, successful break of the mind-body duality present in every mortal. For Day and other Elizabethans, the break of the mind-body duality came with the death of the body and the subsequent escape of the more virtuous soul and its flight towards a virtuous and heavenly likeness. Sir John Davies' poem, Nosce Teipsum, well illustrated the Tudor belief that the soul desired to reach the heavens and assimilate with God, a yearning which increased as the body grew older and the mind grew wiser: All moving things to other things do move, "Of the same kind, which shewes their nature such: So earth fais downe, and fire doth mount above, Till both their proper Elements do touch. . . .

. . . Even so the Sou le which in this earthy mould The Spirit of God doth secretlie infuse; Because at first she doth the earth behould, And onely this materiall world she viewes;

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At first her mother earth she holdeth dere, And doth embrace the world, and worldly things; She flyes close by the ground, and hovers here, And mounts not up with her celestiall wings:

Yet under heaven she cannot light on ought, That with her heavenly nature doth agree; She cannot rest, she cannot fixe her thought, She cannot in this world contented bee. . . .

So when the sou/e finds here no true content; And like Noahs Dove, can no sure footing take, She doth returne from whence she first was sent, And flyes to him that first her wings did make. (1341-1344; 1357-1368; 1377-1380)4 And so, the more noble, reasoned, and heavenly speech of the aged and dying body most clearly reflected the approaching (and hopefully successful) escape of the soul to Heaven: But most of them, even to their dying howre, Retaine a mind more lively, quick, and strong, 4

Davies, John, The Poems of Sir John Davies. Edited by Robert Krueger and Ruby Nemser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). Line numbers correspond to this edition and will be referenced in the text.

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And better use their understanding power, Then when their braines were warme, and limmes were yong;

For though the body wasted bee and weake; and though the leaden forme of the earth it bears; Yet when we heare that halfe-dead body speake, We oft are ravisht to heavenly Spheares. (1697-1704) Angel Day echoed the same Tudor sentiments expressed by Davies. Life was but a preparatory step in a "heavenly progression" towards an eventual assimilation with God and a break from the worldly body which kept the individual earth-bound: . . wee are Christians, and by the benefite of this corporall death, doe make exchaunge of an vncorruppted life, that the withdrawing vs from this vile earthlie bodie of clay and filth, is a commutation to a sacred, and heauenly progression. . . . (From "A Conciliatorie [Consolatorie] Epistle of the third sorte, wherein a gentlewoman is comforted of the death of her husband slayn in the warres," 1586, 215) As Day described the break of the mind-body duality there were clearly two forces pulling the soul and body apart; one part pulled the corrupt body towards its vile and earthly likeness while the other pulled the virtuous soul towards its virtuous likeness in Heaven. The dying individual, having done his or her best to cleanse the soul of bodily concerns waited with hopeful anticipation for the break of that duality:

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That beeing verily resolued in my soule, of all that I haue heere sayde vnto you, and hauing ordered mine actions, and prepared my selfe thereto accordingly, I doe willingly, and with a right contented mind, leaue this transitory worlde so replenished as it is with so manye greeuous casualties, and hartely do giue mv body to his naturall course. & my soule into the hands of the Almighty creator, for euer in his glory (I trust) to be eternized. (From "An example wherein the death of a Noble man is onely described," 1586. 52) Day made it quite clear that the desire to assimilate with God meant a total contempt of worldly and bodily concerns: [The narration of the epistle in question was] a recordation of some worthy and honourable speaches by him deliuered, beeing an argument of the contempt he held of life, and the certaine notice and likinge hee had in himselfe of death. (From Day's analysis of "An example wherein the death of a Noble man is onely described," 1586, 54) This desire of the soul to assimilate towards God was accompanied by a desire to emulate all that was good in an admittedly imperfect world. Such an assimilation was "insinuated" in our minds by Nature. It was a natural impulse: What vehemence also caryeth /Emulation? The force wherof is gathered of Enuie, (not that sluggish and execrable malice, which when it selfe is not wayes able to performe anye thing worthelye, snatcheth and continuallye gnaweth at the desertes of others) but that generous and noble kind, which sage Nature her selfe hath insinuate in our mindes. emulating by a feruent

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desire to compassé, or possibly to goe beyond what mightely, by others hath beene performed. ( 1586, 86) Unfortunately, if the desire to emulate the virtuous and assimilate towards the Godly was not strong enough in an individual or someone was born ill-disposed to virtue, then the assimilation became much more arduous. In some individuals, the original progression never appeared to have been upward and such people were naturally doomed. With this in mind, a man's initial, original condition clearly played a significant part in determining the probability of progressing one way or the other as Day indicated in the following vituperative exemplum: O God, it is incredible to think and vnpossible to be surmised, how great, how forcible, how manifold, how mischieuous, how insufferable, how detestable, hath bene the originall. progression, continuation and determination of his moste wicked and shamelesse life. . . . (From "An example of an Epistle vituperatorie, concerning also the person," 1586, 74) The emphasis on "the originall" state of an individual found here and elsewhere throughout Day's treatise suggests the important link made between original positioning in the cosmos and the desire of the soul to assimilate with the heavenly and overcome the pull towards Hell. Day made it quite clear that those with a better original position in the hierarchy, stood a much better chance of a virtuous assimilation. The ideal positioning, of course, fell to the ruler. His high position in the hierarchy "enabled"

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him better than anyone else to aspire to the divine. In an epistle praising the historical figure of Edward, the Black Prince, Day observed that: This is the prince whom Nature, Fortune and Vertue, to the intent to yeelde some apparaunt shew of their wonderfull and mightye operations, had aboue all others so especiallve enabled, with all kind of wished and most exquisite perfections, as in that present season, in which the delicacie of his aspiring glorye arached [?] the highest braunch of honour from out her lofty seat of dignity, it was denied to anie other whatsoeuer, to exceed? Nay, but so much as to become partaker with so rare a paterae of the like fruictes of virtue, and neuer dying glory. (From "An example of a Lawdatorie Epistle, solie touching the person," 1586, 63-64) This prince, "enabled" by his positioning in the grand cosmic scheme and surrounded by the "like fruictes of virtue," could gain knowledge and wisdom with ease because of his God-given natural endowments. This Prince, this honoured Prince my L. Who euen from the very cradle seemed to be adicted to the knowledge, and feare of God, and verie pietie of sincere and Christian Religion (besides that he was naturally so well formed and instructed in good documentes as anie might be) became in those very tender yeares also, so apt vnto learning, as the marche or like of hym therein, was seldome or neuer in those dayes any where found, and in these tymes also may not easily be heard of (From "An example of a Lawdatorie Epistle, solie touching the person," 1586, 65)

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The gentleman too, in addition to the prince, was given a distinct advantage in being born so high within the hierarchy. He not only was given greater gifts from birth than the commoner, but was also far more likely to achieve "aduauncement" and move upward though the chain to a higher and more virtuous position. His fortune in comparison to the common man was a function of his initial distance above the "ordinarye" person: Now therefore if the vse of learning, as the thinge of greatest accompt and most worthy, is here set downe to be so generallye, cömended to all sorts of men, how muche more consonant and agreeing is it then to the reputation of a Gentleman, who by what distaunce so euer he is measured in capacitie. mind, order, state and gouernment from anye other common or ordinarye person, by so much the more ought he in all endeuors to aspire and seeke to goe beyonde them. For where as all other men in their seuerall vocations are for the most part, and thereby as it were withdrawne from the speciall notice and eye-marke of all publique administration and gouernment, the Gentl. contrarywise the more worthye and noble that he is in callinge. the more nearer he is to aduauncement. which by nothing so much as learning is and ought to be preferred. And to say the truth, what profitable member can he be in such a place, whose ignoraunce is farre greater then his wit, and whose knowledge is lesse then the leaste of that, whereof he ought to take notice and experience. (From "An example of epistle Hortatory, to the study of learning," 1586, 96)

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The above passage in particular shows the importance of original positioning in the Elizabethan scheme of life. The person closer to God in social standing was more virtuous than someone below him or her at birth. In the great pull placed on the mind-body duality, the gentleman's mind (or soul), more insinuate with virtue at birth, was more readily going to move towards its like in Heaven than the commoner who had less virtue to pull him up and more earthly vice to pull him down in the opposite direction. The gentleman was in a position to "aspire and goe beyonde" the commoner and achieve "aduauncement." This "aduauncement" inextricably tied heightened virtue to a greater potential for worldly and heavenly betterment. The movement of the individual towards the more noble and virtuous pole was governed by a set of constraints similar to those governing the Newtonian physics of gravitational attraction: the acceleration or pull of one object towards another becomes greater as the distance between the two objects decreases. This understanding of attraction explained why the gentleman had an inherently better chance of moving towards the heavenly pole than the commoner and helps to explain why those individuals high up in the hierarchy experienced not only a pull on the mind or soul, but possibly on their entire mind-body 'package' with the result being an "aduauncement" not only in virtue, but also in government office and social position. 5 As a consequence, the gentleman who fell into wickedness was so much more condemnable than the commoner who fell away since the latter to a great

5

The modern analogy to this in the absence of cosmic pulls towards either Heaven or Hell might be, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

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degree could not help his more wicked and imperfect condition. As Roger Ascham summed up the matter: The greatest ship indeed commonly carrieth the greatest burden, but yet always with the greatest jeopardy, not only for the persons and goods committed unto it, but even for the ship itself, except it be governed with the greater wisdom.^ The wicked gentleman, according to Day, squandered what the heavens so bountifully had bestowed on him above many others: Alas my G. What fury hath led thee, what madnes hath bewitched thee, what hatefull destinie hath pursued thee, that being such as thou wert, on whom nature and the heauens as it seemed had powred al their gifts most plentifully, thou wouldest yet be led to deface so many parts of excellency, with one hatefull, ignominious and shameful! blot, of so shameles, wicked, and most heynous trecherie. (From "An example of an epistle Dehortatory, wherein a noble Gent, is withdrawen from infidelitie or rebellion," 115) Day's emphasis on the seriousness of losing one's original positioning was also reinforced in a swasorie epistle addressed to a brother who was admonished to keep his younger sibling from making a fall away from his "originall": Consider I pray you, the life hee taketh in hand, befitteth not suche a one, whose originall was so honest, is ill beseeming the yonger brother of your 6 Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster (1570), Edited by Lawrence V. Ryan, Folger Documents of Tudor and Stuart Civilization 13 (1967; reprint, Charlottesville, North Carolina: The University Press of Virginia in association with The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1974), 40-41. All future citations to Ascham refer to this work and will be referenced in the text.

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seife, vnworthie his birth or name of a gentleman, and altogether repugnant to the qualifie of your behauiour or anye part of your liuing. You are to remember that he is yet very greene, now pliable to whatsoeuer may bee impressed in him, as chafed waxe apt to receaue any figure, like vnto a new vessell to be seasoned with whatsoeuer licour, what he now taketh taste and fauour of, that he holdeth, what habit you now cast vp on him, the same shadowe hee lightly beareth. . . . Think that Nature, Loue, Duty, yea verie Pietie bindeth you vnto him, who hath none other left to depend vppon, but suche as by possibilitie your selfe may become vnto him. (From "An other example of an Epistle Swasorie, perswading the carefull acceptance and regard of one brother to an other," 1586, 130) We see Day in this example using persuasion to help keep a younger brother from being pulled down and away from an original position worthy of a gentleman. As we will now see, Day's rhetorical answer to this wicked pull or attraction was to offer praise as a counter-force and virtuous source of attraction both for the purposes of assimilation and also for the maintenance of the hierarchy. We must first turn to rhetoric as an aid to assimilation.

The function of rhetoric: the role of praise in drawing men up

The desire to keep like approaching like, drawing man closer to an assimilation with God and a successful break of the mind-body duality, motivated a great portion of Angel Day's rhetorical effort and explains the emphasis given to

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praise in the The English Secretorie. Rhetoric was the means by which the attraction of like to like could be bolstered in any individual. It did so by showcasing a virtuous ideal that could act as a source of attraction for the virtuous kernel or "sparke" (1586, 100) found in most, if not all, people. In Day's treatise, praise was the rhetorical construction which brought Man to a higher state of virtue. Praise allowed a Tudor individual's virtuous essence to recognize a like source of virtue and move upward towards it. The praise or "accompt" given to virtue was the bait by which a man was "drawne up into a liking" of virtue: For what I pray you is it, that preferreth and encourageth the common actions and endeuours of all men, but the generali allowance and regard that is euery where made of them? Is it not accompt alone that giueth encouragement to Virtue? Is Virtue so fiillie aduaunced in anye thing, as in the honour and commendation that is attributed vnto the same? For so and in such maner hath Nature framed the mindes of mortall men, that there is no one of them liuing, that is of so base and contemptible a spirite, but by praise and commendation he may be drawne vp into a liking which being so, the force therof in Exhortation must of necessity greatly prevaile. (1586, 84) Praise was discussed as a means to "pricke" one "forwarde " Those placed higher in the hierarchy at birth were the ones more readily capable of assimilating towards a heavenly and virtuous ideal and "glory": So worthie a discent as whereof you are deriued such infancie and childehood wherein so exquisitely you haue ben trayned, so great loue, and charge of parentes wherewith you may be animated, doe inuite you farre

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otherwise, and to a more excellent purpose. Let the sweete and vnapprooued delight thereof prouoke you, the pravse and commendation solie to vertue appropriate and belonging, once pricke you forwarde. the honour and aduauncements thereby continual! ye [continually] pursued. And if none of all these preuaile, yet the riches and rewards farre greater the anie earthly treasure, which are therunto incidêt. Think of the worthines of those who by howe muche the more noble they were in byrthe. by so muche the more zealously they haue trauayled. not shunning any labor, sweat, tediousnes. skorning yea bondage it selfe, whereby to compassé vnto themselues the glory and rewardes annexed to the dignitie hereof. (From "An example of epistle Hortatory, to the study of learning," 1586, 97) Praise offered a commendable source of virtue to which the mind or soul could aim. It offered a source of worthy attraction to help like approach like. The virtuous part of man moved towards a state of virtue brought into view by an articulated praise. For virtue to be a source of attraction and assimilation it first needed to be made apparent by rhetoric. In this way, rhetoric became inculcated in the natural impulse to move like towards like, the same impulse which drove the soul to assimilate with God and more greatly aided those born high into the hierarchy. As Day stated above, "Is it not accompt alone that giveth encouragement to Virtue? " (1584, 84) With the articulated praise or "accompt," the person addressed indeed may have been "drawne up into a liking." ( 1584, 84)

Thus Day presented praiseworthy

exemplars which could draw up or attract the virtuous elements in a person:

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The feruent loue, & entier zeale and regard, wherewith your L. euen in these tender and as yet vnripened yeares, seemeth to pursue the virtues and honorable worthines of the moste renomed and famous, and the reuerend accompt wherewith in your moste secreat imaginations you haue euer admired, and as it were emulated their highest progressions: hath moued me in recordation therof (and the rather to deliuer vnto your L. the verye true image and liuely counterfeit indeed, of vnblemished honor, adorned with all princely and most surpassing noblenes) to propose vnto your view, a paragon so peirles. and of so rare and excellent performance, as wherof no historié hath the semblable, no Region the match, nor anye world hereafter may eftsones be supposed to produce the like. (From "An example of a Lawdatorie Epistle, solie touching the person," 1586, 63; 1599, 1, 35) Such was the power of praise to lift up an individual into a virtuous liking that Day espoused a strong sense of optimism in addressing almost all people. Even when admonishing someone for some wrong or wickedness, the orator-writer still gained much more if he qualified his reprehension with a "certain manner of praise": And in somuch as there be few men y gladlie like to be supposed ouermuch faultie, or loue much to be rebuked for the greatnes of their errors, the order therefore of these [monitorie] Epistles, in setting forth what may be counted offensiue, shal not accuse but admonish, from the greatnes or smalenes of the same, qualifieng the bitternesse of reprehension X a certain maner of praise, how euer dese[r]t do affoord to the furtherance therof. For in a

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gentle condition, or mind not altogether beat vnto euill, to suppose that the greatest part is to the better enclined. (1586, 223) Roger Ascham likewise observed that gentleness, though arduous, often succeeded more than cruel reprehension: "surely it is hard with gentleness, but unpossible with severe cruelty, to call them back to good frame." (35) Similarly, when speaking to someone reluctant to hear our admonishments, directives, or exhortations, one should not use a severe or harsh manner according to Day, but rather "a contrary course to deale with them," a course which optimistically assumed a willingness among men to seek out praise and virtue: . . . it shall for the lenifiyng hereof, be requisite to entertaine with our selues, this one speciall regard, that in writing to such persons, we do endeuour by many reasons to qualifie the sharpness hereof, and by a contrary course to deale with them. And for that an honest and lawdable opinion of euery ones actions, seemeth by manifestation and deliuerie thereof vnto the partie, to induce most credence, and that there is no man living, of so peruerse and bad accompt. but he desireth at least, and reiovseth to be well deemed of in accompt among the best, it shall herein principally appertaine, that wee doe rather frame supposais of such mens willingnesse. then quite to condemne them by any note of negligence. (From "An example of epistle Hortatory, to the study of learning," 1586, 98-99) Day's optimism and confidence in the power of praise to create a source of attraction lead him to boast that a man need only have one "sparke" of virtue in him:

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Verely it seemeth vnto me, that if there shoulde be any sparke at all of good condition resident in such a one [who has gone astray from virtue and duty and will not take criticism well], hee might by like degrees be drawne to some affectation therein. (1586, 100) In essence then, praise became a critical aid in the tug of war between the more heavenly virtue and the more earthly and hellish vice. Praise became a counterforce to evil and the downward progression it promoted. Without such a virtuous pull, a person risked letting the imperfect, bodily portion of their mind-body duality pull both body and soul away from Heaven; with a virtuous source of attraction, however, good could hopefully, if not make a gain, at least achieve a stalemate that halted the "daily progression" of vice: But forsomuch as it is of necessitie; that euerie honorable estate must and ought to bee serued, and that where a multitude good are in attendance, there ensueth

cömonly to be among them some few that are euill, either

of an annexed propinquitie or opposition of good and bad, vertue and vice, emulating or rather endieng as we see the daily progression each of the other, or else for that the world something addicted to peruerse manners, sendeth forth often times such imps of her substance, as become monstrous disturbers of euery honest endeuor. (1599, II, 117) The presence of good and it's articulated praise thus created a tension which (at the least) helped Man in his effort to hold his ground and lessen the net pull of evil towards Hell.

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The importance of praise to Day's world was so great that it permeated almost every component of his rhetoric. It was not simply a component of demonstrative rhetoric, but also the deliberative and the judicial. His detailed elaboration of matters honest and inhonest illustrated how the praiseworthy infused itself into many areas traditionally falling under the purview of at least one of the three classical divisions of oratory: That onelye is praise worthy, which beeing rightly done beareth the remembraunce thereof with pursued commendation. Whatsoeuer then by sound & holesome perswasiö tendeth eyther to the embracing of the good, or shonning of the euill. Whatsoeuer includeth either fïdelitie, true friendeship, equitye, obedience or gratitude. Whatsoeuer conduceth to true pietie to God, thy Countrye, Parentes, Children and friendes. Whatsoeuer appertained to the seueritie of the law, to the admonishing of the wicked, and to the remuneration and defence of the well deserued. Whatsoeuer tendeth to tolleraunce or pacient forbearing of euils, to longanimitie, entring into hazard and dangers for conscience for thy country, kinred or friendes. Whatsoeuer concerneth chastitie, sobrietie, frugalitie and semely moderation in all thinges, that in each of these is onely adiudged honest and none others. (1586, 60) Conversely, those matters inhonest "exempted from praise" include all vices and "perswasion to mischeif & seducement fro the good." (1586, 61 ) The link made above between praise, "perswasiö," "the law," and all manner of virtues and vices ( 1586, 60-61) as well as Day's insistence on praise as the tool by which men are

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"drawne vp into a liking," thus allowing for "exhortation" to "greatly prevail" (1586, 84), explained Day's decision to conflate almost completely the three traditional forms of rhetoric: I haue thought good in imitation of the best and most learned iudgements of our time, to drawe the sundrie parts thereof, vnder foure especiall heads, that is to saie:

Demonstratio, Deliberative, Iudiciall, and Familiar Letters.

And howbeit the rules prescribed vnto either of these, maie vnder their seuerall heads seeme to be particularlie allotted, yet are they in nature so neerelie conioyned togither. as hardlie shall you in anie of the first three fall into their particular distinctions, but lightlie in one sort or other, you shall run into the natures of the others. (1599,1, 20) Day's emphasis on praise suggested a rhetorical norm embedded in the natural impulse to strive for a virtuous assimilation and unity with God and that impulse infused and unified much of Day's rhetoric including his limited discussion of the three classical divisions of oratory. We must now look at that impulse that paradoxically countered assimilation by requiring Man to acknowledge the hierarchical disparities within his society and world. That impulse too, as we will see, depended on an attraction of like towards like, albeit an attraction of a more worldly nature than the one just described.

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The duty of man to practice Godliness to those above and below him, the role of God-given social disparities and their impact on rhetoric

In the last section, we saw how the impulse to assimilate used praise as a rhetorical tool to help promulgate the attraction of like to like and draw men up into a more virtuous state of mind, a state of mind which could result in spiritual (and possibly worldly) advancement for those men born into higher and more virtuous social positions than the mere commoner. In this section of the chapter we will see how rhetoric was used, not to promote spiritual or worldly advancement, but rather to serve the impulse to preserve plenitude and the God-given disparity of the hierarchy. The appropriation of rhetoric in this circumstance still used the attraction of like to like as a guide, but the attraction now took on a more worldly focus. Instead of just attracting the soul or mind to a more heavenly likeness above it, the attraction of like to like also focused simultaneously on keeping similar imperfect and socially situated individuals (with similar imperfect, mind-body dualities) aligned with like individuals and not with people too far above or below them in rank or mind-body 'maturity.' 7 Additionally, we will see how the impulse to maintain plenitude and disparity also used rhetoric to reinforce the distinction and separation between dislikes.

7

I use the term "maturity" to distinguish individuals of the same social position whose minds (or souls) differ in their wisdom and focus on the virtuous. Thus, I will state that to the Tudor individual the mind-body duality of a parent was generally more "mature" than that of a child, or that the maturity of an older person's mind-body duality was generally greater than the mind-body maturity of a youth of similar social status.

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The maintenance of original positioning in the hierarchy attempted to combat two different shifts for the Tudor individual. The first was the drift downward into vice and away from one's God-given position and state of virtue assigned at birth. The second was the aberrant joining of two individuals with different degrees of mind-body maturity. In the first case, the drift downward into vice and away from one's God-given original position was countered rhetorically by praise from the writer-orator. As an example, Day's discussion of the comminatorie (or invective) epistle gives us a useful insight into the use of praise to maintain one's original calling and corresponding level of virtue. Day compared the "inuective" (emphasizing dispraise) with the "laudable" (emphasizing praise). While the dispraise of the "inuective" focused on "behauior," the praise of the "laudable" focused on "callings": This /nuectiue [the epistle comminatorie] seemeth to haue beene ouer sharp in the matter, but not in the maner, for the occasions thereunto inducing might peraduenture merite that and greater. And howbeit both the termes and conueyance are somewhat hard, yet is it in such cases verie tolerable, when either the vilenesse of the action, or base demeanor of the partie doth require it. And in this point there is a great Decorum principallie to be obserued, to vse a bad person with termes correspondent to his behauior & qualitie. as in any other laudable purpose to entertaine another party according to his calling or dignitie. (From "Of Epistles Comminatorie," 1599, II, 51)

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Dispraise in this discussion of the epistle comminatorie revolved around a bad person's "behauior," but praise, the "laudable purpose," focused on one's "calling." This mixed comparison of dispraise for a bad behavior with praise for a good calling suggests that certain behavioral standards were expected (and taken for granted) in particular callings and only when expectations were not met, did behcn ior become the focus of dispraise. In such a manner praise functioned as a rhetorical means to preserve a conformity to one's calling (and less as a tool for assimilation). 8 Praise and dispraise served as tools to help fulfill the expectations of a certain social calling. The following hortatorie example illustrates how Day used praise to preserve a calling and help an individual satisfy social expectations: The time now calleth you forth, your Country, and soyle wherein you were borne and nourished inuiteth you, your praise already gotten, and hope of renowne euer after to followe, perswadeth you, the honour of your house and parentage constraineth you, yea euery of these solie and altogether doe ioyntly exhort and commaund you, that becomming the selfe same, you vowed and thev long since haue lookt for, you doe now shew your selfe such as was promised, and wherin the expectation first conceiued of you, may in no wise be frustrated. (From "An other example Hortatorie wherin an 8

Praise, however, still serves a minor assimilative role when one's behavior becomes unbeseeming for one's original social standing; both the impulse to maintain the original positioning(s) of the hierarchy and the impulse to assimilate benefit from praise's ability at least to pull up the fallen individual to the original position ordained at birth; in essence the former impulse uses praise to pull one up to their original calling while the latter impulse uses praise to move not only up to, but also beyond the original worldly position. To a certain extent then, the two impulses overlap each other.

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honourable Gentleman is egged forwards in the profession of Armes, and seruice of his Prince and Countrey," 1586, 109-110) Praise here acted as a means to maintain a person's proper calling and to articulate expectations made of that person at birth. It became a tool for returning people to their original selves when they fell away from virtue: Whv returnest not thou rather to thy selfe my C. and hauing long before striued to emulate the praise of others by an vnstayned gentilitie, wipe now quicklye off this foule blemish from thee, and couering the filthynes thereof by a most incomparable fidelitye, become once againe like vnto thy selfe. (From "An example of an epistle Dehortatory, wherein a noble Gent, is withdrawen from infidelitie or rebellion," 1586, 120) Praise, at the least, was a force that could be used continually to prevent a person's slip from their original position and proper "selfe." In the case of the second undesirable shift within the hierarchy, the aberrant joining or movement together of two individuals with different degrees of mindbody maturity, Day used rhetorical strategies designed to highlight the proper worldly attraction of like to like and discourage the alignment of inappropriately matched dislikes. Day's thoughts on the aberrant joining of dislikes appeared most prominently in his discussion of the malignity of an arranged marriage between a young maiden and a considerably older gentleman. The example in question exhorted a father not to marry his daughter to a far older gentleman. Day argued strongly against bringing together any two such individuals "so far different from nature":

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In this epistle, the matter (tending to a disswasion from so iniurious and hard a match, as might fall out in two so indifferent and vnmeete of complexion & ages, as was that threed-bare forworne olde creature, and this fayre, yong, fresh and tender maiden (impassible hetherto of any man as it seemed, and therefore so much the more vnfit in such bad sort to bee bestowed) hath in it these enforcements whereby to draw the purpose therof into the greater mislike, viz. The Vnhonestie of the action, by vndertaking a matter so far different from nature, reason or societie. the Discommoditie, as vpon the admittaunce whereof, standeth so great an hazard, as the losse of her own soule, the Inequalitie, by comparison of youth and age together [a comparison facilitated by rhetoric], the manifold imperfections o f ? one, so much contrarying the alienated desires of the other, the Indigtrilie, wherin is measured the reputation, crédité & abilitie of her parents, in respect of whom, so indiscreet a match ought in no wise without the greater necessitie in that sort to be put forward. (1586, 147) Day's analysis of the marriage between two individuals of different ages suggests that a natural rule of attraction between equally imperfect beings was in violation. By distinction of age alone, one had "manifold imperfections" not found in the other. By virtue of age difference alone, the elder's soul looked elsewhere than the young maiden's soul. The maturation of his soul over time changed the balance of tension in his mind-body duality and he experienced the "alienated desires" that came with age. Those desires made him focus more and more on the hereafter, desires much more distant to the young maiden. As Day went on to note, such a

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pairing "different from nature" pushed the daughter towards "So vnused and vnnaturall extremities": It is too muche intolerable beleeue me that you should endeuour in this sorte by collour of your fatherly aucthoritie to constraine her, whome (albeit she is your childe) yet may you not thus forciblie compell vnto so vnused and vnnaturall extremities.

(From "An example Disswasorie, wherein a man of wealth

sufficient, is disswaded from the marriage of his daughter, to the riches of an olde wealthie Miser," 1586, 145) This passage is important because it points to some connection between three ideas: common usage, similarity, and the avoidance of extremities. Lack of usage (the "so vnused") varied directly with dissimilarity or, alternatively, the unnaturalness of an act (in this case marriage) varied directly with a dissimilarity (of the two parties). Inversely, common usage to some degree varied directly with similarity. Thus common usage or accepted practice seems to have been most prevalent when like was moved to like instead of being paired with dislike. In Day's sample argument, rhetoric was a tool to maintain like degrees of mind-body perfection, a preferred condition far from the "vnused" extremity.

Style and the Maintenance of Hierarchy

The desire to maintain disparity and original callings as well as keep like aligned with like and 'usage' in avoidance of "vnnaturall extremities," in turn, also influenced Day's discussion of style and decorum. In his analysis of style, there

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were three ways in which distinctions in the hierarchy were fostered: the first came in the alignment of style with the subject matter and social status of both the oratorwriter and the auditor-addressee; the second came with the clustering together of certain (named and unnamed) stylistic figures which reinforced hierarchical distinctions and duties between superior and inferior; the third came in the stylistic manipulation of social distance between the superior and the inferior.

Subject Matter and Social Status

The first of these stylistic considerations reinforced the attraction of like to like and revolved around the alignment of style with the subject matter and social status of both the orator-writer and the auditor-addressee. Two significant passages illustrate the appropriate alignments. The first passage argued that "disswasions" may be used to convince a man to not meddle in any subject too far above or below his social status and showed the alignment between the orator and the subject matter: Disswasions also may be vsed to a man not to entermedle in hie or meane occasions, so termed either in respecte of hvs owne desertes. respecting or regardant to farre better or more lower purposes, or in weight of his habilitie or disabilitie. wherby he is put forward or drawne backe in the acceptance therof, either by reputatiö or wealthines. (1586, 143) The orator-writer's social position limited the subjects that he was permitted to address.

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In the second passage, we find that style varied necessarily with both the seriousness of the subject matter and also the status of the person being addressed: This decorum, the very direct square and measure wherof, conduceth all thinges with such exquisite performance, as whereunto neuer afterward ensueth any iust reprehension, willeth (as Horace in his booke de arte poetica excellence deliuereth) that vnto euery thing bee geuen his true nature, collour and proportion, aswel with pen as pencill, abhorring as monstrous, and enemie vnto skill, what otherwise vnaduisedly shall be portrayed or described, by reason whereof, whatsouer carryeth wyth it selfe a iust decorum, is sayde to be neate, apte, and comelie, the contrarie whereof as altogeather impugned, is sayde to be vnmeete or vnseemely. And in somuch as this decorum is a worde among sundrye that are vnlearned, more often repeated then manye tymes well understoode: I will somewhat declare what order the same beareth, in thys kinde of proportion. It is therefore in an Epistle a singuler Decorum, when of a common and meane cause wee veeld common and playne speeches: An indecorum agayne, when vppon a grosse conceite: a trifling toye. a matter of no valewe. wee seeke to frame high and loftie sentences. To a person of meane condition. Decorum willeth in writvng we giue a meane regard, and a great Indecorum it shalbe to a perso of greater account, not to giue sufficient, and due regard. A matter of grauity deliuered with weight, a matter of sorrow reported with griefe, a matter of pastime discoursed with pleasure, a matter of follie intermingled with

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laughter, doe eche shewe the decorum therein contained, and what agreement falleth out in euery seuerall discription, where contrariwise, to a person sorrowfiill to write of iests, to talk learnedly vnto a clown, to salute an olde man with childishe fantasies, in causes of common wealth to aduaunce trifles, what thing more absurde or greater matter of indecorum, canne be founde placed in any writing. (From Chapter IIII: "Of comelinesse to be obserued as well touching the person as the cause," 1586, 15-16) There was a fourfold alignment in these two passages that linked style with subject matter and the personal condition of both the rhetor and the addressee: ( 1 ) a lofty or serious subject matter was suitable only for (2) a recipient of high standing and needed to incorporate (3) a high or sublime style by (4) a rhetor of high enough standing to warrant his addressing of the matter. The mean (or low individual) according to Day's discussion did not have the natural propensity or potential for learned matters and thus the most serious matters of discussion. Thus, the high or sublime style was of no use to the mean individual. This fourfold alignment promoted a standard of decorum reinforcing the social disparateness of the Elizabethan world and maintained a worldly alignment of like with like.

The Clustering of Figures

The second means of fostering the hierarchy stylistically appeared independent of any like-to-like attraction and came through Day's use of clustered figures to reinforce duties of both the superior and the inferior. Day never explicitly

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stated that the figures he employed within his examples were meant to be clustered with other figures, but several figures repeatedly appeared in Day's epistles to express reciprocal duties. For instance, under the peiitorie epistle, we find the petition for aid or counsel made to a superior combined with the expression of gratitude on the part of the inferior, and that gratitude, in turn, is clustered together with a declaration of constancy and obedience in service to the benefactor: . . . if it may please you to yoke me farther vnto you by waight of your courtesie: I shall not onely endeuor by all possibilitie to requite it. but also your selfe shall not faile at anye time to finde suche a one of me, as of whose trauaile, industrie, or what other abilitie to plesure you, you may accompt assuredly. (1586, 177; 1599, 96-97) Using Henry Peacham's terminology, this would be a clustering ofobtestatio (7172) (an earnest petition, request, or prayer) with eucharistia!gratiorum actio (101102) (giving thanks for benefits received) and eustathia/constantia (69-70) (a promising and protesting of one's constancy). 9 The same clustering of eucharistia

9

Day does include a compendium of stylistic devices entitled "Of Figures, Tropes, and Schemes" in the 1599 edition that appears indebted to Henry Peacham, but his collection contains approximately two-thirds fewer figures and those are discussed in considerably less depth and with very little consideration of the uses and cautions that Peacham devoted to the figures. Day also does not discuss obtestatio, eucharistia, or eustathia. The lack of any identification of these figures by Day, however, does nothing to diminish the clustering of petitions with gratitude and professions of constancy within Day's examples. The numbers referenced after each of these figures refer to the page on which they can be found in the second edition of Peacham's The Garden of Eloquence. See Henry Peacham, Garden of Eloquence ( 1593). Introduction by William G. Crane (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1954).

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and eustathia can be found in the expression of gratitude given by the inferior to the superior in a 1599 example of a remuneratoria epistle: To recognize (Sir) in multitude of wordes, howe much charged I stände vnto your bounteous and euer curteous regard towards mee [eucharistia], were vnto your wisdome I knowe but friuolous, who better respecteth the inwarde seruice intended of anie one, (whereof I humblie beseech you on my parte to stände assured [eustathia]) then an outwarde behauiour, the validitie whereof maie manie waies be doubted." (From "An example of an Epistle Remuneratorie from an inferiour, to one far his better in reputation and calling, 1599, II, 63-64) Additionally, Day's examples showed the clustering of the contrary qualities of ingratitude and infidelity: For my part, if I should not owe vnto vou all honest minde and fidelitie. / shoulde much contrary your great curtesie, and deseruedlie incur the shame of ingratitude.

(From "A Letter remuneratory from one friend to another,"

1599, II, 64-65) In the Elizabethan scheme of the world, the superior was required to extend aid and courtesies to the inferior in times of need; it was the duty of the inferior, in turn, to seek aid when needed and then to express his gratitude and further obedience or constancy unto the gracious superior when he received it. 1 0 Thus, figures of thought existed which reinforced hierarchical distinctions and duties.

10

Courtesy and gratitude are extended between equals also, but in the majority of cases found in Day's treatise, one party is the superior to the other.

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The manipulation of social distance

The third means of fostering the hierarchy appeared in Day's discussion of the stylistic manipulation of social distance between the superior and inferior. Day presented numerous examples of epistles decorously written to reflect the consideration of distance separating the writer and the recipient. In the most simple case, Day noted that comeliness varies with the natural distance between the two parties: In these estates of betternes, equalitie, or infeririour [sic] calling, the excellencie or debasement of eche of them, shalbe measured to remayne, according to the credit, countenaunce, estate, or dignitie of him, from whom the letter is framed, and by so much the more shall surmount or be lessened in iust account, by how muche the neerer or farther of. eche man is in calling to him, vnto whome hee taketh vppon him to write wherein a man may assoone ouershoote himselfe by beeing too muche officious, as bewray his ill nurture, in not becomming sufficient lie obsequioius. (1586, 14) In a similar vein, a remuneration should vary directly with the estate or quality of the benefactor but also with the magnitude of the dutious courtesy or good turn received: And in so much as vnto euerie one well conditioned, or of good and überall education, it is a thing pertinent, not to omit the respect of euerie benefit without some thankefiill consideration, it shall behooue that according to the

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estate or qualitie of the partie, from whome we receiue the same, we do frame our letters of thankes, which to our betters, equalles and inferiours are in sundrie sortes to be deliuered, and according to the dignitie and worthinesse of euerie one, excelling or going before vs, are euer to be measured, and with the more or lesse submissiue and humble acknowledgment is alike to be caried. Neuertheless, that according to the efficacie of speech in each of them deliuered, the greatnesse and weightie respect of euerie good turne, is by the considerate and respectiue regarde thereof, the more amplie to be perceiued. (1599, II, 63) These last two passages presented distance as a stylistic criterion in a rather straight forward manner; Day, however, saw the presentation of distance in an oddly flexible light. Distance, for instance, could vary with the magnitude of the act under discussion. In cases where a wrong to a superior was involved, the superior was entitled to vary the social distance he presented to the inferior in accordance with the degree or severity of the wrong. The superior, for instance, could decide to use an expostulatorie epistle (normally reserved for equals) in addressing a minor wrong with an inferior. Such a strategy decreased social distance and created a courteous "imparlance" as opposed to a much more distancing accusatorie or reprehensorie epistle: And so may a man with his inferiour also in good sort sometime expostulate an iniurie, wherin if he shall vouchsafe so to doe, the partie lesse in abilitie hath the more reason to recognize his courtesie: for a man of good sort and greatlie reputed of, to offer as it were an imparlance vnto his inferiour.

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whereby to argue with him a matter in suspence to bee noted an iniury, cannot be but much to be praised, and so adiudged in that bettemesse, as to proceede of a most singular bountie. (1599, II, 19) The superior, Day immediately went on to note, was not to use such an epistle to stress his own "vaineglorie" or distance above an inferior unless the act or "desert" was sufficiently severe or could lead to worse wrong doings: So be it he do it not by insultation, nor anie pricke of vainglorie, for so doing it looseth a great part of the vertue therein praysed, vnlesse the desert of the partie be such, as may well merite that or a greater euill to be tendered. (1599, II, 19) The extent of the evil determined whether there was any allowable "insultation" or "vaine glorie" which would emphasize the distance between the superior and the inferior. Also, if the offence was too great, the superior was not to consider the expostu/atorie epistle, but instead move straight to the reprehensorie epistle. (1599, II, 18) The general rule here seems to have been that the emphasis on the gap or distance between superior and inferior varied with the wickedness of the inferior. A more obvious case of social distance manipulation occurred in the rhetoric of the grateful superior. In the example offered by Day, the gratitude of the superior was made manifest in the contracting of the distance between the two parties. The inferior was raised by the grace of the grateful superior to the status of "friend": T.F. I haue vnderstoode by my seruaunt P. howe much I am beholding vnto you for your paines taken in my behalfe, about such busines as I sent him, for

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which I not onlie thanke you for the present, but will remaine your willing friende to requite you in anie thing that I maie. It was tolde mee you had occasion to trauell this way verie shortly, I pray you if you doe, let mee see you. And looke you faile not to vse me as your good friende. if at anie time you fortune to haue neede of me. Wherein doubt not but you shall finde my readinesse as great as your forwardnesse hath beene already in my businesse. (From "A Letter remuneratorie from a Better to his inferiour," 1599, II, 65) The typical inferior served his superior with dutious obedience, gratitude, and servitude for courtesies bestowed upon him by the superior. In the case above, the superior was in the position to offer gratitude to an inferior not in his employment who went beyond the typical call of duty. The superior, by his own grace, lifted the lower individual and diminished the social distance between them. Thus we see the presentation of social distance varying inversely in magnitude with the virtue of the inferior's actions: the greater the virtuous act, the lesser the displayed social distance. So far we have seen how praise, promoting the attraction of like to like, has been used to bolster both of the key impulses in the life of the Elizabethan. First, praise promoted the impulse of an individual to assimilate towards a more heavenly ideal and possibly a better worldly position if that individual was born sufficiently high enough into the hierarchy; and second, praise was used to promote an ordained disparity by focusing attention on a person's proper calling and original positioning. We have also seen how Day's discussion of decorum aligned subject matter with style as well as the social status of both the recipient-auditor and the writer-orator.

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Additionally, Day clustered together figures of petition, gratitude, and professed constancy to reinforce the delineated duties of both the inferior and the superior. Day's effort at maintaining disparity also included a discussion of the appropriate manipulation of social distance.

But it was Day's discussion of social distance

manipulation which really brought the cosmological paradox to a head. The superior could stress social disparity in his rhetoric or through his grace lift up the inferior and decrease the disparity. The superior in essence could preserve plenitude or encourage assimilation. The incompatibility of these impulses was never more apparent than in Day's discussion of the relationship between the lord and his secretary.

The paradox of the secretary: a microcosm of two conflicting cosmic impulses

The potential for diminishing the distance between superior and inferior was most clearly presented in Day's discussion, "Of the Partes, Place and Office of a Secretorie" at the end of the 1599 edition. Day presented the loyal secretary not only as a servant, but as a friend and this contraction of the distance between the two parties illustrates nearly completely the paradoxical impulses of Man within the Great Chain of Being. In the contraction of distance between the Lord and the secretary we find signs of assimilation, but also indications that Day wanted to maintain the disparity between the commander and the commanded: By this measure nowe of Fidelitie, trust or loyall credit of a seruant, in which place our Secretorie, as you see standeth bounden by the first degree

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of his seruice, it maie secondlie be coniectured, in what respectiue estate, he ought for the residue of that which to his attendance appertaineth, bee accounted a Friend. The limits of Friendship (as it might bee obiected) are streight, and there can bee no Friend where an inequalitie remaineth. Twixt the partie commaunded and him that commaundeth. there is no societie. and therefore no Friendship where resteth a Superioriiie. But I say and affirme, that if it bee true, that the summe of all Friendship taketh his originall of loue, and that the true demonstration of loue groweth by a simpathie of affections, of which affections Vertue is said to be the whole & simple ground, then may this simpathie of affectiös so groûded on vertue as aforesaid, be turned into loue, notwithstanding y inequality of estate or condition whereby a man vertuouslie disposed, being seruant to such a one who is honourablie inclined, may in that place of seruice in which he continueth, be reputed in processe of time to become as a friend. . . . But speaking of friendship, I only deale with such, whose actions and sincere desires haue in vertue highest preheminence, for these, not by aduenture, but by a deliberate counsell and choice regard speciallie had, of things valuable and worthy, do accomplish their effects by a most honourable purpose. (1599, II, 111-112) Day's uneasy attempt at managing the paradox of the "secretorie" as servant and friend was expounded one page later: whie yet maie not our Secretorie as well as any other, merit neuertheless in this place of seruice at the handes of his L. or mister, the name of FriencP.

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Why should he not therein aswell as anie other haue that power in him planted, whereby to become a Friend? Touching the equalitie of affections, though it is still laid down that therein ought to be no difference. & the commander and the commanded. do yet alwaies make a discordance: I maie neuerthelesse thus much deliuer thereof, that by all common likelihood it is assuredlie to be coniectured, that no one personage of estate, laieth choice vpon such a one to serue so neer about him, and to be in place of so great trust as appertaineth to a man of that reckoning, but ere he long haue vsed him, he bindeth vnto him at least some good part of his affection. (1599, II, 112-113) The paradox was even more vivid in Day's discussion of the "coniunction" between the secretorie and his Lord. Day presented in a single passage an almost complete microcosm of the paradox Man plays out with God on the grand cosmic scale. If we did not know the following remark was made in the context of the inferior secretorie's role as servant and friend, we might easily mistake it as a completely spiritual passage explicating the relationship between God and Man. He then thus finding in so noble a place, so honourable an account, our Secretorie being as he ought to be, a man of vertue, and worth, cannot chose on y other side, but frame his vtmost thoughts correspondent in all things to those particular fauours, his conuersing, his neerenesse and attendance, tumeth then to an affection, and this, heated by the dailie encrease of his Lord or maisters liking towardes him, groweth thence to a seruencie, and so each vertue kindled by the others Grace. maketh at last a coniunction. which

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by the multitude of fauors rising from the one, and a thankfUU compensation alwayes procured in the other, groweth in the end to a simpathie vnseparable. and therby by all intendment concludeth a most perfect vniting. (1599, II, 113) The ultimate end for the secretorie was a complete assimilation, a "simpathie vunseparable" and "a most perfect vniting" with his "Lord." Day discussed the necessary disparity between secretorie and Lord brought about by plenitude in the hierarchy, but ultimately acknowledged a successful assimilation for the virtuous and dutiful inferior. The articulation of this paradox made so successfully here at the end of the 1599 edition reflected the greater natural, paradoxical impulses at work in the lives of the Elizabethans. The articulation of the paradox revealed that Day himself was dealing with natural normative cosmic impulses not immediately seen in a work that at first glance seemed to espouse only conventional norms of fitness based in use and experience.

Conclusion

Angel Day's The English Secretorie is paradoxical; it claims to rely heavily on usage and experience in the generation of an enormous number of epistolary examples and yet his letter writing manual is firmly embedded in a divine, cosmic hierarchy which mandates the close attention of the Tudor individual to both the ideal oneness of God as well as the complex plenitude of his varied world. These two contradictory, yet natural impulses constantly informed Day's usages and

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experiences throughout his treatise. In the desire for assimilation, Day confidently noted that even the smallest "sparke" of virtue in a man could be drawn up towards a more virtuous like articulated and made visible by praise. In the desire to preserve the diversity of order in the cosmos and society, Day used the same theory of like approaching like to keep like-natured and likeimperfect people together at their appropriate positions in the hierarchy. The differences between these two differing forms of like-to-like attraction ultimately reflected the essence of the mind-body duality in relation to both assimilation and plenitude in the cosmos. The attraction stressing assimilation sought to attract the soul independent of its mind-body duality up to Heaven while the latter attraction stressing plenitude sought to attract the whole duality, both soul and body, to the position in the hierarchy to which it was most naturally fit. We also find hierarchical disparity emphasized in Day's alignment of style with subject matter and the social status of both the addressee-auditor and the writer-orator. The hierarchy was reinforced furthermore by the clustering of figures which confirmed the appropriate duties between both superior and inferior. Day additionally used rhetoric to manipulate the perceived distance between different social positions in line with the sense of duty, obedience, and courtesy shown between inferior and superior. The superior could increase or lessen the distance depending on the how well the inferior acted on his behalf. Such a varying of the distance between the superior and the inferior paralleled God's treatment of man and begins to show us a partial, if flawed, worldly resolution of the paradox faced by the Tudor individual. For dutiful and faithful acts made on his behalf, God through His

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grace could lift up man while still maintaining the distinction between Lord and servant just as God did for David and Henry VIII and Henry VIII, in turn, most likely did for Thomas Wilson. For Day, the culmination of this socially disparate, yet unified conjunction appeared in the dutiful, yet highly paradoxial, relationship between Lord and secretary. All of these uses of rhetoric depended on natural duties between superior and inferior as well as natural impulses to maintain diversity while simultaneously seeking unity and an assimilation with God. The numerous and apparently conventional interactions between writer and recipient could not escape these natural impulses in Day's letter writing manual. The apparently conventional examples remained firmly imbedded in natural norms governing man and his cosmos. These natural and normative impulses came to light most clearly in the extended examples offered by a treatise of Day's magnitude. His letter writing manual gives us the opportunity to look at many extended examples of rhetoric often denied to us by shorter rhetorics or rhetorics heavily dependent on classical taxonomies. Thus, we have ample opportunity to see some unique, though less than obvious, connections between a rhetoric manual and a contemporary, Elizabethan world view.

CONCLUSION

Summary

The rhetorics studied in this dissertation are each integrally connected to the cosmology of their world. Each one existed in symbiosis with the Great Chain of Being. The manuals were inescapably influenced by the Great Chain and also worked to preserve its God-given order. The rhetoric manuals, however, also felt the tensions expressed in their society and in the Great Chain itself. Rhetoric was an opportunistic tool for wielding influence in a world where movement up or down the social ladder was often viewed with disdain or condemnation. The rhetoric manuals operated in a world where humanism invited advancement, but sumptuary laws sought to guarantee that only certain classes of individuals could wear specific clothes in order to prevent social encroachment of a lower class on a higher class. People understood that the higher one's social status, the closer that individual was to God along the Great Chain of Being. And yet God placed those same people at various locations along the chain, not so that they could move up it or down it, but so that each person could stay in their God-given station and practice Godliness through obedience to those above them and charity to those below them. The Tudor world to a great extent was one of paradox.

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The rhetoric manuals operated within such a world of paradoxical tensions and often because of those tensions. Rhetoric was a tool to help the individual manage his world or his place in the world or the place of others in the world. In the hands of the morally upright individual concerned with preserving God's hierarchy, rhetoric counseled people on how to live their lives. Rhetoric facilitated the efforts of the Godly man to articulate the copia of his world and the finest delineations of the Great Chain in order that it could be understood and anomalies detected and rectified. Rhetoric also promoted movement up or down the hierarchy through commendation or condemnation respectfully. It could increase or decrease the distance between a superior and inferior as needed, yet argue that no individual should move beyond the calling assigned to him or her at birth. Thomas Wilson as we have seen produced a rhetoric designed not only to lift men out of darkness, but also to eliminate the communicative problems of a country divided by incomprehensible variations in its own language. It was a rhetoric designed to empower the individual while simultaneously keeping him in his Godgiven place. The Law of Nature ordained the disparities that existed in the hierarchy for the purpose of each individual's betterment and rhetoric was the tool to maintain those disparities. Rhetoric justified and legitimated the Law of Nature. For Wilson, empowering the individual meant giving him the ability to articulate himself effectively to his superiors and inferiors while that individual still

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continued to "lyve in his owne vocation, and not to seke anye hygher rowme, then whereunto he was at the first appoynted." ( 177/42) Wilson believed the ability to articulate one's self would have improved if "one maner of language" (519/190) was adopted by his readers, if not the entire English people. The goal, however, was paradoxical from the start. Wilson, first of all, was one of the most successful examples of a Tudor man making his way steadily up through the social strata. Second, "one maner of language" took away the very diversity of language which defined the various levels of the social hierarchy. In the first instance, Wilson may have managed to wriggle out of the paradox by appealing to the one acceptable form of social advancement available to him—grace. Wilson's father had fought loyally and obediently for the Duke of Suffolk and King Henry VIII during the Pilgrimage of Grace and Thomas had very likely experienced the rewards for obedience to the crown first hand and witnessed the punishments for sedition in his own village. He understood that King Henry VIII was lifted up by the grace of God to be leader of God's church just as the obedient David was lifted up to lead all of Israel. David as an ideal offered a flattering, implied portrayal of Edward VI's recently deceased father, but also gave Wilson an illustration of how an individual ideally could be empowered through obedience to one's station. Stylistically, Wilson had no such escape clause available to him as long as he adhered so closely to the classical taxonomy that he appropriated. Wilson's

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discussion of plainness, the first virtue of style, made clear that the people needed "one maner of language" if they were to be understood. Simple comprehension at least would ensure that the hierarchy functioned more efficiently, that counsel from the superior would be understood by the inferior, and that inferiors seeking aid or forbearance from a superior would be sufficiently articulate in their appeal. But of course, unity in language, the use of the "kynges English" (515/188), threatened to level out the hierarchy and completely undermine social distinctions across the realm. The fourth virtue of style, exornation, also demanded a variety necessarily adapted to the various social levels of the hierarchy. The paradox of the Great Chain of Being—the desire to assimilate with God while still celebrating and maintaining the divinely ordained plenitude—and the paradox facing the humanists—recognizing the ability of the studio humani talis to lift up any man while eyeing any advancement with rigorous suspicion—came to bear directly on Wilson's own rhetoric manual. Wilson's adherence to the classical rhetorical system dictated that he discuss the three levels of style, but those three levels brought together the virtues of plainness and exornation which Wilson had socially constructed in such antithetical terms. Wilson was forced to intercede and awkwardly amend his conception of the three styles so that the orator never moved between them. Wilson also inadvertently or intentionally fostered a social analog:

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the individual should adhere to that style with which he first began to speak just as the individual should adhere to that social calling to which he was first bom. Peacham, as we have seen, did not have the same difficulties as Wilson. Peacham's rhetoric manual focused only on one of the classical canons, elocutio, and did not appropriate an entire five canon classical taxonomy. Peacham presented nearly two hundred stylistic devices in such a manner that there was relatively little connectivity between any of them. Certainly they were grouped together by similarity of function or form, but each entry stood relatively independent of any of the others. Peacham was not constrained by an appropriated classical taxonomy enough to bring contradictory Tudor impulses into direct conflict with each other. Peacham's rhetoric began with a potent boast about the abilities of the orator to manipulate men with nearly the omnipotent power of God; this nearomnipotence, however, was checked by an almost constant cautionary note running throughout each of the stylistic entries. What Peacham showed us was one example after another of how the hierarchy was or should have been delineated in terms of its physical and worldly characteristics and its moral requisites. Peacham used the copia available through stylistic devices to articulate the copia found in the world around him. Though Peacham did discuss devices which promoted assimilation either towards God for the worthy or towards Hell for the wicked, the Garden of

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Eloquence focused much more on the plenitude of his world and the duties of various individuals within it. Peacham's emphasis on details within the hierarchy lent itself to close inspection of the world for any aberrance or perturbation from the natural order. The orator helped individuals to see details of their world that they had not seen so clearly themselves and could show them what to avoid and at what to aim in this life and the next. Though this skill could be abused, the Godly orator could detect such abuse since any wickedness would cause a displacement or misalignment of the natural copia in the world that the trained, attentive, and discerning orator could detect. Both AU s Well That Ends Well and Richard III were offered as examples illustrating how wickedness left distortions in the details, distortions in the cosmic order, which were remedied by the attentive Lafeu or Lord Stanley respectively. The Godly, near-omnipotent orator was a wise Solomon familiar with the minutia of his world, a Cicero capable of exposing a Cataline, a Jesus capable of exposing a Judas. Angel Day's The English Secretorie stripped away much of the classical rhetorical system it appropriated in the belief that norms of any systematized rhetoric fell short of adequately accounting for the myriad of rhetorical situations that the orator would face. Ironically, in stripping away the norms of any classical system, Day's formulary rhetoric exposed the norms of his contemporary world

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view that much more clearly. Day's rhetoric gave us example after example of the communicative interactions between inferiors, equals, or superiors in any number of permutations. His numerous examples revealed the great extent to which degree and proportion worked rhetorically within his world and his treatise as contemporary, cultural norms or standards of decorum. Day's treatise gave us a detailed view of rhetoric's role in moving individuals through the hierarchy, either up towards Heaven or down towards Hell. Day clearly illustrated a Tudor belief in a theory of attraction in which goodness attracted the good and wickedness attracted the wicked. Day's description of the death of a noble man illustrated the mind-body duality which upon death pulled the body towards the Earth and Hell and the mind or soul towards God in Heaven (assuming that the soul was not corrupted and more corposant than supernal). The emphasis Day placed on keeping like aligned with like manifested itself paradoxically in a rhetoric designed primarily to draw good people with at least one "sparke" of goodness in them or the wicked ones without that one "sparke" towards the good or wicked cosmological pole respectively while also insisting that like-imperfect individuals should remain attracted to each other and the similarly imperfect station assigned to them at birth. Praise and dispraise were the primary tools of the orator in facilitating those attractions. The irony, of course, was that the same rhetoric could be used to manipulate distance between a superior and an inferior which

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ultimately brought the cosmological paradox to light in very rhetorical terms in the relationship between the lord and his secretary. There simply could not be simultaneous equality and inequality. The inescapable influence that the Great Chain of Being had on the three rhetorical manuals at the heart of this study was due in large part to the absolute predominance that hierarchy played in the Tudor view of the cosmos. Even though Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium published in 1543 had already posited a heliocentric view of the solar system, a centuries old interdependence between Christianity and geocentrism was not so easily overturned as persecuted astronomers such as Galileo Galilee could attest. References to the Great Chain of Being are replete in Shakespeare's corpus and were abundant throughout this period and the influence of the Great Chain continued well into the Eighteenth Century. 1 The Great Chain of Being saw the rise and fall of scholasticism, the beginning and end of the Renaissance and the rise and maturation of modernity in the Enlightenment. Though rhetoric changed considerably over these periods, the Great Chain of Being took centuries to meet its slow demise. The intersection of humanism's rise and maturation with the Great Chain's glacially paced carryover 1

Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800 (n.p.: Allen Lane, 1983; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936).

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from the Medieval period gave us humanist rhetorics deeply steeped in a vast cosmology of hierarchy, degree, and proportion.

Implications

During the last two decades rhetorical historiography has received calls to either let go of its traditional biases or at least subvert them. One of the most respected scholars in our field, Thomas P. Miller, notes that historians of rhetoric are now moving beyond the "canonical texts of elite traditions." He advises that "we must try to reinvent the tradition within and against which the rhetorician worked, traditions that may have been silenced by the dominant discourse." 2 One of the most outspoken of rhetorical historians, Victor J. Vitanza, argues that we should practice an "hysteriography" that is constantly in motion and nomadic in character that seeks to "sub/vert" our understanding of rhetorical history as well as the political assumptions we bring to bear on any historiography we practice. 3

2

Thomas P. Miller, "Reinventing Rhetorical Traditions," in Learning from the Histories of Rhetoric: Essays in Honor of Winifred Bryan Horner, ed. Theresa Enos (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993), 29. 3 Victor J. Vitanza, "Some Rudiments of Histories of Rhetorics and Rhetorics of Histories," in Rethinking the History of Rhetoric: Midtidisciplinary Essays on the Rhetorical Tradition, ed. Takis Poulakos (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,

Though I doubt I will ever satisfy Vitanza's call as a historian to be a writer of "new sub/versive hyster(y)ias. . . [which] will construct not 'representative anecdotes' but 'mis/representative an//dotes' (vertiginous, rhizomic allegories-of-libidinalizeddesire)" which act as "plasma transfUsions/transumptions into the diseased body of the history (supressed/repressed hysteria) of philosophical rhetoric." this study does attempt to look at a "philosophical rhetoric" in the sense that the rhetorics it investigates are part of an overriding philosophical world-view Lovejoy popularly called the "Great Chain of Being." 4 And although Miller's call is one I've obviously not answered by focusing on three of the most "traditional" rhetoric texts of the period, I do share some affinity with his goal to "know more about the values, experiences, and assumptions shared by specific communities if we want to understand their characteristic rhetorical practices." 5 Unlike Miller who argues that we "need to do more than read old books in new ways or read new books in old ways if we want to revitalize the relationship between historical scholarship and current theory and practice," I believe that the "values, experiences, and

1993), 193-239; "Historiographies of Rhetoric," in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age, ed. Theresa Enos. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1389 (New York: Garland, 1996), 324-325. 4 5

Vitanza, "Rudiments," 237. Miller, "Reinventing," 29.

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assumptions" of a community can be discerned by reading "old books in new ways," especially when the reading in question looks closely at the way in which a culture's values and world-view act as a textual overlay on the rhetoric(s) in question. 6 The call should not be to look for "traditions that may have been silenced by the dominant discourse," but rather to look for connections between rhetorics and their environment which have been silenced (or overlooked) by the dominant discourse (regardless of whether those rhetorics are traditionally elite or not). In the case of the three rhetorics studied here, it was the Great Chain of Being which was silent in its influence, a Great Chain which existed in a (usually) silent paradox until the likes of Wilson and Day embraced it within their rhetoric manuals and brought that paradox into clearer view. Miller's recommendation to historians argues that we should develop a "rhetorical perspective on the history of rhetoric." By looking at the way in which rhetorics "rhetorically adapt" or "negotiate" connections with the culture of which they are a part, we can uncover "silenced" and previously unnoticed "rhetorical" moves made by rhetorics regardless of their theoretical pedigree.

6

Miller, "Reinventing," 28.

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Giving voice to silenced connections between rhetorics and cultures

The difficulty or ease in elucidating the connections between a rhetoric and its culture often surrounds the artifact. Miller's argument that we should go beyond the traditional texts to look at artifacts which do not fall into the elite canon is well taken. A small number of texts will not give us as rich a sense of connection between rhetoric and culture as would a larger sample of artifacts which could ferret out nuanced cultural interdependencies not previously seen. The argument has an equivalent in Egyptian archaeology: if you want to understand more about ancient Egypt, then dig up as many different artifacts as you possibly can. However, when one of those artifacts turns out to be the Rosetta Stone, you should stop to consider the value that such a single artifact has to offer. In many ways, the rhetoric manuals in this study are akin to the Rosetta Stone and this is why I have viewed them as palimpsests. The palimpsest is valuable to us for the very reason that it situates two (or more) texts together. The palimpsest as I am operationally using it situates two texts in close proximity to each other in a way that allows us to compare them very closely. Although the Rosetta Stone is not a palimpsest per se, it presents different systems of writing together side by side which relate the same historical account of life in ancient Egypt. The rhetoric manuals also present more than one chronicle:

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one, an account of classical rhetoric, and the other, a contemporary account of the role of rhetoric in Tudor England. Though this may seem like a simple point, it illuminates one distinct advantage for our understanding of rhetoric: rather than draw primarily on outside sources to illuminate a rhetoric manual's response to its environment, I, as a rhetorical historian, focus my efforts primarily on the text at hand. The palimpsest situates a text of contemporary ideas and examples along side appropriated rhetorical precepts. The Rosetta Stone's value to archaeology was not primarily its ability to illuminate (or be illuminated by) other historical artifacts comprising the larger social picture, but in the side-by-side presentation of material which forever locked multiple texts together in indisputable proximity in one artifact. This is not to say that outside sources cannot illuminate the Rosetta Stone or a rhetoric manual, but rather that we should first and foremost make a concerted effort to find the connections or overlays made within the palimpsest. As this study demonstrates, this form of analysis is text-centered. Other artifacts may indeed hold great value to the history of rhetoric, but we should not overlook the value of the lengthy "Rosettas" in our midst.

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The palimpsest as a tool of analysis

The visibility of the Great Chain of Being throughout all three of the rhetoric manuals addressed in this study varies significantly. At times, each one of the rhetoricians presented contemporary examples which showcase it readily. At other times, the Great Chain does not appear so immediately present and we find classical rhetorical precepts appropriated with little contemporary embellishment. In several sections of text, we find a close, hybrid mix of the two presented in the manuals, a blending of classical, rhetorical tenets with Tudor, cosmological ideas. The blending sometimes resulted in some form of distortion or anomaly in the appropriated, classical precepts and I believe the concept of the palimpsest best describes the end result. The palimpsest, traditionally an overlay of two or more layers of writing, for my purposes describes the overlay of contemporary, Tudor cosmology and classical rhetorical precepts. For the purpose of this study, it is an engagement of two or more sets of texts bringing ideas and concepts together into an interplay with each other. As an analytical tool, the palimpsest exhibits several characteristics that apply to the historical study of rhetoric manuals. First of all, by looking at rhetorical manuals as palimpsests, we acknowledge that both the patterns and tensions of a society imprint themselves on an

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appropriated text from an earlier period when a writer supplements that text with contemporary illustrations. The synthesis of those social patterns and tensions with the earlier work creates patterns and tensions in the appropriated work (or tradition) never before encountered. Each engagement of a text or system by a later rhetorician creates a new and unique palimpsest. It is especially so when the later rhetorician contributes a contemporary discussion which moves significantly beyond the original, appropriated text. For this reason, a text to be studied as a palimpsest per se effectively requires a substantial amount of contemporary material in addition to the earlier appropriated text in order to be reasonably scrutinized. For this study a Ramistic rhetoric was not considered since most of them are only reiterations of earlier, continental, Ramistic treatments without substantial portions of new material. Dudley Fenner's The Artes of Logike and Rethorike. Plainly Set Forth in the English Tongue (1572) closely follows the format found in Ramus's Dialecticae Libri Duo and Talaeus's Audomari Talaei Rhetorica e Petri Rami Praelectionibus Observa ta ( 1572); unlike Wilson, Peacham, or Day's works, however, Fenner's treatise contains little original material of its own which could be called "Tudor." 7 7

Thomas Martin Walsh, "A Sixteenth Century Translation of Ramus and Talaeus: Dudley Fenner's 'The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike': An Edition and Study" (Ph.D. diss., Saint Louis University, 1978), xliv-liii.

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Without a substantial, Tudor presence to overlay on top of the appropriated rhetorical precepts, a palimpsest really cannot exist which reflects back on Tudor culture. On a closely related note, the length of the overall manual also has a significant impact on our ability to analyze a palimpsest. The larger the palimpsest, the greater the likelihood that we will see significant sections of either text "showing through" the other. In the case of the Tudor rhetoric manual, the self-reflexive patterns of the hierarchy are clearest when we have multiple references to hierarchy appearing throughout a lengthy manual. Peacham's references to the God-like qualities of the orator show a repeated pattern spread intermittently over an approximate one hundred and forty page range in the 1593 edition. In Angel Day's The English Secretorie, the role that praise played in simultaneously lifting the orator up and keeping him in his original station developed through detailed illustrations for all three of the classical types of oratory, the deliberative, the forensic, and the epideictic. The recurring role played by praise in Day's rhetoric only appears coherent when viewed over a space sufficient enough in size for us to detect it. Furthermore, any number of texts or systems may comprise a palimpsest, but an analysis of a palimpsest is easiest when only two are present of any significance. For instance, I may have chosen to analyze Abraham Fraunce's The Arcadian

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Rhetorike, a Ramistic rhetoric, in place of Fenner's

r/es, but Fraunce's work relies

heavily on Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke s Arcadia. Since I am treating contemporary, Tudor cosmology and examples of it as one layer in a palimpsest, Fraunce's treatise becomes an overlay of more than just two texts. Layers potentially include the contemporary cosmology behind Sidney and Fraunce's illustrations, the The Countess of Pembroke s Arcadia itself, and the continental, Ramistic system which Fraunce appropriated. The overlap of so many different layers would have made it more difficult to isolate influences within Fraunce's work. We could not expect to know as clearly whether cosmology was a predominate influence in Fraunce's work or a dominant influence on Sydney's work which then, in turn, was an influence on Fraunce's work. As the number of layers in a palimpsest increases, the ability to identify how each layer influences each other layer decreases. A more detailed analysis of such multi-layered texts may well be an avenue for future investigation. Another factor significant in the study of palimpsests is the legibility of each of the texts. The legibility of any contemporary text is dependent on several factors: the characteristic markers of each text, the length of the overall manual, the amount of contemporary text added by the rhetorician, the form of the manual, and the degree of seamless integration between the two texts. The operational image of the palimpsest works well for studying Renaissance appropriations of classical rhetoric

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since the overlay of contemporary illustrations and norms is so easy to identify. In a world immersed in a prominent hierarchy extending from Heaven all the way to Hell, hierarchical markers abound. Discussions of degree and proportion commonly appear in most texts of the period. The rhetorician would have been hard pressed not to make reference to degree and proportion in the additional text he added to any previous rhetorical precepts he appropriated. The self-reflexivity of the hierarchy, the repeating over and over of the basic patterns found throughout the hierarchy, makes the hierarchy legible in many different ways within a rhetoric manual. As a fractal of sorts, the basic patterns of the hierarchy repeat themselves so much that they become easy to recognize. The visible, geometric analog of the Sierpinsky triangle repeats a basic pattern which is easy to recognize time and time again—the triangle (Fig. 1 ):

•

A

AAàA

AA AA A AAA

AAaaA

A â â A À

Figure 1 : the Sierpinsky triangle Renaissance hierarchy similarly repeated a basic pattern on many different levels. It was very often an elaboration of the superiority of one being to another and the duties of each being to the other and often the protocols which each should follow

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in interacting with the other whether they be king and queen, king and subject, lion and deer, queen bee and worker bee, merchant and servant. We must also remember that the Tudor individual saw his world as a "text" of sorts. Every element of his or her world was an instruction book that guided each individual in how to lead their life. The examples incorporated into the rhetoric manuals functioned as hierarchical text. Each contemporary element incorporated as an example into a rhetoric manual was already a recognizable "text in the world" put there by God for the individual's instruction. The fact that the contemporary patterns of hierarchy are so easily identified both in the world and in the rhetoric manual makes it relatively simple to study Tudor text in the midst of another, classical layer of text. The legibility of the overlying, classical, rhetorical text is similarly easy to identify since it typically followed a predictable taxonomy—five canons, three styles, three types of oratory, etc. Though the classical text is not repetitive like the Tudor text, it was relatively uniform in its tenets and taxonomy over a long period of time and, thus, predictable in its overall format. The Tudor rhetoric manuals in this study thus contain two easily recognizable texts. The form that the rhetoric manual takes additionally influences the legibility of the two texts within the palimpsest. In each of the three manuals studied, the legibility of the contemporary, cosmological text depended on the form that each

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rhetorician gave the appropriated, classical text. As noted earlier, Day's formulary treatment of rhetoric placed little emphasis on classical precepts and taxonomy, and consequently gave us a much clearer view of Tudor cosmology than either Wilson or Peacham. Day's rhetoric gave us by far the clearest and most explicit view of the mind-body duality and the paradoxical impulses both to assimilate with God and to maintain and celebrate the divinely ordained diversity of the world. Day was the only writer of the three who explicitly stated the cosmological paradox when he discussed the relationship between the Lord and his secretary. Peacham's rhetoric manual gave us only a middling sense of classical taxonomy and a great many entries which could be read independently of each other. Wilson's highly structured, classical taxonomy, however, forced us to read the contemporary influence through a very structured layer of appropriated, classical text. Whereas Day gave us a rather direct view of the contemporary influence he brought to his rhetoric, Wilson at times gave us only an indirect view. Wilson's unusual treatment of the three styles was most likely not an isolated misunderstanding of classical rhetorical in a manual which shows an adept understanding of classical tenets, but an indirect sign of another influence at work on his conceptions of the three styles which was contemporary to Wilson's era. The anomalous treatment of style by Wilson was a point in the palimpsest where the two influences intersected enough to obfuscate both of them from our view. Wilson's unusual treatment of classical style here

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indirectly signposts an overlay between classical, rhetorical tenets and contemporary ideas ensconced with degree, proportion, and paradox. Thus, the more classically structured manual, while still presenting clear and direct views of the Tudor world, at times obscures our vision of that period and we are left only to view its influence on the manual indirectly. The overlay and interaction of each of these texts in large part reflected how well the rhetorician knowingly or unknowingly negotiated a space for his appropriation of classical rhetorical precepts.

The rhetorical act of negotiating space and intertextuality

The call by Miller to strive to understand communities and their characteristic rhetorical practices is shared to a great degree by Oravec and Salvador who insist that rhetorics are constituted by society and also, in turn, that rhetorics constitute society. 8 The link between a community and a rhetoric is symbiotic. To speak of one without the other is essentially pointless. They exist together in a "historical matrix" constituted of all the political, social, and economic influences

8

Christine Oravec and Michael Salvador, "The Duality of Rhetoric: Theory as Discursive Practice," in Rethinking the History of Rhetoric: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Rhetorical Tradition, Takis Poulakos, ed. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993), 180.

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that could possibly have an impact on a particular rhetorical theory. 9 The space that they come to occupy according to Oravec and Salvador is arrived at through a discursive contention among multiple rhetorics for the existing rhetorical space: Rhetorical theories compose part of the discursive context, the intertextual matrix, that constitutes culture. Rhetorics not only shape society directly but also contend with other rhetorical theories and discourses for the existing rhetorical space. One of the strategies for constituting rhetorical theories as authoritative and deserving of space is to construct histories for them, lines of tradition that lend coherency to discrete events. . . The texts in question in this study obviously claimed a classical line of tradition and competed with other rhetorical texts, not the least of which were rhetorics in the tradition of Peter Ramus and Omar Talon. The contention identified by Oravec and Salvador, however, goes even deeper into the world-view of the culture itself. As we have already acknowledged, the Great Chain of Being began a slow demise at the end of the Middle Ages which continued on into the Enlightenment and during the time in between which humanism reached its peak during the Renaissance. And even if we start the

9 10

Oravec and Salvador, 179. Oravec and Salvador, 181.

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Enlightenment with Francis Bacon's works in the early Seventeenth Century, we must acknowledge a window during the Tudor Sixteenth Century when humanism and cosmology came to bear on each other in a unique set of circumstances. It was not simply a matter of humanism competing against an older, cosmological system which contradicted it, but the intersection of humanism with an older, cosmological system which inherently contradicted itself. Humanism grafted itself onto a system imbued with its own paradoxes and internal contradictions. A humanism which placed few bounds on the capabilities of wisdom and eloquence to lift man towards God and up the social ladder ran headlong into paradoxical impulses that strove for an assimilation or oneness with God while simultaneously preserving and celebrating the godliness of the creator's divine plenitude. The humanistic rhetorics addressed in this study grafted themselves not only to the Great Chain, but also to its inherent paradoxes. The overlay between the Tudor rhetoric manuals and the Great Chain of Being thus created an intertextual matrix, a palimpsest which required a classically appropriated rhetorical text to negotiate a rhetorical space with a system of cosmological and social norms which themselves existed in paradoxical tension and self-negotiation. Lovejoy acknowledged time and again that Aquinas and other philosophers of his day faced the difficulty of articulating the two different impulses brought to bear by the Great Chain of Being while not bringing them into direct conflict in their

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philosophical musings. The challenge for any philosopher was to find some way to "evade" the issue or, at the least, practice a "judicious inattention" concerning the matter. 11 This evasion or judicious inattention or strategic ambiguity was itself a negotiation which ensured that the cosmological paradox was not articulated. As the rhetoricians in this study brought contemporary exempla and norms together on top of an appropriated classical text, they had to negotiate with the cosmological paradox as it imbued itself variously within their contemporary ideas. How that negotiation occurred depended on the scope and form of each rhetoric manual and brought to bear up to four different measures of decorum. The first measure of decorum which comes to bear on the negotiation of rhetorical space between contemporary ideas and appropriated rhetorical precepts revolves around the set of expectations which surround the appropriated precepts. By adopting a classical system of rhetoric, the contemporary rhetorician also brought with him a fairly standard taxonomy and set of predictabilities upon which we have already touched: five canons, three types of oratory, three styles, and so on. The rhetoricians of the time were fully aware of the basic tenets and norms of the classical tradition.

1

ÏLovejoy, 75-82.

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Second, the contemporary, Tudor environment provided another decorous standard which was applied to the manual: the multiple prescriptions for behavior and propriety in a world governed by hierarchy, the decorousness of nature and the Great Chain, God's instructional text for man. The rhetorician had to bring these two imprints of decorum together with regard to a third concern, the need to meld the classical and contemporary texts and standards of decorum together in as unobtrusive a manner as possible. This third decorous imprint on the manual would have required the rhetorician to integrate classical precepts and contemporary material together with the minimum of disturbance to either sense of decorum. A seamless, internal, aesthetic fit between classical and Tudor ideas would undoubtedly make a more credible impression on a reader than an awkward overlay between the two. Fourth, the manual as a whole needed to meet the needs of its environment and thus satisfy a functional concern of decorum. Could the manual teach people what its writer intended it to teach? The negotiation between classical rhetorical precepts and contemporary ideas, variously tainted with one or the other of the two paradoxical, cosmic impulses, depended on these four measures of decorum. At any given moment in history, decorum was uniquely culture-bound. In appropriating a set of norms for decorum from an earlier period, the rhetorician was necessarily bringing together

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past and contemporary senses of decorum which, even if similar, would not be identical. In bringing two different senses of decorum together into an integrated whole, some aspect of either decorum would need to be compromised or judiciously ignored. If not, then the manual risked appearing disjunct if not contradictory, for promoting two standards of decorum not fully in alignment with one another. It was the rhetorician's task to mediate between the two standards in a manner that either negotiated, evaded, or through strategic ambiguity tolerated distinct differences between them. What made the task even more challenging in the case of the Tudor appropriations addressed in this study was the fact that the Tudor standard of decorum was itself a subject of negotiation, evasion, or ambiguity. Integration within the rhetorical manuals not only had to worry about the mediation between classical and contemporary notions of decorum, but also the manner in which the two could be brought together while still mediating between the two paradoxical impulses inherent in Tudor cosmology. Any melding of classical rhetoric with contemporary ideas needed to avoid bringing the two paradoxical strains of Tudor thought into direct contradiction with each other. The Tudor rhetorician needed to negotiate a space between classical and contemporary notions of decorum and engage in a further evasion, inattention, or ambiguous skirting of the cosmological paradox if he was to maintain a decorous degree of seamlessness in his rhetoric manual. It would be akin to the United States coming to a treaty

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agreement with another country while simultaneously trying to keep its own two major political parties from undermining each other and the treaty process as a whole. It is a double set of negotiations. For Thomas Wilson, the paradox could not be evaded since he set up the desire for language unity under the virtue of plainness and the need to recognize language's diversity under the virtue of exornation with each coming to bear on the same discussion of the three styles. By adhering so closely to the classical system and its detailed taxonomy while at the same time so heavily relying on contemporary examples and ideas influenced by the paradox, Wilson was unable to "evade" the paradox or give it a convenient, "judicious inattention." Wilson placed contemporary illustrations showing the need for unity on one set of classical tracks and illustrations showing the need for plenitude on another set of classical tracks which worked well until his discussion of the three styles brought those paths together at one junction. Wilson's close and thorough adherence to classical and contemporary notions of decorum left little room for compromise, but instead forced Wilson to bend his conceptions awkwardly right as the two tracks began to converge. Peacham had little difficulty in the same matter even though he discussed devices that identified and promoted plenitude in his world as well as devices which encouraged an assimilation up the chain towards God. With each device sitting

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essentially alone and self-contained, the paths of potentially contradictory devices never crossed. Peacham never needed to evade or avoid the paradox in any obvious and awkward manner since the isolation of each stylistic device from the others already accomplished the same task for him. The form of Peacham's rhetoric mediated any potential conflict between paradoxical impulses in a manner that the form of Wilson's manual could not. Day, like Wilson, saw the paradox come to a head in his manual, but in a much more forthright and open way. For Day the almost complete lack of structure took away any useful organizational structuring which might have kept the paradoxical impulses apart. Day's examples lacked even the simplest compartmentalizing available to Peacham. By blending together example after example and noting that all three types of oratory are governed by praise primarily, Day brought the (well articulated) paradoxical ideas of his time together into one large formulary "soup" and Day, himself, came to recognize and articulate the cosmological paradox. Day's lack of reliance on the classical system took away a potential source for mediating the paradox inherent in his contemporary ideas. All three rhetoricians mediated the link between classical and contemporary notions of decorum, but when evasion or judicious inattention might have saved them from running headlong into the paradox, it was neither the highly structured form of Wilson's manual nor the highly unstructured form of Day's work which did

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the job, but Peacham's limited structuring which allowed for some evasion or inattention. Though this study only looked at three manuals, the form of the manual does appear to be a factor in the mediation between contemporary notions of decorum and those appropriated from an earlier period. ' 2

A final thought

The desire to look at the Renaissance for alternative silenced traditions which competed against the prevailing dominant discourse, while a worthy goal, assumes that the undermining of the dominant discourse comes from the outside, from a rhetorical tradition itself contending to be the prevailing discursive force against a cultural hegemony. Efforts by scholars such as Crane and Rebhom to understand rhetoric as a subversive force in the period look at it as a means to undermine not just the dominant discourse, but also the hierarchy as a whole. Rhetoric, however, had at its heart a sense of overarching decorum forged in the divine creator's Great Chain of Being which suggests that it played an integral role in the culture beyond simply keeping its apparently schizophrenic, amoral attributes

This assumes that each manual contains a substantial enough amount of appropriated and contemporary material to enable such a comparison.

in abatement. Rhetoric was not just a tool adapted to the good or evil uses of opportunists, but an actual part of the Tudor, societal bedrock and rhetoricians, particularly Thomas Wilson, made just such an argument. And yet, at the same time with apparent equal conviction, such a man as Wilson argued for the improvement of each individual's lot in life. The paradox lies not in the nature of rhetoric, but in the nature of the connection between rhetoric and its culture, between rhetoric and the inherently paradoxical Great Chain of Being. This study has not sought to supplant historical investigations that address the potentially subversive side of rhetoric contending against a prevailing establishment, but rather momentarily to preempt them and suggest that we must consider that even if rhetoric fully supported the hierarchy with the most complete and best of intentions, it still made manifest a previously hierarchical paradox which to a great degree remained dormant through evasion or judicious inattention. This study not only has addressed the ways in which three of the most comprehensive rhetoric manuals of the time were both influenced by the Great Chain of Being and used in its behalf, but also the ways in which the hierarchy potentially undermined itself once integrated into the rhetoric manuals of the time. As we as historians seek new ways to uncover our past, may we look not just to previously silent traditions, but also to previously silent connections and rhetorical negotiations between rhetorics and cultures and the palimpsests which signal their presence.

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