Excerpt from Characters and Criticisms: A Book of MiscellaniesAmyot's folios were popular, strange as popular folio sounds to us. The fact is, that this was the first time that the gentlemen of feudal Europe made the personal acquaint ance of the gentlemen of classical Europe. Oi course there had always been a vague traditionary knowledge of the Roman and Greek heroes. Niebuhr remarks that stories about them used to be read out of Valerius Maximus to the German knights as they sat at dinner and the medi aeval chroniclers frequently garnish their descriptions with allusions to their mighty names. But all was dark and shadowy about them, and they wore always a quasi - feudal garb, just as the Virgin Mary was spoken of as a Princess of coat-armour by our countrywoman Dame J uliana Berners. In Shakspeare's Troilus and Cressida, with its Lord feneas, we see the influence of the mediaeval view of the ancients but when he writes from Plutarch, they become different men. It was Amyot that worked this change, by showing them in their real characters as described by an ancient in a civilised age.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.