e "The Boke of Noblesse." We have no known
production of Basset with which to compare it; and as to Worcestre his
"Collectanea" and private Memoranda can scarcely assist us in determining
what his style might have been had he attempted any such work as the
present.

Altogether, The Boke of Noblesse is more of a compilation than an original
essay. It has apparently largely borrowed from the French; and I have
already shown that it was partly derived from former works, though I cannot
undertake to say to what extent that was the case. In its general character
our book resembles one which was popular in the middle ages, as the
_Secretum Secretorum_, falsely attributed to Aristotle,[78] and which was
also known under the title _De Regimine Principum_. The popularity of this
work was so great that MS. copies occur in most of our public libraries,
and not less than nine English translations and six French translations are
known.[79] A Scots translation by sir Gilbert de Hay, entitled "_The Buke
of the Governaunce of Princis_," is contained in a MS. at Abbotsford,
accompanying a version of _The Tree of Batailes_, already noticed in pp.
iii. vi.

Another work of the same class is that of which Caxton published (about the
year 1484) a translation entitled _The booke of the ordre of Chevalrye or
Knyghthode_, and of which the Scots translation by sir Gilbert de Hay was
printed for the Abbotsford Club by Beriah Botfield, esq. in 1847.

To his translations of the treatises of Cicero on Old Age and Friendship,
which Caxton printed in 1481, he also appended two "declaracyons," or
orations, supposed to be spoken by two noble Roman knights before the
senate, in order "to know wherein Noblesse restith," or, as otherwise
expressed in the title-page, "shewing wherin Honoure should reste." These
imaginary orations were the work of an Italian, who styled himself, in
Latin, Banatusius Magnomontanus.

After a time, the term Noblesse, which we here find synonymous with Honour,
and (in p. xv. _ante_) with Chivalry, in the sense of a class or order of
society, {lv} became obsolete as an English word. In the former sense, at
least, it was changed into our English "Nobleness;" and about the year 1530
we find published a "Book of Noblenes," printed by Robert Wyer, without
date.[80] This work had been translated from Latin into French, and "now
into English by John Larke." I have not seen it, but I imagine it was a far
smaller and slighter composi