C71 



EKIIKKRS. JDLTANS. 



BEKNI. FRANCESCO. 



part ia public affairs until Henry VII. had established himself on the 

 throe*. It Minns however that the usurpation of Richard III. made 

 UM Bourchirr family favourable to Henry. They supported him, and 

 he was ultimately crowned by Cardinal Bourchier, the grand-uncle of 



Lord Bornen was fint called to parliament in the llth of 

 Henry VII. by the *tyle of John Bourgchier, lord of Berners; and 

 it seems that ha had previously attended the king at the aiege of 

 Boulogne in the year 141*4. He fint acquired personal distinction and 

 the favourable regard of the king by the active part ha took in putting 

 down the incarnation which in 1497 broke out in Cornwall, headed 



r Michael Joaeph, a blackamith, and a lawyer named Flammock, and 



:;. V. :. ,. 

 afterwards i 



I supported by Lord Audley. He appear* to hare become a 



favourite of Henry VIII. very OOD after hit accession, and he had the 

 rare fortune of retaining his favour to the hut About 1515 he was 

 appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer for life ; and about the same 

 tune WM one of the splendid train of nobles, knights, and ladies 

 appointed to escort to Abbeville the Lady Mary, the king's sister, who 

 by the peace of 1514 was to be married to Louis XII. of France. In 

 the year 1518 Lord Berners was associated with John Kite, archbishop 

 of Armagh, in an embassy to Spain, in the hope of detaching the 

 younft king of Spain from the interests of the French king Francis, 

 and of bringing him over to the views of Wolsey, the pope, and the 

 emperor. After his return his age and growing infirmities occasioned 

 him to live much in retirement in his government at Calais, to which 

 important office he appears to have been appointed soon afterwards. 

 He remained in this situation until his death, on the 19th of March 

 1532, devoting his leisure to those literary undertakings for which 

 alone he ia now remembered. 



His great work, the translation of Froissart's 'Chronicles,' waa 

 undertaken by the kinv's command ; the first volume was printed by 

 Pynaon in the year 1523, and the second volume in 1525. For com- 

 mon use this translation has been supplanted by the modern one of 

 Mr. Johnes; but Lord Berners's translation was reprinted in 1812, 

 under the direction of Mr. Utterson, who very properly considered 

 that it waa still of great value for the appropriate colours with which 

 it portrays the manners and customs of our ancestors. Sir Walter 

 Scott justly remarked in reviewing Johues' translation, that Berners 

 bad the advantage of using in his version a language in which the 

 terms of chivalry were still in use, while its feelings and principles, 

 and evm its practice, were still fresh in recollection. The old trans- 

 lation therefore, though somewhat antique in style, is far the most 

 picturesque. Others of his works were a whimsical medley of trans- 

 lations from French, Italian, and Spanish novels, which seem to have 

 been the mode then ; and he wrote a comedy called, ' Ite in vineam 

 meant,' which waa usually acted in the great church of Calais after 

 vespers. Neither of the two last-named works was printed, and it is 

 not known whether the comedy was in Latin or English. 



(Preface to Uttersou's edition of Lord Berners' translation ; Wood, 

 Alkena Ozmicntu, by Blisa; Walpole's Royal and Noble Aulkori, &c.) 



BKRNERS, JULYANS, or JULIANA, otherwise BARKERS or 

 BARNES, one of the earliest female writers in England, is supposed 

 to have been born towards the latter end of the 14th century at Roiling 

 Berners, in the hundred of Dunmow, and county of Essex. The 

 received report is, that she was daughter of Sir James Berners, of 

 Hod ing Berners, knight, whose son Richard (created Lord Berners in 

 the reign of Henry IV.) was the father of the translator of Froissart ; 

 and that she was once prioress of Sopewell Nunnery in Hertfordshire. 

 It seems that she wan alive in 1460. Hollingshed places her at the 

 oiose of the reign of Edward IV., calling her " Julian Berne*, a gentle- 

 woman endued with excellent giftes bothe of body and minde, [who] 

 wrote orrtaine treatises of hawking and hunting, delighting greatly 

 hiraelf in those exercises and pastimes. She wrote also a booke of the 

 lawr* of anno* and knowledge apperteyning to heraldes." This seems 

 the amount of all the information concerning this lady which can 

 now be traced, and even these scanty particulars have in some instances 



The following is the collected title of the treatises attributed to 

 Juliana Berner*, as printed together by Wynkyn de Worde in 1486. 

 'The Treatyses perteyoyng to Hawkynge, Huutynge, and Fysshyoge 

 with an Angle : and also a right noble Treatyse of the Lygnage of Cot 

 Armours, eodynge with a Treatise which specyfyeth of Blanynge of 

 Armya.' Prom the researches of Mr. Hazlewood, it would seem 

 Juliana beretlf wrote only a small portion of the treatise on hawking, 

 the whole of the treatise upon bunting, a short list of the beasts of the 

 chase, and another abort list of persons, beasts, fowls, Ac, The great 

 interest attached to the subjects of this work occasioned the treaties 

 to be among the very fint that were put to press on the introduction 

 of printing into this country, when they were printed at the Abbey of 

 St. Albaaa, on which the nunnery of Sopewell was dependent The 

 fint edition is said to have been printed in 1481, and it is certain that 

 one was printed in I486. The colophon to the treatise on fishing 

 (which is the best of the four), states that it was introduced in order 

 that it might be better known than it would be if " enprynted allone 

 by itself and put in a lytyll plaunBet" The colophon to the treaties 

 on heraldry also describes it as translated and compiled at St Albans. 

 The ' Treatine on Hunting,' which ia the undoubted work of Juliana 

 Berners, describes the manner in which various animal) are to be 



bunted, and explains the terms employed in venery. The information 

 is hitched into rhyme, but, as Mr. Ellis remarks, " has no resemblance 

 to poetry." All the other treatises are in plain prose. A fac-simile 

 reprint of the whole of Wynkyn de Worde's edition, was made in 1810, 

 under the direction of Mr. Hazlewood, whose prefixed dissertations 

 seem to have exhausted every source of information. 



(Dibden's continuation of Ames's Typographical Anliqwlia; Warton, 

 JIutory of Engluk Poetry.) 



BERNI, FRANCESCO, was born about 1490 at Lamporecchio, a 

 village of the Val di Nievole in Tuscany, of a noble but poor family. 

 He studied for the church, and became a priest Having gone to Homo 

 to try his fortune, he entered the service of Cardinal Divizio da 

 Bibbiena, his countryman and relative, who was in great favour with 

 Leo X. After the cardinal's death, he passed into the service of the 

 cardinal's nephew, Angelo Divizio, a prelate of the court of Rome. 

 His next employment was as secretary to Ghiberti, who was ilatario 

 to Pope Clement VII., and also bishop of Verona; but, according to 

 his own confession, he found himself little qualified for his office. He 

 remained with Ghiberti for seven years, during which he accompanied 

 his master, or was sent by him on business, to several parts of It-dy. 

 He was present at the plunder of Rome by the Spaniards and Germans 

 in 1527, of which he speaks in his ' Orlando Innamorato.' (See 

 canto xiv.) About the year 1530, or 1531, he left Ghiberti and went 

 to Florence, where he was made a canon of the cathedral, a preferment 

 which enabled him to live in a sort of affluence for the rest of his days. 

 His facetiousness and social conviviality recommended him to the 

 Duke Alessandro, as well as to his cousin, Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, 

 the son of Giuliano, and nephew of Leo X., and a story became current 

 some years after his death, that having been requested by each of the 

 cousins to poison the other, he had refused, and had been consequently 

 poisoned himself by one of them. But Berni survived Ippolito a year, 

 when neither the cardinal could any longer poison him, nor the duke 

 stood any more in need of Bcrni'a instrumentality. Accordingly, 

 Mazzuchelli and other critics have utterly discarded the story as having 

 no foundation in truth. The date of Berni's death has been long a 

 matter of dispute : some place it in 1543, but Molini, in the introduc- 

 tion to his edition of the 'Orlando,' fixes it on the 28th of May 1536, 

 on the authority of Salvino Salviui'a chronological register of tho 

 canons of the cathedral. 



Berni ia the principal writer of Italian jocose poetry, which has ever 

 since retained the came of 'Poeaia Bernesca.' Burchiello, Pneci, 

 Uellincioni, and others, had introduced this style of poetry before him, 

 but Berni gave it a variety of forms, and carried it to a perfection 

 which has seldom been equalled by any one since, Berni was well 

 acquainted with the Latin and Italian writers, nnd be often alludea to 

 them for the purpose of contrasting some of their lofty images with 

 others which are trivial. His satire is generally of the milder sort, 

 but at times it rises to a most bitter strain of invective. Such, for 

 instance, in his ' Capitolo ' against Pope Adrian VI., whose very virtues 

 mode him unpopular with the Romans. Berni's humour may be said 

 to be untranslatable, for it depends on the genius of tho Italian 

 language, the constitution of the Italian mind, ami tho habits and 

 associations of the Italian people. Berni's expressions are carefully 

 and happily selected for effect, and although he speaks of the haste in 

 which he wrote, it is proved by tho manuscripts of his burlesque 

 poems that he corrected and recorrected every line. His language ia 

 choice Tuscan. The worst feature in Berni's humorous poems is his 

 frequent licentious allusions and equivocations, which, although clothed 

 in decent language, are well understood by Italian readers. 



Berni's poems were not collected till after his death, with the excep- 

 tion of one or two published in his lifetime. The first edition of part 

 of his poems was made at Ferrara in 1537. Grazzini published one 

 volume of Berni's ' Poesio Burlescho,' together with those of Mauro, 

 Varchi, Delia Cnsa, Ac., in 1548. A second volume appeared in 1555 ; 

 a third volume was published at Naples with the date of Florence, in 

 1723. There is also an edition of the ' I'oesie Burlescho' in two vols. 

 8vo, London, 1721-24, with notes by Salvinl 



Iterni is al.-o known for his ' Rifacimento,' or recasting of Bojardo's 

 poem ' Orlando Inuamorato.' Berni altered the diction of the poem 

 into purer Italian, but he left the narrative exactly as it was from 

 beginning to end. He also added some introductory stanzas, moral 

 or satirical, to most of the cantos, in imitation of Ariosto's practice, 

 and also a few episodical sketches in the body of the poem, the 

 principal of which is that in canto 07, where he describes himself 

 and his habits of life. It cannot be maintained that Bern! has turned 

 liojordo's serious poem into burlesque : he merely steps in as a third 

 person, after the fashion of the old story-tellers, between the original 

 poet and the audience, moralising upon what be relates, or reverting, 

 from the errors and follies of his heroes, to the vices and follies of 

 men in the every-day world. The sincerity and simplicity of his 

 practical moralising strain contrasts with the prodigious and absurd 

 magnificence of the romantic narrative, which Berni however relates 

 with all the appearance of credulity. Some of Berni's openings to 

 the various cantos are remarkably fine, and perhaps superior to those 

 in Ariosto's poem. With regard to his alterations of Bojardo's text, 

 it is generally allowed that he has improved it in many parts, though 

 not in every instance. It appears also that several parti of the ' Ilii 'i- 

 cimento,' such as we have it, and which are very inferior to tho rest, 



