If Thomas Gent had read Lord Berners' Castle of Love, which might easily, rare as it has now become, have fallen in his way a hundred years ago, he would there have seen fifteen reasons why men do wrong when they speak ill of women, and twenty reasons why they ought to speak well of them. All lovers of our old literature know how greatly we are beholden to John Bouchier, Knight, Lord Berners, who when Deputy General of the Kings Town of Calais and Marches of the same, employed his leisure in translating books out of French into English. But he must have been one of those persons who with a great appetite for books have no discriminating taste, or he would not have translated Arthur of Little Britain, when Gyron le Courtoys and Meliadus were not extant in his own language; nor would he, even at the instance of Lady Elizabeth Carew, if he had known a good book from a bad one, have englished from its French version the Carcel de Amor, which Diego de San Pedro composed at the request of the Alcayde de los Donzelles, D. Diego Hernandez, and of other Knights and Courtiers. The reader will please to observe that though all worthless books are bad, all bad books are not necessarily worthless. A work however bad, if written, as the Carcel de Amor was, early in the sixteenth century, and translated into Italian French and English, must be worth reading to any person who thinks the history of literature (and what that history includes) a worthy object of pursuit. If I had not been one of those who like Ludovicus Bosch—(my friend in the caxon)—are never weary of hunting in those woods, I could not, gentle reader, have set before you as I shall incontinently proceed to do, the fifteen above-mentioned and here following reasons, why you will commit a sin if you ever speak in disparagement of womankind. First then, Leriano, the unhappy hero of Diego de San Pedro's tragic story, says that all things which God has made are necessarily good; women therefore being his creatures, to calumniate them is to blaspheme one of his works. Secondly, there is no sin more hateful than ingratitude; and it is being ungrateful to the Virgin Mary if we do not honour all women for her sake. Thirdly, it is an act of cowardice for man who is strong, to offend woman who is weak. Fourthly, the man who speaks ill of woman brings dishonour upon himself, inasmuch as every man is of woman born. Fifthly, such evil speaking is, for the last mentioned reason, a breach of the fifth commandment. Sixthly, it is an obligation upon every noble man to employ himself virtuously both in word and deed; and he who speaks evil incurs the danger of infamy. Seventhly, because all knights are bound by their order to show respect and honour to all womankind. Eighthly, such manner of speech brings the honour of others in question. Ninthly, and principally, it endangers the soul of the evil speaker.