“The best book that ever was written upon good breeding, Il Cortegiano, by Castiglione, grew up at the little Court of Urbino, and you should read it,” says Dr. Johnson to Boswell, of all places in the world, in the Isle of Skye, “roving among the Hebrides at sixty.” But when, in the Life of Addison, we find the Courtyer classed with Galateo, and compared with the social essays of the Spectator and the Tatler, it becomes clear that the Great Cham was so ignorant of the law he was laying down in this instance, that he took Il Cortegiano for a courtesy-book, a book of etiquette:—

To teach the minuter decencies and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, to remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first attempted by Casa in his book of manners, and Castiglione in the Courtier.” (Works, VII, 428, Addison.