Narcissus; or, the Young Man's Entertaining Mirror: containing a humorous descant on manners; Delivered in a Plain and Familiar Stile Shewing him A genteel, ease, and decent Carriage and Behaviour, from Infancy to Years of Maturity... in Action, Conversation, Poetry, Music, Dancing, Fencing, and all Kinds of genteel Accomplishments and polite Address. Variously interspersed with Spanish Proverbs, applicable to the Subject. Taken from the Spanish Galateo... adapted to the Manners of the British Nation. By Charles Wiseman, N.P.S.T.

Bookseller Notes

Gracin's Galateo Espaol (Madrid, 1582), itself an adaptation of Giovanni della Casa's Il Galateo (Venice, 1558), was an immensly popular work in Spain, enjoyed by Cervantes (a personal friend) and Lope de Vega amongst others. Della Casa's work appeared in English over a dozen times before this translation from the Spanish appeared. The Spanish proverbs (given both in that language and in English) are very effective. An early reader has marked various passages as noteworthy one way or another: on p. 88, a section on excessive drinking is marked 'Master Richardson read this.'ESTC records only four locations in the British Isles (BL, Cambridge, John Rylands, Oxford) and five elsewhere (Illinois, Johns Hopkins, LoC, Newberry and Yale).