Ree mixes contemporary English with old versions of words. Such playful style makes reading all very interesting and entertaining, at the same time helps the reader realise the historical context better.
The following extract is a good example of mixed English prose, let’s read.
In 1547 a graduate of the Oxford Arts course called William Baldwyn published a Treatise of Morall Philosophye, contayning the Sayinges of the wyse . It proved popular, but its title was misleading: Baldwyn’s Treatise was essentially a history of philosophy–the first in the English language–describing the ‘lyves and wittye answers’ of dozens of pagan philosophers.
Philosophy was of course the work of ‘unbelevyng gentiles’, and ‘not to be compared with the most holy scryptures’, but according to Baldwyn it was ‘not utterly to bee despised’. It had its uses ‘as an handemayden, to perswade such thinges as scripture dothe commaunde’, and when we realized that ‘these heathen persons’ had managed to lead virtuous lives without knowing Jesus, we would be impelled to ‘amende ours, & folowe the good doctrine they have taught us’.
It is interesting to note that the 16th century author William Baldwyn portrays pagan philosophers in antiquity ‘unbelieving gentiles,’ because they lived without knowing Jesus, yet he admits they led virtuous (moral) lives.
Baldwyn dangerously sails in the wrong direction and violates religions’ selling pitch, “without Jesus (religion) you can’t be moral.” But those philosophers were so virtuous ‘we should amend ours (ours what, religion?) and follow their good doctrine they have taught us’.
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