ABSTRACT
Gabriel Harvey has a special place in the history of Elizabethan humanism, since he is the first person publicly to declare himself a 'humanitian'. Like his kinsman Sir Thomas Smith, Harvey was born into a commoner family in the small Essex town of Waiden, now Saffron Waiden. Harvey always regarded humanity as simple and elementary; and one has seen that this is a common attitude in the Elizabethan age. But Harvey also resembled Cicero's Crassus in that he felt that not only grammar but all the other humane arts were easy to pick up as well. Harvey's contribution to Three Letters included a 'Pleasant and Pithy Familiar Discourse of the Earthquake in April Last'. Harvey's inability to imagine courtiership is what prevented him from mastering the skills required in a courtier, even though he knew what these were from reading Castiglione and other courtesy manuals of the period.
