Earliest printed works of instruction—Publications of Bishop Perottus—HisGrammatical Rules—Johannes Sulpicius and hisOpus Grammaticum—Some account of the book—Importance and influence of these foreign Manuals in England—TheCarmen JuvenileorStans Puer ad Mensam—Alexander Gallus or De Villâ Dei and hisDoctrinale—TheDoctrinaleone of the earliest productions of the Dutch press—Ælius Donatus—His immense popularity and weight both at home and abroad—Selections or abridgments of his Grammar used in English schools.
Earliest printed works of instruction—Publications of Bishop Perottus—HisGrammatical Rules—Johannes Sulpicius and hisOpus Grammaticum—Some account of the book—Importance and influence of these foreign Manuals in England—TheCarmen JuvenileorStans Puer ad Mensam—Alexander Gallus or De Villâ Dei and hisDoctrinale—TheDoctrinaleone of the earliest productions of the Dutch press—Ælius Donatus—His immense popularity and weight both at home and abroad—Selections or abridgments of his Grammar used in English schools.
I. The most ancient published books of instruction for Englishmen in scholastic and academical culture emanated from a foreign country and press. When the Vocabularies, Grammars, and other Manuals ceased to circulate in a manuscript form, or to be written and multiplied by teachers for the use of their own pupils, the early Parisian printers supplied the market with the works, which it had been theretoforepossible to procure only to a very limited extent, in transcripts executed by the authors themselves or by professional copyists.
The educational writings of some of the men, whose influence for good in this direction had of course been greatly circumscribed by the ignorance of typography, found their way into print. But one of the foremost persons who addressed himself to the task of diffusing a knowledge of elementary learning and of teaching English by Latin wasNicholaus Perottus, Bishop of Sipontum, whoseGrammatical Rulesfirst appeared, so far as I know, in 1486.[1]
The examples of fifteenth-century English, which make in our eyes its chief value, were of course introduced as casual illustrations.
The lexicographical and grammatical works of this noted prelate undoubtedly exercised avery powerful and beneficial influence at, and long after, the period of their composition; and I am disposed to think that this was particularly the case with hisRudimenta Grammatices, 1476, and hisCornucopia Linguæ Latinæ, 1490. The former was not only imported into this country for sale, but was reprinted here in 1512, and theCornucopiaforms part of the groundwork of our ownOrtus Vocabulorum, 1500.
II. Next in succession to Bishop Perrot, whose publications, however, cannot be said to belong to the present category in more than an incidental degree, wasJohannes Sulpicius Verulanus, who is perhaps to be viewed as the leader of the movement for spreading, not only in France, but in England, a fuller and more scholarly acquaintance with the laws of grammar. Nearly the first book which proceeded from the press of Richard Pynson was hisOpus Grammaticum, 4to, 1494.
Almost every successive impression seems to differ in the contents or their distribution, owing, as I apprehend, to the circumstance that the volume was compounded of separate tracts, ofwhich some were occasionally added or omitted at pleasure, or variously placed.
The edition of 1505 comprises the undermentioned pieces:—
Sulpitii Verulani examen de 8 partibus orationis.De declinatione nominum.De preteritis & supinis.Carmen iuuenile de moribus mensæ.Vocabulorum interpretatio.Iod. Badii Ascensii De regimine dictionum.Sulp. Verul. De regimine & constructione.De componendis ordinandisq. epistolis.De carminibus.
The title-leaf presents the woodcut, often employed by Pynson in his later performances, of a person, probably a schoolmaster, seated at aplutusor reading-desk, holding a paper in one hand, and reading from a book which lies open before him.
Whatever may now be thought of them, the philological labours of Sulpicius, which were subsequently edited and glossed by Badius Ascensius, were long extremely popular and successful, and a very large number of copies must have been in English hands during the reigns of Henry the Seventh and his son. Of these, as I have said, some proceeded fromthe London press, while others were imported from Paris.
Thefasciculiin one of 1511 are as follow:—
Sulpitii Examen de octo partibus orationis.Carmen Iuuenile.De declinatione nominum orthoclitorum.—————————— heteroclitorum.De nominibus heteroclitis.De generibus nominum.De verbis defectiuis.De præteritis verborum.De supinis —————.De regimine et constructione dictionum Libellus.De componendis ornandisq; epistolis.De Carminibus.De quantitate syllabarum.De A, E, &c. in primis syllabis.—————— mediis ——.De ultimis syllabis.De Carminibus decoro [sic] &c.Donati de figuris opusculum.De latinarum dictionum recta scriptura.De grecarum dictionum orthographia.De ratione dipthongangi.Ascensii de orthographia carmina.Vocabulorum interpretatio.
TheCarmen Juvenile, inserted here and in the antecedent issues, is the poem better known asStans Puer ad Mensam, and in its English dress by Lydgate. Mr. Blades tells us that theeditio princepsof the Latin poem appeared in 1483, and that Caxton printed Lydgate’s English one at an anterior date. Lydgate, however, had been dead many years when his production saw the light in type, and as he could scarcely have translated the piece from Sulpicius, the probability seems to be that both resorted to a pre-existent original, which the Englishman rendered into his own tongue, and the foreign grammarian adopted or modernised. A comparison of the English text with that given in the work of Sulpicius shews considerable variations; the latter version is here and there more outspoken and blunt in its language than the paraphrase of the good Monk of Bury St. Edmunds. It is accompanied by a running gloss by the learned Ascensius; and although the book was ostensibly designed for the use of students, the contractions are unusually troublesome, and many of the proper names are exhibited in an orthography at any rate rather peculiar. The god whose special province was the management of the solar orb is introduced asformosus appollo. His substitution ofVergiliusas the name of the Latin poet is so farnot remarkable, inasmuch as Polydore Vergil of Urbino appears always to have spelled his name so, and in the edition of Virgil by Aldus, 1501, the author is calledVergilius. I am afraid that if I were to furnish a specimen of the contractions, a modern typographer would be puzzled to reproduce it with the desirable exactitude.
III. When one turns over the leaves of a volume of this kind, and sees the way in which the avenue to learning and knowledge was hampered by pedantic and ignorant instructors, it seems marvellous, not that the spread of education was so slow and partial, but that so many scholars should have emerged from such a process.
A more obscure and repellent series of grammatical dissertations can hardly be imagined; yet Sulpicius holds a high rank among the promoters of modern education, as the precursor of all those, such as Robert Whittinton, John Stanbridge, and William Lily, who, after the revival of learning and the institution of the printing-press, prepared the way for improved methods and more enlightened preceptors. His followersnaturally went beyond him; but Sulpicius was doubtless as much in advance of his forerunners as Richard Morris is in advance of Lindley Murray.
After the restoration of letters, Sulpicius seems to have been the pioneer in re-erecting grammar into a science, and formulating its rules and principles on a systematic basis.
In enumerating the aids to learning which the English received from the Continent, we must not overlook Alexander Gallus, or Alexander de Villâ Dei, a French Minorite and school-teacher of the thirteenth century, who reduced the system of Priscian to a new metrical plan, doubtless for the use of his own pupils, as well as his personal convenience and satisfaction.
TheDoctrinaleof Alexander, which is in leonine verse, circulated more or less in MS. during his life, and was one of the earliest books committed to the press, as a fragment on vellum with the types of Laurence Coster of Haarlem establishes. It was repeatedly published abroad, but does not really seem to have ever gained a strong footing among ourselves, since three editions of it are all thatI can trace as having come from London presses, and of these the first was in 1503. It did not, in fact, command attention till we were on the eve of a great reform in our school-books; and while in France, if not elsewhere abroad, it preserved its popularity during two or three centuries, till it was supplanted by the Grammar and Syntax of Despauterius about 1515, here in a dozen years it had run its course, and scarcely left even the marks of its influence behind.
IV. But the prototype of all the grammatical writers and teachers of early times in this as well as other countries wasÆlius Donatus, a Roman professor of the fourth century, who probably acquired his experience from Priscian and the other works published under the Empire upon his favourite science, and who had the honour to number Saint Jerome among his disciples.
Donatus is the author of a System of Grammar in three parts, and of a series of Prefaces and Scholia to Terence; and his reputation became so great and was so widely diffused, thataDonatusorDonetwas a well-understood synonym for a Primer, and John of Basing even christens his Greek Grammar, compiled about 1240,Donatus Græcorum. Langland, in hisVision concerning Piers Ploughman, written a century later, says—
“Thaune drowe I me amonges draperes my donet to lerne;”
and theTestament of Lovealludes to the work in similar terms. “In the statutes of Winchester College [written about 1386],” says Warton, “a grammar is calledAntiquus Donatus, i.e. the Old Donat, or the name of a system of grammar at that time in vogue, and long before. The French have a book entitled ‘Le Donnet, traitè de grammaire.... Among Rawlinson’s MSS. at Oxford I have seenDonatus opitimus noviter compilatus, a manuscript on vellum, given to Saint Albans by John Stoke, Abbot in 1450. In the introduction, orlytell Proheme, to Dean Colet’sGrammatices Rudimenta, we find mention made of ‘certayne introducyons into latyn speche called Donates, &c. ... Cotgrave ... quotes an old French proverb: ‘Les diablesetoient encores a leur Donat’—The devils were but yet in their grammar.”
In common with Æsop, theDialogus Creaturarum, and other peculiarly popular works, Donatus lent his name to productions which really had no connection with his own, and we find such titles asDonatus Moralizatus,Donatus Christianatus, adopted by writers of a different class in order to attract attention and gain acceptance.
In England, however, the Works of Donatus do not appear to have obtained the same broad footing which they probably did in Italy. The modern edition by Lindemann, taken from a manuscript at Berlin, exhibits the entire system divided into three sections or books. But all that we know to have passed the press, at all events in this country, are two pieces evidently prepared for petty schools—theDonatus Minorand theDonatus pro pueris, both published at the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century.
The former has on the title-page a large woodcut, representing a schoolmaster in a sort of thronal chair, with the instrument of correctionin his hand, and three pupils kneeling in front of him. Both the teacher and his scholars wear the long hair of the period and plain close caps. It is curious that the pupils should not be uncovered, but the engraving could not, perhaps, be altered.
“The work begins with the title ‘De Nomine.’ Almost every page has a distinct running title descriptive of the subject below treated of. Herbert properly adds: ‘In this book the declension of some of the pronouns is very remarkable, viz. N. Ego. G. mei vel mis. N. Tu. G. tui vel tis. N. Quis vel qui, que vel qua, Quod vel quid. Pl. D. & Ab. quis vel quibus. Also Nostras and Vestras are declined throughout without the neuter gender.’”
Rise of native teachers—Magdalen College School, Oxford—John Annaquil, its first master, and his grammatical handbooks—TheCompendium Grammaticeswith theVulgariaof Terence annexed—TheParvulorum Institutio—Personal allusions in the examples given—John Stanbridge—Account of his works, with extracts of interesting passages—Robert Whittinton—His sectional series of Grammars.
Rise of native teachers—Magdalen College School, Oxford—John Annaquil, its first master, and his grammatical handbooks—TheCompendium Grammaticeswith theVulgariaof Terence annexed—TheParvulorum Institutio—Personal allusions in the examples given—John Stanbridge—Account of his works, with extracts of interesting passages—Robert Whittinton—His sectional series of Grammars.
I. The influence of Donatus was both widespread and of prolonged duration, and we must regard the ancient capital of the civilised world as the focus and cradle of all modern grammatical literature. Upon the great revival of culture, many Englishmen repaired to Rome to undergo a formal training for the scholastic profession under the masters who arose there, among whom were Sulpicius, author, as we have seen, of several educational tracts, which obtained considerable currency here, and Johannes Balbus, who compiled the famousCatholicon.
TheLexiconandDictionarynaturally followed the Primer; and our earliest productions of this kind were formed out of the Vocabularies composed and printed abroad—not in Italy, but in Germany, as a rule. But while in many instances we are made acquainted with the writers or editors of the smaller treatises, the names of those laborious men who undertook the compilation of the first type of glossographical Manual are scarcely known.
But the time soon arrived when a native school of tuition was formed in England, and its original seat seems to have been at the Free School immediately adjacent to Magdalen College, Oxford.
We find John Annaquil mentioned as the master of this seminary in the time of Henry the Seventh, and it is the most ancient record of it that has been apparently recovered. Annaquil, of whom our knowledge is extremely scanty, wrote, for the use more immediately of his own pupils,Compendium Grammatices, with an Anglo-Latin version of theVulgariaof Terence annexed. This volume was printed at Oxford by Theodore Rood about 1484; and an edition ofthe work entitledParvulorum Institutio, ascribed to the same press, was doubtless prepared by Annaquil, or under his direction, for the benefit of his school. Such fragments as have been recovered of this book exhibit variations from the later copies, into which subsequent editors purposely introduced improvements and corrections. There are some familiar allusions here, such as, had they been more numerous, might have rendered these ancient educational tracts more attractive and precious even than they are. I mean such entries as, “I go to Oxford:Eo OxoniumorAd Oxonium.” “I shall go to London:Ibo Londinum.”
Knight explains these references in his Life of Dean Colet: “It may not be amiss to remark that many of the examples in the Latin Grammar pointed to the then juncture of public affairs; viz., the prosecution of Empson and Dudley in the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign: asRegum est tueri leges: Refert omnium animadverti in malos. And this humour was the reason why, in the following editions of the Syntax, there were examples accommodated to the respective years of the impressions; as,Audito regemDoroberniam proficisci;Imperator[Maximilian]meruit sub rege, &c. There were likewise in that edition of Erasmus several examples referring to Dean Colet, asVixit Romæ,studuit Oxonii,natus est Londini,discessit Londini, &c.”
Annaquil is supposed to have died about 1488, and was succeeded in his work by John Stanbridge, who is much better known as a grammarian than his predecessor. Stanbridge was a native of Northamptonshire, according to Wood, and received his education at Winchester. In 1481 he was admitted to New College, Oxford, after two years’ probation, and remained there five years, at the end of which he was appointed first usher under Annaquil of the Free School aforesaid, and after his principal’s death took his place. The exact period of his death is not determined; but he probably lived into the reign of Henry the Eighth.
II. The writings of Stanbridge are divisible into two sections—those which he published in his own lifetime, and those which appeared after his death in the form either of reimpressions or selections by his pupil Whittinton and others. The former category embraces:1.Accidence; 2.Vocabula; 3.Vulgaria. In the latter I include: 1.Accidentia ex Stanbrigiana Editione recognitalimâ Roberti Whittintoni; 2.Parvulorum Institutio ex Stanbrigiana Collectione. The first of these productions, not strictly to be regarded as proceeding from the pen of Stanbridge, bears the name of Whittinton; the second I merely apprehend to have been his. But the line of distinction between the publications of Stanbridge himself and posthumous, or at any rate not personally superintended reprints, is one which ought to be drawn.
There is an edition of Stanbridge’sAccidence, printed at the end of the sixteenth century by Caxton’s successor at Westminster. The variations between it and the collections which were modelled upon it, probably by John Holt, whom I shall again mention, are thus explained and stated by the author of theTypographical Antiquities:—
“This treats of the eight parts of reason; but they differ in several respects as to the manner of treating of them; this treating largely of the degrees of comparison, which the other (Accidentia ex Stanbrigiana Collectione) does notso much as mention. That gives the moods and tenses of the 4. conjugations at large, both active and passive, whereas this gives only a few short rules to know them by. Again, this shews the concords of grammar, which the other has not.”
There are at least three issues of theAccidencefrom London presses, and a fourth in an abridged shape from an Antwerp one, presumably for the convenience of English residents in the Low Countries. The tide had by this time begun to a certain extent to flow in an opposite direction, as it were, and not only introductions to our own language were executed here and reproduced abroad, but Latin authors were beginning to find competent native interpreters, among whom John Annaquil was perhaps the foremost.
Next to theAccidenceof Stanbridge I shall consider briefly hisVocabula, which was, on the whole, the most popular of his works, and continued for the greatest length of time in vogue, as I record editions of it as late as the period of the Civil War (1647). I have not, on the other hand, met with any anterior to 1510. Annexed is a specimen:—
De naui et eius pertinentibus.
This extract is highly edifying. In the concluding lineponto, a ferry-barge, is the modernpunt, andlynter, a cock-boat, is the early Venetianlintra, to which I refer inVenice before the Stonesas antecedent to the gondola.
III. The remaining contribution of Stanbridge to this class of literature is hisVulgaria, which I take to be the least known. Dibdin describes it somewhat at large, and it may be worth while to transfer a specimen hither:—
“Sinciput, et vertex, caput, occiput, et coma, crinis.
········
········
Vulgaria quedā cū suis vernaculis compilata iuxtaconsuetudinem ludi litterarij diui Pauli.
The abridgments of Stanbridge’sAccidenceled, I presume, to the distinction of the original text as theLong Accidence, although I have not personally met with more than a single edition of the work under such a title. Dibdin, however, has a story that John Bagford had heard of one printed at Tavistock, for which the said John “would have stuck at no price.”
The chief of these adaptations of theAccidenceis theParvulorum Institutio, which I have described as probably emanating, in the first place, from the earliest press for the use of the earliest known school at Oxford. But it was reprinted with alterations by Stanbridge, and perhaps by John Holt. In Dibdin’s account of one of these recensions he observes:—
“The work begins immediately on sign. A ij:-‘What is to be done whan an englysshe is gyuen to be made in latyn? Fyrst the verbe must be loked out, and yf there be moo verbes than one in a reason, I must loke out the pryncypall verbe and aske this questyon who or what, and that word that answereth to the questyon shall be the nomynatyve case to the verbe. Except it be a verbe Impersonell the whiche wyll haue no nomynative case.’“On the last leaf but one we have as follows:—Indignus dignus obscenus fedusacerbus.Cice. qq hecaudituacerba sunt.Rarus iucundus absurdus turpesaluber.Terē. turpedictū.Mirandus mirus pulchrum sitpericulosus.Qui. multadictu visuq; miranda.Whan there cometh a verbeafter sum es fui without a relatyveor a coniunccyon yf it be of theactyue sygnyfycacyon it shall beput in a partycyple of the fyrstsutertens yf he be of the passyuesynyfacoōn he shall be put in thepartycyple of the latter sutertens,except exulo, vapulo, veneo, fio.Terētius. quidnāincepturus es.Tere. uxor tibiducenda est pāphyleTe oro vtnuptie que fuerantfuture fiant.
“The work begins immediately on sign. A ij:-‘What is to be done whan an englysshe is gyuen to be made in latyn? Fyrst the verbe must be loked out, and yf there be moo verbes than one in a reason, I must loke out the pryncypall verbe and aske this questyon who or what, and that word that answereth to the questyon shall be the nomynatyve case to the verbe. Except it be a verbe Impersonell the whiche wyll haue no nomynative case.’
“On the last leaf but one we have as follows:—
IV. Robert Whittinton, whose name is probably more familiar to the ordinary student than that of the man from whom he derived his knowledge and tastes, was a native of Warwickshire, and was born at Lichfield about 1480—perhaps a little before. He received his education, as I have stated, at the Free School at Oxford, and is supposed to have gained admission to one of the colleges; but of this there is no certainty. He subsequently acquired, however, the distinction of being decorated with the laurel wreath by the University of Oxford for his proficiency in grammar and rhetoric, with leave to read publicly any of the logical writings of Aristotle; and he assumed the title of Protovates Angliæ, and the credit of having been the first Englishman who was laureated.
It is certain that Whittinton became a teacher like his master Stanbridge, and among his scholars he counted William Lily, the eminent grammarian; but where he so established himself is not so clear, nor do we know the circumstances or date of his decease.
I am going to do my best to lay before thereader of these pages a clear bibliographical outline of Whittinton’s literary performances; and it seems to amount to this, that he has left to us, apart from a few miscellaneous effusions, eleven distinct treatises on the parts of grammar, all doubtless more or less based on the researches and consonant with the doctrines of his immediate master Anniquil and the foreign professors of the same art, whose works had found their way into England, and had even, as in the case of Sulpicius and Perottus, been adopted by the English press.
I will first give the titles of the several pieces succinctly, and then proceed to furnish a slight description of each:—
1. De Nominum Generibis.2. Declinationes Nominum.3. De Syllabarum Quantitate, &c.4. Verborum Præterita et Supina.6. De Octo Partibus Orationis.7. De Heteroclitis Nominibus.8. De Concinnitate Grammatices et Constructione.9. Syntaxis. [A recension of No. 8.]10. Vulgaria.11. Lucubrationes.
These elevenfasciculiactually form altogether one system, and some of them have their order of succession in the author’s arrangement indicated; as, for instance, theVerborum Præterita et Supina, which is called the Fifth Book of the First Part; but others are deficient in this clue, so that if one classes them, it must be in one’s own way.
V. The treatise on theKinds of Nouns, in one of the numerous editions of it at least, is designatedPrimæ Partis Liber Primus, which seems an inducement to yield it the foremost place in the series. But it will be presently observed that, although the collection in a complete state is susceptible of a consecutive arrangement, the pieces composing it did not, so far as we can tell, follow each other originally in strict order of time.
Of the tract on theDeclensions of Nouns, which stands second in order, Dibdin supplies us with a specimen:—
We must now pass to the treatiseDe Syllabarum Quantitate, which, in a chronological respect, ranks first among Whittinton’s works, as there was an edition of it as early as 1513.
This tripartite volume, 1.On the Quantity of Syllables; 2.On Accent; and 3.On the Roman Magistrates, is noteworthy on two accounts. The second portion embraces the earliest specimen in any English book of thepoems of Horace, and the concluding section is a kind of rudimentary Lemprière. Subjoined is a sample of the lines upon accents, from Dibdin:—
“Accentus tonus est per quē fit syllaba quevisCognita: quādo acui debet, vel qū gravariAccentus triplex; fit acutus vel gravis, indeEst circūflexus: qui nunc fit rarus in vsu.Syllaba cum tendit sursum est accentus acutusEst gravis accentus sed syllaba pressa deorsumFit circūflexus gravis in prima: sed in altumAttollit mediam, postrema gravis reciditque.”
This metrical exposition, which will not be mistaken for the language of Horace, is followed by a commentary in prose.
The next three divisions do not call for any particular criticism. They treat of theEight Parts of Speech, theIrregular Nouns, and theLaws of Grammatical Construction, of which the last is the first cast of theSyntax.
There remain theVulgariaand theLucubrations, which are far more important and interesting, and of which there were numerous editions. The subjoined samples will shew the principle on which theVulgariawas compiled:—
“Befe and motton is so dere, that a peny worth of meet wyll scant suffyse a boy at a meale.“Whan I was a scholler of Oxforthe I lyued competently with vii. pens commens wekely.“Be of good chere man for I sawe ryght nowe a rodde made of wythye for the, garnysshed with knottes, it wolde do a boy good to loke vpon it.“A busshell of whete was holde at xii. pens.“A gallon of swete wyne is at viii. pens in London.“A gallon of ale is at a peny and ferdynge.“I warne the fro hens forthe medle not with my bokes. Thou blurrest and blottest them, as thou were a bletchy sowter.”
“Befe and motton is so dere, that a peny worth of meet wyll scant suffyse a boy at a meale.
“Whan I was a scholler of Oxforthe I lyued competently with vii. pens commens wekely.
“Be of good chere man for I sawe ryght nowe a rodde made of wythye for the, garnysshed with knottes, it wolde do a boy good to loke vpon it.
“A busshell of whete was holde at xii. pens.
“A gallon of swete wyne is at viii. pens in London.
“A gallon of ale is at a peny and ferdynge.
“I warne the fro hens forthe medle not with my bokes. Thou blurrest and blottest them, as thou were a bletchy sowter.”
Such bits as these were decidedly worth extracting, yet Dibdin, with the very copy of the book from which they are derived before him, let them pass. In this volume Whittinton takes occasion to speak in eulogistic terms of Sir Thomas More.
Of theLucubrationsthe most interesting portion to an English reader will be the Synonyms:—
The copious storehouse of equivalent phrases in Latin composition shews us in what wide vogue that language was in England at this period, as there is no corresponding facility offered for persons desirous of enlarging their English vocabulary. The influence of the scholars of France, Italy, Holland, and Germany long kept our vernacular in the background, and retarded the study of English by Englishmen; but the uprise of a taste for theFrench and Italian probably gave the first serious blow to the supremacy of the dead tongues, as they are called, and it became by degrees as fashionable for gentlemen and ladies to read and speak the languages in which Molière and Tasso wrote as the hybrid dialect in which erudite foreigners had been used to correspond and compose.
Whittinton styles himself on the title-pages of several of his pieceslaureatusandprotovates Angliæ. In one place he speaks of being “primus in Angliâ lauri coronam gestans,” and elsewhere he professes to bemagister grammatices. As Warton and others have speculated a good deal on the real nature and import of the dignity which this early scholar claimed in regard to the laurel crown or wreath, it may be worth noting that Wood furnishes the annexed explanation of the point:—
“In the beginning of the year 1513, he supplicated the venerable congregation of regents under the name and title of Robert Whittington, a secular chaplain and a scholar of the art of rhetoric: that, whereas he had spent fourteen years in the study of the saidart, and twelve years in the informing of boys, it might be sufficient for him that he might be laureated. This supplication being granted, he was, after he had composed an hundred verses, which were stuck up in public places, especially on the door or doors of St. Mary’s Church [Oxford], very solemnly crowned, or his temples adorned with a wreath of laurel, that is, decorated in the arts of grammar and rhetoric, 4 July the same year.”
The biographer of Colet is undoubtedly correct in supposing that the ancient poet-laureatship was nothing more than an academical degree, and that in this sense, and in no other, Skelton bore that designation, as well as Bernardus Andreas, who was tutor to Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII.
It also appears from the account of the decoration of Whittinton that he had commenced his qualification for a schoolmaster as far back as 1499, which is reconcilable with the date assigned to his birth (1480).
Educational tracts produced by other writers—Parvula—Holt’sMilk for Children—Horman’sVulgariaand its singular curiosity and value—The author’s literary quarrel with Whittinton—The contemporary foreign teachers—Specimen of the Grammar of Guarini of Verona (1470)—Vestiges of the literature current at Oxford in the beginning of the sixteenth century—The printed works of Johannes de Garlandia.
Educational tracts produced by other writers—Parvula—Holt’sMilk for Children—Horman’sVulgariaand its singular curiosity and value—The author’s literary quarrel with Whittinton—The contemporary foreign teachers—Specimen of the Grammar of Guarini of Verona (1470)—Vestiges of the literature current at Oxford in the beginning of the sixteenth century—The printed works of Johannes de Garlandia.
I. Of independent tracts intended for the use of our early schools, there were several either anonymous or written by persons whom we do not recognise as writers of more than a single production.
In the former category is placeable the small piece published three or four times by Wynkyn de Worde about 1509, under the title ofParvulaorLonge Parvula. It is a series of rules for translation and other exercises in the form of question and answer, thus:—
“Q. What shall thou do whan thou hast an englysshe to make in latyn?“A. I shal reherse myne englysshe ones, twyes, or thryes, and loke out my pryncypal, & aske ȳ questyon, who or what.”
“Q. What shall thou do whan thou hast an englysshe to make in latyn?
“A. I shal reherse myne englysshe ones, twyes, or thryes, and loke out my pryncypal, & aske ȳ questyon, who or what.”
A second publication is theMilk for Childrenof John Holt, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who had the honour of numbering among his pupils Sir Thomas More. One of the most interesting points about the little book to us nowadays is that it is accompanied by some Latin hexameters and pentameters and an epigram in the same language by More. The latter has the air of having been sent to Holt, and inserted by him with the heading which occurs before it, where the future Chancellor is termed “disertus adolescentulus.”
A decided singularity of this volume is the quaint device of the author for impressing his precepts on those who read his pages or attended his academy by arranging the cases and declensions on woodcuts in the shape of outstretched hands.
Besides hisMilk for Childrenand theParvulorum Institutio, to the latter of which I havealready referred, Holt appears to me the most likely person to have compiled the tract calledAccidentia ex Stanbrigiana Collectione, a small grammatical manual based on that of his predecessor or even colleague at Magdalen School; and this may be the work to which Knight points where he says that Holt put forth an Accidence and Grammar concurrently with his other tract, though the biographer of Dean Colet errs in placing Stanbridge after Holt in chronological sequence.
Another of the miscellaneous unofficial pieces, answering very nearly to the mediævalNominale, has no other title thanOs, Facies, mentum, and is a Latin poem descriptive of the human form, first printed in 1508, with an interlinear English gloss. It begins thus:—
There is nothing, of course, on the one hand, recondite, or, on the other, very edifying in this; but it is a sample of the method pursued in these little ephemerides nearly four centuries ago.
II. The comparative study of Latin and English acquired increased prominence under the Tudors; and in addition to the regular text-books compiled by such men as Stanbridge and Whittinton, there is quite a small library of pieces designed for educational purposes, and framed on a similar model. Doubtless these were in many cases accepted in the schools on an equal footing with the productions of the masters themselves, or the latter may have had a hand, very possibly, in those which we have to treat as anonymous.
Between the commencement and middle of the sixteenth century, during the reigns of the first and second Tudors, there were several of these unclaimed and unidentified compilations, such as theGrammatica Latino-Anglica, Tractatus de octo orationis partibus, andBrief Rules of the Regiment or construction of the Eight Parts of Speech, in English and Latin, 1537.
TheIntroductorium linguæ Latinæby W. H. may perhaps be ascribed to William Horman, of whom we shall have more to say; and there are also in the category of works which had no particular width or duration of currency theGradus Comparationumof Johannes Bellomayus, and theRegulæ Informationisof John Barchby.
These, and others, again, of which all trace has at present disappeared, were employed in common with the regular series, constantly kept in print, of Whittinton and Stanbridge, prior to the rise of the great public seminaries, many of which, as it will be my business to shew, took into use certain compilations supposed to be specially adapted to their requirements.
William Horman, who is presumed to have been the author of theIntroductoriumabove mentioned, was schoolmaster and Fellow of Eton College; in 1477 he became a perpetual Fellow of New College, Oxford, and he was eventually chosen Vice-Provost of Eton. He survived till 1535. From an epigram appended to the volume it is to be gleaned that Horman was a pupil of Dr. Caius, poet-laureate to Edward the Fourth.
Of theGradus Comparationumthe subjoined may be received as a specimen:—
“What nownes make comparyson? Alladiectyues welnere ȳ betoken a thynge that maye be made more or lesse: as fayre: fayrer: fayrest: black, blacker, blackest. How many degrees of comparacyon ben there? iij. the positiue ȳ comparatiue & the superlatyue. How knowe ye the posityue gēdre? For he is the groūde and the begynner of all other degrees of cōparyson. How knowe ye the comparatyue degre? for he passeth his posityue with this englysshe more, or his englysshe endeth in r, as more wyse or wyser. How knowe ye the superlatyue degre? for he passeth his posityue with engysshe moost: or his englisshe endeth in est: as moost fayre or fayrest, moost whyte or whytest.”
III. TheVulgariaof William Horman, 1519, is perhaps one of the most intrinsically curious and valuable publications in the entire range of our early philological literature. It would be easy to fill such a slender volume as that in the hands of the reader with samples of the contents without exhausting the store, but I must content myself with such extracts as seem most entertaining and instructive:—