FRENCH AT THE UNIVERSITIES
The universities set the grammar schools the example by neglecting the study of French and other subjects necessary to a polite education. Even the limited encouragement given to the modern language at the universities during the Middle Ages no longer existed in the sixteenth century. At this date Latin reigned supreme at Oxford and Cambridge, and its use was rigorously enforced. The students were required "to speak in Latin at public places" or otherwise "incur the penalty contained in the statute regarding this point."[515] It is true that these regulations were not always obeyed; Fynes Moryson says that scholars in the universities shun occasions of speaking Latin. But it was none the less the chief language cultivated at the universities,[516] where no modern languages received official recognition.
The mediaeval custom of using French on various academic occasions had not, however, disappeared without leaving a few traces. Some of the French forms of procedure favoured in the Middle Ages, probably owing to the influence of the University of Paris, were still in use at Cambridge in the seventeenth century. The books of two Cambridge beadels, Beadel Stokys (c. 1570) and Beadel Buck (1665),[517] show that on several occasions these officials were instructed to use French during public ceremonies. Thus, at the solemn exercise of determination, one of the beadels gave thanks for the money he and his fellows received, in the following terms: "Noter Determiners je vous remercie de le Argent que vous FRENCH AND ITALIAN READavez donner a moy et a meis companiouns, pourquoy je prie a Dieu que il vous veuille donner tres bonne vie et en la Fin la Joye de Paradise." In similar "Stratford-atte-Bowe" French they summoned the lecturers in the 'schools' to be present on commencement day: "Nostre Seigneur Doctor, une parolle sil vous Plaist, nostres Peres de nostres Seigneurs Commencens vous prient que vous estes demayn a son commencement en l'église de nostre Dame." And throughout the ceremonies[518] in Arts and Theology similar French formulae, often interspersed with Latin, were frequently used, though they had probably passed out of use by the beginning of the eighteenth century. But even at that time the summons to dinner at New College still retained a trace of the old custom; two choristers walked from the chapel door to the garden gate crying, "Tempus est vocando, mangez tous seigneurs."
Yet modern languages were not entirely neglected by all university students. Gabriel Harvey, in an interesting letter to a certain Mr. Wood, says that the students of Cambridge have "deserted Thomas Aquinas and the whole rabblement of schoolmen for modern French and Italian works such as Commines and Machiavell, Paradines in Frenche, Plutarche in Frenche, and I know not how many outlandish braveryes of the same stamp." "You can not stepp into a schollars studye," he adds, "but (ten to on) you shall litely finde open either Bodin de Republica or Le Royes exposition uppon Aristotles Politiques, or some other like Frenche or Italian Politique Discourses."[519]
Thus we may safely conclude that French and to a less extent Italian books were widely read at the universities. No doubt, those who learnt Italian did so with the help of a dictionary or an English translation, like Lord Herbert of Cherbury. But there were additional opportunities for learning the more popular language. French tutors and French grammars were not unknown at both Oxford and Cambridge. But it was at Oxford that they were by far the more numerous. The tutors taught French privately to those of the students who were willing to learn. And Holyband in dedicating his French Schoolemaister (1573) to the young Robert Sackville, then a student at Oxford, throws light on the attitude taken towards that language: "not that you shuld leave off your weightier and worthier studies in the Universitie, but when your mind is amazed and dazled with long readinge, you may refresh and disport you in learninge this [French] tongue."
Protestant refugees formed an important section of the little band of private French tutors at Oxford. Many Huguenots, frequently scholars of distinction, settled at the English centres of learning. Some were promoted to positions in the University,[520] on which they had a very beneficial influence, just as others received preferment in the English Church. The French tutors were among the humbler and more numerous exiles who "taught privately," as the seventeenth-century historian of the University, Anthony à Wood, tells us. Apart from those who actually taught French, the presence of considerable numbers of Frenchmen[521] cannot have been without some indirect influence on the study of French at Cambridge, as well as at Oxford.
In addition, several French tutors accompanied their pupils to the University, and spent some time with them there. Such, no doubt, was the case of Peter Du Ploich who, for some unknown reason, was residing in Barnard College (now St. John's), Oxford, early in the second half of the sixteenth century. Another well-known French tutor, G. De la Mothe, accompanied his pupil Richard Wenman to Oxford, some time between 1587 and 1592. About ten years before, we come across a famous Protestant, Jean Hotman, sieur de Villiers St. Paul, resident at Oxford with his pupils, the sons of Lord Poulet, English ambassador at Paris; while attending to the education of his charges he completed his own, and received the degree of Doctor. Subsequently he became secretary to Leicester, and was thus brought into contact with the English Court.[522] The younger Pierre Du Moulin likewise remained with his pupil Richard Boyle when at Oxford.[523] Among tutors who spent a short time at Oxford, and then joined the larger and FRENCH GRAMMARS PRINTED AT OXFORDmore successful group of language teachers in London, was John Florio,[524] well known as a writer of books for teaching Italian, and himself of Italian parentage, though born in London. In about 1576 he became tutor for French and Italian to Emmanuel, son of Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham, and to several other Oxford students. He was, we are told, a "very useful man in his profession." Shortly after, he removed to London, where he enjoyed favour at Court.
Of more importance, however, is the group of private tutors who settled at Oxford, found a clientèle among the University students, and frequently wrote and published French grammars for the use of their pupils. There was evidently some demand for instruction in French at Oxford early in the sixteenth century. The bookseller John Donne enters a book called Frans and Englis twice in the register of books he sold in 1520;[525] this may have been either Caxton's Book in French and English, or the similar collection of dialogues printed by Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde in turn.
The first book for teaching French printed at Oxford was due to a Frenchman called Pierre Morlet, a native of Auteuil, who taught French at Oxford in the last decade of the sixteenth century. His Janitrix sive institutio ad perfectam linguae gallicae cognitionem acquirendum was issued from the press of Joseph Barnes in 1596.[526] The dedication, dated from Broadgates Hall the 5th of March of the same year, is addressed to Morlet's former pupil, Sir Robert Beal. This rare little treatise contains a few observations on the pronunciation of the letters, followed by a concise treatment of each part of speech in turn. It is preceded by a number of commendatory verses in Latin and Greek, tributes from Morlet's pupils, students of the various colleges. Morlet had previously prepared a revised edition of Jean Garnier's French grammar, which was published at Jena in 1593,[527] no doubt before his coming to England.
As might be expected, most of the early Oxford French grammars, written for the use of Oxonians, differ from those published at London in that they are composed in Latin. They differ further in containing no practical exercises and restricting their contents to rules of grammar.
All the French grammars published at Oxford were not due to Frenchmen. In 1584 a Spanish refugee, Antonio de Corro, resident at Christ Church, after acting as minister of the Spanish Church in London, had anticipated Morlet by adding a few rules on French pronunciation and accidence to his Spanish Grammar,[528] written in his own language. This was subsequently translated into English in 1590 by J. Thorius, also of Christ Church, and printed in London as The Spanish Grammer with certaine Rules teaching both the Spanish and French tongues. Several grammars were likewise produced by Englishmen resident at Oxford, and teaching the French language. Among others was John Sanford, or Sandford, chaplain of Magdalen College, and the author of the French grammar which succeeded Morlet's. Sanford wrote in Latin, and entitled his work Le Guichet François, sive Janicula et Brevis Introductio ad Linguam Gallicam. It was published by Joseph Barnes in 1604,[529] and dedicated to Dr. Bond, president of Magdalen. Sanford compiled his observations on the pronunciation and parts of speech from the various French grammars published in both France and England; he drew largely on Morlet, as well as Bellot and Holyband; and made equally free with de Bèze, Pillot, and Ramus.
He varied his duties as chaplain by giving lessons in French. In 1605 he was teaching French to that "hopefull young gentleman Mr. William Grey, son to the Rt. Honourable Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton," and found "good contentement" in his "happy progresse therein." Called away temporarily by other duties, Sanford made an English translation of the Latin work, which he addressed to his young charge "as a pledge of my duteous love towards your good deserts, and as my substitute to supplie my absence, being willing also for your sake to make a publicke use therof." The Janicula appeared in its new form, much abridged as well as translated, in 1605, under the title of A Briefe Extract of the former Latin Grammar.[530] It is significant that although this English translation was printed by Barnes at Oxford, it was mainly intended for a London public, and was "to be sold in Paules Church Yard at the signe of the Crowne by Simon Waterson."
SALTONSTALL AND LEIGHTON Sanford retained his position at Magdalen for some years after the appearance of his grammars. In about 1610 he was travelling abroad as chaplain to Sir John Digby, whose acquaintance he had made when Sir John was a student at Balliol.[531]
Other well-known English teachers of French at Oxford were Wye Saltonstall and Henry Leighton. Wye Saltonstall came of a noble family in Essex. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where "his descent and birth being improved by learning, flatter'd him with a kinder fortune than afterwards he enjoyed his life being all Tristia." He is said to have then gone to Gray's Inn, Holborn, without taking a degree at Oxford, and afterwards to have become a perfect master of French, which he had acquired during his travels. In 1625 he returned to Oxford for purposes of study and converse with learned men. There he taught Latin and French, and was still living in good repute in 1640 and after.[532]
Henry Leighton, on the other hand, had not so good a reputation at the University. He is said to have been a man of debauched character, and to have obtained the degree of M.A. in anything but a straightforward manner; when Charles I. created more than seventy persons M.A. on the 1st of November 1642, Leighton, who then bore a commission in the king's army, contrived to have the degree conferred on himself by presenting himself at dusk, when the light was very low, though his name was not on the list. When the king's cause declined, Leighton, who had received the greater part of his education in France, and was an accomplished French scholar, settled at Oxford as a teacher of French, and had a room in St. John's College. Apparently he continued to teach French until 1669, the year of his death.[533]
He was the author of a French grammar written in Latin, called Linguae Gallicae addiscendae regulae, printed in 1659,[534] and again in 1662. Beginning with rules for the pronunciation of each letter, the author passes to observations on the articles, nouns, pronouns, and verbs; he then returns to the pronunciation, gives fuller rules for the more difficult sounds, and closes with a list of irregular verbs.[535] Leighton says he published his work at the request of his friends. He dedicated it (in French) to Henry O'Brien, baron of Ibrecken, only son of the Earl of Thomond, expressing, in words very like those used by Holyband on a similar occasion, the hope that this "divertissement," as he calls the grammar, may help to while away time not occupied by more serious and important studies. Thus we see that the general attitude towards the study of French was still, in the middle of the seventeenth century, very much what it had been in the preceding century.
In the meantime other grammars had appeared from the pens of French sojourners at Oxford. One, Robert Farrear, a teacher of French, wrote a grammar in English for the use of his pupils, The Brief Direction to the French Tongue, printed at Oxford in 1618. Nothing further is known of its author. Anthony à Wood[536] informs us that in the title of the book Farrear inscribed himself M.A., but "whether he took that degree or was incorporated therein in Oxford" he could not discover.
The works on French which appeared at Oxford were not all formal grammars of the type described. Pierre Bense, a native of Paris, who taught Italian and Spanish as well as French, was the author of the Analogo-Diaphora seu Concordantia Discrepans et Discrepantia Concordans trium linguarum Gallicae, Italicae et Hispanicae, commended by Edward Leigh in his Foelix Consortium or a fit Conjuncture of Religion and Learning (1663). This comparison of the resemblances and differences in the grammar of the three languages is dedicated to the University of Oxford, and was printed at the author's own expense in 1637.[537] As to Bense himself we are told that he was partly bred "in good letters" at Paris, and then, coming to England, "he went by letters commendatory to Oxon where being kindly received and entertained, became a sojourner there, was entred into the public library, and taught for several years the French, Italian and Spanish tongues." For the rest we must be content to add with Wood: "What other things he hath written I know not, nor any thing else of the author."[538]
GABRIEL DU GRÈS As yet no French grammars had appeared at Cambridge, and French teachers do not seem to have made their presence felt there.[539] In 1631, however, one of the best known of this group of university French tutors arrived at Cambridge—Gabriel Du Grès, a native of Saumur, and a member of a good family from Angers. He arrived in England as a refugee on account of his Protestant faith, received a warm welcome at Cambridge, and taught French to several of the students in various colleges.[540] In the fifth year of his residence, the liberality of his pupils enabled him to publish his Breve et Accuratum Grammaticae Gallicae compendium in quo superflua rescinduntur et necessaria non omittuntur (1636), a work on the same lines and of about the same dimensions as that of Morlet.[541] It is preceded by Latin verses addressed to the author by members of different colleges, and is dedicated to the students of the University, especially those engaged in the study of French. This grammar of Du Grès appears to be the only work of its kind printed at Cambridge before the eighteenth century.[542]
Shortly after its publication Du Grès joined the group of French tutors at Oxford,[543] and this removal points to the more ready openings offered there to those of his profession. When he published his Dialogi Gallico-Anglico-Latini[544] at Oxford in 1639, he was teaching French in that "most illustrious and famous university." These dialogues are dedicated to Charles, Prince of Wales. Twenty-one in number, they deal with the usual familiar topics, greetings and the ordinary civilities, visiting and table talk, the house and its contents, man and the parts of his body, wayfaring, a journey to France, and so forth, many being of much interest on account of the light they throw on the customs of the time. Considerable space is devoted to instructions for writing letters.
A second edition appeared in 1652, enlarged with "necessary rules for the pronunciation of the French tongue, very profitable unto them that are desirous of it," giving a pseudo-English equivalent of the sound of each French letter, and followed by a few general rules for reading French and a table of the auxiliary and regular verbs. This little book, which has more in common with the productions of the London teachers than with the Oxford manuals, enjoyed a greater popularity than those of Du Grès's rivals. In 1660 a third edition appeared, without the additions found in the second.
He was also the author of an interesting little work in English on the Duke of Richelieu,[545] printed in London in 1643. Probably Du Grès had removed to London at that date; in the second edition of his grammar, printed, like the first, by Leonard Lichfield at Oxford, he describes himself as "late teacher of the same in Oxford."
In his dialogues Du Grès gives some account of his ideas on the teaching of French:[546]
Commençons à l'abécé.
Escusez moy.
Entendez moy, oyez moy, prononcer les lettres. Remarquez bien comment je prononce les voyelles, et principalement u, car il est bien malaisé a prononcer à vous autres mm. les Anglois, comme aussi e entre les consonnes. Prononcez apres moy.
Voilà qui va bien.
Prononce-je bien?
Fort bien. Essayez encore une fois.
Ce mechant u me donne bien de la peine.
Il ne sauroit tant vous en donner que votre th ou ch nous en donne.
Il est malaisé d'avoir la proprieté de votre langue.
L'exercice et la lecture des bons autheurs vous apprendront avec le temps, etc.
He agreed with most of the French teachers of the day in attaching much importance to conversational practice and reading. He also recommended a certain amount of memorising and the study of grammar; general rules and rules of syntax he considered indispensable; but for pronunciation he thought practice of more avail than rules. It is possible, he admits, to learn French by rote, without any grammar rules. But it is not the best way in his opinion. Without grammar rules the student cannot distinguish good French from bad, nor can he translate, write letters, or read; and reading, thought Du Grès, was an essential condition if the cultivation of French in England was to be maintained. FRENCH AT CAMBRIDGEThose who learn by ear are at a loss as soon as they no longer hear French spoken daily. As for those who promise to teach French in a short time, they are nothing but mountebanks. Du Grès held that a man of moderate intellect could, with hard work, learn to understand an ordinary French author in three or four months. He had had, he declares, some pupils at Cambridge who learnt to read and speak fairly well in four months and others who learnt practically nothing in a whole year.
At the end of the seventeenth century the status of French at the universities had undergone no marked change. At the time of the Restoration, a certain Philemon Fabri petitioned Williamson for an appointment as Professor of French eloquence at Oxford, "he having held a similar situation at Strasburg"; he supported his request by an address to the king in French verses, entitled Le Pater Noster des Anglais au Roi. Apparently Fabri did not receive the desired position.[547] At Cambridge we find still less encouragement given to the study of French than at Oxford. During the Commonwealth, Guy Le Moyne, formerly French tutor to Charles I., lived at Cambridge, and no doubt continued to teach French there, as he had done in London and at Court.[548] At the Restoration he petitioned Charles II. to let him have the Fellowship at Pembroke Hall reserved for Frenchmen.[549] Le Moyne was then seventy-two years old, and wished, he said, to end his days at Cambridge.[550] At Cambridge, as at Oxford, there were also French tutors in charge of particular pupils. Many of these were French Protestants. Thus the famous Pierre Du Moulin, arriving in England as a destitute refugee in 1588, was received into the service of the Countess of Rutland, who sent him to Cambridge as tutor to her son. There he remained until 1592, continuing his own studies as well as attending to those of his young charge. He thoroughly disliked his position, and seized the first opportunity of leaving it.[551] We also hear of Herbert Palmer, President of Queen's College (1644-47), who had learnt French almost as soon as he could speak, and could preach in French as well as in English.[552] He won considerable distinction as a college tutor, but whether he placed his knowledge of French at the service of students, as Sanford and Leighton did at Oxford, is not specified.
Yet, even at Oxford, the efforts of this band of French teachers were not on a large enough scale to have any very noticeable effect. Some gentlemen who, like Sanford's pupil, William Grey, had gone to the University to make themselves "fit for honourable imployments hereafter," took advantage of such opportunities as there were of studying French. Thus Henry Smith, while acting as tutor to Mr. Clifford, learnt French himself, and wrote to Williamson in that language.[553] And no doubt the French tutors found enough pupils among those who were drawn more towards the fashionable than the scholastic world. But the inability of the young Oxford student to speak French when in polite London circles was a subject of comment in the seventeenth century as the language became more and more widely cultivated. To speak French was even considered incompatible with a university education, to judge from this passage in one of Farquhar's comedies:[554]
Sir H. Wildair. Canst thou danse, child?
Bantu. Oui, monsieur.
Lady Lurewell. Heyday! French too! Why, sure, sir, you could never be bred at Oxford!
To the same intent Pepys relates[555] how an Oxford scholar, "in a Doctor of Lawe's gowne," whom he met at dinner at the Spanish ambassador's, sat like a fool for want of French, "though a gentle sort of scholar"; nor could he speak the ambassador's language, but only Latin, which he spoke like an Englishman. Pepys, on the other hand, was very pleased at the display he was able to make of his own French on this occasion. The famous diarist was a competent judge, and spoke and wrote the language with ease. Unfortunately we know nothing of how he acquired this knowledge, beyond the fact that he had not been to France.[556] ONE-SIDEDNESS OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATIONHe often criticizes the French of those he meets, and a certain Dr. Pepys, according to him, "spoke the worst French he had ever heard from one who had been beyond sea." Pepys's brother spoke French, "very plain and good," and Mrs. Pepys, the daughter of a refugee Huguenot, was as familiar with that language as with English.[557]
Thus the universities, like the schools, failed to keep in touch with practical life by their neglect of the broader education necessary to persons of quality and fashion. At the Inns of Court, where gentlemen usually spent some time on leaving the university,[558] or where they sometimes went instead of to the university,[559] the state of things was somewhat better. Some knowledge of French was indispensable to those studying the law, and the position of the Inns, almost all of them within the boundaries of the ward of Farringdon Without, the favourite abode of the French teachers, was such as to offer exceptional facilities for the study of the language. When Robert Ashley was at the Inner Temple he studied Spanish, Italian, and Dutch, as well as French. We are told[560] that in earlier times "knights, barons, and the greatest nobility of the kingdom often placed their children in those Inns of Court, not so much to make the laws their study, much less to live by the profession ... but to form their manners and to preserve them from contagion of vice." There, could be found "a sort of gymnasium or academy fit for persons of their station, where they learn singing and all kinds of music, dancing, and other such accomplishments and Diversions ... as are suitable to their quality and such as are usually practiced at Court." French was, without doubt, one of these accomplishments. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the Inns of Court were still much in favour, and gentlemen's sons could enjoy there good company and the innocent recreations of the town, as well as improve themselves in the "exercises." Clarendon calls the Inns of Court the suburbs of the Court itself.
None the less, the gentleman with a university education, even when it was followed by residence at one of the Inns of Court, was felt to be inadequately equipped. Almost invariably he sought on the Continent the polite accomplishments and knowledge of languages, which were necessary qualifications for high employment at Court, in the army, and elsewhere. Travel came to be regarded as "an especial part"[561] of the education of a gentleman, and as such occupies an important place in the educational treatises of the time. The usual course advised for the sons of gentlemen was an early study of Greek and Latin, followed by residence at one of the Universities and at the Inns of Court, and, finally, "travel beyond seas for language and experience" and the study of such arts as could not be easily acquired in England.
In some cases gentlemen were educated quite independently of the English schools and universities[562]—at home with private tutors, and in France. Lady Brilliana Harley, for instance, feared that her son would not find much good company at Oxford. "I believe," she wrote, "that theare are but feawe nobellmens sonne in Oxford, for now, for the most part, they send theaire sonnes into France when they are very yonge, theaire to be breed."[563]