FRENCH GRAMMARS—BOOKS FOR TEACHING LATIN AND FRENCH—FRENCH IN PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS

One of the most noted teachers of English as well as of French was Robert Sherwood, who in 1632 completed his English-French Dictionary which was appended to the new edition of Cotgrave's work issued in that year.[784] Sherwood was born in Norfolk,[785] although he later called himself a Londoner. In July 1622 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1626. He then moved to London and opened a language school in St. Sepulchre's Churchyard, where he continued to teach for many years. He also taught English to many French, German, Danish, and Flemish nobles and gentlemen who visited London. To these distinguished visitors he dedicated his dictionary in 1632, as well as the second edition of his French grammar in 1634, expressing the hope that he would soon be able to produce an English grammar "toute entière," for only the practical exercises in French and English could be of use to them in their study of English. His French grammar was intended "for the furtherance and practice of gentlemen, scollers and others desirous of the said language." We gather that Sherwood's school was limited entirely to the higher classes, and was very different from Holyband's noisy and bustling establishment.

The first edition of Sherwood's French Tutour, as he called his grammar, saw the light in 1625,[786] just before he graduated at Cambridge. He had probably worked at it as well as at his dictionary during his residence there, and appears to have taught French to private pupils. How he first acquired his knowledge of French, we do not know. He may have spent some years in France before going to Cambridge, since he would not find much opportunity of studying the language there. His work is little more than a translation of selections from the French grammar of Charles Maupas of Blois (1625). Perhaps he studied the language with Maupas himself, of whom he speaks with great respect. In parts of his grammar, however, Sherwood drew on his own "long experience" in teaching French.

The second edition of the French Tutour (1634) is said to be carefully corrected and enlarged. In it Sherwood follows the usual order of treatment. First come rules of pronunciation, then of grammar, which show "the nature and use of the Articles, a thing of no small importance in this language: also the way to find out the gender of all nounes: the conjugation of all the verbs regular and irregular; and after which followeth a list of most of the indeclinable parts (which commonly do much hinder learners) Alphabetically Englished; with a most ample syntax of all the parts of speech." This section closes with an alphabetical index "interpreting such nounes and verbes as are unenglished in the grammar." The practical exercises are in the form of "three dialogues and a touch of French compliments," in French and English, arranged in two parallel columns on a page. The first deals with familiar talk by the wayside, depicting travellers on their road to London, and, on their arrival, taking lodgings at the Black Swan in Holborn, doing their shopping, and taking their evening meal. The other two dialogues treat of less familiar subjects; and, on the whole, Sherwood's book was not of a popular kind, but was intended for the "learned." One describes the exercises and studies of the nobility, dancing, riding, fencing, hunting, geography, cosmography, and so forth; and the other turns on the subject of travel in foreign countries, in which Sherwood emphasizes the necessity for the traveller of "some good and fundamental beginning in the language of the country whither he goeth." The Tutour closes with a selection of French compliments from the book of M. L. Miche on French courtesy, to which Sherwood added an English version.

Another Englishman also ventured in the early years of the seventeenth century to write on the French language—William Colson, who called himself a Professor of Literal and Liberal Sciences. He had spent many years abroad as WILLIAM COLSONtravelling companion to young English gentlemen, "as well learning as teaching such laudable arts and qualities as are most fitting for a gentleman's exercise." Seemingly he spent some time in the Low Countries, and he may have found his pupils among the English troops serving there, as in 1603 he published at Liége a book in French on arithmetic which also provides military information. Before 1612 he had returned to London, where he composed a similar work in English, dedicated to the Lords of the Privy Council.[787] He tells us that on his return from his travels he wrote "certaine litteral workes," mostly on the teaching of languages, and like an earlier English writer, John Eliote, evolved a special method which he called "arte locall or the arte of memorie." He expounds his "method," which is very vague and obscure in its application, in one of his French text-books which appeared in London in 1620 and was called The First Part of the French grammar, Artificially Deduced, into Tables by Arte Locall, called the Arte of Memorie. Colson desired to reconcile the old orthography with the new, as Holyband had done earlier, by means of a reformed alphabet of twenty-six letters, and of a triple distinction of characters, Roman, Italian, and English. Roman type was to stand for the proper pronunciation, that is, letters which are pronounced as they are written; the Italian for the improper, that is, letters which are not given their usual pronunciation; and finally the letters written but not sounded were to be printed in black letter. In his reformed alphabet he divides the letters into seven vowels and eighteen consonants, and subdivides the consonants into semivowels and mutes. He gives each letter its usual name, and then its special name according to his own scheme, as follows:

éh

és

éz

éx

éi

él

ér

én

ém

éf

éΛ

éb

ép

éd

ét

ég

ék

éc

éq

proper names

speciall names

sé

zé

xé

ié

lé

ré

né

mé

fé

Λé

bé

pé

dé

té

gé

ké

cé

qé

Aspiration	↓	↓
	8 semivowels	10 mutes
↓ 7 vowels		↓ 18 consonants
↓ Elements and Letters

And all the said Alphabet is briefly contained in these five artificiall words to be learnt by heart:—Haeiou—sezexeie—lereneme—feΛebepe—detegeke.

After treating of the letters, Colson proceeds to deal with the other three chief parts of grammar—"the sillible, the diction, and the locution" (the last two dealing with accidence and syntax respectively) in a similarly intricate and obscure style. It is difficult to imagine what can have been his reasons for his scheme of complicated divisions and sub-divisions, more like a puzzle than anything else. Yet he appears to have been serious, and assures us that once his reformed alphabet is mastered "the perfect pronunciation, reading, and writing of the French tongue is gotten in the space of one month or thereabouts." It is not surprising that his attempted reform passed quite unheeded.

This First Part of the French grammar, which is dedicated to "the Worshippfull, worthie and vertuous gentleman, M. Emanuel Giffard, Esquire," seems to be the only one of Colson's works on the French language which has survived. At its close is a large folding sheet, containing the table of his reformed alphabet, dedicated to Sir Michael Stanhope and Sir William Cornwallis by their affectionate servant. The date is 1613. Colson informs us that he had also compiled a French grammar divided into four parts, after a new method. He likewise refers to "all his bookes tending to the instruction of the French tongue," such as his "booke of the declination of nouns, and conjugation of Verbes," and his "three repertories of the English, French, and Latine tongues, compounded by arte locall for aiding the memorie in learning most speedily the words of the foresaide tongues by heart in halfe time": his "Repertoire of all syllables in general and of all French words in particular containing the Art to learn them easily by heart in verie short time and with little labour to the great contentment of him which is desirous of the French tongue, all reduced into Tables by Art Locall as before said": and "other works of ours shortly to be printed tending to the knowledge of the foresaid tongues, in which works is set downe by Art and order local (called the Art of Memory) most easy and brief rules to learne the foresaid bookes by heart." Most of these, no doubt, were short pamphlets, perhaps in the shape of the large folding sheet inserted at the end of the Grammar of 1620, and so stood but little chance of survival.

At this same period the popular French grammar of Charles Maupas, well known to many travellers to France, was translated into English by William Aufeild and published in 1634. WILLIAM AUFEILDMaupas's grammar, first printed at Blois in 1607, had won a considerable reputation in England, and was not without noticeable influence on the French grammars published in London. Sherwood, who had made free use of Maupas, praised him very highly. James Howell, in his edition of Cotgrave's Dictionary, advises students to seek fuller grammatical information in Maupas's Grammar, "the exactest and most scholarlike of all." William Aufeild, the translator of the book—"the best instructions for that language by the consent of all that know the book, that were ever written"—considers that it excels all the French grammars ever produced in England: "all of them put together do not teach half so well the idiom of the French tongue as this one doth." We are assured that the work was in great demand when it first appeared in England, and that a great number of the nobility and gentry were commonly taught by means of it. Finding that the fact that it was written in French was a great drawback, as it could only be used by those who already understood French, Aufeild decided to translate it into English, and dedicated his work to the young Duke of Buckingham,[788] son of the duke to whom Maupas had offered the original. Aufeild tells that he had been studying French for ten years when he undertook his task. He called the translation A French grammar and Syntaxe, contayning most exact and certaine Rules for the pronunciation, Orthography, construction and use of the French language.[789]

To adapt the work to the use of the English, the translator placed a small cross under letters not pronounced in the French word, thus adopting Holyband's plan. These letters were also printed in a different type, "that better notice might be taken of them." He also endeavours to give the sounds of the French alphabet in English spelling, so that if the student "pronounce the one like an Englishman, he must needs pronounce the same sounds, written after the French manner, like a Frenchman." This, he says, is the only invention which he claims as his own in the whole work. "The examples as well as the text, are englished to save the reader so many lookings in his Dictionary"; and the word to which the rule has special reference is printed in different type from the rest of the example. Occasionally the text is expanded by additional explanations, included in parentheses.

Aufeild advises the student of French to read the whole grammar through first, in order to get a general notion of the language. It is vain, he argues, to begin learning rules for the pronunciation of a language of which you are totally ignorant. Especially is this so in the case of the "unlearned," that is, those unacquainted with Latin grammar. For instance, "you shall find that in all the third persons plural of verbes ending in -ent, n is not pronounced," and so on. Now, "unless a man can distinguish an adverbe from a verbe," he says, "or till he know how the plurall number is made of the singular how shall he know ... when to leave out n before t?" "In my opinion," he adds, "it is but a dull and wearisome thing for a man to take a great deale of paines, in learning to pronounce what he understandeth not." Clearly his ideal was a preliminary grounding in the general principles of grammar. When you have a general knowledge of the whole language you may begin at the pronunciation and "so goe through it againe in order as it lieth." In the second reading the student should take into account the less important rules which are omitted in the first perusal.

Aufeild's final piece of advice is at variance with the general practice among teachers of the time. He would have the pupil postpone all attempts at speaking the language until the last stages: "be not too greedy," he warns the reader, "to be thought a speaker of French before you are sure you understand what you read." The best known teacher of Italian in the seventeenth century, Torriano, was of the same opinion: "for the avoiding of a vulgar error or fault very predominant in many, namely of being over hasty to be speaking of a language, before it be well understood, I thought not amiss to produce the quotation of one Mr. Wm. Aufeild.... I jump with him that they who are last at speaking speak the best and surest and so much I find by my experience among my scholars."[790] Many years before, Roger Ascham had expressed the same view with regard to the teaching of Latin. He admitted that the "dailie use of speaking was the best method," but only provided the learner could always AUFEILD'S ADVICE TO STUDENTShear the language spoken correctly and avoid "the habit of the evil choice of words, and crooked forming of sentences"; but as it is, loquendo male loqui discunt, and he advises the postponement of speaking until some progress had been made.[791]

Considering Aufeild's ideas as to the speaking of French, we quite expect to find him condemning attempts to pick up the language without the help of rules; "for if with Rules, you shall be often at a loss, certainly you shall stick at every word without them." It may be that "they which take another way, may speake more words in halfe a yeare then you shall in twelve month; but in a year's space you may, with diligence and industry, speake better (and after a while more) than another shall doe all his life time, unless there be a vast disparity between your abilities of mind."

His attitude as to the respective importance of grammatical study and its practical application was not in keeping with that of Maupas, of whom he said, "I know not whom you can equal to him." Maupas had written his grammar in French instead of the international language, Latin, because he advocated the study of the grammar in the French language itself; he taught reading and pronunciation by means of reading the grammar in French. Aufeild, on the contrary, considered it a drawback that when English students travelled into France they had to learn enough French to converse with their teachers before they could learn of their teachers how to converse with others. This was the reason which induced him to translate the grammar, although in doing so he, no doubt unconsciously, set at nought Maupas's principal reason for writing it in French.

We know of no other French grammar produced in France which was specially favoured by English learners of French. But no doubt many Englishmen, besides those who travelled, studied from French grammars. English travellers returning from France would, no doubt, bring back grammars which might also arrive through other channels. Even in the time of Elizabeth foreign books had been freely imported into England, and the foreign trade of the stationers of London was very extensive. That the early French grammars were known in England is shown by their influence on those produced in England, although in many cases this is more readily explained by the circumstance that they were the work of Frenchmen newly arrived from France. However, it is not likely that these French grammars were ever widely used in England for learning the language, when books in English were ready to hand and easier to use. In Scotland, on the other hand, where such books were not in existence, they were probably more widely employed. Both countries, Scotland in particular, made free use of foreign text-books for the teaching of Latin; but the case is hardly the same for the international language.

In the meantime the production of French grammars in England continued uninterruptedly. The Flower de Luce planted in England was the title of a grammar which appeared in 1619. This work was due to one Laur Du Terme, of whom nothing is known beyond the fact that he was a Frenchman and a protégé of Bacon, then Lord Chancellor. Du Terme had evidently been in England long enough to acquire some knowledge of English, in which he wrote his grammar. After imploring his patron to water his 'flower' with a few drops of favourable approbation, he proceeds to address the gentle reader in these words: "Looke not in this Treatise, for any eloquent words, nor polished sentences, for I doe not go about to begge any favour nor insinuate into any man's love by coloured and misticall phrases.[792] Neither do I intend to teach my masters, but in requitall of your kind curtesie in teaching mee this little English I have, do in the same set downe suche precepts as I find best for the pronouncing, understanding, and speaking of the French tongue." These precepts he selected from other grammars "used by many both teachers and learners, yet I presume this will be as agreeable as any were yet, and in brief containing more than ever I saw yet in English." The pronunciation is explained by comparison with English sounds, and then each part of speech is treated in turn; constant analogies with Latin occur, and he also gives a list of French suffixes with their Latin roots, and endeavours to introduce the Latin gerund and supine into French grammar, not being of those who sought to delatinize French grammar. For the verbs he refers the student to the rules given by Cotgrave at the end of his dictionary, "very profitable for every learner to reade," where they are arranged in four conjugations, "while some authors make three, some five, some six, and little enough for the understanding of all the verbs." LAUR DU TERMEHe makes no claim to completeness—"and if by chance I have applied a rule instead of an exception or an exception instead of a rule, the teacher may easily mend it, and your courteous censure in reciprocall of the good-will I beare unto you I hope will excuse it. Reade it over, but not slightly, consider every rule and way every word in it."

Du Terme's aim in his rules is to be brief and plain. He desired them to be regarded in the light of a reference book. The student was to begin to read from the very first. The Flower de Luce does not provide the usual stock of reading-exercises, and Du Terme advises the student to use "any good French author he likes best; and what word soever he goes about to reade, let him looke upon his Rules concerning the pronunciation of the letters, how they are pronounced in several places, first the vowell, then what consonants are before and after, and, having compared and brought all the Rules concerning those letters together, he shall easily finde the true pronunciation of any word." The sounds of the language should be thoroughly mastered at the outset: "Bestow rather five days in learning five vowels, then to learne and passe them over in a day, as being the chief and only ground of all the rest, without the which you shall loose your labour, not being able to pronounce one diphthongue unless you pronounce the vowels well, perfectly, neatly and distinctly, without confounding one with another. The which case you must observe in the consonants." For the proper understanding of the matter read, he recommends the use of "some bookes that are both English and French, as the Bible, the Testament, and many others that are very common in England." He admits that this method is slow and difficult at first, "yet notwithstanding, after a little labour, will prove exceeding easie, as by experience hath been tryed: in so much as some have learned perfectly to reade and understande the most part in less than the quarter of a year, onely applying themselves unto it one hour and a half in a day."

Paul Cougneau or Cogneau, another French teacher of London, also wrote a French grammar at this period. He called it A sure Guide to the French tongue, and published it in 1635. Cogneau had no mean opinion of his book. "It hath in some things a peculiar way, not commonly traced by others," he tells us. "In the beginning are rules of pronunciation, then for the declension of articles, nouns and pronouns, and in the end the conjugation of diverse verbs, both personal and impersonal ... and throughout the whole book there is so great a multiplicity of various phrases congested as no one book for the bulk contains more. All which besides are set forth with plainness as fit it for the capacity even of the meanest. Much pains hath been employed about it, and I hope not without great benefit and profit in the right use of it, and consequently not unworthy of the kind acceptance which I heartily wish." But the work has little value or originality, in spite of its interest to the modern reader. The rules occupy thirty pages only. They are taken mainly from Holyband and De la Mothe. The nouns, articles, and pronouns receive very meagre treatment, but the auxiliaries and verbs, the regular and a few irregular verbs, are fully conjugated at the end of the book, being arranged in sentence form, as in many modern text-books:

J'ay bien dormi ceste nuit.
Tu as trop mangé.
Il a trop bu, etc.

The practical exercises, which fill the next three hundred pages, reproduce the dialogues of the same sixteenth-century writers—the only two who retained their popularity in the seventeenth. The exercises of the French Schoolemaister, the French Littleton, and the French Alphabet are all repeated without any acknowledgement.

Like Du Terme, Cogneau attached much importance to pronunciation and reading. He held that pronunciation was best learnt with the help of a teacher, and that rules were not of much use in this case.

"I have observed," he writes, "how many of my countrymen have taken great pains and labour to show the English how to pronounce the French letters, by letters; but these men labour in vain: for I know that the true pronunciation of any tongue whatsoever cannot be taught so: nor none can learn it so; I mean, to speak it well and truly as it ought to be: to learn to understand it by such rules, one may in time and with great pains, but, as I have said, never to speak it well and perfectly, without he be taught by some master. I say not that the rules are unprofitable, no, for they are very profitable being well used, and the learner being well directed to understand them aright; but, as I have said, so I say still, that whosoever will learn this noble and famous tongue, must chuse one that can speak good French, and one that hath a good method in teaching, and the first thing to learn of him must be to pronounce perfectly our 22 letters, and give every one its due sound and pronunciation."

The student should undertake nothing until he has mastered the sounds of the letters and syllables. PAUL COGNEAUThen he may pass to the reading, "and in that reading learn to spell perfectly, for it is that which will perfect thee, so that thou wilt be able to correct many Frenchmen both in their speaking and writing, if thou wilt take pains to learn it perfectly and be as perfect in it as in thy native tongue. If thou dost mark well what I have said, and do it, and if thou hast a good teacher, thou maiest learn the French tongue easily in a year." Cogneau gives his grammar rules in both French and English, and evidently intended them to form part of the reading material on which the student was to begin as soon as he had mastered the French sounds. From these he proceeds to the dialogues. "Thou must learn this book perfectly, to read the French in English and also the English in French perfectly, and I durst warrant that whosoever shall learn this book perfectly will be a perfect Frenchman, and shall be able both to speak and write the French tongue much better than the most part of Frenchmen." The only differences, then, between the methods advocated by Laur Du Terme and Cogneau are that the first would have the student learn the pronunciation by reading, and the second from the lips of a master before the student begins to read; and that Cogneau adopts the method of double translation, so strongly urged by De la Mothe, while Du Terme mentions only translation of French into English. In fact, Cogneau's method was probably suggested by the sixteenth-century teachers.

Cogneau's Guide was in vogue for a number of years. In 1658 a French teacher, Guillaume Herbert, who appears to have had no mean opinion of his own abilities, edited the fourth edition. He describes the earlier form of the work as a "blind" guide rather than a sure one, but now that it has been revised by him "both masters and scholars may with more confidence venture upon it as the most correct book now extant of this kind and in these tongues, and I dare promise them that if I live to see and oversee the next edition, I will so purge and order it that every reader may (if ingenious and ingenuous) give it deservedly the name of a Sure Guide." It is difficult to see in what the improvements he boasts of consist, for his is little more than a reprint of the earlier editions. With Herbert's edition the popularity of the Sure Guide came to an end, no doubt owing to the appearance of more recent works.

William Aufeild complained, not without reason, that most professors teach only what other men "have set downe to their hand in English many years agoe," and it is undeniable that several of the sixteenth-century French grammars continued to be used in England as late as the middle of the seventeenth century. Holyband was specially in favour, and so was De la Mothe. Peter Erondell, it has been seen, prepared new editions of the French Schoolemaister in 1606, 1612, 1615, and 1619. Another French professor, James Giffard, was responsible for other editions in 1631, 1636, 1641, 1649, 1655, and it appears to have been printed again in 1668; this Giffard was probably the Jacques Giffard who attended the Threadneedle Street Church;[793] he is said to have been a native of the isle of Sark, and in 1640 he married Elizabeth Guilbert of Guernsey. Editions of the French Littleton saw the light in 1602, 1607, 1625, 1630, 1633, and 1639. None of these editions contains any very noticeable alterations. The new editions of De la Mothe's French Alphabet (1625, 1631, 1633, 1639, and 1647) are merely reprints of the first edition of 1592. Thus it came about that the French of the sixteenth century was still taught in England in the seventeenth, regardless of the great changes which had been accomplished in the language in the meantime.

The first half of the seventeenth century was also a period during which French began to receive greater recognition in the educational world. Latin, it is true, retained its supremacy in the grammar school; but it is significant that a considerable number of Latin school-books were adapted to teaching French, and helped to swell the number of such manuals at the service of students. Thus French gained a place by the side of Latin, and some went so far as to question the supremacy of Latin as the "learned" tongue of Europe. In 1619 Thomas Morrice [794] deemed it necessary to refute the "error" of those of his countrymen who placed French before Latin—"a most absurd paradox" in his opinion, for "French was never reckoned a learned tongue; it belongs by right to one country alone, where the people themselves learn Latin." Such protests had little effect. In the first years of the century we have the earliest recognition of French as distinct from other modern languages, at the hands of a writer on education; FRENCH MAKES HEADWAYJ. Cleland held that a young gentleman's tutor should be skilled in the French as well as the Latin tongue, because "it is most used now universallie,"[795] and that the student, after translating English into Latin, should proceed to turn his Latin into French, "that he may profit in both the Tongues together."[796]

It was indeed by no means uncommon for French and English tutors to give instruction in both these tongues. Denisot, Palsgrave, Holyband, and many other French teachers had done so. Joseph Rutter, tutor to the son of the Earl of Dorset, at whose request he translated the Cid into English, is said to have made his pupil his collaborator in this task, and probably taught him French as well as Latin, and his case does not appear to have been exceptional. Evelyn, the diarist, learnt the rudiments of Latin from a Frenchman named Citolin, and probably picked up some French at the same time; travel abroad and his marriage with the daughter of Sir Richard Browne, English ambassador at Paris, who from her youth upwards had lived in France, gave him opportunities for improving his knowledge of the language, in which he was soon able to converse with ease.[797] Evelyn's son Richard also studied the two languages together; when he died in 1658, at the early age of five, he was able to say the catechism and pronounce English, Latin, and French accurately, also "to read an script, to decline nouns and conjugate all regular and most of the irregular verbs." He had likewise "learn'd Pueriles, got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latine and French primitives and words, and could make congruous syntax, turne English into Latine and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, elipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's Janua, began himself to write legibly, and had a strong passion for Greek."[798]

The manuals for teaching Latin and French together, either Latin school-books with French added, or works specially written for giving instruction in the two languages, probably resulted from this connexion. At an early date French had found a place in several Latin dictionaries.[799] Soon afterwards it made its way into some of the Latin Colloquia and school authors. In 1591 the printer John Wyndet received a licence to print the dialogues of Corderius in French and English.[800] There is also a notice of an edition of Castellion's Sacred Dialogues in the same two languages.[801] Aesop's Fables were printed in English, French, and Latin in 1665, with the purpose of rendering the acquisition of these languages easier for young gentlemen and ladies; each fable is accompanied by an illustration due to Francis Barlow, and followed by a moral reflection. Thomas Philpott was responsible for the English version, and Robert Codrington, M.A., a versatile translator of the time, for the Latin and French. At least two other editions appeared in 1687 and 1703. Another favourite author was published in the same three languages at a later date—the Thoughts of Cicero ... on (1) Religion, and (2) Man.... Published in Latin and French by the Abbé Olivet, to which is now added an English translation, with notes (by A. Wishart) (1750 and 1773). Of these few examples of Latin and French text-books, two are known only by hearsay. It is likely that others, adapted to the same purpose, have disappeared without leaving any trace at all; as such school-books were usually printed with a privilege, their names are not preserved in the registers of the Company of Stationers. Little wonder that such manuals, subjected to the double wear and tear of teaching both Latin and French, have been entirely lost. The one volume which has come down to us is Aesop's Fables in French, Latin, and English, and its survival is explained by the elaborate and costly form in which it was issued.

In 1617 was published the Janua Linguarum Quadralinguis of Jean Barbier, a Parisian. The work, originally written in Spanish and Latin (1611) for the use of Spaniards, was in time adapted to teaching Latin and incidentally Spanish to the English, by the addition of an English translation in 1615. The fact that French was added two years later by Barbier is not without significance. Foremost among books for teaching French and Latin together, however, was the famous Janua Linguarum of Comenius, from which Evelyn's son learnt his Latin, and presumably his French also. It was printed in England in English, French, and Latin, in the very BOOKS FOR TEACHING LATIN AND FRENCHyear in which it had first come out at Leszna in Latin and German (1631). In this form it was given the title of Porta Linguarum trilinguis reserata et aperta, or the Gate of Tongues unlocked and opened. The Janua contains a thousand sentences, dealing with subjects encyclopaedic in plan, beginning with the origin of the world, and ending with death, providence, and the angels. The intervening chapters treat of the earth and its elements, animals, man, his life, education, occupations, afflictions, social institutions, and moral qualities. J. A. Anchoran, Licentiate in Divinity, a friend of Robert Codrington and apparently a Frenchman, was responsible for the edition of the Porta Linguarum in English, French, and Latin. He declares he prepared it "in behalf of" the young Prince Charles (II.), then about a year old, and of "British, French and Irish youth." His efforts proved successful; there were two issues of the work in 1631, and other editions appeared in 1633, 1637, and 1639.

With the second and following editions was bound an index to the French and Latin words contained in the Porta Linguarum, entitled: Clavis ad Portam or a Key fitted to open the gates of tongues wherein you may readily find the Latine and French for any English word, necessary for all young scholars. It was dedicated to the schoolmasters and ushers of England, and printed at Oxford, being the work of Wye Saltonstall, teacher of Latin and French in that University.

Yet another brief treatise was commonly bound with the 1633 edition of the Porta Linguarum—The Pathway to the Gate of Tongues, being the first Instruction for little children, intended as an introduction to Comenius, but chiefly to give instruction in French. It was due to one of the French teachers in London, Jean de Grave, no doubt the son of the "Jean de Grave natif d'Amsterdam" who came to England in the early years of the seventeenth century and died some time before 1612. De Grave was a member of the French Church, and in 1615 was twice threatened with expulsion owing to his sympathy with the Brownists; but he saved the situation by recanting.[802] De Grave's Pathway to Comenius opens with a table of the numbers, the catechism, graces, and prayers, all given in Latin, English, and French. The main section gives the conjugation of the four regular verbs (j'aime, je bastis, je voy, je li) and of aller, avoir, estre, il faut and on aime, in French accompanied by English and Latin equivalents in parallel columns. De Grave makes a point of omitting all the compound tenses usually introduced into French verbs on the model of the Latin ones, as such forms can only be expressed by means of paraphrases or of the verbs avoir and estre; thus French rather than Latin was in the author's mind: "Or m'a semblé qu'il ne fallait pas charger au commencement la memoire des petits enfants de choses desquelles le maistre diligent et industrieux, pourveu qu'il soit homme lettré et bien entendu en la grammaire françoise, pourra instiller peu à peu en leur esprit, plus par diligente pratique que par cette facheuse et prolixe circonlocution qui n'apporte aucun profit." He agreed with most of the French teachers of the time that few rules and much practice under the guidance of a good master, was the best way of learning French.

In the first half of the seventeenth century also, the private institutions in which French had a place increased considerably in number, especially during the latter years of the reign of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. There were several projects, of which a few were actually realized for a time, for founding academies in England on the model of those in France. Their aim was to provide instruction in modern languages and polite accomplishments, in order to counterbalance the one-sidedness of the Universities, and save parents the expense of sending their children abroad, and protect the latter from the dangers to which they might be exposed in foreign countries.

In 1635 the accomplished courtier Sir Francis Kynaston founded the Museum Minervae at his house in Bedford Square, Covent Garden. Latin, French, and Italian were the chief languages of the curriculum. No foreigner was allowed to act as either regent or professor. A regulation stipulated that "noe Gentleman shall speak in the forenoon to the Regent about any businesse, but either in Italian, French, or Latin; but if any gentleman be deficient in all these languages, then shall he deale with some professour or other to speak unto the regent for him in the morning, but in the afternoon free accesse shall be granted to all that have any occasion to conferre with him."[803] A certain Michael Mason was the professor of languages. The Academy FRENCH IN PRIVATE ACADEMIESwas short-lived, and probably did not survive its founder, who died at the beginning of the Civil War.

On the 19th of July 1649, another Academy of similar nature but wider scope was opened by the adventurous Sir Balthazar Gerbier in his house at Bethnal Green. In 1648 he published a prospectus, which appeared in several different forms, announcing to "all fathers of noble families and lovers of vertue" that "Sir Balthazar Gerbier, knight, erects an Academy wherein forraigne Languages, Sciences and all noble exercises shall be taught ... whereunto shall serve several treatises set forth by the said Sir B. G. in the Forraigne languages aforesaid, the English tongue being joyned thereunto ... whiche Treatises shall be continually at Mistresse Allen's Shop at the signe of the crown in Pope's head Alley neere the olde Exchange, London." Gerbier's intention was to teach the sciences and languages simultaneously, and by means of each other. French seems to have been the only foreign language which received special treatment at his hands. He was the author of An Introduction to the French Tongue, a work of very slight value, treating of the pronunciation and parts of speech and followed by a lengthy and wearisome dialogue between three travellers. Carrying out his expressed aim, he wrote several pamphlets on the subjects of polite education in French accompanied by a literal English translation.[804] Every Saturday afternoon a public lesson was read in the Academy, "as well concerning the grounds and rules of the aforesaid languages, as touching the sciences and exercises, which will give much satisfaction to all Fathers of noble families and lovers of vertue." There was also an "open lecture" by which the deserving poor were to be instructed gratis, on due recommendation. Gerbier is also said [805] to have started an Academy for languages at Whitehall. None of his efforts, however, met with much response. The private Academy as such was an institution which never really took root in England. Moreover, Gerbier was not a gifted man. The works he wrote for use in his Academy have very little value, and his lectures were severely criticised. Walpole calls one of them, typical of the rest, "a most trifling superficial rhapsody."

Several other schemes [806] for courtly academies were never realised at all. Such were those of Prince Henry, son of James I., and of Lord Admiral Buckingham. A play of the Commonwealth period, Brome's New Academy (1658), gives an amusing picture of one of these institutions and introduces us to a group of pushing French men and women who profess inter alia to "teach the French Tongue with great alacrity."

Private schools, on the contrary, were better patronised. There were undoubtedly numerous French schools in the style of those of the sixteenth century; Wodroeph refers to one, without giving any details, and the language school kept by Sherwood was well known. In many instances also French found a place in other private schools alongside the more usual studies. Sir John Reresby, for example, was sent at the age of fifteen to a school at Enfield Chase, where he was instructed in Latin, French, writing, and dancing. There he stayed two years and "came to a very passable proficiency in Latin, Greek, French, and rhetoric."[807] The elder brother of Thomas Ellwood, Milton's amanuensis, also learnt French and Latin at a private school at Hadley, near Barnet in Hertfordshire, before going with Thomas to learn Latin and some Greek at the free school of Thame.[808] Such schools seem to have been relatively numerous at the time of the Commonwealth. One was kept by Edward Wolley, D.D. of Oxford, who had been domestic chaplain to Charles I., and taken refuge in France on his sovereign's death. After spending seven years abroad as chaplain to Charles II. in exile, he returned to England and opened a school at Hammersmith. In 1654 the Protector issued stringent orders against "scholemasters who are or shall be Ignorant, Scandalous, Insufficient or Negligent." Many royalists were affected, and it was no doubt as a result of this measure that in 1655 Wolley had to petition Cromwell to allow him to continue his "painful employment" of instructing youth in Latin, Greek, French, and other commendable exercises. He pleads that since his return from France he has demeaned himself irreproachably, and that he causes "the Holy Scriptures to be read and religious duties to be daily used" in his school, FRENCH IN PRIVATE SCHOOLSand takes the children to church on Sunday; moreover "they have always spoken with honour and reverence of his Highness."[809] Among the few royalist and episcopal schoolmasters who were not affected by the measure of 1654 was Samuel Turberville, a "very good schoolmaster," who kept school in Kensington. Sir Ralph Verney's second son Jack, afterwards apprenticed to a merchant, spent three years there (1656-59), and Turberville commends his "amendement in writing, the mastery of his grammar and an indifferent Latin author, his preservation of the ffrench, and the command of his Violl."[810] Sir Ralph Verney's son had previously acquired French in France, and wrote it fluently though not always correctly.[811] His fellow-pupils, we are told, called him the "young mounseer."

There were also numerous schools for young ladies and gentlewomen in and about London and elsewhere. One French teacher, Paul Festeau, advertises the French boarding-school of Monsieur de la Mare at Marylebone, where girls were taught "to write, to read, to speak French, to sing, to dance, to play on the guitar and the spinette."[812] M. de la Mare was a Protestant, and a reader at the French Church. His wife was a good mother to the girls, we are told, and his daughter spoke French with much elegance. Another French teacher, Pierre Berault, mentions the pension for young ladies kept by his friend M. Papillon in Charles Street, near St. James's Square. French, writing, singing, dancing, and designing were the subjects of study. In other cases schools for girls and young ladies were attended by a visiting French master. The most popular French teacher of the time, Claude Mauger of Blois, was employed for some time after his arrival in England as French teacher to the young ladies of Mrs. Kilvert's once famous Academy. This practice became more and more widespread as the seventeenth century advanced, and was very common in the eighteenth century, as it still is nowadays.