HUGUENOT TEACHERS OF FRENCH—OTHER CLASSES OF FRENCH TEACHERS—RIVALRIES IN THE PROFESSION—THE "DUTCH" AND ENGLISH TEACHERS
We have seen that some of the refugees who came to England as a result of the persecutions in France and the Netherlands were professional schoolmasters; others joined the profession on their arrival, through force of circumstances, or as a means of repaying hospitality. The lot of such teachers varied considerably. Some lived and taught in gentlemen's families; others thrived by waiting on a private aristocratic clientèle; others gained a more precarious livelihood under less powerful patronage; and yet others opened private schools, often with decided success. Many of these teachers[410] were denizens, and had long teaching careers, chiefly in London; a certain Abraham Bushell, for instance, a native of "Rotchell," had been a "schoolmaster of the French tongue" in London for twenty-two years in 1618, during which time he had attended the French Church. Many other French teachers were members of the French Church, which naturally, seeing that it fostered a French school itself, took a particular interest in the French schoolmasters generally. Thus in 1560 all French schoolmasters having schools in London were summoned before the consistory, which was seeking to ascertain how many belonged to the Church, and also what book they used in teaching the children. Eight were ready to conform to the Church and its discipline;[411] a ninth, one Gilles Berail, refused to conform, on the plea that he attended the English parish church and understood English as well as French.
With the exception of Holyband, the chief Huguenot teachers who gathered round St. Paul's Churchyard would seem to have been Normans. One of these was Robert Fontaine, a friend of Holyband. He had a long and varied career in England as a teacher of French. Arriving in 1550, he remained in England during the reign of Mary, modifying his religious convictions to suit the exigencies of the time. He returned to his former faith early in the reign of Elizabeth, and expressed contrition for his "falling off to idolatry."[412] He attended the French Church faithfully in the early time of its revival, but he appears to have gone more frequently to the Anglican Church in later years, and possibly his sympathies were more in that direction. The favourite neighbourhood, St. Paul's Churchyard, was the scene of his activities, and there he lived for many years with one of his countrymen, Mr. Bowry, a purse-maker. In 1571 he had been living seventeen years in the vicinity of the Cathedral, and in 1582, the latest mention of him in the returns of aliens, he was still in the same district, and appears to have been very prosperous.
Some of this group of Normans added to their activities that of writing books for teaching French—an occupation for which Fontaine, presumably, had not time or inclination. One such author was Jacques Bellot, a "gentleman of the city of Caen in Normandie," who came to England in 1578, or the end of 1577, probably driven from his native land by the persecutions. He was received into the household of Sir Philip Wharton, third baron of that name, and in a surprisingly short time produced a French Grammar, which he dedicated to his patron, with an expression of his gratitude. Bellot, it appears, had already a considerable connexion. His work is preceded by numerous commendatory poems, after the fashion of the time. The poet Thomas Newton of Chester wrote two of these, one in Latin and the other in English, laying stress on the debt due by his countrymen to these French grammarians:
JACQUES BELLOT Thankes therefore great and threefold thankes are due
By right to those, whose travaile, toyle and penne
Dothe breake the yce for others to ensue,
By rules and practice for us Englishmen,
An easye way, a methode most in use
Amonge the Learn'de t' enduce to knowledge sure.
Other verses are written in French by John and William Wroth, no doubt two of the numerous sons of the politician Sir Thomas Wroth.
This new work, entitled The French Grammar, or An Introduction orderly and Methodically by ready rules, playne preceptes and evident examples, teachinge the French Tongue, differs from the popular books of Holyband, and also from most other French manuals, in that it deals with grammar alone. It opens with the usual observations on pronunciation. Each letter is taken in turn, and the position of the organs necessary to produce it is given. The author makes no attempt to compare the French sounds with the English equivalents. He had probably not yet had time to master the intricacies of English pronunciation, although the whole book is written in English; and he also, no doubt, made free use of grammars written in France. He tells us, for instance, that "c ought to be pronounced with the tongue against the roof of the mouth, and the mouth somewhat open"; that "f is pronounced holding the nether lip against the upward teeth"; and that "h is but aspiration, which loseth his sound after e feminine, and also after every consonant." Then, after a few general observations and lists of numbers, months, and other familiar words, we reach the second part of the Grammar, which deals with the eight parts of speech. Each is defined and commented on in turn. The wording is often quaint; for instance, verbs are defined as "words which be declined with Modes and tenses, and are betokenynge doing." This second book treats of the accidence. In the third we pass to the consideration of syntax with the following warning:
Dire, sy ay (quoy qu'usage on en face)
N'est point parlé en courtois et bien nay:
Bien seant n'est aussy, dire, non ay:
Sauf votre honneur, ou bien sauf votre grace
Seroient trouvéz de trop meilleure grace.
Je ne l'ay fait, est trop desordonné:
Pardonnez moy, seroit mieux ordonné,
Car grand fureur douce parolle efface.
Nous estions, Nous y pensons, faut dire,
Non, J'estions, on ne s'en fait que rire,
Ne J'y pensons, tout cela est repris.
Les bons François ne parlent point ainsy.
Acunement pris ne doit estre aussy
Petit, pour peu, ny peu pour petit pris.
This part of the work is not extensive, and consists of a miscellaneous collection of observations; we are, for instance, told that the antecedent governs its relative, that the adjective agrees with its noun, and we are supplied also with rules for the gender and number, the negative, and so on. To this Bellot adds a fourth book, which is perhaps the most curious part of the work. It deals with French versification. We are first favoured with a description of the structure of various forms of poems, such as the "chant royal," the "ballade," the sonnet, rondeau, "dixain," and so on, each accompanied by an example, by way of illustration. The various forms of rime are next described and exemplified; and some of the complicated forms dear to the "rhétoriqueurs" find a place here. This is followed by a description of the various kinds of metres, again with examples; and finally rhythm, colour or "lizière," the caesura, elision, the "coupe féminine," and the use of the apostrophe are treated. Such is this little treatise on the "French poeme," which shows incidentally that Bellot had not yet learned the lesson enforced by the Pléiade more than twenty years before he wrote.
What strikes one most, perhaps, in Bellot's Grammar is that he makes no attempt to deal with the difficulties which the French language presents to the English in particular. No comparison of the two languages is instituted; no emphasis is laid on points in which they differ. Were it not written in English, it might be taken for a study of the language on the model of those produced in France. Considering that the work was published in the year of his arrival in England, it seems almost certain that he had begun his study before his arrival, and translated it himself, or had it translated into English. This would account for its unusual character.
Bellot opens and closes his Grammar with apologies. He repudiates all claim to completeness, and writes, he says, merely to provoke the "learned" to do better. "Yet the worke is not so leane and voide of fruite, but there is in it some taste. The bee gathereth honey from the smallest flowers, and so may the wise man from this small work."
Some time after the publication of his Grammar, he joined the group of French teachers dwelling in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's Churchyard. He was there in 1582, and made the acquaintance of Holyband, who had then resumed his French school in that locality. In the following year he wrote a quatrain and a sonnet in praise of Holyband's latest work, the Campo di Fior (1583):
Goustez Anglois, Gent bien heureuse,
Les fleurs qu'en vostre Isle argenteuse
Vous donne Holybande pour un gage.
It is not certain how Bellot employed his time there. He may have had a school, or have taught privately. In any case he was a member of the French Church, and in the returns of aliens he calls himself a "schoolmaster" and a "teacher of children."[413] But the title on which he is most insistent is that of "gentleman." He is a "gentilhomme cadomois," or a gentleman of Caen, and usually attaches the abbreviation G.C. to his name. His attitude to the usual type of French teacher is distinctly supercilious. He prided himself on belonging to the "noblesse instruite et de Savoir," and had the reputation of teaching elegant French.
In 1580 he dedicated to no less a person than François de Valois,[414] brother to Henry III., a work for teaching English to foreigners. Like Holyband, he gave his book the title of "Schoolmaster": Maistre d'Escole Anglois pour les naturelz françois, et autre estrangers qui ont la langue françoyse, pour parvenir a la vraye prononciation de la langue Angloise.[415] The work contains rules of pronunciation and grammar, given in opposite columns in French and English; it was evidently written in French in the first place, and then somewhat carelessly translated into English, for in the English column the illustrative examples are given in French. This produces a curious effect, and involves such statements as: "quand should be pronounced as Houen" (when), etc. In the dedication he refers to his "misfortune," by which, presumably, he means his exile.[416]
Bellot was busily occupied in the production of other text-books also during his residence in Paul's Churchyard. The Maistre d'Escole Anglois appeared in January 1580, and in 1581 was followed by a third work, in the form of a collection of moral dicta, entitled Le Jardin de vertu et bonnes mœurs plain de plusieurs belles fleurs et riches sentences, avec le sens d'icelles, recueillies de plusieurs autheurs,[417] and intended to be used as a "reader." It was published by the French refugee printer Thomas Vautrollier, who, at the same time, issued a new edition of Holyband's French Littleton. The works of the two friends were of the same size, and are bound together in the copy preserved in the British Museum.
Holyband, with his long-standing reputation, may have been able to further Bellot's interests. In 1580 he had dedicated his Latin work on French pronunciation to the queen, and in the following year Bellot obtained the same favour for his little work. He accordingly opened his book with six French sonnets in honour of Her Majesty, celebrating her generous reception of strangers, not omitting to beg her protection for the "garden":
Reçoy donc ce jardin: te plaise a l'appuyer
De ta faveur Royalle: et pren le jardinier
En ta protection contre la gent hargneuse:
Alors il tachera (sans appouvrir la France)
L'Angleterre enrichir d'œuvres d'autre importance,
Pour façonner l'Anglois au Françoys, en son estre,
Alors il chantera tes vertus en tout lieu. . . .
The whole of the Jardin is printed in French and English; each maxim or saying is accompanied by explanations of the most difficult words, by means of synonyms, paraphrases, and definitions, as in the following example:
NORMANS IN ENGLAND
It will be noticed that Bellot had not fully mastered the English idiom, although he had written an English grammar. The rest of the "beautiful flowers of vertue" which he planted in his "garden" are similar in character and treatment. He characteristically closes his little book with a prayer, which he quaintly compares to a fence to keep the "goats" from harming the "flowers."
In 1583 Bellot was still living near St. Paul's Churchyard. But after this date we lose all trace of him until 1588, when the printer Robert Robinson received a licence to print "a booke intytuled a grammar in Frenche and Englishe, the auttour is James Bellot."[418] This second French Grammar was known as The French Methode.[419]
To the numerous band of Normans in England also belonged, perhaps, G. De la Mothe, who wrote the letter "N" after his name. De la Mothe was another refugee for the sake of religion, and he speaks with gratitude of the generous welcome he received in England.[420] He tells us that the cruel civil wars in France had "burnt the wings of his studies" and ruined his fortune.[421] On his arrival in England, he began his career as a teacher of French in the same way as many others; he became a tutor in a noble family, and shortly after produced a book for teaching French. He was first appointed French tutor to the son of Sir Henry Wallop, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland and a prominent patron of the refugees, on the return of his lordship to England in 1589. De la Mothe was also received, at some date before 1592, into the midst of another important English family, the Wenmans, of Thame Park, Oxfordshire. He taught French to the girls, and early in 1592, if not before, was at Oxford with the eldest son, Richard Wenman,[422] afterwards Sir Richard, and his brothers.
De la Mothe had in the meantime written a French text-book which he called The French Alphabet, Teaching in a very short time by a most easie way, to pronounce French naturally, to read it perfectly, to unite it truly, and to speak it accordingly, Together with a Treasure of the French Tongue.[423] He divided it into two parts, which he dedicated to each of his patrons—the first to Sir Henry Wallop and the second to Sir Richard Wenman's mother, at whose request he had undertaken the work. De la Mothe acknowledges his debt of gratitude to both, and also to the country which had received him so hospitably, in terms which contain something more than the usual trite expressions.
The French Alphabet was licensed to the printer Richard Field in 1592,[424] but no copy of this earliest edition has been preserved. Field succeeded to Vautrollier's successful business, and in this same year showed his friendship for his fellow-townsman[425] Shakespeare, by printing the first work he published, Venus and Adonis. It is of course pure conjecture to suggest that Shakespeare saw and even read the little book printed by his friend. Whether this be so or not, it was perhaps through Field and his Huguenot connexions—he had married Vautrollier's widow—that Shakespeare became acquainted with the family of Christopher Montjoy.
A G. DE LA MOTHE, N. new edition of the Alphabet appeared in 1595, from the press of Edward Alde. At this date De la Mothe had joined the group of teachers in St. Paul's Churchyard. He taught at the "Signe of the Helmet," and "there you shall finde him ever willing to show you any favour or curtesie he may; and most ready to endeavour himselfe to satisfie you in all that can be possible for hime to doe." The Sign of the Helmet was the address of the bookseller Thomas Chard.[426] Any one desirous of becoming acquainted with the author for his better furtherance in the French tongue could also make enquiries at the Sign of St. John the Evangelist in Fleet Street, beneath the Conduit, where lived the printer and bookseller Hugh Jackson, commissioned to sell the book—further instances of the friendly relations between the French teachers and the printers and booksellers of the time, through whom these teachers would, no doubt, get a large proportion of their clientèle. The Huguenot sympathies of many of the printers, such as Vautrollier and Field, account in part for this cordial feeling.
After the 1595 edition of his work we hear nothing further of De la Mothe. Although the name occurs frequently in the returns of aliens, none can be identified with him. He probably seized an early opportunity of returning to his native land. His manual, however, did not disappear with him. Second in popularity only to the works of Holyband in the sixteenth century, it enjoyed numerous editions in the seventeenth.[427] Excepting the omission of De la Mothe's advertisement, all the later editions are identical. They were issued from the press of Field's successor, George Miller.[428] It is difficult to understand how the 1595 edition came to be printed by Edward Alde, though his work was evidently countenanced by De la Mothe.
The French Alphabet is a very practical little work. It contains rules for pronunciation and familiar dialogues in the usual style. The whole is given in French and English arranged on opposite pages. His treatment of pronunciation is much the same as Holyband's, and he sometimes transcribes freely from his active contemporary's work.[429] He explains the sounds chiefly by comparison with English, giving the nearest equivalent to each letter. After the letters he deals with the syllables and then the words. The rules are arranged in the form of dialogues between master and pupil:
| Sir, will it please you do me so much favour (or would you take the pain) to teach me to speak French? | Monsieur, vous plaist il me faire tant de faveur (ou voudriez vous prendre la peine) de m'apprendre a parler François? |
| With all my heart, if you have a desire to it. | Tres volontiers, si vous en avez envie. |
| I desire nothing more. | Je ne desire rien plus. |
| If you desire it you shall learn it quickly, if you please to take some pain. | Si vous le desirez vous l'apprendez bien, s'il vous plaist de prendre un peu de peine. |
| There is nothing though never so hard but by labour it may be made easie. | Il n'y a rien si difficile qui par labeur ne soit facile. |
| You say true, I believe you. | Vous dites vray, je vous en croy. . . . |
| How do you pronounce the letter a? | Comment prononcez vous la lettre a? |
| A is pronounced plaine and long as this English word awe, to be in awe, as ma, ta, sa, la, bat, part, blanc, etc. | A se prononce ouvert et long comme ce mot Anglois awe, to be in awe, comme ma, ta, sa, la, bat, part, blanc, etc. |
And the next lesson takes the following form:
HIS FRENCH ALPHABET
After dealing with the sounds of the French language, De la Mothe passes to more general considerations. He touches on the much-discussed question of the reform of the orthography, and expresses his strong disapproval of all attempts to make it tally with the pronunciation. Then he deals with the pronunciation of the Law French of the English,[430] which he puts down to such fanciful experiments. Lawyers write their French as they pronounce it, and pronounce it as they write it, so that it is now quite corrupt. He next proceeds to give his pupils a short history of the chief Romance tongues, French, Italian, and Spanish, and finally of the English language.
The remainder of the first part of the Alphabet is occupied by short familiar dialogues on the usual subjects—greetings, the weather, the divisions of time, buying and selling, and the occurrences of daily life—as follows:
| For to aske the way. | Pour demander le chemin. |
| How many miles to London? | Combien y a il d'icy à Londres? |
| Ten leagues, twenty miles. | Dix lieues, vingt mil. |
| What way must we keep? | Quel chemin faut il tenir? |
| Which is the shortest way to goe to Rye? | Où est le plus court chemin d'icy à Rye? |
| Keepe alwayes the great way. | Suyvez tousjours le grand chemin. |
| Do not stray neither to the right nor to the left hand. | Ne vous fourvoyez ny à dextre ny à sinestre. |
| What doe I owe you now? | Combien vous doy-je maintenant? |
| Two shillings. Here it is. | Deux sols. Les voylà. |
| Bring me my horse. | Amenez moy mon cheval. |
| Will you take horse? | Vous plaist il monter à cheval? |
| Yea, I hope I shall not alight till I be come to London. | Ouy, j'espere que je ne descendrez que je ne soys arrivé à Londres. |
| God be with you. Farewell. | Adieu. Bonne vie et longue. |
At the end of these dialogues comes the second part of De la Mothe's book, entitled the Treasure of the French Tongue. It consists of a collection of French and English proverbs and golden sayings, "diligently gathered and faithfully set in order after the Alphabeticall manner, for those that are desirous of the French tongue." These early teachers of French were fond of such collections. They usually included proverbs in their grammar books, and Palsgrave, as we have seen, hoped to publish a separate work on them. His intention seems to have been first fully realised by De la Mothe, although Holyband had included a smaller list in both his popular text-books.
From De la Mothe's French Alphabet, more than from any other of these early works, we can form a fairly adequate idea of the method of teaching French prevalent at the time. Much importance was attached to pronunciation and to reading, which were made the first subject of study. Rules were felt to be desirable for learning the sounds, but more stress was laid on the services of a good teacher; "for do not think," says De la Mothe, "that my book is by itself to make thee a good Frenchman." His own method was to make his pupils repeat the sounds after him. He believed that the acquirement of a good pronunciation depended on a mastery of each separate sound in the language. According to him, any one who can pronounce each letter correctly must, perforce, enunciate words correctly, and on the same plan, sentences also; a rather questionable theory this, but we must remember that De la Mothe took for granted the daily attendance of a French tutor. The understanding of the language De la Mothe regards as the second stage in the pupil's progress. This he considers a natural consequence of a perfect command of the pronunciation and reading of the language. Lastly comes the speaking of the language, which, according to him, results from understanding it.
De la Mothe does not only expound his theories; he also gives fairly detailed information as to how they may be put into practice. After engaging a good teacher, the student should learn to pronounce his letters and syllables perfectly. Then he may begin to read, very slowly at first, at the rate of from three to four lines a day, "or more or less according as your capacity can reach or your patience permit." Each word should be spelt four or five times, and in the spelling HIS METHOD FOR LEARNING FRENCHand reading the pupil should "not let passe any letter or syllable without bringing them to the trial of his rules." When you can "read truly and pronounce perfectly, then go about to English it." First translate the French passages into English, with the help of the word for word translation provided, then copy out the French into a book provided for the purpose, close the Alphabet and attempt to translate your copy into English at sight, correcting the version by referring again to the Alphabet. Next proceed to retranslate the English back into French on a similar method. "Continue this order for a month, every day repeating three or four times, both your letters and your syllables, and reading and Englishing as many times your old from the beginning till your latter lesson." ... "Being once able to reade and pronounce perfectly with your rules, two or three leaves of your book, at most, I can assure you that there is not any French book though never so hard, but you shall be able to reade it and pronounce it as truly as can be wished. For in less than one leaf of your book, all your rules are to be observed, three or four times at least. For there is not a word but in it is one or two rules to be noted."
When the learner has thus fully mastered the rules of pronunciation, he may go forward speedily, translating from English into French, and from French into English, and revising constantly. "This is the only ready way to learn to read and pronounce, to write and speak French." Not a single day should be allowed to pass without exercises of this kind, and "you shall find in less than five or six weeks your labour and dilegence afford you much profit, and advancement, that you will wonder at it, and much greater than I dare promise you."
Those who have made some progress in the language, De la Mothe advises to make the acquaintance of some Frenchman, if possible, "to the end that you may practice with him by daily conference together, in speech and talk, what you have learned. And if you be in place where the Frenchmen have a Church for themselves, as they do in London, get you a French Bible or a New Testament, and every day go both to their lectures and Sermons. The one will confirm and strengthen your pronunciation, and the other cause you to understand when one doth speak." And, finally, if you wish to understand the hardest and most "eloquent" French, and to speak it naturally, you must not neglect reading, but provide yourself with a French Dictionary, and the hardest book you can find, and set about translating it, on the method already described. If the student will not take the pains to translate the book, he should at least read it carefully, and write out a list of the hardest words and of appropriate phrases "to serve his turn, either to speak or write when he has need of them."
Although De la Mothe makes no mention of grammar, when he describes his method of teaching, he did not consider it unnecessary. Indeed he declares it is not possible to speak French perfectly without such rules, which he no doubt used for purposes of reference, as he did the rules of pronunciation. He even promises to produce shortly a French Tutor, "that will teach you in so short and easie a way as may be, both by the perfect knowledge of the parts of your speeches, and syntaxe, not only to speak perfectly, but also to know if one doth not speak well, to reprove him when he doth speak ill, and to teach him to amend his bad speech: a thing which yet before has never been taught. The promise is great, but the performance shall not be less if this be acceptable to you." Unfortunately this promise does not seem to have been kept. That his Alphabet did not prove "acceptable" cannot be the reason. Most probably De la Mothe left England before he had time to show his gratitude to the English nobility by the production of this second book.
We have seen that these teachers of French did not always look upon each other as rivals. Bellot wrote verses in honour of Holyband, who was a friend of Fontaine, another of the group of French teachers in St. Paul's Churchyard. But such friendly relations were not general. The teachers just mentioned belonged to what formed, no doubt, the highest rank of the profession. Bellot calls himself a "gentilhomme," and so does Holyband; and both refer to criticism and attacks upon them by other French teachers.[431] Holyband calls attention to the unscrupulousness of many of them, who take money in advance and do nothing to earn it; and expresses his contempt for his critics—Frenchmen ignorant of English, Burgundians, or Englishmen who do not know French thoroughly. FRIENDSHIPS AND RIVALRIESThe many French-speaking schoolmasters from the Netherlands—chiefly Walloons and Burgundians—and the English teachers of French formed separate groups apart from the Huguenots. Yet another group was recruited from the ranks of the Roman Catholics.
The Burgundians, who did not come from Burgundy, but from that portion of the Netherlands which had been under the rule of the House of Burgundy, formed a very considerable proportion of the foreign population of London. In 1567 there were only forty-four of them in London, but by 1571 their number had risen to four hundred and twenty-four—almost as many as the total number of French in the city.[432] The Walloons were still more numerous, and no doubt outnumbered the French. Such instructors were an obstacle in the way of those desirous of raising the standard of the French taught in England. Against the peculiarities of the French spoken in the Netherlands, Holyband is constantly warning his pupils. "You shall know them," he says, "at the pronunciation of c, as the proper mark of their language," for they sound it as the English sh or the French ch, saying shela for cela.[433] Warnings were also given against the barbarisms of the Picard dialect.
Of the many "Dutch" teachers in London—an epithet which usually includes the Flemings and Walloons—it is impossible to say which actually taught French.[434] Apparently those who attended the French Church taught that language; a certain Gouvert Hawmells, for example, a native of Antwerp, who came to England in 1568—"for religion"—is specially mentioned as a teacher of the French language; in 1571 he was living with his family in the house of one Thomas Grimes in St. Margaret's parish. He attended the French Church and was not a denizen.[435] Apparently his case was not an exceptional one. What is more, there were in London French schoolmistresses from the Low Countries. Marry Lemaire, "by trade a French schoolmistress," was a native of Antwerp and came to England in 1578; for over forty years she kept school in Southwick. Another French schoolmistress, Anness Deger, born in Tournay, came to England some ten years earlier, and in 1618 was still practising her "trade" in Tenter Abbey. Her qualifications were not of the first order; in the Register of Aliens she was unable to sign her name, for which she substituted a cross. There was also a "goodwife Frances schoolmistress, in Popinjay Alley," mentioned in 1598 and 1599, but whether she taught French or not is not specified.
Although the chief French teachers who were responsible for the manuals of the second half of the sixteenth century were Huguenots, it is extremely probable that Roman Catholic teachers were in the majority. When a census of the foreigners dwelling in London was taken in 1563, only 712 out of a total of 4534 had come to England on religious grounds.[436] Naturally the proportion of Protestants greatly increased as the persecutions grew more severe, until the passing of the Edict of Nantes in their favour in 1598. Then it probably again decreased; in the time of Charles I. there were at least five French papists to one French Protestant.[437] These Roman Catholic teachers were as a matter of course regarded as suspect by those in authority, and Jesuit priests teaching in noble English families, or those conversant with them, were carefully watched.[438] The suspicions aroused by the John Love who had a French school in St. Paul's Churchyard have already been noticed. This feeling became particularly strong after the Gunpowder Plot (1605). In the "Constitutions, Laws, Statutes, Decrees and Ordinances" of the Bury St. Edmunds Town Council of 1607 an article was inserted "to prevent the infectinge of youth in Poperie by Schoolmasters."[439] CLASSES OF FRENCH TEACHERSThe constables of every ward in the borough had to certify the Aldermen, Recorder, and Justices of the Peace, of the names of all persons "that do keep any school for the teaching of youth to write, read, or understand the English, Latin, French, Italian and Spanish Tongues, upon pain to forfeit for every default 6s. 8d." This notification had to be made quarterly. Others than the master or usher of the free grammar school, wishing to teach any of these languages, had to obtain special licence; and any one sending his children to a school kept by a teacher who had no licence was liable to forfeit for every week the sum of 6s. 8d.
Fear of proselytism was not the only incentive which aroused the animosity of certain sections of the English public. Many young Englishmen received much of their education from French tutors, frequently refugees, who taught them the usual subjects as well as French. One objection raised against them was that they corrupted their pupils' English if they spoke and wrote English themselves, as they did almost without exception. Thus they "pul downe with one hand more than they can build with the other," wrote Th. Morrice in 1619.[440] Such complaints, however, cannot have been very general or have had much effect on the lot of French teachers.
A further attack was to come from another quarter. In the early years of the sixteenth century, as in the Middle Ages, Englishmen had held an important place in the French teaching profession. They had been called to important positions as tutors, and had written grammars of the language. After the appearance of Palsgrave's Grammar, however, we hear no more of these English teachers of French, driven into the background, no doubt, by the great invasion of French teachers. Probably Duwes's earlier attack had helped either to turn public favour from the native teachers or to discourage them. Holyband, too, had endorsed the opinion of Duwes somewhat later, and expressed the little importance he attached to their criticisms. To acquire the true French pronunciation and idiom, he declares, it is necessary to learn from a Frenchman.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, however, an English teacher of French came forward, and energetically took up the defence of his fellow-teachers of English birth. This was John Eliote, a man of boisterous spirits and a lover of good wine—a taste which he had acquired in France, where he had lived many years. There, if the dialogue he wrote for the help of students of French may be taken as autobiographical, he had spent three years in the College of Montagu at Paris, taught for a year in the Collège des Africains at Orleans, lived for ten months at Lyons, and spent a year amongst the Benedictine monks. On the murder of Henri III. in 1589, Eliote returned to England, strongly imbued with a love for the country in which he had lived so long.
"Surely for my part," he writes, "France I love well, Frenchmen I hate not, and unto you I sweare by S. Scobe cap de Gascongne, that I love a cup of new Gascon or old Orleans wine, as well as the best French of you all. Which love, you must know, was engendered in the sweet soile of Fraunce, where I paissed like a bon companion, with a steele at my girdle, till the Friars (a canker of the cursed Convent) fell to drawing of naked knives, and kild indeed the good King Henrie of France, the more the pitye. Since which time I retired myself among the merrie muses, and by the worke of my pen and inke, have dezinkhornifistibulated a fantasticall Rapsody of dialoguisme, to the end that I would not be found an idle drone among so many famous teachers and professors of noble languages, who are very busy daily in devising and setting forth new bookes & instructing our English gentry in this honourable citie of London."
This "fantasticall rapsody" was published in 1593, and entitled the Ortho-Epia Gallica. Eliot's Fruits for the French enriched with a double new invention, which teacheth to speake truly, speedily, voluably the French tongue. Pend for the practice, pleasure and profit of all English gentlemen, who will endevour by their owne paine, study, and diligence, to attain the naturall accent, the true pronunciation and swift and glib Grace of this noble, famous and courtly Language.[441]
It was dedicated to the young Sir Robert Dudley,[442] son of the famous Earl of Leicester, whom Eliote possibly instructed in the French tongue. Eliote had taken up the teaching of French, "that most ticklish of all tongues," on his return to England, and in his book he speaks of his long practice in learning and teaching the language. He proceeds, in the first place, to make fun of the "learned Professors of the French Tongue in the city of London." He burlesques the dedicatory epistles of his predecessors, especially that of Bellot,[443] and declares he is fully aware that, to be in the fashion, ENGLISH TEACHERS OF FRENCHhe ought to "dilate in some good speeches of the dignitie of the French tongue, and then show what ease this book of mine shall bring to the learning of the French, more than other bookes have done heretofore." But he must first ask pardon for his presumption in writing on this subject.
"Do no blame me," he says, addressing the "gentle doctors of Gaule," as he called them, "if because I would not be found a loyterer in mine own countrie, amongst so many virtuously occupied, I have put my pen to paper: if I have bene busie, labourd, sweat, dropt, studied, devised, fought, bought, borrowed, turned, translated, mined, fined, refined, interlined, glossed, composed, and taken intollerable toil to shew an easie entrance and introduction to my deare countrimen, in your curious and courtesan French tongue, to the end to advance them as much as may bee, in the knowledge of all virtuous and noble qualities, to the which they are all naturally adicted."
He is quite ready to have his book criticised as the work of an Englishman, and challenges these "gentle doctors" "to be ready quickly to cavill at his booke."
"I beseech you," he continues, "heartily calumniate my doings with speede, I request you humbly controll my method as soone as you may, I earnestly entreat you hisse at my inventions, I desire you to peruse my periodicall punctuations, find fault with my pricks, nicks, and tricks, prove them not worth a pin, not a point, not a pish: argue me a fond, foolish, frivolous, and phantasicall author, and persuade every one that you meet, that my booke is a false, fained, slight, confused, absurd, barbarous, lame, imperfect, single, uncertaine, childish, piece of work, and not able to teach and why so? Forsooth because it is not your owne but an Englishman's doing. Faile you not to do so, if you love me, and would have me do the like for you another time."
While admitting that there may be a few good French teachers amongst the refugees, he outlines a picture of the ordinary type which is far from flattering; and we gather that he had himself studied French with several refugees. He implies that the French teachers receive money in advance, and then do nothing else but "take their eases and, as the renowned poet saith,
Saulter, dancer, faire les tours,
Boire vin blanc et vermeil,
Et ne rien faire tous les jours
Que conter escuz au soleil.
Mercurie the god of Cunning, and Dis the Father of French crowns are their deities." They care nothing for the progress of their scholars; all they do is to give them a short lesson of half an hour, in which they read and construe about half a page of French. They are equally indifferent to the troubled state of their country, provided they themselves are comfortable and well provided with French wines.
"Messires, what newes from France, can you tell?" he asks them, "still warres, warres. A heavy hearing truly, yet if you be in good health, have many scholars, get good store of crowns, and drink good wine, I doubt not but you shall do well, and I desire the good God of Heaven to continue it so still. Have they had a fruitful vintage in France this year, or no? me thinks our Bordeaux wines are very deare, and in good faith I am very sorry for it. But they will be at a more reasonable reckoning, if these same loftie Leaguers would once crouch and come to some good composition ... that we may safely fetch their deifying liquer, which dieth quickly our flegmaticke faces into a pure sanguine complexion."
The style of the introduction is maintained throughout the rest of the book. Eliote says he wrote the whole "in a merrie phantasicall vaine to confirme and stir up the wit and memorie of the learner," and "diversified it with a varietie of stories no lesse authenticall than the devices of Lucian's dialogues." He admits that he had turned over some French authors, and where he "espied any pretie example that might quicken the capacitie of the learner," he "presumed to make a peece of it flie this way, to set together the frame of (his) fantasticall comedie ... and out of every one (he) had some share for the better ornament of (his) worke." Eliote was well acquainted with French literature. He considered Marot the best poet, and gave Ronsard the second place only. He also read Du Bartas, Belleau, Desportes, and other sixteenth-century writers. But most of his admiration was reserved for Rabelais, "that merrie grig," and it is clear that he modelled his style on that of the great French humorist. Like Rabelais, he occasionally affects a sort of gibberish, coins words, and, like him also, he strings words together and is fond of exaggeration. Numerous passages in the Ortho-Epia Gallica are reminiscent of famous incidents in Gargantua and Pantagruel. Like Panurge, he defends debts and debtors:
"Quoy! Debtes! O chose rare et antiquaire. Il n'est bon chrestien qui ne doibt rien," and, in the style of Rabelais, he assures us that his book contains "profound and deep mysteries, ... and very worthie the reading, and such as I thinke you have not had performed in any other book that is yet extant.... Doest thou see what a sea, what a gulfe there is? Thou hadst need of Theseus' thread to guide thee out of that Labyrinth."
The Ortho-Epia Gallica forms a striking contrast to Palsgrave's rather austere Esclarcissement, the last work on the JOHN ELIOTEFrench language composed by an Englishman before that of Eliote. The dialogues occupy nearly the whole volume. The first few pages, however, contain a table of French sounds with their pseudo-English equivalents. The pronunciation was, in Eliote's opinion, one of the chief difficulties of this difficult language, "deemed a jewel, so dearly bought, and so much desired by all"; and he considered that, with the help of Ramus and Peletier for the pronunciation, he had succeeded in reducing "the gulf of difficulties into a small stream" by "sounding the French by our English alphabet."
He arranges his dialogues, which he calls Le parlement de Babillards, id est, The Parlaiment of Prattlers, into three groups. The first of these consists of three long dialogues on the method of learning foreign languages, on the excellence of writers in both ancient and modern tongues, and on travel through the chief towns of Europe. The first dialogue ends with the quotation from Du Bartas in praise of Queen Elizabeth and her accomplishments, accompanied by a translation in English verse by Eliote himself.
The second part, styled "M. Eliote's first booke," is of a much more elementary character than the one just described. Eliote had referred elsewhere to a work entitled The Scholler, in which he propounded a "general method of learning and teaching all languages contrived by nature and art, conformable to the precepts of Aristotle." This, or part of it, evidently formed the first part of the Ortho-Epia Gallica, where it is separately paged.[444]
In his first and second books, which thus form the second and third parts of the work, he expounds "his double new invention, which teacheth Englishmen to speake truly, speedily and volubly the French tong." The first part of this "invention" consists in placing by the side of the French and English a third column, giving the French in pseudo-English equivalents—"the true pronunciation of each word wholly and certain little stripes (called approches) between the sillables that are to be spoken roundly and glib in one breath." The twelve dialogues of Eliote's first book are fairly simple in character, and some of them were probably suggested by Vives's Exercitatio. Their subject matter does not differ much from earlier dialogues, but their treatment is decidedly original. The following quotation is taken from the first dialogue:
| Hau Garcon dors tu vilain? debout, debout, ie te reveilleray tantost avec un bon baton. | Ho Garssoon dortu veelein? deboo, deboo, ie te reue-lheré tant-tot tavec-keun boon batoon. | What boy slepeth thou villain? up, up, I shall shall wake thee soon with a good cudgell. |
| Je me leve, monsieur. | Ie me léveh moonseewr. | I rise sir. |
| Quelle heure est-il? | Qel-heur et-til? | What o'clock is it? |
| Il est six heures. | Il-é see-zewres. | It is six o'clock. |
| Donnez moy mes chausses de velours verd. | Donné moe' mes shosséh de veloor vert. | Give me my my green velvet breeches. |
| Lesquelles? | Le-keles? | Which? |
| C'est tout un; mes chausses rondes de satin rouge. . . . | Set-toot-tewn; mes shosseh roondeh de satin rouge. . . . | It is all one; my round red satin ones, etc. |
There are twelve dialogues in all, but only each alternate one is accompanied by this curious guide to pronunciation.[445]
In the second book and third part the dialogues are longer and more numerous, dealing with the different trades and occupations—"les devis familiers des mesters fort delectables a lyre." They do not, however, confine themselves to the characters usually introduced into similar dialogues; besides the mercer, the draper, the shoemaker, the innkeeper, and so on, we have the armourer, the robber, the debtor, the apothecary, and other characters which offer ample scope for treatment in the Rabelaisian vein, of which Eliote was so fond. Some suggest that Eliote was acquainted with Holyband's works. This book contains the second part of his "double new invention." The French and English are printed on opposite pages, and in the margin the sounds of the most difficult French letters are indicated, thus:
ai sound e
ay sound e
am sound ein
aine sound eineh, and so on.
This table he describes "as Mercurie's finger to direct thee in thy progress of learning," and he repeats it on the margin of every pair of opposite pages.
THE "ORTHO-EPIA GALLICA" After these twenty dialogues comes the "Conclusion of the parlaiment of prattlers," which depicts a group of friends walking by the Thames and St. Paul's, "prattling, chatting, and babbling." The arrangement is the same as in the previous dialogues, and the work closes with a quotation from Du Bartas's praise of France:
O mille et mille fois terre heureuse et féconde,
O perle de l'Europe! O Paradis du monde!
France je te salue, O mère des guerriers.
In his dialogue called The Scholar, incorporated in the first part of the Ortho-Epia, Eliote explains his 'new' method of learning languages, by nature and art. By "nature" he means the acquirement of a vocabulary of all created things, by use and common practice; and by "art" the rules and precepts for combining these into sentences, and also the authority of learned men. Such rules chiefly concern nouns, verbs, and pronunciation, "in which the greatest mystery of all languages consists." Thus, although he gives no grammatical information in his Ortho-Epia Gallica, he recognized its importance.
Before introducing his pupils to the method of "Nature and Art," Eliote would have them well grounded in nouns and verbs, and able to translate dialogues, comedies in verse, and prose writings. He attached much importance to translation from English into French, just as Palsgrave did. He directs the student to make out the meaning of the French first by comparing it with the English column, and then to cover over the French version, and attempt to translate the English into French. "This I have learned by long experience to be the readiest way to attaine the knowledge of any language, that we of Englishmen make French, and not of French learn English." As to the theory of "Nature and Art," it seems to have been little more than the method, common at the time, of making practice the basis of the study of French, and confirming this by rules as need for them arose.
In addition to the Ortho-Epia Gallica,[446] Eliote also wrote a Survey or topographical description of France, collected from sundry approved authors. This was published in 1592, and dedicated to Sir John Pickering, Keeper of the Privy Seal. He also translated from French into English[447] a number of unimportant works, mostly of topical interest, one of them being dedicated to Robert, Earl of Essex. Little else is known of him, except that he was born in Warwickshire in 1562, and entered Brasenose College, Oxford, on the 12th of December 1580, at the age of eighteen years.[448] He tells us that he held the degree of Doctor of Divinity, but there is no record of his having taken any such degree there. Robert Greene was among his friends, and he wrote a sonnet in questionable French on Greene's Perimedes or the Black Smith, with which it was published in 1588. These are all the details we possess concerning this amusing and striking figure among the French teachers of the sixteenth century.