IV.

Rise of native teachers—Magdalen College School, Oxford—John Annaquil, its first master, and his grammatical handbooks—The Compendium Grammatices with the Vulgaria of Terence annexed—The Parvulorum Institutio—Personal allusions in the examples given—John Stanbridge—Account of his works, with extracts of interesting passages—Robert Whittinton—His sectional series of Grammars.

I. The influence of Donatus was both widespread and of prolonged duration, and we must regard the ancient capital of the civilised world as the focus and cradle of all modern grammatical literature. Upon the great revival of culture, many Englishmen repaired to Rome to undergo a formal training for the scholastic profession under the masters who arose there, among whom were Sulpicius, author, as we have seen, of several educational tracts, which obtained considerable currency here, and Johannes Balbus, who compiled the famous Catholicon.

The Lexicon and Dictionary naturally followed the Primer; and our earliest productions of this kind were formed out of the Vocabularies composed and printed abroad—not in Italy, but in Germany, as a rule. But while in many instances we are made acquainted with the writers or editors of the smaller treatises, the names of those laborious men who undertook the compilation of the first type of glossographical Manual are scarcely known.

But the time soon arrived when a native school of tuition was formed in England, and its original seat seems to have been at the Free School immediately adjacent to Magdalen College, Oxford.

We find John Annaquil mentioned as the master of this seminary in the time of Henry the Seventh, and it is the most ancient record of it that has been apparently recovered. Annaquil, of whom our knowledge is extremely scanty, wrote, for the use more immediately of his own pupils, Compendium Grammatices, with an Anglo-Latin version of the Vulgaria of Terence annexed. This volume was printed at Oxford by Theodore Rood about 1484; and an edition of the work entitled Parvulorum Institutio, ascribed to the same press, was doubtless prepared by Annaquil, or under his direction, for the benefit of his school. Such fragments as have been recovered of this book exhibit variations from the later copies, into which subsequent editors purposely introduced improvements and corrections. There are some familiar allusions here, such as, had they been more numerous, might have rendered these ancient educational tracts more attractive and precious even than they are. I mean such entries as, “I go to Oxford: Eo Oxonium or Ad Oxonium.” “I shall go to London: Ibo Londinum.”

Knight explains these references in his Life of Dean Colet: “It may not be amiss to remark that many of the examples in the Latin Grammar pointed to the then juncture of public affairs; viz., the prosecution of Empson and Dudley in the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign: as Regum est tueri leges: Refert omnium animadverti in malos. And this humour was the reason why, in the following editions of the Syntax, there were examples accommodated to the respective years of the impressions; as, Audito regem Doroberniam proficisci; Imperator [Maximilian] meruit sub rege, &c. There were likewise in that edition of Erasmus several examples referring to Dean Colet, as Vixit Romæ, studuit Oxonii, natus est Londini, discessit Londini, &c.”

Annaquil is supposed to have died about 1488, and was succeeded in his work by John Stanbridge, who is much better known as a grammarian than his predecessor. Stanbridge was a native of Northamptonshire, according to Wood, and received his education at Winchester. In 1481 he was admitted to New College, Oxford, after two years’ probation, and remained there five years, at the end of which he was appointed first usher under Annaquil of the Free School aforesaid, and after his principal’s death took his place. The exact period of his death is not determined; but he probably lived into the reign of Henry the Eighth.

II. The writings of Stanbridge are divisible into two sections—those which he published in his own lifetime, and those which appeared after his death in the form either of reimpressions or selections by his pupil Whittinton and others. The former category embraces: 1. Accidence; 2. Vocabula; 3. Vulgaria. In the latter I include: 1. Accidentia ex Stanbrigiana Editione recognita limâ Roberti Whittintoni; 2. Parvulorum Institutio ex Stanbrigiana Collectione. The first of these productions, not strictly to be regarded as proceeding from the pen of Stanbridge, bears the name of Whittinton; the second I merely apprehend to have been his. But the line of distinction between the publications of Stanbridge himself and posthumous, or at any rate not personally superintended reprints, is one which ought to be drawn.

There is an edition of Stanbridge’s Accidence, printed at the end of the sixteenth century by Caxton’s successor at Westminster. The variations between it and the collections which were modelled upon it, probably by John Holt, whom I shall again mention, are thus explained and stated by the author of the Typographical Antiquities:—

“This treats of the eight parts of reason; but they differ in several respects as to the manner of treating of them; this treating largely of the degrees of comparison, which the other (Accidentia ex Stanbrigiana Collectione) does not so much as mention. That gives the moods and tenses of the 4. conjugations at large, both active and passive, whereas this gives only a few short rules to know them by. Again, this shews the concords of grammar, which the other has not.”

There are at least three issues of the Accidence from London presses, and a fourth in an abridged shape from an Antwerp one, presumably for the convenience of English residents in the Low Countries. The tide had by this time begun to a certain extent to flow in an opposite direction, as it were, and not only introductions to our own language were executed here and reproduced abroad, but Latin authors were beginning to find competent native interpreters, among whom John Annaquil was perhaps the foremost.

Next to the Accidence of Stanbridge I shall consider briefly his Vocabula, which was, on the whole, the most popular of his works, and continued for the greatest length of time in vogue, as I record editions of it as late as the period of the Civil War (1647). I have not, on the other hand, met with any anterior to 1510. Annexed is a specimen:—

De naui et eius pertinentibus.

The formost parte of the shyppe Prora nauis	The hynder parte of the shyppe Puppis rostrum			The saylewarde antenna	the bottom of the shyppe carina
The takelynge Armamenta	the mast malus		The cable rudens simul	an anker anchora	the stern clauus
The hatches foci		the pompe sentina cum	the water pompe nautea nausea		the hatches transtra
The sayle cloth carbalus	idem et belum	the maste of the shyppe nauergus		to sayle et nauigo	a shypman nauta
Qui nauem regit nauicularius		idem et nauclerus		i. nauis nauigiumq;
P̄tinēs ad nauē naualis	to rowe remigio	qui remigat remus		the dockes naualia	an ore remex
P̄tinens ad nauē nauticus et	qui fregit nauem naufragus naufragium			the see ac mare	a wawe fretū
To carry ouer Trajitio	to dryue appello			to carry ouer transporto	the toll, or the custome portarjumq;
A fery man Portitor	a fery barge hyppago		idem ponto	a cokbote Iynter quoq;	a bottom cymba

This extract is highly edifying. In the concluding line ponto, a ferry-barge, is the modern punt, and lynter, a cock-boat, is the early Venetian lintra, to which I refer in Venice before the Stones as antecedent to the gondola.

III. The remaining contribution of Stanbridge to this class of literature is his Vulgaria, which I take to be the least known. Dibdin describes it somewhat at large, and it may be worth while to transfer a specimen hither:—

“Sinciput, et vertex, caput, occiput, et coma, crinis.

hoc sinciput, is,	the fore parte of the heed
hic vertex, cis,	for the crowne of the heed
hoc caput, is,	for a heed
hoc occiput, is,	the hynder parte of the heed
hec coma, e,	for a brisshe
hic crinis, nis,	for a heer

········

A garment Hic indumentum		a clothe vestis	idem vestitus	apparayle amictus
idem Ornatus	idem simul apparatus		idem amiculus idem
a cappe Ista caput gestat apex			agat: e caliptra	idem galerus
a cappe Biretum		idem pilius	an hood cuculus	idem capitiumq;

········

Vulgaria quedā cū suis vernaculis compilata iuxta
consuetudinem ludi litterarij diui Pauli.

Good morowe. Bonū tibi huius diei sit primordiū.
Good nyght. Bona nox, tranquilla nox, optata requies, &c.
Scolers must lyue hardly at Oxford,
Scolasticos Oxonii parce viuere oportet.
My fader hath had a greate losse on the see.
Pater meus magnā p naufragiū iacturā habuit.
Wysshers and wolders be small housholders.
Affectatibus diuitias modicā hospitalitatē obseruant.”

The abridgments of Stanbridge’s Accidence led, I presume, to the distinction of the original text as the Long Accidence, although I have not personally met with more than a single edition of the work under such a title. Dibdin, however, has a story that John Bagford had heard of one printed at Tavistock, for which the said John “would have stuck at no price.”

The chief of these adaptations of the Accidence is the Parvulorum Institutio, which I have described as probably emanating, in the first place, from the earliest press for the use of the earliest known school at Oxford. But it was reprinted with alterations by Stanbridge, and perhaps by John Holt. In Dibdin’s account of one of these recensions he observes:—

“The work begins immediately on sign. A ij:-‘What is to be done whan an englysshe is gyuen to be made in latyn? Fyrst the verbe must be loked out, and yf there be moo verbes than one in a reason, I must loke out the pryncypall verbe and aske this questyon who or what, and that word that answereth to the questyon shall be the nomynatyve case to the verbe. Except it be a verbe Impersonell the whiche wyll haue no nomynative case.’

“On the last leaf but one we have as follows:—

Indignus dignus obscenus fedus acerbus.		Cice. qq hecauditu acerba sunt.
Rarus iucundus absurdus turpe saluber.		Terē. turpe dictū.
Mirandus mirus pulchrum sit periculosus.		Qui. multa dictu visuq; miranda.
Whan there cometh a verbe after sum es fui without a relatyve or a coniunccyon yf it be of the actyue sygnyfycacyon it shall be put in a partycyple of the fyrst sutertens yf he be of the passyue synyfacoōn he shall be put in the partycyple of the latter sutertens, except exulo, vapulo, veneo, fio.		Terētius. quidnā incepturus es. Tere. uxor tibi ducenda est pāphyle Te oro vt nuptie que fuerant future fiant.

IV. Robert Whittinton, whose name is probably more familiar to the ordinary student than that of the man from whom he derived his knowledge and tastes, was a native of Warwickshire, and was born at Lichfield about 1480—perhaps a little before. He received his education, as I have stated, at the Free School at Oxford, and is supposed to have gained admission to one of the colleges; but of this there is no certainty. He subsequently acquired, however, the distinction of being decorated with the laurel wreath by the University of Oxford for his proficiency in grammar and rhetoric, with leave to read publicly any of the logical writings of Aristotle; and he assumed the title of Protovates Angliæ, and the credit of having been the first Englishman who was laureated.

It is certain that Whittinton became a teacher like his master Stanbridge, and among his scholars he counted William Lily, the eminent grammarian; but where he so established himself is not so clear, nor do we know the circumstances or date of his decease.

I am going to do my best to lay before the reader of these pages a clear bibliographical outline of Whittinton’s literary performances; and it seems to amount to this, that he has left to us, apart from a few miscellaneous effusions, eleven distinct treatises on the parts of grammar, all doubtless more or less based on the researches and consonant with the doctrines of his immediate master Anniquil and the foreign professors of the same art, whose works had found their way into England, and had even, as in the case of Sulpicius and Perottus, been adopted by the English press.

I will first give the titles of the several pieces succinctly, and then proceed to furnish a slight description of each:—

1. De Nominum Generibis.
2. Declinationes Nominum.
3. De Syllabarum Quantitate, &c.
4. Verborum Præterita et Supina.
6. De Octo Partibus Orationis.
7. De Heteroclitis Nominibus.
8. De Concinnitate Grammatices et Constructione.
9. Syntaxis. [A recension of No. 8.]
10. Vulgaria.
11. Lucubrationes.

These eleven fasciculi actually form altogether one system, and some of them have their order of succession in the author’s arrangement indicated; as, for instance, the Verborum Præterita et Supina, which is called the Fifth Book of the First Part; but others are deficient in this clue, so that if one classes them, it must be in one’s own way.

V. The treatise on the Kinds of Nouns, in one of the numerous editions of it at least, is designated Primæ Partis Liber Primus, which seems an inducement to yield it the foremost place in the series. But it will be presently observed that, although the collection in a complete state is susceptible of a consecutive arrangement, the pieces composing it did not, so far as we can tell, follow each other originally in strict order of time.

Of the tract on the Declensions of Nouns, which stands second in order, Dibdin supplies us with a specimen:—

De ntō singu- lari prime declina- tionis.	Anchise et Ve- neris filius, as, ut Aeneas		Capis filius es, ut An- chises.		Qui fingit elegan- tia carmina, a, ut poeta.
	Rectus as, es, a; simul am dat flexio prima.
		Aeneæ		Aeneæ
	ut huius		huic
		musæ		musæ
De gtō et dtō singularibus et ntō et vetō pluralibū.
	Ac dat dipthongum genitiuus sic que datiuus
			hi poete	o poete
	Singularis, sic pluralis primus quoque quintus
		familie et		aulai pro aulae
	vt huius		huic
		familias		pictai pro pictæ.
	Olim rectus in a, genito dedit as simul ai. vt hic Judas, huius Jude, vel Juda Ex Judas Juda aut Judæ dat pagina sacra vt hic Adam. huius Adam. huic Adam, &c. Barbara in am propria aut a recto non variantur.

We must now pass to the treatise De Syllabarum Quantitate, which, in a chronological respect, ranks first among Whittinton’s works, as there was an edition of it as early as 1513.

This tripartite volume, 1. On the Quantity of Syllables; 2. On Accent; and 3. On the Roman Magistrates, is noteworthy on two accounts. The second portion embraces the earliest specimen in any English book of the poems of Horace, and the concluding section is a kind of rudimentary Lemprière. Subjoined is a sample of the lines upon accents, from Dibdin:—

“Accentus tonus est per quē fit syllaba quevis
Cognita: quādo acui debet, vel qū gravari
Accentus triplex; fit acutus vel gravis, inde
Est circūflexus: qui nunc fit rarus in vsu.
Syllaba cum tendit sursum est accentus acutus
Est gravis accentus sed syllaba pressa deorsum
Fit circūflexus gravis in prima: sed in altum
Attollit mediam, postrema gravis reciditque.”

This metrical exposition, which will not be mistaken for the language of Horace, is followed by a commentary in prose.

The next three divisions do not call for any particular criticism. They treat of the Eight Parts of Speech, the Irregular Nouns, and the Laws of Grammatical Construction, of which the last is the first cast of the Syntax.

There remain the Vulgaria and the Lucubrations, which are far more important and interesting, and of which there were numerous editions. The subjoined samples will shew the principle on which the Vulgaria was compiled:—

“Befe and motton is so dere, that a peny worth of meet wyll scant suffyse a boy at a meale.

“Whan I was a scholler of Oxforthe I lyued competently with vii. pens commens wekely.

“Be of good chere man for I sawe ryght nowe a rodde made of wythye for the, garnysshed with knottes, it wolde do a boy good to loke vpon it.

“A busshell of whete was holde at xii. pens.

“A gallon of swete wyne is at viii. pens in London.

“A gallon of ale is at a peny and ferdynge.

“I warne the fro hens forthe medle not with my bokes. Thou blurrest and blottest them, as thou were a bletchy sowter.”

Such bits as these were decidedly worth extracting, yet Dibdin, with the very copy of the book from which they are derived before him, let them pass. In this volume Whittinton takes occasion to speak in eulogistic terms of Sir Thomas More.

Of the Lucubrations the most interesting portion to an English reader will be the Synonyms:—

“To arraye or	To backbyte.	The goute.
to dyght.	Detraho	Arthesis
Orno	Detracto	Arthtica passio
Vestio	Obtrecto	Morbus articularis
Amicio	Maledico	Chiragra
Induo	Carpo	Podagra
Como	&c. &c. &c.
Colo

An alyen or	To playe the	To be wode.
outlandysshe.	brothell.	Seuio
Alienagena	Scortari	Furio
Peregrinus	Prostitui	Insanio
Aduena	Fornicari	Excandeseor
Alienus	Merere	Bacchor
Exterus	Struprari	Wodnesse or
Externus	Adulterari	madnesse.
Barbarus	Cohire	Insania
Extraneus	Concumbere	Seviciæ
	&c. &c.	Furor.”

The copious storehouse of equivalent phrases in Latin composition shews us in what wide vogue that language was in England at this period, as there is no corresponding facility offered for persons desirous of enlarging their English vocabulary. The influence of the scholars of France, Italy, Holland, and Germany long kept our vernacular in the background, and retarded the study of English by Englishmen; but the uprise of a taste for the French and Italian probably gave the first serious blow to the supremacy of the dead tongues, as they are called, and it became by degrees as fashionable for gentlemen and ladies to read and speak the languages in which Molière and Tasso wrote as the hybrid dialect in which erudite foreigners had been used to correspond and compose.

Whittinton styles himself on the title-pages of several of his pieces laureatus and protovates Angliæ. In one place he speaks of being “primus in Angliâ lauri coronam gestans,” and elsewhere he professes to be magister grammatices. As Warton and others have speculated a good deal on the real nature and import of the dignity which this early scholar claimed in regard to the laurel crown or wreath, it may be worth noting that Wood furnishes the annexed explanation of the point:—

“In the beginning of the year 1513, he supplicated the venerable congregation of regents under the name and title of Robert Whittington, a secular chaplain and a scholar of the art of rhetoric: that, whereas he had spent fourteen years in the study of the said art, and twelve years in the informing of boys, it might be sufficient for him that he might be laureated. This supplication being granted, he was, after he had composed an hundred verses, which were stuck up in public places, especially on the door or doors of St. Mary’s Church [Oxford], very solemnly crowned, or his temples adorned with a wreath of laurel, that is, decorated in the arts of grammar and rhetoric, 4 July the same year.”

The biographer of Colet is undoubtedly correct in supposing that the ancient poet-laureatship was nothing more than an academical degree, and that in this sense, and in no other, Skelton bore that designation, as well as Bernardus Andreas, who was tutor to Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII.

It also appears from the account of the decoration of Whittinton that he had commenced his qualification for a schoolmaster as far back as 1499, which is reconcilable with the date assigned to his birth (1480).