V.
Educational tracts produced by other writers—Parvula—Holt’s Milk for Children—Horman’s Vulgaria and its singular curiosity and value—The author’s literary quarrel with Whittinton—The contemporary foreign teachers—Specimen of the Grammar of Guarini of Verona (1470)—Vestiges of the literature current at Oxford in the beginning of the sixteenth century—The printed works of Johannes de Garlandia.
I. Of independent tracts intended for the use of our early schools, there were several either anonymous or written by persons whom we do not recognise as writers of more than a single production.
In the former category is placeable the small piece published three or four times by Wynkyn de Worde about 1509, under the title of Parvula or Longe Parvula. It is a series of rules for translation and other exercises in the form of question and answer, thus:—
“Q. What shall thou do whan thou hast an englysshe to make in latyn?
“A. I shal reherse myne englysshe ones, twyes, or thryes, and loke out my pryncypal, & aske ȳ questyon, who or what.”
A second publication is the Milk for Children of John Holt, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who had the honour of numbering among his pupils Sir Thomas More. One of the most interesting points about the little book to us nowadays is that it is accompanied by some Latin hexameters and pentameters and an epigram in the same language by More. The latter has the air of having been sent to Holt, and inserted by him with the heading which occurs before it, where the future Chancellor is termed “disertus adolescentulus.”
A decided singularity of this volume is the quaint device of the author for impressing his precepts on those who read his pages or attended his academy by arranging the cases and declensions on woodcuts in the shape of outstretched hands.
Besides his Milk for Children and the Parvulorum Institutio, to the latter of which I have already referred, Holt appears to me the most likely person to have compiled the tract called Accidentia ex Stanbrigiana Collectione, a small grammatical manual based on that of his predecessor or even colleague at Magdalen School; and this may be the work to which Knight points where he says that Holt put forth an Accidence and Grammar concurrently with his other tract, though the biographer of Dean Colet errs in placing Stanbridge after Holt in chronological sequence.
Another of the miscellaneous unofficial pieces, answering very nearly to the mediæval Nominale, has no other title than Os, Facies, mentum, and is a Latin poem descriptive of the human form, first printed in 1508, with an interlinear English gloss. It begins thus:—
| a mouthe | a face | a chyne | a toth | a throot | a tonge | |||||
| Os | facies | mentū | dens | guttur | lingua | |||||
| a berde | a browe | abrye | a forhede | tēples | a lype | |||||
| Barba | supercilium | ciliū | frons | tēpora | labrū | |||||
| roffe of the mouth | ||||||||||
| palatum | ||||||||||
There is nothing, of course, on the one hand, recondite, or, on the other, very edifying in this; but it is a sample of the method pursued in these little ephemerides nearly four centuries ago.
II. The comparative study of Latin and English acquired increased prominence under the Tudors; and in addition to the regular text-books compiled by such men as Stanbridge and Whittinton, there is quite a small library of pieces designed for educational purposes, and framed on a similar model. Doubtless these were in many cases accepted in the schools on an equal footing with the productions of the masters themselves, or the latter may have had a hand, very possibly, in those which we have to treat as anonymous.
Between the commencement and middle of the sixteenth century, during the reigns of the first and second Tudors, there were several of these unclaimed and unidentified compilations, such as the Grammatica Latino-Anglica, Tractatus de octo orationis partibus, and Brief Rules of the Regiment or construction of the Eight Parts of Speech, in English and Latin, 1537.
The Introductorium linguæ Latinæ by W. H. may perhaps be ascribed to William Horman, of whom we shall have more to say; and there are also in the category of works which had no particular width or duration of currency the Gradus Comparationum of Johannes Bellomayus, and the Regulæ Informationis of John Barchby.
These, and others, again, of which all trace has at present disappeared, were employed in common with the regular series, constantly kept in print, of Whittinton and Stanbridge, prior to the rise of the great public seminaries, many of which, as it will be my business to shew, took into use certain compilations supposed to be specially adapted to their requirements.
William Horman, who is presumed to have been the author of the Introductorium above mentioned, was schoolmaster and Fellow of Eton College; in 1477 he became a perpetual Fellow of New College, Oxford, and he was eventually chosen Vice-Provost of Eton. He survived till 1535. From an epigram appended to the volume it is to be gleaned that Horman was a pupil of Dr. Caius, poet-laureate to Edward the Fourth.
Of the Gradus Comparationum the subjoined may be received as a specimen:—
“What nownes make comparyson? All adiectyues welnere ȳ betoken a thynge that maye be made more or lesse: as fayre: fayrer: fayrest: black, blacker, blackest. How many degrees of comparacyon ben there? iij. the positiue ȳ comparatiue & the superlatyue. How knowe ye the posityue gēdre? For he is the groūde and the begynner of all other degrees of cōparyson. How knowe ye the comparatyue degre? for he passeth his posityue with this englysshe more, or his englysshe endeth in r, as more wyse or wyser. How knowe ye the superlatyue degre? for he passeth his posityue with engysshe moost: or his englisshe endeth in est: as moost fayre or fayrest, moost whyte or whytest.”
III. The Vulgaria of William Horman, 1519, is perhaps one of the most intrinsically curious and valuable publications in the entire range of our early philological literature. It would be easy to fill such a slender volume as that in the hands of the reader with samples of the contents without exhausting the store, but I must content myself with such extracts as seem most entertaining and instructive:—
“Physicians, that be all sette to wynne money, bye and sylle our lyues: and so oftē tymes we bye deth with a great and a sore pryce. Animas nostras æruscatores medici negociantur, &c.
“Papyre fyrste was made of a certeyne stuffe like the pythe of a bulrushe in Ægypt: and syth it is made of lynnen clothe soked in water, stāpte or grūde pressed and smothed. Chartæ seu papyri, &c.
“The greattest and hyest of pryce: is papyre imperyall. Augustissimum papyrum, &c.
“The prynters haue founde a crafte to make bokis by brasen letters sette in ordre by a frame. Calcographi artē, &c.
“Pryntynge hathe almooste vndone scryueners crafte. Chalcographia librariorū q̄stū pene exhavsit.
“Yf the prynters take more hede to the hastynge: than to the true settynge of theyr moldis: the warke is vtterly marred. Si qui libros, &c.”
The rest are given without the Latin equivalents, which have no particular interest.
“Scryueners write with blacke, redde, purple, gren, blewe, or byce: and suche other.
Parchement leues be wonte to be ruled: that there may be a comly margēt: also streyte lynes of equal distaunce be drawe withyn: that the wryttyng may shewe fayre.
Olde or doting chourles can not suffre yōge children to be mery.
I haue lefte my boke in the tennys playe.
This ynke is no better than blatche.
Frobeynes prynt is called better than Aldus: but yet Aldus is neuer the lesse thanke worthy: for he began the fynest waye: and left saūple by the whiche other were lyghtly provoked and taughte to deuyse better.
There is come a scoolle of fysshe.
The tems is frosne ouer with yse.
The trompettours blowe a fytte or a motte.
Vitelars thryue: by getherynge of good felowes that haue swete mouthes.
The mōkis of charter-house: neuer ete fleshe mete.
We shall drynke methe or metheglen.
We shall haue a iuncket after dyner.
Serue me with pochyd eggis.
He kepeth rere suppers tyll mydnyght.
Se that I lacke nat by my beddes syde a chayer of easement: with a vessel vnder: and an vrinall bye.
Women couette to sytte on lowe or pote stolys: men upon twyse so hye.
It is cōuenyent that a man haue one seueral place in his house to hymselfe fro cōbrance of womē.
Women muste haue one place to themselfe to tyffil themselfe and kepe theyr apparell.
They whyte theyr face, necke and pappis with cerusse: and theyr lyppis and ruddis with purpurisse.
Tumblers, houndes, that can goo on huntynge by them selfe: brynge home theyr praye.
Lytel popies, that serueth for ladies, were sūtyme bellis: sūtyme colers ful of prickkis for theyr defēce.
I haue layde many gynnys, pottis, and other: for to take fisshe.
Some fisshe scatre at the nette.
Poules steple is a mighty great thyng / and so hye that vneth a man may discerne the wether cocke.
It is an olde duty / and an auncyent custume / that the Mayre of London with his bretherne shall offer at Poules certayne dayes in the yere.
In London be. lij. parysshe chyrches.
Two or. iij. neses be holsome: one is a shrowed tokē.”
These selected extracts will convey some notion of the unusual curiosity of the Vulgaria of Horman, of which a second edition came out in 1530; it is so far rather surprising that it did not prove more popular. But it had to enter into competition with books of a similar title and cast by Stanbridge and Whittinton, who had their established connection to assist the sale of their publications.
The concluding item in this list of educational performances is also a curious philological relic, and a factor in the illustration of the imperfect mastery of English by foreigners of all periods and almost all countries. I allude to an edition of the Declensions of the learned Parisian printer Ascensius with an English gloss. The tract was evidently printed abroad; and I am tempted to transcribe the paragraph on Punctuation, as it may afford an idea of the nature of the publication and of the English of that day as written by a foreigner. It will be observed that the author seems to confound the comma and the colon:—
“Of the craft of poynting.
“Therbe fiue maner poyntys / and diuisiōs most vside with cunnyng men: the whiche if they be wel vsid: make the sentens very light / and esy to vnderstōd both to the reder & the herer. & they be these: virgil / come / parēthesis / playne poynt / and interrogatif. A virgil is a sclēder stryke: lenynge forwarde thiswyse / be tokynynge a lytyl / short rest without any perfetnes yet of sentens: as betwene the fiue poyntis a fore rehersid. A come is with tway titils thiswyse: betokynyng a lenger rest: and the sētens yet ether is vnperfet: or els if it be perfet: ther cūmith more after / lōgyng to it: the which more comynly can not be perfect by itself without at the lest sūmat of it: that gothe a fore. A parenthesis is with tway crokyd virgils: as an olde mone / & a neu bely to bely: the whiche be set theron afore the begynyng / and thetother after the latyr ende of a clause: comyng within an other clause: that may be perfet: thof the clause / so cōmyng betwene: wer awey and therfore it is sowndyde comynly a note lower: than the vtter clause. yf the sētens cannot be perfet without the ynner clause: then stede of the first crokyde virgil a streght virgil wol do very wel: and stede of the latyr must nedis be a come. A playne point is with won tittil thiswyse. & it cūmith after the ende of al the whole sētens betokinyng a lōge rest. An īterrogatif is with tway titils: the vppir rysyng this wyse? & it cūmith after the ende of a whole reason: wheryn ther is sum question axside. the whiche ende of the reson / tariyng as it were for an answare: risyth vpwarde. we haue made these rulis in englisshe: by cause they be as profitable / and necessary to be kepte in euery moder tuge / as ī latin. ¶ Sethyn we (as we wolde to god: euery precher [? techer] wolde do) haue kepte owre rulis bothe in owre englisshe / and latyn: what nede we / sethyn owre own be sufficient ynogh: to put any other exemplis.”
VI. It is perhaps fruitless to offer any vague conjecture as to the authorship of the Ascensian Declensions. Many Englishmen resident in Paris, Antwerp, and Germany might have edited such a book. The orthography and punctuation are alike peculiar, and suspiciously redolent, it may be considered, of a foreign parentage; but one of our countrymen who had long resided abroad, or who had even been educated out of England, might very well have been guilty of such slips as we find here. A Thomas Robertson of York, of whom I shall have more presently to say, was a few years later in communication with the printers and publishers of Switzerland, and became the editor of a text of Lily the grammarian. Robertson, as a Northern man, was apt, in writing English, to introduce certain provincialisms; and I put it, though merely as a guess, that he might have executed this commission, as he did the other, for Bebelius of Basle.
Two years subsequently to the appearance of his Vulgaria, Horman involved himself in a literary controversy with Whittinton in consequence of an attack which he had made on the laureate’s grammatical productions in a printed Epistle to Lily; it was the beginning of a movement for reforming or remodelling the current educational literature, and Horman himself was a man of superior character and literary training, as we are able to judge from the way in which he acquitted himself of his own contribution to this class of work.
A curious and very interesting account of the dispute between Lily and Horman, in which Robert Whittinton and a fourth grammarian named Aldrich became involved, is given by Maitland in his Notices of the Lambeth Palace Library. I elsewhere refer to the warm altercation between Sir John Cheke and Bishop Gardiner on the pronunciation of Greek. Both these matters have to be added to a new edition of Disraeli’s Quarrels of Authors.
The Salernitan gentleman (Andrea Guarna) who set the Noun and the Verb together by the ears in his Grammar War, acted, no doubt, more discreetly, since he reserved to himself the power to terminate the fray which he had commenced.
VII. Generally speaking, it is the case that the men who compiled the curious and highly valuable Manuals of Instruction during the Middle Ages were superseded and effaced by others following in their track and profiting by their experience. The bulk of these more ancient treatises, such as I have described, still remained in MS. till of recent years, like the college text-books, which are yet sometimes left unprinted from choice; and after the introduction of typography the teaching and learning public accorded a preference to those scholars who constructed their system on more modern lines, and whose method was at once more intelligible and more efficient.
Of all the names with which we have become familiar, the only one which seems to have survived is Johannes de Garlandia; and it is remarkable, again, that the two works from his pen which passed the London press, the Verborum Explicatio and the Synonyma, are by no means comparable in merit or in interest to the Dictionary already noticed. Subsequently to the rise of the English Grammatical School the reputation and popularity of Garlandia evidently suffered a permanent decline, and we hear and feel no more of him.
A new generation, trained in foreign schools or under foreign tutors, set themselves the task of forming educational centres, and of introducing the people of England to a conversance with the foundations of learning and culture by more expeditious and effectual methods; and as from Scrooby in Lincolnshire a small knot of resolute men went forth in the May Flower to lay the first stone of that immense constitutional edifice, the United States of America, so from an humble school at Oxford sprang the pioneers of all English grammatical lore—Anniquil; his usher, Stanbridge; Stanbridge’s pupil, Whittinton; and Whittinton’s pupil, Lily.
It is not too much to say that during three hundred years all our great men, all our nobility, all our princes, owed to this hereditary dynasty, as it were, the elementary portion of their scholastic and academical breeding, and that no section of our literature can boast of so long a celebrity and utility as the Grammatical Summary which is best known as Lily’s Short Introduction, and which in most of its essentials corresponds with the system employed by those who preceded him and those who followed him almost within the recollection of our grandfathers. It was reserved for scholars of a very different temper and type to overthrow his ancient empire, and establish one of their own; and this is a revolution which dates from yesterday.
At the period when the school at Magdalen was established by Bishop Waynflete, the teachers in our own country and on the Continent were working on nearly parallel lines, just as the religious service-books printed at Paris and Rouen were made, by a few subsidiary alterations, to answer the English use; and indeed in the case of the grammatical system of Sulpicius an impression was executed at Paris in 1511 for Wynkyn de Worde, and imported hither for sale, without any differences or variations from the text employed in the Parisian gymnasium and elsewhere through the French dominions. It was not till the English element in these books gained the ascendancy, having been introduced by furtive degrees and by way of occasional or incidental illustration, that a marked native character was stamped on our school-books. Ultimately, as we know, the Latin proportion sensibly diminished, and even a preponderant share of space was accorded to the vernacular.
I have spoken of Ælius Donatus as an author whose Grammar enjoyed a long celebrity and an enormously wide acceptance, down from his own age to the date of the revival of learning. It was used throughout the Continent, in England, and in Scotland.
But prior to our earliest race of native grammarians and philologists, there were several labourers in this great and fruitful field, who began, towards the latter end of the fifteenth century, to cast off the trammels of the Roman professor, and to set up little systems of their own, of course more or less built upon Donatus.
Such an one was Guarini of Verona, whose Regulæ Grammaticales were originally published at Venice in 1470, and are regarded as one of the earliest specimens of her prolific press. These rules were frequently reissued, and I have before me an edition of 1494.
The book, which consists only of twenty-two leaves or forty-four pages, begins with describing the parts of speech, then takes the various sorts of verbs, and follows with the adverbs, participles, and so forth. There is a set of verses on the irregular nouns, and a second headed Versus differentiales or synonyms; and some of the illustrations are given in Italian. The section on diphthongs forms an Appendix.
I merely adduce a cursory notice of Guarini to keep the student in mind of the collateral progress of this class of learning abroad, while our own men were developing it among us with the occasional assistance of foreigners. Perhaps I may just copy out the following small specimen, where the glosses are in the writer’s vernacular:—
| “Largior | ris | per donare e p̱ essere donato | ||
| Experior | ris | per p̱uare e per essere p̱uato | ||
| Ueneror | ris | per honorare e p̱ essere honorato | ||
| Moror | ris | per aspectare e p̱ eēre aspectato | ||
| Osculor | ris | per basare e p̱ essere basiato.” |
In connection with Magdalen School, we see in the account-book of John Dorne, Oxford bookseller, for 1520, the class and range of literature which a dealer in those days found saleable. Among the strictly grammatical books occur the A. B. C. and the Boys’ Primer; the productions, with which we are already familiar, of Whittinton, Stanbridge, Erasmus, Cicero, Terence, and Lucian, interspersed with some of the Fathers, service-books of the Church, classical authors of a less popular type, such as Lucan, Cornelius Nepos, and Pomponius Mela; and more or less abstruse treatises on logic, rhetoric, and theology. On the other hand, we have prognostications in English, almanacs, Robin Hood, the Nutbrown Maid, the Squire of Low Degree, Sir Isumbras, Robert the Devil, and ballads. There are, besides, the Sermon of the Boy-Bishop, the Book of Cookery, the Book of Carving, and an Anglo-French vocabulary.
But I do not enter into these details. It was merely my intention to peep in at the shop, and see what a bookseller at one of the Universities nearly four centuries ago had in the way of school-literature. Perhaps next to the A. B. C. and the primers, the educational works of Erasmus were in greatest demand.
This old ledger has a sort of living value, inasmuch as it carries us back with it to the very Oxford of the first race of teachers and grammarians, about whom I write. All of them, except perchance Anniquil, must have known Dorne and had transactions with him; and here is his ledger, upon which the eyes of some of them may have rested, still preserved, with its record of stock in hand—new copies damp from the printer, or remainders of former purchases, now scarcely extant, or, if so, shorn of their coeval glory by the schoolboy’s thumb or the binder’s knife.