[532] “The schools were much frequented with quirks and sophistry. All things, whether taught or written, seemed to be trite and inane. No pleasant streams of humanity or mythology were gliding among us, and the Greek language, from whence the greater part of knowledge is derived, was at a very low ebb, or in a manner forgotten.” Wood’s Annals of Oxford, A.D. 1508. The word “forgotten” is improperly applied to Greek, which had never been known. In this reign, but in what part of it does not appear, the university of Oxford hired an Italian, one Caius Auberinus, to compose the public orations and epistles, and to explain Terence in the schools. Warton, ii. 420, from MS. authority.
[533] Hactenus prælegimus Chrysoloræ grammaticam, sed paucis; fortassis frequentiori auditorio Theodori grammaticam auspicabimur. Ep. cxxiii. (16th Oct. 1511.)
[534] Wood talks of Holt’s Lac Puerorum, published in 1497, as if it had made an epoch in literature. It might be superior to any grammar we already possessed.
Erasmus and Budæus. 9. It is plain, however, that on the continent of Europe, though no very remarkable advances were made in these ten years, learning was slowly progressive, and the men were living who were to bear fruit in due season. Erasmus republished his Adages with such great additions as rendered them almost a new work; while Budæus, in his Observations upon the Pandects, gave the first example of applying philological and historical literature to the illustration of Roman law, by which others, with more knowledge of jurisprudence than he possessed, were in the next generation signally to change the face of that science.
Study of eastern languages. 10. The eastern languages began now to be studied, though with very imperfect means. Hebrew had been cultivated in the Franciscan monasteries of Tubingen and Basle before the end of the last century. The first grammar was published by Conrad Pellican in 1503. Eichhorn calls it an evidence of the deficiencies of his knowledge, though it cost him incredible pains. Reuchlin gave a better, with a dictionary, in 1506; which, enlarged by Munster, long continued to be a standard book. A Hebrew psalter, with three Latin translations, and one French, was published in 1509 by Henry Stephens, the progenitor of a race illustrious in typographical and literary history. Petrus de Alcala, in 1506, attempted an Arabic vocabulary, printing the words in Roman letter.[535]
[535] Eichhorn, ii. 562, 563; v. 609. Meiners’s Life of Reuchlin, in Lebensbeschreibungen berühmter Männer, i. 68. A very few instances of Hebrew scholars in the fifteenth century might be found, besides Reuchlin and Picus of Mirandola. Tiraboschi gives the chief place among these to Giannozzo Manetti, vii. 123.
Dramatic works. 11. If we could trust an article in the Biographie Universelle, a Portuguese, Gil Vicente, deserves the high praise of having introduced the regular drama into Europe; the first of his pieces having been represented at Lisbon in 1504.[536] But, according to the much superior authority of Bouterwek, Gil Vicente was a writer in the old national style of Spain and Portugal; and his early compositions are Autos, or spiritual dramas, totally unlike any regular plays, and rude both in design and execution. He became, however, a comic writer of great reputation among his countrymen at a later period, but in the same vein of uncultivated genius, and not before Machiavel and Ariosto had established their dramatic renown. The Calandra of Bibbiena, afterwards a cardinal, was represented at Venice in 1508, though not published till 1524. An analysis of this play will be found in Ginguéné; it bears only a general resemblance to the Menæchmi of Plautus. Perhaps the Calandra may be considered as the earliest modern comedy, or at least the earliest that is known to be extant; for its five acts and intricate plot exclude the competition of Maitre Patelin.[537] But there is a more celebrated piece in the Spanish language, of which it is probably impossible to determine the date; the tragi-comedy, as it has been called, of Calisto and Melibœa. |Calisto and Melibœa.| This is the work of two authors; one generally supposed to be Rodrigo Cota, who planned the story, and wrote the first act; the other, Fernando de Rojas, who added twenty more acts to complete the drama. This alarming number does not render the play altogether so prolix as might be supposed, the acts being only what with us are commonly denominated scenes. It is, however, much beyond the limits of representation. Some have supposed Calisto and Melibœa to have been commenced by Juan de la Mena before the middle of the fifteenth century. But this, Antonio tells us, shows ignorance of the style belonging to that author and to his age. It is far more probably of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella; and as an Italian translation appears to have been published in 1514, we may presume that it was finished and printed in Spain about the present decade.[538]
[536] Biogr. Univ., art. Gil Vicente. Another Life of the same dramatist in a later volume, under the title Vicente, seems designed to retract this claim. Bouterwek adverts to this supposed drama of 1504, which is an Auto on the festival of Corpus Christi, and of the simplest kind.
[537] Ginguéné,vi. 171. An earlier writer on the Italian theatre is in raptures with this play. “The Greeks, Latins, and moderns have never made, and perhaps never will make, so perfect a comedy as the Calandra. It is, in my opinion, the model of good comedy.” Riccoboni, Hist. du Théátre Italien, i. 148. This is much to say, and shows an odd taste, for the Calandra neither displays character nor excites interest.
[538] Antonio. Bibl. Hisp. Nova. Andrès, v. 125. La Celestina, says the later, certo contiene un fatto bene svolto, e spiegato con episodj verisimili e naturali, dipinge con verità i caratteri, ed esprime talora con calore gli affetti; e tutto questo à mio giudizio potrà bastare per darli il vanto d’essere stata la prima composizione teatrale scritta con eleganza e regolarità.