[655] Seckendorf, p. 198.
[656] Eichhorn, iii. 254, et post.
Sturm’s account of German schools. 20. We derive some acquaintance with the state of education in this age from the writings of John Sturm, than whom scarce any one more contributed to the cause of letters in Germany. He became in 1538, and continued for above forty years, rector of a celebrated school at Strasburg. Several treatises on education, especially one, De Literarum Ludis rectè instituendis, bear witness to his assiduity. If the scheme of classical instruction which he has here laid down may be considered as one actually in use, there was a solid structure of learning erected in the early years of life, which none of our modern academies would pretend to emulate. Those who feel any curiosity about the details of this course of education, which seems almost too rigorous for practice, will find the whole in Morhof’s Polyhistor.[657] It is sufficient to say, that it occupies the period of life between the ages of six and fifteen, when the pupil is presumed to have acquired a very extensive knowledge of the two languages. Trifling as it may appear to take notice of this subject, it serves at least as a test of the literary pre-eminence of Germany. For we could, as I conceive, trace no such education in France, and certainly not in England.
[657] Lib. ii. c. 10.
Learning in Germany. 21. The years of the life of Camerarius correspond to those of the century. His most remarkable works fall partly into the succeeding period; but many of the editions and translations of Greek authors, which occupied his laborious hours, were published before 1550. He was one of the first who knew enough of both languages, and of the subjects treated, to escape the reproach which has fallen on the translators of the fifteenth century. His Thucydides, printed in 1540, was superior to any preceding edition. The universities of Tubingen and Leipsic owed much of their prosperity to his superintending care. Next to Camerarius among the German scholars we may place Simon Grynæus, professor of Greek at Heidelberg in 1523, and translator of Plutarch’s Lives. Micyllus, his successor in this office, and author of a treatise De Re Metrica, of which Melanchthon speaks in high terms of praise, was more celebrated than most of his countymen for Latin poetry. Yet in this art he fell below Eobanus Hessus, whose merit is attested by the friendship of Erasmus, Melanchthon, and Camerarius, as well as by the best verses that Germany had to boast. It would be very easy to increase the list of scholars in that empire; but we should find it more difficult to exhaust the enumeration. Germany was not only far elevated in literary progress above France, but on a level, as we may fairly say, with Italy herself. The university of Marburg was founded in 1526, that of Copenhagen in 1539, of Königsberg in 1544, of Jena in 1548.
In England. Linacre. 22. We come now to investigate the gradual movement of learning in England, the state of which about 1520 we have already seen. In 1521, the first Greek characters appear in a book printed at Cambridge, Linacre’s Latin translation of Galen de Temperamentis, and in the title-page, but there only, of a treatise περι Διψαδων, by Bullock. They are employed several times for quotations in Linacre de Emendata Structura Orationis, 1524.[658] This treatise is chiefly a series of grammatical remarks, relating to distinctions in the Latin language now generally known. It must have been highly valuable, and produced a considerable effect in England, where nothing of that superior criticism had been attempted. In order to judge of its proper merit, it should be compared with the antecedent works of Valla and Perotti. Every rule is supported by authorities; and Linacre, I observe, is far more cautious than Valla in asserting what is not good Latin, contenting himself, for the most part, with showing what is. It has been remarked that, though Linacre formed his own style on the model of Quintilian, he took most of his authorities from Cicero. This treatise, the first fruits of English erudition, was well received, and frequently printed on the Continent. Melanchthon recommended its use in the schools of Germany. Linacre’s translation of Galen has been praised by Sir John Cheke, who in some respects bears rather hardly on his learned precursor.[659]
[658] The author begins by bespeaking the reader’s indulgence for the Greek printing. Pro tuo candore, optime lector, æquo animo feras, si quæ literæ in exemplis Hellenismi vel tonis, vel spiritibus, vel affectionibus careant. Iis enim non satis erat instructus typographus, videlicet recens ab eo fusis characteribus Græcis, nec parata ea copia quæ ad hoc agendum opus est.
[659] Johnson’s Life of Linacre.
Lectures in the universities. 23. Croke, who become tutor to the Duke of Richmond, son of Henry VIII., did not remain at Cambridge long after the commencement of this period. But in 1524, Robert Wakefield, a scholar of some reputation, who had been professor in a German university, opened a public lecture there in Greek, endowed with a salary by the king. We know little individually of his hearers; but notwithstanding the confident assertions of Antony Wood, there can be no doubt that Cambridge was, during the whole of this reign, at least on a level with the sister university, and indeed, to speak plainly, above it. Wood enumerates several persons educated at Oxford about this time, sufficiently skilled in Greek to write in that language, or to translate from it, or to comment upon Greek authors. The list might be enlarged by the help of Pits; but he is less of a scholar than Wood. This much, after all, is certain, that the only editions of classical authors published in England before 1540, except those already mentioned, are five of Virgil’s Bucolics, two of a small treatise of Seneca, with one of Publius Syrus; all evidently for the mere use of schoolboys. Lectures in Greek and Latin were, however, established in a few Colleges at Oxford.
Greek perhaps taught to boys. 24. If Erasmus, writing in 1528, is to be believed, the English boys were wont to disport in Greek epigrams.[660] But this must be understood as only applicable to a very few, upon whom some extraordinary pains had been bestowed. Thus Sir Thomas Elyot, in his Governor, first published in 1531, points out a scheme of instruction which comprehends the elements of the Greek language. There is no improbability in the supposition, and some evidence to support it, that the masters of our great schools, a Lily, a Cox, an Udal, a Nowell, did not leave boys of quick parts wholly unacquainted with the rudiments of a language they so much valued.[661] It tends to confirm this supposition, that in the statutes of the new cathedrals established by Henry in 1541, it is provided, that there shall be a grammar-school for each, with a head master, “learned in Latin and Greek.” Such statutes, however, are not conclusive evidences that they were put in force.[662] In the statutes of Wolsey’s intended foundation at Ipswich, some years earlier, though the course of instruction is amply detailed, we do not find it extend to the merest elements of Greek.[663] It is curious to compare this with the course prescribed by Sturm for the German schools.