[660] An tu credidisses unquam fore, ut apud Britannos aut Batavos pueri Græcè garrirent, Græcis epigrammatiis non infeliciter luderent? Dial. de Pronuntiatione, p. 48, edit. 1528.
[661] Churton, in his Life of Nowell, says that he taught the Greek testament to the boys at Westminster school, referring for authority to a passage in Strype, which I have not been able to find. There is nothing at all improbable in the fact. These inquiries will be deemed too minute by some in this age. But they are not unimportant in their bearing on the history of literature; and an exaggerated estimate of English learning in the age of the Reformation generally prevails. Sir Thomas Pope, founder of Trinity college, Oxford, observes in a letter to Cardinal Pole in 1556, that when he was “a young scholar at Eton, the Greek tongue was growing apace; the study of which is now alate much decayed.” Warton, iii. 279. I do not think this implies more than a reference to the time, which was about 1520.
[662] Warton, iii. 265.
[663] Strype’s Ecclesiast. Memorials. Appendix, No. 35.
Teaching of Smith at Cambridge. 25. But English learning was chiefly indebted for its more rapid advance to two distinguished members of the university of Cambridge, Smith, afterwards secretary of state to Elizabeth, and Cheke. The former began to read the Greek lecture in 1533. And both of them, soon afterwards, combined to bring in the true pronunciation of Greek, upon which Erasmus had already written. The early students of that language, receiving their instructions from natives, had acquired the vicious uniformity of sounds belonging to the corrupted dialect. Reuchlin’s school, of which Melanchthon was one, adhered to this, and were called Itacists, from the continual recurrence of the sound of Iota in modern Greek, being thus distinguished from the Etists of Erasmus’s party.[664] Smith and Cheke proved by testimonies of antiquity, that the latter were right; and “by this revived pronunciation,” says Strype, “was displayed the flower and plentifulness of that language, the variety of vowels, the grandeur of diphthongs, the majesty of long letters, and the grace of distinct speech.”[665] Certain it is, that about this time some Englishmen began to affect a knowledge of Greek. Sir Ralph Saddler, in his embassy to the king of Scotland, in 1540, had two or three Greek words embroidered on the sleeves of his followers, which led to a ludicrous mistake on the part of the Scotch bishops. Scotland, however, herself was now beginning to receive light; the Greek language was first taught in 1534 at Montrose, which continued for many years to be what some call a flourishing school.[666] But the whole number of books printed in Scotland before the middle of the century was only seven. No classical author, or even a grammar, is among these.[667]
[664] Eichhorn, iii. 217. Melanchthon, in his Greek grammar, follows Reuchlin; Luscinius is on the side of Erasmus. Ibid. In very recent publications, I observe that attempts have been made to set up again the “lugubres sonos, et illud flebile iota” of the modern Greeks. To adopt their pronunciation, even if right, would be buying truth very dear.
[665] Strype’s Life of Smith, p. 17. “The strain I heard was of a higher mood.” I wonder what author honest John Strype has copied or translated in this sentence; for he never leaves the ground so far in his own style.
[666] M’Crie’s Life of Knox, i. 6, and note C. p. 342.
[667] The list in Herbert’s History of Printing, iii. 468, begins with the Breviary of the Church of Aberdeen; the first part printed at Edinburgh in 1509, the second in 1510. A poem without date, addressed to James V., De Suscepto Regni Regimine, which seems to be in Latin, and must have been written about 1528, comes the nearest to a learned work. Two editions of Lindsay’s Poems, two of a translation of Hector Boece’s Chronicles, two of a temporary pamphlet called Scotland’s Complaint, with one of the statutes of the kingdom, printed in pursuance of an act of parliament passed in 1540, and a religious tract by one Balnaves, compose the rest.]