The progress of learning is still slow. 30. The reader must be surprised to find that, notwithstanding these high and just commendations of our scholars, no Greek grammars or lexicons were yet printed in England, and scarcely any works in that or the Latin languages. In fact, there was no regular press in either university at this time, though a very few books had been printed in each about 1520; nor had they one till near the end of Elizabeth’s reign. Reginald Wolfe, a German printer, obtained a patent, dated April 19th, 1541, giving him the exclusive right to print in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and also Greek and Latin grammars, though mixed with English, and charts and maps. But the only productions of his press before the middle of the century, are two homilies of Chrysostom, edited by Cheke in 1543. Elyot’s Latin and English Dictionary, 1538, was the first, I believe, beyond the mere vocabularies of schoolboys; and it is itself but a meagre performance.[672] Latin grammars were of course so frequently published, that it has not been worth while to take notice of them. But the Greek and Latin lexicon of Hadrian Junius, though dedicated to Edward VI., and said to have been compiled in England, (I know not how this could be the case), being the work of a foreigner, and printed at Basle in 1548, cannot be reckoned as part of our stock.[673]
[672] Elyot boasts that this “contains a thousand more Latin words than were together in any one dictionary published in this realm at the time when I first began to write this commentary.” Though far from being a good, or even, according to modern notions, a tolerable dictionary, it must have been of some value at the time. It was afterwards much augmented by Cooper.
[673] Wood ascribes to one Tolley or Tolleius a sort of Greek grammar, Progymnasmata Linguæ Græcæ, dedicated to Edward VI. And Pits, in noticing also other works of the same kind, says of this: Habentur Monachii in Bavaria in bibliotheca ducali. As no mention is made of such a work by Herbert or Dibdin, I had been inclined to think its existence apocryphal. It is certainly foreign.
Want of books and public libraries. 31. It must appear on the whole, that under Edward VI. there was as yet rather a commendable desire of learning, and a few vigorous minds at work for their own literary improvement, than any such diffusion of knowledge as can entitle us to claim for that age an equality with the chief continental nations. The means of acquiring true learning were not at hand. Few books, as we have seen, useful to the scholar, had been published in England; those imported were of course expensive. No public libraries of any magnitude had yet been formed in either of the universities; those of private men were exceedingly few. The king had a library, of which honourable mention is made; and Cranmer possessed a good collection of books at Lambeth; but I do not recollect any other person of whom this is recorded.
Destruction of monasteries no injury to learning. 32. The progress of philological literature in England was connected with that of the Reformation. The learned of the earlier generation were not all protestants, but their disciples were zealously such. They taunted the adherents of the old religion with ignorance; and though by that might be meant ignorance of the Scriptures, it was by their own acquaintance with languages that they obtained their superiority in this respect. And here I may take notice, that we should be greatly deceived by acquiescing in the strange position of Warton, that the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 and the next two years gave a great temporary check to the general state of letters in England.[674] This writer, however, is inconsistent with himself; for no one had a greater contempt for the monastic studies, dialectics and theology. But, as a desire to aggravate, in every possible respect, the supposed mischiefs of the dissolution of monasteries, is abundantly manifest in many writers later than Warton, I shall briefly observe, that men are deceived, or deceive others, by the equivocal use of the word learning. If good learning, bonæ literæ, which for our present purpose means a sound knowledge of Greek and Latin, was to be promoted, there was no more necessary step in doing so, than to put down bad learning, which is worse than ignorance, and which was the learning of the monks, so far as they had any at all. What would Erasmus have thought of one who should in his days have gravely intimated, that the abolition of monastic foundations would retard the progress of literature? In what protestant country was it accompanied with such a consequence, and from whom, among the complaints sometimes made, do we hear this cause assigned? I am ready to admit, that in the violent courses pursued by Henry VIII. many schools attached to monasteries were broken up, and I do not think it impossible that the same occurred in other parts of Europe. It is also to be fully stated and kept in mind, that by the Reformation the number of ecclesiastics, and consequently of those requiring what was deemed a literate education, was greatly reduced. The English universities, as we are well aware, do not contain by any means the number of students that frequented them in the thirteenth century. But are we therefore a less learned nation than our fathers of the thirteenth century? Warton seems to lament, that “most of the youth of the kingdom betook themselves to mechanical or other illiberal employments, the profession of letters being now supposed to be without support or reward.” Doubtless many who would have learned the Latin accidence, and repeated the breviary, became useful mechanics. But is this to be called, not rewarding the profession of letters? and are the deadliest foes of the Greek and Roman muses to be thus confounded with their worshippers? The loss of a few schools in the monasteries was well compensated by the foundation of others on a more enlightened plan and with much better instructors, and after the lapse of some years, the communication of substantial learning came in the place of that tincture of Latin which the religious orders had supplied. Warton, it should be remarked, has been able to collect the names of not more than four or five abbots and other regulars, in the time of Henry VIII., who either possessed some learning themselves, or encouraged it in others.
[674] Hist. of Engl. Poetry, iii. 268.
Ravisius Textor. 33. We may assist our conception of the general state of learning in Europe, by looking at some of the books which were then deemed most usefully subsidiary to its acquisition. Besides the lexicons and grammatical treatises that have been mentioned, we have a work first published about 1522, but frequently reprinted, and in much esteem, the Officina of Ravisius Textor. Of this book Peter Danés, a man highly celebrated in his day for erudition, speaks as if it were an abundant storehouse of knowledge, admirable for the manner of its execution, and comparable to any work of antiquity. In spite of this praise, it is no more than a commonplace book from Latin authors, and from translations of the Greek, and could deserve no regard except in a half-informed generation.
Conrad Gesner. 34. A far better evidence of learning was given by Conrad Gesner, a man of prodigious erudition, in a continuation of his Bibliotheca Universalis (the earliest general catalogue of books with an estimate of their merits), to which he gave the rather ambitious title of Pandectæ Universales, as if it were to hold the same place in general science that the Digest of Justinian does in civil law. It is a sort of index to all literature, containing references only, and therefore less generally useful, though far more learned and copious in instances, than the Officina of Ravisius. It comprehends, besides all ancient authors, the schoolmen and other writers of the middle ages. The references are sometimes very short, and more like hints to one possessed of a large library, than guides to the general student. In connection with the Bibliotheca Universalis, it forms a literary history or encyclopædia, of some value to those who are curious to ascertain the limits of knowledge in the middle of the sixteenth century.