[825] Ginguéné, vii. 390. Corniani, iv. 111.
58. Several other treatises on the Italian language appeared even before the middle of the century; though few comparatively with the more celebrated and elaborate labours of criticism in its latter portion. None seem to deserve mention, unless it be the Observations of Ludovico Dolce (Venice 1550), which were much improved in subsequent editions. Of the higher kind of criticism which endeavours to excite and guide our perceptions of literary excellence, we find few or no specimens, even in Italy, within this period, except so far as the dialogues of Bembo furnish instances.
Grammarians and critics in France. 59. France was not destitute of a few obscure treatises at this time, enough to lay the foundations of her critical literature. The complex rules of French metre were to be laid down; and the language was irregular in pronunciation, accent, and orthography. These meaner, but necessary, elements of correctness occupied three or four writers, of whom Goujet has made brief mention; Sylvius, or Du Bois, who seems to have been the earliest writer on grammar; Stephen Dolet, better known by his unfortunate fate, than by his essay on French punctuation;[826] and though Goujet does not name him, we may add an Englishman, Palsgrave, who published a French grammar in English as early as 1530.[827] An earlier production than any of these is the Art de Plaine Rhétorique, by Peter Fabry, 1521; in which, with the help of some knowledge of Cicero, he attempted, but with little correctness, and often in absurd expressions, to establish the principles of oratory. If his work is no better than Goujet represents it to be, its popularity must denote a low condition of literature in France.[828] The first who aspired to lay down anything like laws of taste in poetry, was Thomas Sibilet, whose Art Poétique appeared in 1548. This is in two books; the former relating to the metrical rules of French verse, the latter giving precepts, short and judicious, for different kinds of composition. It is not, however, a work of much importance.[829]
[826] Goujet, Bibliothèque Française, i. 42, 81.
[827] Biogr. Univ., Palsgrave.
[828] Goujet, i. 361.
[829] Goujet, iii. 92.
Orthography of Meigret. 60. A more remarkable grammarian of this time was Louis Meigret, who endeavoured to reform orthography by adapting it to pronunciation. In a language where these had come to differ so prodigiously as they did in French, something of this kind would be silently effected by the printers; but the bold scheme of Meigret went beyond their ideas of reformation; and he complains that he could not prevail to have his words given to the public in the form he preferred. They were ultimately less rigid; and the new orthography appears in some grammatical treatises of Meigret, published about 1550. It was not, as we know, very successful; but he has credit given him for some improvements which have been retained in French printing. Meigret’s French grammar, it has been said, is the first that contains any rational or proper principles of the language. It has been observed, I know not how correctly, that he was the first who denied the name of case to those modifications of sense in nouns which are not marked by inflexion; and the writer to whom I am indebted for this adds, what is more worth attention, that this limited meaning of the word case, which the modern grammars generally adopt, is rather an arbitrary deviation from their predecessors.[830]
[830] Biogr. Univ., Meigret, a good article. Goujet, i. 83.
Cox’s Art of Rhetoric. 61. It would have been strange, if we could exhibit a list of English writers on the subject of our language in the reign of Henry VIII., when it has, at all times, been the most neglected department of our literature. The English have ever been as indocile in acknowledging the rules of criticism, even those which determine the most ordinary questions of grammar, as the Italians and French have been voluntarily obedient. Nor had they as yet drunk deep enough of classical learning to discriminate, by any steady principle, the general beauties of composition. Yet among the scanty rivulets that the English press furnished, we find “The Art or Craft of Rhetoryke,” dedicated by Leonard Cox to Hugh Faringdon, abbot of Reading. This book, which, though now very scarce, was translated into Latin, and twice printed at Cracow in the year 1526,[831] is the work of a schoolmaster and man of reputed learning. The English edition has no date, but was probably published about 1524. Cox says: “I have partly translated out of a work of rhetoric written in the Latin tongue, and partly compiled of my own, and so made a little treatise in manner of an introduction into this aforesaid science, and that in the English tongue, remembering that every good thing, after the saying of the philosopher, the more common the better it is.” His Art of Rhetoric follows the usual distribution of the ancients, both as to the kinds of oration and their parts; with examples, chiefly from Roman history, to direct the choice of arguments. It is hard to say how much may be considered as his own. The book is in duodecimo, and contains but eighty-five pages; it would of course be unworthy of notice in a later period.