[958] Chalmers mentions an earlier edition of this dictionary in 1573, but without the Greek.
Greek taught in schools. 45. It appears, therefore, that before even the middle of the queen’s reign the rudiments of the Greek language were imparted to boys at Westminster school, and no doubt also at those of Eton, Winchester, and St. Paul’s.[959] But probably it did not yet extend to many others. In Ascham’s Schoolmaster, a posthumous treatise, published in 1570, but evidently written some years after the accession of Elizabeth, while very detailed, and in general, valuable rules are given for the instruction of boys in the Latin language, no intimation is found that Greek was designed to be taught. In the statutes of Witton School in Cheshire, framed in 1558, the founder says:—“I will there were always taught good literature, both Latin and Greek.”[960] But this seems to be only an aspiration after an hopeless excellence; for he proceeds to enumerate the Latin books intended to be used, without any mention of Greek. In the statutes of Merchant Taylor’s School, 1561, the high master is required to be “learned in good and clean Latin literature, and also in Greek, if such may be gotten.”[961] These words are copied from those of Colet, in the foundation of St. Paul’s School. But in the regulations of Hawkshead School in Lancashire, 1588, the master is directed “to teach grammar and the principles of the Greek tongue.”[962] The little tracts indeed, above-mentioned, do not lead us to believe that the instruction, even at Westminster, was of more than the slightest kind. They are but verbal translations of known religious treatises, wherein the learner would be assisted by his recollection at almost every word. But in the rules laid down by Mr. Lyon, founder of Harrow School, in 1590, the books designed to be taught are enumerated, and comprise some Greek orators and historians, as well as the poems of Hesiod.[963]
[959] Harrison mentions, about the year 1586, that at the great collegiate schools of Eton, Winchester, and Westminster, boys “are well entered in the knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues and rules of versifying.” Description of England, prefixed to Holingshed’s Chronicles, p. 254 (4to edition). He has just before taken notice of “the great number of grammar-schools throughout the realm, and those very liberally endowed for the relief of poor scholars, so that there are not many corporate towns now under the queen’s dominion that have not one grammar-school at the least, with a sufficient living for a master and usher appointed for the same.”
[960] Carlisle’s Endowed Schools, vol. i. p. 129.
[961] Id. vol. ii. p. 49.
[962] Id. vol. i. p. 656.
[963] Id. ii. 136. I have not discovered any other proofs of Greek education in Mr. Carlisle’s work. In the statutes or regulations of Bristol School, founded in the sixteenth century, it is provided that the head master should be “well learned in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.” But these must be modern, as appears, inter alia, by the words “well affected to the Constitution in Church and State.”
Greek better known after 1580. 46. We have now, however, descended very low in the century. The twilight of classical learning in England had yielded to its morning. It is easy to trace many symptoms of enlarged erudition after 1580. Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584, and doubtless many other writers, employ Greek quotations rather freely; and the use of Greek words, or adaptation of English forms to them, is affected by Webb and Puttenham in their treatises on poetry. Greek titles are not infrequently given to books; it was a pedantry many affected. Besides the lexicons above-mentioned, it was easy to procure, at no great price, those of Constantin and Scapula. We may refer to the ten years after 1580 the commencement of that rapid advance, which gave the English nation, in the reign of James, so respectable a place in the republic of letters. In the last decennium of the century, the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker is a monument of real learning, in profane as well as theological antiquity. But certainly the reading of our scholars in this period was far more generally among the Greek fathers than the classics. Even this, however, required a competent acquaintance with the language.
Editions of Greek. 47. The two universities had abandoned the art of printing since the year 1521. No press is known to have existed afterwards at Cambridge till 1584, or at Oxford till 1586, when six homilies of Chrysostom in Greek were published at a press erected by Lord Leicester at his own expense.[964] The first book of Herodotus came out at the same place in 1591; the treatise of Barlaam on the Papacy in 1592; Lycophron in the same year; the Knights of Aristophanes in 1593; fifteen orations of Demosthenes, in 1593 and 1597; Agatharcides in the latter year. One oration of Lysias was printed at Cambridge in 1593. The Greek testament appeared from the London press in 1581, in 1587, and again in 1592; a treatise of Plutarch, and three orations of Isocrates, in 1587; the Iliad in 1591. These, if I have overlooked none, or if none have been omitted by Herbert, are all the Greek publications (except grammars, of which there are several, one by Camden, for the use of Westminster School, in 1597,[965] and one in 1600, by Knolles, author of the History of the Turks) that fall within the sixteenth century; and all, apparently, are intended for classes in the schools and universities.[966]
[964] Herbert.