Popularity of Comenius. 2. A sufficient evidence of this is found in the vast popularity which the writings of Comenius acquired in Germany. This author, a man of much industry, some ingenuity, and little judgment, made himself a colossal reputation by his Orbis Sensualium Pictus, and still more by his Janua Linguarum Reserata, the latter published in 1631. This contains, in 100 chapters subdivided into 1000 paragraphs, more than 9300 Latin words, exclusive, of course, of such as recur. The originality of its method consists in weaving all useful words into a series of paragraphs, so that they may be learned in a short time, without the tediousness of a nomenclature. It was also intended to blend a knowledge of things with one of words.[3] The Orbis Sensualium Pictus has the same end. This is what has since been so continually attempted in books of education, that some may be surprised to hear of its originality. No one, however, before Comenius seems to have thought of this method. It must, unquestionably, have appeared to facilitate the early acquirement of knowledge in a very great degree; and even with reference to language, if a compendious mode of getting at Latin words were the object, the works of Comenius would answer the purpose beyond those of any classical author. In a country where Latin was a living and spoken tongue, as was in some measure the case with Germany, no great strictness in excluding barbarous phrases is either practicable or expedient. But, according to the received principles of philological literature, they are such books as every teacher would keep out of the hands of his pupils. They were, nevertheless, reprinted and translated in many countries; and obtained a general reception, especially in the German empire, and similarly circumstanced kingdoms.[4]
[3] Biogr. Univ.
[4] Baillet, Critiques Grammairiens, part of the Jugemens des Sçavans (whom I cite by the number or paragraph, on account of the different editions), No. 634, quotes Lancelot’s remark on the Janua Linguarum, that it requires a better memory than most boys possess to master it, and that commonly the first part is forgotten before the last is learned. It excites disgust in the scholar, because he is always in a new country, every chapter being filled with words he has not seen before; and the successive parts of the book have no connection with one another.
Morhof, though he would absolutely banish the Janua Linguarum from all schools where good Latinity is required, seems to think rather better of the Orbis Sensualium Pictus, as in itself a happy idea, though the delineations are indifferent, and the whole not so well arranged as it might be. Polyhistor. lib. ii. c. 4.
Decline of Greek learning. 3. The Greek language, meantime, was thought unnecessary, and few, comparatively speaking, continued to prosecute its study. In Italy it can merely be said that there were still professors of it in the universities; but no one Hellenist distinguishes this century. Most of those who published editions of Greek authors in Germany, and they were far from numerous, had been formed in the last age. The decline was progressive; few scholars remained after 1620, and a long blank ensued, until Fabricius and Kuster restored the study of Greek near the end of the century. Even in France and Holland, where many were abundantly learned, and some, as we shall see, accomplished philologers, the Greek language seems to have been either less regarded, or at least less promoted by eminent scholars, than in the preceding century.[5]
[5] Scaliger, even in 1602, says: Quis hodie nescit Græcè? sed quis est doctus Græcè? Non dubito esse aliquot, sed paucos, et quos non novi ne de nomine quidem. Te unum novi et memoriæ avorum et nostri sæculi Græcè doctissimum, qui unus in Græcis præstiteris, quæ post renatas apud nos bonas literas omnes nunquam præstare potuissent. He goes on to speak of himself, as standing next to Casaubon, and the only competent judge of the extent of his learning; qui de præstantia doctrinæ tuæ certo judicare possit, ego aut unicus sum, aut qui cæteros hac in re magno intervallo vinco. Scal. Epist. 72.
Casaubon. 4. Casaubon now stood on the pinnacle of critical renown. His Persius in 1605, and his Polybius in 1609, were testimonies to his continued industry in this province.[6] But with this latter edition the philological labours of Casaubon came to an end. In 1610 he accepted the invitation of James I., who bestowed upon him, though a layman, a prebend in the church of Canterbury, and, as some, perhaps erroneously, have said, another in that of Westminster.[7] He died in England within four years after, having consumed the intermediate time in the defence of his royal patron against the Jesuits, and in writing Animadversions on the Annals of Baronius; works ill-suited to his peculiar talent, and in the latter of which he is said to have had but little success. He laments, in his epistles, the want of leisure for completing his labours on Polybius; the king had no taste but for theology, and he found no library in which he could pursue his studies.[8] “I gave up,” he says, “at last, with great sorrow, my commentary on Polybius, to which I had devoted so much time, but the good king must be obeyed.”[9] Casaubon was the last of the great scholars of the sixteenth century. Joseph Scaliger, who, especially in his recorded conversation, was very sparing of praise, says expressly, “Casaubon is the most learned man now living.” It is not impossible that he meant to except himself; which would by no means be unjust, if we take in the whole range of erudition; but in the exactly critical knowledge of the Greek language, Casaubon had not even a rival in Scaliger.
[6] The translation that Casaubon has here given of Polybius has generally passed for excellent, though some have thought him a better scholar in Greek than in Latin, and consequently not always able to render the sense as well as he conceived it. Baillet, n. 902. Schweighauser praises the annotations, but not without criticism, for which a later editor generally finds room in an earlier. Reiske, he says, had pointed out many errors.
[7] The latter is contradicted by Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature, vol. v., p. 126, on the authority of Le Neve’s Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ.
[8] Jacent curæ Polybianæ, et fortasse æternum jacebunt, neque enim satis commodus ad illa studia est locus. Epist. 705. Plura adderem, nisi omni librorum præsidio meorum deficerer. Quare etiam de commentariis Polybianis noli meminisse, quando rationes priorum meorum studiorum hoc iter mirificè conturbavit, ut vix sine suspirio ejus incepti possim meminisse, quod tot vigiliis mihi constitit. Sed neque adest mea bibliotheca, neque ea studia multum sunt ad gustum illius, cujus solius, quamdiu hic sum futurus, habenda mihi ratio. Ep. 704 (Feb. 1611). Rex optimus atque ευσεβεστατος rebus theologicis ita delectatur, ut aliis curis literariis non multum operæ impendat. Ep. 872. Ego quid hic agam, si cupis scire, hoc unum respondebo, omnia priora studia mea funditus interiisse. Nam maximus rex et liberalissimus unico genere literarum sic capitur, ut suum et suorum ingenia in illo detineat. Ep. 753.