Cotgrave's dictionary was much superior to anything of the sort which had yet appeared. In addition to giving the meaning of each French word in English, with an indication of its gender in the case of nouns, and, in the case of adjectives, of the formation of the feminine form, Cotgrave supplied a collection of illustrative phrases, idioms, and proverbs. At the end are found "briefe directions for such as desire to learne the French tongue," giving a succinct treatment of the pronunciation of the letters, followed by a description of the various parts of speech.
This really remarkable work, which is still of considerable utility to the modern student, reigned supreme throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century. A second edition was issued in 1632, when Cotgrave was still alive. The only change in this issue is the addition of a "most copious Dictionarie of the English set before the French by R. S. L." This R. S. L. was Robert Sherwood, Londoner, who taught French and English in London, and also had a French school for a time. He gave his dictionary the title of Dictionarie Anglois et François pour l'utilité de tous ceux qui sont desireux de deux langues,[493] and addressed it to the "favorables lecteurs françois, alemans et autres." The English reader he advises to look for fuller information as to "the gender of all French nouns, and the conjugation of all French verbs" in Cotgrave's dictionary; the small space to which he was limited did not allow him to provide such information. Like Cotgrave, Sherwood closes with rules of grammar, in the form of observations on English pronunciation and on the English verbs. Sherwood's work is the earliest of the English-French dictionaries. Both Baret and Higgins had placed English before French, and no doubt Sherwood made use of their works, as well as of English-Latin dictionaries. Baret, however, gives an indication of the greater demand there was for French-English vocabularies, by supplying a table of French words at the end of his work. Moreover, the object of Sherwood's lexicon was less to facilitate translation from English to French than to teach English to foreigners.
In 1650 Cotgrave's dictionary was issued in a revised and augmented edition by James Howell, the famous letter-writer.[494] This edition is preceded by a lengthy essay on the French language, tracing its growth from the earliest times, and taken, without acknowledgement, from Pasquier's Recherches. Howell had already put much of the same matter in a series of letters addressed to the Earl of Clare in his Epistolae Ho-Elianae,[495] and repeated it in his glossary of English, French, Italian, and Spanish, the Lexicon Tetraglotten (1660). He quotes several examples of old French in both prose and verse, and adds on his own account a praise of Richelieu and the Academy recently founded by the cardinal. He also discusses the question as to where the best French was spoken—at the Court, among scholars at the University, or lawyers JAMES HOWELLat the Courts of Parliament—and is inclined to share the general opinion of the day, which made the Court the supreme arbiter in matters of language.
Cotgrave, it has been seen, included all sorts of words in his dictionary. Howell thought it necessary to distinguish obsolete and provincial words, and, accordingly, with the help of "a noble and knowing French gentleman," he marked such terms with a small cross. He also initiated another change by placing the grammar before the dictionary instead of after it, as Cotgrave did: "for a dictionary which contains the whole bulk of a language to go before the grammar is to make the building precede the basis. Therefore it was held more consentaneous to reason, and congruous to order that the grammar should be put here in the first place, for Art observes the method of Nature to make us creep before we go." He likewise made a few additions to Cotgrave's rules, and appended a dialogue in French and English, "consisting of some of the extraordinary and difficult criticall phrases which are meer Gallicismes, and pure idiomes of the French tongue"; and also a passage of French prose, in the old spelling and also according to the reformed orthography introduced by the Academy.
In 1660 appeared another edition of Cotgrave, still further enlarged by Howell.[496] Some years previously copies of the edition of 1650, "with blank pages sown between the leaves," had been sent by the printer "to knowing persons, true lovers of the French," who were invited to enter on the blank pages any word they came across in their reading which was not in the dictionary; by means of this plan several hundred additional words were gathered together, many being "new invented terms, which the admired Mons. Scudéry, and other late Romancers have so happily publisht in their printed volumes." After Howell's death there appeared yet another issue of his edition of Cotgrave, in 1673.[497] The printer employed the same means to increase the number of words as had been so successfully adopted in 1660.
The appearance of French dictionaries naturally facilitated the reading of French literature, which in its turn had much influence on the spread of the knowledge of the language. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, it has been seen, gained his first knowledge of French by reading it with the help of a dictionary. And, in spite of the fact that French literature was widely read in translations,[498] there were many who preferred to read it in the original. The number of French books in private libraries is enough to show this. One translator of the time felt it necessary to apologize for offering an English version (1627) "of the French Knight Lisander and his lady Calista," contrary to the fashion of the time, "which is all French."[499] Further testimony is found in the many French books which were printed in England,[500] in addition to the books in both French and English. And many English writers of the time introduced French freely into their own English compositions.[501]
Almost all Englishmen of education could read French, and many, no doubt, learnt it as Herbert did. Milton, who differed from most of his countrymen in his decided STUDY OF FRENCH LITERATUREpreference for Italian, taught both languages to his two pupils and nephews, Edward and John Philips, on this method of reading. For Italian they read Giovanni Villani's History, and for French "a great part of Pierre Davity, the famous geographer of France in his time."[502] In fashionable circles the case was the same, and French romances and collections of nouvelles were much in vogue. Lady Brilliana Harley, for instance, who later distinguished herself by defending her castle in Herefordshire against the Royalists, spent much of her time reading French literature. She wrote asking her son, then at Magdalen College, Oxford (1638-9), to send her books in French, as she "had rather reade any thinge in that tounge than in Inglisch."[503] She would even while away days of sickness by translating passages of Calvin, whom the English Protestants, yielding to the general prejudice in favour of all things French, followed in preference to Luther. Not infrequently, moreover, works in other languages were read in French versions, just as such versions were frequently the medium of translation; Drummond of Hawthornden read Orlando Furioso and the Azolani of Bembo in French, as well as the works of the Swiss theologian and follower of Zwingli, Thomas Erastus.[504]
Among the most eager advocates of the reading of French literature were naturally the French teachers of the time. One of the chief objections raised against Holyband's system of distinguishing the unpronounced letters was that the student would be at a loss when he came to read French books. Holyband, however, protested that such was not the case, and that "the cavillation of these ignorantes who measure other men's wit according to their owne" was in contradiction to his experience, which daily showed him the contrary. As to his reading, Holyband would first have the learner "reade halfe a score chapters of the New Testament, because it was both easie and profitable:[505] then let him take in hand any of the works of Monsieur de Launay, otherwise called Pierre Boaystuau, as the best and the most elegant writer of our tongue. His workes be le Theatre du monde, the tragicall histories, the prodigious histories. Sleidan's commentaries in frenche be excellently translated. Philippe de Commins, when he is corrected is very profitable and wise." The Nouveau Testament of de Bèze, Boiasteau's Théâtre du monde, and Sleidan's Commentaries[506] were all books well known in England, and Holyband himself prepared an edition of Boiasteau.[507] An additional reason, according to him, for retaining the unsounded consonants was to facilitate the reading of the older monuments of the French language. He also advised the perusal of Marot's works, of the Amadis of Herberay des Essarts, of François de Belleforest's Histoire Universelle du monde, of the Vies et Morales de Plutarque, in Amyot's version, and of the collection of stories, on the plan of the Decameron, which its author, Jacques Yver, had entitled Le Printemps (1572),[508] by way of contrast with his own name.
Evidently Holyband's choice of French literature was influenced to some extent by his religious sympathies. It is curious that he makes no mention of Ronsard, who was much read in England, and one of the favourite authors of the Queen. Bellot in his Grammar had similar if not identical ambitions. He sought to enable his pupils to read the Amadis of Des Essarts, Marot, de Bèze, du Bellay's lyrics, Froissart, Ronsard, Collet[509] and Jodelle "racontans l'un l'amour et l'autre la guerre cruelle." Pibrac and Du Bartas have already been mentioned as favourite authors. It was to encourage his pupils to take delight in the "profound learning and flowing sweetness of the French poets, especially the divine works of that matchlesse du Bartas," that a French teacher of the seventeenth century, Pierre Erondell, printed at the end of his book for teaching the language, the New Testament story of the Centurion, rendered by himself into French verse. "This poor work," he quaintly writes, will encourage learners to read better ones, "because everything is better known by his contrarye and the sweet sweeter, after that the mouth hath tasted of the sharpe sower."
Naturally writings of a religious character were much in favour with these teachers. AUTHORS USUALLY READHolyband advised the reading of de Bèze's New Testament, and several times we hear of "the French Bible" being printed in England.[510] The Liturgy in French[511] was also printed, and would be useful to English students of French attending the French Church.