FRENCH GRAMMARS—BOOKS FOR TEACHING LATIN AND FRENCH—FRENCH IN PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS

One of the most noted teachers of English as well as of French was Robert Sherwood, who in 1632 completed his English-French Dictionary which was appended to the new edition of Cotgrave's work issued in that year.[784] Sherwood was born in Norfolk,[785] although he later called himself a Londoner. In July 1622 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1626. He then moved to London and opened a language school in St. Sepulchre's Churchyard, where he continued to teach for many years. He also taught English to many French, German, Danish, and Flemish nobles and gentlemen who visited London. To these distinguished visitors he dedicated his dictionary in 1632, as well as the second edition of his French grammar in 1634, expressing the hope that he would soon be able to produce an English grammar "toute entière," for only the practical exercises in French and English could be of use to them in their study of English. His French grammar was intended "for the furtherance and practice of gentlemen, scollers and others desirous of the said language." We gather that Sherwood's school was limited entirely to the higher classes, and was very different from Holyband's noisy and bustling establishment.

The first edition of Sherwood's French Tutour, as he called his grammar, saw the light in 1625,[786] just before he graduated at Cambridge. He had probably worked at it as well as at his dictionary during his residence there, and appears to have taught French to private pupils. How he first acquired his knowledge of French, we do not know. He may have spent some years in France before going to Cambridge, since he would not find much opportunity of studying the language there. His work is little more than a translation of selections from the French grammar of Charles Maupas of Blois (1625). Perhaps he studied the language with Maupas himself, of whom he speaks with great respect. In parts of his grammar, however, Sherwood drew on his own "long experience" in teaching French.

The second edition of the French Tutour (1634) is said to be carefully corrected and enlarged. In it Sherwood follows the usual order of treatment. First come rules of pronunciation, then of grammar, which show "the nature and use of the Articles, a thing of no small importance in this language: also the way to find out the gender of all nounes: the conjugation of all the verbs regular and irregular; and after which followeth a list of most of the indeclinable parts (which commonly do much hinder learners) Alphabetically Englished; with a most ample syntax of all the parts of speech." This section closes with an alphabetical index "interpreting such nounes and verbes as are unenglished in the grammar." The practical exercises are in the form of "three dialogues and a touch of French compliments," in French and English, arranged in two parallel columns on a page. The first deals with familiar talk by the wayside, depicting travellers on their road to London, and, on their arrival, taking lodgings at the Black Swan in Holborn, doing their shopping, and taking their evening meal. The other two dialogues treat of less familiar subjects; and, on the whole, Sherwood's book was not of a popular kind, but was intended for the "learned." One describes the exercises and studies of the nobility, dancing, riding, fencing, hunting, geography, cosmography, and so forth; and the other turns on the subject of travel in foreign countries, in which Sherwood emphasizes the necessity for the traveller of "some good and fundamental beginning in the language of the country whither he goeth." The Tutour closes with a selection of French compliments from the book of M. L. Miche on French courtesy, to which Sherwood added an English version.

Another Englishman also ventured in the early years of the seventeenth century to write on the French language—William Colson, who called himself a Professor of Literal and Liberal Sciences. He had spent many years abroad as WILLIAM COLSONtravelling companion to young English gentlemen, "as well learning as teaching such laudable arts and qualities as are most fitting for a gentleman's exercise." Seemingly he spent some time in the Low Countries, and he may have found his pupils among the English troops serving there, as in 1603 he published at Liége a book in French on arithmetic which also provides military information. Before 1612 he had returned to London, where he composed a similar work in English, dedicated to the Lords of the Privy Council.[787] He tells us that on his return from his travels he wrote "certaine litteral workes," mostly on the teaching of languages, and like an earlier English writer, John Eliote, evolved a special method which he called "arte locall or the arte of memorie." He expounds his "method," which is very vague and obscure in its application, in one of his French text-books which appeared in London in 1620 and was called The First Part of the French grammar, Artificially Deduced, into Tables by Arte Locall, called the Arte of Memorie. Colson desired to reconcile the old orthography with the new, as Holyband had done earlier, by means of a reformed alphabet of twenty-six letters, and of a triple distinction of characters, Roman, Italian, and English. Roman type was to stand for the proper pronunciation, that is, letters which are pronounced as they are written; the Italian for the improper, that is, letters which are not given their usual pronunciation; and finally the letters written but not sounded were to be printed in black letter. In his reformed alphabet he divides the letters into seven vowels and eighteen consonants, and subdivides the consonants into semivowels and mutes. He gives each letter its usual name, and then its special name according to his own scheme, as follows:

AE'EOIYVHSZXILRNM FΛBP:DTGKCQ
aéeoiyuéhésézéxéiéléréném éféΛébép:édétégékécéq
proper names
speciall names
hesézéxéiélérénémé féΛébépé:détégékécéqé
Aspiration ↓ ↓
8 semivowels 10 mutes
↓
7 vowels		 ↓
18 consonants
↓
Elements and Letters

And all the said Alphabet is briefly contained in these five artificiall words to be learnt by heart:—Haeiou—sezexeie—lereneme—feΛebepe—detegeke.

After treating of the letters, Colson proceeds to deal with the other three chief parts of grammar—"the sillible, the diction, and the locution" (the last two dealing with accidence and syntax respectively) in a similarly intricate and obscure style. It is difficult to imagine what can have been his reasons for his scheme of complicated divisions and sub-divisions, more like a puzzle than anything else. Yet he appears to have been serious, and assures us that once his reformed alphabet is mastered "the perfect pronunciation, reading, and writing of the French tongue is gotten in the space of one month or thereabouts." It is not surprising that his attempted reform passed quite unheeded.

This First Part of the French grammar, which is dedicated to "the Worshippfull, worthie and vertuous gentleman, M. Emanuel Giffard, Esquire," seems to be the only one of Colson's works on the French language which has survived. At its close is a large folding sheet, containing the table of his reformed alphabet, dedicated to Sir Michael Stanhope and Sir William Cornwallis by their affectionate servant. The date is 1613. Colson informs us that he had also compiled a French grammar divided into four parts, after a new method. He likewise refers to "all his bookes tending to the instruction of the French tongue," such as his "booke of the declination of nouns, and conjugation of Verbes," and his "three repertories of the English, French, and Latine tongues, compounded by arte locall for aiding the memorie in learning most speedily the words of the foresaide tongues by heart in halfe time": his "Repertoire of all syllables in general and of all French words in particular containing the Art to learn them easily by heart in verie short time and with little labour to the great contentment of him which is desirous of the French tongue, all reduced into Tables by Art Locall as before said": and "other works of ours shortly to be printed tending to the knowledge of the foresaid tongues, in which works is set downe by Art and order local (called the Art of Memory) most easy and brief rules to learne the foresaid bookes by heart." Most of these, no doubt, were short pamphlets, perhaps in the shape of the large folding sheet inserted at the end of the Grammar of 1620, and so stood but little chance of survival.