At this same period the popular French grammar of Charles Maupas, well known to many travellers to France, was translated into English by William Aufeild and published in 1634. WILLIAM AUFEILDMaupas's grammar, first printed at Blois in 1607, had won a considerable reputation in England, and was not without noticeable influence on the French grammars published in London. Sherwood, who had made free use of Maupas, praised him very highly. James Howell, in his edition of Cotgrave's Dictionary, advises students to seek fuller grammatical information in Maupas's Grammar, "the exactest and most scholarlike of all." William Aufeild, the translator of the book—"the best instructions for that language by the consent of all that know the book, that were ever written"—considers that it excels all the French grammars ever produced in England: "all of them put together do not teach half so well the idiom of the French tongue as this one doth." We are assured that the work was in great demand when it first appeared in England, and that a great number of the nobility and gentry were commonly taught by means of it. Finding that the fact that it was written in French was a great drawback, as it could only be used by those who already understood French, Aufeild decided to translate it into English, and dedicated his work to the young Duke of Buckingham,[788] son of the duke to whom Maupas had offered the original. Aufeild tells that he had been studying French for ten years when he undertook his task. He called the translation A French grammar and Syntaxe, contayning most exact and certaine Rules for the pronunciation, Orthography, construction and use of the French language.[789]
To adapt the work to the use of the English, the translator placed a small cross under letters not pronounced in the French word, thus adopting Holyband's plan. These letters were also printed in a different type, "that better notice might be taken of them." He also endeavours to give the sounds of the French alphabet in English spelling, so that if the student "pronounce the one like an Englishman, he must needs pronounce the same sounds, written after the French manner, like a Frenchman." This, he says, is the only invention which he claims as his own in the whole work. "The examples as well as the text, are englished to save the reader so many lookings in his Dictionary"; and the word to which the rule has special reference is printed in different type from the rest of the example. Occasionally the text is expanded by additional explanations, included in parentheses.
Aufeild advises the student of French to read the whole grammar through first, in order to get a general notion of the language. It is vain, he argues, to begin learning rules for the pronunciation of a language of which you are totally ignorant. Especially is this so in the case of the "unlearned," that is, those unacquainted with Latin grammar. For instance, "you shall find that in all the third persons plural of verbes ending in -ent, n is not pronounced," and so on. Now, "unless a man can distinguish an adverbe from a verbe," he says, "or till he know how the plurall number is made of the singular how shall he know ... when to leave out n before t?" "In my opinion," he adds, "it is but a dull and wearisome thing for a man to take a great deale of paines, in learning to pronounce what he understandeth not." Clearly his ideal was a preliminary grounding in the general principles of grammar. When you have a general knowledge of the whole language you may begin at the pronunciation and "so goe through it againe in order as it lieth." In the second reading the student should take into account the less important rules which are omitted in the first perusal.
Aufeild's final piece of advice is at variance with the general practice among teachers of the time. He would have the pupil postpone all attempts at speaking the language until the last stages: "be not too greedy," he warns the reader, "to be thought a speaker of French before you are sure you understand what you read." The best known teacher of Italian in the seventeenth century, Torriano, was of the same opinion: "for the avoiding of a vulgar error or fault very predominant in many, namely of being over hasty to be speaking of a language, before it be well understood, I thought not amiss to produce the quotation of one Mr. Wm. Aufeild.... I jump with him that they who are last at speaking speak the best and surest and so much I find by my experience among my scholars."[790] Many years before, Roger Ascham had expressed the same view with regard to the teaching of Latin. He admitted that the "dailie use of speaking was the best method," but only provided the learner could always AUFEILD'S ADVICE TO STUDENTShear the language spoken correctly and avoid "the habit of the evil choice of words, and crooked forming of sentences"; but as it is, loquendo male loqui discunt, and he advises the postponement of speaking until some progress had been made.[791]
Considering Aufeild's ideas as to the speaking of French, we quite expect to find him condemning attempts to pick up the language without the help of rules; "for if with Rules, you shall be often at a loss, certainly you shall stick at every word without them." It may be that "they which take another way, may speake more words in halfe a yeare then you shall in twelve month; but in a year's space you may, with diligence and industry, speake better (and after a while more) than another shall doe all his life time, unless there be a vast disparity between your abilities of mind."
His attitude as to the respective importance of grammatical study and its practical application was not in keeping with that of Maupas, of whom he said, "I know not whom you can equal to him." Maupas had written his grammar in French instead of the international language, Latin, because he advocated the study of the grammar in the French language itself; he taught reading and pronunciation by means of reading the grammar in French. Aufeild, on the contrary, considered it a drawback that when English students travelled into France they had to learn enough French to converse with their teachers before they could learn of their teachers how to converse with others. This was the reason which induced him to translate the grammar, although in doing so he, no doubt unconsciously, set at nought Maupas's principal reason for writing it in French.
We know of no other French grammar produced in France which was specially favoured by English learners of French. But no doubt many Englishmen, besides those who travelled, studied from French grammars. English travellers returning from France would, no doubt, bring back grammars which might also arrive through other channels. Even in the time of Elizabeth foreign books had been freely imported into England, and the foreign trade of the stationers of London was very extensive. That the early French grammars were known in England is shown by their influence on those produced in England, although in many cases this is more readily explained by the circumstance that they were the work of Frenchmen newly arrived from France. However, it is not likely that these French grammars were ever widely used in England for learning the language, when books in English were ready to hand and easier to use. In Scotland, on the other hand, where such books were not in existence, they were probably more widely employed. Both countries, Scotland in particular, made free use of foreign text-books for the teaching of Latin; but the case is hardly the same for the international language.
In the meantime the production of French grammars in England continued uninterruptedly. The Flower de Luce planted in England was the title of a grammar which appeared in 1619. This work was due to one Laur Du Terme, of whom nothing is known beyond the fact that he was a Frenchman and a protégé of Bacon, then Lord Chancellor. Du Terme had evidently been in England long enough to acquire some knowledge of English, in which he wrote his grammar. After imploring his patron to water his 'flower' with a few drops of favourable approbation, he proceeds to address the gentle reader in these words: "Looke not in this Treatise, for any eloquent words, nor polished sentences, for I doe not go about to begge any favour nor insinuate into any man's love by coloured and misticall phrases.[792] Neither do I intend to teach my masters, but in requitall of your kind curtesie in teaching mee this little English I have, do in the same set downe suche precepts as I find best for the pronouncing, understanding, and speaking of the French tongue." These precepts he selected from other grammars "used by many both teachers and learners, yet I presume this will be as agreeable as any were yet, and in brief containing more than ever I saw yet in English." The pronunciation is explained by comparison with English sounds, and then each part of speech is treated in turn; constant analogies with Latin occur, and he also gives a list of French suffixes with their Latin roots, and endeavours to introduce the Latin gerund and supine into French grammar, not being of those who sought to delatinize French grammar. For the verbs he refers the student to the rules given by Cotgrave at the end of his dictionary, "very profitable for every learner to reade," where they are arranged in four conjugations, "while some authors make three, some five, some six, and little enough for the understanding of all the verbs." LAUR DU TERMEHe makes no claim to completeness—"and if by chance I have applied a rule instead of an exception or an exception instead of a rule, the teacher may easily mend it, and your courteous censure in reciprocall of the good-will I beare unto you I hope will excuse it. Reade it over, but not slightly, consider every rule and way every word in it."
Du Terme's aim in his rules is to be brief and plain. He desired them to be regarded in the light of a reference book. The student was to begin to read from the very first. The Flower de Luce does not provide the usual stock of reading-exercises, and Du Terme advises the student to use "any good French author he likes best; and what word soever he goes about to reade, let him looke upon his Rules concerning the pronunciation of the letters, how they are pronounced in several places, first the vowell, then what consonants are before and after, and, having compared and brought all the Rules concerning those letters together, he shall easily finde the true pronunciation of any word." The sounds of the language should be thoroughly mastered at the outset: "Bestow rather five days in learning five vowels, then to learne and passe them over in a day, as being the chief and only ground of all the rest, without the which you shall loose your labour, not being able to pronounce one diphthongue unless you pronounce the vowels well, perfectly, neatly and distinctly, without confounding one with another. The which case you must observe in the consonants." For the proper understanding of the matter read, he recommends the use of "some bookes that are both English and French, as the Bible, the Testament, and many others that are very common in England." He admits that this method is slow and difficult at first, "yet notwithstanding, after a little labour, will prove exceeding easie, as by experience hath been tryed: in so much as some have learned perfectly to reade and understande the most part in less than the quarter of a year, onely applying themselves unto it one hour and a half in a day."
Paul Cougneau or Cogneau, another French teacher of London, also wrote a French grammar at this period. He called it A sure Guide to the French tongue, and published it in 1635. Cogneau had no mean opinion of his book. "It hath in some things a peculiar way, not commonly traced by others," he tells us. "In the beginning are rules of pronunciation, then for the declension of articles, nouns and pronouns, and in the end the conjugation of diverse verbs, both personal and impersonal ... and throughout the whole book there is so great a multiplicity of various phrases congested as no one book for the bulk contains more. All which besides are set forth with plainness as fit it for the capacity even of the meanest. Much pains hath been employed about it, and I hope not without great benefit and profit in the right use of it, and consequently not unworthy of the kind acceptance which I heartily wish." But the work has little value or originality, in spite of its interest to the modern reader. The rules occupy thirty pages only. They are taken mainly from Holyband and De la Mothe. The nouns, articles, and pronouns receive very meagre treatment, but the auxiliaries and verbs, the regular and a few irregular verbs, are fully conjugated at the end of the book, being arranged in sentence form, as in many modern text-books: