To his able assistant, also, in editing the works of Chrysostom, the Rev. John Boys, much gratitude is due for his enthusiasm in the cause of Grecian lore. So attached was he to this study, that during his fellowship of St. John's College, Cambridge, he voluntarily gave a Greek lecture every morning in his own room at four o'clock; and, what affords a still more striking picture of the learned enthusiasm of the times, it is recorded that this very early prelection was regularly attended by nearly all the fellows of his college!
Latin Literature appears to have been cultivated with greater purity and success in the prior than in the latter portion of Elizabeth's reign. It is scarcely necessary to mention the great names of George Buchanan and Walter Haddon, who divided the attention of the classical world, and drew from Elizabeth the following terse expression on their comparative merits:—Buchananum omnibus antepono; Haddonum nemini postpono.[454:A]
Nor can we fail to recollect the truly admirable production of Ascham, the "Schole Master; or plaine and perfite Way of teaching Children, to understand, write, and speake, the Latin Tonge:" than which a more interesting and judicious treatise has not appeared upon the subject in any language.
Among the most eminent Latin philologers who witnessed the close of the sixteenth century, may be mentioned the name of Edward Grant, Master of Westminster-School, who was celebrated for his Latin poetry, and who published, in 1577, Oratio de vita et obitu Rogeri Aschami, ac dictionis elegantia, cum adhortatione ad adolescentulos. He died in 1601.
With Grant should be classed the master of the free-school of Taunton in Somersetshire, John Bond, who subsequently practised as a physician, and died in 1612. He published, in 1606, some valuable commentaries, in the Latin language, on the poems of Horace, and, in 1614, on the Six Satires of Persius.
Roman literature, however, in this country was under yet higher obligations to John Rider, than to either of the preceding philologers; this learned prelate being the compiler of the first dictionary in our language, in which the English is placed before the Latin. It is entitled A Dictionary Engl. and Latin, and Latin and English. Oxon. 1589. 4to. Rider was promoted to the See of Killaloe in 1612, and died in 1632.
In our observations on the state of the English language we have noticed the labours of Ascham and Wilson as pre-eminently conducive to its improvement; the first of these writers having published two excellent models for English composition, and the second having presented us with a valuable treatise on rhetoric. To these should be added the efforts of Richard Mulcaster, first master of the Merchant-Taylors School, who, in 1581, published his "Positions, wherein those primitive circumstances be examined which are necessarie for the training up of Children, either for skill in theire Booke or Health in their Bodie;" a work which was followed, in the subsequent year, by "The first Part of the Elementarie, which entreateth chefely of the right Writing of the English Tung."
The Positions and the Elementarie of Mulcaster, though inferior in literary merit to the Scholemaster of Ascham, contributed materially to the progress of English philology, as they contain many valuable and acute observations on our language.
It appears, from the assertion of William Bullokar, an able co-operator in the work of education, that he was the author of the first English Grammar. In 1586 he printed his "Bref grammar for English," which is likewise entitled in fol. 1. "W. Bullokar's abbreviation of his Grammar for English extracted out of his Grammar at larg for the spedi parcing of English spech, and the eazier coming to the knowledge of grammar for other langages;" and Warton adds, in his account of Bullokar's writings, that among Tanner's books was found "a copy of his bref grammar above mentioned, interpolated and corrected with the author's own hand, as it appears, for a new impression. In one of these manuscript insertions, he
calls this, 'the first grammar for Englishe that ever waz, except my grammar at large.'"[456:A]