The Scholemaster

by Roger Ascham

Saluste.

Salust, is a wise and worthy writer: but he requireth a learned Reader, and a right considerer of him. // Salust. My dearest frend, and best master that euer I had // Syr Iohn or heard in learning, Syr I. Cheke, soch a man, as // Chekes if I should liue to see England breed the like // iudgement againe, I feare, I should liue ouer long, did once // and coun- giue me a lesson for Salust, which, as I shall neuer // sell for rea- forget my selfe, so is it worthy to be remembred // dyng of of all those, that would cum to perfite iudgement // Saluste. of the Latin tong. He said, that Salust was not verie fitte for yong men, to learne out of him, the puritie of the Latin tong: because, he was not the purest in proprietie of wordes, nor choisest in aptnes of phrases, nor the best in framing of sentences: and therefore is his writing, sayd he neyther plaine for the matter, nor sensible for mens vnderstanding. And what is the cause thereof, Syr, quoth I. Verilie said he, bicause in Salust writing, is more Arte than nature, and more labor than Arte: and in his labor also, to moch toyle, as it were, with an vncontented care to write better than he could, a fault common to very many men. And therefore he doth not expresse the matter liuely and naturally with common speach as ye see Xenophon doth in Greeke, but it is caried and driuen forth

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artificiallie, after to learned a sorte, as Thucydides doth in his orations. And how cummeth it to passe, sayd I, that Cæsar and Ciceroes talke, is so naturall & plaine, and Salust writing so artificiall and darke, whan all they three liued in one tyme? I will freelie tell you my fansie herein, said he: surely, Cæsar and Cicero, beside a singular prerogatiue of naturall eloquence geuen vnto them by God, both two, by vse of life, were daylie orators emonges the common people, and greatest councellers in the Senate house: and therefore gaue themselues to vse soch speach as the meanest should well vnderstand, and the wisest best allow: folowing carefullie that good councell of Aristotle, loquendum vt multi, sapiendum vt pauci. Salust was no soch man, neyther for will to goodnes, nor skill by learning: but ill geuen by nature, and made worse by bringing vp, spent the most part of his yougth very misorderly in ryot and lechery. In the company of soch, who, neuer geuing theyr mynde to honest doyng, could neuer inure their tong to wise speaking. But at last cummyng to better yeares, and bying witte at the dearest hand, that is, by long experience of the hurt and shame that commeth of mischeif, moued, by the councell of them that were wise, and caried by the example of soch as were good, first fell to honestie of life, and after to the loue of studie and learning: and so became so new a man, that Cæsar being dictator, made him Pretor in Numidia where he absent from his contrie, and not inured with the common talke of Rome, but shut vp in his studie, and bent wholy to reading, did write the storie of the Romanes. And for the better accomplishing of the same, he red Cato and Piso in Latin for gathering of matter and troth: and Thucydides in Greeke for the order of his storie, and furnishing of his style. Cato (as his tyme required) had more troth for the matter, than eloquence for the style. And so Salust, by gathering troth out of Cato, smelleth moch of the roughnes of his style: euen as a man that eateth garlike for helth, shall cary away with him the sauor of it also, whether he will or not. And yet the vse of old wordes is not the greatest cause of Salustes roughnes and darknesse: There be in Salust Lib. 8. // some old wordes in deed as patrare bellum, ductare Cap. 3. // exercitum, well noted by Quintilian, and verie De Orna- // much misliked of him: and supplicium for suppli- tu. // catio, a word smellyng of an older store than the

the ready way to the Latin tong. 299

other two so misliked by Quint: And yet is that word also in
Varro, speaking of Oxen thus, boues ad victimas faciunt, atque ad
Deorum supplicia: and a few old wordes mo. Read Saluste and
Tullie aduisedly together: and in wordes ye shall finde small
difference: yea Salust is more geuen to new wordes, than to
olde, though som olde writers say the contrarie: as Claritudo
for Gloria: exactè for perfectè: Facundia for
eloquentia. Thies
two last wordes exactè and facundia now in euery mans mouth,
be neuer (as I do remember) vsed of Tullie, and therefore
I thinke they be not good: For surely Tullie speaking euery
where so moch of the matter of eloquence, would not so
precisely haue absteyned from the word Facundia, if it had
bene good: that is proper for the tong, & common for mens
vse. I could be long, in reciting many soch like, both olde &
new wordes in Salust: but in very dede neyther oldnes nor
newnesse of wordes maketh the greatest difference // The cause why
betwixt Salust and Tullie, but first strange phrases // Salust is not
made of good Latin wordes, but framed after the // like Tully.
Greeke tonge, which be neyther choisly borowed of them, nor
properly vsed by him: than, a hard composition and crooked
framing of his wordes and sentences, as a man would say,
English talke placed and framed outlandish like. As for
example first in phrases, nimius et animus be two vsed wordes,
yet homo nimius animi, is an vnused phrase. Vulgus, et amat, et
fieri, be as common and well known wordes, as may be in the
Latin tong, yet id quod vulgò amat fieri, for solet fieri, is but
a strange and grekish kind of writing. Ingens et vires be
proper wordes, yet vir ingens virium is an vnproper kinde of
speaking and so be likewise,

{æger consilij. {promptissimus belli. {territus animi.

and many soch like phrases in Salust, borowed as I sayd not choisly out of Greeke, and vsed therefore vnproperlie in Latin. Againe, in whole sentences, where the matter is good, the wordes proper and plaine, yet the sense is hard and darke, and namely in his prefaces and orations, wherein he vsed most labor, which fault is likewise in Thucydides in Greeke, of whom Salust hath taken the greatest part of his darkenesse. For

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Thucydides likewise wrote his storie, not at home in Grece, but
abrode in Italie, and therefore smelleth of a certaine outlandish
kinde of talke, strange to them of Athens, and diuerse from their
writing, that liued in Athens and Grece, and wrote the same
tyme that Thucydides did, as Lysias, Xenophon, Plato, and
Isocrates, the purest and playnest writers, that euer wrote in any
tong, and best examples for any man to follow whether he
write, Latin, Italian, French, or English. Thucydides also
semeth in his writing, not so much benefited by nature, as
holpen by Arte, and caried forth by desire, studie, labor, toyle,
and ouer great curiositie: who spent xxvii. yeares in writing his
eight bookes of his history. Salust likewise wrote out of his
Dionys. // contrie, and followed the faultes of Thuc. to
Halycar. // moch: and boroweth of him som kinde of writing,
ad Q. / which the Latin tong can not well beare, as Casus
Tub. de // nominatiuus in diuerse places absolutè positus, as in
Hist. Thuc. // that place of Iugurth, speaking de leptitanis, itaque ab
imperatore facilè quæ petebant adepti, missæ sunt eò cohortes
ligurum
quatuor. This thing in participles, vsed so oft in Thucyd. and other
Greeke authors to, may better be borne with all, but Salust vseth
the same more strangelie and boldlie, as in thies wordes, Multis
sibi quisque imperium petentibus. I beleue, the best Grammarien in
England can scarse giue a good reule, why quisque the nominatiue
case, without any verbe, is so thrust vp amongest so many
oblique cases. Some man perchance will smile, and laugh to
scorne this my writyng, and call it idle curiositie, thus to busie
my selfe in pickling about these small pointes of Grammer, not
fitte for my age, place and calling, to trifle in: I trust that man,
be he neuer so great in authoritie, neuer so wise and learned,
either, by other mens iudgement, or his owne opinion, will yet
thinke, that he is not greater in England, than Tullie was at
Rome, not yet wiser, nor better learned than Tullie was him
selfe, who, at the pitch of three score yeares, in the middes of
the broyle betwixt Cæsar and Pompeie, whan he knew not,
whether to send wife & children, which way to go, where to
hide him selfe, yet, in an earnest letter, amongest his earnest
Ad Att. // councelles for those heuie tymes concerning both
Lib. 7. Epi- // the common state of his contrey, and his owne
stola. 3. // priuate great affaires he was neither vnmyndfull
nor ashamed to reason at large, and learne gladlie of Atticus,