Vulgaria quedā cū suis vernaculis compilata iuxta
consuetudinem ludi litterarij diui Pauli.
| Good morowe. Bonū tibi huius diei sit primordiū. Good nyght. Bona nox, tranquilla nox, optata requies, &c. Scolers must lyue hardly at Oxford, Scolasticos Oxonii parce viuere oportet. My fader hath had a greate losse on the see. Pater meus magnā p naufragiū iacturā habuit. Wysshers and wolders be small housholders. Affectatibus diuitias modicā hospitalitatē obseruant.” |
The abridgments of Stanbridge’s Accidence led, I presume, to the distinction of the original text as the Long Accidence, although I have not personally met with more than a single edition of the work under such a title. Dibdin, however, has a story that John Bagford had heard of one printed at Tavistock, for which the said John “would have stuck at no price.”
The chief of these adaptations of the Accidence is the Parvulorum Institutio, which I have described as probably emanating, in the first place, from the earliest press for the use of the earliest known school at Oxford. But it was reprinted with alterations by Stanbridge, and perhaps by John Holt. In Dibdin’s account of one of these recensions he observes:—
“The work begins immediately on sign. A ij:-‘What is to be done whan an englysshe is gyuen to be made in latyn? Fyrst the verbe must be loked out, and yf there be moo verbes than one in a reason, I must loke out the pryncypall verbe and aske this questyon who or what, and that word that answereth to the questyon shall be the nomynatyve case to the verbe. Except it be a verbe Impersonell the whiche wyll haue no nomynative case.’
“On the last leaf but one we have as follows:—
| Indignus dignus obscenus fedus acerbus. | Cice. qq hecauditu acerba sunt. | |
| Rarus iucundus absurdus turpe saluber. | Terē. turpe dictū. | |
| Mirandus mirus pulchrum sit periculosus. | Qui. multa dictu visuq; miranda. | |
| Whan there cometh a verbe after sum es fui without a relatyve or a coniunccyon yf it be of the actyue sygnyfycacyon it shall be put in a partycyple of the fyrst sutertens yf he be of the passyue synyfacoōn he shall be put in the partycyple of the latter sutertens, except exulo, vapulo, veneo, fio. | Terētius. quidnā incepturus es. Tere. uxor tibi ducenda est pāphyle Te oro vt nuptie que fuerant future fiant. |
IV. Robert Whittinton, whose name is probably more familiar to the ordinary student than that of the man from whom he derived his knowledge and tastes, was a native of Warwickshire, and was born at Lichfield about 1480—perhaps a little before. He received his education, as I have stated, at the Free School at Oxford, and is supposed to have gained admission to one of the colleges; but of this there is no certainty. He subsequently acquired, however, the distinction of being decorated with the laurel wreath by the University of Oxford for his proficiency in grammar and rhetoric, with leave to read publicly any of the logical writings of Aristotle; and he assumed the title of Protovates Angliæ, and the credit of having been the first Englishman who was laureated.
It is certain that Whittinton became a teacher like his master Stanbridge, and among his scholars he counted William Lily, the eminent grammarian; but where he so established himself is not so clear, nor do we know the circumstances or date of his decease.