“Accentus tonus est per quē fit syllaba quevis
Cognita: quādo acui debet, vel qū gravari
Accentus triplex; fit acutus vel gravis, inde
Est circūflexus: qui nunc fit rarus in vsu.
Syllaba cum tendit sursum est accentus acutus
Est gravis accentus sed syllaba pressa deorsum
Fit circūflexus gravis in prima: sed in altum
Attollit mediam, postrema gravis reciditque.”
This metrical exposition, which will not be mistaken for the language of Horace, is followed by a commentary in prose.
The next three divisions do not call for any particular criticism. They treat of the Eight Parts of Speech, the Irregular Nouns, and the Laws of Grammatical Construction, of which the last is the first cast of the Syntax.
There remain the Vulgaria and the Lucubrations, which are far more important and interesting, and of which there were numerous editions. The subjoined samples will shew the principle on which the Vulgaria was compiled:—
“Befe and motton is so dere, that a peny worth of meet wyll scant suffyse a boy at a meale.
“Whan I was a scholler of Oxforthe I lyued competently with vii. pens commens wekely.
“Be of good chere man for I sawe ryght nowe a rodde made of wythye for the, garnysshed with knottes, it wolde do a boy good to loke vpon it.
“A busshell of whete was holde at xii. pens.
“A gallon of swete wyne is at viii. pens in London.
“A gallon of ale is at a peny and ferdynge.