Thomas Linacre prepares his Rudiments of Latin Grammar for the use of the Princess Mary (1522)—Probably the earliest digest of the kind—Cardinal Wolsey’s edition of Lily’s Grammar for the use of Ipswich School (1529)—Inquiry into the priority of the Ipswich and St. Paul’s Grammars—First National Primer (1540)—Lily’s Short Introduction of Grammar (1548)—Its re-issue by Queen Elizabeth (1566-7)—Some account of its contents—Its failure.
I. Thomas Linacre, physician to four successive sovereigns and tutor to the Princess Mary, is understood to have prepared for the service of his august pupil certain Rudiments of Grammar, doubtless in Latin, at the same time that Giles Du Wes or Dewes wrote for her his Introductory to the French language. The biographer of Dean Colet informs his readers that the production of Linacre was translated into Latin by George Buchanan for Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, whose studies he directed; but the book as printed is in that language, and bears no indication of a second hand in it. The undertaking, however, was deemed by Queen Catherine too obscure, and Ludovicus Vives was accordingly engaged to draw up something more simple and intelligible, which was the origin of his little book De ratione studii puerilis, where, from delicacy, he made a point of commending the labours of Linacre and the abridgment of the Rudiments by Erasmus.
The volume, edited by Linacre about 1522, appears, anyhow, to be entitled to rank as the earliest effort in the way of a grammatical digest; and, apart from its special destination, it was calculated to supply a want, and to find patrons beyond the range of the court.
Except its utilisation by Buchanan for Lord Cassilis, we hear little or nothing of it, nevertheless, after its original publication by the royal printer. Perhaps it did not compete successfully with the editions of Lily, as they received from time to time improvements at the hands of professional experts, and united within certain limits the advantages of consolidation and completeness. The prestige of Lily had grown considerable, and in the case of a technical book it has always been difficult or impossible for an amateur to hold his ground against a specialist.
II. Allowing for the possibility of editions of which we have no present knowledge having formerly existed, if they do not yet do so, it may be that Dean Colet caused some text-book to be prepared for the use of the scholars at St. Paul’s; and I shall by and by adduce some evidence in favour of such an hypothesis. But, at any rate, in 1529 Cardinal Wolsey gave his sanction, and wrote a preface, to an impression of Lily’s Rudiments with certain alterations, more especially for the use of his school at Ipswich, but also, as the terms of the title state, for the benefit of all other similar institutions in the country.
The Cardinal’s preface is dated August 1, 1528. It is followed by the Docendi Methodus, the Rules, the Articles of Faith, Precepts of Living, Apostles’ Creed, Decalogue, &c.; and the rest of the book is occupied by the Introduction of the Eight Parts of Speech and the Rudiments of Grammar.
Of this collection there was no exact reprint, but portions of the contents appear in the Antwerp impressions of 1535 and 1536, designed for the English learners in Flanders; and Lily’s Rudiments, with and without the other accessories, were periodically republished even later than the so-called Oxford Grammar of 1709.
Now, as St. Paul’s was the more ancient foundation, it is allowable, at all events, to suspect that the book issued nominally for the Ipswich school was borrowed by the Cardinal or the person employed by him from one drawn up by Lily in his lifetime for Colet. St. Paul’s had been established in 1510; the Dean survived till 1519; and surely so many years would hardly have elapsed without witnessing the preparation of some Pauline text-book on lines parallel to those of the Ipswich one of 1529, more particularly when we see that in the Preface to his 1534 Rudiments he speaks of the “new school of Paul’s,” and that in 1518 Erasmus had executed a Latin metrical version of the Lord’s Prayer and Precepts of Good Living for the school under the title of Christiani hominis Institutum.
The short paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer in English by Colet, which I have found at present only in an edition of the Salisbury Primer, 1532, was made for his own scholars, and had, of course, been in existence prior to 1519; so that we find ourselves groping in the dark a little in the inquiry which deals with such a fugitive and perishable description of literature, and have to do the best that we can with the fragmentary relics which survive or have been so far recovered.
The Coleti æditio, &c., of 1534 had much in common with Wolsey’s book; but the Dean of St. Paul’s claims the honour of having adapted some portions of the Delectus to what he considered to be the special requirements of his own institution. For he says in the Proem:—