“Al be it many have wryten, and have made certayne introducyons into Latyn speche, called Donates and Accidens, in Latyn tongue and in Englysshe, in suche plenty that it shoulde seme to suffyse; yet never the lesse, for the love and zele that I have to the newe schole of Powles, and to the children of the same, somwhat have I also compyled of the mater; and of the viii. partes of grammer have made this lytell boke; ... in whiche lytell warke if any new thynges be of me, it is alonely that I have put these partes in a more clere ordre, and have made them a lytell more easy to yonge wyttes, than (me thynketh) they were before.”
The passage here quoted may be taken to supply a sort of testimony to the original publication of the Dean’s alleged recension of the accepted text of Lily’s Introduction (including the Rudiments) not very long, if at all, posterior to 1510, as in 1534 St. Paul’s had been founded a quarter of a century. The modification of the Grammar for Pauline use was almost unquestionably due to Lily, and merely the Proem the Dean’s own.
III. The St. Paul’s book has, on the whole, a strong claim to precedence over that of 1529. But under any circumstances, in or before the last-named date, we possessed an uniform Grammar in lieu of the archaic sectional series of Stanbridge and Whittinton.
But even that of Wolsey went no farther than to recommend itself to general acceptance. It had no official character. Nor was it till late in the protracted reign of Henry VIII. that a general Primer for the whole country was prepared and published. In 1540 a volume in two parts appeared under the royal authority, without any clue to the editor, reducing the text to a more convenient method and compass. This book is anonymous; but Thomas Hayne says in 1640 that it was done by sundry learned men, among whom he had heard that one was Dr. Leonard Cox, tutor to Prince Edward. Another probable coadjutor was John Palsgrave, author of the Eclaircissement.
The Address to the Reader before the first part proceeded, no doubt, from the compiler’s pen, and contains an energetic eulogy of Prince Edward, to whom “the tender babes of England” are exhorted to look up as a model and example. This portion includes the Parts of Speech and other rudiments in English, while the second part contains a digested recension of the Latin series under the title of A Compendious Institution of the whole Grammar.
This bipartite manual formed, of course, an improvement on the system formerly in vogue, which must have been very puzzling to boys. But it seems very doubtful indeed if this Primer of 1540 was practically recognised, or whether the Government took any measures to enforce what purported to have been done under its immediate sanction.
Whoever they were who arranged for publication the Primer had probably a hand in the Alphabetum Latino-Anglicum of 1543, which is here incidentally noticed, and which is more than it professes to be. For it comprises, in addition to a series of alphabets, the Lord’s Prayer, the Salutation of the Virgin, the Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, and a few prayers, in Latin and English. It was, in fact, a supplement to the Primer itself.
IV. In January 1547, Henry was succeeded by his son, and the change is marked by the substitution of A Short Introduction of Grammar generally to be used, in two parts, the English followed by the Latin, for the original Primer of 1540. A complaint appears to have arisen at the same time that the large book was inconvenient for beginners; and we are told that Fox the martyrologist was commissioned to prepare Tables of Grammar for the use, probably, of the lower forms in schools. But we know nothing farther of them; and the Introduction, to which they were designed as a companion, was not reprinted more than once in Edward’s life. Nor is there any vestige of it till we arrive quite at the close of the rule of Mary, when the Paris press produced an edition under some circumstances not at present explainable, yet, of course, with the peculiarity of being entirely unofficial. So that when we sum up, it amounts to this, that the first and second types of the so-named universal Grammar, as settled in 1540 and 1548 respectively, reached four impressions in seventeen years, not including that of 1557, which lies outside the series.
Making due allowance for the far scantier population and the momentous difference of social conditions, this remains a strange phenomenon, if we reflect that, in addition to the public and private schools previously in existence, the Government of Edward had planted throughout the country the endowments of which Christ’s Hospital is the most familiar type.
But even when there was a change in the Administration in 1558, and the authority of Elizabeth was established in Church and State, the interest in educational development led to no revival of the Introduction, and, unless all intervening copies have perished, there was a clear lapse of ten years before the new Protestant regime took steps to re-issue the book.