A DOUBT CONCERNING SCHOOL BOOKS, WHICH WILL BE DEEMED HERETICAL: AND
SOME ACCOUNT OF AN EXTRAORDINARY SUBSTITUTE FOR OVID OR VIRGIL.
They say it is an ill mason that refuseth any stone; and there is no
knowledge but in a skilful hand serves, either positively as it is, or
else to illustrate some other knowledge.
HERBERT'S REMAINS.
I am sometimes inclined to think that pigs are brought up upon a wiser
system, than boys at a grammar school. The Pig is allowed to feed upon
any kind of offal, however coarse, on which he can thrive, till the
time approaches when pig is to commence pork, or take a degree as
bacon; and then he is fed daintily. Now it has sometimes appeared to
me that in like manner, boys might acquire their first knowledge of
Latin from authors very inferior to those which are now used in all
schools; provided the matter was unexceptionable and the Latinity
good; and that they should not be introduced to the standard works of
antiquity till they are of an age in some degree to appreciate what
they read.
Understand me, Reader, as speaking doubtfully,—and that too upon a
matter of little moment; for the scholar will return in riper years to
those authors which are worthy of being studied, and as for the
blockhead—it signifies nothing whether the book which he consumes by
thumbing it in the middle and dog-earing it at the corners be worthy
or not of a better use. Yet if the dead have any cognizance of
posthumous fame, one would think it must abate somewhat of the
pleasure with which Virgil and Ovid regard their earthly immortality,
when they see to what base purposes their productions are applied.
That their verses should be administered to boys in regular doses, as
lessons or impositions, and some dim conception of their meaning whipt
into the tail when it has failed to penetrate the head, cannot be just
the sort of homage to their genius which they anticipated or desired.
Not from any reasonings or refinements of this kind, but from the mere
accident of possessing the book, Guy put into his pupil's hands the
Dialogues of Johannes Ravisius Textor. Jean Tixier, Seigneur de
Ravisy, in the Nivernois, who thus latinized his name, is a person
whose works, according to Baillet's severe censure, were buried in the
dust of a few petty colleges and unfrequented shops, more than a
century ago. He was however in his day a person of no mean station in
the world of letters, having been Rector of the University of Paris,
at the commencement of the 16th century; and few indeed are the
writers whose books have been so much used; for perhaps no other
author ever contributed so largely to the manufacture of exercises
whether in prose or verse, and of sermons also. Textor may be
considered as the first compiler of the _Gradus ad Parnassum_; and
that collection of Apopthegms was originally formed by him, which
Conrade Lycosthenes enlarged and re-arranged; which the Jesuits
adopted after expurgating it; and which during many generations served
as one of the standard common-place books for common-place divines in
this country as well as on the continent.
But though Textor was continually working in classical literature with
a patience and perseverance which nothing but the delight he
experienced in such occupations could have sustained, he was without a
particle of classical taste. His taste was that of the age wherein he
flourished, and these his Dialogues are Moralities in Latin verse. The
designs and thoughts which would have accorded with their language had
they been written either in old French or old English, appear when
presented in Latinity, which is always that of a scholar, and largely
interwoven with scraps from familiar classics, as strange as Harlequin
and Pantaloon would do in heroic costume.
Earth opens the first of these curious compositions with a bitter
complaint for the misfortunes which it is her lot to witness. Age
(_Ætas_) overhears the lamentation and enquires the cause; and after a
dialogue in which the author makes the most liberal use of his own
common-places, it appears that the perishable nature of all sublunary
things is the cause of this mourning. _Ætas_ endeavours to persuade
_Terra_ that her grief is altogether unreasonable by such brief and
cogent observations as _Fata jubent_, _Fata volunt_, _Ita Diis
placitum_. Earth asks the name of her philosophic consoler, but upon
discovering it, calls her _falsa virago_, and _meretrix_, and abuses
her as being the very author of all the evils that distress her.
However _Ætas_ succeeds in talking _Terra_ into better humour, advises
her to exhort man that he should not set his heart upon perishable
things, and takes her leave as _Homo_ enters. After a recognition
between mother and son, _Terra_ proceeds to warn _Homo_ against all
the ordinary pursuits of this world. To convince him of the vanity of
glory she calls up in succession the ghosts of Hector, Achilles,
Alexander and Samson, who tell their tales and admonish him that valor
and renown afford no protection against Death. To exemplify the vanity
of beauty Helen, Lais, Thisbe and Lucretia are summoned, relate in
like manner their respective fortunes, and remind him that _pulvis et
umbra sumus_. Virgil preaches to him upon the emptiness of literary
fame. Xerxes tells him that there is no avail in power, Nero that
there is none in tyranny, Sardanapalus that there is none in
voluptuousness. But the application which _Homo_ makes of all this, is
the very reverse to what his mother intended: he infers that seeing he
must die at last, live how he will, the best thing he can do is to
make a merry life of it, so away he goes to dance and revel and enjoy
himself: and _Terra_ concludes with the mournful observation that men
will still pursue their bane, unmindful of their latter end.
Another of these Moralities begins with three Worldlings (_Tres
Mundani_) ringing changes upon the pleasures of profligacy, in
Textor's peculiar manner, each in regular succession saying something
to the same purport in different words. As thus
PRIMUS MUNDANUS.
_Si breve tempus abit_,
SECUNDUS MUNDANUS.
_Si vita caduca recedit_;
TERTIUS MUNDANUS.
_Si cadit hora_.
PRIMUS MUNDANUS.
_Dies abeunt_,
SECUNDUS MUNDANUS.
_Perit Omne_,
TERTIUS MUNDANUS.
_Venit Mors_,
PRIMUS MUNDANUS.
_Quidnam prodesset fati meminisse futuri?_
SECUNDUS MANDANUS.
_Quidnam prodesset lachrymis consumere vitam?_
TERTIUS MUNDANUS.
_Quidnam prodesset tantis incumbere curis?_
Upon which an unpleasant personage who has just appeared to interrupt
their trialogue observes,
_Si breve tempus abit, si vita caduca recedit,
Si cadit hora, dies abeunt, perit omne, venit Mors,
Quidnam lethiferæ Mortis meminisse nocebit?_
It is _Mors_ herself who asks the question. The three Worldlings
however behave as resolutely as Don Juan in the old drama; they tell
Death that they are young and rich and active and vigorous, and set
all admonition at defiance. Death or rather Mrs. Death, (for _Mors_
being feminine is called _læna_, and _meretrix_, and _virago_,) takes
all this patiently, and letting them go off in a dance, calls up Human
Nature who has been asleep meantime, and asks her how she can sleep in
peace while her sons are leading a life of dissipation and debauchery?
Nature very coolly replies by demanding why they should not? and Death
answers, because they must go to the infernal regions for so doing.
Upon this Nature, who appears to be liberally inclined, asks if it is
credible that any should be obliged to go there? and Death to convince
her calls up a soul from bale to give an account of his own
sufferings. A dreadful account this _Damnatus_ gives; and when Nature,
shocked at what she hears, enquires if he is the only one who is
tormented in _Orcus_, _Damnatus_ assures her that hardly one in a
thousand goes to Heaven, but that his fellow-sufferers are in number
numberless; and he specifies among them Kings and Popes, and Senators
and severe Schoolmasters,—a class of men whom Textor seems to have
held in great and proper abhorrence—as if like poor Thomas Tusser he
had suffered under their inhuman discipline.
Horrified at this, Nature asks advice of _Mors_, and _Mors_ advises
her to send a Son of Thunder round the world, who should reprove the
nations for their sins, and sow the seeds of virtue by his preaching.
_Peregrinus_ goes upon this mission and returns to give an account of
it. Nothing can be worse than the report. As for the Kings of the
Earth, it would be dangerous, he says, to say what they were doing.
The Popes suffered the ship of Peter to go wherever the winds carried
it. Senators were won by intercession or corrupted by gold. Doctors
spread their nets in the temples for prey, and Lawyers were dumb
unless their tongues were loosened by money.—Had he seen the
Italians?—Italy was full of dissentions, ripe for war, and defiled by
its own infamous vice. The Spaniards?—They were suckled by Pride. The
English?—
_Gens tacitis prægnans arcanis, ardua tentans,
Edita tartareis mihi creditur esse tenebris._
In short the Missionary concludes that he has found every where an
abundant crop of vices, and that all his endeavours to produce
amendment have been like ploughing the sea shore. Again afflicted
Nature asks advice of _Mors_, and _Mors_ recommends that she should
call up Justice and send her abroad with her scourge to repress the
wicked. But Justice is found to be so fast asleep that no calling can
awaken her. _Mors_ then advises her to summon _Veritas_; alas! unhappy
_Veritas_ enters complaining of pains from head to foot and in all the
intermediate parts, within and without; she is dying and entreats that
Nature will call some one to confess her. But who shall be applied
to?—Kings? They will not come.—Nobles? _Veritas_ is a hateful
personage to them.—Bishops, or mitred Abbots? They have no regard for
Truth.—Some Saint from the desert? Nature knows not where to find one!
Poor _Veritas_ therefore dies “unhouseled, disappointed, unanealed;”
and forthwith three Demons enter rejoicing that Human Nature is left
with none to help her, and that they are Kings of this world. They
call in their Ministers, _Caro_ and _Voluptas_ and _Vitium_, and send
them to do their work among mankind. These successful missionaries
return, and relate how well they have sped every where; and the Demons
being by this time hungry, after washing in due form, and many
ceremonious compliments among themselves, sit down to a repast which
their ministers have provided. The bill of fare was one which
Beelzebub's Court of Aldermen might have approved. There were the
brains of a fat monk,—a roasted Doctor of Divinity who afforded great
satisfaction,—a King's sirloin,—some broiled Pope's flesh, and part of
a Schoolmaster; the joint is not specified, but I suppose it to have
been the rump. Then came a Senator's lights and a Lawyer's tongue.
When they have eaten of these dainties till the distended stomach can
hold no more, _Virtus_ comes in and seeing them send off the fragments
to their Tartarean den, calls upon mankind to bestow some sustenance
upon her, for she is tormented with hunger. The Demons and their
ministers insult her and drive her into banishment; they tell Nature
that to-morrow the great King of Orcus will come and carry her away in
chains; off they go in a dance, and Nature concludes the piece by
saying that what they have threatened must happen, unless Justice
shall be awakened, Virtue fed, and _Veritas_ restored to life by the
sacred book.
There are several other Dialogues in a similar strain of fiction. The
rudest and perhaps oldest specimen of this style is to be found in
Pierce Ploughman, the most polished in Calderon, the most popular in
John Bunyan's Holy War, and above all in his Pilgrim's Progress. It
appears from the Dialogues that they were not composed for the use of
youth alone as a school book, but were represented at College; and
poor as they are in point of composition, the oddity of their
combinations, and the wholesome honesty of their satire, were well
adapted to strike young imaginations and make an impression there
which better and wiser works might have failed to leave.
A schoolmaster who had been regularly bred would have regarded such a
book with scorn, and discerning at once its obvious faults, would have
been incapable of perceiving any thing which might compensate for
them. But Guy was not educated well enough to despise a writer like
old Textor. What he knew himself, he had picked up where and how he
could, in bye ways and corners. The book was neither in any respect
above his comprehension, nor below his taste; and Joseph Warton, never
rolled off the hexameters of Virgil or Homer, _ore rotundo_, with more
delight, when expatiating with all the feelings of a scholar and a
poet upon their beauties, to such pupils as Headley and Russell and
Bowles, than Guy paraphrased these rude but striking allegories to his
delighted Daniel.