THE STUDY OF FRENCH AMONG MERCHANTS AND SOLDIERS
Merchants, always a very important and influential class in England,
claim a place by the side of the higher classes as learners of French.
They were continually in need of foreign languages, and French was
certainly the most useful, and, for those trading with France and the
Netherlands, quite indispensable. As to their own language, we are told
that when English merchants were out of England "it liketh them not, and
they do not use it."[685] Those sons of gentlemen and others who wished
to engage in trade were usually apprenticed to merchants. For instance,
Sir William Petty (b. 1623) first went to school where he got a
smattering of Latin and Greek, and, at the age of twelve, was bound
apprentice to a sea captain. At fifteen he went to Caen in Normandy
aboard a merchant vessel, and began to trade there with such success
that he managed to maintain and educate himself. He learnt French and
perfected himself in Latin, and had enough Greek to serve his turn.
Thence he travelled to Paris and studied anatomy.[686] Sylvester, no
doubt, had many opportunities of putting to the test the French he first
learnt in Saravia's school when later in life he became a merchant
adventurer. It appears that many merchants belonged to the class of
travellers who picked up the language abroad by mixing with those who
spoke it. Fynes Moryson accuses merchants, women, and children of
neglecting any serious study of languages and "rushing into rash
practice." "They doe many times," he admits, "pronounce the tongue and
speake common speeches more gracefully than others, but they seldome
write the tongue well, and alwaies forget it in short time, wanting the
practice." The many practical little manuals of conversation which had
appeared in the Middle Ages, and the "litle pages set in print without
rules or precepts" which succeeded them, would certainly encourage this
"rushing into rash practice"; such, indeed, was their aim. The majority
of merchants acquired their French, we may be sure, either by the help
of such little handbooks, intended to be learnt by heart, or simply by
"ear."
Dialogues for merchants are provided in almost all French text-books of
the time, giving phrases for buying and selling and enquiring the way.
Barclay describes his grammar (1521) as particularly useful to
merchants. There was, moreover, a very popular little book specially
intended for that class--_A plaine pathway to the French Tongue, very
profitable for Marchants and also all other which desire the same, aptly
devided into nineteen chapters_, which appeared first in 1575, and in at
least one,[687] and probably several other editions.[688] The aim of the
book would explain how it has come about that only one copy has survived
the wear and tear of the demands made upon it. Again James Howell
dedicated his edition of Cotgrave's dictionary (1650) to the nobility
and gentry, and to the "merchant adventurers as well English as the
worthy company of Dutch here resident and others to whom the language is
necessary for commerce and foren correspondence." Books such as those of
Holyband and Du Ploich were written for the use of the middle class,
and, no doubt, for merchants also; and a later writer, John Wodroeph,
describes his collection of common phrases as "more profitable for the
merchants than for the loathsome curtier who cannot digest such coarse
meats."
Dutch merchants are mentioned by Howell in the dedication of Cotgrave's
dictionary, and the close relations, existing between England and the
Netherlands in the time of Elizabeth, possibly account for the fact that
the Netherlanders took some part in instructing the English, chiefly
merchants, in the French tongue. It has already been seen how
unfavourably the Huguenot teachers in England criticized their
fellow-teachers of French from the Low Countries, and we are not
surprised to find that the latter contented themselves with teaching the
language orally, and avoided the risk of committing their views to
paper. [Header: FRENCH TEXT-BOOKS FOR MERCHANTS] In the Netherlands,
however, no such compunction was felt, and some manuals composed there
made their way to England. At an early date one was reprinted in London.
Holyband, the chief of the group of Huguenot teachers, was quickly up in
arms against it. "Je ne diray rien," he writes in 1573, "d'un nouveau
livre venu d'Anvers, et dernierement imprimé à Londres, à cause que, ne
gardant ryme ne raison, soit en son parler, phrase, orthographe, maniere
de converser et communiquer entre gens d'estat; et cependant qu'il
pindarise en son iargon il monstre de quel cru il est sorti, que si nos
chartiers d'Orleans, Bourges ou de Bloys avoyent oui gazouiller
l'autheur d'icelluy, ilz le renvoyeroient bailler entre ses geais, apres
luy avoir donné cinquante coups de leur fouet sur ses échines." Let this
writer teach his jargon to the Flemings, the Burgundians, and the people
of Hainault; it is a true saying that a good Burgundian was never a good
Frenchman. "Lesquelles choses considerées," concludes the irate
Holyband, "i'espere que l'autheur de ce beau livre ne nous contraindra
point de manger ses glands, ayans trouvé le pur froment."
What was this book newly come from Antwerp? Probably an edition of a
very popular collection of phrases and conversations, written originally
in French and Flemish in the early years of the sixteenth century, by a
schoolmaster of Antwerp, Noel de Barlement or Barlaiment.[689] By the
middle of the century the work had appeared in four languages. In 1556
it was printed at Louvain in Flemish, French, Latin, and Spanish, and in
1565 it appeared at Antwerp in Flemish, French, Italian, and Spanish. In
1557 a London printer, Edward Sutton, received licence to print "a boke
intituled Italian, Frynshe, Englesshe and Laten,"[690] and in 1568 a
"boke intituled Frynsche, Englysshe and Duche" was licensed to John
Alde.[691] Both of these volumes, we may safely conclude, were
adaptations of the Flemish handbook, and either may have been the "book
from Anvers" reviled by Holyband. Another English edition of the work
was issued in 1578, a few years after Holyband's attack, by George
Bishop, who received licence to print a _Dictionarie colloques ou
dialogues en quattre langues, Fflamen, Ffrançoys, Espaignol et Italien_,
"with the Englishe to be added thereto."[692]
This vocabulary of Barlement probably enjoyed considerable popularity in
England in its foreign editions also. It was widely used by English
merchants and travellers after it had been adapted to their use by the
addition of English to its columns; and they would, no doubt, bring
copies back with them from the Netherlands. The earliest edition in
which English has a place was probably that of 1576, entitled _Colloques
or Dialogues avec un Dictionaire en six langues, Flamen, Anglois,
Alleman, François, Espagnol et Italien. Tres util a tous Marchands ou
autres de quelque estat qu'ils soyent, le tout avec grande diligence et
labeur corrigé et mis ensemble. A Anvers 1576_. By the end of the
century a seventh and finally an eighth language were added. There are
copies of two further editions of the work issued in England in the
first half of the seventeenth century. The first included four languages
and appeared in 1637, under the title of _The {English French}{Latine
Dutch} Scholemaster or an introduction to teach young Gentlemen and
Merchants to travell or trade. Being the only helpe to attaine to those
languages_. It was printed for Michael Sparke, who issued another
edition in eight languages in 1639 as _New Dialogues or colloquies or a
little Dictionary of eight languages. A Booke very necessary for all
those that study these tongues either at home or abroad, now perfected
and made fit for travellers, young merchants and seamen, especially
those that desire to attain to the use of the Tongues._ Michael Sparke
recommends the convenience of this portable little volume: "And if
parents use to send their children beyond the sea to learne the language
and to gaine the learning of forraine nations, judge what may be said of
the benefit of this booke (I had almost said of the necessity of it)
which being read doth by daily experience furnish the Reader with a full
and perfect knowledge of divers tongues." He also tells you "in your
eare" that "since the worke has been published in England and the
Netherlands," not so perfect an edition has appeared.
Turning to the contents of the little handbook, we are at once struck by
the close resemblance between its dialogues and those of the French
text-books produced in England--still further evidence of the use of
the book in our country. [Header: THE DIALOGUES OF BARLEMENT] Its
contents, which in all the varied forms in which it appeared are
fundamentally the same, are divided into two parts. The first consists
of four chapters, and opens with table talk very similar to that of the
English-French dialogues, especially those of Du Ploich. There is a
passage, for example, in which the schoolboy speaks of his school, found
in varying form in several of the early manuals produced in England:
Peter is that your son? Pierre est cela vostre filz?
Ye it is my sonne. Ouy c'est mon filz.
It is a goodly child. C'est un bel enfant.
God let him alwayes Dieu le laisse tousiours
prosper in vertue. prosperer en bien.
I thanke you cousen. Je vous remercie cousin.
Doth he not goe to schoole? Ne va-il point a l'escole?
Yes, he learneth to speake French. Ouy, il apprend a parler François.
Doth he? Fait-il?
It is very well done. C'est tres bien fait.
John can you Jean sçavez vous bien
speake good French? parler françois?
Not very well, cousen, Ne point fort bien, mon cousin,
but I learne. mais ie l'apprends.
Where go you to schoole? Ou allez vous a l'escole?
In the Lombarde Street. En la rue de Lombarts.
Have you gone Avez vous longuement
long to schoole? allé à l'escole?
About halfe a yeare. Environ un demy an.
Learn you also to write? Apprenez vous aussi a escrire?
Yea, cousen. Ouy, mon cousin.
That is well done, C'est bien fait,
learne alwayes well. apprenez tousiours.
Well cousen, if it please God. Bien mon cousin, s'il plait a Dieu.
The second chapter deals with buying and selling; the third with
counting, demanding payment of debts, and so on; and the fourth gives
specimens of commercial letters and documents. The second part contains
an alphabetical vocabulary of common words, followed by directions for
reading and speaking French, in the guise of a slight grammar. A few
rules for pronunciation and the different parts of speech are
accompanied by advice to seek fuller information in other French
grammars. Then come a few rules for the other languages--Italian,
Spanish, and Flemish.
So popular was this handbook in England that it was reprinted without
much alteration, and no modernization, at the beginning of the
nineteenth century: _The Dialogues in six languages Latin, French,
German, Spanish, Italian, and English_, appeared at Shrewsbury in 1808.
We are informed that "this book contains common forms of speach, one
being a literal translation of the other, and as near as the idiom of
the language will bear, so that they correspond almost word for word,
and will be found extremely useful for beginners." The second part of
the work, although mentioned in the table of contents, is omitted.
A similar polyglot manual, which was probably less well known in
England, was the _Vocabulaire de six langues, Latin, François,
Espagniol, Italien, Anglois et Aleman_, printed at Venice, probably in
1540--an enlarged edition of a vocabulary in five languages (Antwerp,
1534, and Venice, 1537) in which English had no place. This handbook
passed through several other editions,[693] and no doubt became fairly
well known in England through the intermediary of the numerous Italian
merchants who came to London, and the English traders and travellers
visiting Italy; editions which appeared at Rouen in 1611 and 1625 would
also be easily obtainable. The dictionary is described as a very useful
vocabulary for those who wish to learn without going to school--artisans,
women, and especially merchants. The first part consists of a
vocabulary, arranged under fifty-five headings, dealing with the usual
subjects, beginning with the heavens; the second contains a list of
verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns, together with a
collection of phrases and idioms. The interesting dialogue of the
Flemish vocabulary is lacking.
In the second half of the sixteenth century there lived at Antwerp a
language master, Gabriel Meurier, who counted many English among his
pupils. Meurier was a native of Avesnes in Hainault, where he was born
in about 1530. But for many years he taught languages--French, Spanish,
Flemish, and Italian--at Antwerp, which had by this time supplanted
Bruges as the chief trading centre of the Low Countries. His pupils were
largely merchants, and his first work on the language, the _Grammaire
françoise contenante plusieurs belles reigles propres et necessaires
pour ceulx qui desirent apprendre la dicte Langue_, 1557,[694] was
dedicated to "Messeigneurs et Maistres, les gouverneurs et marchans
Anglois." [Header: GABRIEL MEURIER] In 1563 was issued at Antwerp
another work specially for the use of the English--_Familiare
communications no leasse proppre then verrie proffytable to the Inglishe
nation desirous and nedinge the ffrench language_, dedicated to his most
honoured lord, John Marsh, governor of the English nation, and intended
for the use of "Marchands, Facteurs, Apprentifs, and others of the
English nation." These dialogues on subjects specially useful to
merchants are divided into seventeen chapters, giving familiar talk for
the members of the different trades with lists of their merchandise,
directions for travellers, the names of different artisans and
tradesmen, instructions for collecting debts, receiving money and
writing receipts. Meurier teaches his pupils the words used daily by
merchants at the Exchange, and then the degrees of kinship, numbers,
coins, the days and feast days, the parts of the body and clothing, food
and table talk, and, finally, commercial notes and letters.[695] Another
edition of the book was published at Rouen in 1641, being intended, in
this case, to teach both French and English. The title given to it was
_A treatise for to learne to speake Frenshe and Englishe together with a
form of making letters, indentures, and obligations, quittances, letters
of exchange, verie necessarie for all Marchants that do occupy trade or
marchandise_. Meurier also composed numerous other books which have no
direct bearing on the teaching of French to Englishmen. They were almost
all written for the use of merchants, whom they sought to instruct in
French and Flemish, and sometimes in Spanish and Italian as well. That
the English were always in the author's mind is shown by the fact that
he sometimes explains pronunciation by comparison with English sounds.
He also did important lexicographical work. He prepared French-Flemish
vocabularies in 1562 and 1566, and in 1584 his French-Flemish Dictionary
was published at Anvers. This dictionary is said to have been one of the
sources which helped Cotgrave to compile his famous work, and Meurier
seems to have outdone the later writer in collecting rare and obsolete
words.[696]
There were thus many faculties for learning French in the Netherlands.
Francis Osborne wrote regarding the study of French abroad:[697] "for
the place I say France, if you have a purse, else some town in the
Netherlands or Flanders, that is wholesome and safe: where the French
may be attained with little more difficulty then at Paris, neither are
the humours of the people so very remote from your owne." Thus the
Netherlanders taught French to the English both in their own
country[698] and in England. The connexion was a long-standing one.
Caxton had taken his French and English Dialogues from a Flemish
text-book, and in later times, as has been seen, Flemish works were
published in England, and had some influence on the dialogues of the
English manuals of French. The debt, however, was not all on one side.
Holyband's _French Schoolemaister_, for instance, was adapted to the use
of Flemings and printed at Rotterdam in 1606,[699] and in 1647 was
published at the end of the _Grammaire flamende et françoise_ (Rouen) of
Jan Louis d'Arsy. Moreover, the grammar of the seventeenth-century
French teacher whose popularity equalled that of Holyband in the
sixteenth century--Claude Mauger--was published in the Low Countries at
the same time as in England.
Another link between the teaching of French in the Netherlands and in
England is found in the book by John Wodroeph--an interesting figure
among teachers of French. He spent many years in the Netherlands, and in
his French text-book he adapted what he called his "court and country
dialogues" from some French-Flemish ones written for the instruction of
the Court of Nassau in the former language. Writing of the importance of
a knowledge of French, he emphasises its usefulness to the nobility.
But, he adds, it is still more profitable to merchants, for, excepting
Latin, it is the most widely used language in Christendom, and, "si
j'osoye dire," much more useful.
Wodroeph was a soldier, and soldiers, like merchants, gave much impetus
to the study of French. [Header: FRENCH IN MILITARY CIRCLES] In
Barlement's book of dialogues, soldiers are ranked with merchants,
travellers, and courtiers as those to whom the knowledge of languages
is most necessary: "soit que quelcun face merchandise ou qu'il hante la
court, ou qu'il suive la guerre, ou qu'il aille par villes et champs."
The wars raging almost incessantly in France and the Low Countries
attracted numbers of Englishmen. The army was an opening for younger
sons, and so "Some to the wars to try their fortunes there." Judging
from the epigrams and satires of the time, the swaggering gallant home
from the wars was a familiar figure in London. This sworded and martial
_beau_ is
He that salutes each gallant he doth meete
With "farewell sweet captaine fond heart _adieu_";
one who
hath served long in France,
And is returned filthy full of French,
and who, at night when leaving the inn, "thinking still he had been
sentinell of warlike Brill, crys out _que va la? Zounds que?_ and stabs
the drawer with his Syringe straw."[700]
Those who were moved by the spirit of adventure and liked the
picturesque crowded to the camp of Henry IV. of France who counted many
admirers in this country. One of these, Dudley Carleton, afterwards Lord
Dorchester, writes from the king's camp in 1596 that he is busy studying
French, though "Mars leaves little room for Mercury." Later he perfected
his knowledge by studying at Paris, and wrote thence to John
Chamberlain, the letter writer, to tell him how one Sir John Brooke,
with Coppinger, a Kentish gentleman, "lately come to learn the
language," are the "logs in our French school."[701] Unfortunately we
have no more details of this little group of Englishmen studying French
at Paris. One of the Englishmen who served in Normandy in 1591 with the
troops sent by Queen Elizabeth to help Henry IV. against the League kept
a daily journal from the 13th of August till the 24th of December
following.[702] This soldier, Sir Thomas Coningsby, a friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, acted as muster master to the English detachment, and was
in frequent intercourse with Henry before Rouen.
An interesting example of how the army and service abroad offered
opportunities for the study of French is found in the memoirs of the
Verney family. The three younger sons of Sir Edmund Verney (1590-1642)
all became soldiers. Tom took service in the army of France, while
Edmund (1616-1649), after studying at Oxford, joined the army of the
States in Flanders (1640). When in winter quarters at Utrecht, he "made
up for his former idleness," and studied for seven or eight hours a day
for many months to improve his knowledge of French and Latin. His
Frenchman, he writes to tell his father, is the same that was Sir
Humphry Sidenham's; he "warrants I shall speak it perfectly before we
draw into the field, and truly, I am confident I shall."[703] He was
reading Plutarch's _Lives_ in French. Edmund was soon after killed in
the Civil War. His younger brother, Harry, was intended from his youth
for a soldier, and early sent to Paris to study French. There he seems
to have spoilt his English without making any very rapid progress in
French, for French grammar had a powerful rival in horses and dogs--his
chief interest in life. "Pleade for me in my behalfe to my father," he
implores his eldest brother, "if I have not write in french so well as
he expects, but howsoever, I presume a line to testifie some little
knowledge in the same, and hope in time to expresse myselfe more radier,
as the old proverbe is ... _il fault du temps pour apprendre_." Harry
Verney later took part in the Thirty Years' War, and was present at the
recapture of Breda by the Prince of Orange in 1637.[704]
It was during the Thirty Years' War also that John Wodroeph served in
the Netherlands. He tells us in 1623 that he had been "following the
uncertaine warres" for "these seven years past." During this period of
service, "by the spared dayes and houres of (his) watch and guarde," he
composed a book for teaching French, to which he gave the title of _The
Spared Houres of a Souldier in his travells or The true Marrowe of the
French tongue_. It was printed at Dort, near Rotterdam, in 1623, and
dedicated to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I. Wodroeph was a
"gentleman," and we gather from the interest he shows in Scotland that
he hailed from that country. [Header: JOHN WODROEPH] At both the
beginning and the end of his book are several poems of all sorts
dedicated to courtiers who had followed James from Scotland to
England--the Duke of Lennox, Earl Ramsey, James, Lord of Hay, and
others. He also addresses the Elector Palatine and his queen, Elizabeth,
James I.'s daughter. Many other poems, some in French and some in
English, are written in honour of the Lords of the States-General and of
sundry Flemish gentlemen. All these give this work, written in the midst
of the British army abroad, a strong local colour. In addition, Wodroeph
wrote poems to celebrate the virtues and learning of numerous Scottish
and English officers--Colonel William Brog, Colonel Robert Henderson,
Captain Roger Orme, Captain Edwards, Captain Drummond, and John
Monteith, his very kind captain. To many of these and other "sons of
gentlemen" Wodroeph had taught French, when his military duties
permitted, and he mentions Captain Drummond as being among his most
enthusiastic pupils. He also addresses lines to his very good friend
John Cameron, the Scotch theologian and the minister of the French
Church at Bordeaux, one of the many Scotchmen who held important
scholastic positions in France. These verses must have been written
between 1608 and 1617, the period when Cameron was at Bordeaux. Later
Cameron became professor of divinity at Saumur and Montauban. He spoke
French with unusual purity, and also wrote some of his theological
treatises in French.[705]
Apart from its martial atmosphere, this curious volume has also a strong
Calvinistic flavour, another indication of Wodroeph's Scottish
sympathies. He wrote many "godly songs" in French, to be sung to various
psalm tunes, and even introduced the spirit into his grammar itself. His
verbs are "truly formed and constructed after the order of Geneva, which
retaineth alwaies entirely the true marrow, method and rules of verbs,
or any other part of speech, both in their Bibles, Psalms, and other
godly books: forsaking all new corruptions, of poets, and other vaine
toyes, threatening to deface the old authority of the Orthographie."
Moreover, a godly gentleman, "maister John Douglas, minister of the Word
of God to the English and Scotch troopers within Utrecht," persuaded him
to undertake the translation into French of Sir William Alexander's
_Doomesday_, which at this date embraced four books or "houres,"
subsequently extended to twelve. _Doomesday_, thought Wodroeph, would be
greatly "liked of in France, yea, even as well as a second Du Bartas."
He was, however, unable to complete his task, "finding the style so
excellent and so high, and also somewhat harsh, to agree with French
verse, because that our English tongue (and chiefly by this
extraordinary poet) can affoorde more sense and matter with ten of its
syllables than ever I have been able to construe with twelve or thirteen
of the French. Therefore I was constrained to leave it off, partly for
want of tyme and commoditie, and partly that it was so constrained." The
one 'Houre' he completed was included in his book, with an apology and
the expression of the hope that "any kind French poet would end out the
rest, and also help these few rude lines which are translated in haste
out of his week and shallow braine."
Wodroeph wrote French, both verse and prose, with remarkable ease. In
addition to the poems already mentioned, there are many others scattered
through his works. One of these, "Chanson Spirituelle de la vie des
vertueux hommes," is written to the tune of Desportes' song, "O nuit,
jalouse nuit, contre moy conjurée." He tells us that whenever possible
he used French in correspondence in preference to English. He spoke the
language with equal fluency, and assures us that he did so with greater
facility than English. He had not acquired this mastery of the language
without much study, but by "many cold winter nights sitting at it," and
by much practice. He appears to have been fairly widely read in French
literature, and shared the admiration felt by many of his countrymen for
Du Bartas and the _Quatrains_ of Pibrac.
Thus Wodroeph was perfectly conscious of the many difficulties offered
by the French language, and censured in strong terms those who pretend
to teach it in a short space of time. "I have shamefully heard say a
teacher (in my tyme) that he could give rules, that any might read and
write and understand the French language in six weeks. O what a weake
ground should hee build therein! Yea not in sixteene months, hee and his
gentle teaching! Unlesse he dazell his eyes much, and straine his memory
out of her limits." [Header: METHOD OF STUDY] At an earlier date,
Holyband had deplored the existence of the many "thornie and inepte
bookes" claiming to give a knowledge of the language, and Wodroeph, in
his turn, shows the small esteem in which he held the many "small wares"
by which it is impossible to prove a good speaker. He had seen very many
treatises on verbs, "confused (for want of space), confusing those who
read them," and so many pamphlets and books making believe "by wordes
rather than by effects that the French tongue can be truly learned by
the same." No doubt most of these little pamphlets are among the many
school-books of which all trace has been lost. There is, however,
mention of one, _A shorte method for the Declyning of Ffrench Verbes_,
by J. S., licensed in 1623 to the printer, Richard Field.[706]
Wodroeph, therefore, earnestly begs the student of French not to fancy
he can "spare the marrow of his famous braines" and pick French up by
ear alone, as many seek to do. He must, on the contrary, be prepared "to
storm the citadel of grammar, and do as the valiant captaine, that is to
say, besiege the strongest houldes which commande over the lesser and
weaker sort." "Loving Reader," he writes, "if I could persuade thee to
believe what profit the diligent and serious Man doth reape learning the
true methode of French Tongue and what advantage he gaineth above him
who thinketh to obtaine the said Tongue by the eare only: truly thou
wouldest use thine earnest diligence and celeritie perusing these
rules." Otherwise learners will speak "scurvily, harshly and painfully,
that they make the Frenches take their sport at them, even as the
English do at the Welshes ... taking sometyme the male for the female,
and the hand for the foote; applying to the woman that which should
apply to the man: and to the leg which ought apply to the arme: as _la
garçon_, _le femme_, _ma sieur_, and _mon dame_: ... O what language
this is in the eares of the Frenches! I think truely it should make Père
Coton him selfe to laugh at it, who said in a sermon (the King and Queen
present), that hee had neither sinned nor laughed in fiftene yeares
tyme, yea and any man else." Verbs are a special difficulty, and there
"be many that can never speake true French for lack of knowing their
methode. For where it ought to be spoken thus: _Il y eut_ or _il y avait
un homme là_, some will say _il fut_, _il estoit un homme là_. Fine
French! And so will the ignorant speake through all the moodes and
tenses, whereat the Frenches take often their sport." Thus those who
have learnt no grammar "go wallowing in the painefull and muddy mire of
confused and backward broyles, doubting and fearing (without any
assurance) what words to speak first in framing their phrases."
But Wodroeph, in spite of the great emphasis he laid on the study of
rules, fully recognizes the importance and value of practice. "I do not
meene (for all this)," he writes, "to condemne common practice of the
tongue by the eare, but do praise both wayes; esteeming (nevertheless)
the method of the rules for the better and surer way, as I have
certainlie found (and many others), by myne owne experience practicing
them bothe." "Certes il vous faut parler tousiours," he says, "soit-il
ou en bien ou en mal." To make progress "il vous faut frequenter,
hanter, accoynter, accoster, discourir, babiller, caquetter, baiser,
lecher, parler hardiment et discretement, aymer, rire, gausser, jouer,
vous rejouir, et jouir de leurs bonnes faveurs et graces: et
principalement ès compagnies honestes: asçavoir, parmi les seigneurs et
Dames, Damoiselles honestes, pudiques matrones, femmes et filles de
vertu et d'honneur; captaines et dignes chefs de guerre, là où il y a
tousiours quelque chose a esplucher, si c'est de leurs prouesses,
entreprises, ou de leurs faicts heroiques et memorables . . . sans vous
esbahir pour le bruit non plus que fait le bon cheval de trompette."
Wodroeph doubtless based his advice on his own experience. Moreover, a
bold and enterprising spirit has much to do with the successful study of
French: "si vous n'estes hardi prompt, diligent, et vigilent, vous
n'apprendrez pas la langue françoise par songe . . . mais cela vient par
grande peine, diligence et priere a Dieu. Certes, . . . si un homme
estoit marié a une femme françoise . . . il me semble qu'il apprendroit
plustost en disant, Mme, ou m'amie, permettez moy que ie vous recerche
en tout honeur et mariage . . . a celle fin de vous faire ma chere
moitié, et fidele espouse: que par ce moyen, ie puisse et avoir vostre
alliance et apprendre vostre language, autrement, madame, il me
cousteroit beaucoup plus de temps, de peine et de mes moyens."
Wodroeph's book for teaching French is one of the most comprehensive. He
assures the student that it lacks "nothing to make him a perfect
Frenchman but the birth and delygence though he never read any other."
It fills more than five hundred folio pages. [Header: "THE SPARED HOURES
OF A SOULDIER"] Putting his theories into practice, he begins with rules
of pronunciation and grammar, "set downe by God's helpe as I have
practiced in my time and by the tracke of best Authours, which have
professed this tongue heretofore." His debt to Holyband makes it evident
that he ranked the popular sixteenth-century teacher among these. He
would have the student pay special attention to three things: first the
pronunciation, which, as was usual, he bases on comparison with English
sounds; then the genders, learning every noun with its article "to lead
to the same in right gender"; and, finally, and most important of all,
the verbs, which should be committed to memory. In his grammar he
follows the usual order, treating each part of speech in turn. He
endeavours to avoid all superfluous rules, fearing the "loathsomeness of
the unlearned."
The rules occupy about a hundred pages. Then follows a most
comprehensive collection of practical exercises, intended for all sorts
and conditions--courtiers, merchants, and the middle classes, "the
learned and the unlearned." The dialogues are accompanied by a verbatim
English translation. In the introductory ones the reader is referred to
the margin for the pronunciation of the most difficult words, where it
is given in English spelling. The "true English phrase" is added in the
footnote where necessary. Wodroeph was strongly in favour of sacrificing
if need be the purity of the English for the sake of rendering the
meaning of the French clearer. He did not pretend, he says, to teach his
countrymen their "own ornate English." "Verbatim, therefore, sometimes
must be had, because it is requisite that it should not always be closed
up in a phrase, but showed bare, as it fals very often: then (nil thou
wilt thou) thou must have a coat to cover it, that is to say his true
signification, or else thou must leave it, and run to the Dictionarie,
and dazle thy eyes there awhile, and be even so wise as thou wast
before; for sometymes they are not to be found at all in it, and
sometymes it will fall in some tense of some mood which no Dictionarie
can yield: yea even thousands."
The first section of the dialogues, that accompanied by the guides to
pronunciation, deals with familiar subjects, more useful than elegant
and more profitable for the middle classes and merchants than for the
"loathsome courtier." "Thou hast in this Booke all household stuffe and
other pretty necessary words meete for thy dailie use in this tongue.
Also an Introduction to frame all common and ordinarie phrases
pertaining to a house: as of victuals, dressing, voyaging through the
land. Also the partes and cloathing of a Man, his body, all in
remarkable phrases; whereof I will shew thee vively, yea every Member,
from the crowne of the Head unto the Foot." Though Wodroeph's dialogues
are on a much larger scale than usual in French manuals, they treat of
much the same topics. He advises the student to read this first set of
dialogues several times, as much to get a good foundation of common
talk, as to learn the pronunciation by means of the guides provided.
They are followed by lists of common phrases to be learnt by heart,
"every day one or two, for ordinarie use," and to facilitate an early
use of French in conversation, and also by French idioms "very necessary
for Translations of this tongue into any other."
After about sixty pages of this introductory matter we pass to what
Wodroeph calls "The first booke of familie Dialogues, wherein is treated
of all kinds of common necessary phrases as well for the use of the
fields, labourage and contries, as for all sortes of home affaires for a
house"--all accompanied by a verbatim English translation. These
dialogues comprise conversations between members of most ranks of
society, from a king and queen, ladies and gentlemen, to family scenes,
and discussions between various tradesmen and peasants, not forgetting
the schoolmaster and his pupil and the military officer and his
subordinates; for, whenever occasion arises, Wodroeph introduces
military talk. This section of the work closes with a list of the proper
terms in which to address the higher and lower classes.
Next come the dialogues taken from _Le verger des Colloques recréatifs_,
offered by a Walloon to Prince Henry of Nassau, for his furtherance in
the same tongue in his younger years. Wodroeph claims to have purified
this book, written in "scurvie Wallons language." It had already been
adapted to the instruction of the English in the Italian language, by
John Florio in his _Second Frutes_. These dialogues are naturally more
of the courtly type, and are concerned with the daily occurrences of the
life of a gentleman.
They are followed by _The Springwell of Honour and Vertue_, a collection
of moral sayings and counsels, "composed both by ancient and moderne
philosophers not only for the benefit of the corrupted youth, but also
for all folkes, of all qualities, and chiefly for the yong gentilitie."
[Header: END OF WODROEPH'S CAREER] Wodroeph explains how this
collection came to have a place in his book: "being once invited to
supper of a worthy and virtuous gentleman (one who had showed me much
favour for clearing his eldest sone of some doubts of the French
tongue), I saw that hee (his owne selfe) did copie some Theames out of
this same Worke ... for to instruct one of his children being (for that
present) at the French schoole; I entreated him to lend it me for a
Tyme, who did it willingly until I had viewed it, and corrected the
French and read it all out." The _Springwell_ is divided into three
bookes: the first deals with the "means of acquiring Honour and Vertue";
the second with the old subject of the six or, as Shakespeare has it,
seven ages of man; and the third with the worship of God and our duty to
our neighbours.
After sundry poems, addressed to English, Scottish, and Flemish
gentlemen, and the translation of Sir William Alexander's _First Hour_,
given in both French and English, come directions for writing letters,
with thirty-six epistles in French and English, and themes gathered out
of French authors for the use of some of his pupils, "before I made them
frame any letters: very profitable to begin with and out of the best and
purest French." Finally we have the usual proverbs, so much in favour at
this period, "picked" from those of the learned Mathurin Cordier, and
"sundry other Authours and writers." The work closes with "a
Thankesgiving (of the Authour) unto God for his helpe in the finishing
of this worke," and the quotation of Wodroeph's device--"Vers Dieu c'est
le meilleur."
In 1625 a second edition of this curious volume appeared in London,
under the title of _The Marrow of the French Tongue_. This edition is
said to be "revised and purged of much gross English" which had made its
way into the former edition, printed abroad. It is considerably
abridged, and lacks the living interest of the Dort edition. The actual
instructions for the French tongue remain intact, but all the little
chatty autobiographical scraps, and observations to the "Loving Reader,"
as well as the addresses to officers, which gave such a characteristic
personal touch to the earlier edition, are here omitted, and the work is
about one hundred and seventy pages shorter. The dedication to Charles
Stuart, now newly crowned Charles I., still stands. Wodroeph had no
doubt returned to England, where he was known to several of the
prominent men of the time. In 1623 he had mentioned favours received
from James, Lord of Hay, at Hampton Court, sixteen years before. We may
presume that he continued to teach French among the higher classes of
society after his return, though there does not appear to be any further
trace of him.
FOOTNOTES:
[685] Florio, _First Frutes_, 1578.
[686] J. Aubrey, _Brief Lives_ (ed. A. Clark, Oxford, 1898), ii. p. 140.
[687] A fragment of one leaf, the title page, leaving no date; British
Museum, Harl. MSS. 5936.
[688] Arber, _Transcript of the Stationers' Register_, iii. 413; iv. 152
and 459.
[689] _Vocabulaire de nouveau ordonné et derechief recorigé pour
aprendre legierement a bien lire, escripre, et parler françoys et
flameng_, Anvers, 1511 (E. Stengel, _Chronologisches Verzeichnis_, p. 22
n.; and Michelant, _Livre des Mestiers_, Introduction).
[690] Arber, _Stationers' Register_, i. 343.
[691] _Ibid._ i. 389.
[692] Arber, _Stationers' Register_, ii. 338.
[693] Cp. Ch. Beaulieux, "Liste de Dictionnaires, Lexicographes et
vocabulaires français antérieurs au Thrésor de Nicot" (1606), in
_Mélanges de Philologie offerts à Ferdinand Brunot_, Paris, 1904.
[694] Cp. E. Stengel, "Über einige seltene französische Grammatiken," in
_Mélanges de Philologie romane dédiés à Carl Wahlund_. Macon, 1896, pp.
181 _sqq._
[695] Of similar import, no doubt, were the _Boke of Copyes Englesshe,
Ffrynshe and Italion_, licensed to Vautrollier in 1569-70 (_Stationers'
Register_, i. 417); and the _Bills of Lading English, French, Italian,
Dutch_, licensed to Master Bourne in 1636 (_ibid._ iv. 364).
[696] H. Vaganey, _Le Vocabulaire français du seizième siècle_, Paris,
1906, pp. 2 _sqq._
[697] _Advice to a Son_, 1656, p. 83.
[698] Cp. _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1666-67_, pp. 57, 104. At a later
date A. de la Barre, a schoolmaster of Leyden, published a _Methode ou
Instruction nouvelle pour les etrangers qui desirent apprendre la
manière de composer ou écrire a la mode du temps et scavoir la vraye
prononciation de la langue françoise_, Leyden, 1642. In 1644 he issued,
also at Leyden, a book probably intended as reading material for his
pupils, and called _Les Leçons publiques du sieur de la Barre, prises
sur les questions curieuses et problematiques des plus beaux esprits de
ce temps_.
[699] Farrer, _La Vie et les oeuvres de Claude de Sainliens_,
Bibliography.
[700] G. S. Rowlands, _The Letting of Humour's blood in the Head-Vaine_
(1600). Edinburgh, 1814.
[701] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1595-97_, p. 173; _1601-1603_, pp. 18,
111.
[702] Printed in the _Camden Miscellany_, vol. i., 1847, pp. 65 _sqq._
[703] _Memoirs of the Verney Family_, i. 171.
[704] During the Commonwealth there were many English troops in the
service of France, and the Duke of York, afterwards James II., spent
much of his first exile in serving under Turenne.
[705] Cp. _Dict. Nat. Biog._, ad nom. An Englishman, Gilbert Primrose,
was for a time minister at Bordeaux (till 1623), and afterwards of the
Threadneedle Street Church, London (_Dict. Nat. Biog._).
[706] Arber, _Stationers' Register_, iv. 100.
PART III
STUART TIMES
CHAPTER I
FRENCH AT THE COURTS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.--FRENCH STUDIED BY
THE LADIES--FRENCH PLAYERS IN LONDON--ENGLISH GENERALLY IGNORED BY
FOREIGNERS
The coming of the Stuarts strengthened considerably the connexion
between France and England. French was widely used at the Court of James
I. The King himself does not appear to have been well acquainted with
other foreign languages than French and Latin, both of which he employed
freely in conversation[707] and correspondence.[708] In one or other of
these tongues he conversed with the learned foreigners he loved to
gather at his Court, such as Isaac Casaubon[709] and the famous
Protestant preacher, Pierre Du Moulin, minister of Charenton. The latter
has left an account[710] of the warm welcome he received from the
English monarch; he tells us that at meal times he usually stood behind
His Majesty's chair and conversed with him. James requested Du Moulin to
write an answer to Cardinal Du Perron's pamphlet concerning the power of
the Pope over monarchs, in which he had been attacked. Du Moulin
complied, and his work was printed at London in 1615 as the _Declaration
du Sérénissme Roy Jacques I_. He also preached in French before James at
the Chapel Royal at Greenwich, and received marks of distinction from
the University of Cambridge, which conferred the degree of D.D. upon
him.[711]
An idea of the extent to which French was used in intercourse with
ambassadors and other foreigners may be gathered from the _Finetti
Philoxenus_, a series of observations by Sir John Finett, knight and
master of the ceremonies to the two first Stuart kings of England,
touching the reception and precedence, treatment and audience of foreign
ambassadors. The French language was making important progress at this
time, and Latin was rapidly losing ground. James was the last king of
England to employ Latin in familiar conversation, and this is partly
accounted for by his pedantic turn of mind. The spread of the use of
French in England was hastened too by its growing popularity all over
Europe. The Flemish Mellema, in his Flemish-French Dictionary of 1591,
says French is used everywhere in Europe and the East.[712] To be
unacquainted with French was accounted a great deficiency in a
gentleman. It was said of the language that _qui langue a jusqu'à Rome
va_,[713] and in England the general conviction was that "No nobleman,
gentleman, soldier, or man of action in business between Nation and
Nation can well be without it."[714]
James seems to have acquired his knowledge of French chiefly by means of
intercourse with the many Frenchmen at the Scottish Court, one of whom,
Jérôme Grelot, was among the young noblemen who shared his studies.[715]
He also read much French literature, however, and later took a great
interest in the language studies of his children. They were constantly
required to send him letters in French and Latin to allow him to judge
of their progress.
"Sir," wrote the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia,
"L'esperance que j'ay de vous voir bien tost et d'avoir l'honneur
de recepvoir voz commandemens m'empeschera de vous faire ma lettre
plus longue que pour baiser tres humblement les mains de vostre
Majesté."[716]
The king's eldest son, Henry, made acquaintance with French at a very
early age. In 1600, when only seven years old, he addressed a letter in
French to the States-General of Holland. He calls this epistle "les
primices de nostre main,"[717] and probably received some help in its
composition. He also wrote in French to Henry IV., who had recommended
to him his riding master, M. St. Antoine,[718] and to the Dauphin,
offering him two _bidets_.[719] [Header: FRENCH STUDIES OF THE STUART
FAMILY] At this time many of the riding-masters in England were
Italians, but almost all the dancing-masters were Frenchmen.[720]
The young prince, however, had a French master for both these
exercises.[721] One of his language masters was John Florio, best known
by his translation of Montaigne's _Essais_, published in 1600, who
taught both French and Italian and was the author of several books for
teaching the latter. Florio had spent many of his earlier years at
Oxford, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century was in London,
teaching languages, and well acquainted with many of the chief men of
the day. It is uncertain at what date he became tutor to Prince
Henry,[722] but in 1603 he was appointed Reader in Italian to Queen
Anne, and in the following year "Gentleman extraordinary and Groom of
the Privy Chamber." His royal pupil was a great lover of Pibrac's
_Quatrains_, popular among teachers of French. The prince wrote to his
mother in 1604, sending her a copy of one of the quatrains, and telling
her that if she likes he will undertake to learn the whole by heart
before the end of the year; and, in reminding his father of a promise to
give ecclesiastical preferment to his tutor, Mr. Adam Newton, he quotes
one of them as appropriate:[723]
Tu ne saurois d'assez ample salaire
Recompenser celui qui t'a soigné
En ton enfance et qui t'a enseigné
A bien parler et sur tout a bien faire.
Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I., seems to have been the most
accomplished of James's family in so far as French is concerned. He was
able to carry on a conversation in it with his father and the Duke John
Ernest of Saxe-Weimar when he was thirteen years old.[724] Evidence of
his fluency is provided by the well-known episode of his visit to Spain
to see the Infanta. The Queen of Spain, daughter of Henry IV. and sister
of Henrietta Maria, was delighted when the English prince, on his
arrival at the Spanish Court, addressed her in her native idiom. She
warned him not to speak to her again without permission, as it was
customary to poison all gentlemen suspected of gallantry towards the
Queen of Spain. She managed to obtain leave to speak with Charles,
however, and had a long conversation with him in her box at the theatre,
in the course of which, it is said, she confided to him her desire for
his marriage with her sister.[725] When Charles married Henrietta she
was quite ignorant of English, and his knowledge of French was again put
to the test. He was also called upon to employ French with his
mother-in-law, Marie de Medecis, during her stay in England. His letters
to her show how accomplished a writer of French he was. He possessed a
more elegant style than his French wife, thanks largely to Guy Le
Moyne,[726] who was also French tutor to the Duke of Buckingham[727] and
other members of the nobility.
Among the French masters employed in the family of Charles I. was Peter
Massonnet, a native of Geneva, who attended the princes, Charles (II.)
and James (II.), in the capacity of sub-tutor, writing-master, and
French teacher. We have no details as to how he taught them, nor do we
know if Charles learnt from one or other of the French manuals which had
been dedicated to him. Massonnet received a salary and pension from
Charles I., in whose service he remained for thirty-two years, first as
French tutor to his children and then, in the time of his adversity, as
clerk to the Patents, and Foreign Secretary. During the Commonwealth he
spent some time at Oxford, and was created D.Med. on the 9th of April
1648, being described as second or under tutor to James, Duke of
York.[728] At the time of the Restoration Massonnet was in a very
destitute condition. His pension had not been paid during the troubled
period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, and to crown all he was
outlawed for debt. He had to petition Charles II., his former pupil,
several times for the payment of his salary and arrears before his
appeal had any real effect. From time to time he received instalments,
but in 1668 he was still "the saddest object of pity of all the king's
servants, and ready to perish."[729]
[Header: FRENCH TUTORS AT COURT]
In 1633 Sir Robert le Grys, Groom of the Chamber to James I. and Charles
I.,[730] offered his services as tutor to Prince Charles (II.), then
three years old. He undertook to make Latin the prince's mother tongue
by the age of seven, using an easy method, not "dogging his memory with
pedantic rules, after the usual fashion." French was to be the language
first studied, and Italian and Spanish also entered the programme.[731]
What sort of reception these proposals met with is not known, but in May
of the same year Sir Robert was granted the office of captain of the
Castle of St. Mewes for life.[732] Another tutor, named Lovell, taught
French and Latin to two of Charles I.'s children during the Civil War.
He was employed at Penhurst by the Countess of Leicester, to whose care
the children had been committed.[733]
Ladies were among the most eager lovers of the French language at the
Court of the early Stuarts, and were noted for their proficiency in that
tongue. We hear that wealthy ladies go to Court, "and there learn to be
at charge to teach the paraquetoes French."[734] Not only was he that
could not _parlee_ not considered a gentleman, but the ladies had to
talk French if they wished to play a part at Court. French had entirely
supplanted Euphuism, the high-flown, bombastic speech which had held
sway in polite circles after the appearance of Lyly's _Euphues_ in 1579.
"Now a lady at Court who speaks no French," wrote Th. Blount in
1623,[735] "is as little regarded as she who did not parley euphuisme"
in the earlier days. Girls, to be considered well brought up, had to
"speak French naturally at fifteen, and be turned to Spanish and Italian
half a year later."[736] It is improbable that Spanish was learnt in any
but a few exceptional cases. Italian, however, was fairly widely learnt
for purposes of reading as we may conclude from the title of a book
printed at London in 1598 by Adam Islip--_The Necessary, Fit and
Convenient Education of a young Gentlewoman, Italian, French, and
English_.[737] John Evelyn's favourite daughter, Mary, was as familiarly
acquainted with French as with English. Her knowledge of Italian was
limited and characteristic of the general attitude taken up towards that
language; she understood it, and was able "to render a laudable account
of what she read and observed." His other daughter, Susanna, was also a
good French scholar, but apparently knew no Italian, though she had read
most of the Greek and Roman authors. Sir Ralph Verney, who dissuaded
women from deep study, recognised that French was indispensable, and
encouraged them to read French romances especially.
While Italian was sometimes read, French was almost always spoken in
polite circles. Milton's avowed preference for Italian forms a
noticeable exception to the general rule, and even he acquired some
knowledge of French at an early age.[738] There were also many more
facilities for learning French than there were for Italian. It is
certain--some of the dialogues of the French text-books prove it--that
many ladies picked up a conversational knowledge of the language from
their French maids. This was how the young daughters of Lord Strafford
acquired their knowledge, as we see from the following account of their
progress which he sent to their grandmother: "Nan, I think, speaks
French prettily ... the other (Arabella) also speaks, but her maid,
being of Guernsey, her accent is not good."[739]
Women, however, had had at all times no small influence on the
production of French text-books. One of the first written in England,
the _Treatyz_ of Walter de Bibbesworth, was composed in the first place
for the use of Lady Dionysia de Mounchensy. [Header: LADIES STUDY
FRENCH] The two chief grammars of the early sixteenth century, the
_Introductorie_ of Duwes and the _Esclarcissement_ of Palsgrave, both
owed their origin to royal princesses, and early in the seventeenth
century there appeared a grammar written specifically to enable women to
"match old Holliband" and "_parlee_ out their part" with men--_The
French Garden for English Ladyes and gentlewomen to walke in, or a
Summer dayes labour_, by Peter Erondell or Arundell, a native of
Normandy, and one of the group of refugee Huguenots, who taught the
French language in London. Erondell informs us he had long felt the
urgent need of such a book in his own teaching experience. "It is to be
wondered," he writes, "that among so many which (and some very
sufficiently) have written principles concerning our French Tongue
(making the dialogues of divers kinds), not one hath set forth any
respecting or belonging properly to women, except in the French
Alphabet,[740] but as good never a whit as never the better; not that I
finde faulte with it, but it is so little, as not to contayne scarce a
whole page, so that it is to be esteemed almost as nothing. I knowe not
where to attribute the cause, unles it be to forgetfulnes in them that
have written of it. For seeing that our tongue is called _Lingua
Mulierum_, and that the English ladyes and gentlewomen are studious and
of a pregnant spirits, quicke concertes and ingeniositie, as any other
country whatsoever, me thinketh it had been a verie worthie and specious
subject for a good writer to employ his Pen." Accordingly Erondell
undertook "to break the yce first," as he puts it.
He opens his _Garden_ with some rules of pronunciation in English, "as a
gate through the which wee must (and without the which we cannot) enter
into our French Garden." He acknowledges that he has selected these
rules "out of them which have written thereof." Many are taken from De
la Mothe's _French Alphabet_, and Holyband, as well as Bellot, are also
reckoned amongst those "which have written best of it." On one point,
however, Erondell claims to make an observation "never noted before in
any book." This had to do with the change in pronunciation of the
diphthong _oi_.[741] "Whereas our countrymen were wonte to pronounce
these words _connoistre_ ... as it is written by _oi_ or _oy_; now since
fewe yeeres they pronounce it as if it were written thus, _conètre_."
Erondell reduces the grammar rules to the smallest possible number. "He
wishes the student to learn by heart" the first two verbs _avoir_ and
_estre_, and for the rest to "help him selfe by the treatise that M.
Holliband made thereof,[742] as being the best (French and English) that
I have yet seen, notwithstanding it is not amisse to make you knowe our
persons and the number of our conjugations, which M. Bellot, in his
_French Guide_,[743] saith to be sixe, and I can number no more." In
dealing with grammar, Erondell claims to correct a gross error common in
England--the use of _de_ for the preposition _from_ before a masculine
noun preceded by _le_; "because that in English it is said ... _I come
from the country_, so the English students do commonly say, insteade of
_Je viens du pays_, ... _Je viens de le pays_.... But why should I finde
faulte in the English students," says Erondell, "whereas I my selfe have
heard the French teachers (I mean of our language) commit commonly that
error?"
Erondell's grammar rules occupy but ten pages. They contain a few
observations on the gender and number of nouns, on verbs, notes on _du_,
_au_, _de la_, _a la_, _en_, _y_, and on the negative and degrees of
comparison. He considers that the rules usually contained in French
text-books are too many. Except for a few indispensable rules, "without
the which our language can never be intelligiblie spoken," the rest are
"rather a trouble and discouragement to the student then any
furtherance." He compiled his book "for them of judgement and capacity
only, which may far sooner attaine to the perfect knowledge of our
tongue, by reason of cutting off those over-many rules, wherein the
student was overmuch entangled." His first idea, indeed, had been to
make a set of dialogues for women without any rules, but he realised
that to do this would have been like building a "house without a doore";
"and so, the gate being wider open, they may walke in who will."
Gentlemen also may find some "flowers" to please them, and the garden is
an "arbour for the child":
Who with the busie mother now and then
May prattle of each point, in phrases milde
The witty Boies, of bookes of sport and play,
The pretty lasses of their worke all day.
The dialogues, thirteen in number, and all of considerable length, form
the main part of the work. As usual they are in French and English, and,
in addition, the pronunciation of the more difficult French words is
given in English spelling in the margin. [Header: PETER ERONDELL] They
deal with the events in the daily life of a lady, from her rising in the
morning till bed-time. The first portrays the lady, who is of a rather
pedantic turn of mind, rising and dressing. The second introduces her
two daughters and their French governess. There is much talk on the
education of children, and we are spectators of the French tutor's
(Erondell) arrival and of the French lesson, which forms the fourth
dialogue. Each of the two girls in turn reads in French and then
translates. The more advanced is given some English to translate into
French, and the beginner is asked to conjugate certain French verbs.
This is how the lesson opens:
Sister Charlotte I pray you goe, Ma soeur Charlotte, Je vous prie
fetch our bookes, bring our allez querir nos livres, apportez
French Garden, and all our nostre jardin Francois, et tous
other bookes: nos aultres livres:
now in the name of God let us begin. or ça commençons au nom de Dieu.
Mistres Fleurimond read first: Mlle. F. lisez premierement:
speake somewhat louder parlez un peu plus haut
to th' end I may heare afin que j'oye
if you pronounce well: si vous prononcez bien:
say that worde againe. dites ce mot la derechef.
Wherefore do you sounde Pourquoy prononcez vous
that s? cette s la?
Doe you not knowe that it must be ne savez vous pas qu'il la faut
left? Well, it is well said, laisser? Et bien, c'est bien dit,
read with more facilitie, lisez avec plus de facilité,
without taking such paines. sans tant vous peiner.
Construe me that, what is that? Traduisez moy cela, qu'est cela?
Do you understand that? tell me Entendez vous cela? dites m'en
the signification in English--Truly la signification en Anglois--Certes
Sir I cannot tell it, Mons. je ne le scauroye dire,
I understand it not, je ne l'entend point,
I beseech you tell it me, je vous supplie de me le dire,
and I will remember it against et je le retiendray pour une
another time--Give me your paper autre fois--Baillez moy vostre
and I will write it, to th' end papier et ie l'escripray, afin
you forget it not ... etc. que vous ne l'oubliez. . . .
At the end of her lesson, Florimond has to point out her younger
sister's mistakes; for, says Erondell, "in teaching others, one learns
oneself." His rule for learning to read was, "observe your rules and
read as you do in English"--a method which explains his system of guides
to pronunciation. From the dialogues the student passes to the reading
of French literature. The girls' French tutor came between seven and
eight in the morning, the dancing-master at nine, the singing-master at
ten, and another music-master at four in the afternoon.
In the following dialogues the lady visits first the nursery, and next
her sons and their tutors. She is then pictured receiving guests, going
out shopping, presiding at the dinner-table,[744] and taking part in
the conversation. Finally, in the evening, the company take a walk by
the Thames, and the thirteenth and last dialogue "treateth of going to
bed, prayers (including the Creed), and night-clothes."
In order to give students an introduction to French verse as well as
prose, Erondell adds to his book the story of the Centurion in the New
Testament put into French verse by himself. He does not provide any
English translation, and considers that the pupil who has progressed so
far in the study of the language can very well do without it. For the
same reason he here omits, as he does in the last dialogue also, the
guides to pronunciation.
For a time Erondell had been tutor in the Barkley family, and dedicated
the _Garden_ to the Lady Elizabeth Barkley, with an expression of his
gratitude for the many favours he had received from her. The verses on
the Centurion are dedicated to Thomas Norton, of Norwood, whom he calls
his "très intime et très honoré amy." As was usual at this time,
Erondell's book is preceded by commendatory poems, including lines by
William Herbert, author of _Cadwallader_, and by Nicholas Breton. There
is also a sonnet by the "Sieur de Mont Chrestien, Gentilhomme françois,"
possibly the famous Antoine de Montchrétien, who in about 1605 was
forced to leave France on account of a duel, and visited both England
and Holland. Erondell appears to have been many years in England before
he produced his _Garden_. At this date he had a large clientèle,
including "many honourable ladies and gentlemen of great worth and
worship." In about 1613 he engaged an assistant to help him, one John
Fabre, a Frenchman, "born in the precinct of Guyand, a town of Turnon";
in 1618 Fabre was still "professeing the teaching of the French tongue
with Mr. Peter Arundell."[745]
In addition to compiling the _French Garden_, Erondelle prepared four
new editions of Holyband's _French Schoolemaister_. Although they are
said to be "newly corrected and emended by P. Erondell," he made no
noticeable changes. The first of these editions appeared in 1606, and
the others in 1612, 1615, and 1619. This last date is the latest at
which we hear of him.
[Header: ERONDELL'S WORKS]
The earliest notice we have of Erondell is found in 1586, when he
published a _Declaration and Catholic Exhortation to all Christian
Princes to succour the Church of God and Realme of France_,[746]
faithfully translated out of French, and printed side by side with the
original--another of the many similar pamphlets in French and English.
He had thus been in England at least twenty years when his book for
teaching French was published, and its tardy appearance led one of his
admirers to ask:
Swift Erondell, why hast thou been so slowe
Whose nature is to bring the summer in?
In earlier years Erondell had no doubt made use of Holyband's works; he
evinces a high esteem for the sixteenth-century teacher, and shows
intimate acquaintance with his _Schoolemaister_ and his _Treatise on
Verbs_. It is an interesting fact that until the middle of the
seventeenth century and probably much later Holyband's sixteenth-century
French was still being taught in England; as late as 1677 the _French
Schoolemaister_ was among the books advertised for sale by Thomas
Passenger at the sign of the Three Bibles on London Bridge.[747] The
great changes taking place in the evolution of the French language
reached England but slowly.
Erondell translated another French work into English.[748] One day
Richard Hakluyt, the geographer, brought him the whole volume of the
Navigations of the French Nation to the West Indies to translate. From
this Erondell selected the _Nova Francia, or the Description of that
part of New France, which is one continent with Virginia, described in
the three late voyages ... made by M. de Monto, M. du Pont Grave, and M.
de Poutrincourt, into the countries called by the French men La Cadre,
lying to the southwest of Cape Breton ..._, which was published in 1609
and dedicated to the "Bright Starre of the North, Henry, Prince of Great
Britaine."
The arrival of the French Queen of England, Henrietta Maria, in 1625,
gave further stimulus to the already strong French influence at the
Court. When she came she knew no English, and for many years after her
arrival waywardly refused to study the language. Her numerous suite of
French ladies and gentlemen, including Mme. Georges, the Duc and
Duchesse de Chevreuse, and Père Sancy, shared her ignorance, as indeed
did practically all foreigners. The English Court was thus called upon
to exercise its French to the uttermost. The small French colony in
London managed to make itself very unpopular, not only with the King but
also with the whole Court. Their ignorance of English and English ways
caused them to commit blunders which prejudiced people against them.
Such was the case when Henrietta and her suite strolled, chattering and
making a great noise, through an assembly of English people listening to
a sermon. The preacher asked if he must stop, but no notice was taken,
and soon the whole retinue returned in the same fashion, evidently not
understanding a word of what was going on.[749] Within a year of their
arrival, however, most of the French attendants were dismissed.
Four years after the arrival of the French queen, who had a passion for
the theatre, a French company arrived in London and acted before an
English audience.[750] They first played a farce at Blackfriars on the
17th of November, but did not meet with much success, being "hissed,
hooted, and pipinpelted." This hostile reception was partly due to the
fact that women[751] took part in the acting--a thing hitherto unknown
in England--and partly because the play was a "lascivious and unchaste
comedye," and the company was formed of "certain vagrant French players
who had beene expelled from their owne country." No wonder that they
gave "just offence to all vertuous and well disposed persons in the
town." Yet the French actors were not discouraged. They waited a
fortnight, and then obtained a licence to play at the Red Bull. This
second attempt does not appear to have been more successful than the
first. After some three weeks had elapsed, however, the company decided
to make a last effort. This time they acted at the Fortune, but with so
little success, that the Master of the Revels refunded them half his fee
"in respect of their ill-fortune." The failure of the venture was due
largely to its novelty, and the popular dislike of the French. [Header:
FRENCH PLAYERS IN LONDON] Though we are told that there was a "great
resort" to the French plays,[752] apparently people went more for the
sake of rioting than for the pleasure of hearing the French plays.
The stormy reception of 1629 did not, however, hinder other French
actors from coming to our country. In 1635 a new company arrived, this
time under the special patronage of the Queen.[753] They first played
before Her Majesty, who recommended them to the King. Through his
influence they were allowed the use of the Cockpit Theatre in Whitehall.
There, on the 17th of February, they presented a French comedy called
_Mélise_--either Corneille's _Mélite_, or more probably Du Rocher's
comic pastoral, _La Mélize, ou les Princes Reconnus_.[754] The King,
Queen, and Court were present. The acting met with approval and the
players received £10. There was no repetition of the riotous behaviour
which had characterised the performances of 1629, probably because there
were no women in the company, and also because the players were
specially patronised by the Court and the aristocracy. A few days after
the King gave orders to the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert,
brother of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, that the French company should be
allowed to act at Drury Lane Theatre on the two sermon days of each week
during Lent, and through the whole of Passion week, when they would
avoid rivalry with Beeston's English players, who did not perform on
those days. Sir Henry Herbert, himself a good French scholar, tells us
he "did all these courtesies to the French gratis," wishing to render
the Queen his mistress an acceptable service.
The French actors now enjoyed increasing popularity. When, at the end of
Lent, they had to relinquish the Cockpit, Drury Lane, to the English
players, their services were still in demand. On Easter Monday they
acted before the Court in a play called _Le Trompeur puny_, no doubt the
tragi-comedy of that name by Georges de Scudéry.[755] Their success was
even greater than on the occasion of the Court performance of _Mélise_,
and on the 16th of April following, they presented _Alcimedor_,[756]
under the same circumstances, and "with good approbation." These three
plays acted at the Court are the only part of their repertoire that is
named in the record of the Master of the Revels. On the 10th of May they
received £30 for three plays acted at the Cockpit, probably that in
Whitehall, where they first acted _Mélise_ before the Court, nearly four
months earlier, and not the Cockpit, Drury Lane, where they had played
during Lent.
The question now arose of providing the French players with a special
theatre of their own. Arrangements were made for converting part of the
Riding School in Drury Lane into a play-house, and on the 18th of April
the King signified to Sir Henry Herbert his royal pleasure that "the
French comedians should erect a stage, scaffolds and seats, and all
other accommodations." On the 5th of May following a warrant was granted
to Josias d'Aunay and Hurfries de Lau (so Sir Herbert spells their
names)[757] and others, empowering them to act at the new theatre
"during pleasure." How long the French company, whose director was
Josias Floridor, continued to act in London is not known. But it is a
striking fact that in 1635 there was a regular French theatre
established in the city, and its presence must have had considerable
effect. The French company under Floridor again appeared before the
Court, in December 1635; we do not know what they played, beyond the
fact that it was a tragedy. On the twenty-first of the same month, the
Pastoral of _Florimène_ was acted in French at Whitehall by the French
ladies who attended the Queen. The King, the Queen, Prince Charles, and
the Elector Palatine, were present, and the performance was a great
success.
The Queen did not persist in her obstinate refusal to learn English.
When she had been in the country about seven years, she began to study
the language seriously. Mr. Wingate was her tutor, and her love of the
theatre was put to practical use by the performance of long masques and
pastorals in English in which she took part. It is not surprising that
Henrietta Maria was ignorant of English, for our language was
practically unknown in France in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. [Header: ENGLISH IGNORED ON THE CONTINENT] Italian and
Spanish were the fashionable modern foreign languages in France. English
was either entirely ignored or regarded as barbarous, and since French
was widely spoken at the English Court, and Latin was used by scholars,
the need for it was not felt.[758] No foreign ambassador ever knew
English. Of the Frenchmen who visited England,[759] only a few learnt
the language. Chief among these were the French teachers, the pioneers
among Frenchmen in the study of the English tongue. Of individuals, the
Sieur de la Hoquette, man of letters and traveller, is said to have
visited England to see Bacon, and learnt English in order to read the
Chancellor's works in the original. He discussed Bacon's works and
English novels with J. Bignon, and was surprised to find that scholar
acquainted with them. Jean Doujat also knew English, as did La Mothe le
Vayer, who married a Scotchwoman, and also perhaps Regnier Desmarais,
who draws a few comparisons with it in his grammar.[760] But these were
isolated exceptions. Among the languages in which Panurge addresses
Pantagruel on their first meeting, English has a place, but is hardly
recognisable in its Scottish dress.[761] And the Maréchal de Villars
relates in his memoirs[762] that the Duc de la Ferté, "quand il avait un
peu bu," would break out in English to the great astonishment and
amusement of all who were present. There is a tradition that Corneille
kept a copy of the English translation of the _Cid_, which he showed to
his friends as a curiosity.
Yet the general ignorance of English outside England did not discourage
English actors from making professional tours abroad. They seem to have
enjoyed considerable popularity in Germany and the Low Countries,[763]
where they played at first in English. No doubt dancing, mimicry, and
music had much to do with their success, and the clown probably took
advantage of his position to offer interpretations from time to time.
However, the actors soon learnt some German by mixing with German
actors. A band of English acrobats had performed at Paris in 1583. Some
years later, in 1598, a troupe of English comedians hired the Hôtel de
Bourgogne,[764] the only theatre in Paris, from the _Confrérie de la
Passion_, who usually played there. The English actors, at whose head
was one Jehan Sehais, got into trouble for playing outside the Hôtel,
contrary to the privileges of the _Confrérie_, and had to pay an
indemnity. How much these actors made use of their language for
attracting an audience is not certain. At a somewhat later date, another
company played at Fontainebleau before Henry IV. and his son, afterwards
Louis XIII. The "wild dramas" acted by the English players seem to have
made a great impression on the young prince, who afterwards would amuse
himself by dressing as a comedian and crying in a very loud voice,
"Toph, toph, milord!" pacing about with great strides in the fashion of
the English actors.[765] But it is highly probable that these few words
were all the English the future king of France could muster.
Like the language, English literature was generally ignored in France.
Those men of letters who wrote Latin--More, Camden, Selden, etc.--were
known under their Latin names. In the early years of the seventeenth
century, however,[766] the French began to take an interest in English
literature, and a few translations of prose works appeared, though
English poetry and drama remained unnoticed. The first French version of
an English work was that of Bishop Hall's _Characters of Vertues and
Vices_ which appeared in 1610, and again in 1612 and 1619, and may have
had some influence on La Bruyère's _Caractères_. [Header: NEGLECT OF
ENGLISH] It is also interesting to note that this enterprising
translator was no other than J. L'Oiseau de Tourval, Parisien, who wrote
so enthusiastically of Cotgrave's dictionary, which appeared in the
following year (1611).[767] In the course of the next twenty years about
a score of other translations saw the light, including versions of
Greene's _Pandosta_ (1615), of Sidney's _Arcadia_, and of Bacon's
_Essays_. The translation of the _Arcadia_ was the subject of a violent
literary quarrel. Two versions came out at the same time, and both
claimed priority. One was due to J. Baudouin, who had lived two years in
England learning the language. He was also responsible for the
translation of Bacon.[768] His rival was one Mlle. Chappelain.
"English is a language that will do you good in England, but past Dover
it is worth nothing," wrote John Florio the language teacher, in his
_First Frutes_ (1578). And more than half a century later English was
still despised in foreign countries. While French was of use "in all
furthest parts of Europe," English still served "but in the Brittaine
lland,"[769] and even there did not receive due homage. English, we are
told by an indignant upholder of the claims of our language,[770] was
left for him who drives the plough; all the scholars, all the courtiers
you passed in the street, were good scholars in foreign tongues; many of
them chatted French as glibly as parrots, but could not write a single
English line without a solecism. But in the meantime the study of
English had had its advocates.[771] Richard Mulcaster has already been
mentioned as the first Englishman who emphatically urged that English
should be studied as thoroughly as foreign languages. "What reason is
it," he asked, "to be acquainted abrode and a stranger at home? to know
foreign things by rule, and our own but by rote? If all other men had
been so affected, to make much of the foren and set light by their own,
we should never by comparing have discerned the better. They proined
their own speche, both to please themselves and to set us on edge." This
was in 1582. Scholars took up the defence of the claims of English
against French, just as they did the claims of Latin. Camden seeks to
prove that English contains as many Greek words as French,[772] and so
is as worthy of respect. And Osborne, in his _Advice to a Son_, tells
the young diplomat to employ an interpreter in his dealings with these
foreigners who refused to recognize the value of English, "it being too
much an honouring of their Tongue, and undervaluing of your owne, to
propose yourself a master therein, especially since they scorn to learn
yours." There were, however, a few facilities for learning English at
the disposal of foreigners, in addition to residence in England. The
marriage of Charles I. with Henrietta Maria had been hailed both in
France and England by books which taught the languages of the two
countries conjointly, and so strengthened the new bond between them. In
England appeared a new edition of Du Bartas, in French and English, for
teaching "an Englishman French, or a Frenchman English." Wodroeph's
_Marrow of the French Tongue_ (1625), which saw the light at the same
time, was said to be "aussi utile pour le François d'apprendre l'Anglois
que pour l'Anglois d'apprendre le François," though only the dialogues
in French and English could serve this purpose, as, indeed, they might
in any other French text-book.[773] This notice is evidently added
merely as a concession to topical events; it had not figured in the
earlier edition (1623).
In France, on the other hand, was published a work in which English was
treated more seriously. This was a _Grammaire Angloise pour facilement
et promptement apprendre la langue angloise. Qui peut aussi aider aux
Anglois pour apprendre la langue Françoise: Alphabet Anglois contenant
la pronunciation des lettres avec les declinaisons et conjugaisons_,
dedicated to Henrietta Maria, and probably arranged by one of the
professors of the Collège de Navarre, from which it is dated. We are
informed that the princess, and those intending to accompany her to her
new home, studied English daily. These lessons, if they were really
given, were no doubt a matter of form, and we may judge from the results
that they were not taken seriously.
[Header: ENGLISH GRAMMARS]
This grammar issued in 1625 was not original; it had appeared at Rouen
in 1595,[774] and before that date there had been several other
editions. The 1595 edition was enlarged and corrected by a certain E.
A., who, for about ten years previously, had spent much of his time
translating French pamphlets on topical events and similar works from
French into English.[775] E. A., who was probably the original compiler
of the work, dedicated it to Queen Elizabeth. He says he had collected
the material from different authors in the leisure time allowed him by
his studies. In its contents the work resembles the usual French manuals
produced in England. It opens with rules for the pronunciation of
English, followed by grammar rules for the same language, all given in
French and English. Then come the dialogues, taken textually and without
acknowledgement from Holyband's _French Littleton_, and one dialogue
specially for courtiers, which may have been original.[776] The book
closes with the vocabulary of Holyband's _French Schoolemaister_. The
grammatical part of the work is also taken from one of the productions
of the French teachers in England--the _Maistre d'escole anglais_
(1580), written by Jacques Bellot for teaching English to foreigners in
England and dedicated to a member of the royal family of France.
Bellot protests against the general neglect of the English language,
rich enough in his opinion to rank with the most famous living tongues.
He claims to be the first to draw up precepts for teaching it. There is
little exaggeration in Bellot's claim, for hardly any works on English
had as yet been written, and these were chiefly treatises on the
orthography, more scholastic than pedagogic in intention.[777] At the
close of the year in which Bellot's work was published, however,
appeared the first work on English by an Englishman, designed to give
instruction to foreigners as well as his own countrymen. This was
William Bullocker's _Booke at large for the Amendment of Orthographie
for English Speech_, to which was added "a ruled grammar ... for the
same speech to no small commoditie of the English Nation, not only to
come to easie, speedie and perfect use of our owne language, but also to
their easie and speedie and readie entrance into the secrets of other
Languages, and easie and speedie pathway to all strangers, to use our
language, heretofore very hard unto them."
Two years later came Mulcaster's _Elementarie_, urging the claims of the
vernacular, and expounding his method for teaching it. Other grammars
followed, some in Latin, some in English,[778] but in hardly any of them
is any attention paid to foreigners--a striking contrast with those
published in France, in which foreigners were always an important
consideration. In 1632, however, appeared Sherwood's English-French
Dictionary, of which, it is said, the French were "great buyers."
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century foreigners received more
and more attention in such books, as English became better known. Simon
Daines's _Orthoepia anglicana_,[779] for instance, intended for the use
of both natives and foreigners, was published in 1640, as was also _The
English grammar made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out
of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use_.[780]
Ben Jonson had made a collection of grammars, and he speaks of a most
ancient work written in the Saxon tongue and character. "The profit of
grammar is great to strangers, who have to live in communication and
commerce with us," he wrote, "and it is honourable to ourselves." In
1644 another work of like aim was issued under one of the usual florid
titles affected at that time: _The English Primrose far surpassing
others of this kind that ever grew in any English garden._ It professed
to teach "the true spelling, reading and writing of English," and was
"planted" by Richard Hodges, schoolmaster in Southwark, "for the
exceeding great benefit both of his own countrymen and strangers."
Similarly J. Wharton's grammar of 1655 claimed to be "the most certain
guide that ever yet was extant" for strangers that desire to learn our
language.
[Header: ENGLISH GRAMMARS FOR FOREIGNERS]
Thus travellers to England would find some provision for learning
English. In the early seventeenth century several French teachers in
London undertook to teach English to foreigners, and these were the
earliest professional teachers of the language. They had all learnt
English after their arrival in the country on very practical methods, an
experience which must have reacted on their methods of teaching French.
Most of them wrote English with ease, if not always idiomatically. As
time advanced, especially in the latter part of the seventeenth century,
they composed several English grammars for teaching the language to
their pupils. Merchants as well as French teachers were pioneers in
advancing the study of English by foreigners. In 1622 George Mason, one
of the merchants in London skilled in the French tongue, wrote a
_Grammaire Angloise, contenant reigles bien exactes et certaines de la
Prononciation, Orthographie et construction de nostre langue, en faveur
des estrangers qui en sont desireux_, but especially, he tells us, for
the use of "noz françois tant a leur arrivée en ce pais, que en leur
demeure en iceluy." This English grammar[781] is written in French, and
gives rules for pronunciation and the parts of speech. It is followed by
dialogues[782] in French and English, in the usual style, bearing much
resemblance to the Latin colloquies and the dialogues of De la Mothe's
_French Alphabet_. A new edition was issued at London in 1633. The
earliest conversation books in French and English printed by Caxton,
Wynkyn de Worde, and Pynson are called books for teaching English as
well as French. They were indeed equally adapted for either language,
but it is very improbable that at this early date even the most
enterprising merchants learnt English.
Yet the first foreigners to recognize the importance of English were
merchants. English was given a place by the side of Latin, French,
Spanish, Italian, and German in the edition of the polyglot dictionary
for the use of merchants and travellers, printed at Venice in 1540,[783]
and at a later date in the polyglot collection of dialogues which
developed from the French and Flemish dialogues of Noel de Barlement;
not, however, till 1576, when the book had been in vogue for about
three-quarters of a century. Gabriel Meurier, schoolmaster of Antwerp,
who taught French to many of the numerous English merchants always in
the town, was acquainted with our language, but does not appear to have
had any opening for teaching it, as he did French, Flemish, Italian, and
Spanish. At a later date, however, we find an Englishman gaining his
livelihood by teaching his own language in the Netherlands. In 1646 he
published at Amsterdam _The English schole-master; or certaine rules and
helpes, whereby the natives of the Netherlands may be in a short time,
taught to read, understand and speake the English tongue, by the helpe
whereof the English may be better instructed in the knowledge of the
Dutch tongue, than by any vocabulars, or other Dutch and English Books,
which hitherto they may have had for that purpose_. This work contains
an English grammar, followed by selections from the Scriptures, moral
and familiar sayings, proverbs, dialogues, letters in English and Dutch.
The "Vocabulars" to which he refers furnished him with most of his
dialogues. A new edition appeared in 1658.
Rouen, ever a busy centre for merchants, was the place where provision
for teaching English was first made in France. Editions of the polyglot
dictionary, which included English in the edition of Venice in 1540,
were printed at Rouen in 1611 and 1625, and again at Paris in 1631. The
1595 edition of E. A.'s English grammar appeared at Rouen, as had
probably the earlier editions. This compilation of the English grammar
of Bellot and the dialogues of Holyband was in vogue for a very long
time. In addition to the Paris issue on the occasion of the marriage of
Henrietta Maria with Charles I. (1625), editions appeared at Rouen in
1639, 1668, 1670, 1679, and most probably at other dates also; another
was issued at London, 1677. Perhaps the first book for teaching English
printed in France was a _Traicté pour apprendre a parler Françoys et
Anglois_, published at Rouen in 1553, apparently an early edition of
Meurier's work, printed at Rouen in 1563 as a _Traité pour apprendre a
parler françois et anglois, ensemble faire missives, obligations,_ etc.,
and again at Rouen in 1641.
It was long before English won recognition from foreigners other than
merchants. Not until the eighteenth century was it learnt for the sake
of its literature, and as a means of intercourse with the people who
spoke it. This state of things made it incumbent on Englishmen to equip
themselves with some foreign tongue, and they naturally chose French,
the most universal language at that time.
FOOTNOTES:
[707] See accounts in Rye, _England as seen by Foreigners_.
[708] J. O. Halliwell, _Letters of the Kings of England_, London, 1846.
[709] Rye, _op. cit._ p. 153.
[710] "Autobiographie," _Bull. de la Soc. de l'Hist. du Protestantisme
Français_, vii. pp. 343 _sqq._
[711] Another famous Frenchman at the Court of James I. was Theodore
Mayerne the Court Doctor (cp. _Table Talk of Bishop Hurd_, Ox. Hist.
Soc. Collectanea, ser. 2, p. 390); also Jean de Schelandre and
Montchrétien among men of letters. James refused to give audience to the
poet Théophile de Viau, exiled for his daring satires. Boisrobert, St.
Amant, Voiture, likewise visited England at this period.
[712] Thurot, _Prononciation française_, i. p. xiv.
[713] Gerbier, _Interpreter of the Academy_, 1648.
[714] Aufeild: Translation of Maupas's _Grammar_, 1634.
[715] Young, _L'Enseignement en Écosse_, p. 78.
[716] Ellis, _Original Letters_, 1st series, iii. 89.
[717] T. Birch, _Life of Henry Prince of Wales_, London, 1760, p. 20.
[718] On Henry's death, St. Antoine became equerry to his brother
Charles (Rye, _op. cit._ p. 253).
[719] Ellis, _Orig. Letters_, ser. 1, iii. 95.
[720] "The French fashion of dancing is most in request with us"
(Dallington, _Method for Travell_, 1598).
[721] His dancing-master was a M. du Caus. There were other Frenchmen in
his service. Cp. "Roll of Expenses of Prince Henry," _Revels at Court_,
ed. P. Cunningham, New Sk. Soc., 1842.
[722] J. Aubrey, _Brief Lives_, ed. Clark, 1898, i. p. 254; Wood,
_Athen. Oxon._ (Bliss).
[723] T. Birch, _op. cit._ pp. 38, 66, 67.
[724] Rye, _op. cit._ p. 155.
[725] _Mémoires de Madame de Motteville_, in Petitot et Monmerqué,
_Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l'Histoire de France_, tom. 37,
1824, pp. 122-3.
[726] _Cal. State Papers, 1660-61_, p. 162; cp. p. 207, _supra_.
[727] Probably the second Duke, whom Charles, out of friendship for his
father, the first Duke, brought up in his own family.
[728] Foster, _Alumni Oxon._, ad nom.
[729] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1663-64_, pp. 384, 526, 527; _1668-69_,
p. 129; Shaw, _Calendar of Treasury Books, 1667-68_, pp. 346, 365, 620.
[730] He received the order of knighthood from Charles I. in 1629.
[731] _Cal. State Papers, 1633_, p. 349.
[732] Le Grys translated several works from Latin into English. He died
early in 1635; cp. _Dict. Nat. Biog._, ad nom.
[733] E. Godfrey, _English Children in Olden Time_, New York, 1907, p.
133.
[734] Davenant, _The Wits_, Act II.; cp. Upham, _French Influence in
English Literature_, p. 7.
[735] Preface to Lyly's _Euphues_, 1623.
[736] T. Middleton, _More Dissemblers among Women_, Act I. Sc. 4; cp.
Upham, _op. cit._ p. 6.
[737] Watt, _Bibliotheca Britannica_, 1824, ad nom.
[738] Probably before he left school (Masson, _Life of Milton_, 1875, i.
p. 57).
[739] E. Godfrey, _op. cit._ p. 178.
[740] De la Mothe devoted a short chapter to enumerating women's
clothing.
[741] Thurot, _Prononciation française_, pp. 374, 376.
[742] _Treatise for Declining French Verbs_, 1580, 1599, and 1641.
[743] Perhaps this is Bellot's _French Methode_ of 1588, of which there
is no copy in the British Museum, the Bodleian, or Cambridge University
Library. There is no trace of his having written a third grammar called
the _French Guide_; in his French Grammar of 1578 the verbs are arranged
in five conjugations.
[744] This section in particular bears a close resemblance to the
_Exercitatio_ of Vives. See Dialogue 17, in F. Watson's _Tudor Schoolboy
Life_.
[745] In Broad Street Ward; see Cooper, _List of Aliens_, Camden Soc.,
1862; Hug. Soc. Pub., x. Pt. iii. p. 187.
[746] Lambeth Library, 8vo, B-E in fours. Hazlitt, _Bibliog. Collections
and Notes_, ii. 206.
[747] It is included in almost all the Sale Catalogues of private
libraries at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the
eighteenth century.
[748] Erondell was probably also responsible for numerous other
translations from French into English; cp. p. 277, note 2, _infra_.
[749] Strickland, _Lives of the Queens of England_, 1884, iv. p. 160.
[750] J. Payne Collier, _History of English Dramatic Poetry, and Annals
of the Stage_, 1879, i. pp. 451 _sqq._; F. G. Fleay, _A Chronicle
History of the English Stage_, 1890, p. 334.
[751] "Not women but monsters," wrote the Puritan Prynne in his
_Histriomastrix_, 1633, p. 114.
[752] Prynne, _op. cit._ p. 215.
[753] Payne Collier, _op. cit._ ii. pp. 2 _sqq._; Fleay, _op. cit._ p.
339.
[754] The former was first acted in France in 1629 and the latter in
1633; cf. Upham, _French Influence in English Literature_, p. 373.
[755] Scudéry's work is in verse; a king and queen of England figure
among the characters. It was first performed in France in 1631.
[756] Probably a tragi-comedy by Du Ryer, acted in 1634; Upham, _op.
cit._ p. 373.
[757] Diary, reprinted: Malone's _Historical Account of the English
Stage_, in an edition of Shakespeare's works, completed by Boswell,
1821, iii. pp. 120, 122. Herbert makes many of his entries in French.
[758] Meurier, _Communications familières_, 1563.
[759] While the English visited France in great numbers, very few
Frenchmen came to England, except those engaged on diplomatic missions,
or exiles. Thus, Ronsard, Jacques Grévin, Brantôme, Bodin, in the
sixteenth century; Schelandre, d'Assoucy, Boisrobert, Le Pays, Pavillon,
Voiture, Malleville, and a few others in the early seventeenth century,
spent a short time in England. Among scholars, Peiresc, Henri Estienne,
Justel, Bochart, and Casaubon visited our country. St. Amant was twice
in England, and on the occasion of his second visit wrote a satirical
poem, _Albion_, in which he gave vent to his dislike of the people and
the country (_Oeuvres_, ed. Livet, 1855, vol. ii.). Guide-books to
England were few, and far from giving a good impression of the country.
See Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, pp. 8, 129.
[760] Rathery, _Relations sociales et intellectuelles entre la France et
l'Angleterre_, pp. 22-23, 48 sqq.
[761] "Lord ghest tholb be sua virtiuff be intelligence, aff yi body
schal biff be naturall rehutht tholb suld of me pety have for natur ..."
(_Oeuvres de Rabelais_, ed. C. Marty Laveaux, i. 261).
[762] Petitot et Monmerqué, _Collection des Mémoires_, tom. 68, Paris,
1828.
[763] A. Cohn, _Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries_, London, 1865, pp. xxviii, cxxxiv, cxxxv.
[764] Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, 1899, pp. 51 _sqq._; E.
Soulié, _Recherches sur Molière_, Paris, 1863, p. 153.
[765] _Journal de Jean Hervard sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Louis
XIII, 1601-28_, Paris, 1868. Quoted by Jusserand, _op. cit._ p. 57 n.
One of Louis's tutors was an Englishman, Richard Smith.
[766] S. Lee, "The Beginnings of French Translations from the English,"
_Proceedings of the Bibliog. Soc._ viii., 1907, pp. 85-112.
[767] Tourval was for long engaged on turning James I.'s compositions
into French, and complains of not receiving any reward nor even his
expenses.
[768] He also translated Godwin's _Man in the Moon_, 1648, which had
some influence on Cyrano de Bergerac. He was probably the Jean Baudouin
who studied at Edinburgh in 1597.
[769] Gerbier, _Interpreter of the Academy_, 1648.
[770] T. B. Squire, in Simon Daines's _Orthoepia Anglicana_, reprinted
by R. Brotanek in _Neudrucke frühneuenglischer Grammatiken_, Bd. iii.,
1908.
[771] By the end of the sixteenth century it was quite a usual thing for
learned subjects to be treated in English. Ascham apologised for using
English in his _Toxophilus_ (1545), but in his _Scholemaster_ (1570) he
used it as a matter of course.
[772] Jusserand, _Histoire littéraire du peuple anglais_, 1904, p. 316.
[773] Florio makes the same claim in his _First Frutes_ for teaching
Italian and English.
[774] _Grammaire Angloise et Françoise pour facilement et promptement
apprendre la Langue angloise et françoise._ A Rouen, chez la veuve
Oursel, 1595, 8vo. The Brit. Mus. copy contains MS. notes of a French
student.
[775] In 1586 he translated three letters of Henry of Navarre, and in
following years a continuous series of similar works; in 1587 the
_Politicke and Militarie Discourse_ of La Noue; in 1588 the _Discourse
concerning the right which the House of Guise have to the crown of
France_, etc. His latest translation appears to have been Louis XIII.'s
_Declaration upon his Edicts for Combats_, 1613. This E. A. may have
been identical with Erondell (or, as sometimes written, Arundel), who
gives his name as "P. Erondell (E. A.)" in his translation of the
_Declaration and Catholic exhortation_ (1586).
[776] It bears a strong resemblance to the first dialogue in Erondell's
_French Garden_.
[777] Such as the works of Sir Thomas Smith, John Cheke, John Hart, all
of which appeared before 1580.
[778] By P. Greenwood (1594), Ed. Coote (1596), A. Gill (1619), J.
Herves (1624), Ch. Butler (1633). Some are reprinted by Brotanek, _op.
cit._; cp. F. Watson, _Modern Subjects_, chap. i.
[779] Reprinted by Brotanek, _op. cit._ vol. iii., 1908.
[780] _Works_, 1875, vol. ix. pp. 229 _sqq._
[781] Reprinted by R. Brotanek, _op. cit._ Heft i., 1905, pp. 105.
[782] Pp. 60 _sqq._
[783] It had no place in the earlier editions of 1534 and 1537.
CHAPTER II
FRENCH GRAMMARS--BOOKS FOR TEACHING LATIN AND FRENCH--FRENCH IN
PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS
One of the most noted teachers of English as well as of French was
Robert Sherwood, who in 1632 completed his English-French Dictionary
which was appended to the new edition of Cotgrave's work issued in that
year.[784] Sherwood was born in Norfolk,[785] although he later called
himself a Londoner. In July 1622 he entered Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1626. He then moved to London and
opened a language school in St. Sepulchre's Churchyard, where he
continued to teach for many years. He also taught English to many
French, German, Danish, and Flemish nobles and gentlemen who visited
London. To these distinguished visitors he dedicated his dictionary in
1632, as well as the second edition of his French grammar in 1634,
expressing the hope that he would soon be able to produce an English
grammar "toute entière," for only the practical exercises in French and
English could be of use to them in their study of English. His French
grammar was intended "for the furtherance and practice of gentlemen,
scollers and others desirous of the said language." We gather that
Sherwood's school was limited entirely to the higher classes, and was
very different from Holyband's noisy and bustling establishment.
The first edition of Sherwood's _French Tutour_, as he called his
grammar, saw the light in 1625,[786] just before he graduated at
Cambridge. He had probably worked at it as well as at his dictionary
during his residence there, and appears to have taught French to private
pupils. How he first acquired his knowledge of French, we do not know.
He may have spent some years in France before going to Cambridge, since
he would not find much opportunity of studying the language there. His
work is little more than a translation of selections from the French
grammar of Charles Maupas of Blois (1625). Perhaps he studied the
language with Maupas himself, of whom he speaks with great respect. In
parts of his grammar, however, Sherwood drew on his own "long
experience" in teaching French.
The second edition of the _French Tutour_ (1634) is said to be carefully
corrected and enlarged. In it Sherwood follows the usual order of
treatment. First come rules of pronunciation, then of grammar, which
show "the nature and use of the Articles, a thing of no small importance
in this language: also the way to find out the gender of all nounes: the
conjugation of all the verbs regular and irregular; and after which
followeth a list of most of the indeclinable parts (which commonly do
much hinder learners) Alphabetically Englished; with a most ample syntax
of all the parts of speech." This section closes with an alphabetical
index "interpreting such nounes and verbes as are unenglished in the
grammar." The practical exercises are in the form of "three dialogues
and a touch of French compliments," in French and English, arranged in
two parallel columns on a page. The first deals with familiar talk by
the wayside, depicting travellers on their road to London, and, on their
arrival, taking lodgings at the Black Swan in Holborn, doing their
shopping, and taking their evening meal. The other two dialogues treat
of less familiar subjects; and, on the whole, Sherwood's book was not of
a popular kind, but was intended for the "learned." One describes the
exercises and studies of the nobility, dancing, riding, fencing,
hunting, geography, cosmography, and so forth; and the other turns on
the subject of travel in foreign countries, in which Sherwood emphasizes
the necessity for the traveller of "some good and fundamental beginning
in the language of the country whither he goeth." The _Tutour_ closes
with a selection of French compliments from the book of M. L. Miche on
French courtesy, to which Sherwood added an English version.
Another Englishman also ventured in the early years of the seventeenth
century to write on the French language--William Colson, who called
himself a Professor of Literal and Liberal Sciences. He had spent many
years abroad as [Header: WILLIAM COLSON] travelling companion to young
English gentlemen, "as well learning as teaching such laudable arts and
qualities as are most fitting for a gentleman's exercise." Seemingly he
spent some time in the Low Countries, and he may have found his pupils
among the English troops serving there, as in 1603 he published at Liége
a book in French on arithmetic which also provides military information.
Before 1612 he had returned to London, where he composed a similar work
in English, dedicated to the Lords of the Privy Council.[787] He tells
us that on his return from his travels he wrote "certaine litteral
workes," mostly on the teaching of languages, and like an earlier
English writer, John Eliote, evolved a special method which he called
"arte locall or the arte of memorie." He expounds his "method," which is
very vague and obscure in its application, in one of his French
text-books which appeared in London in 1620 and was called _The First
Part of the French grammar, Artificially Deduced, into Tables by Arte
Locall, called the Arte of Memorie_. Colson desired to reconcile the old
orthography with the new, as Holyband had done earlier, by means of a
reformed alphabet of twenty-six letters, and of a triple distinction of
characters, Roman, Italian, and English. Roman type was to stand for the
_proper_ pronunciation, that is, letters which are pronounced as they
are written; the Italian for the _improper_, that is, letters which are
not given their usual pronunciation; and finally the letters written but
not sounded were to be printed in black letter. In his reformed alphabet
he divides the letters into seven vowels and eighteen consonants, and
subdivides the consonants into semivowels and mutes. He gives each
letter its usual name, and then its special name according to his own
scheme, as follows:
A E' E O I Y V | H | S Z X I | L R N M |
a é e o i y u | éh | és éz éx éi | él ér én ém |
proper names | | | |
speciall names | he | sé zé xé ié | lé ré né mé |
\_____________/ \__________________________/
Aspiration 8 semivowels
F [^] B P : D T G K | C Q
éf é[^] éb ép : éd ét ég ék | éc éq
|
fé [^]é bé pé : dé té gé ké | cé qé
\________________________________/
10 mutes
\______________________________/
7 vowels 18 consonants
\___________________________________________________________/
Elements and Letters
And all the said Alphabet is briefly contained in these five artificiall
words to be learnt by heart:--Haeiou--sezexeie--lereneme--fe[^]ebepe--
detegeke.
After treating of the letters, Colson proceeds to deal with the other
three chief parts of grammar--"the sillible, the diction, and the
locution" (the last two dealing with accidence and syntax respectively)
in a similarly intricate and obscure style. It is difficult to imagine
what can have been his reasons for his scheme of complicated divisions
and sub-divisions, more like a puzzle than anything else. Yet he appears
to have been serious, and assures us that once his reformed alphabet is
mastered "the perfect pronunciation, reading, and writing of the French
tongue is gotten in the space of one month or thereabouts." It is not
surprising that his attempted reform passed quite unheeded.
This _First Part of the French grammar_, which is dedicated to "the
Worshippfull, worthie and vertuous gentleman, M. Emanuel Giffard,
Esquire," seems to be the only one of Colson's works on the French
language which has survived. At its close is a large folding sheet,
containing the table of his reformed alphabet, dedicated to Sir Michael
Stanhope and Sir William Cornwallis by their affectionate servant. The
date is 1613. Colson informs us that he had also compiled a French
grammar divided into four parts, after a new method. He likewise refers
to "all his bookes tending to the instruction of the French tongue,"
such as his "booke of the declination of nouns, and conjugation of
Verbes," and his "three repertories of the English, French, and Latine
tongues, compounded by arte locall for aiding the memorie in learning
most speedily the words of the foresaide tongues by heart in halfe
time": his "Repertoire of all syllables in general and of all French
words in particular containing the Art to learn them easily by heart in
verie short time and with little labour to the great contentment of him
which is desirous of the French tongue, all reduced into Tables by Art
Locall as before said": and "other works of ours shortly to be printed
tending to the knowledge of the foresaid tongues, in which works is set
downe by Art and order local (called the Art of Memory) most easy and
brief rules to learne the foresaid bookes by heart." Most of these, no
doubt, were short pamphlets, perhaps in the shape of the large folding
sheet inserted at the end of the Grammar of 1620, and so stood but
little chance of survival.
At this same period the popular French grammar of Charles Maupas, well
known to many travellers to France, was translated into English by
William Aufeild and published in 1634. [Header: WILLIAM AUFEILD]
Maupas's grammar, first printed at Blois in 1607, had won a considerable
reputation in England, and was not without noticeable influence on the
French grammars published in London. Sherwood, who had made free use of
Maupas, praised him very highly. James Howell, in his edition of
Cotgrave's Dictionary, advises students to seek fuller grammatical
information in Maupas's Grammar, "the exactest and most scholarlike of
all." William Aufeild, the translator of the book--"the best
instructions for that language by the consent of all that know the book,
that were ever written"--considers that it excels all the French
grammars ever produced in England: "all of them put together do not
teach half so well the idiom of the French tongue as this one doth." We
are assured that the work was in great demand when it first appeared in
England, and that a great number of the nobility and gentry were
commonly taught by means of it. Finding that the fact that it was
written in French was a great drawback, as it could only be used by
those who already understood French, Aufeild decided to translate it into
English, and dedicated his work to the young Duke of Buckingham,[788]
son of the duke to whom Maupas had offered the original. Aufeild tells
that he had been studying French for ten years when he undertook his
task. He called the translation _A French grammar and Syntaxe,
contayning most exact and certaine Rules for the pronunciation,
Orthography, construction and use of the French language_.[789]
To adapt the work to the use of the English, the translator placed a
small cross under letters not pronounced in the French word, thus
adopting Holyband's plan. These letters were also printed in a different
type, "that better notice might be taken of them." He also endeavours to
give the sounds of the French alphabet in English spelling, so that if
the student "pronounce the one like an Englishman, he must needs
pronounce the same sounds, written after the French manner, like a
Frenchman." This, he says, is the only invention which he claims as his
own in the whole work. "The examples as well as the text, are englished
to save the reader so many lookings in his Dictionary"; and the word to
which the rule has special reference is printed in different type from
the rest of the example. Occasionally the text is expanded by additional
explanations, included in parentheses.
Aufeild advises the student of French to read the whole grammar through
first, in order to get a general notion of the language. It is vain, he
argues, to begin learning rules for the pronunciation of a language of
which you are totally ignorant. Especially is this so in the case of the
"unlearned," that is, those unacquainted with Latin grammar. For
instance, "you shall find that in all the third persons plural of verbes
ending in _-ent_, _n_ is not pronounced," and so on. Now, "unless a man
can distinguish an adverbe from a verbe," he says, "or till he know how
the plurall number is made of the singular how shall he know ... when to
leave out _n_ before _t_?" "In my opinion," he adds, "it is but a dull
and wearisome thing for a man to take a great deale of paines, in
learning to pronounce what he understandeth not." Clearly his ideal was
a preliminary grounding in the general principles of grammar. When you
have a general knowledge of the whole language you may begin at the
pronunciation and "so goe through it againe in order as it lieth." In
the second reading the student should take into account the less
important rules which are omitted in the first perusal.
Aufeild's final piece of advice is at variance with the general practice
among teachers of the time. He would have the pupil postpone all
attempts at speaking the language until the last stages: "be not too
greedy," he warns the reader, "to be thought a speaker of French before
you are sure you understand what you read." The best known teacher of
Italian in the seventeenth century, Torriano, was of the same opinion:
"for the avoiding of a vulgar error or fault very predominant in many,
namely of being over hasty to be speaking of a language, before it be
well understood, I thought not amiss to produce the quotation of one Mr.
Wm. Aufeild.... I jump with him that they who are last at speaking speak
the best and surest and so much I find by my experience among my
scholars."[790] Many years before, Roger Ascham had expressed the same
view with regard to the teaching of Latin. [Header: AUFEILD'S ADVICE TO
STUDENTS] He admitted that the "dailie use of speaking was the best
method," but only provided the learner could always hear the language
spoken correctly and avoid "the habit of the evil choice of words, and
crooked forming of sentences"; but as it is, _loquendo male loqui
discunt_, and he advises the postponement of speaking until some
progress had been made.[791]
Considering Aufeild's ideas as to the speaking of French, we quite
expect to find him condemning attempts to pick up the language without
the help of rules; "for if with Rules, you shall be often at a loss,
certainly you shall stick at every word without them." It may be that
"they which take another way, may speake more words in halfe a yeare
then you shall in twelve month; but in a year's space you may, with
diligence and industry, speake better (and after a while more) than
another shall doe all his life time, unless there be a vast disparity
between your abilities of mind."
His attitude as to the respective importance of grammatical study and
its practical application was not in keeping with that of Maupas, of
whom he said, "I know not whom you can equal to him." Maupas had written
his grammar in French instead of the international language, Latin,
because he advocated the study of the grammar in the French language
itself; he taught reading and pronunciation by means of reading the
grammar in French. Aufeild, on the contrary, considered it a drawback
that when English students travelled into France they had to learn
enough French to converse with their teachers before they could learn of
their teachers how to converse with others. This was the reason which
induced him to translate the grammar, although in doing so he, no doubt
unconsciously, set at nought Maupas's principal reason for writing it in
French.
We know of no other French grammar produced in France which was
specially favoured by English learners of French. But no doubt many
Englishmen, besides those who travelled, studied from French grammars.
English travellers returning from France would, no doubt, bring back
grammars which might also arrive through other channels. Even in the
time of Elizabeth foreign books had been freely imported into England,
and the foreign trade of the stationers of London was very extensive.
That the early French grammars were known in England is shown by their
influence on those produced in England, although in many cases this is
more readily explained by the circumstance that they were the work of
Frenchmen newly arrived from France. However, it is not likely that
these French grammars were ever widely used in England for learning the
language, when books in English were ready to hand and easier to use. In
Scotland, on the other hand, where such books were not in existence,
they were probably more widely employed. Both countries, Scotland in
particular, made free use of foreign text-books for the teaching of
Latin; but the case is hardly the same for the international language.
In the meantime the production of French grammars in England continued
uninterruptedly. _The Flower de Luce planted in England_ was the title
of a grammar which appeared in 1619. This work was due to one Laur Du
Terme, of whom nothing is known beyond the fact that he was a Frenchman
and a protégé of Bacon, then Lord Chancellor. Du Terme had evidently
been in England long enough to acquire some knowledge of English, in
which he wrote his grammar. After imploring his patron to water his
'flower' with a few drops of favourable approbation, he proceeds to
address the gentle reader in these words: "Looke not in this Treatise,
for any eloquent words, nor polished sentences, for I doe not go about
to begge any favour nor insinuate into any man's love by coloured and
misticall phrases.[792] Neither do I intend to teach my masters, but in
requitall of your kind curtesie in teaching mee this little English I
have, do in the same set downe suche precepts as I find best for the
pronouncing, understanding, and speaking of the French tongue." These
precepts he selected from other grammars "used by many both teachers and
learners, yet I presume this will be as agreeable as any were yet, and
in brief containing more than ever I saw yet in English." The
pronunciation is explained by comparison with English sounds, and then
each part of speech is treated in turn; constant analogies with Latin
occur, and he also gives a list of French suffixes with their Latin
roots, and endeavours to introduce the Latin gerund and supine into
French grammar, not being of those who sought to delatinize French
grammar. For the verbs he refers the student to the rules given by
Cotgrave at the end of his dictionary, "very profitable for every
learner to reade," where they are arranged in four conjugations, "while
some authors make three, some five, some six, and little enough for the
understanding of all the verbs." [Header: LAUR DU TERME] He makes no
claim to completeness--"and if by chance I have applied a rule instead
of an exception or an exception instead of a rule, the teacher may
easily mend it, and your courteous censure in reciprocall of the
good-will I beare unto you I hope will excuse it. Reade it over, but not
slightly, consider every rule and way every word in it."
Du Terme's aim in his rules is to be brief and plain. He desired them to
be regarded in the light of a reference book. The student was to begin
to read from the very first. The _Flower de Luce_ does not provide the
usual stock of reading-exercises, and Du Terme advises the student to
use "any good French author he likes best; and what word soever he goes
about to reade, let him looke upon his Rules concerning the
pronunciation of the letters, how they are pronounced in several places,
first the vowell, then what consonants are before and after, and, having
compared and brought all the Rules concerning those letters together, he
shall easily finde the true pronunciation of any word." The sounds of
the language should be thoroughly mastered at the outset: "Bestow rather
five days in learning five vowels, then to learne and passe them over in
a day, as being the chief and only ground of all the rest, without the
which you shall loose your labour, not being able to pronounce one
diphthongue unless you pronounce the vowels well, perfectly, neatly and
distinctly, without confounding one with another. The which case you
must observe in the consonants." For the proper understanding of the
matter read, he recommends the use of "some bookes that are both English
and French, as the Bible, the Testament, and many others that are very
common in England." He admits that this method is slow and difficult at
first, "yet notwithstanding, after a little labour, will prove exceeding
easie, as by experience hath been tryed: in so much as some have learned
perfectly to reade and understande the most part in less than the
quarter of a year, onely applying themselves unto it one hour and a half
in a day."
Paul Cougneau or Cogneau, another French teacher of London, also wrote a
French grammar at this period. He called it _A sure Guide to the French
tongue_, and published it in 1635. Cogneau had no mean opinion of his
book. "It hath in some things a peculiar way, not commonly traced by
others," he tells us. "In the beginning are rules of pronunciation, then
for the declension of articles, nouns and pronouns, and in the end the
conjugation of diverse verbs, both personal and impersonal ... and
throughout the whole book there is so great a multiplicity of various
phrases congested as no one book for the bulk contains more. All which
besides are set forth with plainness as fit it for the capacity even of
the meanest. Much pains hath been employed about it, and I hope not
without great benefit and profit in the right use of it, and
consequently not unworthy of the kind acceptance which I heartily wish."
But the work has little value or originality, in spite of its interest
to the modern reader. The rules occupy thirty pages only. They are taken
mainly from Holyband and De la Mothe. The nouns, articles, and pronouns
receive very meagre treatment, but the auxiliaries and verbs, the
regular and a few irregular verbs, are fully conjugated at the end of
the book, being arranged in sentence form, as in many modern text-books:
J'ay bien dormi ceste nuit.
Tu as trop mangé.
Il a trop bu, etc.
The practical exercises, which fill the next three hundred pages,
reproduce the dialogues of the same sixteenth-century writers--the only
two who retained their popularity in the seventeenth. The exercises of
the _French Schoolemaister_, the _French Littleton_, and the _French
Alphabet_ are all repeated without any acknowledgement.
Like Du Terme, Cogneau attached much importance to pronunciation and
reading. He held that pronunciation was best learnt with the help of a
teacher, and that rules were not of much use in this case.
"I have observed," he writes, "how many of my countrymen have taken
great pains and labour to show the English how to pronounce the
French letters, by letters; but these men labour in vain: for I
know that the true pronunciation of any tongue whatsoever cannot be
taught so: nor none can learn it so; I mean, to speak it well and
truly as it ought to be: to learn to understand it by such rules,
one may in time and with great pains, but, as I have said, never to
speak it well and perfectly, without he be taught by some master. I
say not that the rules are unprofitable, no, for they are very
profitable being well used, and the learner being well directed to
understand them aright; but, as I have said, so I say still, that
whosoever will learn this noble and famous tongue, must chuse one
that can speak good French, and one that hath a good method in
teaching, and the first thing to learn of him must be to pronounce
perfectly our 22 letters, and give every one its due sound and
pronunciation."
The student should undertake nothing until he has mastered the sounds of
the letters and syllables. [Header: PAUL COGNEAU] Then he may pass to
the reading, "and in that reading learn to spell perfectly, for it is
that which will perfect thee, so that thou wilt be able to correct many
Frenchmen both in their speaking and writing, if thou wilt take pains to
learn it perfectly and be as perfect in it as in thy native tongue. If
thou dost mark well what I have said, and do it, and if thou hast a good
teacher, thou maiest learn the French tongue easily in a year." Cogneau
gives his grammar rules in both French and English, and evidently
intended them to form part of the reading material on which the student
was to begin as soon as he had mastered the French sounds. From these he
proceeds to the dialogues. "Thou must learn this book perfectly, to read
the French in English and also the English in French perfectly, and I
durst warrant that whosoever shall learn this book perfectly will be a
perfect Frenchman, and shall be able both to speak and write the French
tongue much better than the most part of Frenchmen." The only
differences, then, between the methods advocated by Laur Du Terme and
Cogneau are that the first would have the student learn the
pronunciation by reading, and the second from the lips of a master
before the student begins to read; and that Cogneau adopts the method of
double translation, so strongly urged by De la Mothe, while Du Terme
mentions only translation of French into English. In fact, Cogneau's
method was probably suggested by the sixteenth-century teachers.