Cogneau's _Guide_ was in vogue for a num_The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England during Tudor and Stuart Times With an Introductory Chapter on the Preceding Period

teacher, Guillaume Herbert, who appears to have had no mean opinion of

his own abilities, edited the fourth edition. He describes the earlier

form of the work as a "blind" guide rather than a sure one, but now that

it has been revised by him "both masters and scholars may with more

confidence venture upon it as the most correct book now extant of this

kind and in these tongues, and I dare promise them that if I live to see

and oversee the next edition, I will so purge and order it that every

reader may (if ingenious and ingenuous) give it deservedly the name of a

Sure Guide." It is difficult to see in what the improvements he boasts

of consist, for his is little more than a reprint of the earlier

editions. With Herbert's edition the popularity of the _Sure Guide_ came

to an end, no doubt owing to the appearance of more recent works.

William Aufeild complained, not without reason, that most professors

teach only what other men "have set downe to their hand in English many

years agoe," and it is undeniable that several of the sixteenth-century

French grammars continued to be used in England as late as the middle of

the seventeenth century. Holyband was specially in favour, and so was De

la Mothe. Peter Erondell, it has been seen, prepared new editions of the

_French Schoolemaister_ in 1606, 1612, 1615, and 1619. Another French

professor, James Giffard, was responsible for other editions in 1631,

1636, 1641, 1649, 1655, and it appears to have been printed again in

1668; this Giffard was probably the Jacques Giffard who attended the

Threadneedle Street Church;[793] he is said to have been a native of the

isle of Sark, and in 1640 he married Elizabeth Guilbert of Guernsey.

Editions of the _French Littleton_ saw the light in 1602, 1607, 1625,

1630, 1633, and 1639. None of these editions contains any very

noticeable alterations. The new editions of De la Mothe's _French

Alphabet_ (1625, 1631, 1633, 1639, and 1647) are merely reprints of the

first edition of 1592. Thus it came about that the French of the

sixteenth century was still taught in England in the seventeenth,

regardless of the great changes which had been accomplished in the

language in the meantime.

The first half of the seventeenth century was also a period during which

French began to receive greater recognition in the educational world.

Latin, it is true, retained its supremacy in the grammar school; but it

is significant that a considerable number of Latin school-books were

adapted to teaching French, and helped to swell the number of such

manuals at the service of students. Thus French gained a place by the

side of Latin, and some went so far as to question the supremacy of

Latin as the "learned" tongue of Europe. In 1619 Thomas Morrice[794]

deemed it necessary to refute the "error" of those of his countrymen who

placed French before Latin--"a most absurd paradox" in his opinion, for

"French was never reckoned a learned tongue; it belongs by right to one

country alone, where the people themselves learn Latin." Such protests

had little effect. In the first years of the century we have the

earliest recognition of French as distinct from other modern languages,

at the hands of a writer on education; [Header: FRENCH MAKES HEADWAY] J.

Cleland held that a young gentleman's tutor should be skilled in the

French as well as the Latin tongue, because "it is most used now

universallie,"[795] and that the student, after translating English into

Latin, should proceed to turn his Latin into French, "that he may profit

in both the Tongues together."[796]

It was indeed by no means uncommon for French and English tutors to give

instruction in both these tongues. Denisot, Palsgrave, Holyband, and

many other French teachers had done so. Joseph Rutter, tutor to the son

of the Earl of Dorset, at whose request he translated the _Cid_ into

English, is said to have made his pupil his collaborator in this task,

and probably taught him French as well as Latin, and his case does not

appear to have been exceptional. Evelyn, the diarist, learnt the

rudiments of Latin from a Frenchman named Citolin, and probably picked

up some French at the same time; travel abroad and his marriage with the

daughter of Sir Richard Browne, English ambassador at Paris, who from

her youth upwards had lived in France, gave him opportunities for

improving his knowledge of the language, in which he was soon able to

converse with ease.[797] Evelyn's son Richard also studied the two

languages together; when he died in 1658, at the early age of five, he

was able to say the catechism and pronounce English, Latin, and French

accurately, also "to read an script, to decline nouns and conjugate all

regular and most of the irregular verbs." He had likewise "learn'd

_Pueriles_, got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latine and

French primitives and words, and could make congruous syntax, turne

English into Latine and _vice versa_, construe and prove what he read,

and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives,

elipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress

in Comenius's _Janua_, began himself to write legibly, and had a strong

passion for Greek."[798]

The manuals for teaching Latin and French together, either Latin

school-books with French added, or works specially written for giving

instruction in the two languages, probably resulted from this connexion.

At an early date French had found a place in several Latin

dictionaries.[799] Soon afterwards it made its way into some of the

Latin Colloquia and school authors. In 1591 the printer John Wyndet

received a licence to print the dialogues of Corderius in French and

English.[800] There is also a notice of an edition of Castellion's

_Sacred Dialogues_ in the same two languages.[801] Aesop's _Fables_ were

printed in English, French, and Latin in 1665, with the purpose of

rendering the acquisition of these languages easier for young gentlemen

and ladies; each fable is accompanied by an illustration due to Francis

Barlow, and followed by a moral reflection. Thomas Philpott was

responsible for the English version, and Robert Codrington, M.A., a

versatile translator of the time, for the Latin and French. At least two

other editions appeared in 1687 and 1703. Another favourite author was

published in the same three languages at a later date--the _Thoughts of

Cicero ... on (1) Religion, and (2) Man.... Published in Latin and

French by the Abbé Olivet, to which is now added an English translation,

with notes_ (_by A. Wishart_) (1750 and 1773). Of these few examples of

Latin and French text-books, two are known only by hearsay. It is likely

that others, adapted to the same purpose, have disappeared without

leaving any trace at all; as such school-books were usually printed with

a privilege, their names are not preserved in the registers of the

Company of Stationers. Little wonder that such manuals, subjected to the

double wear and tear of teaching both Latin and French, have been

entirely lost. The one volume which has come down to us is Aesop's

_Fables_ in French, Latin, and English, and its survival is explained by

the elaborate and costly form in which it was issued.

In 1617 was published the _Janua Linguarum Quadralinguis_ of Jean

Barbier, a Parisian. The work, originally written in Spanish and Latin

(1611) for the use of Spaniards, was in time adapted to teaching Latin

and incidentally Spanish to the English, by the addition of an English

translation in 1615. The fact that French was added two years later by

Barbier is not without significance. Foremost among books for teaching

French and Latin together, however, was the famous _Janua Linguarum_ of

Comenius, from which Evelyn's son learnt his Latin, and presumably his

French also. It was printed in England in English, French, and Latin, in

the very year in which it had first come out at Leszna in Latin and

German (1631). [Header: BOOKS FOR TEACHING LATIN AND FRENCH] In this

form it was given the title of _Porta Linguarum trilinguis reserata et

aperta, or the Gate of Tongues unlocked and opened_. The _Janua_

contains a thousand sentences, dealing with subjects encyclopaedic in

plan, beginning with the origin of the world, and ending with death,

providence, and the angels. The intervening chapters treat of the earth

and its elements, animals, man, his life, education, occupations,

afflictions, social institutions, and moral qualities. J. A. Anchoran,

Licentiate in Divinity, a friend of Robert Codrington and apparently a

Frenchman, was responsible for the edition of the _Porta Linguarum_ in

English, French, and Latin. He declares he prepared it "in behalf of"

the young Prince Charles (II.), then about a year old, and of "British,

French and Irish youth." His efforts proved successful; there were two

issues of the work in 1631, and other editions appeared in 1633, 1637,

and 1639.

With the second and following editions was bound an index to the French

and Latin words contained in the _Porta Linguarum_, entitled: _Clavis ad

Portam or a Key fitted to open the gates of tongues wherein you may

readily find the Latine and French for any English word, necessary for

all young scholars._ It was dedicated to the schoolmasters and ushers of

England, and printed at Oxford, being the work of Wye Saltonstall,

teacher of Latin and French in that University.

Yet another brief treatise was commonly bound with the 1633 edition of

the _Porta Linguarum_--_The Pathway to the Gate of Tongues, being the

first Instruction for little children_, intended as an introduction to

Comenius, but chiefly to give instruction in French. It was due to one

of the French teachers in London, Jean de Grave, no doubt the son of the

"Jean de Grave natif d'Amsterdam" who came to England in the early years

of the seventeenth century and died some time before 1612. De Grave was

a member of the French Church, and in 1615 was twice threatened with

expulsion owing to his sympathy with the Brownists; but he saved the

situation by recanting.[802] De Grave's _Pathway_ to Comenius opens with

a table of the numbers, the catechism, graces, and prayers, all given in

Latin, English, and French. The main section gives the conjugation of

the four regular verbs (_j'aime_, _je bastis_, _je voy_, _je li_) and

of _aller_, _avoir_, _estre_, _il faut_ and _on aime_, in French

accompanied by English and Latin equivalents in parallel columns. De

Grave makes a point of omitting all the compound tenses usually

introduced into French verbs on the model of the Latin ones, as such

forms can only be expressed by means of paraphrases or of the verbs

_avoir_ and _estre_; thus French rather than Latin was in the author's

mind: "Or m'a semblé qu'il ne fallait pas charger au commencement la

memoire des petits enfants de choses desquelles le maistre diligent et

industrieux, pourveu qu'il soit homme lettré et bien entendu en la

grammaire françoise, pourra instiller peu à peu en leur esprit, plus par

diligente pratique que par cette facheuse et prolixe circonlocution qui

n'apporte aucun profit." He agreed with most of the French teachers of

the time that few rules and much practice under the guidance of a good

master, was the best way of learning French.

In the first half of the seventeenth century also, the private

institutions in which French had a place increased considerably in

number, especially during the latter years of the reign of Charles I.

and the Commonwealth. There were several projects, of which a few were

actually realized for a time, for founding academies in England on the

model of those in France. Their aim was to provide instruction in modern

languages and polite accomplishments, in order to counterbalance the

one-sidedness of the Universities, and save parents the expense of

sending their children abroad, and protect the latter from the dangers

to which they might be exposed in foreign countries.

In 1635 the accomplished courtier Sir Francis Kynaston founded the

_Museum Minervae_ at his house in Bedford Square, Covent Garden. Latin,

French, and Italian were the chief languages of the curriculum. No

foreigner was allowed to act as either regent or professor. A regulation

stipulated that "noe Gentleman shall speak in the forenoon to the Regent

about any businesse, but either in Italian, French, or Latin; but if any

gentleman be deficient in all these languages, then shall he deale with

some professour or other to speak unto the regent for him in the

morning, but in the afternoon free accesse shall be granted to all that

have any occasion to conferre with him."[803] A certain Michael Mason

was the professor of languages. The Academy was short-lived, and

probably did not survive its founder, who died at the beginning of the

Civil War.

[Header: FRENCH IN PRIVATE ACADEMIES]

On the 19th of July 1649, another Academy of similar nature but wider

scope was opened by the adventurous Sir Balthazar Gerbier in his house

at Bethnal Green. In 1648 he published a prospectus, which appeared in

several different forms, announcing to "all fathers of noble families

and lovers of vertue" that "Sir Balthazar Gerbier, knight, erects an

Academy wherein forraigne Languages, Sciences and all noble exercises

shall be taught ... whereunto shall serve several treatises set forth by

the said Sir B. G. in the Forraigne languages aforesaid, the English

tongue being joyned thereunto ... whiche Treatises shall be continually

at Mistresse Allen's Shop at the signe of the crown in Pope's head Alley

neere the olde Exchange, London." Gerbier's intention was to teach the

sciences and languages simultaneously, and by means of each other.

French seems to have been the only foreign language which received

special treatment at his hands. He was the author of _An Introduction to

the French Tongue_, a work of very slight value, treating of the

pronunciation and parts of speech and followed by a lengthy and

wearisome dialogue between three travellers. Carrying out his expressed

aim, he wrote several pamphlets on the subjects of polite education in

French accompanied by a literal English translation.[804] Every Saturday

afternoon a public lesson was read in the Academy, "as well concerning

the grounds and rules of the aforesaid languages, as touching the

sciences and exercises, which will give much satisfaction to all Fathers

of noble families and lovers of vertue." There was also an "open

lecture" by which the deserving poor were to be instructed gratis, on

due recommendation. Gerbier is also said[805] to have started an Academy

for languages at Whitehall. None of his efforts, however, met with much

response. The private Academy as such was an institution which never

really took root in England. Moreover, Gerbier was not a gifted man. The

works he wrote for use in his Academy have very little value, and his

lectures were severely criticised. Walpole calls one of them, typical of

the rest, "a most trifling superficial rhapsody."

Several other schemes[806] for courtly academies were never realised at

all. Such were those of Prince Henry, son of James I., and of Lord

Admiral Buckingham. A play of the Commonwealth period, Brome's _New

Academy_ (1658), gives an amusing picture of one of these institutions

and introduces us to a group of pushing French men and women who profess

_inter alia_ to "teach the French Tongue with great alacrity."

Private schools, on the contrary, were better patronised. There were

undoubtedly numerous French schools in the style of those of the

sixteenth century; Wodroeph refers to one, without giving any details,

and the language school kept by Sherwood was well known. In many

instances also French found a place in other private schools alongside

the more usual studies. Sir John Reresby, for example, was sent at the

age of fifteen to a school at Enfield Chase, where he was instructed in

Latin, French, writing, and dancing. There he stayed two years and "came

to a very passable proficiency in Latin, Greek, French, and

rhetoric."[807] The elder brother of Thomas Ellwood, Milton's

amanuensis, also learnt French and Latin at a private school at Hadley,

near Barnet in Hertfordshire, before going with Thomas to learn Latin

and some Greek at the free school of Thame.[808] Such schools seem to

have been relatively numerous at the time of the Commonwealth. One was

kept by Edward Wolley, D.D. of Oxford, who had been domestic chaplain to

Charles I., and taken refuge in France on his sovereign's death. After

spending seven years abroad as chaplain to Charles II. in exile, he

returned to England and opened a school at Hammersmith. In 1654 the

Protector issued stringent orders against "scholemasters who are or

shall be Ignorant, Scandalous, Insufficient or Negligent." Many

royalists were affected, and it was no doubt as a result of this measure

that in 1655 Wolley had to petition Cromwell to allow him to continue

his "painful employment" of instructing youth in Latin, Greek, French,

and other commendable exercises. He pleads that since his return from

France he has demeaned himself irreproachably, and that he causes "the

Holy Scriptures to be read and religious duties to be daily used" in

his school, and takes the children to church on Sunday; [Header: FRENCH

IN PRIVATE SCHOOLS] moreover "they have always spoken with honour and

reverence of his Highness."[809] Among the few royalist and episcopal

schoolmasters who were not affected by the measure of 1654 was Samuel

Turberville, a "very good schoolmaster," who kept school in Kensington.

Sir Ralph Verney's second son Jack, afterwards apprenticed to a

merchant, spent three years there (1656-59), and Turberville commends

his "amendement in writing, the mastery of his grammar and an

indifferent Latin author, his preservation of the ffrench, and the

command of his Violl."[810] Sir Ralph Verney's son had previously

acquired French in France, and wrote it fluently though not always

correctly.[811] His fellow-pupils, we are told, called him the "young

mounseer."

There were also numerous schools for young ladies and gentlewomen in and

about London and elsewhere. One French teacher, Paul Festeau, advertises

the French boarding-school of Monsieur de la Mare at Marylebone, where

girls were taught "to write, to read, to speak French, to sing, to

dance, to play on the guitar and the spinette."[812] M. de la Mare was a

Protestant, and a reader at the French Church. His wife was a good

mother to the girls, we are told, and his daughter spoke French with

much elegance. Another French teacher, Pierre Berault, mentions the

pension for young ladies kept by his friend M. Papillon in Charles

Street, near St. James's Square. French, writing, singing, dancing, and

designing were the subjects of study. In other cases schools for girls

and young ladies were attended by a visiting French master. The most

popular French teacher of the time, Claude Mauger of Blois, was employed

for some time after his arrival in England as French teacher to the

young ladies of Mrs. Kilvert's once famous Academy. This practice became

more and more widespread as the seventeenth century advanced, and was

very common in the eighteenth century, as it still is nowadays.

FOOTNOTES:

[784] See p. 191, _supra_.

[785] _Dict. Nat. Biog._, ad nom.

[786] _Catalogue of Books of some learned Men deceased_, 1678. It was

licensed to the printer Humphrey Lownes on 3rd January 1625 (Arber,

_Stationers' Register_, iv. 133).

[787] General Treasury of Accounts, London, 1612.

[788] Guy Le Moyne was probably his French tutor; cp. p. 262, _supra_.

[789] _Written in France by Charles Maupas of Bloys. Translated into

English with additions and explications peculiarly useful to us English,

together with a preface and an introduction wherein are contained divers

necessary instructions for the better understanding of it._

[790] _Italian reviv'd_, 1673.

[791] _The Scholemaster_, ed. Arber, 1869, p. 28; cp. p. 182, _supra_.

[792] Is this a reference to Eliote's _Ortho-Epia Gallica_?

[793] _Threadneedle Street French Church Registers_, Hug. Soc. Pub.

xiii. Pts. i. and ii. The earliest mention of Giffard occurs in 1629,

and the latest in 1649.

[794] _Apologie for Schoolmasters._

[795] Cleland, _Institution of a young nobleman_, 1607, pp. 28-29.

[796] _Ibid._ p. 80.

[797] His first literary attempt was a translation (1648) from the

French of La Mothe le Vayer's essay on Liberty and Servitude.

[798] _Diary_, January 27, 1658.

[799] Cp. pp. 187 _sqq._, supra.

[800] Arber, _Stationers' Register_, ii. 576; iii. 466. An edition in

French and Latin was printed in London as late as the eighteenth

century.

[801] R. Clavell, _Catalogue of Books printed in London, 1666-1680_.

[802] Schickler, _Églises du Refuge_, i. 409. His name occurs frequently

in the _Threadneedle Street Church Registers_, Hug. Soc. Pub. ix. and

xiii.

[803] _The Constitution of the Museum Minervae_, 1636. Charles I.

granted £100 from the Treasury, and Kynaston himself provided books and

other material.

[804] _The Interpreter of the Academy for forrain languages and all

noble sciences and exercises_, 1648.

[805] Pepys, _Diary_, ed. Wheatley, iv. p. 148 n.

[806] Oxford Historical Soc., 1885, _Collectanea_, series 1, pt. vi. pp.

271 _sqq._ John Dury proposes a special class of schools for languages,

which should teach the classics to those desiring "learning," and modern

languages to those intended for commerce (_Reformed School_, 1650,

quoted by F. Watson, _Modern Subjects_, p. xxvii).

[807] _Memoirs of Sir John Reresby_, 1875, p. 22; and _Memoirs and

Travels_, ed. A. Ivatt, London, 1904, p. xv.

[808] _Ellwood's Autobiography_, London, 1714, p. 4.

[809] _Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1655-56_, p. 76. On the Restoration,

Wolley enjoyed ecclesiastical preferment, and finally became Bishop of

Clonfert. He published an English translation from the French of

Scudéry's _Curia Politiae_, in 1546, and other works in English, of no

special interest. See _Dict. Nat. Biog._, ad nom.

[810] _Memoirs of the Verney Family_, iii. p. 361.

[811] He usually wrote home in French. In the following extract he asks

for a taper, then in fashion among his school-mates: "Je vous prie de

m'anvoier de la chandelle de cirre entortillée, car tous les garçons en

ont pour brullay (_sic_) et moy ie n'en ay point pour moy."

[812] Two parents discuss the school in a dialogue:

Où allez vous? Whither are you going?

Je m'en vais voir ma fille. I am going to see my daughter.

En quel lieu? In what place?

A Maribone. At Maribone.

Que fait elle là? What doth she do there?

Comment, ne sçavez vous pas What, do you not know that I

que je l'ay mise en pension? have put her at a Boording school?

Chez qui? With whom?

Chez un nommé Mons. de la At one Mons. de la Mare that

Mare qui tient escole Françoise. keeps a French school.

Vrayement, je n'en sçavois rien. Truly, I did not know it.

Qu'apprend elle là? What does she learn there?

Elle apprend à écrire, à lire, She learns to write, to read,

à parler françois, à chanter, to speak French, to sing,

à danser, à jouer de la guitare, to dance, to play on the guitar,

et de l'épinette. and the spinette.

CHAPTER III

THE "LITTLE BLOIS" IN LONDON

In the second half of the seventeenth century we come across a band of

French teachers in London, which corresponds, in importance, to that

which grouped itself round Claude Holyband in the vicinity of St. Paul's

Churchyard at the same period in the sixteenth century. At its head was

Claude Mauger, a native of Blois. Mauger had as long a teaching

experience in London as Holyband; he arrived in about 1650, and we do

not hear the last of him till the first decade of the next century. He

was forced to quit his native town by "intestine distempers," probably

an allusion to the persecutions which broke out there in the middle of

the century. He appears to have been a Huguenot. Before coming to

England he had been a student at Orleans, and for seven years had taught

French to travellers, "the flowre of all Europe," at Blois,[813] where

some years previously Maupas had laboured at the same task; among his

pupils was Gustavus Adolphus, Prince of Mecklenburg. On arriving in

England, Mauger exercised the same profession. And several others,

driven from Blois like himself, gathered around him as friends,

admirers, and fellow-workers. Among these, he tells us, he reckons

Master Penson and Master Festeau as specially good masters of language.

Of Penson nothing is known, save that he wrote some lines addressed to

Mauger's critics. Festeau, however, is mentioned elsewhere by Mauger

with high commendation, and the two seem to have been close friends. He

came to England about the same time as Mauger, and may have accompanied

him. These members of the "Little Blois" in London prided themselves on

teaching the accent of Blois, "where the true tone of the French tongue

is found, by the unanimous consent of all Frenchmen." The accent of

Blois had already been recommended by some of the earlier French

teachers. Charles Maupas was its foremost champion.

Fate had been very unkind to him before his arrival in England, Mauger

tells us. But he soon forgot his sorrows in his busy and successful life

in London. Pupils flocked to him, and, as we saw, he was called upon by

Mrs. Margaret Kilvert to teach French in her Academy for young

gentlewomen--a place, according to him, "which needs nothing, only a

name worthy to expresse its excellency." At the same time he was busy

writing a French grammar, which appeared in 1653, and was dedicated to

Mrs. Kilvert--_The True Advancement of the French Tongue, or a New

Method and more easie directions for the attaining of it than ever yet

have been published_, preceded by verses addressed to no less than fifty

of his lady pupils. It does not differ materially as regards its

contents from previous works of the kind and had apparently been first

written in French, for Mauger says his work "hath now put on a language

to which it was before a stranger." Rules of grammar and pronunciation

occupy the first hundred and twenty pages, and the remaining half of the

book comprises reading exercises in French and English, and a

vocabulary. The sound of each letter is explained, then the declinable

parts are treated in turn, and followed by a few scattered rules of

syntax. The whole is a little incoherent, and lacks order. Mauger was

evidently acquainted with the work of his fellow-townsman Charles

Maupas.

The second section of Mauger's grammar begins with lists of anglicisms

to be avoided,[814] and then of "certaine francisms," or French idioms,

and of familiar French phrases for common use. The dialogues turn

chiefly on the study of French, and include discussions between students

of French, talk of travel in France, and polite and gallant

conversations between French and English ladies and gentlemen.

Considering Mauger's many women pupils, it is not surprising to find a

considerable part of his book devoted to them: two ladies discuss French

and their French teacher, criticise the French accent of their friends,

or receive visits or lessons from their French, music, or dancing

masters. [Header: CLAUDE MAUGER] And as the two latter, especially the

dancing-master, were usually French, they did much to assist the

language tutor. French maids are also often introduced, and represented

as instructing their mistresses in the French language as well as in

French fashions. It is no doubt Mrs. Kilvert's Academy that is referred

to in the following dialogue:

Mon père, je vous prie, donnés moy I pray, Father, give me

vostre bénédiction. your blessing.

Ma fille, soyés la bien revenue. Daughter, you are welcome home.

Comment se porte How does

Mme. votre Maîtresse? your mistress?

Mons. elle se porte bien. She is very well, Sir.

N'avés vous point oublié votre Have you not forgot your

Anglois? English quite?

Non, mon père. No, sir.

Je croy que vous parlés extrêmement I suppose you speak French

bien. excellently well by this time?

J'entends beaucoup mieux que I understand it better than

je ne parle. I can speak it.

Laquelle est la plus sçavante de vous Which of you two is the best

deux? proficient?

C'est ma soeur.--Je ne pense pas. My sister, Sir.--I don't believe

that.

Expliqués moy ce livre là en Render me some of that book back

François. into French.

Que signifie cela en François? What's that in French?

Entendés vous cette sentence là? Do you understand that sentence?

Ouy, Mons. Yes, Sir.

Vous avez bien profité. . . . You have made good proficiency....

Sçavez vous travailler en ouvrages? Have you learnt any needlework

there?

Vostre luth n'est pas d'accord. . . . Your lute is out of tune....

Et vous, ma fille, vous ne dites But you, daughter, have you

rien? nothing to say?

J'attendois vos ordres. I expect your commands.

Qu'avez vous appris? What have you learnt?

Approchez vous de moy. Come nearer to me.

Dancés une courante. Dance me a Courante.

In another dialogue a French gentleman compliments an English lady on

her French:

Où avés vous appris à parler François, Mademoiselle?

Monsieur, je ne parle pas, je ne fais que bégayer.

Je vous proteste que d'abord j'ay creu que vous fussiés Françoise.

Il est impossible à une Angloise de posséder vostre langue.

Vous m'excuserés, il s'en trouve beaucoup.

J'eus l'honneur il y a quelque temps d'entretenir une Dame qui

parle aussi nettement qu'une Françoise.

Je voy que vous avez inclination pour le François.

Fort grande.

Vous avez l'accent fort pur et net.

De qui apprenés vous?

D'un François nouvellement arrivé qui est de Blois.

Il est vray que la pureté du langage se trouve là, non pas

seulement l'accent, mais la vraye phrase.

Tout le monde le dit.

Vostre langue est fort difficile.

Je voudrois parler aussi bien que vous.

There is only one dialogue on a subject usually contained in French

manuals--phrases for buying and selling. The vocabulary, which closes

the book, is of a more usual kind. It is arranged under headings,

beginning with the Godhead and ending with a list of things necessary in

a house.

This book of Mauger's enjoyed a greater and longer-lived popularity than

any that had yet appeared. Edition followed edition until the end of the

first decade of the eighteenth century, and it continued to be

plagiarised for another fifty years. Its success can hardly have been

due to the scholastic value of its rules, which are few and confused,

but rather to its practical nature and lively dialogues. Mauger

constantly revised his grammar; of the earliest editions, no two are

identical. In each case he wrote new dedications, new addresses to the

reader, new dialogues, and varied the form of the grammar rules. The

second edition is much more typical than the first. Mauger had been ill

in 1653, and had not been able to correct the proofs himself. This task

he entrusted to a friend (perhaps Festeau), who "betrayed his

expectation, and corrected it not exactly." He was likewise unable to

add the English column to the dialogues, a task which was undertaken by

the corrector of the press. In the case of the second edition, however,

he attended "three times a day at the Presse," that he might correct it

according "to the expectation of those who will honour it with their

reading." He called it _Mr. Mauger's French Grammar_, and this was the

title under which it continued to be published.

Mauger dedicated the second edition to Colonel Bullar, mentioning the

many favours heaped upon him by that officer. He again addresses French

verses to numerous English ladies, his pupils. The grammar rules are

much the same; the chief change in this part is the addition of a Latin

translation to the English, "for to render it generally useful to

strangers" visiting London, "which is this day accounted one of the most

glorious cities of the world." That Mauger provided for the teaching of

French to foreign visitors to England shows how important a place the

study of the language held in our country, and we know that he numbered

a few foreigners among his many students of the language. In this second

edition he attempted, as Holyband had done before him, to adapt the

orthography to the pronunciation, but without success. [Header: MAUGER'S

FRENCH GRAMMAR] "I had thought," he writes, "for your greater advantage,

to have fitted the writing to the pronunciation, but having found that

I could not do so, without an absolute totall subverting of the

foundations of the language, I had rather teach you to read and speak

together than to show you how to speak without being able to read, or to

read without knowing how to speak. They might say nevertheless that it

would prevent many difficultyes if we did write as we speak." Mauger

decided to follow the rules of the French Academy, instead of his own

_caprichio_ which would "teach you to speak French without being able to

read any other book than that I should present you with": for "our

language," he said, "which is so highly esteemed by all strangers for

its noble etymologies of Greeke and Latine, will not suffer itself to be

so dismembered by the ignorance of those which profess it, not having

one letter which doth not distinguish one word from another, the

singular number from the plurall, the masculine gender from the

foeminine, or which makes not a syllable long or short."

The dialogues are new, but very similar to those of the first edition,

the chief change being the introduction of a long and "exact account of

the state of France, ecclesiastical, civil, and military as it

flourisheth at present under King Louis XIV.," which was brought up to

date in each subsequent edition.

In following years the dialogues become more numerous; they number

eighty in the sixth edition (1670). Each new issue promises additions,

"of the last concern to the reader." A new feature in the sixth and

seventh editions is a versified rendering of the grammar rules, entitled

_Le Parterre de la langue françoise_. The verses were written at the

request of the Duke of Mecklenburg, his former pupil, and arranged in

the form of a dialogue between Mauger and the Duke, who first addresses

his master:

Le Langage françois est si plein de merveilles

Que ses charmans appas, ravissans nos oreilles,

Nous jettent sur vos bords pour gouster ses douceurs,

Et pour en admirer les beautéz et les fleurs.

Mais, pour nous l'acquérir il faut tant d'artifice,

Qu'en ses difficultés il estreint nos delices,

Estouffe nos desseins, traverse le plaisir

Qui flatoit nostre espoir d'y pouvoir réussir.

Les articles _de la_, _de_, _du_, sont difficiles.

Si vous ne les monstrez par vos reigles utiles,

Ils nous font bégayer presques à tous momens,

Et ternissent l'éclat de nos raisonnemens.

And Mauger answers him with an invitation to take what he will from the

"parterre."

Additional matter was introduced in 1673 in the shape of short rules for

the pronunciation of English, which in the following editions were

developed into a short English grammar, written in French dialogues.

Later Mauger modified the arrangement of his French grammar rules,

giving them in parallel columns of French and English, in the form of

question and answer. The section dealing with the parts of speech is

recast in the form of a conversation between a French master and his

lady pupil. As to the dialogues, which are all "modish"--there is not a

word in them but is "elegant"--they were divided into two categories,

one elementary and the other advanced. In the twelfth edition, for

instance, we have forty-six dialogues, in the style of those of the

earlier editions, and then ten longer and more difficult ones. Mauger

made hardly any changes in the issues that followed the twelfth, and in

this shape it passed down to the eighteenth century. In the course of

its development it had grown to nearly twice its original size.

Mauger's popularity as a teacher of French grew apace with his grammar.

The commendatory poems, one by John Busby, which are prefixed to the

first two editions, show that even at that early date he was held in

high esteem by many influential Englishmen; and each new edition was

offered to some new patron.

Mauger also published a collection of letters in French and English,

which he considered "a great help to the learner of the French tongue,"

for "those who understand it with the help of the English, are capable

of explaining afterwards any French author, being written on several

subjects." The _Lettres Françoises et Angloises de Claude Mauger sur

Toutes sortes de sujets grands et mediocres_ were dedicated to Sir

William Pulteney. They were first issued in 1671, and again in 1676,

with the addition of fifty letters. Many are addressed to gentlemen of

note who had been his students at Blois, and continued to correspond

with him for the purpose of practice in French. "Puisque vous désirez

que je continue à vous écrire des Lettres Françoises," he wrote to the

Count of Praghen in 1668, "pour vous exercer en cette langue qui est

tant usitée dans toutes les cours de l'Europe, je reçois vos ordres avec

joye." Others are addressed to pupils in London, including some of his

large clientèle of ladies. [Header: MAUGER'S FRENCH AND ENGLISH LETTERS]

For instance, he writes to a certain Mrs. Gregorie:

Ayant ouï dire que vous estes allée a la campagne pour quinze

jours, durant cette belle saison en laquele la nature déploye ce

qu'elle a de plus beau, j'ay pris la hardiesse de vous écrire cette

lettre en François pour vous exercer en cette langue que vous

apprenez avec tant de diligence. Je suis bien aise que vous vous y

adonniez si bien, car, comme vous avez la mémoire admirable, vous

en viendriez bien tost à bout.

He seems to have made a regular practice of exercising his pupils'

French by writing to them in the language.[815] Among his young English

pupils was William Penn, the Quaker, to whom he wrote a letter dated

1670:

Je n'entendrois pas bien mes interests si Dieu m'ayant fait si

heureux de vous monstrer le François que vous apprenez si bien, je

n'en témoignois de la joye, en faisant voir à tout le Monde, que

l'honneur que vous me faites de vous servir de moy, pour vous

l'acquérir est tres grand. En effet monsieur, n'est-ce pas un

bon-heur? Car je perdrois mon credit si Dieu ne me suscitoit de

tems en tems des personnes comme vous, qui par leur diligence et

capacité avec l'aide de ma méthode le soutiennent. . . . J'ay bien

de la satisfaction qu'elle [_i.e._ l'Angleterre] sçache que vous

m'avez choisy pour vous donner la connaissance d'une langue qui

vous manquoit, qui est si estimée, et si usitée par toute la Terre.

Terre. . . .

Whether these letters were ever actually sent to his pupils is a

question of some uncertainty, which we are inclined to answer in the

affirmative. In any case, they provided him with an excellent

opportunity of advertising himself by calling attention to some of his

well-known pupils. Many were addressed to friends in France, where he

seems to have had a very good connexion. He closes his collection with a

short selection of commercial letters.

Mauger was the author of several other short works--a _Livre d'Histoires

curieuses du Temps_, destined for his pupils' reading; a _Tableau du

jugement universal_ (1675), which sold so well that there were very few

copies left at the end of the year; and a Latin poem of one hundred and

four lines, entitled _Oliva Pacis_, celebrating the declaration of peace

between Louis X. of France and Philip II.

Besides many influential friends, he seems to have had several relatives

in London.[816] One of these was a Master Keyser, his brother-in-law, a

Dutch gentleman and painter, who lived in "Long Aker between the

Maidenhead and the Three Tuns Tavern," and acted as a sort of agent for

Claude. Mauger himself lived "in Great Queen Street, over against Well's

Street, next door to the strong water shop," in 1670. Before 1673 he had

moved to "within two doors of Master Longland, a Farrier in Little Queen

St., over against the Guy of Warwick near the King's Gate in Holborn";

and in 1676 to "Shandois Street, over against the Three Elmes, at Master

Saint André's." It was probably about the year 1670 that he began to

teach English to foreigners visiting England. He had the honour "of

helping a little to the English tongue both the French ambassadors,

Ladyes, ambassadresses and several great Lords, who come daily from the

court of France to the court of England." With many of these he had much

familiar intercourse, and it was at their request that he wrote his

rules for the English language. One of his letters is addressed to the

sharp-witted Courtin, and others to the Marquis de Sande and Monseigneur

Colbert's surgeon. Some of the numerous French nobility, "who come daily

from the court of France to the court of England," attracted by the gay

and Frenchified court of Charles II., also studied English under Mauger.

He describes his method of teaching as discursive, "avec raisonnement."

Practice and reading are the chief exercises. In one of his dialogues a

lady pupil describes her French lesson;[817] it consisted in reading,

with special attention to the pronunciation, and telling a story in

French, no doubt a repetition of the matter read. For the pronunciation,

Mauger considered "the living voice of a master better than all that can

be set down in writing"; but none the less he provided rules for

acquiring the true accent of Blois. He took little interest in grammar,

but fully realized the necessity of guiding rules; "some man perhaps,"

he writes, "will answer me that he speaketh his naturall tongue well

enough, without all these rules. I confesse he may speak reasonably

well, because it is a natural thing for him to do. But you needs must

confesse that a Latine schollar, who hath been acquainted with all such

rules of grammar, speaketh better than such a one." Mauger would have

the student first master his rules, and then begin "by all means" to

read, "pour joindre la pratique à la speculation des règles." [Header:

MAUGER'S METHOD OF TEACHING] He no doubt intended the student to attempt

to speak at the outset with the guidance of a French master, whom he

held absolutely indispensable. The following talk between two students

throws light on the practical methods advocated:

Apprenez-vous encore le françois? Do you learn French still?

Ouy, je n'y suis pas encore parfait. Yes, I am not yet perfect in it.

Et moi je continue aussi. And I continue also.

Je commence à l'entendre. I begin to understand it.

J'entens tout ce que je lis. I understand all I read.

Avez vous un valet de pié françois? Have you a French foot boy?

Ouy, monsieur. Yes, Sir.

L'entendez-vous bien? Do you understand him well?

Fort bien. Very well.

Quel Autheur lisez vous? What author do you read?

Je lis l'_Histoire de France_. I read the _French History_.

L'avez-vous leüe? Have you read it?

Je l'ay leüe en Anglois. I have read it in English.

Je l'acheteray. I will buy it.

Ou la pourray-je trouver? Where shall I find it?

Partout. Everywhere.

Avez-vous leüe l'_Illustre Have you read the _Illustrious

Parisienne_? Parisien_?

Allez-vous au sermon? Do you go to sermon?

Ouy, Monsieur. Yes, Sir.

Qui est-ce qui prêche? Who preaches?

C'est un habile homme. 'Tis an able man.

Avez-vous le Dictionnaire de Miège?[818] Have you Miège's Dictionary?

Ouy, je l'ay. Yes, I have it.

Voulez-vous me le prêter? Will you lend it me?

Il est à votre service. It is at your service.

Je vous remercie. I thank you.

La langue françoise n'est-elle pas Is not the French tongue

belle? fine?

Je l'aime fort. I love it extreamly.

Elle est fort à la mode. 'Tis very modish.

"My dialogues," writes Mauger, "are so useful and so fit to learn to

speak, that one may easily attain the French tongue by the assistance of

a Master, if he will take a little pains on his side." He also advises

his pupils to read the lengthy heroical romances so popular at the

time--_L'Astrée_, and the enormous folios of De Gomberville, La

Calprenède, Mlle. de Scudéry, and other romances of the same type--as

well as the works of Corneille, Balzac, and Le Grand. With Antoine le

Grand, Mauger claims personal acquaintance, and recommends his works

with special emphasis, giving his pupils notice of a book newly

published by him: "There is a French book newly printed at Paris called

_L'Epicure spirituel_, written in good French by M. Antony le Grand,

Author of _L'Homme sans passions_. You may have it at Mr. Martyn's shop

[Mauger's publisher] at the sign of the Bell in St. Paul's Churchyard."

He also advocates, for purposes of translation, the reading of the Bible

and Common Prayers in French, books specially suitable owing to the ease

with which English renderings could be found; and adds further that "at

Mr. Bentley's shop, in Russel St. in Covent Garden, you may be furnished

with French Bibles, French Common Prayers, French Testaments, and French

Psalms." These would be of special use to his own students, as he

encouraged them to frequent the French Church for the benefit of hearing

the language. As for Mauger himself, although he appears to have

professed the Protestant religion and to have come first to England as a

refugee for the sake of his principles, he does not seem to have given

much attention to religious matters. Neither does he manifest any

particular interest in the French Church,[819] other than as an

excellent place for his pupils to accustom themselves to the sounds of

the French language.

After he had spent some thirty years in England we find him moving to

Paris, where he was constantly with "some of the ablest gentlemen of

Port Royal," who assured him that his French Grammar and his Letters in

French and English were in their library. This break in Mauger's long

teaching career in England occurred some time about 1680, after the

appearance of the eighth edition of his grammar in 1679. He now took up

his residence in the fashionable quarter of Paris, usually frequented by

foreigners, the Faubourg St. Germain, where he taught French to English

travellers, and English to any one wishing to learn it. This change of

abode modified his exclusive attitude towards the Blois accent. At an

earlier date he had acknowledged that "after Blois the best

pronunciation is got at Orleans, Saumur, Tours, and the Court," and in

1676 he writes, "Je suys exactement le plus beau stile de la Cour," and

tells us that he had daily intercourse with French courtiers "tant

ambassadeurs qu'autres grands seigneurs, à qui j'ay aussi l'honneur de

monstrer la langue angloise." He also read all the latest books, and

carried on a correspondence with learned men in Paris, among others

Antoine le Grand. But in the same year that he was praising the French

of Paris, he wrote, encouraging a noble Englishman to take up the study

of French in England: [Header: MAUGER IN PARIS] "Si vos affaires ne

vous permettent pas d'aller à Paris, pour vous y adonner, de quoy vous

souciez-vous si vous avez Blois dans Londres qui est la source? En effet

sa prononciation ne change jamais: de plus à cause du commerce qu'il y a

entre les deux cours, l'une communique à l'autre sa pureté. Et je dy

assurément qu'il y a icy quantité de personnes qui parlent aussi bien à

la mode qu'au Faubourg Saint Germain. Et comme les fonteines font couler

leurs eaux bien loin par de bons canaux sans se corrompre, vous

trouverez des Maîtres en cette ville qui vous enseigneront aussi

purement que sur les lieux." However, when he had himself spent two

years in Paris, he gave up praising the merits of Blois, and always

describes himself as "late professor of languages at Paris," which he

now called "the centre of the purity of the French Tongue, where the

true French phrase is to be found." From this time on his grammar claims

to contain everything that can be desired in order to learn French as

spoken at the Court of France, and "all the improvements of that Famous

Language as it is now flourishing at the Court of France."

During his stay at Paris, which extended from about 1680 to 1688, the

popularity of his grammar in England did not diminish. Four editions

were printed in London after having been corrected by himself at

Paris--the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. The last was dedicated

to the young Earl of Salisbury, who had studied French with Mauger when

on the usual continental tour.

Three motives, he states, induced him to return to England, "after

having gathered the finest flowers of the French tongue at Paris to

enrich my workes withall for the better satisfaction of those that learn

it: The first the extream love which I bear to this generous

country,[820] that has obliged me so much as to approve so generally of

my books, that for her sake they are received very well beyond Sea, and

especially in France. The second, to correct the thirteenth edition my

self exactly, many faults of printing having crept into the four last

editions which were Printed here in my absence though I corrected them

at Paris. The third to see my relations and friends."

After his return to England, he composed his _Book of Curious stories of

the Times_ in French and English for the use of his pupils. The new

editions of his grammar, however, are identical with the thirteenth,

which itself bears very great resemblance to the twelfth issued while

Mauger was still at Paris. How many years he continued to superintend

the new issues of his grammar is not certain; the nineteenth edition of

1702 is the last described as "corrected and enlarged by the Author."

Again and again he refers to the popularity of his book in England, and

the "unexpressible courtesies" he received at the hands of his English

patrons. "This grammar sells so well," he wrote in the sixth edition

(1670), "as you may see, being printed so often, and many thousands

every time, that I cannot but acknowledge the kindness of this generous

nation towards me in raising its credit both at home and abroad, in so

much that other Nations, following the general approbation concerning it

of so wise a people, use it as commonly everywhere beyond the Sea, as

they do here in London, and in all the dominions of his majesty of Great

Britain." It was also looked on with much favour in France. In 1689 a

French edition, called the thirteenth, was printed at Bordeaux. But it

was in the Netherlands that the grammar received almost as warm a

welcome as in England. The book thus forms another link between the

study of French in England and the Low Countries. In 1693 this Dutch

edition of the grammar was issued for the thirteenth time, and in 1707

for the fifteenth, both at the Hague. It was usually published with an

English grammar of more importance than the short one added by Mauger to

the English editions--that of Festeau, Mauger's friend and

fellow-townsman. Their combined work was known as the _Nouvelle double

grammaire Françoise-Angloise et Angloise-Françoise par messieurs Claude

Mauger et Paul Festeau, Professeurs de Langues à Paris et à Londres_.

The two grammars are followed by Mauger's dialogues and a collection of

twenty-one "plaisantes et facetieuses Histoires pour rire," in French

and English, entitled _l'Ecole pour rire_. The growing popularity of

English from the beginning of the reign of William of Orange, the editor

tells us in 1693, induced him to add the English grammar to the French

grammar of Mauger, and he chose Festeau's because it was in as high

favour for learning English as Mauger's was for learning French.

[Header: PAUL FESTEAU]

Paul Festeau was the author of a French as well as an English

grammar,[821] and, like Mauger, he taught English to foreign visitors in

London, as well as French to English people. Indeed his career bears a

close resemblance to that of Mauger, of whom he seems to have been a

sort of protégé. Like Mauger he had taught at Blois, and the two

teachers probably came to England together; at any rate they arrived at

much the same time. He enjoyed a greater popularity than Mauger as a

teacher of English, and was also looked upon with respect as a teacher

of French.[822]

Festeau's French Grammar, first published in 1667, occupies an important

second place among the French text-books produced in the third quarter

of the seventeenth century. It was dedicated to Colonel Russel, of the

King's Guard, who had learnt French under Festeau's guidance. As a

grammar it is fuller and more clearly arranged than Mauger's, and, in

main outline, there is much similarity between the two. The rules, which

occupy the first two hundred pages, are written in English and provide

information on pronunciation and on each part of speech in turn. Each is

accompanied by a considerable number of illustrative examples, which,

Festeau thought, were of great help in impressing the rule on the

memory, and of more use than dialogues. He also included dialogues in

his work, and was attacked on account of their prolixity. He argued, in

reply, that "if the reader pleases to consider the store of phrases in

the body of the Work amongst the Rules which do contain near two hundred

pages, he will very well apprehend that, when a scholar hath learnt all

these Phrases without book in learning the rules, he needs not at all

burden his memory with many dialogues: for ... I have found by

experience that those who have learned them were able afterwards to

translate French into English, with the aid of a dictionary and I do

maintain that it is not necessary to learn such abondance of Dialogue by

heart, it is enough to read and English them, and next to that to

explain them from English into French, and so doing the words and

phrases do insensibly make an impression in the memory and the discreet

scholar goeth forward with a great deal of ease. As for young children I

yield that it is good they should continue the Dialogues: but after they

have learned short phrases, they must of necessity learn long ones,

otherwise they could never attain to the capacity of joyning words

together. Beside when a master doth teach his scholar, he must not ask

him a whole long phrase at once, he must divide it in parts according to

the distinction of points. As for instance, if I will ask this long

phrase of a child | Quand on a gaigné une fois | le jeu attire

insensiblement | en esperance de gaigner davantage |. I will ask it him

at three several times." Festeau gives the pupil the English in three

separate phrases, and requires him to give the French rendering. "Them

that will take the pains to peruse it," to use Festeau's own words in

describing his grammar, "will observe a very new method, clear and

intelligible Rules to the least capacities, fine remarks upon all the

parts of speech and particularly upon the gender of nouns, and the use

of moods and tenses. They will find the difficulties of the particles,

_en_, _on_, and _que_ explained, which give commonly so much trouble to

the learner, they will see the use and good order of impersonal verbs,

as well active as passive, likewise also of the reciprocal and reflected

verbs. Finally they will see familiar dialogues on divers sorts of

subjects, very useful and profitable for them that desire to speak

properly: no barbarous kind of words and phrases as are found in some

other grammars, by reason that the Author professes to speak and to

write his own language well." A vocabulary of thirty pages, in the style

of Mauger's, and rules for the accents and the length of the vowels fill

the rest of the volume. This was how the work stood in the third

edition, which, Festeau explains, "might rightly be said the fourth,

seeing that there was fifteen hundred copies drawn off the second

edition, and two thousand of this, whereas they use to draw but a

thousand at most: and considering the time it first came out, it seems

that it sells pretty well. If some other former grammars have had more

editions, it cannot be inferred thence that this comes short of them: we

can buy nothing at market but what is to be sold, and when this hath

been in the light as long, no doubt but (especially being better known)

it may have as many editions." [Header: PIERRE LAINÉ] Possibly he was

referring to Mauger's popularity, and the two friends may have become

rivals during the latter part of their stay in England. On similar

grounds he claimed that the sixth edition might be called the tenth, as

two thousand copies were drawn of the four last editions. Mauger,

however, states that "many thousand" copies of his grammar were drawn at

every edition.

By this time Festeau's grammar had acquired a considerable reputation.

"The approbation that it hath received," he writes, "of the most learned

of the nation, who have esteemed it the neatest, the easiest and most

correct, is not a small advantage to it: It is that which hath

encouraged me to bring it to a better perfection." There is, however,

very little difference between the half score or so editions which were

issued.

Like Mauger, Festeau soon began to modify his attitude towards the Blois

accent. In 1679, while still advertising himself proudly as a "native of

Blois, where the true tone of the French Tongue is found by the

unanimous consent of all Frenchmen," he claims to teach the "Elegancy

and Purity of the French Tongue as it is now spoken at the Court of

France." However, it is uncertain whether Festeau went to Paris or not.

At the time when he first wrote of Court French he was teaching in

London, and we are informed that "if any gentleman have occasion for the

author of this grammar, his Lodging is in the Strand near St. Clement's,

at Mr. John King's house, at the sign of the wounded heart." He was

still there in 1693. In 1675 we see him requesting any "gentleman or

others desiring to speak with him to inquire for him in Haughton Street,

next door to the Joyner's Arms, near Claire Market," or at Mr. Loundes,

his bookseller and publisher. At about this time he began to teach

mathematics as well as, and by means of French; he was prepared to

instruct gentlemen in all its branches. It was at the request of several

gentlemen, with whom he "did often discourse of the same in French,"

that he added to the fourth edition of his grammar a long dialogue

covering the whole field of mathematics, and giving "a clear and fair

idea thereof."

Another French tutor who flourished at the same time as Mauger, and who

wrote a French grammar which, like his, appeared during the

Commonwealth, was Peter Lainé. Lainé is not very communicative as

regards himself; he does not even tell us from what part of France he

came. All we know of him is that he was a protégé of Robert Paston, to

whom he dedicated his book, and who, no doubt, had been his pupil for

French. Of his grammar he writes, "I here expose to thy view a work

which might rather be counted an Errata than a book"--a state of things

for which both himself and the printer were to blame. For his part, he

says, he does not write for the sake of seeing his name in print, or

because he fancies he excels others. "I rather count myself inferior to

the least of them. But the urgent importunities of some persons whom I

have had, and still have the honour to inform in French, have made me

undertake it to satisfie their desires, and my gratitude."

His sympathy with the Protestants emerges clearly from the contents of

his grammar. Apparently he did not belong to the Blois group. He differs

from them in adopting the new orthography in which many of the unsounded

letters were omitted. It was a pity to spoil the purity and elegance of

the pronunciation by the old orthography, he thought; moreover the clear

resemblance between the orthography and the pronunciation renders the

language easier to foreigners; "seeing that we both write and speak any

vulgar Tongue to be understood and to entertain Society, it is in my

judgement, not only convenient but even necessary to bring as near a

conformity betwixt the Tongue and the Pen, as may without prejudice to

the material grounds of our language, afford all the facility that is

possible to those that are strangers to it." It is curious to recall

that Peletier, and other earlier writers, had, on the contrary, retained

the etymological consonants of the old orthography, with the idea that

the foreigner's Latin would thereby be of greater service to him.

Lainé's _Compendious Introduction to the French Tongue, teaching with

much ease, facility and delight, how to attain briefly and most exactly

to the true and modern pronunciation thereof_, is very similar to

Mauger's grammar in the distribution of the matter. Rules for the

pronunciation, which as usual are briefly explained by means of

comparison with English sounds, are followed by observations on each

part of speech in turn;[823] finally come familiar phrases "to be used

at the first learning of French," ten long dialogues, and a vocabulary,

all in French and English. [Header: LAINÉ'S DIALOGUES] The book closes

with what Lainé calls "an alphabetical rule for the true and modern

orthography of that French now spoken, being a catalogue of very

necessary words never before printed"--an alphabetical list of words.

The grammatical section of the work is written in English. In the

dialogues he purposely adapts the English to the French phrase. "I have

been more careful," he explains, "in the whole course of the treatise,

to observe the French, then the English phrase: to the end I might make

its signification more intelligible, to vary less from the sense, and to

afford most delight and more facility to the learner."

According to him, the first thing to be learned by the student of French

are the sounds of the language. He should commit to memory as many of

the familiar phrases as he can easily retain, and from them pass to the

"dialogical discourses." Their substance is much the same as in

Mauger--polite and gallant conversations mainly between students of

French, talk and guidance for travellers in France, etc. The following

specimen is from a dialogue between an English gentleman and his

language master:

Quel beau livre est-ce là? What fine book is that?

Mons., c'est le romant comique. Sir, it is the comic romance.

Qui en est l'autheur? Who is the author of it?

Mons. C'est Mons. Scarron. Sir, it is Mr. Scarron.

Est-il fort célèbre? Is he very famed?

Est il fort estimé? Is he much esteemed?

Mons., c'est un esprit sublime et Sir, it is a sublime and

transcendant. transcendant wit.

De quoi traite cet ouvrage? What doth this work deal on?

Mons., il n'est plein que Sir, it is full but

de drolleries facesieuses. . . . of pleasant drolleries....

Lisons un peu: faites moi Let us read a little: do me

la faveur de m'antandre the favour to understand me

lire. read.

Prononcez hardiment; Pronounce boldly;

Observez vos accents. Observe your accents.

Ne prenez point de mauvaise habitude. Take no ill habit.

Lisés distinctement. Read distinctly.

Vou lisez trop vîte. You read too fast.

Notre langue est ennemi de la Our tongue is enemy to

précipitation. precipitation.

Lainé evidently intended that the dialogues, at least some of them,

should be committed to memory, as well as read and translated; "after

that," he continues, "as his sufficiency shall permit, he may proceed to

Reading any Histories, among which the Holy Writ ought to have the

pre-eminence, had not divine Providence, and the Eternal Spirit that

dictated it, purposely rejected the affected smoothness and polishedness

of the style." We recall, as we reflect on this strange reason for

rejecting the Holy Scriptures as reading material, the unenviable

reputation the refugees themselves had as regards literary style. As the

Bible is left us "for divine study only," Lainé advises his pupils to

make use of moral histories for purposes of reading. Many, he says, have

been produced of late years. Nor did he limit his pupils' choice to

these; he encouraged them to read the heroic romances so popular at the

time--_Artamène ou le grand Cyrus_ and _Clélie_ by Mlle. de Scudéry,

_Cassandre_ and _Cléopâtre_ by La Calprenède; also the _Poésies

spirituelles_ of Corneille, the commentaries of Caesar in French, and

Scarron's _Roman comique_. Lighter fare could be found in the _Gazette

françoise_.

FOOTNOTES:

[813] "Which city, lying in the very middle of France, is the most

famous for the true pronunciation of the language."

[814] "What are you doing? You must not render this in French, _qu'estes

vous en faisant?_ but thus, _Que faites-vous?_" ... and so on.

[815] The practice was a common one at the time. Thus Sir Charles

Cotterel wrote in Italian to Mrs. Katherine Philipps, who thanks him for

the care he takes to improve her in Italian by writing to her in that

language. Letter of April 12, 1662, in _Letters of Orinda to

Poliarchus_, 1705.

[816] One of his letters (No. 18) is addressed to Adrien Mauger (1675),

Bachelor of Divinity, Claude's nephew, whom he calls the head of the

family, and who apparently lived at Blois.

[817] His fee was 40s. a month, for three lessons a week.

[818] Cp. p. 383, _infra._

[819] The names Mauger and Maugier occur frequently in the Registers of

the Threadneedle Street Church, but none can be connected with Claude.

[820] "L'Angleterre que j'aime infiniment," he writes in his twelfth

edition.

[821] The first edition appeared in 1672. The second edition was

advertised in 1678 (Arber, _Term Catalogues_, i. 323).

[822]

"De tous les professeurs de la langue françoyse,

Festeau c'est de toi seul dont je fais plus de cas.

Si tu es éloquent dans nostre langue angloise,

Dans la tienne, pourquoy ne le serois-tu pas?"

Thus wrote one of his pupils, Mr. P. Hume, probably the famous statesman

and Covenanter.

[823] Pp. 48-130. Lainé retains the usual six Latin cases; the verbs are

divided into four conjugations; the indeclinables are given in lists. A

vocabulary of nouns which have two meanings according as they are

masculine or feminine is included.

CHAPTER IV

THE FRENCH TEACHING PROFESSION AND METHODS OF STUDYING THE LANGUAGE

From their very first appearance the voluminous French romances of the

time enjoyed great popularity in England,[824] partly, perhaps, on

account of the lack of a supply of similar works in the vernacular.

Several English translations appeared, but many preferred to read them

in the original. Their importance in the eyes of the French teachers may

also have increased their vogue. They were especially affected by

Charles I.; and when on the eve of his death, he was distributing a few

of his favourite possessions among his friends, he left the volumes of

La Calprenède's _Cassandre_ to the Earl of Lindsey.[825] Later on, Pope

describing, in his _Rape of the Lock_, the adventurous baron in quest of

the much-coveted lock, pictures him imploring Love for help, and

declares he

to Love an altar built

Of twelve vast French Romances neatly gilt.

Among the most eager readers of French romances was Dorothy Osborne. We

are enabled to trace part of her course in reading from the charming

letters she wrote to Sir William Temple, her future husband. They are

full of references to things French, and replete with French words; she

uses English words in a French sense: _injury_ with her means _insult_;

and she writes to explain that when she said _maliciously_ she really

meant "a French _malice_, which you know does not signify the same

thing as an English one." A little note sent to Temple when she was in

London, shortly before their marriage, evidently in answer to one from

him, may be quoted as a specimen of her French, and her total disregard

of spelling and grammar:

Je n'ay guere plus dormie que vous et mes songes n'ont pas estres

moins confuse, au rest une bande de violons que sont venue jouer

sous ma fennestre m'ont tourmentés de tel façon que je doubt fort

si je pourrois jamais les souffrire encore; je ne suis pourtant pas

en fort mauvaise humeur et je m'en voy ausi tost que je serai

habillée voire ce qu'il est posible de faire pour vostre

satisfaction; apres je viendré vous rendre conte de nos affairs et

quoy qu'il en sera vous ne sçaurois jamais doubté que je ne vous

ayme plus que toutes les choses du monde.[826]

The French romances were Dorothy's constant companions, and her letters

are full of criticisms of and references to her favourite passages. She

sent the volumes to Temple by instalments,[827] as she finished them,

pressing him for his opinion. _Le Grand Cyrus_ seems to have been her

favourite. She had also a great admiration for _Ibraham ou l'Illustre

Bassa_, which, like _Polexandre et Cléopâtre_ and the four volumes of

_Prazimène_, was her "old acquaintance." _Parthenissa_, the English

romance in the French style by Lord Broghill, did not meet with her

approval. "But," she confides to Temple, "perhaps I like it worse for

having a piece of _Cyrus_ by me that I am highly pleased with, and that

I would fain have you read. I'll send it you." As for the English

translations of her favourites, she had no patience with them. They are

written in a language half French and half English, and so changed that

Dorothy, their old friend, hardly recognizes them in this strange garb.

French romances were not the only French interest Dorothy Osborne and

Temple had in common. They had first become acquainted while travelling

to France, the Osbornes on their way to join their father at St. Malo,

and Temple setting out on the usual "tour." Temple, apparently, lingered

with his new friends in France, until his father, hearing of this,

ordered him to Paris.[828] There he evidently acquired the knowledge of

French which Dorothy playfully declares a necessary qualification for

_her_ husband: for she could not marry one who "speaks the French he

has picked up out of the old Laws"; [Header: PEPYS'S FRENCH BOOKS] or,

the other extreme, the "travelled monsieur whose head is all feather

inside and out, that can talk of nothing but dances and duels, and has

courage enough to wear slashes when every one else dies with cold to see

him."[829]

Another instance of the popularity of these romances and other French

writings is found in Pepys's _Diary_.[830] Both Pepys and more

particularly his wife, who was the daughter of a French refugee, were

great readers of the romances. Pepys himself seems to have found them a

little tiresome, and relates how on a certain occasion Mrs. Pepys

wearied him by telling him long stories out of the _Grand Cyrus_, and

how he hurt her feelings by checking her outpourings. She would sit up

till past midnight reading _Cyrus_ or _Polexandre_. He would often stop

at his bookseller's to buy French books for his wife, including

_L'Illustre Bassa_ in four volumes, and _Cassandre_. One evening she

read to him the epistle of _Cassandre_, which he pronounced "very good

indeed." When they went to see Dryden's _Evening Love, or the Mock

Astrologer_, Mrs. Pepys recognized at once its debt to _L'Illustre

Bassa_, and on the following afternoon "she read in the _L'Illustre

Bassa_ the plot of yesterday's play, which is exactly the same."

His French books seem to have been a great source of interest to Pepys,

and to have served him on many occasions. Being ill, "taking physique

all day," he beguiled the time by reading "little French romances." He

appears to have been particularly attracted by Sorbière's _Voyage en

Angleterre_, which on its appearance caused some indignation at the

English Court. Pepys read the book in the year of its publication

(1664).[831] Unfortunately he has not left us a very full account of the

other French books he knew. However, on the 1st May 1666, he writes that

he went "by water to Redriffe, reading a new French book my Lord

Bruncker did give me to-day, _L'Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules_" [by the

Comte de Bussy], "being a pretty libel against the amours of the Court

of France." Another volume which pleased Pepys was a "pretty" work, _La

Nouvelle allégorique_, "upon the strife between rhetorique and its

enemies, very pleasant." His choice of French literature was wide,

ranging from Du Bartas, which he judged "very fine as anything he had

seen," to Helot's "idle roguish book," _L'Eschole des Filles_, which he

burnt, "that it might not stand in the list of books, nor among them to

disgrace them if it be found."[832]

At both Allestry's and Martin's, Pepys's booksellers, there was a great

variety of French and foreign books, which often tempted him. "To my new

bookseller's, Martin's," he writes on the 10th January 1667-8, "and

there did meet with Fournier the Frenchman, that hath wrote of the sea

and navigation,[833] and I could not but buy him." He was much

interested in French treatises on music,[834] and sent to France for

Mersenne's _L'Harmonie Universelle_, which he could not get at his

bookseller's. Pepys's friend, William Batelier, brought him "one or two

printed musick books of songs"[835] from France, among other French

books. "Home," he again notes, on the 26th January 1668, "and there I

find Will Batelier hath also sent the books which I made him bring me

out of France, among others _L'Estat de France_, _Marnix_, _etc._,[836]

to my great content, and so I was well pleased with them and shall take

a time to look them over ... but my eyes are now too much out of tune to

look upon them with any pleasure." And when his failing eyesight

prevented him from reading with ease, his wife, Batelier, and his

brother-in-law, Balty St. Michel, would read to him in French as well as

in English. He got Balty to read to him out of Sorbière's _Voyage en

Angleterre_, and under the date the 30th of January 1668-9 we find this

entry: "I spent all the afternoon with my wife and Will Batelier

talking, and then making them read, and particularly made an end of Mr.

Boyle's _Book of Formes_, which I am glad to have over, and then fell to

read a French discourse which he hath brought over with him for me."

[Header: POLITE CONVERSATION FASHIONABLE]

No doubt the polite French literature which the French teachers

recommended so strongly to their pupils had some influence on the

character of the dialogues which form part of their manuals. Mauger,

Festeau, and Lainé all include polite conversations in their dialogues,

and leave the old familiar subjects of buying and selling, wayside and

tavern talk. Polite conversation was the fashion, and coteries for

fostering it grew up in England on the model of those in France. Mrs.

Katherine Philipps, generally known as "the matchless Orinda," is

perhaps the most prominent of the ladies who tried, without any

permanent success it is true, to introduce the refinements of the French

_salons_ into England.[837] Each member of the "Society of Friendship"

she gathered round her assumed fanciful names in the style of those

affected by the adherents of the Parisian salons. "Orinda" was of course

a great reader of French literature, and knew French perfectly. She is

chiefly remembered for her translations of some of Corneille's plays

into English.[838] French books of conversation, such as Mlle. de

Scudéry's _Conversations sur divers sujets_[839] or the similar volume

by Clerombault, which was rendered into English by a "person of honour"

[1672], also give some clue to the tastes and tendencies of the time,

though they had no direct influence on the dialogues specially written

for students of French. But, like them, they turn on such subjects as

the pleasures, the passions, the soul, love, beauty, merit, and so

forth. Thus the French teachers of the time, in introducing a new style

into their dialogues, undoubtedly yielded, to some extent at all events,

to the tastes of their numerous lady pupils. A large proportion of

Mauger's pupils were ladies. He praised their accent, and considered it

clearer and more correct than that of their brothers. And in the later

editions of his treatise the grammar rules are given in the form of a

conversation between a lady and her French master. Another French

teacher of the time, the author of a collection of dialogues in which

the new style is the dominating feature, also shows a decided preference

for his lady pupils. This writer was William or Guillaume Herbert, the

author of the _French and English dialogues in a more exact and

delightful method then any yet extant_.

The thirty-four dialogues contained in this collection are all, with the

exception of the first which is autobiographical, written in the

_précieux_ style, full of points and conceits,[840] and all, with the

same exception, are very alike and a little wearisome. Herbert says he

does not write for every one, but for "les plus subtils." And in his

first dialogue, which gives a free account of his condition and

opinions, he proceeds to ridicule the traditional style of the French

and English dialogues. A stranger addresses a friend of the author:

Pourquoi ne parle-t-il point de vendre et d'acheter?

Parce qu'il n'a rien à vendre et que fort peu d'argent pour

acheter; et que les autres faiseurs de livres François en ce pais

ont tout vendu et tout acheté avant qu'il allât au marché.

Pourquoi ne dit-il rien du Manger et du Boire?

Pour tant qu'il y prend fort peu de plaisir, faute d'appétit, et

que quelques-uns de ceux qui l'ont precédé l'ont fait pour lui,

nommant fidèlement toutes les viandes qu'ils ont portées à la table

de leurs maîtres. Qui lèche les plats, en peut bien parler.

Pourquoi ne parle-t-il point des Habits, et de La Mode, du Lever et

du Coucher, de la Chambre et du Lit?

Parce que nos maîtres, qui ont été valets de chambre ou laquais,

lui ont épargné ce travail, comme leur étant plus propre qu'à lui.

Pourquoi se tait-il des Merciers, des Tailleurs et des Cordonniers?

Parce qu'ils aiment mieux argent contant que des paroles et que

n'étant point dans leurs livres il ne se souvient guère d'eux et

s'en soucie encore moins.

Pourquoi laisse-t-il les Ministres, les Médecins et les

Jurisconsultes, sans faire attention d'eux?

Parce qu'ils ont assez d'esprit pour ne s'oublier pas: et assez de

langue pour parler pour eux-mêmes. Et toutefois il en parle à la

dérobée, sans leur donner un discours à part, quoiqu'il honore ces

professions-là, et aime fort passionément plusieurs personnes de

ces trois états, pour leurs rares mérites.

N'a-t-il rien des Apoticaires, des Chirurgiens et des Barbiers?

Pas un seul mot, monsieur, parce qu'il se sert rarement des

premiers, et que, par la grâce de Dieu, il n'a ni playes ni ulcères

ni vérole pour les seconds, et que, les derniers le tenant à la

gorge, il n'oseroit parler.

Il pourroit dire quelque chose des Parens et des Alliéz.

Qu'en diroit-il, les siens lui étant si peu courtois? S'il parloit

d'eux, ce seroit moyen de renouveler ses douleurs.

[Header: STATE OF THE TEACHING PROFESSION]

Herbert, it will be seen, had not a very high opinion of the social

origin or ability of the majority of his fellow-teachers. He was a very

unwilling member of the profession. He does not style himself "Professor

of the French Language" on the title-page of his dialogues, although he

taught both in his house and away from home, because few people care to

boast of their cross, and his cross was--to be reduced to belong to a

profession "que tant de valets, de mécaniques, et d'ignorants rendent

tous les jours méprisable." He draws a far from flattering picture of

the common sort of French teacher. He is a "brouillon," a shuffling

fellow, who boasts, dresses well, and intrudes everywhere, cringing and

offering his services at a cheaper price than the genuine teachers. He

can hardly write seven or eight lines of French correctly. Yet men such

as this, says Herbert, pass for first-class teachers, and some take upon

themselves to correct and write books. What is more, they count many

pupils, even among the nobility.

Yet another cause of annoyance to Herbert was what seemed to him the

presumption of the Blois fraternity. It is the fashion, he remarks

scornfully, to say you come from Blois. And you do so if you happen to

come from Normandy. He is not ashamed of his province, though he takes

good care not to advertise it needlessly; Brittany (of which he was

evidently a native) is better than Blois, according to him. Thus we may

conclude that Herbert was one of the 'enemies' to whom members of the

Blois group frequently allude. Festeau refers to them as being ignorant

and envious persons, while Mauger describes them foaming with envy and

jealousy, and trying to harm him in the eyes of his pupils, as well as

casting aspersions on his grammar;[841] but he did not regard what they

said, England having raised his grammar so high that "their envy cannot

reach to it." And Mauger goes on to censure a certain section of the

French teaching profession, "broken Frenchmen," who make their pupils

speak rapidly, but not distinctly. "Have a speciall care," he exclaims,

"that you have not to do with those that are not true Frenchmen as your

Normans or Gascons. I confesse that a Norman that is a man of some

quality or one that hath seen the world or that is a good scholar may

possibly have the right accent, but any other that hath not such parts

can never give the true accent." Herbert retorted that the Blois clique

tried to persuade every one that Bretons and Normans cannot speak

correct French. He naturally resented such assertions, and was not

himself nearly so exclusive in the list of those who were not "good

Frenchmen." He merely states that the English are greatly mistaken in

their estimation of the French living here, "considering as such all

those that speak their tongue, so that the high Germans, Switzers of the

French tongue, Danes, Swedes, Dutch, Walloons, and those of Geneva pass

for good French in the opinion of many, although in truth there are not

here two naturall French 'mongst ten, which are taken for such, and who

for their profit would gladly go for such."

There was every need, thought Herbert, of protecting the profession from

these incompetent teachers. Before a tutor is engaged he should be made

to translate a passage from a good author from English into French, and

then from French into English, and both the pieces should be examined by

competent judges of both languages; for, according to him, a teacher

must know English, or some other language with which the scholar is

acquainted, such as Latin, so that there may be some foundation on which

to build the new edifice.

Beyond the importance he attached to translation, we know little of

Herbert's ideas on the teaching of French. He devotes more space to

criticizing the teachers. He does tell us, however, that French

orthography is best learnt by transcribing French passages, by which

operation it impresses itself on the mind without effort. He was also an

advocate of much and careful reading. Grammatical rules he considered

necessary, and he had intended to publish a grammar together with his

dialogues, but he was prevented from doing so by illness. He hoped,

however, to issue it a few months later, but apparently he was again

prevented from carrying out his design. [Header: GUILLAUME HERBERT] Yet

two years after the appearance of his dialogues he published another

work but of quite a different character--_Considerations on the behalf

of Foreiners which reside in England, and of the English who are out of

their own country, to allay the tempest which is too often raised in the

minds of the vulgar sort, and to sweeten the bitterness of a bilious or

cholerick humour against strangers_, in which he showed "that of all the

Nations of Europe, the English and French should love one another best,

as well for their vicinity as for the great commerce that is 'mongst

them in time of peace, and for their consanguinitie, there being in this

country thousands of families which are descended from the French, and

as many or more in France whose progenitours are English." These

'considerations,' twenty in number, are mainly a plea in favour of the

foreign churches in England and of the liberty of aliens to trade and

work in this country, with an allusion to the "good usage of

neighbouring Nations" towards the English fugitives of Mary's reign.

They are dated from the Charterhouse, June 1662, and appear to have been

the only work Herbert published after his _Dialogues_. He had, however,

previously shown his interest in the teaching of French by editing in

1658 the fourth edition of Cogneau's _Sure Guide to the French

Tongue_,[842] which consisted largely of the style of dialogue which he

ridiculed at a later date.

Herbert had had a long career in England before we first hear of him as

a teacher of French. He had composed treatises in French and in English,

both of which he wrote with equal facility. His language gives no clue

to his nationality, but, as we saw, we may conclude from his

autobiographical dialogue that he was a native of Brittany. He was, no

doubt, the William Herbert, native of France, who received a grant of

letters of denization in 1636. At that date he was living at

Pointington, Somerset, and was married to an Englishwoman, Frances

Sedgwicke. In the previous year he had prepared for the press a work in

French called _La Mallette de David_.[843] How he spent his time in

Pointington is not clear, but in 1640 he was tutor to the sons of

Montague Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey. On the death of his wife in

1645 he moved to London, and published a number of devotional works in

English, which he had composed at Pointington, chiefly for the benefit

of his wife and children. He refers to the unfavourable reception of

these compositions in his French and English dialogues, which he hoped

would meet with a better fate.

Herbert also took a great interest in the foreign churches of London. He

dedicated his _Quadripartit Devotion_ of 1648 to the "learned, pious,

and reverend Pastors, Elders, and Deacons of all the French and Dutch

congregations in England." At a later date he published a biting

pamphlet against a French Pastor, Jean Despagne,--the _Réponse aux

Questions de Mr. Despagne adressées à l'Eglise Françoise de Londres_

(1657), accusing "le ridicule Despagne" of blasphemy and immorality, as

well as criticising his French. In this work Herbert agrees with Lainé

in omitting a number of superfluous letters, with the intention of

facilitating reading for foreigners, though he was opposed to too many

changes, for fear of offending the partisans of the old orthography. The

_Dialogues_ and the _Considerations in behalf of Strangers_ were the two

works issued subsequently to the attack on Despagne, and with them ends

all we know of the career of Herbert, critic of the French teaching

profession, and earliest advocate of the "registration" of teachers.

The Jean Despagne attacked so bitterly by Herbert was none the less a

welcome guest in this country, and was the only truly French minister in

London during the Commonwealth. English as well as French, attracted by

his excellent sermons, gathered round him. Thus he co-operated in a

sense, and no doubt unconsciously, with Mauger and the other French

teachers of the time, who were busy encouraging their pupils to attend

the French church. Despagne was minister, not of the old church of

Threadneedle Street, but of a new congregation in Westminster, which met

at first in Durham House in the Strand, and when that was pulled down,

at the chapel in Somerset House (1653).[844] He held aloof from the

older church, and went so far as to criticise Calvin. He was attacked

and accused of schism, but was protected by his powerful patrons, chief

among whom was the Earl of Pembroke. An important group of the royalist

English nobility and gentry found in Despagne a means of satisfying

their religious needs when the Anglican church was in abeyance. Among

them was the diarist John Evelyn, who heard Despagne preach in the

Savoy church. [Header: THE FRENCH CHURCHES] Another adherent, and a very

faithful one, was a certain Henry Brown, who, in his English translation

of one of Despagne's works,[845] speaks of the great resort of the

English nobility and gentry to the "excellent sermons and Doctrines" of

the French pastor. Many continued to attend after the Restoration,

Evelyn among others; as late as 1670 he remarks that "a 'stranger'

preached at the Savoy French church, the liturgie of the Church of

England being now used altogether, as translated into French by Dr.

Durell."

The Savoy church had been authorized by Charles II. at the Restoration

on condition that the English Liturgy in French should be used. The

Threadneedle Street church, on the contrary, continued to use the

Calvinistic 'discipline,' and regarded with jealousy and suspicion the

church rising in Westminster. It refused all co-operation, and

endeavoured to bring about the suppression of the new church. The Savoy

church benefited on account of its situation in the fashionable

residential quarter, while Threadneedle Street was away in the city.

Consequently many members of the English aristocracy and gentry

continued to frequent the Westminster church even after the Restoration.

The use of the Anglican Liturgy was no doubt an additional attraction.

When service was opened there in 1661, by J. Durel,[846] among the

English present were the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, the Countess of

Derby and her daughters, the Earl of Stafford, and the Dukes of

Newcastle and Devonshire. Indeed the English gentry seem to have

occupied the attention of the French churches just as much as the

refugees themselves. The Threadneedle Street church felt the advantages

of its Westminster rival in this respect, and at the Restoration,

offered to establish a French Sabbath Lecture at Westminster for those

of the English gentry and French Protestants who found Threadneedle

Street too remote, hoping by this means to prevent division by having a

separate church there.[847] The Threadneedle Street church, however, was

not without its English adherents. Pepys went from time to time to both

French churches, but more frequently to Threadneedle Street, as far as

can be gathered from his diary, where he does not always specify which

of the churches is meant. "At last I rose," he writes on the 28th

September 1662, "and with Tom to the French church at the Savoy, where I

never was before; a pretty place it is; and there they have the Common

Prayer Book read in French, and which I never saw before, the minister

do preach with his hat off, I suppose in further conformity with our

Church." Pepys as a rule went to the Anglican church in the morning, and

to the French in the afternoon. He usually has a very good word for the

sermon, though on one occasion it was so "tedious and long that they

were fain to light candles to baptize the children by." There were also

services held at the French ambassador's, which many of the nobility

attended, as well as French sermons at Court from time to time. Evelyn

was present on one of these occasions: "At St. James's chapel preached,

or rather harangued, the famous orator, Monsieur Morus, in French. There

were present the King, the Duke, the French ambassador Lord Aubigny, the

Earl of Bristol, and a world of Roman Catholics, drawn thither to hear

this eloquent Protestant." This was on the 12th of January 1662. At a

much later date, September 1685, he heard another Frenchman, "who

preached before the King and Queene in that splendid chapell next St.

George's Hall."

It appears therefore that the practice, common among French teachers, of

urging their pupils to go to the French church, met with some response,

as did their advice as regards the reading of French literature. On both

these points the teachers of the middle of the seventeenth century are

at one with those of the sixteenth, and, as a general rule, there is

very little difference between the methods used in the two centuries.

Reading remained the basis of the teaching; dialogues were committed to

memory and translated into English, less importance being attached to

retranslation into French in later times. As for pronunciation, the

teachers of the seventeenth century realised the inadequacy of teaching

it by comparison with English sounds; they laid all the more emphasis on

the services of a good tutor, continuing, none the less, to supply

certain rules, though not without a warning. As time went on, more

importance was attached to the grammar, which, though still limited in

theory to essential general rules, was often studied in the first place,

and not left till need for it arose in practice. The general opinion is

thus expressed by James Howell: "What foundations are to material

fabriques the same is grammar to a language. [Header: FRENCH BY "GRAMMAR

AND ROTE"] If the foundation be not well laid, 'twill be but a poor

tottring superstructure; if grammatical rules go not before, there is no

language can be had in perfection. Yet there are no precepts so

punctuall, but much must be left to observation, which is the grand

Mistresse that guides and improves the understanding in the research and

poursute of all humane knowledge, _Quod deficit in praecepto, suppleat

observatio._" Students who learnt on this method, called a combination

of "grammar and rote," would read aloud with their tutor, chiefly for

practice in pronunciation; study the principal grammar rules and commit

to memory the vocabulary of familiar phrases, and a few short dialogues;

read and translate[848] French dialogues, and then pass to the favourite

French authors; sometimes they would translate from English into French,

or write French letters; finally they would converse as much as possible

with their tutor, repeat stories they had read in French, and seize

every opportunity of speaking the language and hearing it spoken.

Such was the method employed by the more serious French teachers of the

time. There were, however, others, and apparently very many, who taught

"by rote" alone without any grammar rules--a common method of learning

modern languages. "In England, the French, Spanish, and Italian

Languages are not the languages of our country, and spoke only by few

Persons, yet 'tis evident they are taught in London, and several other

places in the Kingdom, purely by conversation." "For it is well known,"

argues a writer on education,[849] "that there are Grammars writ for the

French, Italian, and Spanish languages, and yet notwithstanding, these

Languages are learned by Conversation ... little children, who know not

what Grammar means, are bred up to speak foreign languages fluently and

correctly.... There are some indeed, in England that teach Modern

Languages by Grammar. But this is not at all necessary, as is

unanswerably evident from those Persons who perfectly learn them without

it. However, those who reach the Modern Languages by Grammar only teach

their scholars so much of it as to know how to decline Nouns and Verbs

and understand some few rules. For as for the Languages themselves, they

are generally taught not by Books but Conversation, which is found by

experience to be much the readiest, easiest, and best Method of teaching

them.... Some by great application have learn'd French or Italian in

half a year's time by conversation, and indeed any foreign Tongue is

ordinarily taught in a year or a year and a half. And such as are two

years in learning any of them are accounted either very negligent or

else very incapable of retaining them.... Men who know little or nothing

of French, Italian, or Spanish, quickly learn any one of these languages

only by going twice or thrice a week to a club where they are obliged to

speak it."

How common such practical methods of learning French were may be

gathered from the fact that the few memoirs and similar writings which

give any detail on the subject invariably mention them. For instance,

the mother of Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of the regicide and Governor of

Nottingham, was sent to board in the house of a refugee minister in

order to learn French.[850] As to Mrs. Hutchinson herself, she had a

French nurse, and was taught to speak English and French together.[851]

Others had tutors. Thus the mother of Lady Anne Halkett, the royalist

and writer on religious subjects, paid masters to teach Lady Anne and

her sister "to write, speak French, play on the lute and virginals and

dance";[852] and Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, held up by

Mrs. Makin as an example to "all ingenious and Vertuous Ladies," also

had tutors for the polite accomplishments, and refers to her language

lessons as "prating."[853] She acquired a good knowledge of French,

became attendant to Queen Henrietta Maria, and accompanied her in her

exile in France.

[Header: FRENCH BY CONVERSATION]

An example of the opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of French, "in

any leisure hour," as Milton said of Italian, is found in the Letters of

Robert Loveday, the translator of part of La Calprenède's _Cléopâtre_.

Loveday lived during the Commonwealth as a dependent in the house of

Lady Clinton at Nottingham, where, he says, French "was familiarly

spoken by the best sort of the family."[854] He therefore had every

opportunity of learning the language, and was much helped by an old

Italian gentleman, skilled in French, who was living in the house on the

same footing as himself. As a result of his application he was able to

translate several French works into English "in those empty spaces of

time which were left by those that command me at my disposall." He

procured a copy of Cotgrave's dictionary and asked a friend in London to

make enquiries at the booksellers if there was "any new French book of

indifferent volume that was worth the translating and not enterprised by

any other."[855] Loveday hoped by this means to give "larger scope to

(his) narrow condition" at Nottingham. One of his first enterprises was

the translation of a "mad fantastick Dream" he met with in Sorel's

_Francion_, which he sent to his brother; but his chief work was a

rendering of the first three parts of _Cléopâtre_, which was hardly of

the "indifferent size" he writes of. The several parts appeared in 1652,

1654, and 1655 respectively, under the title of _Hymen's Praeludia, or

Love's Masterpiece_, and were dedicated to his "ever-honoured lady" Lady

Clinton. In the complete version, the fourth, fifth, and sixth parts are

also ascribed to Loveday.

Thus practical methods gained a firm hold in the teaching of French;

when grammar was studied, it was within limited boundaries, and only so

far as desirable for practical purposes. In the teaching of Latin, on

the other hand, more and more importance was attached to the study of

grammar, which took the foremost place, literature being regarded as

little more than a collection of illustrative examples of the

rules.[856] Grammar had become "a full swolen and overflowing stream,

which, by a strong hand, arrogates to itself (and hath well-nigh gotten)

the whole traffic in learning, especially of languages."[857] The use

of the Grammar and reading books in Latin alone was another practice

which engaged the attention of the reformers.[858] "A book altogether in

Latin is a mere Barbarian to our children," wrote Charles Hoole,[859]

who published many of the popular Latin school-books with English

translations, in the style of those which are always present in the

French text-books. His opinion was that "no language is more readily got

than by familiar discourse in it, and ability therein is in no way

sooner gained then by comparing the tongue we learn with that we know,

and asking how they call this or how they say that in another language,

which we are able to express in our own." A writer of the time[860] thus

describes "that wild goose chase usually led": "ordinarily boys learn a

leaf or two of the Pueriles, twenty pages of Corderius, a part of Esop's

Fables, a piece of Tullie, a little of Ovid, a remnant of Virgil,

Terence, etc. ... to read the accidence, to get it without book, is

ordinarily the work of one whole year. To construe the Grammar and to

get it without book is at least the task of two years more, and then, it

may be, it is little understood until a year or two more is spent in

making plain Latin ... when it is all done, besides declining nouns and

forming verbs and getting a few words, there is very little advantage to

the child." And a French teacher,[861] writing at about the same time,

has left a very similar picture. [Header: GRAMMATICAL STUDY OF

LANGUAGES] He describes how the child slaves till the age of fifteen or

sixteen, forced to learn against his will a little Latin and Greek, with

little result after seven or eight years of hardship. "Not 10 per cent

really know either; they are buried under a _fatras_ of words and rules,

which stun the memory and overturn the judgment, and all under the rule

of the rod." Such is the learning of a foreign language "by grammar."

The feeling of dissatisfaction with the usual method of teaching Latin

in grammar schools, however, seems to have been general in the

seventeenth century, and many were the protests and appeals for reform.

"No man can run speedily to the mark of languages that is shackled and

ingiv'd with grammar precepts," wrote Joseph Webbe,[862] who draws a

careful distinction between the grammar-Latin thus acquired and what he

calls Latin-Latin,[863] that is, "Such as the best approved authors

wrote and left us in their books and monuments of use and custom," as

distinct from "that Latin which we now make by grammar rules, and their

collection out of that custom and those authors was to make us write and

speak such Latin as that custom and those authors did, which was

Latin-Latin, but it succeeded not."

Consequently there arose a belief that "practice"--in speaking, reading,

and writing the language--should take its place by the side of grammar.

Writers pleaded, in the style of Elyot and Ascham, for the teaching of

Latin on more practical lines, quoting Montaigne's experience.[864]

Thomas Grantham[865] opened a private school, in which he sought to

deliver youth from their "great captivity" and the hardship and

uselessness of learning grammar word for word without book and in Latin,

which the boy does not understand, "just as if a man should teach one an

art in French when he understands not French." Grantham, on the

contrary, taught his scholars to understand the rules first, and by

repeatedly applying them they came to know them without book, whether

they would or no. Similar was the method of the French teachers, who

often carried the idea further, and taught their pupils the rules as

need for them arose in practice.

John Webster thus puts the case for and against learning by "rule." "As

for grammar," he says,[866] "which hath been invented for the more

certain and facile teaching and obtaining of languages, it is very

controvertible whether it perform the same in the surest, easiest and

shortest way or not, since hundreds speak their mother tongue and other

languages very perfectly, use them readily, and understand them

excellent well, and yet never knew or were taught any grammar rules, nor

followed the wayes of Conjugations and Declensions, Noun or Verb. And it

is sufficiently known that many men, by their own industry, without the

method or rules of grammar, have gotten a competent understanding in

divers languages: and many unletter'd persons will, by use and exercise,

without Grammar rules, learn to speak and understand some languages in

far shorter time than any do learn them by method and rule, as is

clearly manifest by those that travel.... And again, if we conceive that

languages learnt by use and exercise render men ready and expert in the

understanding and speaking of them, without any aggravating or pushing

the intellect and memory, when that which is gotten by rule and method,

when we come to use and speak it, doth exceedingly rack and excruciate

the intellect and memory: which are forced at the same time, not only to

find fit words agreeable to the present matter discoursed of, and to put

them into a good Rhetorical order, but must at the same instant of

speaking, collect all the numerous rules of number, case ... as into one

centre, where so many rayes are united and yet not confounded, which

must needs be very perplexive and gravaminous to memorative faculty: and

therefore none that attains languages by grammar do ever come to speak

and understand them perfectly and readily, until they come to a perfect

habit in the exercitation of them, and so thereby come to lose and leave

the use of those many and intricate rules, which have cost us so many

pains to attain to them, and so to justifie the saying that we do but

_discere dediscenda_." Those who learn by "use and exercitation," on the

other hand, acquire languages more quickly and with better results. If

the study of grammar is insisted on, it should be made very brief. The

indeclinables require no rules, but are learnt by use. [Header: LOCKE

ON THE TEACHING OF FRENCH] Of the declinables the only ones that present

any difficulties are the noun and the verb, regular and irregular. As to

the irregulars, they are best learnt by "use," as rules only "render the

way more perplexed and tedious. And the way of the regulars is facile

and brief, being but one rule for all."

Many others wrote in a similar strain,[867] advocating the teaching of

Latin on lines widely used in the teaching of French. Several actually

specified the modern language, which was first mentioned in books on

education in this connexion. Thomas Grantham, in his _Brain Breaker's

Breaker_ (1644), points out that many young gentlemen and ladies learn

to speak French in half a year without grammar, and argues that the same

purpose could be achieved with Latin and Greek in a twelvemonth.

Similarly George Snell argued that Latin might be learnt "in as short a

time as a Monsieur can teach French,"[868] for the pronunciation, so

great a task in learning the living tongue, is of no importance in the

dead language. At a somewhat later date, when French had made more

headway in the scholastic world, Locke plainly states that people are

accustomed to the right way of teaching French, "which is by talking it

into children by constant conversation, and not by Grammatical

Rules,"[869] and proposes that the same method should be applied to

Latin. "When we so often see a Frenchwoman teach an English girl to

speak and read French perfectly in a year or two, without any rule of

grammar, or anything else but prattling to her, I cannot but wonder how

gentlemen have overseen this way for their sons, and thought them more

dull and incapable than their daughters."[870] Elsewhere Locke again

draws comparisons between the teaching of Latin and that of French,[871]

and a French teacher of the early part of the eighteenth century

recognized the importance of this tribute when he published a grammar

intended to confirm the knowledge acquired by "practice."[872]

Yet all these proposals and protests do not seem to have had much effect

on the teaching of Latin. In a few cases, however, experiments were

attempted, usually in connexion with French. Several were made with the

_Janua_ of Comenius, which had early been adapted to the teaching of

French as well as Latin. The theories of Comenius himself had no doubt

inspired the English reformers. He had written that rules are thorns to

the understanding, that no one ever mastered a language by precept

alone, though it is often done by practice; rules, however, should not

be entirely discarded.[873]

J. T. Philipps, who was later tutor to the Duke of Cumberland, son of

George II., relates[874] how he taught both Latin and French on

practical lines with the help of Comenius. His pupil first got a good

notion of the Latin tongue by studying the verbs and nouns, and then

learning the Latin column of the _Janua Linguarum_. "I likewise at som

leisure Hours," continues Philipps, "taught him to read French and when

he had good the pronunciation, he labour'd for some time, as he did

before in the Latin, to make himself Master of the French Verbs and

Nouns, and then began to learn the sentences in another column of the

_Janua Linguarum_, which, by the assistance of the Latin, he mastered in

a very short time. So that before the end of the first year, he could

read Fontaine's _Fables_ from French into English, and give me an

account of the French Minister's text which he heard, and part of the

sermon; [Header: LANGUAGES LEARNT WITHOUT GRAMMAR] for I charg'd him

never to miss the French Church, that he might the better accustom

himself to the true Accent of that Tongue.... I spent an hour every

Sunday Morning all the time the Boy was with me, to read over several

short Catechisms or systems in Divinity both in French and Latin."[875]

The learned Mrs. Bathsua Makin, who had been governess to the daughters

of Charles I., and later kept a school at Tottenham High Cross, also

advocated the use of the _Janua Linguarum_ for learning Latin and

French. The young ladies of her school learnt ten Latin sentences of the

_Janua_ a day thoroughly, spending "but six hours a day in their books."

By the end of six months they had a fair knowledge of the language, and

turned to French: "If the Latin tongue may be learnt in 6 months, where

most of the words are new, then the French may be learnt in three, by

one that understands Latin and English, because there is not above one

word of ten of the French Tongue, that may not fairly, without force, be

reduced to the Latin or English."[876]

We are also told[877] of a boy of seven who spoke Latin, French, and

English with equal facility, "by reason that his father talked to him in

nothing but Latin, and his mother, who was a Frenchwoman, in nothing but

French, and the rest of the family in nothing but English." And the Rev.

Henry Wotton of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, has left an account of how,

when he undertook the education of his son, "leaving off the Accidence

in that Method that ordinarily children are trained up in, (he)

immediately thought with (him)self to make an experiment whether

children of his years might not be taught the Latin Tongue as ordinarily

children are taught the French and Italian, and without the torture of

grammar, to make them, by reading a Latin book, to understand Nouns and

Verbs, Declensions and Moods, and that without the vast circuit, that

ordinarily takes up 3 or 4 years, as preparatory to read any Latin

author."[878] Evelyn bears witness to the success of Wotton's

experiment. He saw the young William Wotton in London at the age of

eleven, and pronounced him "a miracle."[879] To Evelyn also we are

indebted for an account of another case of similar precocity due to the

same method. He relates how he and Pepys saw a child of twelve, the son

of one Dr. Clench, "who was perfect in the Latine authors, spake French

naturally, and possessed amazing knowledge. His tutor was a Frenchman,

who had not troubled him to learn even the rules of grammar by heart,

but merely read to him, first in French, and then in Latin."[880]

In no case, however, was the contrast between the prevalent methods of

teaching Latin and French so marked as in the learning of Latin in

Grammar Schools, and of French in France by "rote" or with the help of a

few general grammar rules; the older the student, the more necessary

were grammar rules considered. Richard Carew, for instance, was struck

by the fact that he learnt more French without rules in three-quarters

of a year in France than he had learnt Latin in more than thirteen

years' strenuous study of grammar. He had gone to France on leaving the

university. On his arrival he was at a loss for words, knowing nothing

of the language; but after a short stay, spent in the midst of French

people, talking and reading nothing but French, he surmounted the

difficulties of the language with surprising ease, and wished students

of Latin to benefit by his experience.[881] The two languages, indeed,

were not infrequently studied together by the considerable number of

English children who were sent to France for purposes of education.

FOOTNOTES:

[824] "It is most astonishing that there ever could have been people

idle enough to write and read such endless heaps of the same stuff. It

was, however, the occupation of thousands in the last century, and is

still the private though disavowed amusement of young girls and

sentimental ladies," wrote Chesterfield in the eighteenth century

(_Letters to his Son_, 1774, p. 242). Even Johnson read and enjoyed

these lengthy romances.

[825] Jusserand, _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_, p. 381.

[826] _Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir Wm. Temple, 1652-54_, London,

1888, p. 318.

[827] He in turn passed them on to Lady Diana Rich.

[828] T. P. Courtney, _Memoirs of the Life, Works and Correspondence of

Sir Wm. Temple_, London, 1836, i. p. 5.

[829] _Letters_, p. 172; ep. Goldsmith, _Essay on the Use of Language_:

"If again you are obliged to wear a flimsy stuff in the midst of winter,

be the first to remark that stuffs are very much worn at Paris."

[830] Pepys used Cotgrave's Dictionary; _Diary_, February 26, 1660-1.

[831] This book was very widely read in England. But there does not seem

to have been an English translation of it before 1709 (Pepys's _Diary_,

Oct. 13, 1664, ed. Wheatley, 1904).

[832] _Diary_, Jan. 13, Feb. 8 and 9, 1667-8.

[833] _L'Hydrographie contenant la théorie et la pratique de toutes les

parties de la navigation_, 1643.

[834] He read Descartes's _Musicae Compendium_, but did not think much

of it.

[835] Pepys relates how one evening Penn and he fell to discoursing

about some words in a French song Mrs. Pepys was singing--_D'un air tout

interdict_: "wherein I laid twenty to one against him, which he would

not agree to with me, though I know myself in the right as to the sense

of the word, and almost angry we were, and were an houre and more upon

the dispute, till at last broke up not satisfied, and so home."

[836] _Les Résolutions Politiques ou Maximes d'État_, par Jean de

Marnix, Baron de Potes, Bruxelles, 1612.

[837] Cp. E. Gosse, _Seventeenth Century Studies_, 1897; J. J.

Jusserand, _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_, p. 373.

[838] D. Canfield, _Corneille and Racine in England_, 1904. How common

was the presence of Frenchmen in English families of high standing may

be gathered from Orinda's statement that "one, Legrand, a Frenchman

belonging to the Duchess of Ormond, has by her order set the fourth

[song in _Pompey_ to music], and a Frenchman of my Lord Orrery's the

second" (_Letters of Orinda to Poliarchus_, London, 1705, Letter dated

Jan. 31, 1663).

[839] Fifth ed., Amsterdam, 1686. Translated into English by F. Spence,

London, 1683. Queen Henrietta Maria had done much to foster the spirit

of the _Astrée_ and the Hôtel de Rambouillet in England: cp. J. B.

Fletcher, "Précieuses at the Court of Charles I.," in the _Journal of

Comparative Philology_, vol. i. 1903.

[840] Between ladies and "cavaliers." Herbert explains that by

"cavalier" he means _galant homme_. Here is a specimen of their style:

"_Cavalier_: La voilà, je la vois.--_Dame_: Que voyez-vous, mons.?--Je

vois la Gloire du beau sexe, l'Ornement de ce siècle, et l'Objet de mes

affections.--Vous voyez ici bien des choses.--Toutes ces choses sont en

une.--C'est donc une merveille.--Dites, ma chère Dame, la merveille des

merveilles.--Je le pourrois dire après vous, car votre bel esprit ne se

sauroit tromper.--Il se peut bien tromper, mais non pas en ceci.--Je

veux qu'il soit infaillible en ceci: il faut pourtant que je voye cette

Gloire, cet Ornement et cet Objet, pour en pouvoir juger.--Vous ne les

sauriez voir que par réflexion.--Je ne vous entens pas.--Approchez-vous

de ce miroir, et vous verrez ce que je dis. Qu'y voyez-vous, ma

Belle?--Je vous y vois, monsieur.--Voilà une belle réponse.--Belle ou

laide, elle est vraye.--Elle l'est effectivement: mais n'y voyez-vous

rien que moi?--Je m'y vois aussi bien que vous.--Vous voyez donc cette

illustre merveille, etc."

[841] "Il y a des particuliers qui ne sont pas dans mes intérêts, qui

les (_i.e._ his works) décrient hautement, non pas tant par malice que

par jalousie, quelques-uns étant des personnes intéressées qui sont de

ma profession, ou des critiques ignorans qui trouvent à redire à tout ce

que les autres font, pour faire paroître ce qu'ils n'ont point,

s'imaginant qu'on les prend pour des hommes d'esprit, quand on les

entend reprendre les choses les mieux faites."

[842] See p. 290, _supra_.

[843] Arber, _Stationers' Register_, iv. 333.

[844] Schickler, _Églises du Refuge_, ii. pp. 148-9, and 153. Despagne

became a denizen in 1655 (Hug. Soc. Pub. xviii.). Cp. also Haag, _La

France protestante_, ad nom., and the _Bulletin de la société de

l'Histoire du Protestantisme français_, viii. pp. 369 _et seq._ He died

in 1658.

[845] _Harmony of the Old and New Testament_, 1682, Brown's preface.

[846] Schickler, _op. cit._ ii. p. 224.

[847] _Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1660-61_, p. 277.

[848] That translation was not always the means of interpretation is

shown by the following passage from Mauger; a stranger questions one of

his pupils:

Entendez-vous tout ce que vous lisés?

J'en entends une partie.

Entendez-vous bien le sens?

Fort bien, monsieur.

Probably French was not 'construed' word for word, as Latin was, the

clause, on the contrary, being made the starting-point. "Construing word

for word is impossible in any language," wrote Joseph Webbe in his

_Petition to the High Court of Parliament_, quoting as an example the

"barbarous English of the Frenchman, '_I you pray, sir_,' for _Je vous

prie, monsieur_."

[849] _An Essay on Education_, London, 1711.

[850] _Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson_, ed. C. H. Firth,

London. 1885, i. p. 16.

[851] _Ibid._ p. 23.

[852] _Autobiography of Lady Anne Halkett, 1622-1699, 1701_, Camden

Society, 1875, p. 2.

[853] _The Lives of Wm., Duke of Newcastle and of his wife Margaret ...

written by the thrice noble and illustrious princess Margaret, Duchess

of Newcastle_, ed. M. A. Lower, 1872, p. 271.

[854] _Loveday's Letters, Domestick and forrain to several persons ..._,

London, 1659, p. 31.

[855] _Letters_, p. 105. Cp. also pp. 26, 47, 79, 135, etc. It is

evident from the letter of Dorothy Osborne quoted above, p. 320, that

she had learnt French chiefly by ear. Several of the inaccuracies, such

as the use of the past participle for the infinitive, would not be

noticeable in pronunciation.

[856] F. Watson, _Grammar Schools_, pp. 276 _sqq._

[857] J. Webbe, _An Appeale to Truth in the Controversie between Art and

Verse about the best and most expedient course in languages_, 1622.

[858] There was a strong feeling at this period in favour of a freer use

of English in the teaching of Latin, chiefly on account of the time such

a course would save. Thus Milton recognized the mistake of spending a

great number of years in learning one language "making two labours of

one by learning first the accidence, then the grammar in Latin, ere the

language of those rules be understood." The remedy, he thought, was the

use of a grammar in English (A. F. Leach, "Milton as Schoolboy and

Schoolmaster," _Proceedings of the British Academy_, iii. 1908). Snell

(_Right Teaching of Useful Knowledge_, 1649), Mrs. Makin or M. Lewis (?)

(_Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen_, 1671), and

others also argued that English should be the groundwork of the teaching

of Latin. Most of the English grammars produced in the seventeenth

century claim to be useful to scholars as an introduction to the

rudiments of Latin; and it was on this footing, no doubt, that English

grammar first made its way into the schools. Chief among these, perhaps,

was J. Poole's _English Accidence for attaining more speedily the Latin

Tongue, so that every young child, as soon as he can read English, may

by it turn any sentence into Latin. Published by Authority, and

commended as generally necessary to be made use of in all schooles of

this commonwealth_, London, 1655. For a list of English grammars cp. F.

Watson, _Modern Subjects_, chap. i. Lily's Grammar came to be almost

always used with the English rendering by Wm. Hume. Cp. Watson, _Grammar

Schools_, p. 296.

[859] _An advertisement ... touching school books_, 1659.

[860] _An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen_, London,

1673 (by Mrs. Makin or Mark Lewis).

[861] G. Miège, _A New French Grammar_, 1678, p. 377.

[862] _Appeale to Truth_, 1622, p. 41.

[863] _Petition to the High Court of Parliament, in behalf of auncient

and authentique Authours, for the universall and perpetuall good of

every man_, 1623.

[864] _Essais_, liv. i., ch. xxv.

[865] Cp. _The Brain Breaker's Breaker, or the Apologie of Th. Grantham

for his Method of Teaching_, 1644.

[866] _The Examination of Academies, wherein is discussed ... the

Matter, Method and Customes of Academick and Scholastick Learning, and

the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid open_, 1653, p. 21.

[867] Thus Sir Wm. Petty, in his _Advice to S. Hartlib for the

advancement of some particular parts of learning_ (1648), argues that

languages should be taught by "incomparably more easy wayes then are now

usuall." An anonymous "Lover of his Nation" proposed that children

should learn Latin as they do English, by having no other language

within their hearing for two years; and similarly with other languages

(Watson, _Modern Subjects_, p. 482). Ch. Hoole, teacher at a private

grammar school in London, also proposes that Latin should be learnt by

speaking and hearing it spoken, and attributes the unsatisfactory

knowledge of the language to the too frequent use of English in schools

(_New Discoverie of the old art of Teaching Schooll_, 1660). The French

teacher Miège suggests that Latin should be taught in special schools,

on the same lines as French was taught in the French ones (_French

Grammar_, 1678). In 1685 was published _The Way of Teaching the Latin

Tongue by use to those that have already learn'd their Mother Tongue_;

and in 1669 had appeared a work translated from the French, called _An

Examen of the Way of Teaching the Latine Tongue to little children by

use alone_. Among other publications of similar import are: _An Essay on

Education, showing how Latin, Greek, and other Languages may be learn'd

more easily, quickly and perfectly than they commonly are_, 1711; and

_An Essay upon the education of youth in Grammar Schools in which the

Vulgar Method of Teaching is examined, and a new one proposed for the

more easy and speedy training up of Youth, to the knowledge of the

Learned Languages ..._, by J. Clarke, Master of the Public Grammar

School in Hull (London, 1720).

[868] _Right Teaching of Useful Knowledge to fit scholars for some

honest Profession_, London, 1649, p. 186.

[869] Locke, _Some thoughts concerning Education_ (1693), ed. J. W.

Adamson, in _Educational Writings of Locke_, London, 1912, p. 125.

[870] _Op. cit._ p. 127.

[871] "Why does the Learning of Latin and Greek need the rod, when

French and Italian need it not?" (_op. cit._ p. 69). And again, "Those

who teach any of the modern languages with success never amuse their

scholars to make speeches or verses either in French or Italian, their

business being language barely and not invention" (_op. cit._ p. 71).

The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England during Tudor and Stuart Times With an Introductory Chapter on the Preceding Period · 第 9 / 12 章

Cogneau's _Guide_ was in vogue for a number of years. In 1658 a French