Earliest printed works of instruction--Publications of Bishop
Perottus--His _Grammatical Rules_--Johannes Sulpicius and his _Opus
Grammaticum_--Some account of the book--Importance and influence of
these foreign Manuals in England--The _Carmen Juvenile_ or _Stans Puer
ad Mensam_--Alexander Gallus or De Villâ Dei and his _Doctrinale_--The
_Doctrinale_ one of the earliest productions of the Dutch press--Ælius
Donatus--His immense popularity and weight both at home and
abroad--Selections or abridgments of his Grammar used in English
schools.
I. The most ancient published books of instruction for Englishmen in
scholastic and academical culture emanated from a foreign country and
press. When the Vocabularies, Grammars, and other Manuals ceased to
circulate in a manuscript form, or to be written and multiplied by
teachers for the use of their own pupils, the early Parisian printers
supplied the market with the works, which it had been theretofore
possible to procure only to a very limited extent, in transcripts executed
by the authors themselves or by professional copyists.
The educational writings of some of the men, whose influence for good in
this direction had of course been greatly circumscribed by the ignorance
of typography, found their way into print. But one of the foremost persons
who addressed himself to the task of diffusing a knowledge of elementary
learning and of teaching English by Latin was NICHOLAUS PEROTTUS, BISHOP
OF SIPONTUM, whose _Grammatical Rules_ first appeared, so far as I know,
in 1486.[1]
The examples of fifteenth-century English, which make in our eyes its
chief value, were of course introduced as casual illustrations.
The lexicographical and grammatical works of this noted prelate
undoubtedly exercised a very powerful and beneficial influence at, and
long after, the period of their composition; and I am disposed to think
that this was particularly the case with his _Rudimenta Grammatices_,
1476, and his _Cornucopia Linguæ Latinæ_, 1490. The former was not only
imported into this country for sale, but was reprinted here in 1512, and
the _Cornucopia_ forms part of the groundwork of our own _Ortus
Vocabulorum_, 1500.
II. Next in succession to Bishop Perrot, whose publications, however,
cannot be said to belong to the present category in more than an
incidental degree, was JOHANNES SULPICIUS VERULANUS, who is perhaps to be
viewed as the leader of the movement for spreading, not only in France,
but in England, a fuller and more scholarly acquaintance with the laws of
grammar. Nearly the first book which proceeded from the press of Richard
Pynson was his _Opus Grammaticum_, 4to, 1494.
Almost every successive impression seems to differ in the contents or
their distribution, owing, as I apprehend, to the circumstance that the
volume was compounded of separate tracts, of which some were occasionally
added or omitted at pleasure, or variously placed.