Auxiliary books--_Vulgaria_ of Terence--His Comedies printed in
1497--Some of them popular in schools--HORACE--CICERO--His _Offices_
and _Old Age_ translated by Whittinton--VIRGIL--OVID--Specimens of
Whittinton's Cicero--The school Cato--Notices of other works designed
or employed for educational purposes.
I. There is a class of books which, while they were not strictly intended
for use in the preparation of the ordinary course of lessons, were most
undoubtedly brought into constant requisition, at least by the higher
forms or divisions, as aids to a familiarity with the dead languages, and
eventually those of the Continent.
The earliest and one of the most influential of these was the _Vulgaria_
of Terence. As far back as the reign of Edward IV., I find it annexed to
the _Compendium Grammaticæ_ of Johannes Anniquil, printed at Oxford about
1483; and at least three other editions of it exist. It is on the
interlinear plan, as the following extract will serve to indicate:--
"Here must I abyde allone this ij dayes
=Biduus hic manendu; est mihi soli.=
Though I may not touch it yet I may see
=Si non tangendi copia e videndi ta; erit.=
The dede selfe scheweth or telleth
=Res ipsa indicat.=
If I had tarayed a lytill while I hadd not found hym at home
=Paululu si cessasse eu domi no offendisse.="
No one will be astonished or displeased to hear that Terence soon acquired
great popularity among school-boys and a permanent rank as a text-book. In
1497 Pynson printed all the Comedies, and a few years later selections
were given with marginal glosses. In 1533 the celebrated Nicholas Udall,
many years before he gave to the world the admirable comedy of _Ralph
Roister Doister_, edited portions of the Latin poet with an English
translation, doubtless for the benefit of the scholars at Eton; it was a
volume which long continued a favourite, and passed through several
impressions, both during the author's life and after his death.
In 1598, a century subsequent to the appearance of the first, came a
second complete version of the Comedies, from the pen of Richard Bernard
of Axholme in Lincolnshire, and being more contemporary in its language
and treatment, drove out of fashion the old Pynson. Bernard's remained in
demand till the middle of the next century, and concurrently with it
renderings of separate plays occasionally presented themselves.
In 1588 the _Andria_ was brought out by Maurice Kyffin with marginal
notes, his professed object being twofold, namely, to further the
attainment of Latin by novices and the recovery of it by such as had
forgotten the language. In 1627, Thomas Newman, apparently one of the
masters of St. Paul's, prepared for the special behoof of students
generally the _Eunuch_ and the _Andria_, dedicating his performance to the
scholars of Paul's, to whom he wished increase in grace and learning. The
treatment of these two favourite dramas was influenced, as we are
expressly informed, by the idea and ambition of adapting them for
theatrical exhibition at a school.
But they were, at the same time, considered by our forefathers
particularly well suited as vehicles for instruction, as well perhaps as
for amusement. In the early days of Charles I., Dr. Webbe brought out an
edition of them, both on a novel, principle of his own, which he had taken
the precaution to patent. The safeguard proved superfluous, however, for
the book never went into a second edition.
* * * * *
For the sake of grouping conveniently together the entire Anglo-Terentian
literature, I shall conclude with a mention of the version, executed in
1667 by Charles Hoole of six of the plays. It is in English and Latin,
"for the use of young scholars," and was most probably done with a special
view to Hoole's own school, which at this time was "near Lothbury Garden,
London." He kept for a long series of years one of the leading proprietary
establishments in the metropolis; but he was originally the principal of
one at Rotherham in Yorkshire. We last hear of him as carrying on the same
business in Goldsmith's Alley. This was in 1675. His career as a teacher
must have extended over some thirty years.
II. Leaving Terence, we may pass to Virgil, whose _Bucolics_ were
published in 1512 with a dull Latin commentary, illustrating the
construction of the verse and other critical points.
No ancient English edition of Horace exists, either in the original
language or a translation. But Whittinton admitted selections from him
into his _Syntax_. In 1534 he translated Cicero's _Offices_ for the use of
schools, printing the Latin and English face to face; and the treatise of
_Old Age_ closely followed.
In these attempts to draw the classics into use for educational purposes,
the fine musical numbers of the ancient poet and the noble composition of
the writer in prose offer a powerful contrast to the barbarous jargon and
dissonant pedantry of the scholiast and editor, whose Latin exposition
certainly tended in no way to assist the learner, either from the point
of view of an interpreter or a model. For it must have been, in the
absence of some one to expound the exposition, fully as puzzling to pupils
as the most difficult passages of the Roman poets, while it was eminently
mischievous in its influence on the formation of a Latin style.
The teacher in all ages has been a prosaic and unimaginative being; and if
the one who directed the studies of Virgil himself had glossed the works
of those authors who lived before the Augustan era, he would have probably
transmitted to us a labour as dry and unfruitful as those which make part
of the reference library of English boys in the olden time.
Except in a prose translation, which bears no mark of having been intended
for boys, the _Æneid_ was not introduced among us for a very long period
subsequently to the revival of learning, nor were the _Georgics_. A
selection from Ovid's _Art of Love_ appeared in 1513; perhaps the whole
was deemed too fescennine for the juvenile peruser.
I shall add Cæsar, whose _Commentaries_ were printed in 1530, not because
this invaluable book was intended as a medium for instruction in the
seminaries and colleges, but just by the way, as the only other classic
rendered into our tongue so early, on account of its probable interest in
relation to France and to military science, and, once more, on account of
the person who translated it, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, an
accomplished nobleman, who filled at one time a professorial chair in the
University of Padua.
The Cæsar, in fact, occupies an analogous position to the English editions
of Cicero and the prose paraphrase of the _Æneid_ published by Caxton, and
was intended for the use of those few cultivated minds which had imbibed
in Italy and France a taste for elegant and refined studies.
III. I have before me a copy of Whittinton's versions of the _Offices_ and
_Old Age_ of Cicero, and I may take the opportunity to present to the
reader a specimen of his performance. It is taken from the first book of
the _Offices_:--
De Officiis Servandis in eos qui Of offyces to be obserued agayne
intulerunt nobis iniuriam. suche as haue done vs wronge
Svnt autem quædam officia There be also certayne offyces
etiam aduersus eos seruada à to be kepte agayne suche / of
quibus iniuriam acceperis. Est whom a ma hath taken wrong.
enim ulciscendi & puniendi For there is a maner of reuengynge
modus. Atq; haud scio an satis and punysshyng, and I can not
sit eum, qui lacessierit, iniuriæ tell whether it be suffycient
suæ poenitere, ut & ipse ne quid for hym that hath done
tale posthac committat, & cæteri wronge to be sory of his wronge /
sint ad iniuriam tardiores. and that he offende no more so
after that. Also other shall be
the more lothe to do wronge.
There are few English renderings of ancient literature which it is
possible to regard as completely satisfactory; and it must be recollected,
on the behalf of Whittinton, that he was among the pioneers in this
laborious field. Let me conclude with a sample of his essay on the _De
Senectute_--a _chef d'oeuvre_, which it is a sin to read in any idiom
but its own.
Sequitur tertia vituperatio The thyrde accusacion of olde
senectutis, quod eam carere dicunt age foloweth. By cause it must
voluptatibus. O præclarum munus forgo pleasures. O that excellent
ætatis, siquidem id aufert benefyte of olde age: yf it
nobis, quod est in adolescentia take away from vs that thynge /
vitiosissimum. Accipite suim whiche in youth is moost vicious.
optimi adolescentes, ueterem Therfore ye gentyll yonge men
orationem Archytæ Tarentini, heare the olde sentence of Archytas
magni in primis, et præclari viri, a Tarentyne / a great and
quæ mihi tradita est cum essem a famous man amonges all other
adolescens Tarenti cum Q. Maximo. / which was taught vnto me whan
Nulla capitaliore peste I was a yonge man in the citye
quam corporis uoluptate hominibus of Tarentu with Quintus Maximus.
dicebat à natura data.... He sayd that there was
not a more deedly poyson gyuen
to man by nature / than sensuall
pleasure of body....
These two passages afford a fair idea of the capability of Whittinton for
his task, and of the means which the English student of those days enjoyed
for profiting by the lessons of antiquity and holding intercourse with the
greatest minds of former ages, at the same time that it led the way to the
purification of the current Latinity from mediæval barbarism and the
heresies of the Dutch school.
To be hypercritical in the judgment of these experimental, and of course
imperfect, attempts to impart to the educational system in this island a
better tone and to place it on an improved footing, would be ungracious
and improper. The introduction of the Roman writers in prose and verse
into our schools and universities was an important step in the right
direction, and tended to counteract the monastic temper and element in our
method of training.
V. Outside the pale of the schoolroom, but still clearly designed for
learners, one finds such literary fossils as the _Book of Cato_, the _Cato
for Boys_, the _Eclogues_ of Mantuan, of which Bale speaks as popular in
his day, and which Holofernes mentions in _Love's Labour's Lost_; various
abridgments of the _Colloquia_ of Erasmus and his _Little Book of Good
Manners for Children_ (another monument of the industry and scholarship of
Whittinton); and, lastly, such elementary guides to mythology and history
as Lydgate's _Interpretation of the Natures of Gods and Goddesses_, and
the _Chronicle of all the Kings' Names that have reigned in England_,
1530. With these I should perhaps couple the Latin _Æsop_ of 1502, with a
commentary in the same language, and the later edition of which, in 1535,
includes the _Fables_ of Poggius.
Considering the state of our population and the restrictions on learning,
it cannot be said that the market for works of reference and instruction
was poorly supplied, and the remains which have descended to us of books
published in England, many wholly or partly in that language, for the use
of the young, certainly bespeak and establish an eager and wide demand on
the part of our public and private seminaries in the fifteenth and
following centuries.
I take occasion to shew the beneficial share which Erasmus had in the
promotion of culture in England in various ways, and the interest which he
evinced in the establishment and success of St. Paul's School. Not only
were his own works translated into English, and received with favour among
the book-lovers of that age, but he ventured so far as to turn several of
the _Dialogues_ of Lucian into Latin, encouraged by the proficiency which
he had acquired during his first visit to England, in the original
language, added perhaps to the satisfactory result of his later
experiments as a teacher of Greek at Cambridge.