Thomas Linacre prepares his Rudiments of Latin Grammar for the use of
the Princess Mary (1522)--Probably the earliest digest of the
kind--Cardinal Wolsey's edition of Lily's Grammar for the use of
Ipswich School (1529)--Inquiry into the priority of the Ipswich and
St. Paul's Grammars--First National Primer (1540)--Lily's _Short
Introduction of Grammar_ (1548)--Its re-issue by Queen Elizabeth
(1566-7)--Some account of its contents--Its failure.
I. Thomas Linacre, physician to four successive sovereigns and tutor to
the Princess Mary, is understood to have prepared for the service of his
august pupil certain Rudiments of Grammar, doubtless in Latin, at the same
time that Giles Du Wes or Dewes wrote for her his _Introductory_ to the
French language. The biographer of Dean Colet informs his readers that the
production of Linacre was translated into Latin by George Buchanan for
Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, whose studies he directed; but the book as
printed is in that language, and bears no indication of a second hand in
it. The undertaking, however, was deemed by Queen Catherine too obscure,
and Ludovicus Vives was accordingly engaged to draw up something more
simple and intelligible, which was the origin of his little book _De
ratione studii puerilis_, where, from delicacy, he made a point of
commending the labours of Linacre and the abridgment of the _Rudiments_ by
Erasmus.
The volume, edited by Linacre about 1522, appears, anyhow, to be entitled
to rank as the earliest effort in the way of a grammatical digest; and,
apart from its special destination, it was calculated to supply a want,
and to find patrons beyond the range of the court.
Except its utilisation by Buchanan for Lord Cassilis, we hear little or
nothing of it, nevertheless, after its original publication by the royal
printer. Perhaps it did not compete successfully with the editions of
Lily, as they received from time to time improvements at the hands of
professional experts, and united within certain limits the advantages of
consolidation and completeness. The prestige of Lily had grown
considerable, and in the case of a technical book it has always been
difficult or impossible for an amateur to hold his ground against a
specialist.
II. Allowing for the possibility of editions of which we have no present
knowledge having formerly existed, if they do not yet do so, it may be
that Dean Colet caused some text-book to be prepared for the use of the
scholars at St. Paul's; and I shall by and by adduce some evidence in
favour of such an hypothesis. But, at any rate, in 1529 Cardinal Wolsey
gave his sanction, and wrote a preface, to an impression of Lily's
_Rudiments_ with certain alterations, more especially for the use of his
school at Ipswich, but also, as the terms of the title state, for the
benefit of all other similar institutions in the country.
The Cardinal's preface is dated August 1, 1528. It is followed by the
_Docendi Methodus_, the _Rules_, the _Articles of Faith_, _Precepts of
Living_, _Apostles' Creed_, _Decalogue_, &c.; and the rest of the book is
occupied by the _Introduction of the Eight Parts of Speech_ and the
_Rudiments of Grammar_.
Of this collection there was no exact reprint, but portions of the
contents appear in the Antwerp impressions of 1535 and 1536, designed for
the English learners in Flanders; and Lily's _Rudiments_, with and without
the other accessories, were periodically republished even later than the
so-called Oxford Grammar of 1709.
Now, as St. Paul's was the more ancient foundation, it is allowable, at
all events, to suspect that the book issued nominally for the Ipswich
school was borrowed by the Cardinal or the person employed by him from one
drawn up by Lily in his lifetime for Colet. St. Paul's had been
established in 1510; the Dean survived till 1519; and surely so many years
would hardly have elapsed without witnessing the preparation of some
Pauline text-book on lines parallel to those of the Ipswich one of 1529,
more particularly when we see that in the Preface to his 1534 _Rudiments_
he speaks of the "new school of Paul's," and that in 1518 Erasmus had
executed a Latin metrical version of the _Lord's Prayer_ and _Precepts of
Good Living_ for the school under the title of _Christiani hominis
Institutum_.
The short paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in English by Colet, which I
have found at present only in an edition of the Salisbury Primer, 1532,
was made for his own scholars, and had, of course, been in existence prior
to 1519; so that we find ourselves groping in the dark a little in the
inquiry which deals with such a fugitive and perishable description of
literature, and have to do the best that we can with the fragmentary
relics which survive or have been so far recovered.
The _Coleti æditio_, &c., of 1534 had much in common with Wolsey's book;
but the Dean of St. Paul's claims the honour of having adapted some
portions of the Delectus to what he considered to be the special
requirements of his own institution. For he says in the Proem:--
"Al be it many have wryten, and have made certayne introducyons into Latyn
speche, called _Donates_ and _Accidens_, in Latyn tongue and in Englysshe,
in suche plenty that it shoulde seme to suffyse; yet never the lesse, for
the love and zele that I have to the newe schole of Powles, and to the
children of the same, somwhat have I also compyled of the mater; and of
the viii. partes of grammer have made this lytell boke; ... in whiche
lytell warke if any new thynges be of me, it is alonely that I have put
these partes in a more clere ordre, and have made them a lytell more easy
to yonge wyttes, than (me thynketh) they were before."
The passage here quoted may be taken to supply a sort of testimony to the
original publication of the Dean's alleged recension of the accepted text
of Lily's _Introduction_ (including the _Rudiments_) not very long, if at
all, posterior to 1510, as in 1534 St. Paul's had been founded a quarter
of a century. The modification of the Grammar for Pauline use was almost
unquestionably due to Lily, and merely the Proem the Dean's own.
III. The St. Paul's book has, on the whole, a strong claim to precedence
over that of 1529. But under any circumstances, in or before the
last-named date, we possessed an uniform Grammar in lieu of the archaic
sectional series of Stanbridge and Whittinton.
But even that of Wolsey went no farther than to recommend itself to
general acceptance. It had no official character. Nor was it till late in
the protracted reign of Henry VIII. that a general Primer for the whole
country was prepared and published. In 1540 a volume in two parts appeared
under the royal authority, without any clue to the editor, reducing the
text to a more convenient method and compass. This book is anonymous; but
Thomas Hayne says in 1640 that it was done by sundry learned men, among
whom he had heard that one was Dr. Leonard Cox, tutor to Prince Edward.
Another probable coadjutor was John Palsgrave, author of the
_Eclaircissement_.
The Address to the Reader before the first part proceeded, no doubt, from
the compiler's pen, and contains an energetic eulogy of Prince Edward, to
whom "the tender babes of England" are exhorted to look up as a model and
example. This portion includes the _Parts of Speech_ and other rudiments
in English, while the second part contains a digested recension of the
Latin series under the title of _A Compendious Institution of the whole
Grammar_.
This bipartite manual formed, of course, an improvement on the system
formerly in vogue, which must have been very puzzling to boys. But it
seems very doubtful indeed if this Primer of 1540 was practically
recognised, or whether the Government took any measures to enforce what
purported to have been done under its immediate sanction.
Whoever they were who arranged for publication the Primer had probably a
hand in the _Alphabetum Latino-Anglicum_ of 1543, which is here
incidentally noticed, and which is more than it professes to be. For it
comprises, in addition to a series of alphabets, the Lord's Prayer, the
Salutation of the Virgin, the Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and a few
prayers, in Latin and English. It was, in fact, a supplement to the Primer
itself.
IV. In January 1547, Henry was succeeded by his son, and the change is
marked by the substitution of _A Short Introduction of Grammar generally
to be used_, in two parts, the English followed by the Latin, for the
original Primer of 1540. A complaint appears to have arisen at the same
time that the large book was inconvenient for beginners; and we are told
that Fox the martyrologist was commissioned to prepare _Tables of Grammar_
for the use, probably, of the lower forms in schools. But we know nothing
farther of them; and the _Introduction_, to which they were designed as a
companion, was not reprinted more than once in Edward's life. Nor is there
any vestige of it till we arrive quite at the close of the rule of Mary,
when the Paris press produced an edition under some circumstances not at
present explainable, yet, of course, with the peculiarity of being
entirely unofficial. So that when we sum up, it amounts to this, that the
first and second types of the so-named universal Grammar, as settled in
1540 and 1548 respectively, reached four impressions in seventeen years,
not including that of 1557, which lies outside the series.
Making due allowance for the far scantier population and the momentous
difference of social conditions, this remains a strange phenomenon, if we
reflect that, in addition to the public and private schools previously in
existence, the Government of Edward had planted throughout the country
the endowments of which Christ's Hospital is the most familiar type.
But even when there was a change in the Administration in 1558, and the
authority of Elizabeth was established in Church and State, the interest
in educational development led to no revival of the _Introduction_, and,
unless all intervening copies have perished, there was a clear lapse of
ten years before the new Protestant _regime_ took steps to re-issue the
book.
This was in 1567. In the Preface very just stress is laid on the mischief
proceeding from what is termed "a diversity of Grammars," and from
different schoolmasters adopting different methods and books. The
proclamation attached expresses at large the objects and advantages of the
publication, while it certainly seems to claim for the Queen's father more
credit than, looking at the circumstances, he deserved. For the Primer of
1540 had been preceded by those of Linacre and Wolsey, just as the _Short
Introduction_ of 1548 and 1567 was, in the main, a reproduction of Henry's
book. But the same unqualified encomium is pronounced on Henry by John
Palsgrave, the celebrated lexicographer and teacher of languages, in the
prolix and fulsome dedication to his English _Acolastus_, 1540, which must
have been written and in type when the copies of the Primer had scarcely
left the binder's hands. Palsgrave does not intimate here any personal
concern in the undertaking.
The Preface of 1567 is followed by the Latin letters, the vowels and
consonants, and the Greek letters; after which comes a prayer, "O Almighty
God and merciful Father," which is still retained at some of our public
schools. The _Introduction of the Eight Parts of Speech_ constitutes the
body and remainder of the English part.
There are six forms of grace before meat, and six others of grace after
meat.
The Latin section opens with the Greek alphabet, and proceeds to the parts
of grammar, concluding with Erasmus's _De Ratione_. But, as I have stated
more than once, this later text-book does not substantially vary from that
of 1548. The royal proclamation granted the monopoly of printing to
Reginald Wolfe, and forbad the employment of any other Grammar throughout
her Highness's dominions. The document declares that Henry VIII., in the
midst of weighty affairs belonging to his office, had not forgotten nor
neglected the tender youth of his realm, but had, from a fervent zeal for
the godly bringing up of the said youth, and a special desire that they
might learn the Latin tongue more easily, instituted a new uniform
Grammar; which was so far really the case, inasmuch as the 1540 volume was
the first official one, and also at the date of its promulgation the most
complete and satisfactory.
V. But in examining this general Grammar for all England and the dominions
annexed, one at once misses the graphic and amusing illustrations which
present themselves in many of the earlier books which we have been
studying. The examples, instead of being drawn from the occupations and
various phases of everyday life, are almost without exception purely
technical and commonplace. There is no allusion which one would welcome as
casting an incidental light on contemporary history or manners. It is
mostly a dead level. The learned men have done this! It makes us
cheerful, amid the habitual dearth of something to leaven the text, to
stumble upon a few of the little touches in the older books retained as an
exception, such as: "Vivo in Anglia. Veni per Galliam in Italiam," or
"Vixit Londini: Studuit Oxoniæ."
How differently Horman in his _Vulgaria_, 1519, handled his subject, and
his pages were intended for schoolboys and students too!
The frequency with which the Primer was henceforth reprinted, contrasted
with the very limited call for copies from 1540 to 1566, seems to furnish
an indication that the book and the system were at last gaining ground,
and beginning to meet with more general acceptance.
But the irreconcilable diversity of opinions, which has always prevailed,
respecting etymology, syntax, pronunciation, and other cardinal points,
militated against the success on any very grand scale of an official
Primer; and the Tudors, arbitrary and absolute as they were in all
questions of political significance, were not prompted by the feeling of
the time to resort in such a case as this to penal and peremptory
legislation. The eighteenth century saw Lily's Grammar still more or less
in vogue under the name of the original author, not to speak of the
obligations of its successors to it; but the Tudor book, constructed in
some measure out of it, and ushered into existence under the most
auspicious and powerful patronage, sank after a not very robust or
influential life of six decades (1540-1600) into complete oblivion.
Our great Elizabeth has been dead near three hundred years, and no genuine
popular demand for mental improvement has yet come from the people. In the
sixteenth century--in the Queen's time and in her father's--the spirit
which promoted education was based either on political or commercial
motives.
The universities and schools reared a succession of preceptors who
deserted the monastic traditions, and to whom learning was a mere
vocation. One large class of the English community sought to acquire the
accomplishments which might be serviceable in the Government and at court;
another limited its ambition to those which would enable them to prosper
in trade or in the wars.
V. A class of school-book destined for special use, besides those
enumerated in another place, presents itself in the shape of grammatical
works dedicated by their authors, not to particular institutions, but to
particular localities or parts of the Empire. Edward Buries, who kept
school at East Acton in Cromwell's day, accommodated his plan to the
requirements of adults, but at the same time announces that it is printed
for the advantage of the schools in the counties of Middlesex and
Hertford, which strikes us as at once a curious limitation and a sanguine
proposal, unless Buries was a Hertfordshire man. This was in 1652.
A later writer was more catholic and ambitious in his flight; for in 1712
John Brightland projected a Grammar of the English tongue "for the use of
the schools of Great Britain _and Ireland_,"--a fact more particularly
noticeable, because it is the first hint of any scheme comprehending the
Emerald Isle. I allude elsewhere to the early Accidence drawn up for
Scotland by Alexander Hume; and in 1647 the interests of the rising
generation in Wales were specially considered by the unnamed introducer of
a simplified Latin Primer _in usum juventutis Cambro-Britannicæ_, which
aimed at a monopoly of the Principality without prejudice to persons
beyond the border.
Besides the Grammar itself, certain Manuals purported to be, not for
general educational purposes, but for a given school, and even for a
specified class in it. Such was the _English Introduction to the Latin
Tongue_ for the use of the lower forms in Westminster School; and at
Magdalen School, Oxford, they had, at least as far back as 1623, a small
text-book on the declensions and conjugations. I take another opportunity
to speak of a Latin phrase-book designed for Manchester in 1660, and of
the printed examination papers, exhibiting the lines laid down at Merchant
Taylors' about the same time. In a few cases a more elaborate compilation
was framed, at all events originally, with the same restricted scope, like
the _Roman Antiquities_ of Prideaux, in 1614, for Abingdon.
Perhaps, however, the most conspicuous example of this localisation was
the _Outlines of Rhetoric_ for St. Paul's, of which we meet with a third
edition in 1659; and which must have been in connection with some new and
temporary effort to enlarge the range of studies during the Protectorate,
partly under the stimulus of the promoters of the famous _Musæum Minervæ_
and the commencing taste for a more complex platform. For such subjects do
not seem to have made part of the ordinary course of training anywhere
since the mediæval period, when the Aristotelian system was paramount at
our Universities; although, at the same time, among more advanced students
philosophical treatises never ceased to possess interest and attract
perusers. But the relevance of the handbook for St Paul's lies in its
professed destination for the young.
It is questionable whether, outside the Universities and the
establishments affiliated upon them, the sciences were acquirable as part
of the normal routine. At Oxford, in the reign of Henry VIII., they taught
what was then termed Judicial Astronomy, which was a mere burlesque on the
true study of the planetary bodies; and Logic was on the list of
accomplishments within the reach of boys, who were sent up either to
college or to school; for in _A Hundred Merry Tales_, 1526, the son of
the rich franklin comes back home for the holidays, and declares, as the
fruit of the time and money expended on his education at Oxford school,
whither his indulgent father had sent him for two or three years, his
conversance with subtleties and ability to prove the two chickens on the
supper-table to be sophistically three.