Ascham's _Schoolmaster_--Richard Mulcaster--The earliest Anglo-Latin
Dictionary--Ocland's _Anglorum Prælia_.
I. The _Schoolmaster_, by Roger Ascham, is a work so celebrated and so
classical, and has been so often reprinted, that it seems almost
supererogatory to pass any remark upon its character and merits. It arose,
as we all know, out of a conversation at Windsor in 1563 between Sir
Richard Sackville, Treasurer of the Exchequer, and the author, and it is a
literary treatise rather than a technical one. Ascham did not live to see
it in type, nor was his patron spared to witness its completion in MS.; it
was published in 1570 by the author's widow, and dedicated to Sir William
Cecil, who was one of the party at Windsor when the idea was first
ventilated. The opening paragraphs of the Preface, where Ascham describes
the company at dinner, and Sackvile afterwards drawing him aside, and
leading him to turn his thoughts to the production of such a book, are as
famous and unforgettable as Latimer's noble and touching narrative to us,
in one of his sermons before the King, of his boyhood and the obligations
under which he lay to his father for sending him to a good school.
Ascham's _Schoolmaster_, 1570, is a volume, as its title perhaps may
import, for the teacher indeed rather than for the learner. It is a manual
of valuable suggestions and counsels for the guidance and use of those
under whose direction the course of school-work was carried out, although
immediately it was designed for the benefit of Mr. Robert Sackville, the
deceased Treasurer's grandson. The writer confesses his indebtedness to
Sir John Cheke and to Sturmius, among the moderns, and to his old masters,
as he calls them, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.
Sir Richard Sackville, who was happily instrumental in persuading Ascham
to undertake the task, told him that he had found the disadvantage in his
own case of an imperfect education; "for a fond scholemaster," quoth he,
"before I was fullie fourtene yeare olde, draue me so, with feare of
beating, from all loue of learninge, as nowe, when I know what difference
it is to haue learninge, and to haue little or none at all, I feele it my
greatest greife, and finde it my greatest hurte, that euer came to me;
that it was my so ill chance to light vpon so lewde a schoolmaster."
Ascham was of his friend's opinion in regard to greater clemency and
patience on the part of teachers, and he also preferred such text-books as
_Cicero de Officiis_ to the Manuals compiled by Horman, Whittinton, and
the rest of the old school of English grammarians. The passage in the
_Schoolmaster_ where the author narrates his interview, before he went on
his travels into Germany, with Lady Jane Grey at her father's house in
Leicestershire, is familiar enough; it exhibits a converse case, so far as
the severities of school-teachers are concerned; for that amiable and
unfortunate woman found her only compensation for the harshness and rigour
of her parents in a gentle and beloved tutor, "who," she told Ascham,
"teacheth me so ientlie, so pleasantlie, with such faire allurements to
learning, that I thinke all the tyme nothing whiles I am with him."
One sees that Ascham, while loth to say too much on such a topic, did not
cordially relish the old translations into English verse of some of the
classics, even when the translator was such a man as Surrey or Chaucer;
and there I agree with him, and indeed I think that many more are inclined
so to do.
Richard Mulcaster, first head-master of Merchant Taylors' School, and for
several years after his retirement from that position principal of St.
Paul's, was the author of two works of comparatively slight interest and
importance at the present day, whatever estimate may have been formed of
them by some of his learned contemporaries. Of the two "fruits of his
writing," as he terms them, he dedicated the earlier, "Positions," 1581, a
kind of introduction to the matter, to Queen Elizabeth, and the other,
"The First Part of the Elementary," 1582, to Lord Leicester, in two rather
turgid and verbose epistles. But it is a question whether either
production met with much applause on its appearance, though ushered into
notice under such influential auspices; certainly they never grew popular
or reached a second impression. They were both calculated for the guidance
of teachers, like Ascham's _Schoolmaster_; but they present a stiff and
didactic frigidity, which is absent in the famous and favourite manual of
his predecessor, who knew how to make us the partakers of his own learning
in a more agreeable manner than the professional pedagogue. I think it
very possible that the very few readers which the publications of
Mulcaster have found have arrived at the conclusion of their labour
without being much wiser than when they embarked in it. But, of the two, I
prefer very decidedly the _Positions_, which are written in a more natural
style, and contain occasional passages of interest. This gentleman lived
to see the close of the long reign of which he had witnessed the opening,
and to write some dull verses upon the death of the Queen.
II. The early teacher and his pupils enjoyed, when the typographical art
had been applied to the production of educational works previously
accessible in a limited number of MSS., the considerable advantage of
books of reference for Latin, Greek, French, and eventually Italian and
other tongues. Within a year of each other (1499-1500), the _Ortus
Vocabulorum_ and the _Promptorius Parvulorum_ furnished our schools, so
far as Latin was concerned, with two excellent lexicons, both formed out
of the best compilations of the kind current abroad. These were the
Ainsworth and Riddle of our ancestors, who resorted to them where the
required information was not forthcoming in the Primer or the Delectus.
Both these phrase-books passed through a series of reprints between the
commencement and middle of the sixteenth century. The former purports to
have been grounded on the _Catholicon_ of Balbus, 1460, the _Cornucopia_
of Perottus, the _Gemma Vocabulorum_, and the _Medulla Grammatices_, with
additions by Ascensius. The _Promptorius_, or, as it is also called in
some of the issues, _Promptuarium_, appears to be substantially identical
with the _Medulla_.
But the earliest regular Anglo-Latin Dictionary in our literature is that
of Sir Thomas Elyot, first published in 1538, and frequently reprinted
with additions by others from a variety of English and foreign sources,
until it became the bulky folio known as COOPER'S THESAURUS. Elyot, the
first compiler, tells us, in the dedication to Henry VIII. prefixed to the
_editio princeps_, that he had accomplished about half his labour when it
reached the royal ear through Master (subsequently Sir) Anthony Denny that
he had such a project in hand; whereupon the King caused all possible
facilities to be afforded him, and the books in the royal library to be
open to his inspection. It is hard to say how far Elyot flatters his
sovereign when he assures him that, after it was all done, he was so
afraid of his Lexicon being faulty and imperfect, that he felt as if he
could have torn the MS. to pieces, "had not the beames of your royal
maiestie entred into my harte, by remembraunce of the comforte whiche I of
your grace had lately receyued."
In the epistle to Henry just referred to, the author pays a tribute to
the encouragement which he had experienced from Lord Cromwell; and in the
British Museum is the copy presented to the Lord Privy Seal, with a
holograph Latin letter prefixed, in which hardly any form of adulation is
spared, so far as Cromwell's virtues, magnanimity, culture, and other
cognate qualities are concerned, and nothing is said about him being
secondary to royalty in these matters, as in the printed inscription is
expressed. But much, after all, is to be forgiven to a man of rank who in
those days chose to consume his time, as Elyot did, in the pursuit of
letters.
The plan of the work is familiar enough, first, through the later
impressions, which are among the commonest volumes in Early English
literature; and, secondly, from the fact that the principle on which it is
constructed is similar to that of Ainsworth and others. The main
difference seems to be where certain Latin words, by an intelligible
survival, continued in Elyot's day to bear a meaning which subsequently
grew obsolete; as, for instance, in the case of _Aviarium_, "a thycke
wodde without waye," although he at the same time adds the ordinary
acceptation.
Still the credit remains with Elyot, of course, of having supplied a model
for many succeeding lexicographers and phraseologists; and if we turn, for
example, to the _Dictionary for Children_, by John Withals, 1553, or the
_Manipulus Vocabulorum_ of Levins, 1571, we see that the general plan is
similar. Elyot, in fact, got rid of the tiresome and perplexing
arrangement which renders the books of reference and instruction prior to
his day, like the _Promptorius_ and the _Eclaircissement de la langue
Françoise_, so uninviting to consult.
Save in respect to development and extension, there is no substantial
difference, in fact, between the dictionaries of Elyot and Littleton or of
Littleton and Ainsworth. The general plan is the same, whereas in some of
the early lexicons the arrangement is so obscure and defective as to
render them comparatively useless for practical purposes. The old _Ortus
Vocabulorum_, one of these archaic works of reference, had been largely
formed out of the _Cornucopia_ of Perottus, and Cooper owed very
considerable obligations to the Lexicon of Stephanus, which he was
censured by a critic of his day for not properly acknowledging.
The _Short Dictionary for Children_ by Withals, already specified,
supplied the obvious need for a more portable work than either Elyot or
Cooper. It met with a cordial response from the constituency to which it
appealed, and was reprinted, with large additions and improvements, by
successive editors down to the time of Charles I.
Littleton, who brought out his Dictionary in 1678, was Rector of Chelsea.
He includes the barbarous Latin for the first time.
Robert Ainsworth, whose famous Latin Dictionary belongs to the reign of
George II., having been first printed in 1736, planned his enterprise on a
sensible and enduring basis, and earned for himself the reputation of a
classic and a type. He had of course the advantage of all the improvements
of Elyot, Cooper, and Littleton, besides the numerous other minor
lexicographers, of whom he supplies an interesting chronological account
in his preface; but his substantial quarto volume, "designed for the use
of the British _Nations_," was a clear advance on its precursors. He gives
not only the Latin-English and English-Latin appellatives, the Christian
names of men and women, the proper names of places, the ancient Latin
names of places, and the more modern names, but the Roman calendar, the
Roman coins, weights and measures, and ancient law-terms. Of the preceding
workers in the same field, whom he commemorates, he may very well have
known some personally. The catalogue, enriched with biographical
particulars, begins with the _Promptuarium Parvulorum_, and closes with
Elisha Coles, embracing a period of nearly two centuries.
III. The Latin Lexicon was an indispensable _vade-mecum_ where boys had to
translate the classics of that language into English; and the taste for
some of the Roman writers, including Ovid, so far from declining, appears
in the time of Elizabeth to have spread in schools. The authors at whom
the criticism is more particularly aimed may be guessed in the absence of
the names; but the clerical party about 1580, being of opinion that these
ancient productions were injurious to morality, availed themselves of a
most singularly fortunate opportunity for substituting a work which should
be to Latin versification what Lily's Grammar was to English accidence--a
standard and a model.
A year or two prior to the discovery of this pernicious influence,
Christopher Ocland had printed a metrical narrative in doggerel metre of
the martial achievements of the English people from the time of the
Plantagenets down to that of Elizabeth, whom he places before Zenobia; and
this gentleman or his friends had sufficient influence to procure, through
the Lords Commissioners in Causes Ecclesiastical, letters-patent
prescribing the use of his _Anglorum Prælia_ in all grammar-schools in
England and Wales in lieu of the books of less moral authors. The
privilege, dated May 7, 1582, was accorded in consideration not only of
the freedom of Ocland's volume from profligacy, but of "the quality of the
verse,"--an encomium quite seriously intended, in whatever degree it may
strike us as ironical.
This literary gem, which was to supersede Virgil, Ovid, Homer, and the
rest of the heathens, was dedicated to Zenobia by the worthy writer in
some lines which are a fair sample of the "quality of the verse." They
begin:--
"Regia Nympha, soli [_sic_] moderatrix alma Britanni,
Quæ pace et vera religione nites,
Quæ vitæ meritis, morum & candore coruscans,
Zenobiam vincis, siqua vel ante fuit."
Such was the Oclandian Muse which the Lords Commissioners in Causes
Ecclesiastical accounted preferable to the compositions which were the
glory of their own and the delight of every succeeding age!
Despite the lofty patronage and auspicious circumstances under which the
_Anglorum Prælia_ was launched on its proud career, the imbecility of the
whole idea appears to have been promptly appreciated; and the "lascivious
poets," whom it was to have effaced, continued, and to this day continue,
"to corrupt the youth."