Part 4

=Rarus iucundus absurdus turpe Tere. turpe saluber.= dictu.

=Mirandus mirus pulchrum sit Qui. multa periculosus.= dictu visuq; miranda.

=Whan there cometh a verbe after Teretius. quidna sum es fui without a relatyve incepturus es. or a coniunccyon yf it be of the actyue sygnyfycacyon it shall be Tere. uxor tibi put in a partycyple of the fyrst ducenda est paphyle sutertens yf he be of the passyue Te oro vt synyfacoon he shall be put in the nuptie que fuerant partycyple of the latter sutertens, future fiant. except exulo, vapulo, veneo, fio.=

IV. Robert Whittinton, whose name is probably more familiar to the ordinary student than that of the man from whom he derived his knowledge and tastes, was a native of Warwickshire, and was born at Lichfield about 1480--perhaps a little before. He received his education, as I have stated, at the Free School at Oxford, and is supposed to have gained admission to one of the colleges; but of this there is no certainty. He subsequently acquired, however, the distinction of being decorated with the laurel wreath by the University of Oxford for his proficiency in grammar and rhetoric, with leave to read publicly any of the logical writings of Aristotle; and he assumed the title of Protovates Angliæ, and the credit of having been the first Englishman who was laureated.

It is certain that Whittinton became a teacher like his master Stanbridge, and among his scholars he counted William Lily, the eminent grammarian; but where he so established himself is not so clear, nor do we know the circumstances or date of his decease.

I am going to do my best to lay before the reader of these pages a clear bibliographical outline of Whittinton's literary performances; and it seems to amount to this, that he has left to us, apart from a few miscellaneous effusions, eleven distinct treatises on the parts of grammar, all doubtless more or less based on the researches and consonant with the doctrines of his immediate master Anniquil and the foreign professors of the same art, whose works had found their way into England, and had even, as in the case of Sulpicius and Perottus, been adopted by the English press.

I will first give the titles of the several pieces succinctly, and then proceed to furnish a slight description of each:--

1. De Nominum Generibis. 2. Declinationes Nominum. 3. De Syllabarum Quantitate, &c. 4. Verborum Præterita et Supina. 6. De Octo Partibus Orationis. 7. De Heteroclitis Nominibus. 8. De Concinnitate Grammatices et Constructione. 9. Syntaxis. [A recension of No. 8.] 10. Vulgaria. 11. Lucubrationes.

These eleven _fasciculi_ actually form altogether one system, and some of them have their order of succession in the author's arrangement indicated; as, for instance, the _Verborum Præterita et Supina_, which is called the Fifth Book of the First Part; but others are deficient in this clue, so that if one classes them, it must be in one's own way.

V. The treatise on the _Kinds of Nouns_, in one of the numerous editions of it at least, is designated _Primæ Partis Liber Primus_, which seems an inducement to yield it the foremost place in the series. But it will be presently observed that, although the collection in a complete state is susceptible of a consecutive arrangement, the pieces composing it did not, so far as we can tell, follow each other originally in strict order of time.

Of the tract on the _Declensions of Nouns_, which stands second in order, Dibdin supplies us with a specimen:--

De nto singu- =Anchise et Ve-= =Capis filius= =Qui fingit elegan-= lari prime =neris filius,= =es, ut An-= =tia carmina, a,= declina- =as, ut Aeneas= =chises.= =ut poeta.= tionis. Rectus as, es, a; simul am dat flexio prima. =Aeneæ= =Aeneæ= =ut huius= =huic= =musæ= =musæ=

De gto et dto Ac dat dipthongum genitiuus sic que datiuus singularibus =hi poete= =o poete= et nto et veto Singularis, sic pluralis primus quoque quintus pluralibu. =familie et= =aulai pro aulae= =vt huius= =huic= =familias= =pictai pro pictæ.= Olim rectus in a, genito dedit as simul ai. =vt hic Judas, huius Jude, vel Juda= Ex Judas Juda aut Judæ dat pagina sacra =vt hic Adam. huius Adam. huic Adam, &c.= Barbara in am propria aut a recto non variantur.

We must now pass to the treatise _De Syllabarum Quantitate_, which, in a chronological respect, ranks first among Whittinton's works, as there was an edition of it as early as 1513.

This tripartite volume, 1. _On the Quantity of Syllables_; 2. _On Accent_; and 3. _On the Roman Magistrates_, is noteworthy on two accounts. The second portion embraces the earliest specimen in any English book of the poems of Horace, and the concluding section is a kind of rudimentary Lemprière. Subjoined is a sample of the lines upon accents, from Dibdin:--

"=Accentus tonus est per que fit syllaba quevis Cognita: quado acui debet, vel qu gravari Accentus triplex; fit acutus vel gravis, inde Est circuflexus: qui nunc fit rarus in vsu. Syllaba cum tendit sursum est accentus acutus Est gravis accentus sed syllaba pressa deorsum Fit circuflexus gravis in prima: sed in altum Attollit mediam, postrema gravis reciditque.="

This metrical exposition, which will not be mistaken for the language of Horace, is followed by a commentary in prose.

The next three divisions do not call for any particular criticism. They treat of the _Eight Parts of Speech_, the _Irregular Nouns_, and the _Laws of Grammatical Construction_, of which the last is the first cast of the _Syntax_.

There remain the _Vulgaria_ and the _Lucubrations_, which are far more important and interesting, and of which there were numerous editions. The subjoined samples will shew the principle on which the _Vulgaria_ was compiled:--

"Befe and motton is so dere, that a peny worth of meet wyll scant suffyse a boy at a meale.

"Whan I was a scholler of Oxforthe I lyued competently with vii. pens commens wekely.

"Be of good chere man for I sawe ryght nowe a rodde made of wythye for the, garnysshed with knottes, it wolde do a boy good to loke vpon it.

"A busshell of whete was holde at xii. pens.

"A gallon of swete wyne is at viii. pens in London.

"A gallon of ale is at a peny and ferdynge.

"I warne the fro hens forthe medle not with my bokes. Thou blurrest and blottest them, as thou were a bletchy sowter."

Such bits as these were decidedly worth extracting, yet Dibdin, with the very copy of the book from which they are derived before him, let them pass. In this volume Whittinton takes occasion to speak in eulogistic terms of Sir Thomas More.

Of the _Lucubrations_ the most interesting portion to an English reader will be the

"_To arraye or_ _To backbyte._ The goute. _to dyght._ Detraho Arthesis Orno Detracto Arthtica passio Vestio Obtrecto Morbus articularis Amicio Maledico Chiragra Induo Carpo Podagra Como &c. &c. &c. Colo

_An alyen or_ _To playe the_ _To be wode._ _outlandysshe._ _brothell._ Seuio Alienagena Scortari Furio Peregrinus Prostitui Insanio Aduena Fornicari Excandeseor Alienus Merere Bacchor Exterus Struprari _Wodnesse or_ Externus Adulterari _madnesse._ Barbarus Cohire Insania Extraneus Concumbere Seviciæ &c. &c. Furor."

The copious storehouse of equivalent phrases in Latin composition shews us in what wide vogue that language was in England at this period, as there is no corresponding facility offered for persons desirous of enlarging their English vocabulary. The influence of the scholars of France, Italy, Holland, and Germany long kept our vernacular in the background, and retarded the study of English by Englishmen; but the uprise of a taste for the French and Italian probably gave the first serious blow to the supremacy of the dead tongues, as they are called, and it became by degrees as fashionable for gentlemen and ladies to read and speak the languages in which Molière and Tasso wrote as the hybrid dialect in which erudite foreigners had been used to correspond and compose.

Whittinton styles himself on the title-pages of several of his pieces _laureatus_ and _protovates Angliæ_. In one place he speaks of being "primus in Angliâ lauri coronam gestans," and elsewhere he professes to be _magister grammatices_. As Warton and others have speculated a good deal on the real nature and import of the dignity which this early scholar claimed in regard to the laurel crown or wreath, it may be worth noting that Wood furnishes the annexed explanation of the point:--

"In the beginning of the year 1513, he supplicated the venerable congregation of regents under the name and title of Robert Whittington, a secular chaplain and a scholar of the art of rhetoric: that, whereas he had spent fourteen years in the study of the said art, and twelve years in the informing of boys, it might be sufficient for him that he might be laureated. This supplication being granted, he was, after he had composed an hundred verses, which were stuck up in public places, especially on the door or doors of St. Mary's Church [Oxford], very solemnly crowned, or his temples adorned with a wreath of laurel, that is, decorated in the arts of grammar and rhetoric, 4 July the same year."

The biographer of Colet is undoubtedly correct in supposing that the ancient poet-laureatship was nothing more than an academical degree, and that in this sense, and in no other, Skelton bore that designation, as well as Bernardus Andreas, who was tutor to Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII.

It also appears from the account of the decoration of Whittinton that he had commenced his qualification for a schoolmaster as far back as 1499, which is reconcilable with the date assigned to his birth (1480).

V.

Educational tracts produced by other writers--_Parvula_--Holt's _Milk for Children_--Horman's _Vulgaria_ and its singular curiosity and value--The author's literary quarrel with Whittinton--The contemporary foreign teachers--Specimen of the Grammar of Guarini of Verona (1470)--Vestiges of the literature current at Oxford in the beginning of the sixteenth century--The printed works of Johannes de Garlandia.

I. Of independent tracts intended for the use of our early schools, there were several either anonymous or written by persons whom we do not recognise as writers of more than a single production.

In the former category is placeable the small piece published three or four times by Wynkyn de Worde about 1509, under the title of _Parvula_ or _Longe Parvula_. It is a series of rules for translation and other exercises in the form of question and answer, thus:--

"Q. What shall thou do whan thou hast an englysshe to make in latyn?

"A. I shal reherse myne englysshe ones, twyes, or thryes, and loke out my pryncypal, & aske y questyon, who or what."

A second publication is the _Milk for Children_ of John Holt, of Magdalen College, Oxford, who had the honour of numbering among his pupils Sir Thomas More. One of the most interesting points about the little book to us nowadays is that it is accompanied by some Latin hexameters and pentameters and an epigram in the same language by More. The latter has the air of having been sent to Holt, and inserted by him with the heading which occurs before it, where the future Chancellor is termed "disertus adolescentulus."

A decided singularity of this volume is the quaint device of the author for impressing his precepts on those who read his pages or attended his academy by arranging the cases and declensions on woodcuts in the shape of outstretched hands.

Besides his _Milk for Children_ and the _Parvulorum Institutio_, to the latter of which I have already referred, Holt appears to me the most likely person to have compiled the tract called _Accidentia ex Stanbrigiana Collectione_, a small grammatical manual based on that of his predecessor or even colleague at Magdalen School; and this may be the work to which Knight points where he says that Holt put forth an Accidence and Grammar concurrently with his other tract, though the biographer of Dean Colet errs in placing Stanbridge after Holt in chronological sequence.

Another of the miscellaneous unofficial pieces, answering very nearly to the mediæval _Nominale_, has no other title than _Os, Facies, mentum_, and is a Latin poem descriptive of the human form, first printed in 1508, with an interlinear English gloss. It begins thus:--

a mouthe a face a chyne a toth a throot a tonge Os facies mentu dens guttur lingua a berde a browe abrye a forhede teples a lype Barba supercilium ciliu frons tepora labru roffe of the mouth palatum

There is nothing, of course, on the one hand, recondite, or, on the other, very edifying in this; but it is a sample of the method pursued in these little ephemerides nearly four centuries ago.

II. The comparative study of Latin and English acquired increased prominence under the Tudors; and in addition to the regular text-books compiled by such men as Stanbridge and Whittinton, there is quite a small library of pieces designed for educational purposes, and framed on a similar model. Doubtless these were in many cases accepted in the schools on an equal footing with the productions of the masters themselves, or the latter may have had a hand, very possibly, in those which we have to treat as anonymous.

Between the commencement and middle of the sixteenth century, during the reigns of the first and second Tudors, there were several of these unclaimed and unidentified compilations, such as the _Grammatica Latino-Anglica, Tractatus de octo orationis partibus_, and _Brief Rules of the Regiment or construction of the Eight Parts of Speech, in English and Latin_, 1537.

The _Introductorium linguæ Latinæ_ by W. H. may perhaps be ascribed to William Horman, of whom we shall have more to say; and there are also in the category of works which had no particular width or duration of currency the _Gradus Comparationum_ of Johannes Bellomayus, and the _Regulæ Informationis_ of John Barchby.

These, and others, again, of which all trace has at present disappeared, were employed in common with the regular series, constantly kept in print, of Whittinton and Stanbridge, prior to the rise of the great public seminaries, many of which, as it will be my business to shew, took into use certain compilations supposed to be specially adapted to their requirements.

William Horman, who is presumed to have been the author of the _Introductorium_ above mentioned, was schoolmaster and Fellow of Eton College; in 1477 he became a perpetual Fellow of New College, Oxford, and he was eventually chosen Vice-Provost of Eton. He survived till 1535. From an epigram appended to the volume it is to be gleaned that Horman was a pupil of Dr. Caius, poet-laureate to Edward the Fourth.

Of the _Gradus Comparationum_ the subjoined may be received as a specimen:--

"What nownes make comparyson? All adiectyues welnere y betoken a thynge that maye be made more or lesse: as fayre: fayrer: fayrest: black, blacker, blackest. How many degrees of comparacyon ben there? iij. the positiue y comparatiue & the superlatyue. How knowe ye the posityue gedre? For he is the groude and the begynner of all other degrees of coparyson. How knowe ye the comparatyue degre? for he passeth his posityue with this englysshe more, or his englysshe endeth in r, as more wyse or wyser. How knowe ye the superlatyue degre? for he passeth his posityue with engysshe moost: or his englisshe endeth in est: as moost fayre or fayrest, moost whyte or whytest."

III. The _Vulgaria_ of William Horman, 1519, is perhaps one of the most intrinsically curious and valuable publications in the entire range of our early philological literature. It would be easy to fill such a slender volume as that in the hands of the reader with samples of the contents without exhausting the store, but I must content myself with such extracts as seem most entertaining and instructive:--

"Physicians, that be all sette to wynne money, bye and sylle our lyues: and so ofte tymes we bye deth with a great and a sore pryce. _Animas nostras æruscatores medici negociantur, &c._

"Papyre fyrste was made of a certeyne stuffe like the pythe of a bulrushe in Ægypt: and syth it is made of lynnen clothe soked in water, stapte or grude pressed and smothed. _Chartæ seu papyri, &c._

"The greattest and hyest of pryce: is papyre imperyall. _Augustissimum papyrum, &c._

"The prynters haue founde a crafte to make bokis by brasen letters sette in ordre by a frame. _Calcographi arte, &c._

"Pryntynge hathe almooste vndone scryueners crafte. _Chalcographia librarioru qstu pene exhavsit._

"Yf the prynters take more hede to the hastynge: than to the true settynge of theyr moldis: the warke is vtterly marred. _Si qui libros, &c._"

The rest are given without the Latin equivalents, which have no particular interest.

"Scryueners write with blacke, redde, purple, gren, blewe, or byce: and suche other.

Parchement leues be wonte to be ruled: that there may be a comly marget: also streyte lynes of equal distaunce be drawe withyn: that the wryttyng may shewe fayre.

Olde or doting chourles can not suffre yoge children to be mery.

I haue lefte my boke in the tennys playe.

This ynke is no better than blatche.

Frobeynes prynt is called better than Aldus: but yet Aldus is neuer the lesse thanke worthy: for he began the fynest waye: and left sauple by the whiche other were lyghtly provoked and taughte to deuyse better.

There is come a scoolle of fysshe.

The tems is frosne ouer with yse.

The trompettours blowe a fytte or a motte.

Vitelars thryue: by getherynge of good felowes that haue swete mouthes.

The mokis of charter-house: neuer ete fleshe mete.

We shall drynke methe or metheglen.

We shall haue a iuncket after dyner.

Serue me with pochyd eggis.

He kepeth rere suppers tyll mydnyght.

Se that I lacke nat by my beddes syde a chayer of easement: with a vessel vnder: and an vrinall bye.

Women couette to sytte on lowe or pote stolys: men upon twyse so hye.

It is couenyent that a man haue one seueral place in his house to hymselfe fro cobrance of wome.

Women muste haue one place to themselfe to tyffil themselfe and kepe theyr apparell.

They whyte theyr face, necke and pappis with cerusse: and theyr lyppis and ruddis with purpurisse.

Tumblers, houndes, that can goo on huntynge by them selfe: brynge home theyr praye.

Lytel popies, that serueth for ladies, were sutyme bellis: sutyme colers ful of prickkis for theyr defece.

I haue layde many gynnys, pottis, and other: for to take fisshe.

Some fisshe scatre at the nette.

Poules steple is a mighty great thyng / and so hye that vneth a man may discerne the wether cocke.

It is an olde duty / and an auncyent custume / that the Mayre of London with his bretherne shall offer at Poules certayne dayes in the yere.

In London be. lij. parysshe chyrches.

Two or. iij. neses be holsome: one is a shrowed toke."

These selected extracts will convey some notion of the unusual curiosity of the _Vulgaria_ of Horman, of which a second edition came out in 1530; it is so far rather surprising that it did not prove more popular. But it had to enter into competition with books of a similar title and cast by Stanbridge and Whittinton, who had their established connection to assist the sale of their publications.

The concluding item in this list of educational performances is also a curious philological relic, and a factor in the illustration of the imperfect mastery of English by foreigners of all periods and almost all countries. I allude to an edition of the _Declensions_ of the learned Parisian printer Ascensius with an English gloss. The tract was evidently printed abroad; and I am tempted to transcribe the paragraph on Punctuation, as it may afford an idea of the nature of the publication and of the English of that day as written by a foreigner. It will be observed that the author seems to confound the comma and the colon:--

"_Of the craft of poynting._

"Therbe fiue maner poyntys / and diuisios most vside with cunnyng men: the whiche if they be wel vsid: make the sentens very light / and esy to vnderstod both to the reder & the herer. & they be these: virgil / come / parethesis / playne poynt / and interrogatif. A virgil is a scleder stryke: lenynge forwarde thiswyse / be tokynynge a lytyl / short rest without any perfetnes yet of sentens: as betwene the fiue poyntis a fore rehersid. A come is with tway titils thiswyse: betokynyng a lenger rest: and the setens yet ether is vnperfet: or els if it be perfet: ther cumith more after / logyng to it: the which more comynly can not be perfect by itself without at the lest sumat of it: that gothe a fore. A parenthesis is with tway crokyd virgils: as an olde mone / & a neu bely to bely: the whiche be set theron afore the begynyng / and thetother after the latyr ende of a clause: comyng within an other clause: that may be perfet: thof the clause / so comyng betwene: wer awey and therfore it is sowndyde comynly a note lower: than the vtter clause. yf the setens cannot be perfet without the ynner clause: then stede of the first crokyde virgil a streght virgil wol do very wel: and stede of the latyr must nedis be a come. A playne point is with won tittil thiswyse. & it cumith after the ende of al the whole setens betokinyng a loge rest. An iterrogatif is with tway titils: the vppir rysyng this wyse? & it cumith after the ende of a whole reason: wheryn ther is sum question axside. the whiche ende of the reson / tariyng as it were for an answare: risyth vpwarde. we haue made these rulis in englisshe: by cause they be as profitable / and necessary to be kepte in euery moder tuge / as i latin. ¶ Sethyn we (as we wolde to god: euery precher [? techer] wolde do) haue kepte owre rulis bothe in owre englisshe / and latyn: what nede we / sethyn owre own be sufficient ynogh: to put any other exemplis."

VI. It is perhaps fruitless to offer any vague conjecture as to the authorship of the _Ascensian Declensions_. Many Englishmen resident in Paris, Antwerp, and Germany might have edited such a book. The orthography and punctuation are alike peculiar, and suspiciously redolent, it may be considered, of a foreign parentage; but one of our countrymen who had long resided abroad, or who had even been educated out of England, might very well have been guilty of such slips as we find here. A Thomas Robertson of York, of whom I shall have more presently to say, was a few years later in communication with the printers and publishers of Switzerland, and became the editor of a text of Lily the grammarian. Robertson, as a Northern man, was apt, in writing English, to introduce certain provincialisms; and I put it, though merely as a guess, that he might have executed this commission, as he did the other, for Bebelius of Basle.