Part 6 (1/2)

Of all the names hich we have become familiar, the only one which seems to have survived is Johannes de Garlandia; and it is reain, that the torks from his pen which passed the London press, the _Verborum Explicatio_ and the _Synonyma_, are by no means comparable in merit or in interest to the Dictionary already noticed Subsequently to the rise of the English Grammatical School the reputation and popularity of Garlandia evidently suffered a permanent decline, and we hear _and feel_ no n schools or under foreign tutors, set the educational centres, and of introducing the people of England to a conversance with the foundations of learning and culture by more expeditious and effectual methods; and as from Scrooby in Lincolnshi+re a small knot of resolute men went forth in the _May Flower_ to lay the first stone of that immense constitutional edifice, the United States of A the pioneers of all English grae's pupil, Whittinton; and Whittinton's pupil, Lily

It is not too reat men, all our nobility, all our princes, owed to this hereditary dynasty, as it were, the ele, and that no section of our literature can boast of so long a celebrity and utility as the Grammatical Summary which is best known as Lily's _Short Introduction_, and which in most of its essentials corresponds with the system employed by those who preceded him and those who followed hirandfathers It was reserved for scholars of a very different temper and type to overthrow his ancient empire, and establish one of their own; and this is a revolution which dates frodalen was established by Bishop Waynflete, the teachers in our own country and on the Continent orking on nearly parallel lines, just as the religious service-books printed at Paris and Rouen were lish use; and indeed in the case of the grammatical system of Sulpicius an impression was executed at Paris in 1511 for Wynkyn de Worde, and imported hither for sale, without any differences or variations froyh the French doained the ascendancy, having been introduced by furtive degrees and by way of occasional or incidental illustration, that a marked native character was stamped on our school-books Ultimately, as we know, the Latin proportion sensibly diminished, and even a preponderant share of space was accorded to the vernacular

I have spoken of aelius Donatus as an author whose Gra celebrity and an enore to the date of the revival of learning It was used throughout the Continent, in England, and in Scotland

But prior to our earliest race of native graists, there were several labourers in this great and fruitful field, who began, towards the latter end of the fifteenth century, to cast off the trammels of the Roman professor, and to set up little systems of their own, of course more or less built upon Donatus

Such an one was Guarini of Verona, whose _Regulae Grainally published at Venice in 1470, and are regarded as one of the earliest specimens of her prolific press These rules were frequently reissued, and I have before me an edition of 1494

The book, which consists only of twenty-two leaves or forty-four pages, begins with describing the parts of speech, then takes the various sorts of verbs, and folloith the adverbs, participles, and so forth There is a set of verses on the irregular nouns, and a second headed _Versus differentiales_ or synonyiven in Italian The section on diphthongs forms an Appendix

I merely adduce a cursory notice of Guarini to keep the student inabroad, while our ownus with the occasional assistance of foreigners Perhaps I losses are in the writer's vernacular:--

”Largior ris per donare e p_ essere donato Experior ris per p_uare e per essere p_uato Ueneror ris per honorare e p_ essere honorato Moror ris per aspectare e p_ eere aspectato Osculor ris per basare e p_ essere basiato”

In connection with Magdalen School, we see in the account-book of John Dorne, Oxford bookseller, for 1520, the class and range of literature which a dealer in those days found saleable Arammatical books occur the _A B C_ and the _Boys' Primer_; the productions, hich we are already fae, Erasmus, Cicero, Terence, and Lucian, interspersed with some of the Fathers, service-books of the Church, classical authors of a less popular type, such as Lucan, Cornelius Nepos, and Poic, rhetoric, and theology On the other hand, we have prognostications in English, almanacs, _Robin Hood_, the _Nutbrown Maid_, the _Squire of Low Degree_, _Sir Isumbras_, _Robert the Devil_, and ballads There are, besides, the _Sermon of the Boy-Bishop_, the _Book of Cookery_, the _Book of Carving_, and an Anglo-French vocabulary

But I do not enter into these details It was merely my intention to peep in at the shop, and see what a bookseller at one of the Universities nearly four centuries ago had in the way of school-literature Perhaps next to the _A B C_ and the prireatest de value, inasmuch as it carries us back with it to the very Oxford of the first race of teachers and grammarians, about whom I write All of them, except perchance Anniquil, must have known Dorne and had transactions with hier, upon which the eyes of some of them may have rested, still preserved, with its record of stock in hand--new copies damp from the printer, or remainders of former purchases, now scarcely extant, or, if so, shorn of their coeval glory by the schoolboy's thumb or the binder's knife

VI

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 ht into constant requisition, at least by the higher foruages, and eventually those of the Continent

The earliest and one of the aria_ of Terence As far back as the reign of Edward IV, I find it annexed to the _Compendium Grammaticae_ 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 h I endi 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 a school-boys and a permanent rank as a text-book In 1497 Pynson printed all the Coinal glosses In 1533 the celebrated Nicholas Udall, ave 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 voluh several i 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 Axhol e and treatment, drove out of fashi+on the old Pynson Bernard's remained in demand till the s of separate plays occasionally presented theht out by Maurice Kyffin withtwofold, 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 who The treatment of these two favourite dramas was influenced, as we are expressly infor them for theatrical exhibition at a school