Part 16 (2/2)

II But the conversance with our language in for those who devoted their attention to philology and instruction, was excessively scanty and inexact If no lish is given, the solecisms are sometimes ludicrous in the extre and novel to induce me, before I conclude my inquiry, to shew son professors of languages settled in London during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the ignorance of English exhibited by two distinct classes of writers, na us of old the position of tutors or teachers, and by the authors of publications designed for ehbours co hither

The notions entertained by educated professional Frenchrammar and idiom were frouest andnance to the acquisition of so ue is to be found in a volu so late as 1744 under the title _Representation of the High-landers who arrived at the Camp of the Confederated Army_, 1743, where beneath the first of a series of plates occurs this elucidation: ”The Highlanders in their accostu cloak” The explanatory description of the next engraving is ”A High-lander who puts on his cloak about his schoulders, eather is sed to rain” These solecisn artist or publisher, or both; but even where an ignorant typographer in a Continental toas elish book by the author hireat, and we are not to be surprised at slips of the press in such a work as Bishop Hooper's _Declaration of the Commandments_, printed at Zurich in 1549, when at the end the writer apprises us that ”the setters of the print understand not one word of our speech!”

The on which was intended to pass for good conversational English abound in the pocket-guides and dictionaries, of which soreat request by the sections of society to which they appealed One of thelot vocabulary, 1548, and a second a series of Colloquies in six languages, accolish exaht into our language as it was spoken at that date by foreign students and visitors; and, in point of fact, it is hard to choose between the thich is the more remarkable Let us take the Preface to the earlier publication from an impression of 1631 before me:--

”TO THE READER

”Beloved Reader this boocke is so need full and profitable / and the vsance of the saoodnes euen of learned men / is not fullie to be praised for ther is noman in France / nor in thes Nederland / nor in Spayne / or in Italie handling in these Netherlandes which hat not neede of the eight speaches that here in are writen and declared: Fer whether thad any man doo marchandise / or that hee do handle in the Court / or that hee fo lowe the warres or that hee be a trauailling man / hy should neede to haue an interpretour / for so have at our great cost and to your great profite / brought the saether / and set them in order / so that you fromyence fouath shall not neede eny interpretour / but shalbe able to speake them your self / ”

An extract from one of the interlocutions must suffice:--

”_D_ Peeter / is that your sone?

_P_ Yea it is oodlie childe God let hun al wayes prosper in virtue

_P_ I thancke you coosen

_D_ Doth he not go to the scole?

_P_ Yes / hee learneth to speake French

_D_ Doth hee? it is very well done John / can you well speake French?

_J_ Not very well coosen, but I learne

_D_ Wher go you too schoole?

_J_ In the Lu too schoole?

_J_ About half a yeare”

So the dialogue goes on, and there is a series of them

III A second exemplification of the superlative obstacles which persons born out of England have at all periods encountered in the endeavour to coible to others, our insular speech, is taken frohorn at the end of the seventeenth century

Now, here, in lieu of the alleged width of acceptability, which meets the eye in the traveller's pocket-dictionary just described, we get a positive assurance that the author was a ue; and it may be predicated of hiners, he exhibits a proficiency very considerably above the average, though we honestly believe it to be grossly iorne,” as he says in one of the Anglo-Italian dialogues