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Mapa, piatea, charta, etc.. may be filmed at different reduction ratioa. Thoae too large to be entirely included in one expoaure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, aa many framea aa required. The following diagrama iiluatrate the method: Lea cartea, planchea, tableaux, etc., peuvant Atrs filmte k dea taux de reduction diff Arents. loraque le document eat trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un aeul clichA, 11 eat film* A partir de I'angle aupArieur gauche, de gauche k droite, et de haut en baa, en prenant le nombre d'imagea nAceaaaire. Las diagrammaa auivanta illuatrent la mAthoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 I "y^f ., I -WSV?", CURIOSITIES OF SCHOOL LORE. A BOY'S BOOKS, THEN AND NOW, 1818, 1881. A SERIES OF ANNOTATIONS FROM THE "CANADA EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY." BY HENRY SCADDING, D.D. Canon of St, James', Toronto. FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. TORONTO: C. B. ROBINSON, PRINTER, 5 JORDAN STREET. 1882. J III" \ A. ^ / \ j.> 11 f«. 1 \ i -.•;<■ f'.- A BOY'S BOOKS. THEN AND NOW. (i8i8, 1881.) It is singular to observe how soon, in a progressive age, and in a progressive region, numerous things become "curiosities," ob- jects, that is, suitable to be placed behind glass in a museum or private cabinet. We gaze with astonishment at the costumes of our grandfathers and grandmothers; at their coats and gowns, their ruffles and furbelows ; at their h; *". caps, wigs and headgear generally ; at their Fhoe-buckles, their snuflf-boxes, their smelling- bottles, their patch- boxes. In the matter of dress, indeed, we gaze with wonderment at what we have worn ourselves, or what our wives, our sisters, or our lady friends have worn a few years back ; and we say we must have been insane, and the whole com- munity around us must have been insane, when such articles of attire were deemed beautiful and convenient. It seems natural enough that the few reUcs which have come down to us from primaeval times should excite interest and be looked at with a certain sense of superiority ; as, for example, the tools and domestic utensils of the lacustrine inhabitants of Switzer- land and elsewhere ; or the arms and ornaments of our fellow men in the bone, stone and bronze periods. But that within the space of our own short lives, objects once most familiar, common-place and indispensable, should become rarities and seem ,.0 us odd when we do chance again to see them, is surely very extraordinary. A tinder-box, with its flint and steel, is now a *' curiosity." The like is to be said of candlesticks of certain forms, of snuffers, and "lanthorns," and fire-dogs; of the tall case-clock, the buU'seye watch, the quill pen. And so, when for some reason, you have to turn over the vol- umes which have insensibly accumulated in an old family house, or the contents of a library of some standing, how soon you come to strata of fossils ! In some such strain, at least, we are probably I) \ \ \ I A ready to speak of long rows of folios, quartos, €t infra, that meet the eye ; although with books, as Milton admonishes us, there is a difference. They are not absolutely dead things, but " do contain a potencie of life in them," to use his own words "to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are." So that, let it., exterior be ever so antiquated, and its interior ever so dry, it is difficult to find a book that is wholly fossil. There are yet subsis- ting within it particles of a vital force, even as in the seemingly cold ashes of the hearth, you shall sometimes find, if you stir them, a spark or two of live fire. 1 have been led to these thou ^hts, from having had occasion lately to disturb the consents of an out-of-the-way shelf, which I had made a kind of limbo for old School-books a^ 1 other chance survivors of the period of boyhood and youth. Old friends of this sort, associated with the first awakening of the mind and its earliest growth, we are all of us, I suppose, more or less loth wholly to part with ; although, generally, in the lapse cf years, most of them pass away out of our sight, dissipated and lost, one scarcely knows how. Now it had happened that in the receptacle referred to, I had stored away a good many of such waifs and strays of the past, on re-handling which, I found to my surprise and no slight pleasure that not a few among the motley assemblage had begun now to acquire the odour of antiquity and to be entitled to classification under the head of "curious." I have accordingly thought that possibly a brief account of some of them might not be unaccep- table. To you perhaps as to me, the objects presented will be as " the distant spires and antique towers " of Eton, seen from •' the stately height of Windsor's brow" were to Gray, restorative for a while of the sensation of youth ; but lar from our review be the morbidness of spirit which marks and surely mars the famous composition of Gray. I have ventured to name 1818 and 1881 as my Then and Now, partly for the sake of the alliteration, if one may so speak, of the figures ; but also because, at the former date, there can be no doubt every thing that was homely and old-fashioned in school- books and juvenile literature was still flourishing in full vigour ; whilst, at the same time, it is certain that from that date onward the revolution in matters educational which has landed us where 'r >• we are to-day, became more and more perceptible. Further too, I think I have reason to believe that the fascination of books must have begun with oneself about that time, recalling as I can do now, with considerable freshness, the rude wood-cut or copper- plate illustrations, if not the text, of several small tomes which about that time came in my way. The books in my recent find, then, may, as I hope, assist us in taking stock of scholastic and literary progress amongst us, furnish- ing for the purpose some material for comparison and contrast. In several instances, too, they may give, incidentally, an idea of what the disadvantages of a young aspirani: after knowledge were in this region of Canada some sixty years ago. I have doubts as to being able to inspire in you the interest which I find enkindled in myself by the some-what unpromising row of volumes before us. But should I succeed in doing so in even a moderate degree I shall be content. If no other result ensue, it may refresh the eye to gaze, for a short while, upon their not forgotten sheepskin and brown calf covers, once smooth and bright, now rubbed and faded ; the joints in some cracked ; the corners bent and battered ; the paper and print made dingy by dust and smoke ; the pages at certain difficult places fingered and thumbed, and frayed at the edge ; and retaining still the pencil- lings and pen-scrawls of former possesors. . i ,. ,; I would premise also at once that although I have found the collection as a whole such as must now be designated a little antique, if not antiquated, I have not found it, in respect to its contents, in any way despicable. If the books in question now and then shew narrowness, they do but so far reflect the era in which they originated, which was necessarily circumscribed in its view of the sciences and its recognition of the real scope of education. I am pleased to confess that I have discovered in- them points of excellence which were veiled from my perception in the days of inexperience. Taken severally, they are most ster- ling in substance and quite effective so far as they go. Perhaps their chief defects are unattractiveness in form, and a too sternly exacted employment of a language not yet sufficiently understood to be a vehicle of instruction — two particulars that could not fail to be stumbling blocks to the young in the path of learning. I shall begin with a genuine typical school-book, Lily's Latin Grammar, a work dating back to the early part of the sixteenth century. King Henry the Eighth, in his zeal for centralization and uniformity made a decree about the year 1543, that Lily's Grammar should be the one universal Latin Grammar for the realm of England : " that so " as the merry old Church historian, Fuller, observes, "youths though changing their schoolmasters, might keep their learning," there having been previously in Eng- land, as elsewhere, a great variety of conflicting grammars, which begot confusion and obstructions in the working of schools. Through the prestige thus acquired, Lily's Grammar maintained its ground down to a late period. Even in this section of Canada Lily's Grammar was in vogue during a portion of my boyhood, but it '.vas soon displaced by the Eton Latin Grammar, which itself is an outcome of Lily. In New England, too, it was sub- stantially Lily's Latin system that was introduced by the many learned, not to say pedantic, scholars, such as the Mathers and others, who migrated thither from England ; and where it was con- firmed and maintained by the usages established at Harvard Col- lege, as we may gather from the Magnalia, and elsewhere. In Virginia also the same thing took place, through William and Mary College in that quarter, in 1692. The same thing took place in Barbadoes also, and the British West India Islands, at the later period; and in New Zealand, likewise, Australia and Cey- lon, and other parts of India in quite recent times, through the emigration to those parts of English University men, and the set- ting up of schools and colleges, all of them more or less tinctured, in their textbooks and uses, from the scholastic springs and fountains of the old mother-land. So that what Erasmus predict- ed of Lily's school has curiously come true, principally through his grammar. In a set of Sapphic stanzas composed on the opening of Lily's school in 1512, Erasmus spoke of it as a tree from which would spring a fruitful forest of other trees to the adornment of "the whole Orb of the English world," little realiz- ing indeed at the moment what in the future would be the wide- reaching significance of such an expression. The words of Eras- mus were : " Ludus hie sylvae pariet futurse Semina ; hinc dives nenus undequaque Densius surgens decorabit Anglum Latius Orbem." f I t 1 Y 4- nr 11 Though bearing the name of Lily, the grammar which is first to engage our attention was in fact the production of several hands. The introductory treatise on the Eight Parts of Speech and their Construction — the Accidence, as this part of the gram- mar is usually called — was by Dean Colet, drawn up by him for the use of St. Paul's school in London, founded by him in 151 a. The Syntax, which followed the Accidence, was by Lily, but re- vised and improved by Erasmus, to whom Colet sent the marual for examination. Hence it began to be reported at the time that Erasmus was its author. But Erasmus himself set the public right on this point in a letter which was prefixed to an edition of the book in 15 15, in which he says that the manual in question was written by Lily at the request of Colet : and he takes occasion to speak of Lily as a man of uncommon knowledge of Latin and Greek, and of admirable skill in the instruciton of youth (*' vir utriusque literaturce hand vulgariter peritus, et mirus recta institu- enda pubis artifex") ' The ever memorable Propria qua maribus and As in prasenti were the handiwork of Lily, together with thv'? Carmen de Mori- bus, Poem on Manners, of which I shall speak in another connec- tion. But the Qua genus, that is, the rules for irregular or hetero- clite nouns, were by Dr. Robinson, sometime Dean of Durham ; called Robert in some editions, but, more correctly I believe, Thomas in others. ^ Compiled for the most part in the second decade of the six- teenth century, Lily's Grammar was, as we see, no product of medisevalism : it was in truth one of the lesser outcomes of the renaissance of enlightened learning then in progress throughout Europe. Nevertheless the book has about it some strong mediae- val characteristics. Its theory is that the Lalin language is still to be deemed a living tongue, and to be made all but verna- cular with scholars and teachers. Accordingly after setting forth clearly enough the elements of the language and the construction of its eight parts of speech, in plain English, it repeats the same with amplifications in Latin. At the moment of the appearance of this grammar, the theory that Latin was to be cultivated almost as a vernacular, was beginning to be disregarded; and in the course of a few years it was virtually exploded, in England at least. Nevertheless, the Latin portions of Lily continued to be stroilgly 40V ^t insisted on in schools. Like Sir Thomas More, their common friend, Lily, Colet and Erasmus were very enlightened men; but in regard to the enforcement or abandonment of the colloquial use of Latin in schools, they were not at liberty. Its enforce* ment was, as I suppose, held to be absolutely necessary, so long as at the Universities of the time in England and on the Conti< nent, instruction and ceremony were carried on wholly in Latin, and the medium of inter-communication amongst the " learned " everywhere was Latin. Had it been in the power of Lily and the rest to have encouraged the familiar use of English in schools, to the extent that Roger Ascham, soon afterwards did, and Richard Mulcaster, head master of St. Paul's School, it is curi> ous to speculate as to what would have been the effect of their action on the subsequent history of literature in England. It is certain that much needless toil and torment would have been spared to after generations; and would not perhaps the real im port of the Greek and Roman literatures have dawned upon innu- merable persons in a shorter space of time and with more intelli- gence and delight, than has been the case under the syiitem usually pursued, until of late, in the great schools and colleges ? I should have observed before that Lily was the first head master of St. Paul's School, founded, as I have already related, by Colet in 151 2 ; that after taking his degree at Oxford before the close of the fifteenth century, he made a pilgrimage to the East in quest of Greek ; that he mastered that language in quite a practi- cal way by studying it in the Island of Rhodes for the space of five years ; and lastly, that his name, according to the custom of the period, is spelt in various ways in the early books. It is Lilye and Lilly as well as Lily, so that if we are not content with it in its natural and generally received shape, we can deform it into some other, as uneasy persons from time to time try to persuade us to do on like grounds, with the grand old name of Shak- speare. I find I have four copies of Lily : one printed at Oxford in the Sheldonian Theatre in 1673; one printed in London in 17 13, by Roger Norton, "printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Ma- jesty [Queen Anne], in Latin, Greek and Hebrew ;" one printed in London in 1760, by S. Buckley and T. Longman, "printers to the Kind's Most Excellent Majesty^ in l»atin, Greek and Hebrew " I / f (now George the Third ; but another title page in this volume bears the date 1758, with like appendage to the printers' names; the monarch then requiring typographical help in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, would be George the Second). And the fourth print- ed in London so late as 1830, by Longman, Rees, Orme, Browne, Green and Hill, "printers in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, to the Sovereign," now George the Fourth. (The last named copy of Lily is one that has been in actual use in the work of education here in what is now Toronto.) All four editions have a general likeness to each other in the antique character of the type adopted, and tii^ crowded condition of the pages. In the Oxford copy, the definitions and rules throughout the whole of the English por- tion of the book, are doubtless for supposed greater perspicuity, printed in old English typp or black letter. The edition of 1830 is made to be Vijacsimile^ as much as possible, of the 1760 and earlier editions ; although improvements have been admitted. The publishers of this edition, in an Advertisement, as it is called, pre- fixed to the Latin part of the book, inform the reader that "they have purchased from the family of the Nortons, former patentees, the Royal Grant and privilege of printing liily's Grammar, which from the time it was compiled has, by several kings and queens, successively, been ordered generally to be used in schools; and therefore they thought it their duty, and interest [too, as they frankly add] to get it revised and improved by a skilful hand, as much as the nature of the book would well admit ; hoping it will have the approbation and encouragement of those gentlemen who have the care and instruction of youth." But, at the same time, the publishers are careful to subjoin : " they have not the least inten- tion to suppress the Common Lily's Grammar in the form it now stands, and to substitute or impose this improved edition in the room of it ; but they will take care," they say, '*that the said Com- mon Lily's Grammar now in use, be correctly printed, and will still keep that, as well as this, on sale, leaving it to every gentleman of the profession to make use either of the one or the other, as he shall see fit." Many among the clergy were, we may be sure, scrupulous as to what Latin grammar they countenanced, when among the inquiries made of them at the periodical Visitations, by Royal authority, was this : whether there be any other grammar taught ^ « in any school within this diocese than that which is set forth by the authority of King Henry the Eighth ? Lily's Grammar had, in fact, acquired a semi-sacred character through the royal sanction. It was seen and acknowledged that progress was taking place in all the sciences, that of language included, and that something should be done to make Lily keep pace with the general advance. But it wos with fear and trem- bling, and only after elaborate apology, that any jot or tittle in the received text was altered. In the edition of 1713, as doubt- less in previous edition «, as also even in that of 1830, the title page is very like that which is to be seen in small quarto Bibles from the press of the Barkers. The central letter-press is sur- rounded by a wide wood-cut border, divided into square compart- ments. In the BiLe title page c:. the contents of the Port Royal Grammar) I believe there are very few but will agree with me, that a great deal of time might be saved by making use of this New Method : and I flatter myself that young beginners at least will be obliged to me for endeavour- ing to rescue them from the trouble and anxiety of learning Des- panter (whose systetn we have seen was the same as Lily's), for attempting to dispel the obscurity of the present forms of teach- ing and for enabling them to gather flowers on a spot hitherto overrun with thorns." Claude Lancelot's life extended from 1613 to 1695. Let us do honour to his memory by recording here afresh the rare character given of him by Nugent : " He was naturally of a mild temper, of remarkable simplicity, sincere in his religion, constant in study, fond of retreat, a contemner of glory, fond of peace, and an enemy to all animosities and disputes." 27 to 13 IS In justice to Lily and the ^(Otaries of his system, a favourable testimony which curiously crops up in Borrow's Lavmgro should not be omitted. In that singular work, the author, after relating that he was compelled in his childhood to learn Lily's Latin Gram- mar, remarks : — ** If I am asked whether I understood anything of what I got by heart, I reply : Never mind ; I understand it all now, and believe that no one ever yet got Lily's Grammar by I. -nrt when young who repented of the feat at a mature age." It appears that Borrow's father, an officer in the army, had been induced to insist on the accomplishment of this " feat," by an observation made to him by an old-fashioned Gtammar School Master, a clergyman, who for a brief space had been put in charge of George. " Captain," the master had said, " I have a friendship for you, and therefore I wish to give you a piece of advice concerning this son of yours. Listen to me. Ther<; is but one good school-book in the world, Lily's Latin Grammar. If you can by any means, fair or foul, in- duce him to get by heart Lily's Latin Grammar, you may set your heart at rest with respect to him. I "lyself will be his warrant," he added. " I never yet knew a boy that was induced, by fair means or foul, to learn Lily's Latin Grammar by heart, who did not turn out a man, provided he lived long enough." The year of George Borrow's birth was 1803. What he here tells us of the oracular old gentleman, his quondam instructor, and of himself, illustrates well a fixed idea on the subject of educational method in the minds of very many Englishmen of his period. The eulogy of Captain Borrow's friend sounds extravagant in our ears. But it must be remembered that within the covers of Lily were included very formal injunctions on other matters be- sides mere "Grammar " which were as sternly exacted of lads, as memoiiter work, as the Syntax itself. It is upon this portion of the contents of Lily and of several of the other old Latin Gram- mars that I am now about to dilate a little. ; ' i I have mentioned more than once Lily's Carmen de Moribus, " Song of Manners," which appears in the old Westminster Gram- mar at the beginning of the Latin portion of the book. This is a code of conduct for the school-boy, consisting of forty-three hex- ameter and pentameter couplets. The lad is therein enjoined to rise betimes, to make himself clean and tidy, and to go to prayers in the chapel. He is to salute politely the master and his school- fWf 1!: !h m : I 98 fellows, tn school he is to keep his appointed seat, to be atten- tive to what is dictated, to have ever at hand his scholastic implements or '• arras " : i « Scalpellum, calami, atramentum, charta, libelH. He is to write fairly and keep his manuscript unblotted. He is to revise often what he has been taught; and he is to put questions about it to his companions and others, and to maintain a whole- some independency of thought : Ssepe recognoscas tibi lecta, animoque revolvai : i • Si dubites, nunc hos consule, nunc alios. Qui dubitat, qui ssepe rogat, mea dicta tenebit. Is qui nil dubitat, nil capit inde boni. He is always to speak Latin, but to avoid barbarisms. Virgil, Terence and Cicero are to be his authorities. He is to be perse- vering : Nil tam difficile est quod non sollertia vincat. ' ' ' He is to rule his tongue and eschew frivolity, deception and quarrelsomeness : . Clamor, rixa, joci, n.t!ndacia, furta, cachinni, ,i' v Sint procul k vobis ; Martis at arma procui. This Carmen was mastered and committed to memory just like the rest of the grammar ; and it has no doubt in many instances helped to mould character. At the end of the grammar it was duly translated for the benefit of the very young ; beginning in this infantile fashion : Qui mihi construed : Cat-men a poem Guilielmi Lilii of William Lily ad discipulos to his scholars de moribus con- cerning manners. Puer child, qui who es art mihi dicipuios my scholar, atque and ciipis desirest doceri to be taught, ades come hue hither, concipe treasure up hce dicta these sayings aminw tuo in your mind. The Carmen de Moribus was spoken of as the Qui mihi, just as the rules for the formation of verbs and genders of nouns were spoken of as the As in prsesenti, Propria quae maribus and Quae genus, from the initial words, after the ecclesiastical cus- tom of quoting psalms, e.g. Venite exultemus, Deus misereatur, etc. The Carmen of Lily was inserted by Ruddiman among the Prima Morum et Pietatis Praecepta given in his Grammar. It there has the heading Gulielmi Lilii Monita Paedagogica. Ruddiman further 29 gives a Carmen de Moribus et Civilitate Puerorum, consisting of sixty couplets, by one Johannes Sulpitius Verulanus. Its drift is the same as that of Lily's piece, and it furnishes us with another picture of school-boy life. Sensible advice as to morals and civility or politeness is offered. The directions enter more into detail 'han Lily's code does ; and we seem to have glimpses of a somewhat coarse condition of things. Monastic schools on the continent are probably in the eye of J. S. V. A lad is cautioned against some objectionable habits thus : Lingua non rigeat, careant rubigine denies Atque palam pudeat te fricuisse caput, Expritnere et pulices, scabeamque urgere nocentem, Ne te sordidulum, qui videt ista, vocet. Seu spuis aut mungis nares, nutasve, memento Post tua concussum vertere terga caput, etc. etc. Propriety of manner at table is largely inculcated. Bad styles of eating and drinking are deprecated. Moderation is preached. It is proper enough to eat to live ; but not so, to live to eat. The food is to be disposed of by means of knives, the fingers and the teeth. Spoons apparently are not in use, and certainly not forks. The plates are quadra, square trenchers of beech wood. Te vitare velim, cupidus ne ut lurco, sonoras Contractes fauces ; mandere rite decet. Gausape [table-cloth] non macules, aut pectus; nee tibi mentuni Stillet ; sitque tibi ne manus uncta cave. Ssepe ora et digitos mappS, siccabis adepti. > In quadra faciat nee tua palma moram. Ne lingas digitos, nee rodas turpiter ossa, Ast ea cultello radere rite potes. ■ ■i'r - t .»■; Elsewhere the boy is told to " employ three fingers " in eating, and not to take huge bites, nor to aim at doubling the gusto of his pudding by using both sides of his mouth at once ; and although the ancients thought f.t to lie at their banquets with breast bowed down, he is to sit with neck erect, and let it be left to the dons, the preceptor says, to rest their arms on the board: you are only just to touch it with your hands, as you deftly take i^) or lay down what you require. It is to be observed that unmixed water as a human beverage is not retognized. Wine is the common drink ; it is to be moderately taken however, the stock example of old ' I I \] ■1 '' r ■ m 30 Cato to the contrary notwithstanding. Three cups are not to be I?. M< t.'\- fill exceeded and the liquor is to be well diluted. /n .,y, , . ^>1' I Qui sapit extinguet multo cum fonte Falernum, ,1 £t parco lympham diluet ille mero. Unum sive duo, in sumtnum tria pocula sumes : Si hunc numerum excedas jam mihi potus eris After drinking, he is to wipe his mouth with a napkin, not with his hand : • !; .a, /<■'' ■'>: to Pocula cum sumes tergat tibi mappa labella ; Si tergas mani' us non mihi carus eris. ', itli.jii'ii '■■>',• I take this Johannes Sulpitius Verulanus to be the Sulpitius whose prselections, we are told, Lily attended at Rome after his sojourn in Rhodes ; and at that the Carmen of the one suggested the Carmen of the other. ^ „!'•'• ><" ' '?' " ** In Ruddiman the Carmina of Lily and Sulpitius are preceded by the " Sayings of the Seven Wise Men of Greece," as turned into Latin by Erasmus ; not simply one saying from each sage as usually given, but a whole nosegay of terse sayings from each, full of shrewd observation and delivering golden rules of conduct, to be taken of course, all of them, Christian^, as the modifying word is, in a parenthesis after one of them, namely that of Pittacus of Mitylene, which bids a man be lord of his wife. This in Ruddi- man, reads thus: Uxori dominare {Christian^). Those who are aware of the department of matter in the old Latin grammars to which I have now been led to refer, will pro- bably expect of me a notice also of ths so-called " Moral Distichs of Cato." This manual for the young is not in ', i to be seen in Lily ; but it is given at full length in Ruddiman. It was deemed worthy, in the olden time, of being edited, annotated and para- phrased by the greatest scholars. With the version of the Distichs given by Ruddiman, as he himself notes, Joseph Scaliger, Eras- mus, Scriverius, Buxhornius and Thomas Robinson, author of the Quae genus have all had something to do. These Moral Distichs were in reality compiled circa A.D. 180, by a certain Roman stoic named Dionysius, or Dionysius Cato. They have been attributed to each of the more celebrated Catos ; to the Elder who lived some two hundred years B.C., because it was reported by Aulus Gellius that he had addressed a Carmen de Moribus to his son ; and to the Younger (Addison's Cato) who lived circa 40 B.C., on y I* account of his philosophical proclivities. It was however, as is \f^}l known, the custom aforetime among professional dialecticians — and this Dionysius was probably nothing more — to compose by way of exercise, and not for any deceptive purpose, dissertations or orations professing to be the missing productions of great au- thors. Many a fine sentence was thus in after times quoted as Cicero's and Plato's, which Cicero and Plato never penned. And so in regard to the two ancient Roman Catos : numerous sage say- ings supposed to carry with them the weight of their great names, especially in the scholastic disputations of former times, were in reality the dicta of Dionysius the stoic sophist or declaimer, drawn from the Book of the Distichs. He may have thus rhetorically made use of the name of Cato ; or that name may have been applied to him by contemporaries on account of the tenor of his work. To call a man a Cato was a common way of saying that he was a censor or very critical person- age ; as in Juvenal, II. 40, where we have Tertius k coelo cecidit Cato, "A third Cato come down from heaven," somewhat as we say " Another Daniel come to judgment. " Although in language Lafim'ssmus, as Laurentius Valla testifies, Dionysius was no doubt of Greek origin, a near descendant possibly of a clever immigrant, such as was the " grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, augur, schoenobates, medicus, magus," all in one, of whom Juvenal also speaks. uLbi'^vt/ of'?- ■yo^ '.Arm I find in my collection a copy of the Distichs which I remember securing long ago as a curiosity. This is the edition of Otto Arnt- zenius, published at Amsterdam in 1754. The little manual which, complete, occupies less than twelve duodecimo pages in Ruddiman, here assumes the formidable bulk of an octavo tome of 578 pages, exclusive of the Index Rerum et Verborum of thirty-six pages. Such dimensions are acquired (i) by several dedications, prefaces and preliminary disputations; (2) by the scholia, the annotations, critical observations and various readings of a number of learned men ; (3) by two elaborate trans- lations into Greek hexameter verse; one of them by Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople in the 13th century ; the other by Joseph Scaliger, circa 1593 ; (4) by Appendices and an Index Rerum as aforesaid. Now although all this may sound portentous there can be no doubt with any one who has the leisure to look 32 w % If; '% 1 into the matter, that every scintilla of Otto Arntzenius's volume has a positive interest and value, and will appear to have been quite justly called for. These supposed Distichs of Cato the Censor were committed to memory by children in the old Grammar-schools from a very early period ; and sometimes were recited by them responsively in Corydon and Thyrsis fashion, by way of amusement. " Ho "^ver," observes Joseph Scaliger in the preface to his Greek translation, " this little manual was composed not for children only, but for mature men as well; and I have reason to know," he says, " that many grave and learned personages have not been ashamed, even when now quite advanced in years, to learn the Distichs by heart. All this of course," he adds, " the conceited wise-acres of to-day will laugh at." (Est vero iste Libellus, non solum pueris sed et senioribus factus ; et ego mihi conscius sum, multos gravissimos et doctissimos viros non puduisse, jam provectos aetate, haec Dis- ticha memoriter discere; sed hoc ridebunt hodierni dokesisophoi [would-be wise men]). Corderius, of whose ever-memorable Col- loquies I shall have to speak presently, wished to get rid of the Distichs in schools as being, in his judgment, not well adapted to the capacity of the very young, and as exhibiting a tautology of synonymous expressions. He would have been pleased to see them replaced by suitable extracts from Cicero's Epistles ; but there was the old difficulty in the way — the prejudice of schoolmasters. Thus he speaks to his friend Robert Stephens, for whom he edited the " Book of the Distichs " in 1561 : " Ejus usus adeo inveteravit ut etiamsi pro eo et utiliora et ad parvulorum captum magis accom- modata proponuntur, vix tamen efficias ut h scholis prursus extruda- tur; tanta est vis consuetudinis et vetustatist " Nevertheless, he adds, he does not say this with an intention of condemning a manual which the most learned men nave approved of, amongst them especially the profound and acute I^urentius Valla (quem doctis- simus quisque, et imprimis vir acerrimi judicii Laurentius Valla probaverit). This Laurentius Valla, the greatest scholar and critic of the period, had, as I have already noted, spoken of our Diony- sius Cato as being among the lesser Roman writers Latinissimui^ on account of the excellence of his Latin. From an assemblage of maxims inculcating wisdom, fortitude, frugality, friendship and so on, divided into four books, but other- *-i' 35 wise poorly classified, it is difficult to make a selection. Two or three samples however of the Disticha must be given. Here are three couplets in which something is finely said of God, of His spirituality and inscrutableness, and of the course which it is most expedient for man therefore to pursue. Si Deui est animus, nobis ut carmina dicunt, Hie tibi prsecipu^ sit purft mente colendus. Mitte arcana Dei, coelumque inquirere quid sit : Cum sis mortalis, quie sunt mortiUia cura. . : .'. Quid Deus intendat, noli perquirere sorte : • ; ' Quid statuit de te, sine te deliben.t ipse. <« These relate to a man's proper estimate of his own ability ; to the advisableness of mingling manual and mental accomplishments, and to the practice of economy. Quod potes, id tentes, operis ne pondere pressus Succumbat labor, et frusta tentata relinquas. Disce aliquid ; nam cum subito fortuna recessit Ars remanet, vitamque hominis non deserit unquam. Exerce studium, quamvis praeceperis artem : Ut cura ingenium, sic et manus adjuvat usum. Utere qusesitis parci ; cum sumptus abundat Labitur exiguo quod partum est tempore longo. Quod vile est carum ; quod carum est vile putato : Sic tibi nee cupidus, nee avarus habebetis uUi. Here are cautions against wordy persons, and against the lying wonders of the poets or writers of fiction. Noli tu qusedam referenti credere semper : Exigua his tribuenda fides qui multa toquuntur. Contra verbosos noli contendere verbis : Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis. Virtutem primam scis esse, compescere linguam : Proximus ille Deo qui scit ratione tacere. Multa legas facito : perlectis neglige multa ; Nam miranda canunt, sed non credenda poetse. Another sample and I have done : it is one which urges a man to do instanter the thing ^hich his conscience or judgment tells him he should do. The second line of the couplet will be recog- 5 , ,,.:*5i,v jriii^ 'f>j|^ 34 it' i *'. ■ • t |) '.■ 1; t % nized as an old acquaintance : we have in it " the Antiquary Time," with his forelock set before us : Rem tibi quam noscis aptatn dimittere noli : Fronte capillata, post est Occasio.calvt. The Moral Distichs of Cato, the Sayings of the Seven Wise Men, the Verses of Lily and of John Sulpitius have now dis- appeared from school grammars, along with matter even more directly and formally didactic, such as, for example, the Rudimenta Pietatis and Shorter Latin Catechism of Ruddiman. These sum- maries and compendiums were all excellent in substance, and were propounded to young lads in the olden time with the very best intentions, and with beneficial results too, in certain cases, as we cannot but believe. But as the years rolled on, is it not to be feared that the blending of such things with purely grammatical matter very sternly inculcated, had with the majority in after life the unfortunate effect of benumbing the mind in respect to moral and religious subjects, and even now and then engendering aver- sion and hostility to such topics of thought ? Information of a distinctively religious kind can now be otherwise acquired with ease, which was not the case when Latin grammars were first com- piled for the Public Schools of England and Scotland. Prayers in Latin, and "Graces" before and after meat, in the same tongue, with the Regimen Mensse Honorabile to be seen in Rud- diman, have in like manner and for the same reason disappeared from modern Latin Grammars. We might regret the absence from these manuals of such helps for the building up of young people in Christian faith, did we not know that forms and instruction of the kind referred to are now accessible in plentiful measure and in plain English close by. We are bound to believe that it is in accordance with Providential order that society. Christian and sec- ular, has come to be differently constituted in the nineteenth cen- tury to what it was in the sixteenth or eighteenth. We cannot therefore undertake to pronounce it impious, when it comes to pass that now the formal inculcation of Christian ethics and dogma must be taken out of the hands of the secular teacher and placed back again where it was put when the command to *' make disciples " of the nations was first issued : namely, in the hands of parents and the official spiritual functionaries of the Christian community. No place of v/drship is now considered complete which has not its i h If 35 < appendages of school rooms, class-rooms, and lecture-rooms. This is one of the developments of the period. And it is interesting to observe how pastors of Christian flocks are led in the present day as at the beginning of Christianity, to regard children and the growing youth of each sex as an exceedingly important portion of their charge ; how they are led to keep in view the young in the preparation and delivery of their public addresses ; and further- more how, in concert with parents and guardians, they have been induced to provide for them, when gathered together in classes for the purpose, more complete and more intelligible courses of instruc- tion than were ever devised before. It is striking also to see how the modern pastor, while not caring to delegate any longer his own self-evident duty, in this regard, to the secular schoolmaster, never- theless desires to have, and in point of fact, obtains, the skilful co-operation of numerous qualified members of his flock, who assist, under his own eye a..d direction, in the work of instruction. The modern practice of making Saturday a whole holiday for schools, has helped forward this improvement. Young people can now without scruple be asked to pass several hours of their Sun- day in the school or class room, when in addition to innumerable other breaks in the routine of their secular studies, a whole day in each week is set apart for unrestrained physical recreation. BiU I hasten to finish this account of the moral and theological matter to be found in our old Latin Grammars. In addition to the versified codes of conduct — the Carmina and Distichs of which I have spoken — we have in Ruddiman six and a half closely printed pages of Latin prose, purely dogmatic, comprising what appv^ars to be virtually a version of the Scottish Shorter Catechism with large extracts from the Old and New Testaments, arranged under headings, De Deo, de Creatione, de Lapsu, etc., all expect- ed to be got up as school-tasks ; just as I have known in some English Schools the Thirty-nine Articles exacted of boys in the Latin tongue; although I do not remember ever seeing the Thirty- nine Articles iucluded in a Latin Grammar. There is nothing in Lily so formally theological as this. There is simply at the begin- ning of the book a Latin prayer for the special use of the school- boy, followed immediately by an English translation of the same. A sentence from it in the latter language will indicate to us that it has a little of the ring of the old collect about it : " Beautify by I*" pf '» 1 5 ■ ^ id ■i J ^ 36 the light of Thy heavenly grace the towardness of my wit," it teaches the young scholar to say, " the which, with all powers of nature. Thou hast poured into me ; that I may not only understand those things which may effectually bring me to the knowledge of Thee and the Lord Jesus our Saviour, but also with my whole heart and will, continually to follow the same, and receive daily increase, through Thy bountiful goodness towards me, as well in good life as doctrine." I observe in G. J. Vossius's Latin Gram- mar for Holland a similar prayer for the use of young scholars. It is comprehensive and finely expressed. I venture to transcribe it: "Oratio Matutina. Omnipotens, sempiterna, misericors Deus, quia nox prseteriit, pro qua placide exacta immortales gratias agi- mus, et dies illuxit quo Scholasticus labor nobis pueris est iteran- dus, rogamus ut illustrati Spiritu tuo vera obedientia erga Prsecep- tores, et assidua discend' cura eum transigere possimus, quo de die in diem in bonarum litterarum cursu institute progrediamur feli- citer, simul in pietate et moribus bonis prohcientes, idque ad nom- inis Tui gloriam, Ecclesise et Reipublicse utilitatem. Per Dom- inum," etc. At the end of my Lily of 17x2, but not in the other editions of the same work now before me, there are some metrical prayers for boys ; preceded by an exhortation to study from the master, also in verse, wherein the sole end of learning is set forth in this wise : i ""i .1 «« — ut Doininum possis cognoscere Christum i !«a ; (; liiil ' v> -T Ingenuas artes discito, parve puer. , ^ 1, i'>'..>, ,<- Hoc Illi gratum oificium est, hoc gaudet honore ; Infantiim fieri notior ore cupit. . , Quare nobiscum studium ad commune venite : ' ' ' ' ' Ad Christum monstrat nam schola nostra viam. « It was in accordance with this that in the great school-room of St, Paul's School (Lily's) there was to be seen over the head-master's seat up to the time of the great fire of London in 1666, a finely carved figure of a Child-Christ in the attitude of instruction which all the scholars on entering and departiL^ were wont to salute by the recitation of certain verses in Latin; and underneath this figure was a distich furnished by Erasmus — Discite me primum, pueri, atque effingite puris Moribus ; inde pias addite literulas. Her-" probably the solitary hexameter suddenly occurring \ i \ I 37 I I i towards the end of the Prosody in the Eton Grammar will come back to the recollection of many who are familiar with that man- ual: Atque piis cunctis venerandum nomen lesus. This is a line borrowed from Lily ; and in his day, as well as dur- ing many years subsequently, little boys and great ones too, as often as they quoted it, were expected, I doubt not, to make obeis- ance. Although the compilers of the Eton Latin Grammar deemed it most fitting to eliminate fronn that manual the theological element, care was taken that there should be no deficiency in the supply of religious kno\yledge to the alumni of the Royal College ; and that too in the Latin tongue, as ancient custom demanded. Several authorized books were used in this department of instruction, hav- ing the double object in view of imparting the proper information and at the same time promoting skill in the Latin language. The titles of four of them are as follows : Evangelia j sive Excerpta ex Novo Testamento secundum Latinam Seb. Castilionis versionem (a translation in purely Classical Latin as distinguished from Jer- ome's and Beza's), in usum Classium inferiorum. Selectae ^ Veteri Testamento Historiae ; ad usum eorum qui Linguae Latinse Rudi- mentis imbuuntur. Monita et Praecepta Christiana. De Fide et Officiis Christianorum, excerpta ex Thomae Burneti et Grotii libel- lis, in usum Juventutis Christianse. The only one of these that I have happened to retain is the last-named, which is a concise and most useful compendium with an excellent syllabus at the begin- ning of the numerous points treated. As stated on the title page, the matter is chiefly taken from Thomas Burnet's book bearing the same name, with additions here and there from Grotius de Veritate. Apologies, which seem almost unnecessary, are offered in the preface for the non-Ciceronian character of some of the Latin, but the student is told to remember that the matter is here of more importance than the manner : " non tarn verda hie, qukm rem agi." I shall quote a passage from the Address to the Reader to shew the strain in which it has been the fashion for divines and others to write, generation after generation, of the condition of things around them, indicating how continually, in the imagination of men, truth and faith are in danger of being extinguished. This little out- line of Christian doctrine and practice had been prepared, we are •N. it ^ * 'i told, in order that young men might go forth from their early train, ing-place imbued with a just respect for the creed which they pro- fess, and fortified in some degree against the prevailing impiety of the times, when so many, instead of valuing and cultivating the religion of the country, either attack it in a hostile spirit or ignore it ; while too few have any satisfactory comprehension of the pubject. " Cum tantum abest ut perinde ac de hominum vir j, merita est, laudetur et colatur sacrasancta nostra religio, ut etiam inimice eam nonnulli insectentur, quam plurimi prorsus negligant, paucissimi satis intelligant ; non inutilis videtur opera in juventute erudienda disciplinse Christianse quasi li neamenta quaedam tabella exhibere ; unde Veritatem ejus, naturam et praestantiam intuentes, summa eam, qua decet, veneratione adolescentes excipiant; fideque ac moribus ad eam mature compositis, prodeant ex palaestra literaria in grassantem hoium temporum impietatem aliquantum prsemuniti," The edition of the little Eton book now before me, from which I make thi:i extract is dated, A.D. 1779 : the words were probably written earlier, as this is an editio nova. The memorable declara- tion in Bishop Butler's " Advertisement " prefixed to the first edition of the "Analogy," in May, 1736, will possibly be recalled : " It has come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious." But, ** on the contrary," Butler rejoins, " this much at least will be here \i.e. in the " Analogy "] found, not takeh for granted, but proved, that it is not, however, so clear a case, that there is nothing in it." Let us hope that the general intelligence of Christian society has advanced since 1736 and 1779. I think the indictment against it, implied in the woids of Butler and the Eton writer, would not so readily suggest itself to-day anywhere in the English-speaking portion of the world. The Eton exercise-books, also, without inculcating dogma, plainly keep an ethical purpose in view. Intended in appearance simply to beget skill in Latin composition, thev abound with strik- ing lessoas of worldly wisdom; with admirable maxims of prudence, honour, virtue, public spirit and patriotism. "Exerapla Moralia" is the title of the principal exercise-book. A pretty complete series of the Eton exercise manuals is in my collection, all of them of rK..ier early date, and very characteristic in their interior li I' k 39 . and external aspects, i. "Exempla Minora; or New English Examples to be rendered into Latin." Eton : printed by T. Pote, 1794. This book has the Eton shield on the title-page in the style of the lAst century ; in an oval frame surrounded by palm branches. A memorandum addressed to Mr. Pote, by T. Morell, author of the famous Greek Prosodial Thesaurus, afterwards edited by Bishop Maltby (with fine portraits of author and editor), informs the reader that he had revised the " Exempla Minora " and had taken the liberty to strike out some and insert others, and had adapted the whole to the grammar rules in such a way that ' no one example may prevent or anticipate a subsequent rule." This mem. is dated in May, 1759. 2. "Shorter Examples, or Second Book of English Examples to be rendered into Latin." Eton : printed by E. Williams, "successor to Mr. Pote," 1818. The pre- face to this book tells us that it is " intended by short examples and familiar diction, to accommodate Youth in the more early Day of their Education and by regular gradation lead to the Third Book or larger Work of Exempla Moralia." 3. "Exempla Mofalia ; or Third Book of New English Examples to be rendered into Latin." Eton: printed by T. Pote, 1793. This volume shews the Eton shield in an oval frame. From the initials T. M. subjoined to a brief preface, dated 1759, we gather that Morell was the com- piler of these examples and that they are "almost all founded on Classical Authorities." To shew the moral aim of this book, I shall quote rather largely from its contents. From the lessci manuals could be culled any number of passages of like import, only briefer in form and more adapted to the use of the very young. While reading the follow- ing, we might imagine them to be fragments of Bacon, or Mon- taigne or Rochefoucauld : Dear are parents, children, kinsfolks, friends ; but our country alone con- tains the affections of all these. What good man therefore could scruple to die, if he can be serviceable to his country ? As we are happy or miserable, compared with others, so other people are miserable or happy, compared with us. Such a virtue is it to be silent, that he who understands nothing is deemed wise so long as he holds his peace. No one thinks that he owes us anything, who hath borrowed our time ; when this is the only thing which even a grateful man cannot repay. What the vulgar make light and easy by long sufifering, the wise man soften; to himself by long meditation. To do all things as under the eye of some good man always present ; and when you have made so great a progress as even to reverence yourself, you may dismiss your tutor. He that willingly receives a command takes off the severest part of servitude. Not he that is commanded is wretched, but he that does a thing unwillingly. As for charity, it is never to be expected from a covetous man, who dreads to lessen his own het^s, more then to starve his poor neighbour. If we consider the excellence and dignity of nature, we shall quickly find how shameful it is to dissolve into a luxurious softness and delicacy; and how becoming, on the other side, to live frugally, temperately, gravely and soberly. He is not brave and strenuous, who shuns labour, but he whose mind gathers strength from the difficulties that surround him. The honour and comfort of parents consist in a numerous offspring which degenerates not from the ancient virtue of the family. A fool, like a beast, is no sooner provoked but he grows angry ; and which is worse, it appears immediately in his countenance, words and actions ; whereas a prudent man is not unseemingly transported by his passion, but stifles his resentment even of the most reproachful injuries. : is much more tolerable not to acquire, than to lose ; anU therefore you see these men more cheerful, whom fortune never took any notice of, than those whom she hath deserted. Men in great place are thrice servants : servants to the king ; servants of fame ; and servants of business. In war it is of more consequence what sort of soldiers you command, than how many. We should often turn our thoughts upon ourselves, and look into that part of the wallet which men commonly sling behind their backs, that they may not see th^ir own faults. The life of the retired, indeed, is more easy and more safe ; but the life of those that apply themselves to the affairs of government is more beneficial to mankind, and more conducive to glory and renown. Learn to distinguish what nature hath made necessary, and what is super- fluous ; what easy laws she hath enacted ; and how grateful and pleasant life may be to those who obey them ; but how severe and intricate to those who rather trust to opinion than to nature. Exile is terrible to those who, as it were, stint themselves to one dwelling- place ; but not those who look upon the whole globe as one city. Perfect reason is the proper good of man. Other things are common to him and brute animals. Is he strong? So are lions. Is he beautiful? So is the peacock. Is he swift ? So are horses. The mind attains not virtue but by instruction and continued exercise ; to this indeed we are born ; and in the best of men, without study and applica- tion, there is the ground of virtue, but not virtue itself. Whatever is probable in appearance, though not altogether certain, yet if nothing offers to destroy that probability, the wise man will take up with it ; and this is sufficient for the whole conduct of life. Some studies are called liberal, because they are worthy of a man who is free* 41 born ; but there is only one study that is truly liberal, the study of wisdom, sublime, strong and magnanimous ; all others are trifling and puerile. They who have nothing else but the images of their ancestors are noble in opinion more truly than in fact ; but he that is endued with virtue has true and genuine nobility. We cannot otherwise conceive of God than as a Spirit, absolute, free, per- ceiving and moving all things, and endued Himself with everlasting motion. Of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more delightful, nothing more worthy a man, even a gentleman, than agriculture. Praise not thyself, which is both indecent and imprudent ; but take care to do praiseworthy things, which will force commendation even from strangers. To preserve health we must use moderate exercise, and so much meat and drink as may repair the strength and not oppress it ; but we must not support the body alone, but the mind and spirits also ; for these are extinguished by old age, like a lamp when it is not supplied with oil. As he is a fool who when he is going to buy a horse inspects only the bridle and saddle ; so is he most foolish who esteems a man from his dress or con- dition, which is a sort of dress. If it happens to any to be gently dismissed by old age, not suddenly torn from life, but gradually stolen away ; has he not reason to thank God that being full of days and infirmity, he now retires to rest, so necessary to man, so grate- ful to the weary. I could easily have, filled many more pages with maxims and observations such as these, inculcating manliness, truthfulness, a sense of honour, a feeling of moral obligation, and a hundred other estimable virtues and habits. Young minds during their most plastic period, employed for a series of years in the careful man pulation of aphorisms and sentiments, such as those of which I have given specimens, could not fail in numerous instances to be affected and moulded thereby. At the same time, countless other ennobling, formative forces were brought to bear upon these young minds ; for example, a full staff of skilled instructors, them- selves strongly charged with the Eton lore, and the very genius of the place, walls, quadrangles, play-fields, teeming with memories and traditions of eminent men subjected in their day to the Eton discipline. Can we wonder at the strong hold on the esteem and love of Englishmen which Eton has acquired ; poets, divines, war- riors, jurists, statesmen, from Fox and Canning and Weliesley to the late Earl of Derby and Gladstone ? phjEdrus, publius svrus, etc. Another vade-mecum of practical wisdom and morals for the Eton school-boy was the "Phaedrus" used in the junior forms. 6 42 My copy bears ^he late date of 1824, but it represents much earlier impressions of the same book. It is stated in the title- page to be editio altera^ castigata, etprioribus correctior. The pecu- liarity of this Eton " Phsedrus " is that it has a proverbial heading prefixed to each fable, indicative of the drift of the coming story ; and these headings are collected together at the beginning of the volume as a set of mottoes, with a free English rendering of each, generally in the form of a familiar proverb. We have thus placed before us a bouquet of popular aphorisms such as would have been satisfactory to "Sancho Panza" or John Bunyan, and which, I doubt not, have often been selected from by the Eton tyro for the enrichment of a "theme." "Save a thief from the gallows and he'll cut your throat" heads fable 8, book i., "The Wolf and the Crane," as the translation of " Malos tueri, baud tutum." Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is better" heads fable 21, book iv. " The Mountain in Labour," as the translation of " Magna ne jactes, sed prsesta," etc., etc. In my other old copy of " Phsedrus," Amsterdam, 1667, with a quaint copperplate illustration to each fable, the Eton headings do not occur. Johannes Laurentius, the editor, is content with the " moral " prefixed or appended to each fable in thfi original. He has, however, with his notes and ob- servations, contrived to expand " Phaedrus " into an octavo of 462 pages, plus 200 pages of index- matter. Following the fables in the Eton " Phsedrus " are to be seen the notable "Sentenlige" of Publius Syrus. These consist of a selec- tion of Gnomic lines, chiefly in Senarian iambic verse, taken from the common-place book of a famous satirical mimic or improvisa- tore at Rome, temp. Julius Caesar — Publius Syrus. They are alphabetically arranged in groups, the lines in each group begin- ning with the same letter, like the sections of the 119th Psalm in the Hebrew. They contain shrewd reflections on the various re- lations and situations and experiences in human life. Strangely, in modern times with us English, the interest in Publius Syrus is chiefly, if not wholly, maintained by the quotation from his ** Sen- tences " to be seen on the title-page of each volume of the Edin- burgh Retnew. It is found in the "I" or "J" group: "Judex damnatur, cum nocens absolvitur." Sydney Smith informs us that he had ventured to suggest an excerpt from Virgil instead : *' Tenui musam meditamur avena " — We cultivate literature on a 43 little oatmeal ; but this was too near the truth to be admitted, he says of himself and his friends Brougham and Jeffrey, at the moment when, in 1802, in the ninth flat of Buccleuch Place, Edin- burgh, they were concocting their scheme of a n^w periodical : " So we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom," he remarks, " none of us, I am sure, had read a single line." It is pro- bable, however, that the " Sententiae " of Publius Syrus were as well known at Winchester, where Sydney Smith had been trained, as they were at Eton. It may be added that although the " Sententiae " of Publius Syrus are generally unknown to modems, many of them have virtu- ally become familiar through other channels. Thus, his caution, "Laus nova nisi oritur, etiam vetus amittitur," is transmitted to us in Shakspeare's " Persev'rance, dear my lord, keeps honour bright : to have done, is to hang quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail in monumental mockery ;" his maxim, " Diu apparandum est bellum, ut vincas celerius" is embodied in dicta of Napoleon and Wellington to the same effect ; his doctrine, " Discipulus est prioris posterior dies " is heard in Tennyson's " I, the heir of all the ages," etc. According to the old " Consuetudinarium," or Custom-book, well known at Eton, dating back to 1560, a collection of apoph- thegms by Sir Thomas More, and the "Introductio ad Veram Sapientiam " of Ludovicus Vives, were read as lesson-books there, in addition to the "Distichs" of Dionysius Cato, of which we have now doubtless heard enough. I content myself with a brief sample of Vives, who was a Spaniard, at one time preceptor to the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen, taken from my little copy of the *' Introductio," which, by the way, was once the property of Basil Montagu, the editor of "Bacon," and contains his autograph. " Gloria crocodilus," Vives says : i.e.^ Fame is like a crocodile. He then tells the reader why, thus : " Crocodilus animal est in Nilo, cujus banc ferunt naturam, ut persequentes fugiat, fugientes persequatur. Sic gloria quserentes fugit, negligentes sequitur." I have no example of the manuals in use at Eton during the provost, ship of Sir Henry Wotton (1624), but I do not doubt he took care that they should be pregnant with wit and wisdom, as well as replete with rules for good latinity. Isaac Walton tells us in his life of Sir Henry, that when surrounded by his pupils, " he would often t.a i /" 44 i make choyce of observations out of the historians and poets; and that he never departed out of the school "without drop- ping some choyce Greek or Latin apophthegme or sentence, such as were worthy of a room in the memory of a growing scholar." It was this Sir Henry Wotton who once humorously defined ambassadors (he had himself been one from England to the Vene- tian Republic) as persons "whose duty it was to lie abroad for the benefit of their masters at home," playing on the double sense of the English word lie^ a jest which brought him into some trouble. Sir Henry Wotton so prided himself on having formulated the dictum, " Disputandi pruritus fit Ecclesiarum scabies," that he ordered it to be inscribed on his tomb. I shew an old copy of Sir Henry's remains, " Reliquse Wottonianae." It is to be regretted that the essay in it, entitled " A Riilosophicall Surveigh of Edu- cation, or Moral Architecture," proves to be only a fragment of an intended work. Posterity would have been gratified had a com- plete treatise come down to it from Sir Henry Wotton justify- ing the above title. Bound up with my Eton "Phaedrus" is the twelfth edition (1819) of "Morgan's Grammaticse Qusestiones, adapted to the Eton Latin Grammar," "humbly offered to the Public as being the most effectual way of laying a sound Classical Foundation ; and obviating the many inconveniences arising from a superficial know- ledge of Grammar." The book is humbly offered; but Mr. Morgan had grand ideas. The Preface is in the customary exag- gerated strain of which specimens have been given before, cha- racteristic of the pre-scientific period in England. It pronounces a "Classical Education," i.e.^ fauMess drill in the Eton Latin Grammar, to be, " next to the duties of Religion, one of the most important objects in human life, particularly to those who are ex- pected to fill the higher ranks of society." Hence Mr. Morgan presumes " any work which may contribute even in a subordinate degree to so important and laudable a design, will meet with a favourable reception from every description of men— of those who are sensible of the blessings of a liberal education as well as those who are unhappily conscious of the want of it." His plan is simply to break up the whole of the Eton Latin Grammar into short ques- tions and answers, which he does quite lucidly, just as we might suppose any sensible teacher would do of his own accord, without «" 45 *" requiring any suggestions ad extra. " This method," the writer observes, "obliges children to use their reasoning powers, and leads them pleasantly on to the pursuit of real fundamental know- ledge, instead of labouring merely at the reputation of rules and scientific terms whose meaning and application they must, without such a method, long continue ignorant of." For it is known, he had previoMsly observed that " the generality of boys not only learn the grammar by rote, but learn even to apply the rules mechanically, without descending into the meaning and intent of them." His style of questioning is very mild : " Say the present tense of voio with its English. Has it any gerunds? Say them. How do verbs in lo form the preter perfect tense? Are there not some exceptions ? " etc. He grants that there are slips in the text-book on which he is engaged, but he adds : "The reader's own observa- tion will supply every defect in the As in prasenti, which with all its imperfections must be a very ingenious performance." Mr. Morgan magnified his office and worked at his specialty to some purpose, as we may gather from the appendages to his name on his title page : " Fellow of King's College, Cambridge; Prebendary of Wells ; Rector of Dean, Northamptonshire, and of Charlcomb, Somersetshire ; and Master of the Grammar School in the city of £ath." Another little school manual is bound up with my " Phse- drus," "The Book of Cautions for Rendering English into Latin." This is without date ; but I have another copy of the same work, separate, dated 1 792, and printed by T. Pote. One more ele- mentary Eton book of great repute, allied in subject to those just noticed, I am bound not to omit, having retained a copy, and this is " Willymott's Peculiar Use and Signification of Certain Words in the Latin Tongue," printed by T. Pote, Eton, ^790, and then in the eighth edition. This is a useful alphabetical list of Latin words, with observations in English on each," wherein their elegant and commonly unobserved sense is fully and distinctly explained." The author, William Willymott, D.D., was also, like Mr. Morgan, a "Fellow of King's College in Cambridge." This King's College, Cambridge, founded in 1441 by Henry VI. of England, is a splen- did preserve, existing for the special and exclusive benefit of well- drilled youths coming from Eton. Up to 185 1, the students of this College were, by charter, exempted from the usual public exercises in the " Schools " of the University, and were not in any way ex- >ll I . II I li ! 46 amined for their Bachelor of Arts' degree. It could not be other- wise but that the " men " of the sixteen other colleges in the Uni- versity should sometimes gaze with envious eye on the " men " of King's, especially, for example, when seen occupying their *' stalls " of a Sunday, along the two sides of their magnificent chapel, unique in Europe for its beauty, a miracle of architecture, three hundred and sixteen feet in length and eighty-four in width. In i85i> however, King's College magnanimously surrendered its exclusive privileges ; and now the ilhes of that society go into the general examinations and take their chance with the rest of the students of Cambridge. I find by the side of Willymott's book one similar, but superior to it, dated 1753, on the *' Westminster Latin Grammar," by Charles Davies, B.A., *' for the use of those schools (publick and private) where that Grammar is taught, particularly of the Lower Forms of Westminster School ; and for the Ease and Benefit of Master and Scholar." I notice this manual for the sake of the Dedi- cation prefixed to it. The Earl of Orrery, the patron addressed therein, is curiously told that the work is inscribed to him because the writer had observed in one of his Lordship's " most excellent Letters of Remarks upon the Life and Writings of the inimitable Dr. Swift, that he heartily wished his son, Mr. Hamilton Boyle, would think an attention to his native language as useful and improving a study as any that can be pursued." Therefore Mr. Davies presents a catechism on Latin Grammar, designed, he as- serts, " for the benefit of the youth of the English nation in general, and, could he presume to say so, for the Royal Youths at the head of them, in particular." The dedication then proceeds and concludes in courtly strain thus : " To offer anything relating to Grammar to your Lordship, who shines so conspicuously iu the higher orbs of Learning, will, I fear, be looked upon as quite out of character ; but as Grammar is the foundation of all Learning^ I hope that circumstance will, in some measure, plead my excuse for giving your Lordship this trouble. Besides, under favour, where shall an attempt for making Learning more easy and useful, hope for patronage but amongst the Learned ; and where amongst the Learned, if not in an Orrery?" In the Preface again the assertion is repeated that Latin Grammar is " the foundation of speaking, reading, writing, and conversing in the English tongue" i 47 — another instance of the overweening self-complacency of the Grammar schoolmaster of the period in regard to the one subject embraced in his curriculum. CORDERIUS, ETC. The aim of the old teachers of Latin was the familiar colloquial employment of that language by the young ; and the desired result was, I suppose, actually attained in some schools aforetime in Scotland, England and Ireland. But as the utter usele.^sness of the accomplishment when secured, except as a mere amusement, was manifest in the vast majority of cases, the effort in this direc- tion was more and more relaxed, and the attention of teachers for the most part became confined simply to the production of facility in the employment of grammatical forms. In numerous schools on the continent of Europe the practice of speaking Latin after a fashion is stiii maintained. The famous Colloquies of Corderius, familiar to everyone, at least by name, were constructed for the purpose of cultivating the common use of Latin. They consist of dialogues supposed to be carried on between lads at school ; sometimes between a master and his scholars. The talk turns, of course, on ordinary school matters, and occasionally on domes- tic arrangements ; and we get in them momentary glimpses of con- temporary home life in France. Corderius is the Latinized form of the French proper name Cordier. His name in full, unlat- inized, was Mathurin Cordier. He lived from 1479 to 1564. He was once employed as an instructor in the College de la Marche, at Paris, and one of his pupils there was no less a person- age than John Calvin, who afterwards sought to express his sense of gratitude to his former teacher by dedicating to him, in dignified Latin, his Commentary on the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. I remember well being drilled in Corderius by Mr. Armour, in the Home District Grammar School here in Toronto, many years ago ; and of all our manuals, it was the first, I think, to awaken in one's childish mind some actual interest in the Latin language. The interlocutors in the Colloquies bear such names as Duran- dus, Genasius, Sandrotus, Orosius, Soterius, Myconius, Clemens, Felix, Audax, etc. Corderius translated into French the Moral Distichs of Cato : '* Les Distiques Latins qu'on attribue k Caton." In the Colloquies, accordingly, we have repeated allusions to Cato, f-l^ t i ■ I I ! IN > .! 48 meaning Dionysius Cato. Thus, in a dialogue between Arnoldus and Besonius, one asks the other : '* Quid est stultitia ?" and the other replies : " Si Catonem diligenter evolvas, invenies istud quod quseris." In another between Velusatus and Stephanus, we have Stephanus saying : " Anno superiori, in Catone didici : Retine spem; spes una non relinquet hominem morte;" and Velusatus ' replying : *' Fecisti bene quod retinueris, nam egregia est sententia, et digna homine Christiano." In another dialogue one remarks : "Non est serviendum voluptati, sed consulendum est valetudini;" and the other answers: "Memini carmen Catonis in eam senten- tiam." In one colloquy between Paulus and Timotheus, a contest is proposed, to recite responsively all the lines contained in a book of Cato, somewhat after the fashion of rival shepherds in a pastoral of Virgil. An umpire, named Solomon, is chosen to judge between them. "Quid estis dicturi?" Solomon inquires. "Tertium librum Moralium Distichorum," Timotheus replies. Solomon rejoins: "Nonne dicetis alterni?" and T. answers, " Scilicet : uterque suum distichum. Incipiamne ?" asks T., to which the reply from P. is : '* vEquum est, quia tu revocatus k me: I seem to have preserved two copies of •• Corderius :" one, the edition of Samuel Loggon, dated in 1830, but then issued for the twenty-first time; the other, that of John Clarke, dated 1818, but first published some years previously. Loggon sets forth on his title-page that his edition is "better adapted to the capacities of youth, and fitter for beginners in the Latin tongue than any edition of the 'Colloquies,' or any other book yet published." The method in Clarke's book is to place a rather free translation in a column by the side of the text in each page. To this Log- gon objects that " as the Latin and English are both in one page, I think they (that is, Clarke's books generally, for he had published 'Suetonius' and other authors in a similar way) are not proper for schools ; nay, almost as improper as if published with interlinear versions, which method of printing books for schools Mr. Clarke himself objects against. Where the English and Latin are both on the same page (one remarks, whom Loggon quotes)^ it cannot be well known whether the scholar has been diligent in getting his lesson, or has been idle, the English construing being before his eyes while he is saying the lesson to the master. To which I shall add (Loggon himself with considerable ndivetb \, 49 observes) that my experience shews us that little boys have artful cunning enough to .heat themselves and their master, when they have so fair an opportunity to do it." From Clarke's preface I extract a passage or two with which no one can help sympathizing, though happily not so applicable to schools in our day as they were in 1818, the date of the " Corderius" before us: " The little progress made in our schools," says Mr. Clarke in 18 18, or earlier, "the first four or five years which boys spend there, is really amazing, and would naturally tempt a person of any reflection to suspect there must be some very great flaw, some notorious mis- management, in the common method of proceeding. How else comes it to pass that the French tongue is attained to a good degree of perfection in half the time which is spent in the Latin tongue to no manner of purpose ? . . A boy shall be brought in two years to read and speak the French well ; whereas, in double time or more, spent at a Grammar School, he shall be so far from talking and writing Latin, that he shall not be able to read half- a-dozen lines in the easiest classic author you can put into his hands. . . I know not how it is," proceeds Mr. Clarke; "we have blundered on in such a way of teaching the Latin tongue, as proves a very great misfortune to all boys, on account of that prodigious loss of time it occasions, but especially to such as are not designed for the University, and therefore cannot stay long enough at school to attain to the reading of a Latin author, in that tedious, lingering way of proceeding observed in our schools. The six or seven years they frequently spend there is time abso- lutely thrown away, since almost double the space is necessary for the attainment in the common method of proceeding." The ortho- dox Grammar School Master will of course stand aghast, or profess to do so, at the remedy which Mr. Clarke proposes for the evils complained of, although, I fancy, students very generally take the law into their own hands and have recourse to it : as witness the success of Bohn's Classical Library and numerous respectable publications of the same class. " Translations, therefore," Mr. Clarke finally exclaims, " translations, I say, as literal as possible (and presented as in his " Corderius " or " Suetonius," on each page side by side with the text), are absolutely and indispensa- bly necessary in our schools for the ease both of master and scho- lar, and the speedy progress of the latter in his business; for 7 I w \\ ' t l\ M 1 1 n 1 l! ; !l. SO while t. e boys have their words all ready at hand, and can, with a cast of their eye, set themselves a-going when they are at a stop, they will proceed with ease and delight, and make a much quicker progress than they would otherwise do." He then proceeds to cite John Locke as agreeing with his views in this regard ; *' who was a gentleman," he says, " of too much sagacity not to take notice of this defect in the vulgar method." I have another specimen of Mr. Clarke's labours — his *' Lives of the First Twelve Caesars," by Suetonius, an interesting book intended for maturer minds than those which would be attracted by his " Corderius." My copy of Locke's " Thoughts Concerning Education," dated 1806, has a beautiful frontispiece by Uwins, shewing a mother instructing a child, possibly in La' in, in accordance with an idea thrown out by Locke at page 212, where he says : ** Whatever stir there is made about getting of Latin as the great and difficult busi- ness, a child's mother may teach it him herself, if she will but spend two or three hours m a day with him, and make him read the Evangelists in Latin to her : for she need but buy a Latin Testa- ment, and having got some body to mark the last syllable but one where it is long, in words above two syllables (which is enough to regulate her pronunciation and accenting the words), read daily in the Gospels ; and then let her avoid understanding them in Latin if she can. And when she understands the Evangel- ists in Latin, let her in the same manner read '^sop's Fables,'" Locke directs, "and so proceed on to 'Eutropius,' 'Justin,' and other such books." And then, to shew that he is not proposing anything Quixotic or Utopian, he adds : " I do not mention this as an imagination of what I fancy a mother may do, but as of a thiag I have known done, and the Latin tongue got with ease this way." Of course, in what is said both by Locke and Clarke, the intention simply is that everything should be done to prevent disgust with a difficult subject at the outset — that beginners should have every help afforded them — and so the time will be likely all the more speedily to arrive when a real taste and fondness for the study will develop itself and conduct to a life- long appreciation and enjoyment of it. It is curious to note that neither to Locke nor Clarke did the previous question as to the essentiality of initi- ating every English lad in the Latin language suggest itself, so paramount was the prevailing scholastic tradition on this head. ■ r t I' I 51 But to return to " Corderius." Before parting with him I desire to record here a portion of Calvin's dedication, still to be seen at the opening of his "Commentary on the Epistle to the Thessalonians." It is addressed to " Maturinus Corderitis, a man of eminent piety and learning, Principal of the College of Lausanne ; " and the exordium reads as follows, shorn, however, of its grace by being translated from its original Latin : " It is befitting that you should come in for a share in my labours, inasmuch as, under your auspices, having entered on a course of study, I made proficiency at least so far as to be pre- pared to profit in some degree the Church of God. When my father," Calvin continues, " sent me, while yet a boy, to Paris, after I had simply tasted the first elements of the Latin tongue. Providence so ordered it that I had for a short time the privilege of having you as my instructor, that I might be taught by you the true method of learning, in such a way that I might be prepared afterwards to make somewhat better proficiency. . . . And it is with good reason that I acknoMedge myself indebted to you for such progress as has since been made. And this I was desirous to testify to posterity, that if any advantage shall accrue to them from my writings, they shall know that ^i has in some degree originated with you." With this tribute of John Calvin to his old tutor Corderius, we may compare St. Jerome's grateful expressions in regard to his early instructor Donatus, author of the famous Treatise on the Eight Parts of Speech ; and Bishop Andrewes' recollection of his former master, Richard Mulcaster, whose portrait the Bishop kept ever hanging before him in his study. I THE DELPHIN CLASSICS. In our old District Grammar School at York, Aodie Toronto, a Del- phin edition of an^ j-.atin author always drew to itself a peculiar, almost a superstitious regard. It was vaguely supposed, quite without reason, I am sure, in most cases, to give its possessor a special advantage ; and the class-companion in whose hands it was seen, was eyed somewhat enviously. But it was not often that Delphin classics were found amongst us. When one did appear, it was probably a waif from the early school-da /s of a father or grandfather, routed out from a pile of half-forgotten volumes in some out-of-the-way corner, to meet the sudden necessity of a son or graadson. The limited stock of school-books on the shelves of the Messrs. Lesslie and Sons, the 8 •^-m-- — - w wi n" ' ■ ! ■ : 1 ; f , i ' i 1 i 1' t ; ;l 't 1 .'I i I J > Is ■I Mi iii; r! Mi- ! ! t t ;! 52 only booksellers of the place, would sometimes run out, in mid-winter perhaps, or at some other inopportune time ; and a Caesar, Sallust, or Virgil, in the common shape and style, suited to the rough handling of the school-boy, could not be procured, though urgently needed. Then the dust-covered debris of an old settler's home here and there would be re-examined, and a Delphin has been known to turn up, which was immediately put to use by a young school-boy scion of the family as best he could, quickly finding, however, that an edition less pretentious was much to be preferred for his purpose, both on account of its greater portability, and also on account of its freedom from a mass of matter which, while claiming to be a help, was only an embarrassment to him in his then condition of knowledge. When I first became the owner of a Delphin classic, I remember I felt rather proud. It was a Virgil given me by an old friend and schoolfellow, George Dupont Wells, son of Col. Wells, of Davenport House, whence our Davenport Hill and Davenport Station have their names. Early biassed in regard to this particular edition of the Latin writers, and somewhat blindly so, too, as will also, no doubt, be seen, I seldom failed, at a later period, when passing a book-stall or other chance assemblage of promiscuous literature, to recognize quickly a volume of that series, and to secure it, when it was to be had for a trifling sum. This will account for the accumulation of eight or nine Delphin specimens in my collection of a "Boy's Books;" and it is a short survey of these, or rather of the prefaces, epistles-dedicatory, and editorial introductions to these, that I now present, which I hope may have a certain value with the student of educational progress amongst us. As in the brief reviews and descriptions of books already laid before you in these papers, so again now, I make no pretension to new discoveries. But I claim originality and independence in my treatment of the subject, as I do not remember ever seeing an account given of the English classical educational method, in its early stage, with a catena of illustrations directly drawn from a collection of the actual manuals and editions used at the time, by the teachers and learners of the period referred to. I purpose to explain (i) What the Delphin classics were ; (2) Who the personage was for whom, in the first instance, the series was pre- pared ; (3) Who the scholars and others were who either suggested or took part in their preparation ; and (4) to give some samples of what they say of themselves in their dedicatory epistles and prefaces. I 'I 53 I. What the Delphin classics were. — The Delphin classics were editions of the principal Latin writers, expressly prepared for the Prince Royal of Prance in the time of Louis XIV. The elde^itt :;on of the King of France, from A.D. 1343 down to 1830, was, as you know, styled the Dauphin, in Latin Delphinus, i.e.. Dolphin, the fish so named being the crest or else a prominent part of the armorial bearings of the prince, just as the three ostrich plumes are with us the familiar cognizance of the Prince of Wales. In 1343, Humbert II., the liege lord of the Province of Dauphind, along the left bank of the Rhone, was the cause of thf^ death of his only child, by letting him fall from a window in his castle, whilst playing with him. In his remorse, he decided to sell his principality and betake himself to the laonastic life. He disposed of Dauphind, therefore, to King Philip V. of France for one hundred thousand gold florins, on condition that the Province should not be absolutely merged in the French king' dom, but always kept as a distinct appanage of the eldest son of the King, who should be regarded as its feudal lord, and be styled, as Humbert and his predecessor had been, the Dauphin, from the charge of a Dolphin in his shield of arms. And this was accordingly done, with the consent of the Emperor of Germany, Humbert's suzerian. This name, Dauphin, Dolphin, gave rise, of course, to puns and conceits among the minstrels and heraldic artists. " Pucelle or puzzel. Dolphin or dog-fish," Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Talbot, in I Hen. VI. i.5, and again in All's Well, ii. 3 ; in " Why, your dolphin is not lustier," the context shows that a play is intended on the title of the French king's eldest son ; whence we also incidentally gather that in Shakespeare's time, to the English ear, Dauphin and Dolphin were identical in sound, the / in the latter word not being heard. In the Numismatics, too, of the time ; in the fine historic medals struck by authority, in France, on every important occasion, and in books on that subject, dolphins, of course, abound, represented in the usual conventional way. Now, for the Grand Dauphin of the Grand Monarque of France, Louis XIV., it was determined that the common saying, " there is no royal road to learning," should be disproved. For him a royal road was to be "built." The hills were to be levelled; the valleys raised; rough places to be made smooth, and crooked paths straight, along the route which was to be travelled by him, at least so far as the principal standard Latin writers were concerned. If not every- MiM i I Mil i i ; '! ■ ^ i ;'l ► 1 i :, I !■ >l I h 54 where strewn with flowers, the whole way was to be made as agreeable and as direct as possible. The Delphin classics, accordingly, will be found to consist of the texts of the chief Latin authors, with an explicatio or running comment at the side of each page; while below, in double columns, notes are subjoined, on every word and expression requiring elucidation. A preface or dedicatory epistle, by the editor, generally precedes, with a life of the author; and at the end of each volume there is always a very minute verbal index. The superiority of the series was expected to arise, first, from the special aid supplied by the explicatio at the side of each page, which was intended to give the exact sense of the text, but in other and clearer words.' Secondly, from the notes, in which utility alone was considered, and all ostenta- tion of wide reading and rhetoric eschewed. Thirdly, from the indexes, which were unusually rich and full. The theory of the Delphin scholiasts was excellent, but in carrying it into effect they made one mistake, which you yourselves will presently discern. My specimens of the Delphin classics here shown are all in the octavo form. Their appearance would be much more imposing and magnificent if we had them before us in the quarto shape, as they were originally issued from the royal printing presses by order of the king, for the use of the royal pupil. Sets of the quarto Delphins are now rare even in France, and fetch a large price whenever they appear in the market. In 1792 a set bound in Russia leather was sold in Paris for 3,250 French livres. At the present bibliomaniacal period, the sum realized would be larger. TJie whole set consists, I believe, of sixty-five volumes. An edition in octavo subsequently appeared in Paris, and it is this edition which the English publishers have reproduced. In the series was also included Pierre Danet's Dictionarium Antiquitatum Romanarum et Graecarum in usum Delphini, in two volumes quarto. II. The personage for whom the series was prepared. — As to the royal youth for whom this elaborate apparatus was contrived for mastering the contents of the Latin authors, his name was Louis, and his birth, on the ist of November, 1661, is commemorated on a medal figured in the Medailles sur les principaux Evbnements du Regne de Louis le Grand, avec des Explications historiques, par I'Acaddmie Royale des Medailles et des Inscriptions. A Paris : d'Imprimerie Royale, 1702. The medal is inscribed Natalis Delphini, " the birthday of the Dauphin." On its reverse is a winged figure with a babe in its arms, encircled with the words, "Felix Galliarum Genius." iti' 55 This Dauphin never came to the throne, although he lived to be the father of three sons. Neither did any one of these three sons reign J but the eldest suiviving son of one of them did, as Louis XV. In the Numismatic seies just named, the marriage in 1680 of our Dauphin, at the age of nii.eteen, to Anna Maria Christina of Bavaria, is commemorated. The nedal shows on the reverse the heads of himself and his bride, posc'es en regard, as the French phrase is, i.e., face to face; " cooing and billing, like Philip and Mary on a shilling," as Butler speaks. Then in 1682 a medal follows, celebrating the birth of a son to the young princely couple ; the legend is Ludovicus, Dux Burgundiae, Ludovici Delphini Filius, Ludovici Magni Nepos, with the addition Nova Spes Imperii. In 1683 another medal follows, struck for a second son, Philippus, Dux Andegarvensis [due d' Angers], with the legend ^ternitas Imperii Gallici; and once more, in 1686, there is a like commemoration of a third son, Carolus dux Bituri- censis [due de Berry], surrounded by the inscription, Felicitas DomOs Augustse. I happen to have in my cabinet a contemporary bronze medal of the Louis XIV. series, which I produce. On the obverse we see a fine characteristic portrait of Louis XIV., encircled by the epigraph Ludovicus Magnus ; while on the reverse we have a portrait of our Dauphin, whom the artist has made the alter idem of his father, with the heads of his three sons below ; all with childish countenances, and long-flowing hair after the style of the blood royal of France. Our Dauphin was thus early initiated in family cares, and probably gave little heed to classical matters after the dismissal of his tutors. In 1687 he is sent forth by his father to receive '* his baptism of fire" (to use Louis Napoleon's words in regard to his ill-fated son), on a real battle-field ; and he was actively engaged in the campaigns which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In the same Medallic History of the reign of Louis XIV., he is represented as offering quite an armful of mural crowns to his father, emblematic of German cities surrendered to his arms, that is, to those of his generals, along the Rhine. This legend surrounds the group : " XX Urbes ad Rhenum k Delphino uno mense subactse ;" accompanied by the further inscrip- tion, flattering to Louis, " Documentorum Merces," i.e., Rewards of Paternal Instruction and Example. III. The scholars and others who took part in the inception or comple- tion of the series. — The committee, or syndicate, to use a term just now much in vogue, appointed by Louis XIV. for the formal edu- I ^t I t!li' •H'S Hi i ii. ■ . . i. 1 ' ;i, ,' ., 1 56 cation of his son, consisted of the following persons : the Duke de Montausier, Governor of the Prince ; Bossuet, Bishop of Condom, Praeceptor; and Peter Daniel Huet, Sup-preceptor. Of these, as being intimately connected either with the inception or the execution of the scheme of the Delphin classics, I am now to give some account. {a) The Duke de Montausier. — We should scarcely have expected to meet with such a man as Charles de St. Maure, Duke of Mon- tausier, in the palace of Versailles. We must conceive of him as resembling in character our own Iron Duke : resembling him perhaps even in person, to some extent: a thin, spare, grey man, with the bearing of a self-possessed and high-minded soldier; stern of aspect, but with eyes at once benevolent, observant and animated. He was an incorruptible man, and one who could not flatter. The bourgeoisie of Paris used to say, "We can trust Montausier." Our modem poet sings of Wellington : * ' He never sold the truth to serve the hour, Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power ; He let the turbid stream of rumour flow Through either babbling world of high and low." And again : '• Truth-teller was our English Alfred named; Tiuth-lover was our English Duke. Whatever record leaps to light, He never shall be shamed." Montausier was of the stamp of Wellington. The frivolous people about the court did not like him. They mischievously put it aboijH; that Molifere meant Montausier when he drew the Misanthrope in his comedy of that name. Montausier met th^ir tattle as Socrates met the fun of Aristophanes, when avowedly caricaturing him in the play of " The Clouds." Montausier visited the theatre when " The Misanthrope" was performed, to see himself on the stage, as the frivolous world declared, and he came away Well satisfied with Mo- lifere's delineation, and avowing that he only wished he were more like the character represented. The Misanthrope of Molifere had, in fact, a moral drift like the Timon of Athens of our Shakespeare. •' We know him out of Shakespeare's Art, And those fine curses that he spoke — The old Timon with his noble heart, That strongly loathing, greatly broke." It speaks well for Louis XIV. that he selected such a man as 57 Montausier to preside over the early training of his son. Louis was as well aware as any one that he was surrounded by sycophants, and that simple, unadulterated truth was seldom to be heard in his presence. His conscience told him this was a vicious state of things, however pleasant to his own pride, and self-love might be the adulation offered* He determined, therefore, that his son, at least, should have a true man near him ; no mere complaisant Polonius, but a straightforward, honest and useful adviser. It was Montausier who frankly told Louis, when he declined to receive the dedication of a book from the learned Madame Dacier because she was a Huguenot, that the King of France, the Augustus of the age, the supreme patron of literature, ought not to be a bigot. His coolness and decision, on one occasion at least, had a wholesome effect on the Prince. From some quick gesture on the part of the Duke, while addressing him, the Prince foolishly imagined that he had received a blow from his governor. "How, sir!" passionately exclaimed the Prince, " do you strike me? Where are my pistols?" The Duke turns to a domestic and orders the Dauphin's pistols to be brought. Then, handing them to him, he calmly observes, " And now, let us see what you are going to do with them 1" The good sense of the hasty boy led him to apologize. The Duke's letter to the Prince, on the expiration of his office as governor, contained these words : " If you are an honest man, you will love me ; if you are not, you will hate me ; and I shall console myself." And again, at a later period, when the Dauphin was being extravagantly lauded for the capture of Philipsburg, he wrote thus : " I do not compliment you, Monseigneur, upon the taking of Philipsburg, because you had an army, an excellent park of artillery, and Vauban ; but I rejoice with you because you have shown yourself liberal, generous and humane, putting forward the services of others, and forgetting your own. It is upon this that I have to compliment you." It is evident, had Mon- tausier bequeathed to the Bourbons a Del Principe, as Machiavelli did to the Medicis, it would have essentially differed from Machi- avelli's. v It was to the Duke of Montausier that the germ-idea of the Del- phin classics was due. During the campaigns in which he had taken part when a youthful officer, he had desired to have near him the standard Latin writers for his own use during hours of leisure. But he found that in order fully to understand and enjoy his reading, it *r T]- 91 IH t'ii i 1 ■ ! 1 ■ ;l ■ P ;! 1 i II ir ''I I 'I 1 li i r. r ^ii I; ;i: ;i j 58 was needful to have at hand a huge pile of other books for frequent reference. Hence he thought there might be an edition of the Latin classics so contrived that each volume should be, as it were, self- contained : supplied, that is, at every page with all needful elucidation and comment. This would be a boon to young officers of a studious, turn, who at the same time must not encumber themselves with bulky camp-equipage. And now, when the duty devolved on him of study- ing the necessities of his ward the Dauphin, it struck him that an edition of the L4tin authors, of the compact and convenient kind contemplated, would be exactly the thing for him. The King is pleased wUh the idea. Colbert, the Prime Minister, himself a student of letters, heartily co-operates. The project is made to take shape ; the publication is begun. It took twenty years, however, to complete the scheme. (d) Bossuet — The preceptor-in-chief of the Prince, under Mon- tausier, was, as we have heard, Bossuet — ^Jacque Benigne Bossuet, afterwards the famous bishop of Meaux. He was one of the most learned and eloquent of all the ecclesiastics of France. Prior to his appointment as chief instructor of the Dauphin he had been given the bishopric of Condom, in Gascony, by Louis XIV. This honour he now resigned, receiving in exchange an abbey, or the revenues of an abbey, and gave himself wholly to his new duties. He appears to have taken up the general-knowledge department of the Prince's, education. He compiled expressly for his use a manual of Anatomy or Physiology ; also a treatise on Logic ; and a summary of Political Principles, expressed in the words of Scripture. His famous discourse on Universal History, from the Creation to the time of Charlemagne, was composed for the Dauphin, to whom the first chapter is eloquently addressed. There was printed at Paris in 1747 a History of France, written by the Dauphin himself, compiled from the lectures of Bos- suet, and revised by him. Among the printed letters of Bossuet there is one addressed to Pope Innocent XL, in which he describes the system pursued by him and his colleagues in the education of the Prince. All readers are familiar with the fine countenance of Bossuet, so frank, noble, and benevolent, from the excellent portraits of him that abound. (c) Huet. — The chief labour, however, practically, of subjecting the Dauphin to verbal drill, according to the educational ideas of the time» fell to the lot of Peter Daniel Huet, or Huetius as his name usually 59 appears in Latin. Huet was the most erudite scholar of the day, devoted to study and books from his infancy. " Almost before I was weaned," he says in his autobiography, "I felt envious of those whom I saw employed in reading." But though thus bookish from his youth, " he mingled," we are told, " the accomplishments of a gentleman with the literature of a scholar. He visited the polite, was very neat in his dress, and studious of pleasing ; if he did not excel in dancing," his biographer says, " he had few equals a nong his acquaintance in running, leaping, swimming, riding and fencing." In his Pensies Diverses, or Huetiana, as the book is commonly styled, he shows that he was a man of the widest knowledge, and very profound thought. I note at one place in his Pensies a mention made of Canada, and a fact in its Flora which, as here put, will be probably new to us. " In that country," he says, " the wood of the trees is so impregnated with salt that the lye made from their ashes is used in laundry operations. The virgin lands of that country," he adds, " also yield a hundred-fold." Huet conducted the classical studies of the Dauphin from 1670 to 1680. He had been previously invited to superintend the education of the young king of Sweden, Charles Gustavus, suc- cessor to Christina ; and Christina herself tried to lure him to her side when resident in Rome after her .abdication ; but having had some experience of Chrrtina during a visit to Stockholm in 1652 in company with his friend Bochart, he declined both offers. Montausier and Bossuet committed to him the general editorship of the Delphin Classics. He selected the forty scholars who were respectively to an- notate the forty authors included in the scheme ; and he gives hints of the difficulty which he had in finding suitable men. He did not undertake the annotation of any author himself; but he completed what M.Faye,one of the sub-editors, dying,had left unfinished, on the Astronomica of Manilius ; and Weber, in the Preface to his Corpus Poetarum Lattnarum, observes that Huet's notes are the only valuable part of the Delphin edition of Manilius ; Weber at the same time takes exception to Huet's treatment of Scaliger. He thus writes: " Ed. Fayi, in us. Delphini, Paris. 1679, 4to, nullius per se usiis, nisi quod Danielis Huetii prseclaras animadverss, eas tamen plenas iniquse in Scaiigerum obstrectationis, additas habet." (In the Del- phin series, it is to be observed that Lucan was not included. The Pharsalia of that poet is an invective against tyranny and a panegyric of liberty, and contains sentiments not in harmony with Louis XIV.'s :l >l I i, i il 'J !; itn Ii lif ' ' ' 'i •I 60 ideas. It is singular, however, that Lucan should have been rejected on this account, when Juvenal and Persius, after a little expurgation, had passed muster.) Huet lived at Court, busily employed from early dawn each day, for ten years ; when his occupation was brought to an end by the marriage of his young pupil ; an event which greatly disconcerted him. A favourite project of Huet's had been to combine together into one all the Indexes of the Delphin Classics ; and to compile a Lexicon out of them, of the Latin tongue, in which authority should be quoted for the use of every word in the language at successive eras, a plan evidently resembling that pursued by Richardson in his Dictionary of the English Language. '* This General Index," Huet says, " would have traced out the exact limits of the Latin language ; and one would have been able to see at a glance, with certainty, the birth and age of each word, its uses and significance, its rise, duration, decay, extinction. Such a solid boon had never yet been conferred on the Latin tongue, nor any such guarantee been established against the corruption of ignorance and barbarism. But the greatness of the undertaking and the slowness of those assisting in it, and finally," Huet regretfully adds, " the marriage of ' Monsieur le Dauphin,' bringing his studies to an end, arrested us all in mid-career, and put a stop to the great work." This comprehensive Lexicon would have remedied the defect that Gibbon and others have pointed out in regard to the copious Indexes of the Delphin Classics, viz., that instead of enumerating how many times a very trivial word may have been used by an author, they should rather have aimed to indicate the delicacies and idioms of the language as used by that author. But this, it appears to have been forgotten by the critics, was the function of the interpretation and notes appearing on each page of the Delphin Classics. As in duty bound, Huet composed an Epithalamium on the prince's marriage, assuming on the occasion a joyousness which he did not feel. Huet wrote many Latin poems in the ordinary heroic metre, which are preserved ; amongst them is an ihteresting record of his journey to Sweden (Iter Suecicum), in imitation of Horace's Journey to Brundusium, Iter Brundusianum, Sat. i. 5. But the Epithalamium, the Carmen Nuptiale Ludovico Delphino et Victorise Bavaricse [the medal of which I have spoken gives the princess's name as Anna 6i rejected argation, lach day, 1 by the rted him. into one dcon out e quoted IS, a plan lictionary , " would and one the birth duration, ferred on d against iatness of I finally," Dauphin,' ind put a )uld have ;d out in viz., that may have indicate It author. , was the :h page of le prince's d not feel, tre, which is journey ourney to lalamiuni, Eiricse [the as Anna Maria Christina], is an ode in twenty-eight stanzas, each consisting of five short lines in a lively lyric measure. He vividly describes the prince's impatience at the long delay in the princess's progress from Bavaria to Paris. But at length he learns she has crossed the French border : Virgo adest ! niveo pede Francicos super aggerc: Fertur ; et timidis tame a Gressibus cupidum petfi Lenta nupta maritbin. Drums and other martial instruments of music resound at Versailles, and Marly ; the flocks at rural Meudon are disturbed. At last the prince, reclining on Tyrian couch, himself beholds her, and Hue ades ! properos move, Inquit, 6 mea lux, gradus ; Longa quid trahis otia Enecas cupidum tui Cur diu remorare ? AAer other stanzas which it is needless to interpret, he winds up his ode with a prediction which has not been fulfilled ; but which is curious to read as a reminiscence of an aspiration of the hour, in France at least ; an aspiration of Louis XIV. Huet foretells that the first-born of his late pupil is the " coming man," destined to drive out the Turk from Europe : and reinstate Jerusalem as the centre and metropolis of the Christian world. "Ere the chariot of the moon," thus Huet vaticinates, "shall have ten times accomplished its circuit, another Delphis," as he mystically expresses himself, another Dauphin />., " will appear on the scene, through whom the whole world will be filled with hope. For as soon as he shall have reached man's estate, and his brow be able to bear the helmet's weight, the gore of the Ottoman will stain the plains of Thrace, and the waves of the Hellespont. Hide, O Turk, thy turbaned head beyond the Cyanean straits. To the bays of the Tauric Chersonese and the extreme shores of the Euxine, let thy race depart : until Zion, victorious over all nations, bearing forward, under the auspices of a French leader, the glorious standard of the Cross, shall give sacred law to the world ! " While residing at Court and occupied with the tuition of the prince, Huet found time to compose his Demonstratio Evangelica, a treatise filling a good-sized folio, and inscribed Ad Sevenissimum Delphinum. Milli I ;-:■]! ' t. l:' . ' i;-i'i 1-^ ^ i —i 63 He wrote also his Censura Philosophise Cartesianae, which he dedi- cated to the Duke of Montausier. While engaged in the education of the prince he was still a layman ; but one theologically inclined. At the late age of forty-six he entered Holy Orders, and was presented by Louis XIV. first with the Abbey of Aulnay, and secondly with the bishopric of Avranches. Huet did not hold his bishopric long, though he is still usually spoken of as bishop of Avranches. It was of Huet when bishop of Avranches that the story was told of an old lady of the diocese who, having been several times denied admittance to the bishop's presence on the plea that he was engaged in his studies, rather tartly observed, that it would be better if the higher powers would select for Avranches a bishop who had finished his studies. Again Huet was transferred (by the special favour of Louis) to the Abbey of Fon'tenay, near his native place, Caen, where he hoped to have liberty and leisure for his various researches ; but about two years after, he found it expedient to remove to a House of the Jesuits in Paris, where for twenty years he busied himself with criticism on the Vulgate and other kindred studies. He died there in 1 731, at the age of 91. A considerable portion of his library is still preserved i .1 the National Library at Paris. Huet's portrait shows a countenance free from that expression of narrowness which from his habits we might have expected to see. The nose is finely formed and longish, as is the whole face, which is serious, with thoughtful eyes and deliberative mouth. He wears the flowing wig which we see on the heads of our Charles II. and James II., whose style of countenance Huet's somewhat resembles. The predicted son and heir of Huet's pupil never came to the throne, nor was he the father of the next king. But his brother was, that brother also dying before the throne was vacant. This next king was Louis XV., a sickly child of five years of age, motherless as well as fatherless at the time of the accession. Again, of this king the son did not succeed, but that son's son did, at the age of twenty. This was Louis XVI. Thus with children given them for princes, and with babes to rule over them, the French people were at length tormented into their great Revolution, which was simply or mainly an effort of nature on the part of the nation to throw off from itself the incubus of the Bourbon race. Alas 1 for those on whom came finally the woes earned by a dynasty 1 woes equal to those at which the audiences of Greek theatres of old used to shudder. 63 {d) Samples of Dedications and Prefaces. — I am now to give a sample or two of the prefatory matter to be s«en at the opening of most of the volumes of the Delphin series, in which the editor makes his bow to the Prince or the Public, and has something to say for himself. We shall hence readily learn the conditions and influences under which the Delphin scholiasts performed their task ; and we shall perceive, however great may have been the repugnance of the severe Montausier to anything like adulation, that repugnance had not much weight with the annotators, in their Dedications at least. It was, of course, well known that, after all, such incense was pleasant in the nostrils of the divinities at Versailles, and the Dii minores who environed the prince. (i.) Terence, Camus, Leonard. — Terence appears to have been the first of the series issued. Nicholas Camus, J. U. D. (Juris Utriusque Doctor), Doctor of Canon and Civil Law, was the scholar who had been appointed to annotate Terence ; but he died before his task was completed. Of this particular Camus I read of no other literary production. But, like others of the same name, he was, to judge from his degree, a' gentleman of the robe. Frederick Leonard was Camus' successor ; and his name is subscribed to the Epistle Dedica- tory. The terms of the Epistle are these : To the most serene Dauphin of the Gauls, son of Louis the Great. (" Of the Gauls " is a dignified expression for the whole of the French dominions; as we have " Of all the Russias" for the Russian possessions, and " Britanniarum " for the British Empire.) *' With due reverence I present to you, O most serene Dauphin, Terence, just issued, with notes and com- ments; an offering, as I hope, not unacceptable, for the two-fold reason: the volume has been compiled expressly for yourself: and already this species of agreeable literature is regarded by you with especial pleasure. How greatly you have esteemed this particular poet from your earliest childhood, is as widely known as it is honourable to yourself. You have been long wont to turn over the pages of these plays by night and by day ; to express fittingly, beyond your years, your appreciation of the humour and wit everywhere scattered about therein, and to equal by the gracefulness of your recitals of passages therein the beauty of Terence's own style. I have deemed it right, then, that this author should be inscribed with your royal name, as being the one you first studied of all the Latin writers : so that by your favour and protection you may make some return *, W* ■Mi ^1 I f mmmmmmmmmm ;.t : "i ill ;i ^.i i 1 ' i 1 i! ;i 111 ■ ;t '■ ; I III I i i i 1 mh.. 64 for the benefit and delight he has afforded you. You are already, most serene Dauphin, one qf those who estimate talent in proportion to its amount ; and uphold the reputation of learned men, not by a con- ventional patronage but by an independent judgment. Hence it happens, that to have pleased you er.e yet you had attained to man- hood, is a great recommendation to an author and a sure augury of the future approbation of the public. This result has been brought about by the careful training of your childhood. For although there centre in you whatever gifts fortune or nature can bestow en the most exalted princes, — splendour of birth, distinction of race as descended from a long line of kings, a comeliness of person corres- ponding to your high rank, a lively and prompt natural disposition, a wonderful felicity in respect of mental endowment and manners ; a manliness peculiar to yourself conjoined to that other which you copy from your father : — nevertheless your education has conferred on you something even greater than all these distinctions, namely, wisdom. It has fallen ^o you to be bom as only the greatest kinij;& are born, and to be educated as only the best kings are educated." (When we recall the general impression of most people in regard to the Court of Louis XIV., what r.cw follows might be deemed the out- come of a hardihood more than forensic, on the part of Frederick Leonard ; but we have to remember that it was not until after the death of the good and virtuous Queen Maria Theresa that the Court of Louis became so very scandalous.) " Was there ever in any court," Leonard boldly asks, *' a more religious discipline ? To revere God and your parents; to observe moderation in all things ; to spurn adulation ; to render to every one the praise due to him ; to receive every one with benignity and liberality; to be diligent in the cultiva- tion of letters, and earnestly to embrace every means of attaining to the highest accomplishments; — these are the admonitions of wisdom to which you willingly listen and spontaneously conform. Hence I am easily led to hope that you will not disdain this trivial offering, such as it is : your humanity, which is of the highest — your love of literary study, which is ever nourished and increased by daily use, will not permit you to do so. Accept then, most serene Dauphin, the comedies of a most charming poet, wherein may be found the choicest illustrations of Latin speech, and also a living pictuie of human manners, together with the polished pleasantries, not solely of this particular comic writer, but of those leading men 6s of the Roman commonwealth, Lselius and Scipio [who were tradi- tionally believed to liave inspired and revised the plays of Terence]. May the Fates long preserve you to the King and to this realm; and make you equal to Louis the Great, your sire — greater they cannot make you. Such are the prayers, most serene Dauphin, of your most humble servant, Frederick Leonard." This might probably be deemed enough of Frederick Leonard ; but as his Preface, which immediately follows the Epistle Dedicatory, gives a general account of the scheme of the Delphin classics, I am tempted to translate it also ; for, although we are already acquainted with most of the particulars; yet presented to us herein the tone and under the excitement of the moment, the narrative will probably prove characteristic and curious. Leonard thus begins : [it will be observed that scholars in those days were trained to be rather adroit rhetoricians.] "I shall not delay you, O benevolent reader, with unseasonable laudations of Terence or any high-flown commendations of the commentary now placed before you. With the one you are already sufficiently well acquainted : as to the other, it is for your judgment to pronounce. For neither am I the man to ask you to prejudge for the sake of a magniloquent speech ; nor, were I to make such a demand, are you the man blindly to assent to it. Of this simply I wish to advise you : the cause why, and the design with which, so many Latin authors provided with comments and notes are just now simultaneously ^coming forth to the public view ; and what is likely to be the future use to the republic of letters of these results of stu^y : so that the rationale of the entire undertaking may be clear to you, and I may be regarded in the light of an ex^ ounder, rather than in that of a mere eulogist." [He then begins his account of the inception and progress of the Delphin series ad ovo.] " The instant," he says, " that Louis the Great received from the bosom of his most august queen, a Dauphin, he believed it to be a duty at once incum- bent on him, to act both as 1 A ones ; set free those which were trammelled by the laws and measures of verse. This, however, was to be done in such a way that the com- mentary was not, by too great license, to run into paraphrase ; nor yet was it to omit anything likely to assist the understanding of tyros, the words of the authors themselves being used when those were sufficiently well known ; but easier ones to be substituted when they wei not so readily to be comprehended. Notes also were to be added, calculated, wiuiout ostentation of learning, to throw light on obscure metaphors, points of antique custom and ancient mythology and history. For in these annotations it was permitted neither to obtrude empty conjectures nor to foist in frivolous emendations, crea- tive only of disgust ; nor to weary, rather than to instruct, the reader's mind by any of those laboured trivialities of critics which, for the most part, are simply matters for ridicule or barren displays of ingenuity. This one thing was to be kept in view : subserviency to the good of the most serene Dauphin and the public ; but selections were to be made from the abundance of former commentators of whatever any one of them had noted down to the point ; and necessary things, rather than new things, were to be made prominent — a process demanding care, rather than acuteness of wit or recondite erudition. " Now in this field," Leonard goes on to say, " many of us have laboured hard: not all perhaps with equal mdustry : as to those that have succeeded in their aim, and those who have not, reader, judge thou ; and applaud, if not our success, at least our intention. In the meantime, make use of this method of interpreting authors, which we had dictated to us simply as a subsidiary to the studies of the august prince ; but which he will have the benefit of hereafter, in fuller and more scholarly measure, through the direct instruction of his preceptor, the very illustrious and very reverend the Bishop of Condom, a man most skilled in all branches of literature, sacred and secular. And truly the commentaries themselves would have issued from the press in a more perfect state had it been possible for that man of consum- mate learning, the most noble Huetius, sub-preceptor of the prince, to have revised minutely each separate portion of the series, instead of only exercising over the whole a general superintendence." Leonard then expresses regret that through the unexpected death of Camus, some typographical errors in the Terence had remained uncorrected. (2) Juvenal- Persius-Despris, — I must be brief in my notice of I: >,.' i I !!; 1 ■•• ■ 4\ 1 ':''■ III : r 68 the Delphin Juvenal. In this case the annotator was Louis Desprds, or as the name is Latinized, Ludovicus Prateus ; further described on the title-page as Emeritus Professor of Rhetoric. As usual, Persius is the companion of Juvenal in the same volume. Like Frederick Leonard, Desprds is fulsonie in his Dedicatory Epistle to the most serene Dauphin ; offering incense to the father over the shoulder of the son. He begins quite abruptly, as if in continuation of Leonard's harangue : " Neither let it be a matter of regret to you," he says, " that you once Ihade yourself acquainted with the satirists, most serene prince ! The more fully you have been trained to all good by the example afforded you in your own home and by your natural inclination, the more pleasure will you have in seeing the vices of the Romans, which are our own too, everywhere placed under a ban, and virtue everywhere held up to view as an object of love and subject of praise. Perchance it will be even agreeable to you to compare together the diverse style and genius of two of them, both employed, nevertheless, in the same business of satire. Not without delight will you contrast the flowing ease of a poet who so keenly yet eloquently attacks wickedness, with the morose, straightlaced, pungent sarcasm of Persius, incessantly puffing the wares of the stoic school. You will not despise in him, however, his numerous pronunciamentos of wisdom. But in the other, how many things you will observe and peruse with delight, which are appli- cable to our own happy era ! For example, lines like these will s iggest to you the grandeur of a Louis : Et spes et ratio studiorum in Csesare tantum ; Solus enim tristes Mc tempestate respexit. — Camoenas (Sat. vii. : i, 2, 3). (The hope and method of all studious pursuits rest wholly on Caesar: for he alone in these last days has had respect to the Muses.) And again : Spes vitae cum Sole redit. (The joy of life comes back along with the Sun : a flattering allusion to the device or badge of Louis — the Sun in its splendour.) And to quote words which seem conceived in the happiest strain of augury in regard to yourself. Hereafter when you shill have become ripe for the exercise of royal sway, how instantly will you chant them forth as your chosen motto — Nobilitas sola est et unica virtus, (The one sole nobility in man is virtue.) This is a principle specially ■• 'a m 1 84 . 'Mf"' ;■ searches of modern German scholars. The absence of an English- Greek division in this lexicon is well supplied by Yonge's " Englis'ii- Greek Lexicon," a work vastly exceeding in copiousness the vocabu- laries in Dunbar and Donnegan. 2. Latin : (a) Calepinus. — I come now to the Latin dictionaries. And first I show a Calepinus, a worthy co-male of the Schrevelius already examined, folio bound in oaken boards, covered with stamped vellum, and retaining its rudely-cut copper clasps. It bears the imprint " Venetiis, MDLXC. Apud Johannem Gryphium," i.e., Venice, 1 540 ; from the house of John Gryphius. According to the custom of the day, Gryphius has placed conspicuously on the title-page his badge or de- vice, which is the same as that of his more famous brother Sebastian Gryphius, or Gryphaeus, typographer at Lyons, exhibiting, as a play upon the family name, a magnificent Griffin (anciently Gryphon), trium- phantly bearing up through the air a carefully-shaped but heavy rec- tangular block of stone aided by a winged globe underneath, which supports and helps to carry up the mass ; with the motto in bold capi- tals, half on one side of the device and half on the other, " Virtute Duce, Comiite Fortuna ;" implying, I suppose, that difficult enterprises (publishing huge folios, for example) well and "squarely" planned, and buoyed up by a high principle, succeed. The well-known device of Aldus Manutius, the great Venetian scholar and printer, was a Dol- phin twining round an Anchor ; and we might have expected to see it here, for the work before us is a copy of Calepinus edited by Paulus Manutius, the son of Aldus, now the head of the Aldine printing house, from which, between the years 1540 and 1583, proceeded, we are told, more than sixteen editions of this ponderous work. The Latin dictionary of Calepinus was, in fact, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Ainsworth of the period, a book held to be in- dispensable to every student of Latin. It made its first appearance at Reggio, in North Italy, in 1502, under the name of "Cornucopia Linguae Latinae." In several of the large towns of Europe other of the same work were repeatedly issued. Of Calepinus himself I shall have occasion to speak again presently. It will suflice now to say that he was an Augustinian monk, born at Calepio, fourteen miles south-east of Bergamo, in North Italy, about the middle of the fifteenth century. I must give in extenso the title- page of Paulus Manutius' Calepinus as we have it here before us. It is a table of contents rather than a titlepage, and it will be seen fill'..; I 8s that the work has been transformed from a mere dictionary into a comprehensive classical cyclopaedia. Thus it reads, translated into English : " The Dictionary of Ambrosius Calepinus ; in the restoration and improvement of which we have rendered the following services to the student ; — i, We have taken care to do not only what all pre- vious editors have done, viz. : add a great number of words, but also, what no one else to this day had done, viz. : render clear the obscure signification of many terms. And 2, We have expunged the ex- amples given by Calepinus, which in our revised texts now read differ- ently, and we have replaced them by better ones. And then 3, Since, in consequence of frequent reprinting, typographical errors abounded, we have had recourse to the works quoted, and have re- stored the cited passages to their proper form. Again, 4, We have set right the Greek words vhich had become much depraved. And then 5, We have included our own additamenta, which are most help- ful to the mastering and perfecting of the Latin tongue and to the becoming acquainted with Roman usages. 6, We have supplied lists of synonyms, distinctions, and opposites, select adages, and Cicero- nian expressions to take the place of harsh barbarisms, with a trans- lation of each Latin word into Greek, Italian, French, and Spanish. 7, Then we have added two tractates by Henry Farnesius, the Eburonian (? citizen of Lifege), Jurisconsult and Professor of the Art of Oratory in the Gymnasium of Ticino, calculated to promote rich- ness and copiousness in speaking ; one being on the proper choice of words and modes of expanding ideas, with examples ; and the other on Interpretation and Etymology. 8, And lastly, we subjoin a com- plete Italian-Latin Vocabulary " [inscribed to the most serene Charles Emanuel, Prince of Piedmont, by Luc' Antonio Bevilacqua, who, by the way, styles his native language, not Italian, but the Volgare]. So ends this very full title-page. Next comes the Dedication, ad- dressed by Paulus Manutius to Aloysius Garzonius, an official of Venice fond of letters, and highly esteemed for his many fine traits of character. Paulus begins by remarking on the singular good for- tune that has attended Calepinus's book, in that, day after day, as it were, men have added to its riches out of their own treasures. The dictionary now presented, he says, has grown to its present bulk, not by the industry of the author, but by the labour and study of others. Six hundred additions to its scores had been made by himself ; and these not derived from ready-made indexes, but drawn, in the course t .^1 i § i •^ •• ; 86 of his own reading, from original sources. In editing Calepinus, however, he c • serves, he has differed from his predecessors. He has compressed as well as enlarged, and has separated the cockle from the wheat. In the Greek words, so great was the accumulation of typographical errors, that the removal was a veritable cleansing of an Augean stable. He had also expunged a multitude of Greek words which had found their way into the book in Latin guise ; as, for ex- ample, catabathmus, hedoedocus, pseudonymus ; these he had cast out, just as he would cast out Latin words from a Greek lexicon. The improved work he inscribes to Aloysius Garzonius, to show his great regard for him, for, says he, directly addressing Aloysius, and adopting the adulatory tone which scholars of that period affected to- wards their patrons, and to which the Latin tongue too readily lent itself: — "Your suavity of wit, your great humanity, your singular probity, the remarkable propensity of your disposition to virtue, all allure me to you ; and it is not because you are the confidential secretary of the most noble republic of Venice, nor because, along with that illustrious man, adorned with excellencies, the ambassador Michael Surianus, you are a privy councillor to Philip, King of Spain, that you are so dear to me ; but because you prove yourself one who deserves all these, and even greater, distinctions." Paulus then prays him to persevere in that ioad to high renown on which he had already entered, and which was most direct, most expeditious, and most cer- tain, viz., that of letters ; and even so, he confidently believes and predicts, it will be. Aldus Maniitius does not insert his contributions to Calepinus in the body of the work, but gives them as an appendix ; and he pre- faces them thus : — " Paulus Manutius to all students of polite learn- ing, greeting : I observe as carefully as I may the ancient rule of our family (i.e., the Aldi), to suffer no book to go abroad '"rom our House without being augmented and in some way improved and adorned by our own individual industry. What we promised in the title-page we now present. We offer you many things very note- worthy, as we think; and certainly many things not generally know.n We have considered that they would be useful, and especially accept- able to you, for they embrace matters deserving the attention of every man of fine taste, and every one who from choice busies himself with the study of classical literature. I have thought good not to incor- porate my contributions in the dictionary itself, for, printed in the .' .'II ^7 midst of Calepinus's matter, they would to a certain extent lie hid, being buried as it were ; and it would be difficult to detect what the fruits gathered from our own especial labour and care actually were, which, if they at all answer our wishes, will be very plentiful and of no small value; as he will conclude who shall take the trouble to examine what follows." Then, closely printed in seventeen double- column folio pages, we have, in alphabetical order, a series of articles which, brought out in modern style of typography, would fill a large volume, and be a complete dictionary of "Antiquities," anticipating most of the discussions and dissertations that are to be found in re- cent works of that sort. Diffuse though I have been on Calepinus, I must dwell for a few moments longer on the subject; for I have another copy of the work some six-and-twenty years later in date than the one we have been looking at ; more ponderous, and presenting some points of difference. It is a folio printed at Basle in 1616, the year of Shakspeare's death. It shows on its title-page the fine, bold device of Sebastian Henric-Petri, a famous typographer of the period, in that city. Like other early printers, Henric-Petri was an enthusiast in his art and mystery, and his device expresses this. It shows a Thor-hammer coming out of the clouds and smiting a burn- ing rock ; an angry ^olus-head at the same time blows straight against it from an opposite quarter ; but the flames spread out from it on all sides nevertheless. Even so, I think Henric-Petri, Henry of the Rock, means to say, the ardour of his zeal in his vocation as a printer, and enlightener of his fellow-men, will burn on, in spite of heavy blows and adverse blasts. The same device, designed and executed in even grander form, is repeated at the end of the book. In Henric- Petri's edition each word is interpreted, not only in French, Spanish* Italian and Greek, as in the Aldine, but in Hebrew, German, Flemish, Polish, Hungarian, and English besides ; and the quantity of each syllable is marked with a quite unnecessary minuteness. The ad- ditamenta of PauUis Manutius are distributed about at full length alphabetically in the body of the book. Towards the end of the huge volume a large space is taken up with an Onomasticon, or collection of proper names of persons, places, things and sciences, under thirty-one headings, compiled originally by Conrad Gesner, and now expressly for this edition ** a quodam studioso, post Herculeos labores, summis vigiliis, summaque diligentia, in compluribus hinc inde locis castigatissimum et locupletissimum factum." The Basle .1. t •VJ i i 88 volume preserves the original Dedication of Calepinus himself. I must present a portion of it, as it is in some degree autobiographical, and likewise reveals to us what manner of man the compiler of the work was. We must conceive of him as a stalwart monk, of staid and studious look, in the black habit of an Augustinian friar, and cowled. He thus introduces himself: " Ambrosius Calepinus, Eremite, i.e.y Hermit or Solitary, to the Senate and People of Bergamo, Peace and Health. It is many years, O most eminent and accom- plished men, since I began to extract and put together, out of ancient and modern profane authors, as also out of most pious and learned Catholic writers, a large number of interpretations, which seemed to me likely to contribute to the obtaining of a thorough knowledge of the meaning of passages in authors generally ; which work I frankly desire you to understand was undertaken for the benefit of myself liibl, but Willi the confident belief that it would sometime prove help- ful to others also." Furthermore, he says that a sentiment of patriot- ism induced him to dedicate the book to the Senate and People of Bergamo, because they represented his native district, " wherein dwell men of great and excellent genius, deserving well of their country for their gravity, their attention to jurisprudence, and their zeal for every kind of science." I shall not strictly translate the rest of this dedica- tory epistle, for it must be confessed Calepinus becomes rather tedious. Instead of saying he presents to the notice of the world a work which he trusts will be useful, and there an end, he laboriously apologizes for what he has done. The conventionalities of his monastic character oblige him to profess an immense humility ; and while elaborately descanting on his own insignificance, he becomes obtrusive and egotistical. From his earliest infancy, he says, he had been devoted by his superiors to the monastic life ; but he found himself unfitted for public displays of oratory, and also unequal to the mastery of philosophy. That his time, however, might not be wholly wasted, he desired to do something for the spiritual advancement of men, according to his function and profession ; and so he betook himself to a study which from its sure humanizing effects is dignified by the name of Hun. Anitas, a term employed to express human learning and liberal knowledge from Cicero's day downward. It will be considered very presumptuous in him, he is aware, to pretend to throw light on matters which had already engaged the attention of a Nonius Marcellus, a Festus Pompeius, a Paedianus, a Servius, a Donatus, a Varro, and 89 other luminaries of the Latin tongue ; but what he does, is simply to supply certain things which they had left out of their books. He knows how impossible it is to please every one. He is sure, now that he is come before the world, he will be mercilessly criticised. . No one escapes. God himself does not escape. Some will hold this opinion of him, and some will hold that. The house built on the market square is decried by some for being too high, by others for being too low. However, in his own estimate, he sets himself above nobody ; and he would not press the use of his book on the unwilling. He is quite content to be despised, and the consolatory phrase comes into his mind out of Psalm 83 (in the Vulgate), " Elegi abjectus esse in domo Dei mei." Nevertheless, he concludes, if men so learned, so eloquent* as the Senate and People of Bergamo should commend his work, it is impossible but that others will deem it worthy of praise also. Of course many of the English renderings of Latin words in the early Basle-printed dictionary are deformed by awkward errors of the press, and oftentimes read quaintly enough, partaking occasionally of the directness and strength of the language as spoken in Shakspeare's day. Eleemosyna is almesse. Majores are forbeares. Magnanimus is stout, of a lofty harte. Strenuitas is doughtiness. Jaculator is a boaster or cracker. Colon is one of the entrailles or puddinges. Echinus is the outward huske of the chastane (chestnut) ; and this prior to its denot- ing an urching or hedgehog. Hystrix is a beaste that casteth prikes from him at men, as it were arrowes. Mica is a little thing that shyneth among the sande, a crumme of bread or any other thing. And so on. Under lapis we have a note of a meteoric stone which fell at Ensheim in Alsace in 1420, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds. Of Calepio, his native town, from which he wrote himself Calepinus, he says it was so named from the goodness of its wine, — kalos^ good ; and pino^ I drink — a local popular notion probably, and to be regarded in the light of a jest. (b) Nestor Dionysius. — I have now to do justice to the excellent dictionary of Nestor Dionysius, a copy of which is before us, bearing the early date of 1496. Its printer was Philippus Pinzius of Mantua, but carrying on business at Venice. Pinzius allows little space to the title of the book, and indulges in no badge or device. He ap- pends his name in the colophon at the end, with the date, "Anno Domini MCCCCXCVin." (1498), and the name of the then doge. '* Regnante Serenissimo Domino Augustino Barbadico, Venetiarum m M >i':l 1 m ^, IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1 1.0 t^ ^ I.I t . »^^ 1 P||li|i6 6" ^ HlOtogFE([JliC SdHices CorporaliQn 23 WEST MAIN STRICT WIB$TIR,N.Y. 14980 (716)172-4903 •'V "^^1^/^ ^^.V^ v\ % f 90 11 II Duce Felicissimo." The matter of the dictionary, which is divided into six parts or books, begins abruptly at the top of the right hand page (after the fashion of the mediaeval manuscripts, closely imitated by the early typographers), with the brief announcement, "Here happily beginneth the first book of Nestor Dionysius of Novara." Then down one broad margin, in alphabetical order, the words appear with greu distinctness ; while down the other broad margin appear, with equal distinctness, the names of the numerous authorities and grammatical writers quoted in the body of the page. Like Calepinus, Nestor Dionysius was a monk, another of the many in the ranks of every Order who applied themselves to the le&rned studies of the day. He would appear before us in the gray dress of a Franciscan. He inscribes his book to "the mo3t illustrious prince " Ludovico Sforza, whose military exploits he details and extols. The forty hexameter lines of which his Dedication consists have very great historical interest, had we time to go into them ; written as they were in the very thick of stirring events, and directly addressed to the man making most noise in the world at the time. For it was this very Ludovico Sforza who, to protect himself against his opponents in Milan, invited in the French; a fatal step which led to all the iiubsequent wars and calamities in Italy. It is characteristic of the period, of its mixed military and literary interests, that the great warrior and statesman was expected to hail the advent of a new Latin Dictionary, and to spare time for listening to the eulogies of its monk- ish compiler. Ludovico, we find, was as eminent for his devotion to science, art and literature as for his military spirit. He was the friend of Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante, the patron of Merula and Calchondylas and other distinguished scholars, and the founder of chairs of Greek, Astronomy and Geometry in one of the universities of the Milanese territory. The copy of Nestor Dionysius before us has the interest of being a first edition. When it issued from the press of Pinzius in 1496, Ludovico Sforza was still living, and the copy presented to him by Nestor would be exactly like this, excepting that the paper, print and ink would then be brighter to look upon, and its outer clothing would be probably a wrapper of pure white vellum. In 1496 Ludovico Sforza had not yet quarrelled with his French allies ; the fight at Novara had not yet taken place, which led to his being carried away captive into France, destined to die there in 1508, still a prisoner. 9« (c) Geoffr^ of Lynn^s Promf 'tarium. — In Nestor's book the inter- pretations of the Latin words being themselves in Latin, and not in any modem language, there was no place for a reverse arrangement like that which we saw just now in Luc' Antonio Bevilacqua's Vocabulario in the Aldine Calepinus, wherein liie Volgare precedes the Latin. I have now to show an early dictionary wherein the re- verse order is observed, the English or vulgar ' ongue preceding the Latin, for the benefit of English learners. This is the first English- Latin Dictionary, known as the "Promptuarium Parvulorum sive Clericorum," i.e., the Store-room or Magazine of Supplies for young tyros or clerks. Its compuer was Gaofifrey of Lynne. He is a monk too ; he comes before us in the white garb of a Dominican. (In this facile way did the ecclesiastical authorities aforetime allow petty dis- crepancies, springing out of difference in mental constitution, *o work themselves off. The tincture of a gown, the cut of a hood, was found sufficient to satisfy the little egotisms which I suppose will to the end struggle for recognition.) Geoffrey of Lynne employs the English prevalent in his native East Anglia ; and it is curiou to observe how uncouth and cumbersome it sometimes seems to .is moderns, while the Latin which follows looks so shapely and concise. Hospitium, for example : how plain and familiar ! while an " inne of herborowe," which it represents, is not instantly intelligible. Mendacium, again : who does not recognize the word ? but " gabbyne or lesynge," for which it is the equivalent, is not perhaps so self-evident iu its sense. The s:ime may be said of operculum, "a thynge that hyll. :hame in a work devoted wholly to Latin, if he were to fail to salute the learned reader in that language, and at once address him in the vulgar tongue, as he would address one out of the common rabble (popello). And forthwith he proceeds, in flowing and easy Latin, to show the dis- advantage under which compilers of Latin Dictionaries generally laboured from their having no practical acquaintance with the instruc- tion of youth. He, on the other hand, having been long familiar with such work, had been able to clear the tyro's path of a thousand obstructions. He then criticises Wase's edition of Calepinus, and Cooper's and Goldman's books. Of Goldman personally he takes care to speak with great respect fur having been in the late troubles faithful to the Royal cause. He next directs attention to the careful manner in which he has sifted barbarous and low-Latin from classical, and placed the former in a separate division of his book. He finally breaks off thus : — "And now, my reader, on the one hand civility, on the other weariness, bids me make an end. Farewell. Use my book. Be kind to it." (Vale. Fruere. Fave.) He then addresses the English reader, italicising the wcrd English, and gives a lengthy analysis of the method observed in his dictionary. He thee's and thou*s after the manner of the Quakers. " In the main I must tell thee," he says, " that, though we do travel all along on the same beaten road of Alphabet, that being the usual method of such books, 93 and that which is most agreeable and easy to youth, and no less con- ducive to their studies by speeding their inquiries, yet there is enough offered all along to the judgment of the severest criticks by continual supplements, amendments and the like through all the veins of the work. What for matter, what for manner of handling it, as may abundantly justify the tenure of the Book to be as free from encroach- ing upon any other's copyhold, or any that has been writ in English of this kind since Thomasius, his time." He then touches on a point which renders Littleton's Latin Dictionary, like all the other old £nglish-Latip dictionaries, most curious and valuable to the student of the English language, iis fluctuations and development. " Having considered," Littleton says, " the improvements of our lauguage since Reverend Cooper's time, both as to the enlarging and to the refining of it, we have endeavoured (in the English-Latin part of the Diction- ary) to lay down the whole body of it as now spoken, and to fit it, as well as we might, all over with a suitable Latin habit. Hereupon several thousands of Words and Proprieties formerly wanting are here set down." On the other hahu, however, he adds, " to make room for such useful additions and necessary supplies for our present occasion of discourse, we thought it not so much injury to our Grandfathers as advantage to our Children, to lay aside some old-fashioned words^ now grown out of all use, such as abastick [having power to abase] ; and to discard many uncouth expressions and insignificant circumlo- cutions, as the inward top of the finger next to the nail^ and the like ; though of the old words, too, we have retained as many at least as do really belong to the English stock." As to Etymologies, he says :: " We have been obliged to be the larger by others' example, rather than one's own judgment (that being looked on as a point of skill wherein both old Grammarians and late Criticks have taken so much pains), but we have endeavoured to be close and pertinent, as resolv- ing no great matter of learning to lie in forced and affected derivations,, unless they may be brought to some true measure of analogy." In his remarks on the admission of technical terms, and while referring in particular to those connected with the legal profession, he takes occasion to claim as a "worthy progenitor of his," Littleton, the^ famous author of the work on Tenures, on which Coke has com- mented. His conclusion then, ip as follows : — " Rekder, I have, as I promised thee in the beginning, given thee an account of my intendents- and endeavowrl in this performance ; and if it hath (as I. am too< y ■y i ■<■: I i I i': yM. !>*i til L :■ I ;J I • ; t 94 conscious to myself it often hath) happened that I have anywhere failed of my design ; if in a long and tedious work I have, through inadvertency, streights of time, and hurry sometimes of other business, made any balk and committed mistakes, let thy humanity excuse. >;he human infirmities of Thine and his Country's Faithful Servant, A. L." I shall not go into detail in regard to the Preface which follows in this sixth edition here before us, further than to say that therein the editor tells the public at considerable length how he has done for Littleton exactly what Littleton had done for preceding lexicographers, viz. : weeded out the words that had become obsolete snd inserted those iihat the English language had developed in the half-century be- tween 1678 and 1735. ^^^ to show the great labour and tedious- ness of the task in which he had been engaged, he winds up with an epigram written by Joseph Scaliger after finishing an elaborate glossary or index to Gruter's Inscriptions. " Henceforth," said Scaliger, "let a. new and more effectual sentence be pronounced on the convicted culprit : let him no more be sent to the treadmill or the mines : let liim be set to work at making dictionaries ! Lexica coutexat ! . . Omnes Poenarum fades hic labor solus habet." I have still to notice Littleton's Dedication. Having been not sim- ply an eyewitness of the troubles of England in 16^9-1669, but an actual personal sufferer from them, it was to be expected that his satis- faction at the restoration of the Stuarts would be great It was to be expected, too, that his gratitude to Charles himself would be lively, inasmuch as in his case a good deal had been done to reinstate him in the emoluments, honours and comforts of which he had been deprived. But the terms used in the Dedication of his dictionary to the King exceed all bounds. He accosts Charles as a divinity. After the in- scription, "Serenissimo Domino D. [for Divo] Carolo Secando, Dei gratise Britanniarum, Francise, et Hibernise Regi, Antiquae et Apos- tolicse Fidei Defensor!, Christians Pacis Sequestro," he proceeds, " Non aspernabitur Sacro Sancta ac Diva Majestas tua ea est Numinis tui dementia ac benignitas qu& universos subditos tuos complecteris, hoc qualequale munus literarium ab homine domestico oblatum." But it is not beneath the dignity of exalted personages, he says, to patronize letters. Julius Caesar himself wrote books; witness his rhetorical work entitled, "De Analogic Linguae Latinae," and the i ! 95 to deified Augustus (Divus Augustus) established a library dedicated to Apollo on the Palatine Mount, wherein were assembled the works and busts of all worthy Greek and Latin authors ; of which library a view adorns the book, he adds. Moreover, had not Charles been in* vested with the title " Pater Patriae "? How fitting then that a work intended for the benefit of the youth of Britain should be consecrated to him ! He then compliments Charles on the successful isbue of his efiorts to bring about for all Europe the so long desired peace [the peace of Nimeguen], — which explains the allusion in "Christianas Pacis Sequestro," in the superscription. Examples of quaint English, of course, abound in Littleton. I do not observe that he indulges his spleen against political opponents, as South did, and Johnson afterwards. I notice that he turns a slang expression, of the Court probably, namely, " a gifted brother," mean- ing a Puritan or Roundhead, into Latin by the words "fanaticus homo, enthusiasta, battologiae deditus, — a fanatical per.«..j, an enthu- siast, one given to vain repetitions m his prayers." One startling translation of a Latin word appeared in the first edition of Littleton's Dictionary. While the work of compilation was going on, an amanu- ensis innocently asked of Littleton, but somewhat superfluously, as he seems to have thought, in regard to the Latin word "concurro," whether it meant " to concur." " Concur," replied Littleton, either testily or jocosely, "Oh! no, candogf of course." And down went " condog " as the English of " concurro ;" and so in due time it came forth solemnly printed. This rendering causes the first edition of Littleton's Dictionary to be sought after. (e) Aimworth. — I now at length arrive at Ainsworth. Most young students of Latin amongst us were formerly familiar vath Ainsworth's Latin Dictionary, and probably possessed a copy in common with brothers or school-fellows. However, few of us prob- ably ever saw a true Ainswocth in its plentitude, as we have it here, in two thick quarto volumes. This is the third edition, with addi- tions and improvements by Samuel Patrick, LL.D., Usher of the Charterhouse School; and printed by C. J. Ackers in London in 1 751 for twenty bookselling houses, all named, among them the still flouri3hing Rivingtons and Longman. The Dictionary, in fact, seems to have been got up by them to displace Littleton. The title is "Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendarius, or Compendious Diction- ary of the Latin Language designed for the use of the British Nations." nVBH ill 9^ Opposite the title-page is the Royal License or "Privilege" firoin George XL, signed by the Secretary of State, Harrington, and secur- ing to the booksellers named the sole printing, publishing and vending of the work within the kingdoms and dominions of the King for fourteen years. After the inevitable Dedication appears Ainsworth's Address, *' Eruditis et Puree Latinitatis Amatpribus," in Latin of course, and filling two quarto pages of small print "Although in judging of a work," he says, " it matters little who the author is — the guiif being a more important question than the fuis," — as he ex- presses it; yet, nevertheless, he without scruple will give some in- formation in regard to himself. Formerly, he says, namely, in 1736, he was the conductor of a private school, but now for many (twenty) years he had bet n living as an emeritus ; and he is forward to state this, he says, not so much on account of the often quoted injunc- tion, " non artem pudere proloqui quam factites " — not to be ashamed to speak put boldly of the craft which one follows — but from his sense of the equal utility and dignity of his former occupation, and the fact that the remembrance of a life almost wholly spent in a career so pleasant has become most delightful to him. He then proceeds to speak of the difficulties which he had experienced at the beginning of his professional life in finding useful helps lor his pupils in the ready conversion of English into Latin and Latin into English, a practice on which he always laid particular stress in his system of instruction. He then describes how he was hence induced himself to undertake, first, an English-Latin, and then a Latin- English Dictionary, to be more full and more idiomatic than any other existing work of the kind; a task most laborious. After the Latin address comes a Preface in English filling twenty pages, in which he gives an exhaustive account of all the preceding Latin Dictionaries by English writers, Elyot, Cooper, Barret, Thomasius, Philemon Holland, Rider, Holyoake, Grey, Wase, Goldman, Little- ton, and Elisha Coles; and he especially criticises a manual much used in his day in schools, known as the Cambridge Dictionary, and he shows that it was full of inaccuracies and barbarisms. Here again we have numerous illustrations of the state of flux the English language has all alorag been in ; of the continual abandonment and adoption of words and phrases which are all the while taking place in it. Alert, dupe, fui'lough, stock-jobber, air-pump, chicken-pox, box, set» etc., were recent introductions, and dumps, puQ*, punt and 91 ges, in Latin others had acquired new meanings, all necessitating special render> ings in Latin ; while in the Latin itself the issue of more and better texts of the classics since the times of preceding lexicographers had rendered a strict revision of all words and phrases quoted by them very necessary for accuracy and elegance. The Dedication is not directed to a royal personage this time, but to the eminent physician, Dr. Robert Mead. Ainsworth calls him the Maecenas of the period, the universal patron of every project, literary and scientific " Ad te tanquam ad commune aliquod perfugium et unum hodie Msecenatem, cujus ope et favore adjuventur et pro- tegantur, undique se conferant." He enumerates some of the im- portant books which had been already dedicated to Mead, and the publication of which in England he had promoted — the whole works of Bacon, ChishuU's Asiatic Inscriptions, and Thuanus. Like Ascle. piades, the friend and medical adviser of Cicero, Mead, Ainsworth says, was a devotee of both ApoUos, the literary and oratorical, and the medical. He therefore desires to put his Thesaurus under his guardianship. There is no accession to the good fortune of his patron that he can implore. Riches? he has them already, con- ferred on him by the benign Hygieia. The favour of nobles or of the august King? He has it now. Glory and a deathless name? These are secured to him by the gratitude of the world. All he can do is simply to pray God that he may be preserved to his fellow-men in litie and health, so that he may continue to enjoy his felicity as long as possible. Mead had a European reputation as a scientific medical man, and was the author of many scientific works, some of them written in a fine Latin style. The great physician Boerhaave was a life-long friend and correspondent of his. His house, we are told, was the noble receptacle at once of genius and talent, and of every thing beautiful, precious and rare. His curiosities, whether books or coins or pictures, were laid open to the public, and the enterprising student and experienced antiquary alike found amuse- ment and a courteous reception. After his death his collection of books, pictures and coins sold for over ;^i 6,000. As for Ainsworth, he died in 1743, set 83, and was buried at Poplar, near London. The following is part of the inscription on his memorial stone, pre- pared by himself, " Rob. Ainsworth, et Uxor ejus, admodum senes, dormituri vestem detritam hie exuerunt; novam primo manb surgentes induturi. Dum fas, mortalis, sapias et respice finem." 98 3. English : (a) Florufs " World of Words '^ — I am now to speak of the early English Dictionaries in this collection. I hope to be brief with them, confining myself, as before, chiefly to the humours of their compilers as displayed in their Title-pages, Dedications, and Prefaces ; at the same time not omitting a few specimens of their definitions, orthography, and so on. I am tempted here to notice John Florio's "World of Words," a copy of which, dated 1598, has by some chance found its way hither. Although this work was intended, in the first instance, to be simply an Italian-English Dictionary, it has acquired a place in the history of our English speech. It is often quoted as being a rather full repertory uf the English of the Shakspeare period. " For English gentle-menne," Florio himself says in his Preface, "methinks it must needes be a pleasure to them to see so rich a toong [as the Italian] outvide by ihe«r mother-speech, as by the manie-folde Englishes of manie wordes in thib is manifeste." (In 1657, a nephew of Milton's, Edward Phillips, published a "General English Dictionary," under the title of "A New World of Words," with direct allusion probably to Florio's book.) When the volume now before us was " imprinted at London by Arnold Hatfield," and offered for sale by Edward Blunt, "at his shop over against the great north dore of Paules Church," Florio himself, doubtless, might still often be seen explor- ing the contents of Mr. Blunt's shelves. The " World of Words '* was dedicated by the compiler to "Roger, Earle of Rutland, Henrie, Earle of Southampton, and Lucie, Countesse of Bedford." The reason why he names three patrons, and in this order, is, that he likens his book to a " bouncing boie " of his own, who now, "after some strength gathered to bring it abroad," requires, "as the manner of the countrie is," that there should be two male witnesses, and one female, to his "entrie into Christendom." He therefore entreats the three personages named, to act as sponsors to the " young spring- all;" to take him under their protection and "avowe him theirs.'' Henrie, Earl of Southampton, by whose "paie and patronage" in particular, Florio here frankly says he has lived some years, and "to whom he owes and vows the yeares he has to live," was the well-known friend of Shakspeare. In Southampton's circle, a good deal of quiet joking went on at the expense of "resolute John riorio," as he styled himself; and quite a little feud seems to have sp.ung up between him and the great dramatist. In 1591, in 99 m a work entitled "Second Fruits/' Florio had ventured the remark that "the plays that they play in England are neither right comedies nor right tragedies, but representations of Histories without decorum." As being certainly a glance at himself, Shakspeare remembered this observation of Florio's; and in 1597, when "Love's Labour's Lost" appeared, Florio was immediately recognized in Holofemes — Florio, of course, grotesquely overdrawn. In the Preface to the Reader, in this very book, the " World of Words," we have Florio endeavour- ing to retort by recalling the fact that aforetime Aristophanes brought Socrates on the stage, without doing Socrates any harm; but quite the contrary. " Let Aristophanes and his comedians," Florio says, " make plaies and scowre their mouthes on Socrates ; those very mouthes they make to vilifie, shall be meanes to amplific his vertue." In " Love's Labour's Lost," an absurd sonnet is attributed to Holo- femes. There is probably special point in this. We deduce from the Preface here before us, that Florio did indulge in a sonnet sometimes ; and that on account of one he had, to his great displeasure, been styled by Shakspeare a " rymer," " notwithstanding he had more skill in good poetrie than my slie gentleman seemed to have :in good manners and humanitie." Once more : we may observe in " Love's Labour's Lost," after Holofernes has recited his sonnet, Nathaniel exclaims " A rare talent !" — on which. Dull, in an aside, remarks <^'If talent be a claw, look how he claws [curries favour with] him with i talent." Here Florio is perhaps twitted with a slip in the "World of Words" where he interprets "artiglie" as " talents, claws, or pounces of birdes or hawkes," spelling "talons" thus. Some time after King James I. came down from Scotland, John Florio was appointed tutor in Italian to Prince Henry ; and in 161 1 he issued a third edition of his dictionary, in 'which the dedication to Southampton and the rest is withdrawn ; and one appears " To the Imperial Majestic of the highest born princess, Anne of Denmark, crowned Queene of England, Scotland, France and Ireland." Strange, that it should be one of the works of this very Florio, namely his translation of Montaigne's Essays, that is now preserved as a precious relic in the British Museum, as being the only volume in existence known to have been once the property of Shakspeare, and containing one of the very few of his undoubted autographs. A few curiosities in English, culled from Florio, may now be given. For example : we have "penteis" for the "eaves of a house or a baie- IM lOO i- M window, or out-butring or jettie of a house;" commonly now, by « misconception, spelt " pent house ; " properly an appendicium, an annexe or lean-to. A " repast between dinner and supper " is a " nuncheon or bever or andel'smeate," nuncheon being, as has re- cently been explained, noon-shenk ; a noon-drink poured out from a vessel furnished with a "shank" or spout. (Luncheon is quite a different word, referring to eating only, taking a lump or lunch of bread, etc., to stay hunger : compare hump and hunch.) Ander is undern, an Anglo-Saxon expression for morning. " A pudding or haggas " is spoken of as " a kinde of daintie meate," where " pud- ding" means an intestine. " Wrangling " is explained " to dodge or chaff aloud that all may hear." An expletive of " 'iieefe " is a " hooker." " Doll " is a term not met with ; neither does it occur in Shakspeare, I believe, in the modern sense ; but we have, instead, " a little pretie childes baby or puppet." A " zany " is '* a sillie John [zan is John], a gull or noddie, a vice, clowne, foole, or simple fellowe in a plaie or comedie." (Dabuda, in Italian, was, we are told by Florio, the name of " a famous foole, quoted as wee alledge Will Sommer in jestes" — prior, that is, to the era of Mr. Joseph Miller.) A *'boate such as the Indians use, made of one piece," is a "canoa :" and a "rangifero," that is to say, a reindeer, is "a beast in Lapland as big as a moyle [mule], in colour like an asse, horned like a stagge, which they use instead of horses to draw their chariots, and are woonderful swift in going, for in a day and a night they will go a hundred and fifty miles." The " battata " is ** a kind of fruite growing in India," meaning what we call the sweet potato (batatas edulis), from which has come the prevailing name of the common potato (solanum tuberosum), quite a different kind of plant. An other esculent mentioned is "a marine fruite called a sea cowcomber or turkie-pompion." " Mandragora" is a drug of " a very cold tem- perature," and therefore " used to ^Ast menne into deepe sleepes when they must be cut by surgeans, and for many other purposes in phisick." Other curious information in Natural History and Physi. ology is given. There is a tree in Arabia called rasin, "whereof there is but one founde (at a time), and upon it the phoenix sits." (The story was that the phoenix lived a thousand years, at the end of which time it built its nest, which took fire, and consumed the bird, leaving ashes, however, out of which sprang a fresh bird ; and so on.) A serpent, called magiriano, is " saide to growe out of a dead mannes 191 back or chine bone." The lungs are not onlf rhe "lights" of anjr creature, but they are " the guts {$.e., the tubes or ducts) whereby every creature dranes breath." It is curious that this word in the singular, as in catgut, Gut of Canso, gut for an open water passage through a marsh, is passable ; while in the plural a substitute has to be employed. There is in Florio much straightforward English. His book was expected to be consulted by the highest personages. It was dedicated, as we have seen, first to Lucie, Countesse of Bedford, for one ; and afterwards to Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I. We may gather from this, as from other quarters, that the ladies of Florio's day were not squeamish. As a sample of the copiousness of English speech, take ^he different shades of meaning given for ragione, reason : " Right, due, knowledge, wit, wisedome, discourse, discretion, judgement, advise, purpose, counsell, case, respect, consideration, avisement, regard, the case, the matter, the state, the meanes, the waye, the fashion, the forme, the proportion, the kinde, the sise, the sort, a rule, the trade, the feate, the manner and sorte, a mmde, a counsell, a persuasion, a cause, an account, a reckoning?, businest quantitie, value : also, justice, doome, or place of justice and lawe." (d) '*MinsA€U." — Here is "Minsheu,"awork often named, but sel- dom seen. It is a folio with an elaborate title, first in Latin and then in English. Inasmuch as it not only defines the English words, but gives their equivalents in other languages, its general heading is *' Ductor in Linguas." The English version runs as follows : — "The Guide unto the Tongues, with their Agreement and Consent one with another, as also their Etymologies, that is, the Reasons and Derivations of all or the most part of Words in these nine languages, viz. : — i. English. 2. Low Dutch. 3. High Dutch. 4. French. 5. Italian. 6. Spanish. 7. Latine. 8. Greek. 9. Hebrew, etc. ; which are so laid together for the help of memorie, that any one with ease and facilitie may not only remember foure, five, or more of these languages so laid to- gether, but also by their Etymologies under the Name, know the Nature, Property, Condition, Effect, Matter, Forme, Fashion or End of things thereunder contained, differing from all other Dictionaries ever heretofore set forth ; also the Exposition of the Termes of the Lawes of this Land drawn from their originall the Saxon and Norman Tongues, with the descriptions of the Magistracies, Offices and Officers, and Titles of Dignity noted with this f|^ throughout the whole Booke. Item : there are added the Etymologies of proper names 103 \m IK 1:111! of the Bible, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, etc., with the Etymologies of Countries, Cities, Townes, Hilles, Rivers, Fiouds, Promontories, Forts, Creekes, Islands, Seas, Men, Women, Gods, Peoples, and other things of note, which are marked with this mark, (f,) through the whole worke. By the Industrie, Studie, Labour, and at the charges of lohn Minsheu, Published ., preceptor or teacher ; without the thumb how could the almighty birch be applied ? The next was the merchant or trader : it is wanted for counting and calculating : it is styled also the index, and has the epithets sometimes of minans, and minitans. The middle finger stands for folly. In the Middle Ages this middle finger had a bad reputation and seems to have been occasionally pu*. to base uses. It is styled digitus infamis, impudicus, verpus. In one of the old dictionaries I have seen it called in plain English, "lick-pot," from the use to which gluttons sometimes put it. The next is maritus, the wedded man (not merely the wedded woman as now), the digitus annularis, or ring finger. It is likewise styled digitus studiosorum, the finger of the studious or learned, also, probably from the ring worn on it as a part of the insignia of a degree. Another name for this ring-finger, curiously, was digitus medicus, " because the ancient physicians used to mix their medicines with it," (quia prisci medici miscerent eo pharmaca). Finally, the last or little finger is designated amator in the monkish verse. It bears circlets and gems given and received as pledges of mutua affection. Another name for this finger was digitus auricularis, the ear-finger ; by its help, we, for the most part, scratch the ear and clear it of obstructions. In his article on metropolitan Minsheu indulges, I observe, in flattering notices, couched in his best Latin,, of George Abbott and Tobias Matthew, the then Archbishops of Canterbury and York. . Of the former, he says, the King (Rex noster Jacobus), had advanced him to the highest pitch of honour and dignity solely on account of his preeminent talents and his meritorious services to the Church and Commonwealth both in Eng- land and Scotland, whilst the latter he pronounces a prelate learned and eloquent, and indefatigable in preaching ; an ensample of virtue, industry, labour and hospitality. {c) Bailey. — Next, we have the world-famous Bailey. Few house- holds, in former days, were without a copy of Nathan Bailey's IJni- versal Etymological Dictionary. This was the authority commonly appetkled to for derivations, definitions, orthography, orthoepy, and I I •.in i i 1: io6 so on. The title-page was of the usual very comprehensive kind, and wound up with the statement that the volume before Ihe reader contained " many thousand words more than either Harris, Philips, Kersey, or any English Dictionary before extant." The whole work, it is stated, is " compiled and methodically digested, as well for the Entertainment of the Curious as the Information of the Ignorant, and for the benefit of young Students, Artificers, Tradesmen, and Foreigners who are desirous thorowly to understand what they Speak, Read, or Write." The copy here before us is of the third edition, and is dated 1726. It is printed for London booksellers bearing the names of Darby, Bettesworth, Feyram, Pemberton, Hooke, Rivington, Clay, Batley, and Symoa I have here also the second volume of Bailey, which is not often to be seen, as it was published independently after an interval of ten years, and is seldom found in company with its fellow. This also has a title-page quite as full as that in the first volume. In addition to innumerable other things, there is in the second volume "a collection and explanation of words and phrases used in our antient Charters, Statutes, Writs, old Records, and Processes at Law ; also the Theogony, Theology, and Mythology of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc., being an account of their Deities, Solemnities, Divinations, Auguries, Oracles, Hiero- glyphicks, and many other curious Matters necessary to be under- stood, especially by the Readers of English Poetry." And, on the whole, this is declared to be "a Work useful for such as would understand what they read, speak what they mean, and write True English." This second volume, moreover, is an early instance of an illustrated Dictionary. Into its text are worked " above five hundred Cuts (woodcuts), giving a clear idea of those Figures not so well apprehended by Verbal Description." A Latin Dedication is prefixed to each volume. The first is " to the most illustrious prince, Frederick Louis, duke of Gloucester, and to the most serene princesses, Anne, Amelia, Sophia, Elizabeth, and Caroline, the most renowned offspring of the most serene George Augustus and Wihelmina Charlotta, of Wales." The prince and princess of Wales, here named, are the personages who afterwards became king and queen of Great Britain, as George II. and Caroline, Charlotte and Caroline being synonymous. Bailey refers, in exceed- ingly loyal terms, to the advent of the first George, under whose most gentle and just rule, he says, the country still enjoys in their I07 (( to integrity, its Liberty, its Laws, and its Religion; and he rejoices that in the numerous progeny of the heir-apparent visible pledges are given of a long continuance of such blessings. He then singles out the heir-apparent in the second degree, Frederick Louis, and he prays, when, at a future time, it fehall be the Divine will that his father and grandfather (i>., George I. and George IL), after being sated with this life and terrestrial felicity, shall exchange the British crowns for celestial ones — that then, happy Britannia and delighted Posterity may rejoice at seeing him (Frederick Louis) wielding the sceptre of his two immediate ancestors. Hoc animo pientissimo exoptat oratque. (This Frederick Louis was the father of George IIL, and never wielded his father's or grandfather's sceptre.) Bailey expresses the hope that his Dictionary — all unworthy though it be of such honour — will minister help in some humble degree to the young princes and princesses in the prosecution of their English studies. The second volume is addressed to the same serene princes and princesses as the first ; but now ten years have slipped by, George I. is dead ; and George Augustus and Wihelmina Charlotta are king and queen of Great Britain. Bailey briefly recalls the fact of the presentation of a former volume, to which the book now olTered is a supplemeut; and he prays for the princes and princesses long life, uninterrupted happiness, and an admission at last (quamvis sero) to a blessedness that shall be eternal. The English Prefaces to both of Bailey's volumes are very inter- esting, embracing, as they do, a history, as he speaks, of " the steps and gradations by which the English T >ngue has arriv'd to what it now is." He, of course, is not in advance of his age, and does not handle his subject after the philosophical manner of a modem philologer. Nevertheless, Bailey did good service in his day and generation. He speaks modestly of his labours, and gracefully retires from the presence of the reader under cover of the well-worn Horatian couplet : Siquid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti ; si non, his utere mecum. — It was on the title-page of this book, by the way, that I observed for the first time, as a lad, the epithet " phiK ologos" appended to a name — "N. Bailey, philologos" (in Greek characters). There always seemed to be something mystical about this ; like " philomath " or " philomathes " after the name of almanac- makers. (On the title-page of the " Upper Canada Almanac," printed aforetime here at "York, U. C," the compiler's name io8 ihers of special note, whether ancient or modern ; of all the principal king> doms, cities, towns, seas and rivers in the known world, especially in Great Britian and Ireland ; of beasts, birds, fishes, and insects ; of trees, plants, herbs, minerals and fossils ; the terms of art in chymistry, pharmacy, heraldry, divinity, mathematics, mechanics, manufactures and husbandry ; the derivatives from the ancient, modem and learned languages, in which especial attention has been given to the mere English scholar, by a proper analysis and full explanation of the originals." But he has not considered it expedient, he adds, " to rake into the mere cant of any professions, much less of gamesters, highwaymen, pickpockets, and gipsies." The ( culation of such a dictionary as Ash's was very wide, as it supplied a want specially felt after the publication of Johnson's work which was too bulky and costly for the generality of readers. Ash was in advance of Johnson. He admits, for example, " candor " as being the more common spell- ing. This was in 1775 ; though he gives " candour" likewise, which would be Johnson's mode. He drops the k oS from such words as " physic." This he does, he says, " in conformity to modem usage and the originals : for it seems to me to be rather incongruous," he remarks, " to write musick from musica, especially as the Jk has been exploded by general consent from the derivatives musician and musical." He somewhat Quixotically contends for the omission of the apostrophe as a sign of the possessive case. " It was not in use," he asserts, ".to distinguish the genitive case, until about the beginning of the present century ; and then it seems to have been introduced by mistake. At that time it was supposed that the genitive had its origin from a contraction ; as John's book, for John his book. But that," he continues, " has been sufficiently exploded ; and therefore the use of the apostrophe, especially in thuse instances where the pronunciation requires an additional syllable, is, I presume, quite indefensible. To write ox's, ass's, fox's, and at the same time pro- nounce it oxes, asses, foxes, is such a departure firom the original formation, at least in writing, and such an inconsistent use of the aportrophe, as cannot perhaps be equalled in any other language^ The genitive case in my opinion," Ash says, " might be much more properly formed by adding s, or when the pronunciation requires it» es, without an apostrophe as men, mens ; ox, oxes ; horse, horses ; ass, asses." This, he is aware, is the Anglo-Saxon genitive; but nevertheless he has thought it expedient in his dictionary to conform zia fll IN j III to a " late refinement and corrupt custom." He notices what he states to be an improper pronunciation in London : he says the e in Aer, has wrongly the sound of u in odr. He thinks it needful to remark that e should be pronounced long in hero, rebuild, refrain, adhesion, cohesion. He gives *' lieftenant " as an incorrect spelling of " lieutenant." i Chum, one who lodges in the same room, is from the Armoric cAom, to hve*together. A chump is a thick, heavy piece of wood (our cAunk,jwhich has no existence). Slick is given as a provincial word for sleek, smooth. To whittle is to make white by cutting. Sled is from the Danish slaed, a sledge, or carriage drawn without wheels (our sleigh). He anticipates Webster in his objections to " cannot." " This seems to be a word," he remarks, " improperly, at least injudiciously, compounded, and to have nothing but barbarous custom to support it, for we never write maynot, willnot, can'stnot." Quebec is noticed as " the capital of New France in North America, ow subject to the English." (/) Walker. — I take now another post-Johnsonian dictionary, " the Critical and Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the Elnglish Language " of John Walker. My copy is a three-col^:on one in quarto, dated in 1802, and then in the third edition. The first edition came out!;in 1791. The dictionaries that at present go by the name of Walker are very different from the original work. The quarto Walker is curious now as a repository of the pronunciations of our grandfathers and their predecessors for a generation or f/o back. These pronunciations, ' 3 being now for the most part obsolete, are of course eliminated from the modern Walkers. This lexicographer offers *' rules to be observed not only by the natives of Scotland and Ireland and Wales, for avoiding their respective peculiarities, but by the natives of London also." He himself was a native and had been a teacher of elocution for many years in London and its neighbour- hood ; and his ear had been vexed with local accents and tones and vocalizations which he desired to set right For, just as here in Canada we are more ready to note with disapproval deviations itorx the normal custom of speaking in an Englishman than in a Hibernian or Scot, so Walker is specially out of patience with Londoners when they transgress in this respect " The inhabitants of London," he says, "have the disadvantage of being more disgraced by their peculiarities than any other people." He then points out their faults of pronouncing w for z/, and v (or w; not sounding h after w in such "3 words as which, when ; affixing h where it ought not to be affixed, and dropping it where it ought not to be dropped ; pronouncing e like u in such words as her^ mercy, and so on. Thomas Sheridan, an Irishman, father uf Richard Brind;sley Sheri- dan, had proposed himself as an authority for English orthoepy, in his " General Dictionary of the English Language," in two volumes quarto. Walker finds occasion to dissent from Sheridan frequently, as also he does now and then from Dr. Johnson too, especially in regard to givmg the Latin accent to English words derived from Latin. " Were we to insist on tliis, the whole language would be metamor- phosed," Walker says, " and we should neither pronounce English nor I^tin, but a Babylonish dialect between both." For spelling sceptic with a k, Walker remarks on Johnson thus: "It may be observed perhaps in this, as on other occasions, of that truly great man, that he is but seldom wrong ; but when he is so, that he is generally wrong to absurdity." We, of the present day, are amazed at some of the pronunciations on which Walker takes the trouble gravely to animadvert, either in the preliminary Essay or in the body of his work, so completely out of court are they now as simple vulgarisms. We expect to hear only in jest now, and to have presented to the eye phonetically in the columns of humorous journals, such things as the following, which appear to have been in vogue in Walker's day : sparrow-grass for asparagus ; reddish for radish ; cowcumber for cucumber ; reesin for raisin ; sassage for sausage ; soger for soldier ; wes-cut for waistcoat ; tower for tour ; yallow for yellow j yis for yes ; yisterday for yesterday ; bin for been ; gap for gape ; gould for gold ; wowod for wound ; boul for bowl ; wunt for wont ; haut for haunt ; gee-arden for garden ; gee-ide for guide ; chaumber for chamber ; marchant for merchant ; sarvice for service ; and a host of others now undreamt of. The French words which will from time to time stray into English talk. Walker gave up with a despair almost Dundreary in tone. " As the nasal vowels in the first and last syllable of environs are not followed by^or^,it is impossible," he says, "for a mere Englishman to pronounce it fashionably." In eclaircissement, " every syllable bu\ the last," he says, "may be perfectly pronounced by an Englishman who does not speak French ; but this syllable having a nasal vowel not followed by hard c or g, is an insuperable difficulty." There is what seems to us a great to-do about nothing in a long note ui Walker's on the 1X4 1 mk '9 I'll ' word schedule. " In the pronunciation of this word," he says, '* we seem to depart both from the Latin schedula and the French schedule. If we follow the first we ought to pronounce the word skedule ; if the last, schedule ; but entirely sinking the cA in sedule seems to be the prevailing mode, and too firmly fixed by custom to be altered in favour of either of its original words. Dr. Kendrick, Mr. Perry and Buchanan pronounce it skedule ; but Mr. Elphinston, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Scott, Mr. Nares, Barclay, Penning and Shaw, sedule ; though if we may believe Mr. Jones, it was pronounced shedule in Queen Anne's time." The vulgar pronunciation of this word among English attorneys is not here noted at all : viz., sheddles, — reminding us of the now established corpusicles for corpuscules, among medical men. I remember when Room was inculcated on myself as the proper pro- nunciation of Rome. Walker advocates it. His remarks are curious enough. " The o in this word," he says, " is irrevocably fixed in the English sound of the letter in move, prove, etc. Pope indeed," he continues, "rhymes it with *dome.' Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome. The worId'< just wonder, and even thine, O Rome i " But as Mr. Nares observes, Ii; is most probable that he pronounced this word as if written doom ; as he rhymes Rome with doom after- wards, in the same poem. From the same foes at last both felt their doom ; And the same age saw Learning fall, and Rome. The truth is, nothing certain can be concluded from the rhyming of poets. It may serve to confirm an established usage, but can never direct us where usage is varied and uncertain. But the pun which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Cassius in Julius Caesar decidedly shows what was the pronunciation of the word in his time : Now it is Rome indeed, and room enough When there is in it but one only man. "And the Grammar in Queen Anne's time," Walker adds in conclu- sion, " recommended by Steele, says the city of Rome is pronounced like Room; and Dr. Jones in his spelling Dictionary, 1704, gives it the same sound." Walker strangely omits the quotation from Shakspeare, which tells tells "5 in favour of the present pronunciation of Rome. When in i Hen. VI. iii. I, the Bishop of Winchester makes the threat, " Rome shall remedy this I" the Earl of Warwick petulantly replies with the pun, " Roam thither, then I" Like " obleege " for •♦ oblige," " room," for " Rome," in English speech, probably took its final departure along with the late Earl Russell. In Walker's time the stage was an authority for pronunciation, and he seems somewhat timid when he alludes to some of its usages. He does not very emphatically denounce such vagaries as ferce for fierce, ferful for fearful, herd for beard, sithe for sigh. John Kehible's atches for aches were no longer heard ; but it is remarked of Garrick that he turned i into u in virtue, and made ungrateful, ingrateful. To one Dr. Hill who complained of Garrick for doing this, that actor replied : " If it is. u you say, I have injur'd « letter, 1*11 channe my note soon, and I hope for the better. May the right use of letters, as well as of men. Hereafter be fixed by the tongue and the pen. Most devoutly I wish they may both have their due. And that I maybe never mistaken for U." Besides evolving new words now and then {e.g., irrelevant and inimical, which were only ten years old when Walker wrote), the House of Commons also furnished some peculiarities in pronunciation. Thus it was Parliamentary use, we are told, to give the Scottish force to certain vowels ; to call legislature, leegislature, etc. Thanks to the studious painstaking of intelligent teachers and trainers, the pronunciation of English, generally speaking, has, I think, become much more precise, distinct, and certain than it was in the days of our fathers. The inherent rights of each vowel, diphthong and consonant are sought to be secured as far as practicable ; and as little as possible is left to haphazard and the whim of individuals. (g) yohnson. — ^Johnson's Dictionary is a book so well known, at least by repute, that a very few words will suffice for a notice of my two-volume quarto copy, dated 1785; one year after Johnson's^ de- cease. It has happened to Johnson as to Walker, to have his work enlarged, improved, and re-edited so often, that the books now circu- lating under his name are scarcely to be identified with the original work. In 18 18 Todd's Johnson appeared, swollen to five volumes quarto ; and since then, Latham has added largely to Todd. At the foot of the title«page of this 1785 edition, it is again pleasant ii6 to notice the names — household words many of them! — of the London booksellers concerned in its publication : J. F. and C. Rivington, L. Davis, T. Payne and Son, W. Owen, T. Longman, B. Law, J. Dodsley, C. Dilly, W. Lowndes, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, T. Cadell, Jo. Johnson, J. Robson, W. Richardson, J. Nichols, R. Baldwin, W. Goldsmith, J. Murray, W. Stuart, P. Elmsley, W. Fox, S. Hayes, A. Strahan, W. Bent, T. and J. Egerton, and M. Newbery. Johnson's original dictionary was by no means a mere alphabeti- cal register of definitions and derivations. It was a volume interest- ing to read, ad aperturam, on account of the numerous selections from English authors given in illustration of the use and meaning of each word. In these quotations t';.. compiler was studious that there should be likewise a certain moral drift. "When first I engaged in this work," Johnson tells us in his Preface, "I resolved to leave neither words nor .things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, the obscure recesses of northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with which I expected every scearch into those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with which T should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus enquired into the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention to things, to pierce deep into every science, . . . that my book might be in place of all other dictionaries whether appellative or technical." This was his ideal. After labouring hard to make it a reality, the writer is constrained to avow that he has fallen short of what he had hoped to effect. "These were tlie dreams of a poet," he says," doomed at last to wake a levijographer." He discouraged would-be critics, however, by classing them beforehand with fools and blockheads. " A few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may," he said, "for a time furnish folly with laughter and harden ignorance in contempt;" but what the final verdict of the public on his book would be, he felt pretty sure. "Useful diligence will at last prevail;" he says "and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert." To have fulfilled his design as completely as he did, single-handed, in the space of seven years, was a great feat. "When I took the first survey of my under- taking," Johnson writes, "I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules. Wherever I turned my view, there was 117 I sure. can his leven jder- |rder, was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection: adulterations were to be detected withcit a settled test of purity, and modes of expr<>ssion to be rejected or re- ceived, without the suffrages of any writers ot classical reputation or acknowledged authority." On revising his work for the fourth edition, Johnson candidly wrote as follows: "I will not deny that I found many parts requiring emen- dation, and many more capable of improvement. Many faults I cor- rected; some superfluities I have taken away; some deficiencies I have supplied. . . For negligence or deficience," however, he added, " I have perhaps not need of more apology than the nature of the work will furnish. I have left that inaccurate which was never made exact, and that imperfect which was never completed." " He that under- takes to compile a Dictionary," he had previously remai..3d, " under- takes that, if it comprehends the full extent of his design, he knows himself unable to perform. Yet his labours, though deficient, may be useful, and with the hope of this inferior praise he must incite his activity, and solace his weariness." Johnson lived a ^w years too soon to profit by the studies of Sir William Jones and others in Sanskrit, which have led to the modern science of Comparative Philology ; but he did a good work in devis- ing a luminous method for an English Dictionary, which has been virtually adopted by most subsequent English lexicographers. The same remark applies to the English Grammar which precedes the Dictionary. Its analysis of the elements and forms of English speech is lucid, and for the period when it was offered to the world, masterly, and not out of harmony with later theories. Again, it will be seen that in the History of the English Language prefixed to the Diction- ary, Johnson has given large extracts from King Alfred's translation of " Boethius," in the Anglo-Saxon language and character, with samples, similarly printed, of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, Anglo-Saxon verse in various metres, and Anglo-Saxon prose, beginning at length to be affected by Norman French : then follow copious specimens of our mixed Saxon Norman English, in chronological order, down to Eliza- beth's time. In all this, Johnson initiated that study of Early English which has led to such fruitful results in England and the United States and among ourselves. He, in effect, thus suggested the move- ment which in our day has led to the careful editing and republica- ii8 tion of nearly every one of those numerous pieces of ancient English literature which hzd almost wholly fallen out of memory with Eng- lishmen, but which throw so much light on the history and structure of their language. On turning over the title-page of Johnson's famous work, no Dedi- cation meets the eye. The celebrated Plan or Prospectus of a Dictionary, circulated before its inception, and still to be seen in Johnson's collected works, was addressed in dignified language to Philip, Lord Chesterfield, by permission; and, doubtless, had the Earl, who, by the way, was Secretary of State at the time, come up to the mark in point of substantial patronage, a grandiose inscription to him would have met the eye in the Folio. But this was not to be. What Johnson expected Lord Chesterfield to do can only be con- jectured. By dwelling so much as he afterwards did, in his talk and correspondence and in the preface to the Folio when it finally ap- peared, on the supposed slight shown him by the Earl, Johnson betrayed, to a greater extent than he had need to have done, the morbidness of mind to which he was unfortunately subject. It would seem that in reality, Chesterfield did take a considerable interest in the projected dictionary, and ofiiered suggestions which were quietly adopted. We are all of us more or less familiar with the appearance and form of Dr. Johnson. Some of us, perhaps, could easily persuade ourselves that we had seen him personally -, that we had been in his company; that we had noted with our own eyes the nervous twitches and jerks of the ponderous shape as it moved restlessly about In the fine engraving of Sir Joshua Reynolds' counterfeit presentment of him, prefixed to this quarto of 1785, we have him again restored to us. Here we see once more the Doctor Formidabilis of the latter portion of the eighteenth century; his dread form and its habiliments : the wig, the collarless coat, the large round buttons, the half-shut, shortsighted eyes ; the full, unclosed mouth just prepared to utter the combative, authoritative, " No i Sir." About the time of Johnson's decease, it had become so customary to speak of his labours in clearing the study of the English language of its difficulties, as Herculean, that at last, in 1796, the metaphorical expression took a solid shape ; and to this day the visitor to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, is astounded to behold in a Christian temple, looking down on him from a lofty pedestal, a semi-nude, colossal Hercules in white marble, which he learns from a Latin inscription 119 below, is the m< morial erected by friends and literary associates to the honour of t m great Lexicographer. It is somewhat singular that in the fourth edition so many of Johnson's splenetic definitions should still be allowed to appear. We still read here that "Excise is a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." The Attorney-General, Mr. Murray (afterwards Lord Mansfield), held this to be actionable, and the Excise Commissioners were about to proceed at^ainst Johnson; but they were advised afterwards simply to accept a w> .hdrawalof the offensive language. (In the " Rambler," also, Johnson classes together, as "the two lowest of all human beings," "a scribbler for a party and a commissioner of Excise.") Under "renegado" in the original MS. — after "one who deserts to the enemy ; a re volter,"— there was added, "as we say, a Gower." Lord Gower had recently forsaken the Jacobite interests. This was struck out by Miller, Johnson's employer Strange that the rest should have passed muster. "Pensioner" still continued to be "a slave of State, hired by a stipend to obey his master;" and n "pension" is said "in England generally understood to mean pay given to a State-hireling for treason to his country;" and "patron" is "commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid with flattery." " Whig" is "the name of a faction." "Tory" is "a cant term, derived from an Irish word signifying a savage." " Oats " are still " a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." The formerly famous definition of "network" does not strike the educated ear now as much out of the way : " anything reticulated or decussated at equal dis- tances, with interstices between the intersections." "Pastern," it is to be observed, has been corrected. A lady asked Johnson how he came to define "pastern" in the original folic to be "the knee of a horse." Instead of an elaborate defence, as she expected to hear, the reply at once was : ' ' Ignorance, madam ; pure ignorance. " The story about the omission of the word "ocean" probably arose from a vague recollec- tion of what Johnson had said about "sea " m his preface. He had at first, by an oversight, he tells us, left "sea" unexenplified by quo- tations. To the gentleman who professed to have discovered the omission of " oci'an," Johnson observed, as he triumphantly placed his finger on the word in a copy of the dictionary near at hand, " Perhaps, sir, you spell ocean with a /." In " lexicographer" he indulges in a 130 little dry humour at his own expense. A lexicographer is "a writer of dictionaries ; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the origi- nal and detailing the signification of words." And again : under " Grub- street" This, he tells us, is "the name of a street in Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and teuiporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub- street." To a certain Greek passage which he gives apropos of this mention of Grub-street, he has appended no author's name. It was doubtless his own manufacture, out of a reminiscence of the Odyssey, where, I think, it is not to be found. He therein likens himself to Ulysses beholding again his rugged island home after a ^en-years' absence, and exclaims : " My Ithaca ! from Fortune's knocks full sore And Life's sharp thrusts, with joy I touch thy shore." With these remarks on Johnson and the old quarto edition of his famous dictionary here before us, I conclude my notes on our early dictionaries, Greek, Latin, and English. I have sir iply aimed to give an idea of the oracles which a youth of linguistic proclivities was aforetime bidden to consult. Happily now the question of language in general is beset with fewer difficulties than it was half a century ago. The knotted mass has been shaken loose. The threads are now to a great extent separated and rendered individually traceable. The student of English in the present day, is furnished with manuals which, thanks to Johnson, approximate somewhat closely to Johnson's ideal. Richardson's two quartos are richer than Johnson's book in chronological quotation from English writers, making it possible for every one to learn for himself the history and true meaning of a word ; while the philological principles of Richardson are philosophical enough, being drawn from primeval elements of speech. For ordinary and less critical purposes, they have in England Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary, re-edited by Annandale, and lately issued in an im- proved and augmented state ; whilst here, for the same uses, we turn over by night and by day the pages of Worcester and Webster. The latter compiler originally styled his book an Ameri- can Dictionary of the English Language, and by confusing the minds of the young and others in regard to established English orthography, he has done much mischief throughout the length and breadth of this Continent. It is patent to all that Worcester lai represents the use cf the mother-country much more accurately than Webster does; and it is superfluous to say that it is Eng- lish use — and not the enforced peculiarities of an outlying prov- ince that we Anglo-Canadians of British North America are proud to cultivate. Webster's definitions are terse and to the point, and will always retain their value : but there are signs which render it probable that the orthographical peculiarities of Webster will die out in the United States as the daily increasing intercourse with Great Britian goes on. Already in the modern editions of Webster, the orthographic Americanisms, though still given, are not pressed, and by their side the customary renderings of the mother-country reappear. It is likewise noticeable that since the Messrs. Harper, of New York, have found it to their advantage to enter the English market with their Monthly Magazine, that the Websterisms once so carefully nursed in that periodical, have been dropped therein, and the English usage resumed. I say resumed, for in books printed by the Harpers in 1833, as for example in Verplanck's Discourses and Addresses, now before me, the English orthography obtains. Henceforward, therefore, when we buy a leprint of an English author emanating from the Harpers' press, we may hope to escape the annoyance of having the text presented to us in a disfigured state. The Boston and Philadelphia republications have, I think, for the most part, avoided this blemish. The Messrs. Scribner, like the Messrs. Harper, are vigorously pushing the circulation of their monthly periodical. The Century, in Great Britian and here. I have no doubt that with the educated classes, the disagreeable niters, miters, fibers, sabers, theaters, specters, revelers, cavilers, etc., that offend the eye in the otherwise magnificently printed pages of that periodical, will be a source of disfavour ; and will lead in due course, it is hoped, to a further abandonment of Webster's doctrines. In the great living community of England, instinct with every ele- ment of spiritual insight and intellect, the English language will with- out doubt continue to modify itself wisely and well, generation after generation, and to grow, rendering supplements to its dictionaries periodically necessary. Augmentations to the language and improve- ments, arising thus, will be duly respected throughout the English- speaking world. It will be our wisdom, as Anglo-Canadians simply, to await and watch for such developments of our speech as thes^* when they emerge in the mother-land, and let them have their natural laa course amongst us. In the meantime, let little or no heed be given to petty local propositions of change. They are sure in the long run to amount to very little. Especially, let all reforms of the " fonetic- nuz " order be religiously eschewed. The English Dictionary of the future, when it shall appear, will be that of the Philological Society of England, so many years in preparation. No language is now studied as an isolated thing. Each tongue is regarded as one of the numerous ramifications of human speech, all more or less cognate, and reciprocally throwing light on one another. Dictionaries hereafter will recognize this on a wide scale, and be constructed accordingly. In the new English Dictionary of the Philological Society, English will of course be treated in this comprehensive way, in its origin, descent and connec- tions. In the meantime we have the Etymological Dictionary of the English Language by Walter Skeat, published so lately as 1882, simultaneously in England and the United States, to occupy our atten- tion. Some of Mr. Skeat's positions will of course be controverted, but the modem student of English cannot do better than make him- self acquainted with Mr. Skeat's book, now cheaply obtainable every- where; mastering especially its twenty pages of preliminary matter, wherein the facts and principles of Comparative Philology are con- cisely set forth.