EXCHANGE OCT 2 1913 UC-NRLF B M 0M3 3fll THE .ATIONS OF LATIN AND ENGLISH DURING THE AGE OF MILTON. WELDON T. MYERS. RUEBUSH-ELK.1NS CO. PRINTERS DAYTON. VIRGINIA Si; M THE RELATIONS OF LATIN AND ENGLISH AS LIVING LANGUAGES IN ENGLAND DURING THE AGE OF MILTON A Dissertation accepted by the Faculty of the University of Virginia as fulfilling the requirements in orig- inal research for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. By WELDON T. MYERS. M. A., Ph. D.. Adjunct Professor of English Literature in the University of Virginia. Omnes trahimur et ducimur ad cognitionis et scientiae cupiditatem, in qua excellere pulchmm putamus; labi autem, errare, nescire, decipi, et malum et turpe ducimus. CICERO, De Officiis, 1, 6. PREFACE The research for this dissertation was begun and carried »n under the direction of Dr. Charles W. Kent, of the Linden Kent Memorial School of English Literature in the University •f Virginia. A graduate course in Seventeenth Century English Prose brought up the question of classical influences. Frequent general reference, in literature and criticism, to the action of Latin on English prose style, led to the inquiry for a detailed and specific treatise on the subject. No such treatise was found; in fact, the entire subject of the direct and powerful activity of Latin in England appeared to have been treated only in general terms. The present work is an effort to discuss in detail one aspect of that subject. CONTENTS Introduction. Section I: Chapter I: Chapter II Page 7 Latin in the Schools and Universities. 13 Latin in the Schools ... 13 Latin in the University Curricula and University Administration 25 Extra-curriculum Uses of Latin . 40 Latin as an International Language. 53 Latin in Official Correspondence . 53 Latin in Private Correspondence . 65 Publications in Latin ... 71 Latin as a Substitute for English. 105 Epistolary Latin . . . 105 Chapter VIII: Latin Prose . . . .117 Chapter IX: Latin Poetry ... 123 Chapter X: Diffusion of Latin . . . 140 Conclusion: Summary 162 Bibliography 165 Chapter III: Section II: Chapter IV: Chapter V: Chapter VI: Section III: Chapter VII: THE RELATIONS OF LATIN AND ENGLISH AS LIVING LANGUAGES IN ENGLAND DUR- ING THE AGE OF MILTON. INTRODUCTION. The more one inquires into the literature and life of Eng- land from 1600 to 1660, the more he grows to recognize two paramount subjects exercising the thought of EngHshmen of that day. The first had to do with religious and ecclesiastical concerns, the second with classical learning. These two supreme considerations are encountered in the education, in the literature, and in the politics of the times. Their prom- inence is exemplified in the life and career of many men; of John Milton, for instance, who spent thirty years becoming a scholar, and then turning to politics and controversy lent his great scholarship toward the reform of ecclesiastical govern- ment. Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher, pursued somewhat the same course, first devoting himself to a long series of reading in the classics and to the mastery of a Latin style, and then turning to political philosophy and laying down the principles of a Christian commonwealth. King James I exhibited the twofold interest of the times at every juncture; his speeches and writings, if they contained nothing else, had at least the ornament of classical and scriptural quotation. Latin and the Bible, school and church, learning and contro- versy — these twin ideas move conspicuously in every scene which occupied the attention of Englishmen during the age of Milton. The interest of our present study is with only one of these —7— ideas, that is, classical learning, which in its full scope may be considered under three aspects. First, the production of great humanistic scholars. The study of books was pursued to an extent almost incredible at the present day. There raged a national epidemic of scholar- ship under the influence of the narrow humanism which set up classical learning as an end worthy and glorious in itsfelf. Boys at six or seven began the study of Latin and continued until Latin epitaphs were engraved on their tombs. In any contemporary biographical account, however brief, at least one statement, for praise or blame, had reference to the plenitude or deficiency of a man's proper learning. In Wood's Annals of Oxford, in which he wrote sketches of hun- dreds of University scholars, the one almost universal matter of comment had to do with classical attainments. It is not the question to what use the attainments were put, or what s'ervice they performed: their mere possession is adver- tised as a high accomplishment and the crown of a successful life. Second, the employment of Latin in practical living inter- course. It was not at that time altogether a dead language, whose last word had been uttered and stereotyped in old Roman books; but it retained a vital power for daily work, and along with the humble and unlearned vernacular was still an instrument of civilization. Third, the influence of classical scholarship and Latin prose style on the syntax and style of English prose. The contact of the two languages in the schools, in the study and the writings of literary men, and to some extent in the prac- tical affairs of church and state, produced on the side of the English certain reactions traceable in the poetry but more manifest in the prose. These marks were fortunately not inherited in the prose of succeeding generations, since our language later asserted its own native genius and outgrew the severe impositions of a powerful foreign tongue. But in the middle of the seventeenth century it was by no means certain, nor unanimously desirable, that those unnatural influences should pass away. Some of the most important -8— prose writers strove deliberately to improve and upbuild the inferior English by introducing from the admired and mas- terly Latin the long, eloquent, comprehensive sentence, the involved subordination of clauses, the inverted and emphatic word-order, the introductory and demonstrative use of the relative pronoun, and, finally, an excessive elaboration of dic- tion, a quaintness, "that curiosa felicitas which we admire in certain Latin writers both of prose and verse, such as Sallust Virgil, Tacitus, but which our barbarian speech never took kindly to.'" These three aspects of high classical scholarship, — vast learning, the practical use of Latin, and English prose re- action, — though closely interrelated, may easily be separated and detached for particular investigation. But with respect to the last, that is, the reactions of English prose style in contact with the Latin language and literature, the investiga- tion of the other two features naturally precedes and pre- pares the way.- In other words, to appreciate the formal ef- fects wrought on English it is necessary first to comprehend the nature and extent of the causes on the side of an intensive Latin scholarship and a wide-spread employment of Latin as a Hving tongue. The original intention of this treatise was to make the approach from the English side and to examine the stylistic effects of the one language upon the other as recorded in the English prose literature of the seventeenth century. As in- vestigation proceeded, questions constantly arose with refer- ence to the actual status of the foreign tongue in England: Inf what esteem was Latin held in comparison with English? To what extent did the composition of prose and poetry con- tinue in a scholar's habits after withdrawal from the Uni- versity? When the two languages came together in living rivalry, bidding for choice in a piece of writing, what consid- erations favored the selection of the one or the other by the writer? Was the tongue of Cicero regarded as inherently a finer and more powerful instrument of expression than the language of Shakespeare? 1 Earle, English Prose, pp. 451-2. -9— To give satisfactory answer to these and similar ques- tions, it seemed first necessary to understand, in as thorough and far-reaching a manner as possible, the relations existing between Latin and English as languages living and working side by side during that age of profound classical scholarship and relentless classical fashion. The investigation turned, therefore, from the standpoint of English, from the question of eif ects, to the side of Latin, the question of influences, and to the examination, in all directions, of the uses of the ancient tongue in England during this period, and of its relations to contemporaneous English. Latin, then, as a living and literary tongue alongside of English during the supreme classical age of Milton is the sub- ject of this treatise. An effort has been made to comprehend all the active uses of the older language in written and spoken discourse, in prose and verse, in England, and by Englishmen; to present all the activities wherein Latin stood aloof from and independent of English, and all wherein the two tongues came into mutual contact as rivals, as co-workers, or as sub- ordinate the one to the other. In presenting the Latinity of the whole period, the ex- ample of Milton as a user of Latin has been called to witness wherever a record or evidence of such use appears. A thor- ough investigation of his life and literary work has been made for this purpose, and his name finds a place in nearly all the divisions of Latin writing in his time. He has helped to illuminate the whole work, and his classical character has been itself illustrated in the light of that humanistic age. The age of Milton was selected because it marked the culmination of classical scholarship and produced a prose lit- erature most profoundly affected by Latin models. It is moreover a period of definite limits, which promise some de- gree of unity to historic inquiries. In a strict sense the liter- ary age of Milton is usually understood as extending from 1625, about the close of the Elizabethan age, to 1660, the year of the restoration, the beginning of French influence, and the decisive change not only in things political and literary, but —10- in nearly all the forces that affected the life of the English people. In a broader sense the age of Milton may be taken as coinciding with the years of the poet's life, from 1608 to 1674. In this work no rigid line has been drawn for the be- ginning of the period, but the year 1615, about the time when Milton's classical education began, has been generally ob- served as the first limit of investigation. The year 1660, marking so positive a national epoch, has been pretty faith- fully respected as the other limit of inquiry. The treatment has fallen into three main divisions as follows: Section I. Latin in the Schools and Universities. This division presents the classical curricula and the vari- ous extra-curriculum activities which Latin performed in academic life. The schools cherished an intense and narrow humanism; for long years they brought classical language and ideas to bear on the mind of a youth, and finally sent him forth into the world with an equipment consisting largely of an ability to read, think, and v^^ite in the language of Cicero, and to quote from the ancient authors passages to suit every possible occasion. The employment of Latin in the fashion and business of the world rose out of a thor- ough-going and long-continued academic training. Section 1 1. Latin as an International Language. It was the medium of intercourse between England and the continental courts, and also between individual Eng- lishmen and foreigners, Latin being in many cases the only common speech. Moreover, literary pro- ductions by EngHshmen who sought a foreign audi- ence, to instruct them or to be honored by them, were put in the learned tongue. In this use Latin stood aloof from English, independent and alone, oc- cupying a field to which the vernacular never made any claim or pretense. Section III. Latin as a Substitute for English. Consid. erations of dignity, learning, decorum, and compli- —11- ment determined the choice of the ancient and foreign tongue in cases where the native speech should have been more natural and effective. The classical fashion of the age imposed certain burdens which the boldest and most independent never thought of shifting. In this division the classical atmosphere and the various pervasive influences are taken into consideration. SECTION I. LATIN IN THE SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. CHAPTER I. Latin in the Schools. The early age at which the severe and thorough study of Latin began for the seventeenth century EngHsh boy serves to suggest what estimate the time put on its value for the mature man. The grammar schools, which were so named because Latin was taught therein,' admitted pupils from eight to twelve years of age, and it was the custom to require some knowledge of Latin grammar from all pupils who were ad- mitted.- This requirement threw the study of the ancient language back upon the years of very early childhood; and since the hope for a boy's intellectual career looked forward chiefly to the one great, all-important subject of the classics, the earlier a child began his rudiments and the more diligently he pursued them, the surer were his chances to attain distinction in the schools and eminence in later life. It is not uncommon in biographical accounts of seventeenth century Englishmen, who became great or were so esteemed in schol- arship or literature, to find record of very early interest in classical studies. For instance, it is an item in the biography of Thomas Hobbes (born 1588), that he was learning Latin and Greek at the age of six, and made such rapid advance- ment that before fourteen he was able to translate the Medea of Euripides into Latin iambics. ^ The future philosopher, while in his youth a tutor to the Earl of Devonshire, approved his own intellectual training by urging his young pupil into 1 Mark's Educational Theories, p. 95. 2 Do., 77. 3 Robertson's Hobbes, p. 4. —13- strenuous classical ways, and dictating to him a Latin ab- stract of Aristotle's Rhetoric. John Evelyn, the diarist, in speaking of his earliest education, notices a sort of belated- ness in the start he made. Under the year 1624 he writes: "I was not initiated into my rudiments till I was four years of age;" and later he observes: "It was not till the year 1628" [i. e. till his eighth year] "that I was put to learn my Latin rudiments, and to write of one Citolin, a Frenchman, in Lewes."' The boy of whom any special expectation was entertained in the way of learning had to start his Latin al- most in infancy, — to lisp in Latin, like a young Roman of the ancient republic. With this early progress in classical paths, and with a vast background of classical tradition for centuries in English history, religion and literature, giving tone and character to the individual mind from the first steps in education, it was to be expected that marvels of linguistic precocity would arise. Latin had been petted and coddled in the schools, in the law courts, in the church, and in the very conversation of men, for so long that its presence and possession was every- where, and the child of any hope was born to that language as surely as to his own. An instance of juvenile achievement in school is related with admiration by Thomas Fuller. "I know a school-boy," he says, "not above twelve years old, and utterly ignorant of all logical terms, who was commanded to English the following distich: Dat Galenus opes et Justinianics honores. Cum genus, et species, cogitur ire pedes. Only they favored the boy so far, that Galenus did signify the profession of physic, Justinianusof law; on which ground he thus proceeded: 'Galenus, the study of physic, dat giveth, opes wealth; Justinianus, the study of law, dat giveth, honores honours; cum when, genv^ high birth, et species and beauty [having n* other calling (saith the boy) to maintain them], co(7i7wr is compelled, ire pedes to go on foot.' "- 1 Evelyn's Diary, under the years indicated. « Fuller's Worthies, I, p. 98. —14- It was of course a matter of exultation to parents and master to hear such smooth and perfect scholarship from the lips of one so young. They must have showered commenda- tions upon him and prophecied his fair distinction in the world. We cannot ignore the value also of the moral senti- ment in the verses: many a time, on apt occasion thereafter, the boy, grown to manhood and position, may have bestowed a warning precept on youth or adorned an argument in poli- tics or religion, with quotation of the long-known elegiacs. When among any people a certain fashion of thought and education is persisted in for generations, there will arise not only precocity in youth but also prodigies in later life. The age of Milton in England emphasized religion and learning, and it was an era of preachers and scholars, sects and con- troversies, fanatics and bookworms. But it produced, as its best fruit .on the one hand, George Fox, the first of the Quakers^ Roger Williams, the advocate of religious liberty,' Cromwell, the Puritan warrior and statesman, and John Bun- yan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress; on the other hand, Archbishop Usher, author of the long-accepted Biblical chronology, John Selden, the rival and antagonist of Hugo Grotius in learning and controversy, and John Milton, the vanquisher of Claudius Salmasius and author of Paradise Lost. It was the education of the boy that made the man, and Latin was the subject that made the schools. Let us look now at the curriculum of the school which the child entered between eight and twelve years of age, after his elementary instruction in the rudiments of Latin. Eton College may be taken as an example. There is a detailed ac- count given of the studies pursued at Eton in 1560, and the only slight change during the succeeding generations was some additional attention paid to Greek. ' There were seven forms in the school and the books studied were as follows:' "In the first form, Cato and Vives. 1 Lyte's Eton, p. 209. 2 Do., 146, ff. —15- "In the second, Terence, Lucian's Dialogues (in Latin) and Aesop's Fables (in Latin). "In the third, Terence, Aesop's Fables (in Latin), and Se- lections by Sturmius from Cicero's Epistles. "In the fourth, Terence, Ovid's Tristia, and the Epi- grams of Martial, Catullus, and Sir Thomas More. "In the fifth, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Horace, Cicero's Epistles, Valerius Maximus, Lucius Florus, Justin, and 'Sysembrotus'. * 'In the sixth and seventh, Caesar's Commentaries, Cicero de Officiis and de Amicitia, Virgil, Lucan, and the Greek Grammar." "It is clear," says Lyte, "that Latin viras almost the only subject of study [at Eton], and that no means of inculcating a sound knowledge of it was neglected. The lower boys had to decline and conjugate words, and their seniors had to re- peat rules of grammar, for the illustration of which short phrases called 'Vulgaria' were composed and committed to memory. Some sort of Latin composition, however brief, was a necessary portion of the daily work of every Eton scholar. In the lower form it was confined to the literal translation of an English sentence or passage, while in the fifth form it consisted of a theme on a subject set by the Master. The boys in the sixth and seventh forms used to write verses The Master and Usher used to read aloud and explain to the boys the passages which were to be learnt by heart."* Such was the curriculum at Eton in 1560, and, with slight change, for the two centuries following. To show further how the young mind was brought up in Masson I, 163. » Cooper's Cambridge, III, 322. -36- Infanta, and the trip of the Prince and the Duke of Buckinj^- ham to the continent for that purpose, furnished a striking theme for discussion by patriotic and loyal scholars in the Universities. It made no difference that the enterprise turned out to the repulse of the royal suitor and to the shame of England: his going and coming both furnished rare oppor- tunity for rhetorical exhibition. John King, Public Orator at Oxford, gave forth first his Ch-atio panegyrica de aiispi- cato Caroli Principis in Regnum Hi^^panicum Adventu,^ and followed it with a Gratnlatio Oxoniensium pro Carolo reduce.' At Cambridge the Public Orator George Herbert, future author of "The Temple", w-as the one to celebrate the safe retreat of the Prince from the presence of the unwilling Infanta and the Spanish people. Herbert's oration, full of fine phrases and safe academic generalities, touches very vaguely on the delicate matter in hand. Its title as published by Herbert suggests the sonorous oratorical style: Oratio qua auspicatissimum serenissimi Principis Caroli reditum ex Hispaniis celebravit Georgiiis Herbert, Academiae Cantahrig- iensis Orator.'-^ A reading of the speech betrays how words were the end and glory of scholastic discourse; how^ rhetoric was the dili- gent search for fine verbal combinations, and the neglect of sense and reason for the sake of a classical allusion and quotation. Any subject whatsoever might do for such exer- cise in the hands of a trained speaker, whether "The most happy return of Prince Charles from Spain", or the theme of Milton's academic argument. "Is day or night more excel- lent?' The statutes governing the Universities were in Latin. 1 Panegyrican oration on the auspicious arrival of Prince Charles in Spain. - Gratulation of Oxonians on the return of Charles. Wood. Fasti, Part II, 632. •T Dictionary of Nat. Biog., sub Herbert. Oration with which George Herbert, Orator of the University of Cambridge, celebrated the most happy return from Spain of the most serene Prince Charles. -37- Cambridge continued under the code of the Reverend Dr. Whitgift, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and others, ^iven to the Urlivetsity in 1570 by the authority of Queeii Elizabeth. The statiites coveir Idrty^five images; and coifiF»ris^ fifty Articles outlining \fi detail the aditiiriisti-atiofl of the iristitutiofl.i l^he statutes goVeriling Oxford, Codified in 1636> uiider AreiibishoiD Laud^s charicellofship arid called the Laud; iSn Code, are in twenty-o'nei Articles domprisirig one hundred and ninety pages.- As the University ^tatute^s wet'e in LsLtin, so also the' decrees of the legislative councils were made and recorded in the honored language of law and tradition. The Laudiari Code required that even the summoning of the Convocation of Masters and Doctors, the highest council of the University,- should be done by the bedels according to a regular formula,- in a loud voice and in the Latin tongue (clara voce, Latino' eloqtiio).^ It was further ordered that in the hall of Congre- gation and Convocation anyone who proposed to speak should use the Latin tongue unless the Vice-chancellor permitted the vernacular. * The dignity and solemnity of the deliberative body were provided for by forbidding the members to make" any commotion in the hall, to use vain repetitions, of to indulge' in abusive or indecent languftg'e.^ Registers, licenses, oaths, dispensations, prayers, and fesfgnatioris, in connection with the University administra- tion, were regularly in Latin, as the language of dignity, tradition, and authority. These forms, together with the' lectures, responsions, sermons, orations, and decrees made up the regular educational and administrative business of the institutions. The Latin language constituted the web and woof of serious academic discourse. Even the riiinor and incidental affairs, in which full liberty was granted for the 1 Heywood's Cambridge^ I, 1-45. 3 Laudian Code of Statutes, ed. by Johrt (Jriffiths. Oxford, Clarendori Press. 1888. 3 Laudian Code, Tit. X, Sec. I. 4 Laudian Code, Tit. XI, §3. -38— vernacular, were inclined to seek expression in the favored language of learning. Dramatic representations, occasional poetry, and various oral utterance are the matters referred to, and these will be taken up in order. CHAPTER III. Extra-Curriculum Uses of Latin. Latin shared with English the responsibility and honors of the stage in University performances. In the sixteenth century the older language had most of the burden. In 1592, on December 4, the University of Cambridge addressed an English letter to Lord Burleigh in ansv^er to a request sent them to play a comedy in English before the Queen at Christ- mas. They declared their willingness to please her Majesty, but having no "English comedies, for that we never used any", they begged "further limitacion of time for due preparacion, and liberty to play in Latyn."' The influence of Seneca was yet unbroken in academic drama. The custom of performing at public schools and Universi- ties was at its height in the great dramatic age of James I and Charles I. In the Universities this custom was observed on notable occasions, especially on a visit from royalty, the plays being sometimes in English, more frequently in Latin, and taken from a small stock in hand or prepared for the occasion.- King James on his first visit to Cambridge, in 1615, listened to the Latin comedy /g'7ioram2^s, which occupied six hours in the acting, and was so delighted with it that he made a second visit to the University just to see a second performance.'' The play was written by George Ruggle, M. A., fellow of Clare Hall, and was published in 1630. ' The following account of this interesting comedy is taken from Ward's History of the English Drama:'' 1 Heywood's Cambridge, II, 40. 2 Masson I, 159. Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XXXIV. p. 221. The Ency- clopedia Britannica (11th ed., sub Drama) gives Knglish plays decided pre- dominance at Oxford at this time. 3 Masson I, 158-9. ^ Diet. Nat. Biog., .sm/; Ruggle. & New and revised ed., vol. Ill, 186-7. -40- "Ignoramus is intended as a satire on the barbarous ignorance and the equally barbarous phraseology of a petti- fogger who can neither talk Latin, nor French, nor good King's English, but only a vile professional jargon of his own, which goes far to justify an attempt in the course of the play to exorcise him as possessed by evil spirits. He hates the University and all its ways, and is intended as a living example of barbarous Philistinism. His speech is accordingly made up of the terms of his profession, which is introduced with extraordinary prompitude to garnish his horrible Latin; 'lingua mea', he says, 'vadit ad verba accus- tomata: Puto me placitare jam.'' The characteristics satir- ized in Ignoramus are not, however, confined to such com- paratively harmless peculiarities of his profession as a bar- barous phraseology; for his principles are on a level with his style of speech, and his desire is 'capere in manum'' whomso- ever he can, so that a poetic justice is exercised upon him by his finding himself all but 'murderatus'. before in the epilogue he finally takes his departure 'bootatus et spuratus' for Lon- don." The ridicule on the lawyers aroused their wrath, but all attempts to discredit and suppress the play were in vain. Another comedy popular in Cambridge was Fraiis Hon- esta,-^ by Phillip Stubbe, fellow of Trinity, and was acted in that College first in 1616. In September. 1629, this comedy was presented as a special feature in the elaborate entertain- ment of the new Chancellor, Lord Holland, who visited the University in company with the French Ambassador. Fraics Honesta, after an honorable career on the stage, was pub- lished in small duodecimo in 1632. Cooper mentions the act- ing and publishing of the comedy, and adds: "It is a play of very little merit, and several parts are not very decent."^ About February, 1631, a Latin comedy entitled Senile Odium,^ 1 My tongue goes after custom-made words; I think I'm making ele- gant hits. 2 To "take in." 3 Fair Fraud. Masson I, 159. 4 Cooper's Cambridge, III, 105. 5 Odious Old Age. Masson I, 179. —41- written by Peter Hausted, M. A., was performed in Queen's College, Cambridge. It was printed in 1633, and among the commendatory Latin verses prefixed to it were some iambics by Edward King, Milton's acquaintance of Christ's. Roxana, a Latin tragedy written about 1592 by the poet William Alabaster, fellow in Trinity College, Cambridge, was based on Seneca as a model, and was much admired during the following century. In 1632 a surreptitious edition of the play was published and in the same year the author issued a correct edition, "a plagiarii unguibus vindicata, aucta et agnita ah author e."^ Fuller called Alabaster '*a most rare poet as any our age and nation hath produced; witness his tragedy of 'Roxana', admirably acted [in Trinity College] and so pathetically, that a gentlewoman present thereat (Reader, I had it from an author whose credit it is sin with me to sus- pect) , at the hearing of the last words thereof, sequar, sequar, so hideously pronounced, fell distracted, and never after fully recovered her senses. "^ The fact that the tragedy is a stiff and lifeless work^ increases the humor of Fuller's descrip- tion, but shows at the same time what power the fashion of Latin had on the minds of the age. Abraham Cowley, who was the author of numerous Latin poems, contributed one notable play to the academic Latin drama. This was the famous Naufragium Jocidare,* acted February 2, 1638, by the members of his college, Trinity, Cambridge, and published soon after. 'It obtained its celeb- rity through the boisterous fun of a scene in the first part of the play, in which a drunken company is deluded into the belief that they are suffering shipwreck The Latinity of this amusing comedy is not always strictly classical; but it abounds in quotations bespeaking the learning as well as the • Rescued from the clutches of the plagiarist, enlarged and acknow- ledged by the author. Diet. Nat. Biog. , sub Stubbe. ■i Fuller's Worthies, III, x85, Nuttall's ed. ;i Diet. Nat. Biog., .sii/> Alabaster. ' A joke of H shipwreck. Diet. Nat. Biog., xub Cowley. —42— ready wit of its youthful author; and shows that he and his contemporaries at Cambridge well understood the ars jocci ndi. ' ' Perhaps no literary production shows more strikingly the linguistic and classical fashion of the times than the Latin comedy entitled Bellmn Grammaticale sive Nominum Verbo- rumque Discordia Civilis,' which was written by one Spense and acted before Queen Elizabeth in Christ Church, Oxford, in 1592, It was printed and perhaps revived at the Univer- sity in 1635. "The plot turns on a conflict between the King of Nouns iPoeta) and the King of Verbs (Amo), which sets the entire province of Grammar at odds, lets loose the Gram- maticae Pestes, Solecismus, Barbarismus, Traulismus and Cacatonus to range at their own sweet will, and is finally settled by the intervention of Grammar, Priscianus, Linacrus, Despanterius, and Lillius. The application of grammatical definitions, rules and maxims to the supposed action is very clever, though parallels might be easily adduced from con- temporary dramatic, and probably other, literature. The doubtful position of the Duke Participiitm, who owes a kind of double allegiance, is specially happy. The sentences ulti- mately pronounced by the judges quibble after the same delectable fashion."'' With the outbreak of the Civil War and the rise of the Puritan power the drama in the Universities suffered the same fate as in England at large; but with the Restoration both English and Latin plays returned in full force to the academic stage. ^ The literary use of Latin in the seventeenth century brought forth its most abundant fruit in academic poetry. The fashion of celebrating notable public events in verse kept the students busy, for the marriages, births, deaths, arrivals, departures, recoveries from illness among royalty and nobility, which were the proper occasions for verse-making, followed 1 Ward's English Drama, III, 187. 2 The grammatical war, or civil strife between nouns and verbs 3 Ward's English Drama, III, 187, and footnote. 4 Encyc. Brit. 11th ed., sub Drama. —43- one another at close intervals from season to season. When events to be sung happened at about the same time, as, for example, the death of one king and the accession of another, a volume of poetry may have celebrated both events, and so at times the muses wore the mingled garb of mourning and festivity. The volumes lamenting the deaths of James I, in 1625, and Oliver Cromwell in 1658. contained felicitations for their respective successors: a Ltictiis followed by a Gratulatio, a Dolor in company with a Solamen. To such collections of commemorative verse contributions were made not only by students but even by provosts and heads of Colleges, the whole trained capacity of academic scholarship exercising itself in Latin poesy. The number of contributors from the various Colleges to the making of a volume sometimes ran up to many scores For instance, the Cambridge collection on the birth of Princess Anne in 1637 counted 140 separate names of authors, among them Abra- ham Cowley and Andrew Marvell. ^ One can imagine the pass- ing of the word from man to man, and from group to group, in hall and court of the great schools, concerning a new poetic event; and student rivalling student for the invention of fine classic phrases, and University challenging University in the expression of a nation's joy or grief. It was a duty that learning owed to its great patrons, to make on every possible occasion an offering of its finest product to their honor and pleasure. It w^ill suffice to bring into view a representative number of the most interesting collections of academic Latin poetry, and in doing this w^e shall follow, for the most part in chrono- logical order, the achievements of the University of Cam- bridge, understanding at the same time that Oxford was no less zealous in such compositions and publications. During his life and reign James I had the lion's share of eulogy and flattery from the poets and orators of Cambridge, and in his death he was not neglected. The collection of Greek and Latin verses in praise of the departed sovereign 1 Masson I, 512. -44— and in congratulation of his successor was entitled: Can- tabrigiensium Dolor et Solamen, seu Decessio Beati^simi Regis Jacobi Pacijici et Successio Augustissimi Regis Caroli Magnae Britamiiae, Galliae & Hibemiae Monarchae.^ In this same year the new king was married, and the second volume of congratulatory verse came forth to meet him. It was entitled : ''Epithalamiiim Rlicstris. & Feliciss. Principum Caroli Regis et H. Mariae Reginae Magnae Britanniae &c., a Miisis Can- tabrigiensibtis decantatum.^ The suspense concerning Charles's marriage was thus at last settled. The muses had been disappointed in 1623, when Charles the Prince made his romantic journey with the Duke of Buckingham to woo the Spanish Infanta: he came back without a bride, and all the University poets could do was to publish a collection of thanksgiving verses on his safe return, the grand title being : "Gratidatio academiae Cantabrigien- sis de Serenissimi Principis reditu ex Hispaniis exoptatissimo; quam Augustissimo Regi Jacobo Celsissimoq. Principi Carolo ardentissimi sui voti testimonium esse voluit."^ The birth of Prince Charles (the second) on May 29, 1630, would have occasioned joy among the poets had not the plague at that time already enforced vacation at the University. Before the end of April the students broke and fled, and the only record left for the future historian was, Grassante peste, 1 The grief and consolation of the Cantabrigians, or, The departure of the most blessed King James the Pacific and the succession of the most august King Charles, monarch of Great Britain, France and Ireland. — Cooper's Cambridge, III, 176. 2 Hymn on the marriage of the most illustrious and happy sovereigns Charles King and Henrietta Maria Queen of Great Britain, &c. , sung by the muses of Cambridge. Cooper's Cambridge, III, 178. •^ Gratulations of the University of Cambridge on the dearly longed- for return of the most serene Prince Charles from Spain; as an evidence to the most august King James and the most high Prince Charles of the University's most ardent devotion. Cooper's Cambridge, III, 161. —45- nulla piihlica comitia.^ It was not till November, 1631, when a new child was born in the royal family, that the muses appropriately remembered the young prince of the preceding year, by celebrating in a single volume the births of both the children. The collection was entitled: Genethliacum Rlus- trissimorum Principum Caroli et Mariae a Miisis Canta- brigiensibus celebratum.' Among the contributors were Edward King, and the future wit and historian, Thomas Fuller. The other children of Charles I and Henrietta Maria were welcomed in order by the faithful bards. The title to the volume commemorating the birth of the Duke of York, after- wards James I, on October 14, 1633, was: Ducis Eboracen- sis Fasciae a Musis Cantabrigiensibus raptim contextae.^ Ed- ward King was again contributor, and the name of Richard Crashaw, of Pembroke Hall, appeared among the busy muses. These two, and Henry More of Christ's College, assisted in bringing out a volume on the birth of Princess Elizabeth, December, 1635; and again on the birth of Princess Anne, March 17, 1637. These collections celebrating the young princesses were more elaborately entitled than that on the Duke of York, and instead of an apology for hurry there is an expression of the most complete and gallant devotion. The first volume was called: Carmen Natalium ad CuTias illus- trissimae Principis Elisabethae decantatum intra Nativitatis Dom. sollemnia per humillimas Cantabrigiae Musas/ The 1 The violence of the plague prevents all public exercises. Masson I, 170. ■2 Birth-day celebration for the most illustrious Prince and Princess Charles and Mary, by the muses of Cambridge. Cooper's Cambridge, III, 244; Masson I, 511. 3 Wreaths hastily woven by the muses of Cambridge, for the Duke of York. Cooper's Cambridge, 1 1 1, 263. 4 Natal song at the cradle of the most illustrious Princess Elizabeth, sung during the birth-day festivities, by the most humble muses of Cam- bridge. Cooper's Cambridge, III, 263. -46- effusion on the birth of Princess Anne carried the classical enthusiasm to a grand climax; -'r/ojoj^ sive Musarum Co ntabrigiensium concentus et Congratulatio ad serenissimum Brifanniaru7n Recjem Carolum de quintasua snibole darissima Principe sibi nuper felicissime nata ' Nothing could attest more strikingly the University attachments to royalty than these learned exultations, one after the other, on the birth of the King's children. One marks the absence of Milton's name from the collections which applauded anything con- nected with Charles I, and it is a wonder that he later so greatly honored Edward King, whose regular contributions to these outbursts of loyalty were always extravagant and never very poetic. In 1640 the last son was born to King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria, that is Prince Henry, afterwards Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Cambridge. The University responded with her usual congratulations; Richard Crashaw and Henry More again contributing, but the ill-fated Edward King's name no longer appearing. In June, 1644, Henrietta, the last child of the King and Queen, was born at Exeter in the midst of war. There was no celebration to be expected any more from Cambridge: early in the year the stern Puritan parliament had sent up a committee to visit and purge the malignant University. The result was the ejection of about half the Fellows, and of eleven out of sixteen Heads of Houses.- All the Latin poetical talent that remained in Cam- bridge by June, 1644, when the Queen's daughter was born, had other fields for its exercise than Royalist birth-days. When Cromwell assumed the sovereignty of England, he and his concerns became the objects of celebration at the hands of the poets. His death at last and the succession of his son Richard in 1658 called forth from Cambridge a volume 1 Unison, or Concordant Congratulation of the Muses of Cambridge to the most serene Charles, King of Britain, on the recent most happy birth of his fifth most illustrious child. Cooper's Cambridge III, 286. 2 Masson III, 92. —47— entitled: Musarum Cantabrigiensium Luctus & Gratulatio: Ille infunere Oliverii Angliae Scotiae & Hiberniae Protectoris Haec de Ricardi Successione felicissiina ad eundem.^ There was no doubt some degree of sincerity in those dirges and greetings, for at that time not even the bards could predict what the next two years had in store for the country. But when the Restoration came, the muses of the University rejoiced, and proclaimed that the coming back of Charles restored them also to their former happy fortunes. Their celebration bore the title: Academiae Cantabrigiensis IdxTTfia sive ad Carolum II reducem, deregnis ipsi, Musis per ipsum feliciter restitutis Gratulatio."^ From that time forth loyalty in University verses flourished again as in the palmy days of James I and Charles I. Perhaps the most interesting volume of academic poetry issued during the century was that on the death of Edward King in 1637. The chief interest rises from the fact that Milton's Lycidas was one of the contributions, though the poet himself had been out of the University for five years. King, who, according to Milton, "knew himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme," had between 1631 and 1637 written Latin iambics, elegiacs, or Horatian stanzas for no less than six volumes of college poetry. When the young scholar and poet was lost at sea in 1637, his alma mater published in his memory a little collection of sixty pages. The first thirty- five pages were occupied by three Greek and twenty Latin pieces p.re.fixed with the title: Ju^ta Evardo King Naufrago ah arrncis ynoerentibus, amorts et iivsia-^ ydfv.,)^-i 'The 1 Lamentation and rejoicing of the Cambridge Muses: the former on the funeral of Oliver Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland; the latter on the most happy succession of Richard to the same power. Coop- er's Cambridge III, 469. 2 Thankott'ering of the University of Cambridge, or greeting of joy to Charles 1 1 on his safe return to his kingdom and on his restoring the muses to their former happy state. Cooper's Cambridge, III, 480-1. '■'• Obsequies to Edward King, lost at sea: a memorial of affection from his sorrowing friends. Masson I, 513, ff. -48— remainder of the volume, separately paged, bore the title: Obsequies to the Memorie of Edward King, anno Dom. 1638. Milton's poem was the last piece in the volume. Why, one might here inquire, did Milton write Lycidas in English, in honor of Edward King, no very intimate friend; and later choose Latin for EpitapJuum Damonis, to celebrate the dearest friendship he ever enjoyed? The probable reason was that in Lycidas he had a present message for the people of Eng- land, too urgent and vital to be clothed in academic formality and narrowed to scholarly seclusion; while in Epitaphium Damonis his private sorrow inevitably mingled with all those happy classical associations that had bound the student-life of Milton and Diodati together. Not all the Latin poetry composed at the Universities appeared in collections. Volumes by single authors were sometimes brought forth like the Epigrammatuw. Sacrorum Liber'^ of Richard Crashaw, of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1634. Much of the academic production never appeared in print at all, and it is impossible to measure the amount of Latin versifying actually achieved by thousands of students whose chief concern was with words and rhetoric. So truly had the ancient language become alive and modern in the Universities that it wound itself in and around all the concerns of life there, and was as much a part of the mental habit as the academic dress was of rites and ceremonies. Though Milton's name does not appear in the Cambridge collections of verses, his Latin pen was not idle during his University career. There remains of what he produced in those years seven pieces composing the Book of Elegies {Elegiarum Liber), published in 1645 by Humphrey Mosely in London Since their publication was neither in the University nor during the author's residence there, they may be treated as extra-academic poetry and will receive detailed attention under a subsequent section. Besides the reading of Latin books in the regular cur- 1 Die, Nat. Biop:. , sub Crashaw. —49— ricula, besides the Latin responsions, opponencies, orations, the graces, the dramas, and poems, there were in the Uni- versity hfe various nooks which the language filled, sug- gestively indicating how the fashion of the time went. It was an early statute of Cambridge that required the students to converse in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, except during hours of relaxation in their rooms.' This severe regulation had nat- urally, without vigilant enforcement, broken with its own strain; but in July, 1649, when the parliamentary committee for regulating the University of Cambridge issued their decrees, they ordered that Latin or Greek should be con- stantly used in familiar intercourse in the several col- leges - This new command probably received fair obedience during the next eleven years of complete Puritan sway. Public prayers were in Latin as the traditional language of the Christian church. In 1625 when King James died the prayers had to be changed to specify yegem Carolum instead of regeyn Jacobum. There is a story of a bachelor of Christ's, Cambridge, who in public prayer was so attentive to the proper words that when he came to the psalm phrase ' 'God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob", he turned Dens Jacobi to Deus Caroli, and paused horror-struck at his impious blunder. Conferences of students with tutors were carried on in the learned tongue. It was not necessary in every case that this severe formality prevented hearty and genial intercourse. Joseph Meade, fellow in Christ's during Milton's residence, met his students on equal basis and in friendly communion. His habit when they came to his room, of an evening, was to ask them first the question. Quid dubitas?'-^ He would then resolve their doubts [quaeres), and at the dose of the confer- ence "by prayer commended them and their studies to God's protection and blessing, and dismissed them to their lodging. " Conferences of any formal nature between students and Heads of Colleges observed the language of dignity and 1 Masson I, 96-7. a Cooper's Cambridj^e III, 429; cf Laudian Code, Appendix, Statuta Aularia, Sec. IV, §4. :t Whal dou!)ts have you mot with? Masson I, 88. -50- authority. The sanctity of an oath or pledge was more solemn when clothed in Latin. It was told of one Mr. Fawcett, who was charged with having uttered in some public act an opinion contrary to accepted doctrines, that when he went to commence bachelor in Divinity, in June, 1626, the Vice-chancellor, Dr. Gostlin, and his assistants required satisfaction for the church by securing Mr. Fawcett's hand to the following declaration: Sola scripturarum lectio secundum ritum Angli- ca)'um est medium ordiiiarie sufficiens adfidem generandam. Huic propositioni luhens et ex animo subscripsi, et revera num- quam o.liter tenuis The offensive utterances had been made in Latin, and it was fitting to disavow their ill meaning in the same language. When Anthony Wood, the future historian of his alma mater, entered Oxford in 1647, he found the initiation of Freshmen at Christmas was by setting them down "on a form in the middle of the hall, joining to the declaiming desk," and requiring each in turn to speak some jest or elo- quent nonsense. They were then admitted into the fra- ternity by the senior cook's administering the oath in Latin over an old shoe.- The language had to be used on occasion even by men who were embarrassed and fearful of showing weakness in scholarship, in range of vocabulary, or in manner of pro- nunciation. The refuge was in the fewest and safest w^ords: it was better to bear the reproach of little Latin, as Shaks- peare did, than of no Latin at all. Meade, in a letter to a friend describing the Duke of Buckingham's first visit as Chancellor to Cambridge, mentioned lightly the contrast between the Duke's gorgeous apparel and scanty speech: "Our Chancellor", he wrote, "sat on Sunday in the Regent House in a Master of Art's gown, habit, cap and hood; spoke two words of Latin— 'Placet' and 'Admittatur'."=' 1 The simple reading of the Scriptures according to the Anglican rit- ual is ordinarily a sufficient means for the begetting of faith. To this proposition I freely and heartily subscribe, and in very truth I never did believe differently. Heywood's Cambridge 1 1, 348. 2 Wood's Athenae I, p. XIV. 3 Masson I, 129. —51— If any one, student, fellow, or master, happened to be inspired with any new conceit or combination of Latin words, it was his glory to make his invention known to the admiring academic world. For example, in March, 1623, while King James was at Cambridge hearing speeches and a comedy, an orator made an epigram which Dr. Richardson brought to be read before the King at dinner. Meade tells the story with delight in a letter, and mentions that he had difficulty in get- ting the last two lines. The epigram is as follows: Dum petit infantem princeps, Grantamque Jacobus, Cujusnam major sit duhitatur amor. Vicit more suo noster, nam millihus infaiis Non tot abest quot nos regis ab ingenio.^ What could be more suggestive of the classical fashion of the schools than the following account of the reception of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria at Cambridge March 22, 1631. "The Schollers Bachellors Fellow Common- ers Regents & Non Regents were placed in the Streets in like manner as they were when K. James came hither in March 1622. They made a great Acclamation as the K. & Q. passed by them, saying, "Vivat Rex, Vivat Regina, &c." Whatever Charles I thought of it, to old King James the cries of jubilee in Latin must have been the dearest evidences of loyalty and learning. - 1 Heywood's Cambridge II, 315. Also Harleian Miscll. X. 163-4, where the epigram is included in a Latin oration and translation given: "While prince to Spain, and king to Cambridge goes. The question is, whose love the greater shows: Ours (like himself) o'ercomes; for his wit's more Remote from ours, than Spain from Britain's shore." The reference is to Charles's wooing the Spanish Infanta. 2 A contemporary account quoted in Cooper's Cambridge, III, 249-59. Mentioned also in Masson, I, 186. -52- SECTION II. LATIN AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. CHAPTER IV. Latin in Official Correspondence. The one high service which Latin alone was able to per- form was correspondence between the English and the foreign courts. The vulgar tongues were not recognized as equal to this great task, being intrinsically inadequate and not sufficiently well-known and honored outside of their respective countries. With one consent the language of learning, which was thoroughly understood in all the cultured nations and supremely respected for its long career of service in the world, maintained its hold upon communication between England and her continental neighbors. The letters passing from James I, Charles I, and the Commonwealth and Protectorate to foreign courts appear generally in Latin. The office of translating outgoing papers into Latin and incoming papers into English was assigned to a clerk or undersecretary, some capable and diligent scholar who was willing to give his learning to his country for a small recom- pense and for the chance of preferment to a more honorable and remunerative position. From 1G24 to 1641 the under- secretary of state in this capacity was Georg Rudolph Wech- erlin, born in 1584 in Germany and educated at the University of Tubingen, and introduced into England probably in con- nection with a German ambassador. His skill in various languages, ancient and modern, and his service as private secretary to the Duke of Wurtemberg recommended him for a position in the English state department, and he was accordingly employed in drafting, deciphering, and translating official correspondence. On the breaking out of the Civil —53— War, Wecherlin took sides with Parliament, and in February, 1644, he was made "secretary for foreign tongues" to the joint committee of the two kingdoms, at the annual salary of 2881. 13s. 6hd. Under Charles I he had complained of his poor pay, but his income under Parliament probably satisfied him. He held the post until he was superseded by Milton in 1649, upon the establishment of the republic and the consti- tution of a council of state. The reason for replacing him was probably due to his advanced age, and the importance which his office was about to assume under the Common- wealth. ' Before entering upon a description of Milton's duties and performances as Foreign Secretary we shall take a glance at several foreign transactions of James I and Charles I. In March, 1621, the famous Spanish Match had its beginning in a Latin letter from James of England to the new King Philip IV of Spain. The message contained a proposal for a mar- riage between Prince Charles, James's son and heir, and Philip's youngest sister, the most illustrious Infanta, the Lady Maria (Illustrissimam Infantem Dominam Mariam) ;- and was carried abroad by Lord Digby, extraordinary ambas- sador. Later Prince Charles, in company with the Duke of Buckingham, followed with proposals in person, but after much excitement and expectation on the part of the English people he came back without the "most illustrious lady." The correspondence on this affair was carried on in Latin not only by James and Philip, but also between the English King and Prince and the Roman See. Both Gregory XV and Urban VIII, his successor in 1623, hoped that England might yet be induced to forget the past and return to the Catholic fold, and the possible marriage between the English Prince and a Spanish Princess encouraged that expectation. This effort to conciliate the English was the last work of Gregory, who died in July of that year; and his correspondence on the subject was promptly taken up by Urban VIII. These let- ters between England and Rome were in Latin. '^ Well might 1 Diet. Nat. Bio}2f. sab Wecherlin, and Masson, passim. ,3 Rushworth I, 67-8. :' Rushworth I, SO ff. —54- the Popes have had reason to think that all mankind's religion should center at their palace, situated as it was in the eternal city whose language still had power to bind the whole civilized world into one brotherhood. James I was not a king of power, who made the name of England dreadful among the nations of the world, but he recognized no superior in any form of ceremony wherein learning or language could play a role. His addresses to foreign kings may have been insignificant in the messages conveyed, but the style lacked nothing of imposing loftiness. For example, in 1623, when Francis Klein, a German, who had come to England from Denmark as a designer of tapestry, was returning, James gave him a letter to the king of Den- mark requesting permission for Klein's early return to Eng- land. It was a simple request, but nevertheless a splendid opportunity for a Latin exercise, which began as follows: Jacobus, Dei gratia Magnae Br'itanniae, Franciae, et Hiberniae Rex, Fidei Defensor, Serenissimo Principi ac Domino Christiano Quarto, eadem gratia Daniae, Norvegiae, Vandalorum, et Gothorum regi, duel Slesrici, Holsatiae, Stormariae, et Ditmarsiae, comiti in Oldenburg et Delmen- horsh, fratri, compatri, consanguineo. et affini nostro charis- simo, salutem, et felicitatem, serenissimus princeps, compa- ter, consanguineus, et affinis charissimus. Cum Franciscus Klein, &c.^ Then follows the body of the letter occupying a some- what larger space than the greeting itself. A few years earlier, when the States of the United Prov- inces called a national synod at Dort for the consideration of religious doctrines, and desired certain foreign princes to send the assistance of their respective divines. King James, being thus solicited, heartily complied; and he fully under- 1 To the most serene prince and ruler Christian IV, King of Denmark, Norway, of the v^andals and Goths, Duke of Sleswick, Holsatia, Storma- tia, and Ditmarsh, Count of Oldenburg and Delmenhorsh, brother, fellow- descendant, dearest relative by blood and marriage, greeting and felici- tation from James, by the grace of God King of Great Britain. France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, most serene prince, brother, and dearest relative. Since Francis Klein, &c. Fuller's Worthies, III, 201-2. —55— stood the responsibility resting upon his representatives to the learned assembly. He summoned from the English clergy four scholars, who came to his presence for appointment and instructions, and received at New Market, among other advice and directions, the following in particular: "Our will and pleasure is, that from this time forward, upon all occasions, you inure yourself to the practice of the Latin tongue, that when there is cause you may deliver your minds with more readiness and felicity." The divines had leisure for this prescribed practice before the opening of the synod, November 3, 1618. They then went to Dort and participated in the celebrated discussions. Before the synod closed, Bishop John Hall, one of the English representatives, was compelled to return home by reason of ill-health, and publicly took his farewell in a Latin speech which showed that he had obeyed the command of his king. When the proceedings terminated in April, 1619, the States- General, in a long Latin letter to "serenissimus Rex", com- mented on the recent transactions, and commended King James's learned and pious representatives.^ Latin was also employed not only in letters to particular princes and courts, but also in declarations and manifestoes for the world at large. For instance, in 1644, when Charles I was embarrassed by the imputation of favoring and cher- ishing Catholics and the Catholic religion, and wished to set himself clear before the whole world, he issued a Latin letter declaring against the false rumor that he had any intention to recede from the orthodox religion and introduce popery into England. The declaration was properly in Latin, to reach all nations equally and to command respect wherever it went. It opened as follows: Caroliis slug alar i Omni pot f nils Dei Providentia Angliae, Scotiae Franciae & Hiberniae Rex, Fidei Dejensor, &c., Universis & Singidis qui praescns hoc Scrip- turn seu Protestationem inspexerint, potissimum Rcformatae Religionis Cultoribv^ cujuscunque sint gentis, gradus, autcon- 1 Fuller, Church History, III. 308 ff. Nichols' Edition. -56- ditionis', Sjlntcm.^ The letter was sent forth from Oxford, where the court sat, and was dated May 14, 1G44 ipridie Idas Mali). Charles I never showed any fondness for Latin or dis- play of learning-, as did his royal father, and it was only when custom and utility demanded it that he preferred the ancient language to the vernacular. This proclamation of 1644 cer- tainly seemed to him and his court to require the most accept- able and far-reaching medium possible. Foreign relations came into greater prominence in Eng- land during the Commonwealth period, especially under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, and it was then that Latin in official correspondence assumed special dignity and power. In 1649, soon after the execution of Charles I, the Council of State for the new government appointed a committee "to con- sider what alliances this crown hath formerly had with For- eign States and what those States are, and whether it will be fit to continue those alliances, and with how many of the said States, and how far they should be continued, and upon what grounds, and in what manner applications and addresses should be made for the said continuance." The same com- mittee was further instructed "to speak with Mr. Milton, to know whether he will be employed as Secretary for the Foreign Tongues, and to report to the Council."- Milton's name was not unknown among the Parliament- arians. P'rom 1641 he had been busy with his pen in urging reforms in church and government, and his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates had boldly defended the justice and legality of Charles I's trial and execution. His learning, his political views, and active sympathy, conspired to recommend his services as Foreign Secretary, and when he was approached by the proper committee, he assented to the proposal they were instructed to make. On March 15, 1649, the Council of 1 Charles by the singular providence of God King of England, Scot land. France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. , to one and all who shall read this writing or protestation, and especially to the followers of the reformed religion, of whatsoever nation, rank, or condition they are, Greeting. Rushworth, V, 752-4. - Masson IV, 79. —57— State ordered "That Mr. John Milton be employed as Secre- tary for Foreign Tongues to this Council, and that he have the same salary which Mr. Wecherlyn formerly had for the same service." Five days later the new secretary was inducted into the office which he was to fill and adorn for the next eleven years. ' Milton's duties in his new capacity were implied in his statute title : ' 'Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council. ' ' (1) He was to translate into Latin, the letters, dispatches, and any other papers addressed by the English Council of State to any foreign prince, minister, or council; and the declarations and manifestoes issued by Parliament and Coun- cil for notice to the world at large. (2) He was to put into Latin articles of prospective treaties under discussion in Eng- land between English and foreign representatives, or com- missioners. (3) He was to translate into English the dis- patches in Latin or other languages sent to the Council by foreign sovereigns or ministers. (4) Occasionally he was ordered to be present at conferences with foreign representa- tives or was himself to confer with them orally; and occa- sionally to prepare arguments in Latin in defense of the Com- monwealth, for circulation among foreign countries. Milton's services, it thus appears, were at the direct command of the Council of State, and had to do with any business requiring translation to or from any foreign language, or composition in any foreign language. As a matter of fact the tasks which the council usually assigned him had to do in some connection or other with Latin. It was, for the most part, his orders to translate an English dispatch into Latin, a Latin dispatch into English, or to compose an original Latin discourse on a given subject or occasion. So largely did his occupation with the one language outweigh that with any other, that he was frequently called simply the Lathi Secre- tary, and this name is regularly used in his biographies. The employment of a man of independent mind, digni- fied character, and profound learning to transact the duties 1 Masson IV, 82-83. -58- of Latin Secretary shows what importance the Council of State attached to their foreign correspondence, and what esteem they felt for Latin as the proper medium. "They stuck," says Phillips, the nephew of Milton, "to the noble and generous resolution not to write to any, or receive answers from them, but in a language the most proper to maintain a correspondence among the learned of all nations in this part of the world, scorning to carry on their affairs in the wheed- ling, lisping jargon of the cringing French, especially having a Minister of Stateable to cope with the ablest any Prince or State could employ for the Latin tongue."' Neither Parliament nor the Council of State nor Crom- well ever had reason to question the industry or ability of the chosen secretary. He appreciated to the uttermost the dignity and importance of his office, and consecrated his great moral and intellectual energy to his appointed tasks. For two years he seems to have been able alone to perform all the translations; but in March, 1652, when his eyes were giving out, Council gave him the assistance of old Mr. Wecher- lin, the former Latin Secretary.- During the next year, 1653, Wecherlin was succeeded by a younger man, Mr. Philip Meadows, 'employed by the Council in Latin translations, and to assist in the despatch of foreign affairs. '-^ Meadows continued in this office till 1656, when he was sent to repre- resent Cromwell at Lisbon. In the following year, 1657, Andrew Marvell was appointed Secretary in Foreign Affairs, apparently as colleague to Milton.^ From that time on till the eve of the Restoration, the duties of Latin Secretary were shared by the two poet friends, Milton and Marvell. For an outgoing letter, addressed by the Council to a foreign state, tlie order of preparation was as follows. The Council in session, having any foreign communication to make, would put the substance of the matter in the hands of 1 Quoted by Masson IV, 86. 2 Masson IV, 425, 451. 3 Masson IV, 524, 526. 4 Masson V, 374-5, 402. -59- the Foreign Committee. This Committee, at a later meeting of its own, would prepare in English the required letter, and report to Council. If the letter was then approved it would be turned over to Milton or one of his assistants, the usual form of resolution being, "that the paper now read be approved of and sent to Mr. Milton, to be translated into Latin." In some cases the details of the resolution were fuller and more explicit. For example, on March 31, 1652, it was ordered in Council "that the paper now prepared, to be given in answer to the Spanish Ambassador, be approved, translated, signed, and sent unto him; that Mr Milton do translate the said Paper out of English into Latin, to be sent along as a copy."^ Sometimes the translator was not speci- fied by name, but then the regular Secretary was probably understood. On August 10, 1653, for example, it was ordered in the Council of the Barebones Parliament "that the answer to the Paper of the Lord Lagerfeldt, Public Minister of the Queen of Sweden, of the 3rd of August, now read in the Council, be translated into Latin, and be delivered unto the said Lord Lagerfeldt by the committee of the Council tomor- row in the afternoon.""^ If the exact words of a foreign dispatch were not approved or determined by Council, before putting it into the hands of the translator, then after translation the message would be returned for the reconsideration of that body. The form of resolution for such proceeding is found in the order of January 2, 1652, "that Mr. Milton do prepare a letter in Latin, of the Substance of what was now here read in English, to be sent to the Duke of Tuscany: to be brought to the Council to be there read for the approbation of the Council.'' " The letter was prepared accordingly, and approved on Jan- uary 20. Milton was sometimes' asked to be present at a conference of the Foreign Committee with a foreign ambas- sador, either to act as interpreter, or perhaps sometimes to 1 Masson IV, 426. •J Masson IV, 524. ■i Masson IV, 422. 4 Masson IV, 236. -60- gather the substance of a paper which he was to write out in Latin, When a letter was at last ready for delivery to a foreign ambassador present in England, or for despatch to a foreign court, it was signed either by the President of the Council' or by the speaker in the name of Parliament, or, after the Protectorate was established, by Cromwell himself. When a paper was to be ratified by Parliament, it passed with its translation first through the hands of the Foreign Committee, the Latin Secretary, and the Council, in regular order. An example of this procedure is indicated in the resolution ly Council. February 11, 1652, "That the copy of the Safeguard this day read, to be granted to the Court of Oldenburg, be approved of: That the copy of the said Safeguard be trans- lated into Latin by Mr, Milton;" and then that it "be humbly reported to the Parliament for their approbation if they shall think fit,"' An incoming communication from a foreign court cr ambassador was delivered tD the Council directly or to them through Parliament, or under the Protectorate to Cromwell. In any case it was ordered to be translated, regularly by the Latin Secretary, and if special consideration was required or answer returned, the matter was turned over to the Com.- mittee on Foreign Affairs, An example of an order directing such procedure is found in the Council resolution of January 23, 1652, "That Mr, Milton do make a translation of the Paper this day sent into the Council from the Lords Ambas- sadors of the High and Mighty Lords the States General of the United Provinces; which the Committee for Foreign Affairs are to take into consideration, and prepare an answer thereto, to be reported to the Council."-^ The Secretary for Foreign Tongues, with England and English on the one hand and Europe and Latin on the other, stood an honorable -And 1 Masson IV, 232; V, 184. 2 Masson IV, 423. 3 Masson IV, 422, —61- important figure in the Commonwealth. To Milton the task of translating into English must have been like drudgery, and the dignity of his office must have appeared chiefly when he had to voice in classical Latin a message of his country to the foreign world. Declarations and manifestoes, addressed not to any partic- ular nation, but to the outside world in general, came to the Latin Secretary for translation. It was sometimes considered necessary to put the declaration into certain of the subordinate and vulgar tongues to reach particular nations more intimately, but the supreme and universal Latin could never be omitted. In June, 1651, for instance, when Parliament voted a declara- tion of reasons for the proposed expedition into Scotland, Council ordered the declaration to "be translated into Latin by Mr. Milton, into Dutch by Mr. Haak, and into French by Monsieur Augier."^ Again, on July 7, 1652, when Parlia- ment adopted a declaration of the causes of the war against the Dutch, which declaration had been prepared by the Coun- cil of State, Council ordered a translation to be made into Latin, French, and Dutch.- In 1655, when Cromwell had determined on a war with Spain, he issued an elaborate manifesto in Latin, demonstrating to the world at large the just cause of the English Commonwealth against the Spanish people: "Scrvptum Domini Protectoris, ex consensu atque sententia concilii sui editum, in quo hujus Reipublicae causa contra Hispanos justa esse demonstratur."^ The language served not only to embody the final draught of a state letter or a declaration for foreign intelligence, but was employed in the articles of a treaty and on occasion as the medium of oral discussion. In May, 1652, after the battle between the Dutch and English fleets olf Dover, negotiations were open for a treaty of peace between the contending countries. The Dutch Ambassadors, coming to London, were 1 Masson IV, 228. 2 Masson IV, 447. 3 Declaration of the Lord Protector, issued by the consent and advice of his Council, in which the cause of this republic against the Spanish people is demonstrated to be just. Masson V, 4G. —62- received in high state by Parliament, and for many weeks there were interviews and pai)ers between them and the Council of State, Latin being the language employed. The Dutch were at a disadvantage to the English in naval war- fare, but not in Latin speech to any people. The negotiations coming to nought at last, Cromv»'ell issued the declaration of war mentioned above. Another instance of the employment of Latin in treaty conferences was when the Swedish Ambassador Count Bundt ^ame to London in 1655. At a public reception given by Cromwell, the Ambassador made a speech in Swedish, which was imm.ediately translated by his secretary into Latin. Cromwell replied in English, which the Ambassador sufficiently understood. This situation, with three languages used in courtesies between two men, is a curious one. Later when the treaty was under discussion between representatives of the two countries, the Swede begged "to be excused if he should mistake anything of the sense of them [the articles], they being in English which he could not so well understand as if they had been in Latin, which they must be put into in conclusion." He was advised that, while the articles were brought in in English to save time, they should be put in Latin "when his Excellency should desire." Such desire being indicated, the Ambassador a few days later had to com- plain that the translation was delayed because it had been intrusted to a blind man. The discussion of the proposed treaty was conducted partly in Latin, certain of the conferees probably choosing to use English or Swedish just as it was done in the reception of the visitors of Cromwell. But Latin, embodying the articles themselves, seems to have played the most important and distinguished part ^ Milton's long and busy career as Secretary for Foreign Tongues, from 1649 to 1660, resulted in the composition of one hundred and forty-nine Latin letters which are included in his prose works. He addressed during this time a score or more of the different powers and principalities of Europe. 1 Masson V, 252-3. —63— The substance of the letters belonged to the Council of State, the Committee for Foreign Affairs, or to Cromwell; the language was Milton's, — diffuse, involved, sonorous, withal dignified and commanding, and worthy of the high spirit and proud scholarship of its industrious author.' The most notable business that ever fell to Milton's hand for communication was Cromwell's prompt and vigorous action, in 1653, concerning the Vaudois massacre. The slaugh- ter occurred April 17. On May 17, and for many days there- after, the Council of Cromwell was absorbed in consideration of the appalling event. Letters were dispatched to the Duke of Savoy, to France, Sweden, to the States General of the United Provinces, to the Swiss Cantons, to Denmark, and to Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania, all in Milton's Latin. A special ambassador to Savoy, Mr. Samuel Moreland, delivered Cromwell's letter of remonstrance, and addressed to the Duke a speech, also in Latin, whose meaning and warning were understood and heeded. When one thinks of this great triumph of England's international influence, one should remember that it was in Latin that the mighty will of Cromwell was heralded abroad,— in that very language which had once car- ried the decrees of Imperial Rome far and wide to the obedi- ent nations. 2 1 These letters are all reviewed by Masson in his Life of Milton, in connection with the public circumstances under which they were writterT Volumes IV and V cover the period of Milton's secretaryship. 2 An account of the massacre and Cromwell's action is given in Mas- son V, 38 ff. —64— CHAPTER V. Latin in Private Correspondence. The employment of Latin by an English sovereign or council of state in communicating with a continental power was not an artificial scheme built up without a broad founda- tion in the conditions of the age. Men in private capacity, without regard to anything except the present need, used Latin in corresponding with foreigners, there being oftentimes no other language sufficiently familiar and therefore no alter- native even were one desired. The knowledge of modern languages, save one's own native speech, was not esteemed a very valuable acquisition, nor an essential mark of learning and culture. Milton in a letter to Bradshaw, former presi- dent of the regicide court, introduced Andrew Marvell, Febru- uary 21, 1653, and indicated the notion of the day that schol- arship depended not on the modern but solely on the ancient languages. "He hath spent," said the letter, "four years abroad in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaining of these four languages: besides, he is a scholar, and well read in the Latin and Greek authors."' To know Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish was no doubt an unusual accomplishment, and in some cases greatly worth while, but to be 'a scholar, well read in the Latin and Greek authors, ' was an indispensable one for any man of ambition and self-esteem. "The wheedling jargon of the French," as Phillips called it, and the other vulgar tongues could be neglected without disgrace. Hobbes, who thought through many of the shams of his time, protested in vain against the monopoly of the ancient languages in the educa- i Masson IV, 478-9. —65- tion of Englishmen. Latin and Greek, he wrote in his Behemoth, were once profitable and necessary for detecting Roman fraud and ejecting Romish power; now, when the Scriptures were translated into English, he saw no great need for the classical languages, but held far more desirable a knowledge of modern neighboring tongues — French, Dutch, and Italian.' This notion of Hobbes's was centuries ahead of his time. He himself paid the highest honors to Latin by writing in that language his philosophical works, some of his contro- versial papers, and last of all his versified autobiography. The power of Latin was too great in that century for any one man, however logical and influential, to disdain and escape it. When it came to corresponding v/ith a foreigner, an English- man could be sure of one thing, and that was the propriety of using Latin. Only a perfect mastery of the foreigner's tongue would permit its use; respect and courtesy for one's corre- spondent would rule out English. Utility, pride, custom, dig- nity, and honor all dictated the one universal language. Accordingly the private citizen, like the ofiicial Secretary for Foreign Tongues, adorned his correspondence with the sonor- ous vowels and balanced sentences of Cicero, as nearly as he could attain to that great model. Sir Henry Wotton, a man of typical culture for English- men of his time, who served his state in numerous foreign embassies and closed his days as Provost of Eton College, left behind a lot of letters addressed to his fellow-country- men, and in small part to friends abroad. An examination of his correspondence from the year 1615 on shows that all his English letters were addressed to natives of England, the three to the Queen of Bohemia being no exception since she was the daughter of King James L All of Sir Henry's Latin letters after the same date, six in number, were written to foreigners, save one sent from Vienna home to King James. That royal devotee of learning would no doubt have preferred it in Latin under any circumstances, and especially since the 1 Behemoth, Molesworth's ed. of Works, VI, 276. -66— writer was then abroad and ambassador at the same time. As Ambassador to Venice, Sir Henry wrote four Italian let- ters to Doge Pruili. On the whole, Wotton may be taken as typical in his use of languages in correspondence: choosing English for Englishmen and Latin for aliens, with exceptions only in view of special circumstances.^ Since only the learned could meet the linguistic require- ments of international correspondence, the topics treated were accordingly of a dignity worthy for the most part of the language employed. Science and philosophy had their share of attention in that philosophic if not scientific age. The letters, for instance, of Dr. William Harvey were mostly in Latin, and many of them (though the whole number was not large ) discussed with his brother physicians in Germany and other parts of Europe the physiological questions which he had done so much toward answering. His startling theory of the circulation of the blood was, like many another mo- mentous scientific discovery, not immediately accepted by all men, not even by all the learned: and Harvey's correspond- ence labored to remove prejudice among his foreign friends, and to make acceptable what he knew to be the truth. - Another favorite theme for private correspondence, as for every other literary essay in seventeenth century Eng- land, was religion and the church. When men of different nationalities wrote letters to each other on this subject, there was double reason for seeking the dignity and form of no vulgar tongue. In 1640, when Bishop Joseph Hall corres- ponded'' with John Durie on the proposed problem of a uni- versal Protestant union, which Samuel Hartlib, Milton's friend, was endeavoring to introduce to the minds of Eng- lishmen, the language of the two great scholars and divines could have been none other than Latin. The same is true of Robert Baillie, Principal of the University of Glasgow, who about 1640 and onwards wrote occasionally from Glasgow to 1 Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, by L. P. Smith. Appen- dix I, D. 2 Willis's Harvey: Chapter H. Section XIV. - Masson IH, 217. —67— Clarissimo et Doctissimo Viro D. Gisberto Vostio, Sacrae Theologiae in Academiae Ultrajectina Professori,^ concerning current religious disputes, seeking the scholar's opinion and begging his prayers for the troubled church of England. Milton's private letters, which were mostly in Latin, seem to have been devoted chiefly to complimentary passages and to general literary observations. In this epistolary Latin of his, as in fact in so much of the Latin of the times whether prose or poetry, the reader feels that a rhetorical exercise is in progress, and that here, as in the schools and universities, words rather than ideas are the object of search and refine- ment. These letters of Milton's which are still preserved, thirty-one in number, are scattered from the seventeenth to the sixty-sixth or last year of his Hfe. Nineteen were written to men whose native language was not English: two to Italians, ten to Germans, two to a Greek, two to Frenchmen, one to a native of Friesland, and two to "the illustrious Lord Henry de Bras", otherwise unknown. The fact that each of his correspondents was a man of learning and ability determined Milton's choice of Latin, even though English was in some cases familiar to both. A number of his letters were written during his University days, when the ancient language yet claimed his enthusiasm and energy. Latin was so confessedly the appropriate language of correspondence between foreigners, that only a special rea- son would suggest the using of any other. In one of his let- ters to Henry Oldenburg, Aulic Counsellor to the Senate of Bremen, Milton offered a thoughtful courtesy to his German friend: "I had more than once", he wrote, "an intention of substituting our English for your Latin, that you, who have studied our language with more accuracy and success than any foreigner with whom I am acquainted, might lose no opportunity of writing it, which I think you would do with equal elegance and correctness. But in this respect you shall act as you feel incli-ned."- It does not appear that Old- 1 Baillie's Letters, Vol. Ill, 103-4. •J Familiar Letter XIV. -68- enburff ever took advantage of Milton's j^enerous proposal. Many points of bioe:raphical value lie imbedded in Mil- ton's correspondence with his foreign friends. Perhaps the most interesting are the references to his blindness. Letter numbered XV, to Leonard Philaras the Athenian who had visited him in London, was taken up entirely with a descrip- tion of the gradual coming on of darkness till both the poet's eyes were obscured. Again, in the last of the Familiar Let- ters, writing to Peter Heimbach he closed with an apology for any errors in diction or pronunciation. Such errors were to be imputed, he said, to ' 'the boy who wrote this, who is quite ignorant of Latin, and to whom I was, with no little vexation, obliged to dictate not the words, but, one by one, the letters of which they were composed." Not only in familiar correspondence but in conversation and in poetic compliments, Latin was the medium between different nationalities. To the famous singer, Leonora Bar- oni, whom Milton heard at Rome, he made three Latin epi- grams,' probably not being sure of the Italian idiom for such a delicate business. At Naples, in 1639, Milton sent the poet Manso, who had entertained him, a Latin tribute in hexam- eters, which were published in 1645 in England; an eloquent, impassioned poem, in which he referred to his high epic plan to call back into verse the native English kings, "Arthur and the knights of the unconquered table. '"^ Manso returned the compliment with gift of two richly wrought cups, and a Latin elegiac couplet, calling Milton Anglic and almost angelic, saving his creed. ^ It has been previously shown that in diplomatic discus- sions between English and foreign embassies, Latin was sometimes used; and it has been pointed out how in the Uni- versities Latin was the language for every kind of communi- cation, oral and v^itten. In private conversation it was common for Latin to be used by learned foreigners of differ- ent nationalities. Evelyn tells in his diary. May 6, 1656, of 1 Masson I, 635-6. 2 Masson I, 646-7. 3 Masson I, 646-8. —69- a young Frenchman whom he persuaded to accept the doc- trine and discipline of the Church of England, and who was seeking sacred orders. "I brought Monsieur le Franc," says Evelyn, "a young French Sorbonnist, a proselyte, to converse with Dr. Taylor;' they fell to a dispute on original sinn, in Latine, upon a booke newly published by the Doctor, who was much satisfied with the young man." The satisfaction probably had as much to do with scholarly abilities as a proper acceptance of the necessary doctrines. t Bishop Jeremy Taylor. -70- CHAPTER VI. Latin Publications. We have shown that the voice of the English state, ad- dressing- any particular foreign state, or the world in general by universal proclamation, used the Latin language and thereby insured intelligibility, dignity, and honor. Private correspondence was guided by the same conditions and pur- poses. We come now to another international use of Latin: the use by individual Englishmen speaking or writing in their capacity as defenders of their country or as scientists and teachers with a message of concern to all thinking and learned men among all nations. In the writing of books it was very clear to Englishmen what the advantages would be in using Latin and what sort of audience the learned language would appeal to The first question, and one that largely determined in an author's mind whether he should compose his work in English or Latin, was the range of his appeal; would he address a more crowded audience of only Englishmen, or the learned heads loosely but widely scattered throughout the European world. A strictly domestic concern, an English family affair so to speak, would naturally be discussed in the vernacular. Such a question, for example, would be Church Reformation or the Liberty of the Press in England, in the treatment of which Milton deliberately chose the language of the country addressed and primarily concerned. But when he was to defend the English people not against any part of themselves but against a hostile foreign world, he wrote in Latin his Defeiisio Pro Populo Anglicano.^ teaching a continental audi- ence concerning a matter in which they particularly needed 1 Defense of the People of England, 1650. —71- instruction. Milton's choice of English or Latin for his prose pamphlets struck with fine wisdom the reasonable distinc- tion between the uses of the two languages for Englishmen of that day. The policy he seems to have adopted was to employ Eng- lish whenever the English people were chiefly concerned in the perusal of his discourse, and not to be tempted by the applause which eloquence in the honored Latin might win for him abroad. In "The Reason of Church Government", published in 1641, he declared that "if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and downward, there ought no regard be sooner had than to God's glory, by the honour and instruction of my country. For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution, which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all industry and art I could unite to the adorn- ing of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, (that were a toilsome vanity, ) but to be an interpreter and a relater of the best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout the island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their coun- try, I, in my proportion, with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British islands as my world; whose fortune has hitherto been, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of monks and mechanics."' In this char- acteristic passage Milton's reference was no doubt to his plans for poetry rather than prose, in the honoring and teaching of his country; but the same determination guided him in all his writings, to use the mother tongue if his message was not exclusively or pre-eminently for foreign readers. 1 Milton's Prose Works IT, 478. —72- In the "Doctrine of Discipline and Divorce", written in 1643, addressing Parliament and the Ecclesiastical Assembly, he drew again the distinction which guided him in the choice of language. "I seek not," he said, "to seduce the simple and illiterate; my errand is to find out the choicest and the learnedest, who have this high gift of wisdom to answer solidly, or to be convinced. I crave it from the piety, the learning, and the prudence which is housed in this place. It might perhaps have been more fitly written in another tongue: and I had done so, but that the esteem I have of my country's judgment, and the love I bear to my native lan- guage to serve it first with what I endeavor, make me speak it thus, ere I assay the verdict of outlandish readers."' As late as 1659, when he addressed Parliament with "A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes," Milton still held firmly to the early reasons for choosing English when Latin was not a necessity. "I have prepared, supreme council," he began, "against the much-expected time of your sitting, this treatise; which, though to to all Christian magis- trates equally belonging, and therefore to have been written in the common language of Christendom, natural duty and afi^ection hath confined, and dedicated first to my own nation; and in a season wherein the timely reading thereof, to the easier accomplishment of your great work, may save you much labor and interruption."- We may feel sure, from these statements, that if Milton was consistent, he used Latin only when he had no other choice, only when the supreme purpose of his writing was an errand not to English- men but to the people of Europe at large. And so his treat- ises on Church Reformation, on Divorce, on the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, on Education; his Eikonoklastes, his Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and his histories of Britain and Muscovia, were addressed to his countrymen in their native speech. On the other hand all his defenses of the People of England and of himself, 1 Milton's Prose Works, III, 179. 2 Milton's Prose Works, II, 520-1. —73— being answers against foreigners who attacked him or his country in Latin, were themselves written in that tongue. The De Doctrina Christiana, his longest work, was likewise in Latin, being, according to the Dedication, "the address of John Milton to all the Churches of Christ, and to all who pro- fess the Christian faith throughout the world." The vast audience which one, writing from England in the universal language, might have pictured for himself, is splendidly described by Milton in the first pages of his Sec- ond Defense of the People of England, published in 1654. Flushed with the triumph of his first defense against the great Salmasius, he was borne up on the wings of his mag- nificent theme before the upturned faces of the whole civil- ized world. "I am far from wishing," he exclaimed, "to make any vain or arrogant comparisons, or to speak ostenta- tiously of myself; but, in a cause so great and glorious, and particularly on an occasion when I am called by the general suffrage to defend the very defenders of that cause, I can hardly refrain from assuming a more lofty and swelling tone than the simplicity of an exordium may seem to justify: and much as I may be surpassed in the powers of eloquence and copiousness of diction, by the illustrious orators of antiquity, yet the subject of which I treat was never surpassed in any age, in dignity, or in interest. It has excited such general and such ardent expectation, that I imagine myself not in the forum or on the rostra, surrounded only by the people of Athens or of Rome, but about to address in this, as I did in my former Defense, the whole collective body of people, cities, states, and councils of the wise and eminent, through the wide expanse of anxious and listening Europe. I seem to survey, as from a towering height, the far extended tracts of sea and land, and innumerable crowds of spectators, be- traying in their looks the liveliest interest, and sensations the most congenial with my own. Here I behold the stout and manly prowess of the Germans disdaining servitude; there the generous and lively impetuosity of the French; on this side, the calm and stately valour of the Spaniard; on that, the composed and wary magnanimity of the Italian. . . —74- . . . .Surrounded by congrej^ated multitudes, I now imagine that, from the columns of Hercules to the Indian Ocean, I behold the nations of the earth recovering that liberty which they so long had lost; and that the people of this island are transporting to other countries a plant of more beneficial qualities, and more noble growth, than that which Tripto- lemus is reported to have carried from region to region; that they are disseminating the blessings of civilization and free- dom among cities, kingdoms, and nations."' To sum up Milton's conception of the proper use of Latin by individual Englishmen, it was, in his own phrases, to "essay the verdict of outlandish readers," to write treatises "to all the Christian magistrates equally belonging," to address "all the Churches of Christ, and all who profess the Christian faith throughout the world,", and "the whole col- lective body of people, cities, states, and councils of the wise and eminent, through the wide expanse of anxious and listen- ing Europe." For anyone of these things to be done, Latin had to be employed. The same clear recognition of the range of language appears in the act of Sir Francis Bacon in putting into Latin such works of his as he meant should live;- and in that of Thomas Hobbes, in translating, in 1668, his origi- nal English Leviathan v^^hich his own scrupulous countrymen were threatening to suppress.^ "My fame," said the philoso- pher, after the translation, in reply to criticism and abuse, "has long ago flown abroad, not to be recalled." Comenius, in his educational reform, insisted on the thorough mastering of Latin, not as a part of learning or wisdom, but as a means of communicating and receiving knowledge, as an introduc- tion to the wise use of books. These four great contempora- ries, three Englishmen and one a citizen of the world, not only agreed in their opinion of the right province of Latin, but showed in practice their faith in the language. Milton, in comparing the famous success of his Latin 1 Milton's Prose Works, I, 219, 220. 2 Spedding, Preface, XI. :i Robertson's Hobbes, 200-1. -75- Defenses with the poor reception of his English Reform pamphlets, was naturally inclined to be proud of the former and to put more trust accordingly in learning and the learned. In his Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, written in 1660, he referred to his having defended the heroic cause of the English people "to all Christendom against the tongue of a famous and thought- invincible adversary;" and having left "a written monument likely to outlive detraction."^ Though in all his addresses to his people he had sincerely hoped to improve and honor his native language, yet his messages at home had rewarded him only with disappointment. His feehng of the contrast between his English and his Latin successes is indicated in a reply in 1655, to Leo de Aitzema, agent at the Hague and the Hanse Towns, who wrote to Milton about having his Divorce book translated into Dutch. Both the inquiry and the answer were in Latin. Milton said, among other things: "As regards the Book on Divorce which you tell me you have given to some one to be turned into Dutch, I had rather you had given it to be turned into Latin. For my experience in these books has now been that the vulgar still receive accord- ing to their wont opinions not already common. " No use, in other words, to put reform treatises in the vulgar tongues for common people to read; any effect to be produced with new ideas must be among the learned reading Latin. Milton was not the only Englishman who took note of the fame his Latin arguments had found abroad, but not every one regarded that fame with pride and congratulation. In 1660, while the Restoration was close upon England, there appeared in London a pamphlet, though anonymous, known to have been by Roger L' Estange, entitled, "No Blind Guides: in answer to a seditious pamphlet of J. Milton's entitled 'Brief Notes on a late Sermon, &c. ' Addressed to the Author. 'If the Blind lead the Blinde, both shall fall into the ditch'." One passage, referring to Milton's Defense of the People of England, exclaimed: "Tis there (as I remem- I Lockwood, 153. -76— ber) that you commonplace yourself into set forms of railing, two pages thick; and lest your infamy should not extend itself enough within the course and usage of your mother tongue, the thing is dressed up in a travelling garb and lan- guage, to blast the English nation to the Universe, and give every man a horror of mankind when he considers you are of the race."' One other contemporary opinion of the European appeal of the language may yet be quoted, Peter Du Moulin was an ardent Episcopalian and follower of Charles I, and lent his learning, which was of some pretense, to the royalists. He made a solemn vow% in answer to the King's invitation to represent his cause abroad, ' 'that, as far Latin and French could go in the world, I would make the justice of the king's and church's cause to be known, especially to the Protestants of France and the Low Countries." He made good his vow, and sent forth in Latin the scurrilous pamphlet entitled "Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Coelum.'"- By this work he extolled the martyred king, and defamed Milton as far as Latin "could go in the world." This extensive foreign audience it was that first encour- aged an English scholar to employ the universally intelligible language when his message was to all mankind. As a fur- ther advantage in its favor, Latin seemed the most perma- nent of languages, having survived by a thousand years the downfall of its native city; and the most honorable, having a long and noble record of service to human civilization. Wide range of appeal, first, then permanence and honor, recom- mended the ancient above any modern tongue. In a later section further notice will be taken of the superior dignity and power of Latin. The English state viewed with anxiety the birth of Latin books hostile to its acts and policies. To protect against for- 1 Masson V, 689-690. 2 Cry of the King's Blood to Heaven. Masson V, 217-218. Also Diet. Nat. Biog. sub Moulin. —77— eign literary invasion and to meet attack with similar force became a part of the duties of the Council of State and the Foreign Committee. This was especially true during the precarious years following the execution of Charles, when the whole world seemed to surround the Puritan island and rage against the doings of the bold republicans. When it became known among the victorious revolutionists in Eng- land that the royalists had hired the eloquent French Latin- ist Salmasius to proclaim the defense of the Stuarts over Europe, it was ordered in Council November 19, 1649, to take measures for intercepting the book expected from Holland. Without power to reach beyond the channel and annihilate the enemy there. Council had means at least of preventing an invasion of the English land. The hostile and dangerous book was Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. Ad Serenissiinum Magnae Britanniae Regem Carolo II; filium natu majorem, heredem et successorem legitimum.^ It was a duodecimo of 444 pages, truly formidable in size. The measures of pro- tection proposed by Council were to intercept the book at the custom-house. But this mere keeping it out of England was not sufficient. An antidote had to be sent abroad to counter- act the effects there. Accordingly on January 8, 1650, it was ordered that "Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the Book of Salmasius, and when he hath done it to bring it to the Council. " "Do prepare," though the nor- mal style of such resolutions, may be read to suggest the anxious appeal of the councillors in this dread emergency. "Prepare something" — the vagueness suggests helplessness, and trust in the resources of the eloquent Secretary. In February, that is, the very next month, Council employed Milton for another year, at his former salary, and on the same day "a letter was despatched by the Council of State to the Commissioners of Customs, informing them that copies of Salmasius 's Defensio Regia were on their way from Hol- land to several booksellers in England, and instructing them 1 Masson IV, 150. Defense of Charles I. To Charles II, most serene King of Great Britain, his elder son, and legitimate heir and successor. —78- to order the subordinate officers of Customs to see to the dis- covery and seizure of all such copies, that the importers might be proceeded against".' At last, after anxious waiting and watching the Council were informed that the undoing of Salmasius was at hand, and they ordered, December 23, 1650, "that Mr. Milton do print the treatise he hath written in answer to a late Book written by Salmasius against the Proceedings of the Commonwealth."- This was the first Defense of the People of England, which vanquished Salma- sius, which made Milton's name a wonder throughout Eu- rope, and which he later proudly declared would "outlive detraction." Just ten years later, at the Restoration which meant also destruction, Commons ordered this famous Defense together with its fellow-offender, the Eikonoklastes, to be collected and burned; and proceedings to be started against the wicked author. "This week, according to a former pro- clamation," say the newspapers of September 3-10, 1660, "several copies of those infamous books made by John Good- will and John Milton in justification of the horrid murder of our late glorious sovereign King Charles the First were sol- emnly burned at the session house in the Old Bailey by the hand of the common hangman."^ The serious attention paid by the State for the composition, printing, and publication of these treatises and later, by an adverse sovereign,for the col- lection and destruction of them, shows the vigorous practi- cal life Latin enjoyed as a national and international force. Milton's were not the only books in Latin authorized by a vigilant Council in those anxious days after January, 1649. On October 17 of that year, it was ordered that 500 copies of Mr. Hall his answer to Mr. Prynne be printed in Latin, and the charge of it be defrayed by the Council."^ Again, Octo- ber 15, 1650, it was ordered "that Mr. Needham do put into 1 Masson IV, 224. 2 Do. , 230. 3 Masson VI, 193. ■t Bishop John Hall. Masson IV, 147. —79— Latin the Treatise which he hath written in answer to a Spanish piece written in defense of the murder of Mr. As- cham,"' the ambassador of the commonwealth to Spain, assassinated there by royahsts while engaged in the perform- ance of his mission. In no direction did the Commonwealth keep stricter watch than toward the continent, to help their own cause and hinder their enemies' in the Latin contro- versy that was waging around the name of Charles L The use of Latin as a modern living language had not been perfected nor extended in England as on the continent. Scholarship had attained its height in Holland and France in such world-celebrities as Salmasius, Grotius, Vossius, etc., with whom no name in England could compare until the Latin prose of Milton made its way in triumph over the con- tinent. Then the learned Englishman became an object of admiration abroad, where learning was more appreciated than in the narrow island, and he was importuned to go into France and Italy, and was sought after by foreign visitors to the day of his death, not because of his fame as poet but as Latin antagonist of Salmasius.- Englishmen themselves conceded their inferiority in scholarship, that is, for the most part, in knowledge and fluency in Latin. Of Robert Fludd, who made his name de Fliictibus, a physician practicing in London and fellow of the College of physicians. Wood wrote: "He was esteemed by many schol- ars a most noted philosopher, an eminent physician, and one strangely profound in obscure matters. . . . His books which are mostly in Latin are many and mystical: and as he wrote by clouding his high matter with dark language, which is accounted by some'* no better than canting, or the phrase of a mountebank; so he spoke to his patients, amusing them with I know not what, till by his elevated expressions he operated into them a faith-natural, which consequently contributed to the well working of physic. They are looked upon as slight things among the English notwith- 1 Masson IV, 229. 2 Masson V, 404. 3 E. g., the philosopher Hobbes. -80- standing by some valued, particularly by Mr. Selden, who had the author of them in high esteem. The foreigners prize and behold them as rarities, not that they are more judicious than the English, but more inquisitive in such difficulties, which has been the reason why some of them have been printed more than once."' Of Joseph Allein's Theologiae Philosophicae, sive Philos- ophiae Theologicae Specimen,- written in 1661, Wood said that it had been "licensed for the press, but being Latin and Greek, and such books having too few buyers in England, none are yet found that will be at the charge of printing the said book." In 1676, when David Skinner drafted a Latin prospectus of his forthcoming edition of Milton's Latin State Letters, he began: "Be it known to all the world, whether in the Universities or in London, as well as to booksellers, if there are any with more than usual knowledge of Latin, and also to all foreigners whatsoever," — seeming unconsciously to have divided the world w-ho cared for his Latin book into two classes, the "learned of England" and "all foreigners whatsoever."-' The parliamentary party in England was in particular charged with \vant of learning, and it was a sur- prise that such a Latinist as Milton should have risen from that number. The following compliment w^as paid to the associates of Cromwell by the author of the Regit Sanguinis Clamor, published in 1652: "The Parricides were alarmed at the fame of the great work of Salmasius— not at the read- ing of it; for what one here or there among these scoundrels understands Latin?"' A curious comment on the scholarship of the day, show- ing that eloquence was in words rather than ideas, and that a greater virtue lay in Latin itself than in the arguments it conveyed, is found in the controversies between Milton and 1 Wood, II, Part II, 618-622. A list of Fludd's works is given by Wood. - Specimens of Philosophical Theology, or Theological Philosophy. Wood, Athenae, III, 822. ■^ Masson VI, 796. ^ Masson IV, 455. —81— his opponents when they turn aside from facts and proofs and persuasion, to attack each other's vocabulary and syn- tax. In the preface to the first Defense, in 1650, Milton rejoiced to find flaws in the grammarian's grammar. "I have a horrible message to bring of you," he cried, address-^ ing Salmasius, "which I am mistaken if it strike not a more heinous wound into the ears of all grammarians and critics, provided they have any learning and delicacy in them, to wit, your crowding so many barbarous expressions together in one period in the person of ( Aristarchus ) a grammarian; and that so great a critic as you, hired at the king's charge to write a defence of the king his father, should not only set so fulsome a preface before it, much like those lamentable ditties that used to be sung at funerals, and which can move compassion in none but a coxcomb; but in the very first sen- tence should provoke your readers to laughter with so many barbarisms all at once. 'Persona regis', you cry. Where do you find any such Latin? or are you telling us some tale or other of a Perkin Warbec, who, taking upon him the person of a king, has, forsooth, committed some horrible parricide in England? which expression, though dropping carelessly from your pen, has more truth in it than you are aware of. For a tyrant is but like a king upon a stage, a man in a vizor, and acting the part of a king in a play: he is not really a king. But as for these gallicisms, that are so frequent in your book, I won't lash you for them myself, for I am not at leisure; but shall deliver you over to your fellow- grammar- ians, to be laughed to scorn and whipped by them."' But Milton could not yield his high advantage, and anon spoke again of Salmasius's "parricidal barbarisms" and "miserable bald Latin," with other insinuations against the style and learning of the protagonist for royalty; whom he abused as a grammarian, the shame of grammarians, the perpetrator of solecisms, as "altogether ignorant both of Latin and common sense." At one place Milton shouted an apostrophe to the English fugitives: "So many bishops, 1 Milton's Prose Works, I, 8-10. —82— doctors, lawyers, who pretend that all learning and ingen- uous literature is fled out of England with yourselves, was there not one of you that could defend the king's cause and your own, and that in good Latin also, to be submitted to the judgment of other nations, but that this brainsick, beg- garly Frenchman must be hired to undertake the defence of a poor indigent king, surrounded with so many infant priests and doctors?"' In the second Defense a similar attack was made upon the language of the Regit Sanguinis Clamor. "You would suppose," wrote Milton, referring to the author of the Clamor, supposed to be Alexander Morus, "that his language was rather Oscan than Latin; or that he was croaking like the frog of a slimy pool. Then to show you how much he is a master of iambics, he makes two false quantities in a single word, making one syllable long where it ought to be short, and another short where it ought to be long: — 'Hi trucidato rege per horrendum nefas.' "- John Phillips, Milton's nephew and pupil, followed his uncle and master in style of controversy. In 1652 he pub- lished in London Responsio ad Apologiam Anonymi cujusdam Tenebrionis pro Rege et Populo Anglican/) Infantissimam.^ He called his antagonist "unlearned, insipid, a plunderer in Latin, arrogant and languid; yet the further we proceed the more inane and lean you always turn out, and, with the exception of some commonplace adages and distichs, which you had learnt by heart, I believe, when a school-boy, and which, to prevent your readers from denying you some little sort of half-scholarship, you labor to insert by hook or crook, you seem to have exhausted all the rest of your very small 1 Milton's Prose Works, I, 204. 2 These having committed the horrible crime of slaying a king. This fragment is from certain Latin verses in Regii Sanguinis Clamor. The mistaken vowels are the u and i in trucidato. Milton's Prose Works, I, 242. 3 Reply to the most silly apology of some anonymous rascal for the king and people of England. Masson, IV, 470. -83- provision of arguments, sense and Latin. '^ — "^Tn the last chapter," says Masson, commenting on Phillips's piece,, "there is a biting return to the subject of the horribly bad Latin of the Apologist, with a collection of some of his more glaring solecisms by way of specimen. "Tarn castus ut exem- plum praebuit. ' 'Totiens purgatum ut nil praeter nomen. manere potuit. ' 'Tanto acumine ut maxima pars mundl mirantur et silent.^ ' " Milton providently assisted Phillips- in revising the language of the pamphlet, since his own name was defended in it, and his reputation abroad was at stake. . . We have passed in review the contemporary estimates put on Latin for international communication, and the advan- tages involved for Englishmen in its use in books intended for foreign readers. If we look into the nature of these lit- erary productions, we find them divided into the broad classes of political and legal, scientific, biographical and historical, and religious writings. On such subjects Englishmen often had a message for all mankind and therefore wrote it in the language which the world could read. Political writings were for the most part controversial, and it was during the political disturbances of 164G and 1660 that the chief argumentative contests were waged between the English at home and English or foreigners on the conti- nent. The literature on the execution of Charles I was abundant in both languages, and translations frequently passed from the one to the other. The first notable work to appear on this tremendous question was the /-':^w> h'anu.'.xr^ in English in 164.9; a work regarded as being so powerful and affecting that in the same year it was translated into Latin by Dr. John Earle at the command of Charles H. Its full title in translation was J-'-'o'"'-' l^'i^ri/.t/.r;^ ijel Imago Regis Caroli in illis suis Aerumnis et Solitudine,- and publication took place at The Hague. The book was thus busy at its task in 1 Masson IV, 473. The fault with all these examples is the use of the indicative instead of subjunctive after ut. 2 Masson IV, 131: Eikon Basilike, or Image of King Charles in those lonely miseries of his, -84— two lanffuaijes, reacliinp: all the learned abroad, all the people Oo).<,yia.^ \l.Oo/.oy{a, Florilegium Epigrammatiim Graecorum eorumque Latino versu a variis redditorum,^ 1629: (4) Systema Gram- 1 Rhetorical Catalogue prepared for schools and for pupils of ten- derer age. 2 Choice phrases of oratory and poetry. 3 The Anthology of the Anthology, a Choice collection of Greek epi- grams, with their rendering into Latin verse by various hands. —97- maticum,^ 1629; (5) Phrasiologia Anglo-Lafina- (not dated) ; (6) Tabulae Graecae Linguae^ (not dated); {7)Sijntaxis* (not dated). These seven works by the industrious scholar, together with the eight annotated classics mentioned before, constituted the product of his genius— the contribution he made to his age for the better understanding and more skilful employment of the Latin tongue. These fourteen publica- tions, by one celebrated scholar, show how philosophy and criticism were themselves written in the language which it was their business to elucidate and teach. ^"^ In religious affairs England was an object of particular interest to foreign nations, being only by a century separated from Papal Rome and not as yet regarded by all as irrecon- cilably separated. In disputes between English and foreign divines, as between English and foreign politicians, Latin had no rival. And it was with peculiar traditional fitness that religious expositions wore the Latin dress, the sacred decoration of the church for more than a thousand years and the glory of the great schools which were the nurseries of religion. An interesting international politico-religious con- troversy was carried on concerning the oath of allegiance demanded by James I of his Catholic subjects. The king himself had written in English the Apology for the Oath of Allegiance. This was translated into elegant Latin by Henry Savile, and, according to Wood, ''flying in that dress as far as Rome, was by the Pope and the conclave sent to Francis Suarez at Salamanca, with a command to answer it. When he had perfected the work, which he called Defensio Fidei Catholicae &c. cum Responsione ad Apologiam pro Juramento 1 Systematic Grammar. This was the work prepared on the order of Charles I. 2 Anglo-Latin phraseology. 3 Tables of the Greek Language. •1 Syntax. •■' The career of Farnaby is gathered from Diet. Nat Biog., sub Far- naby. —98— FidelitatU &c.,' it was transmitted to Rome for a view of the inquisitors, who blotted out what they pleased, and added whatsoever might advance the Pope's power." For this and many other loyal achievements, Savile was not to be without his reward, rendered in the lanj^uage which was the voice of honor as well as of power. When the news of his death reached Oxford, "the vice-chancellor and doctors ordered a speech to be publicly spoken by the Academians in memory of so worthy a benefactor and scholar as Sir Henry was. Which being accordingly done by Tho. Goffe of Ch. Ch. the speech was shortly afterward made public, with many copies of verses by the poets of the universities added to it, with this title, Ultima Linea Savilii!"^ Another example of ecclesiastical zeal was Richard Mocket, Warden of All Souls in Oxford, and domestic chap- lain to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. To him has been ascribed the tract upholding the obligation of the oath of allegiance, and entitled *God and the King'. . . . The work was 'Imprinted by his Majesties special privilege and command,' in London in 1615, in both Latin and English; London, 1616, in Latin only; Edindurgh, 1617, in one or both languages. The book was commanded to be taught in all schools and Universities, and by all ministers of the Church, and to be purchased by all householders in England and Scotland." The success of this work was not duplicated by another book of Mocket's, 1616, when he published in London a volume containing in Latin, Bishop Sewel's Apology, the Church Catechism, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Liturgy of the Church of England, and the Book of Ordination of Bish- ops, Priests, and Deacons. To these he joined an original treatise entitled Doctrina et Politia Ecclesiae Anglicanae,^ 1 Defense of the Catholic Faith, etc., together with a reply to The Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, etc. 2 The Last Line of Savile. Wood, II, Part 1 1, 314-15. Also Diet. Nat. Biog., sub Goffe. 3 Doctrine and Polity of the Church of England. Diet. Nat. Biog., srib Mocket. • Also Wood. Fasti, Part II, 232, and Fuller, Church Hist III, 298-9. -Nichols' Edition. —99— "which was a general view of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the English church, mainly prepared for the information of foreigners. The book offended the king, and by public edict "as condemned and burnt in 1617." These two Latin works of Mocket, the one by its popular reception, the other by its offi3ial condemnation and suppression, typify the imme- diate power that Latin w^as understood to wield in current ecclesiastical and religious discussions. Just as it was the custom among the schools to edit the classics with Latin notes, so the learned divines prepared Latin commentaries on the books of Scripture, paying partic- ular attention to all passages on which different churches placed contradictory interpretations. It was the opportunity for the scholar not only to unfold the dark meaning of Bible verses, but especially to exercise himself in the Latin and logic which he had industriously learned in the University. For example, Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote a Latin commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, "with large sermons upon every verse, in which he handled, as his text gave him occasion, all the controverted points of religion at this day.'' Such long-drawn-out interpretations and minute distinctions made by scholars on the pretense of their Univer- sity training in the languages met the bitterest rebuke of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. He said that the faithful read- ing of the Scriptures was least of all to be trusted to those who, because they knew Greek or Latin, or both languages, and loved knowledge, "consequently take delight in finding out the meaning the most hard texts, or in thinking they have found it, in case it be new and not found out by others. These are therefore," he continues, "they, that pretermitting the easy places which teach them their duty, fall to scanning only the mysteries of religion. . . . These and the like points are the study of the curious, and the cause of all our late mischief [the Civil War], and the cause that makes the plainer sort of men, whom the Scripture had taught belief in Christ, love towards God, obedience to the King, and sobriety 1 Wood. Fasti, Part 1 1, 226. —100— of behavior, forget it 11, and place their reliance in the dis- putable doctrines of these your wise men,"' The Sabbath question was one of those endlessly disputed matters for the learned, and the cause of perpetual di^^sen- sion in the church. The literature of the Sabbath Question is the subject of a work in two volumes published in Edin- burgh in 1865, by Robert Cox. A glance into these volumes shows what prominent part Latin plaved in the seventeenth century on the celebrated question. The number of works published between 1615 and 1660 on the question were, according to Cox, seventy-two. Of these six were published in England in Latin, ten abroad in Latin; the remainder, fifty-six, being in English, were published in England. The proportion of Latin books to the total output was slightly over 22^^^: the Latin proportion of total publications in Eng- land was nearly lO'^. The question was not only one for the exercise of learning, but in good measure for that ambitious learning which found satisfactory expression only in dignified and far-reaching Latin. Nothing could illustrate the combined religious and lingu- istic enthusiasm of the times better than the publication, in 1657, of the famous Polyglott Bible under, under the editorial direction of Dr. Brian Walton, with the assistance of many eminent scholars from both Universities "This most worthy person, Dr. B. Walton, " says Wood,- "believing most eminent for his learning especially in the Holy Scriptures and Eastern languages, did undertake and happily perform the pub- ishing of the Biblia Pobjglotta printed in Lond. in six volumes in folio, an. 1657, wherein the sacred text was, by his singular care and foresight, printed, not only in the vul- gar Latin, but also in the Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, Samari- tan, Arabic, Aethiopic, Persic, and Greek Languages, each having its peculiar Latin translation joined therewith; and an Apparatus fitted for each, for the better understanding of those tongues. ' ' This whole work represents the intense inter- 1 Behemoth, 231-2, Molesworth, VI. 2 Fasti, Part 1 1, 82. —101— est of the times in language, and especially the predomi- nance of Latin wherever learning, religion, and authority were concerned. Biography and history, if widely ambitious or proud of their academic authorship, spoke Latin. For example, "The History of the Reign of Henry VI I", the first work done by Sir Francis Bacon after his retirement into private life, though originally, in 1622, in English, was later turned into Latin under the author's supervision.^ Henry Savile, already men- tioned as translator of James Fs Apology for the Oath of Allegiance, wrote Vita Thomae Bradivardini Aixhiep. olim Cantuariensis.^ About 1647, there was published at Paris in Latin the famous history of Montrose's exploits in Scotland, v/ith the title: De Rebus sub imperio illustrissimi Jacobi Montisorarum Marchionis Praeclare gestis Commentarii,^ the author being George Wishart. chaplain to Montrose. In 1657 Dr. William Rawley, friend and secretary of Sir Francis Bacon during the last year of his life, brought out a memoir, in English, of the philosopher and published a Latin transla- tion of it in the- next year. It remains the most important and authentic witness we possess of Bacon.^ At Paris in 1649 George Bate, a most noted physician of the time, "chief physician," says Wood,^ "to Oliver while he was general, and afterwards when protector, and [who] did not stick (tho' he pretended to be a concealed royalist) to flatter him in a high degree", published Elenchus Motiium nuperottim in Anglia, simul ac Juris regii ac Parliamentarii bi'cvis NarratioS' The first part of the Elenchus was translated into English by an 1 Spedding, VI, 7. 2 Wood, Fasti, Part II, 314. Life of Thomas Bradwardine, formerly Archb. of Canterbury. 3 Commentaries on the glorious deeds of the Marquis of Montrose during the reign of the most illustrious James. 4 Spedding, Preface IX. 5 Wood, Athenae III, 828. Review of the recent commotions in England, together with an ac- count of the royal and parliamentary rights. —102— unknown hand and printed in 1052 in London. The second part was printed in Latin in 1G61 in London, in 1662 in Am- sterdam, and in the following year in London again together with the first part. A slight third part was composed later. It was a book much praised, on a subject which England would never lose interest in, whether the story were told in her own or another language. The voluminous writings of the learned Archbishop of Armagh, James Usher (1581-1656), contained important his- torical works in Latin, which language he employed for no display' or reputation but for the practical instruction of mankind. "His learning was for use; and his topics were suggested by the controversies of his age, which he resolved to probe to their roots in the ground of history." His first printed work, in 1613, was Gravissimae Questionis de Chris- tianaruni Ecclesiarum, in Occidentis praesertim partibus, ah Apostolicis temporibus ad nostram usque aetatem, continua successione et stahi, Historica Explicatio.^ This work was designed to carry out the unfinished argument of John Jewel, who in 1562 published his Apologia pro Ecclesia Anglicana^ to prove to continental scholars and churchmen that the Anglican doctrines and practice were in conformity with those of the primitive church. Another learned treatise in ecclesiastical history by Usher was the Britannicarum Eccle- siarum Historia^ of 1639; and the most important of all his productions was issued within the years of 1650-4: Annales Veteris et Novi Testameyiti^ This work set forth the scheme of Biblical chronology since known as Usher's, which was introduced by some unknown authority into the margin of 1 Historical Treatment of the important question of the continuous succession and the state of the Christian churches, especially in the West, from apostolic times down to the present. 3 Apology for the church of England. 3 History of the Churches of Britain. 4 Annals of the Old and the New Testament. —103- reference editions of the Authorized Version.' Usher pub- lished many other works of religion and controversy, in both Latin and English, but his most learned and influential pro- ductions went abroad to teach in the universal tongue. It was fitting that a Latin sentence should have been his first inspiration toward historical research,— one of Cicero's stim- ulating utterances : ' 'Nescire quid antea quam natus sis acci- derit, id est semper esse puerum."^ 1 Usher's writings are mentioned in full and partly discussed in Diet. Nat. Biog. and Encyc. Brit. 11th ed. sub Usher. 2 Not to know what happened before you were born is to be always a child. Masson I, 408. SECTION III. LATIN AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ENGLISH. CHAPTER VII. Epistolary Latin. The use of Latin in the Universities was for exercise and preparation; in the court, for international correspondence and state-papers, it was a necessity. Between these two limits — academic preparation on the one hand and interna- tional communication on the other— lies the great field of practical and literary intercourse among Englishmen them- selves, and the language for this purpose, one would say, was naturally and appropriately the language of the people. But the truth is that even in strictly domestic or internal affairs Latin had a share in the speech of Englishmen. There were two strong reasons why the ancient language thus infringed on the native modern. First, the educated Englishman had behind him a school-career of long years which had drilled into his system the vocabulary, syntax, and ideas of the old language; and the pride and pleasure growing out of the habit of Latin academic exercises encouraged the continuance of the habit into later life. Along with this habit and training there was developed an esteem for Latin as possessing in itself a superior power and virtue for expression and a supe- rior dignity which every self-respectin;.^- scholar would do well on occasion to appropriate. In the second place, the long history of the language, with its inestimable service to literature, to the state, and especially to the church, rendered it an object of veneration; and contemporary civilization, at home and abroad, was all intertwined and overgrown with the language, laws, and ideals of the ancient Romans. Scholarship, which was a precious word to seven- —105— teenth century Englishmen, meant excellence in the classic tongues, and recognized Cicero as the great model for liter- ary style. It was therefore natural that for the purposes of dignity, formal respectability, external propriety, Latin was employed in some cases where English would otherwise seem the nor- mal and most convenient means of communication. The influence of the Latin fashion extended beyond the necessi- ties of international communication, and included occasions when English, but for that fashion, would inevitably have been used. Such occasions were the writing of letters, the publication of books, especially books of poetry, and speech- making. In these fields, both languages held claims to the same territory. Though English generally prevailed, yet custom, dignity, scholarly propriety, and individual taste often led to the employment of Latin. In the matter of private correspondence between English- men, even learned Englishmen, the vernacular was regularly employed. The older language was sometimes chosen by students, who were under the unbroken spell of the classics and were drawn to Latin in letter-writing for the sake of exercise in composition or for display of newly acquired scholarship. Sometimes maturer scholars used Latin in let- ters of extreme formality, or on themes closely associated with learning and dignified, academic traditions, or wherever the writer supposed that Latin would flatter and conciliate his worthy correspondent. For example, in 1634 one Dr. Barron of Aberdeen ven- tured to address Archbishop Laud, then at the height of his power, in regard to "ye pacifying of ye five articles." The tone is one of extreme humility; the letter opening with an abject apology for intrusion on the time and attention of his most reverend excellency — amplissime et reverendUsime Praesul. The serious occasion of the letter, its exceeding formality, and its origin in classic Aberdeen, all conspired to put it in the most ceremonious and fashionable dress.' 1 Masson I, 568, ft. note. -106- Attention has previously been called to the letters of S'r Henry Wotton and to the fact that he used Latin to address Englishmen only in exceptional cases. One of these excep- tions occurred when he was abroad as ambassador and wrote home to his chief and king. James I piqued himself on his polite learning, and Sir Henry, like all other Englishmen of the day, knew well enough what kind of flattery pleased the pedantic old monarch. Dr. William Harvey, who employed Latin regularly in his lectures and scientific writings, and in his correspondence with foreigners, did not turn to English even when address- ing his own countrymen. To Dr. Baldwin Hamey, an able English physician and an intimate friend, Harvey wrote a letter of professional character, using Latin out of respect, to the learning and science which both were able to boast. The letter is brief, but the salutation lacks nothing of super- lative dignity, being as follows: Vir doctissime, huma- nissime, mihi carissime! ^ Open letters between Englishmen, especially in learned controversy, were more likely to be in Latin, since the dis- play of eloquence and learning counted as much as sense and argument. For instance, when John Camden published his famous Britannia, Brooke published a review of it with the title, "A Discovery of Certain Errors in the Much-com- mended Britannia." To this Camden replied in an angTy Latin letter, addressed not to the offender but Ad Lectorem (To the Reader), referring to Brooke only as Quida^n (A certain fellow), or hte (He). Brooke, feeling keenly both the contempt and the Latin superiority of his great oppo- nent, cried out in reply: "He considers me as an Indivi- duum vagiim (a mere generality) , and makes me but a Quidam in his pamphlet, standing before him as a school-boy, while he whips me. Why does he reply in Latin to an English accusation? He would disguise himself in his school-rhetoric; 1 Most learned, humane, and dear Sir! The English sounds thin and almost ridiculous in comparison with the rhythmical amplitude of the original. For the entire letter, see Willisls Harvey, 296-7. -107- wherein, like the cuttle-fish, being stricken, he thinks to hide and shift himself away in the ink of his rhetoric."^ When in 1655 the philosopher Hobbes turned to mathe- matical inquiries, he was met and confuted by Dr. Wallis, the Savilian Professor of Mathematics at Oxford, with a Latin review of Hobbes's Geometry: Elenchus Geometriae Hobbianae.' Hbbbes, thinking his scientific reputation at stake, turned his work into English, with the sarcastic addi- tion of "Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics in Oxford " Wallis replied also in English with a piece entitled, "Dae Correction of Mr. Hobbes, or School discipline for not saying his Lessons Right," and twitted him with having fallen back on the vulgar English. "What moved you," questioned Wallis, "to say your lessons in English, when the books against which you do chiefly intend them were written in Latin? Was it chiefly for the perfecting your natural rhetoric whenever you thought it convenient to repair to Bil- lingsgate? You found that the oyster- women could not teach you to rail in Latin. Now you can, upon all occasion, or without occasion, give the titles of fool, beast, ass, dog, &c., which I take to be but barking; and they are no better than a man might have at Billingsgate for a box o' the ear."-' Milton's private correspondents were few, and his letters short and nearly always in Latin. In a foregoing chapter account has been taken of his Latin letters to foreigners: we here consider those addressed to Englishmen Of the thirty- one Familiar Letters, twelve were written to his countrymen: two to his former tutor, Thomas Young; three to Alexander Gill, former usher at St. Paul's; two to Charles Diodati, old school-mate of St. Paul's; one to Richard Heath, his former pupil; four to Richard Jones, also a former pupil. These let- ters, hke the rest of Milton's, were fluent, rhetorical exer- cises. The poet seems to have regarded epistolary com- munications as opportunity for literary display, for Latin elo- quence: and his biographer only now and then finds in them 1 Disraeli's Calamities and Quarrels of Authors, 495. 2 Review of the Geometry of Hobbes. 3 Disraeli's Calamities and Quarrels of Authors, 464-6, and footnote. -108— any notable matter of fact. Those to young Gill turn chieflv on the Latin poetry which the ambitious scholar had been sending, or on the Latin and Greek verses Milton sent him in return. To Young nothing is said except words of praise for his old teacher, or of thanks for a recent letter. To Diodati there are some eloquent and highly rhetorical declarations of friendship, and accounts of ambitious literary plans. These letters to Young, Gill, and Diodati are all dated before 1637; those to Heath and Jones belong to the busy and serious period of the Latin Secretaryship, and are briefer, plainer, and more matter of fact. In a letter to Heath dated Decem- ber 13, 1652, Milton observed the unfitness of Latin for any- thing like regular and sincere correspondence. "Your future communications," he said, "may, if you please, be in your own language, lest (though you are no mean proficient in Latin composition) the labor of writing should make each of us more averse to write; and that we may freely disclose every sensation of our hearts without being impeded by the shackles of a foreign language."' Correspondence in Latin between Englishmen could not help but thrust forward the language-consciousness, p^nd impede spontaneity and naturalness. Letter writing in the foreign tongue had no place except in strict formality or fashionable dignity. From his various correspondents Milton received letters in the same language he employe 1, and from Diodati even Greek letters, two of which are extant. - In the matter of institutional correspondence, it seems to have been the custom for official letters issued from the Uni- versities by the Vice-chancellor or the Heads of Colleges to be in Latin. Communications addressed to Parliament, or the Chancellor, or to the Archbishop, presenting petitions, answering inquiries or maintaining points in controversy, knew no language but the learned one. The voice of the Universities was not voice of the people, and to have used English in formal utterance would have been to confess ignor- 1 Familiar Letter XIII. 2 Masson I, 117. -109— ance, indolence, or unacademic ideals. The force of a letter or an argument lay not so much in the propriety of thought and justice of a claim as in the complimentary form and elo- quent periods in which it was couched. In making answers to addresses from the Universities, the King, or Parliament, or Chancellor, or Archbishop, chose sometimes the one language, sometimes the other, not always regarding it necessary to maintain the standard set by the schools. Charles I was always indifferent to Latin forms when his own personal use of them was concerned. James I, on the contrary, never lost an occasion to show his zeal for learning and academic standards. Sir Francis Bacon, as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, when he put his communications in Latin, used a salutation somewhat as fol- lows: "Almae Matri et inclytae academiae Cantabi'igiensi" ,^ his subscription being: "AmiciLS vester maxime Jidelis et benovohis."^ His letters when in English were brief, as if the press of business prevented close personal attention to his writing Official letter-writing for the Universities was included in the functions of the Public Orator. In 1619 George Herbert was chosen Orator for the University of Oxford. "The first notable occasion," says Walton, ^ "of shewing fitness for this employment . . was manifested in a letter to King James, upon the occasion of his sending that University his book called 'BasilikonDoron';^ and their orator was to acknowledge this great honor, and return their gratitude to his Majesty for such condescension; at the close of which letter he writ, Quid Vaticanam Bodleianamque objicis hospes! Unicus est nobis Bibliotheca liber. ^ This letter was writ in such excellent Latin, and was so 1 To my Alma Mater, the renowned University of Cambridge. 2 Your friend in all loyalty and goodwill. Heywood's Cambridge, II, 265; 279; 291. ■i Walton's Lives, 266-7 (Ed. 1852). 4 The King's Gift. •■> Stranger, why do you mention the Vatican or Bodleian? We have a ibjrary in one single book. —110— full of conceits, and all the expressions so suited to the g'enius of the King, that he inquired the Orator's name, and then asked William Earl of Pembroke, if he knew him? whose answer was 'That he knew him very well, and that he was his kinsman; but he loved him more for his learning and virtue, than for that he was of his name and family.' At which answer the King smiled, and asked the Earl leave that he might love him too, for he took him to be the jewel of that University." No wonder if Latin was held in high esteem and ambitiously studied by young men, when a King's acquaintance was the reward. In view of his success in donating the Basilicon Doron to Oxford, James decided to present the collected edition of his works to the University of Cambridge. The thanks he received were contained in a long and highly complimentary Latin letter, beginning: Ser'enissime Domine Noster, Jacobe Invictissime, ' and ending: Humillimi Servi subditique vester Procancellarius Reliqiiusque Senatus Cantabrigiensis.^ Such terms were the highest tribute to the King's power and greatness, and he relished them exceedingly. Petitions for particular favors, even in lengthy and labo- rious forms, did not always prove successful with the easily flattered monarch. A long Latin petition from Cambridge to James in 1617, praying for a new charter, received answer with due respect in the same language, but the request was not granted. Petitions to Parliament, though in English, sought favor by the attendance of a Latin letter. In 1642, for example, Cambridge sent to Parliament an English peti- tion, imploring the protection of cathedral churches and lands. The petition was accompanied and recommended by 1 Our most serene master, invincible James. 2 Your most humble servants and subjects, Vice-Chancellor and Senate of Cambridge. Cooper's Cambridge, II I, 135. —Ill— a letter in Latin, apologizing for the use of a different lan- guage in the petition, Sed quia, the letter explained, Lingua nativa dolores et desideria sua foeliciiis exprimit, annexam Lit- eris Petitionem benevolis Auribus excipietis.'^ The iconoclastic Puritan Parliament, which seemed to be unfavorable to learning in their attack on the Church, would probably understand a petition better in English than in Latin. Sometimes the formality of the learned style was dropped in serious and urgent correspondence. A notable instance is in the controversy, in 1635, about the claim of Archbishop Laud to the right of visitation to the University of Cam- bridge The Archbishop addressed the Vice-chancellor, using English; the Vice-chancellor answered in the same language, sending a collection of reasons, also in English, why the University should be regarded outside the Metropol- itan Jurisdiction. When no agreement could be reached between them. Laud sent to King Charles a petition in Eng- lish concerning his claim; and the king at last put an end to the controversy by issuing a decree in formal Latin, deciding in favor of the Archbishop. ^ This is one of the few instances of Charles's use of Latin outside of legal forms, and even this may be placed in that class. Like him, the Duke of Buckingham, as Chancellor of Cambridge, felt more easy in using the vernacular. Even on the solemn occasion in 1626 when Charles acknowledged and approved the choice of Buckingham as Chancellor, and when the Duke himself acknowledged the election, both wrote plain English. The Duke's salutation sounds even to our ears, accustomed to the grand sonorous form of that day, exceedingly democratic and unceremonious: "Mr. Vice- Chancellor & Gentlemen the Senate of the University of Cambridge."-^ There is some suspicion that the Duke was 1 But because the vernacular expresses more fitly our sorrows and desires, you will receive with generous attention the accompanying peti- tion. Hey wood's Cambridge, II, 439 40. Rushworth IV, 272. 2 Heywood's Cambridge, II, 424-7. 8 Cooper's Cambridge, III, 192. -112- deficient in learning:, for Joseph Meade, fellow in the Uni- versity, in one of his letters cast reflection on him for sit- ting in the Chancellor's seat on his first visit and venturing only the two words, placet and admittatur^ But the University was not to be shaken from her an- cient dignity and self-possession by the carelessness of King and Duke. She replied to their English with J^atin letters of considerable length and abundant superlatives. On July 7, 1628, when Buckingham was about to lead the unpopular expedition for the relief of Rochelle, and just before his assas- sination, his University saluted him with a letter, long drawn out in Latin, praising his past benevolences, grieving for his absence, and beseeching a continuance of his favors.' After the Duke's death, the Earl of Holland succeeded to the Chancellorship, and the superlatives of salutation and com- pliment were directed against him: Honoratissime domine, dignissime cancellarie.^ Royal writs, commissions, and proclamations, though directed to Englishmen, carried the traditional stamp of authority by being in Latin. The majesty of the law pre- ferred a conservative dress. There is no absolute rule for the use of language in these forms, but custom favored Latin. During the conflict between Charles I and Parliament, the party which clung to the past and stood on the law employed the old language more regularly in legal documents than did the new and progressive party which little reverenced tradi- tion and appealed directly to the people. In 1642, just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Charles issued commissions for the levying of soldiers in the various shires, and the Par- liament in opposition passed its ordinance of the militia and sent out officers with authority to raise troops. The King's commissions followed the legal custom of being in Latin; Parliament, having no such precedent, gave its order and 1 Masson I, 129. 2 Cooper's Cambridge, 1 1 1, 202-4. 3 Haywood's Cambridge, 1 1, 479-80. Most honored Lord, most worthy Chancellor. —113- authority in its own language. Clarendon, in the sixth book of his History, tells how the parliamentary officers in the southwest took advantage of the royal commission's being in Latin, and "translated into English what they pleased; per- suading the substantial yoemen and freeholders that at least two parts of their estates would, by that commission, be be taken from them; and the meaner and poorer sort of people, that they were to pay a tax for one day's labor in the week to the king; and that all should be, upon the matter, no better than slaves to the lords, and that there was no way to free and preserve themselves from this unsupportable tyranny, than by adhering to the parliament, and submitting to the ordinance for the militia; which was purposely prepared to enable them to resist these horrid invasions of their liberties." The commission itself was in Latin, but the letter to the com- missioners in English. 1 In 1626, when Charles dissolved parliament, he caused a commission in Latin to pass under the great seal for that purpose.- On March 10, 1629, when he proposed to do away with parliaments indefinitely, he issued a proclamation of dis- solution, and then ordered the Lord Keeper to utter the com- mand for dissolution, which was in the same plain language.^ In 1636 the King issued a proclamation to the Mayor and Aldermen of (Cambridge, and on that occasion deemed it appropriate to use Latin. Other notable occasions when the language was employed in forms addressed to Englishmen were the presenting of letters patent to the Lord Constable of England for the trial of David Ramsey on the plea of Don- ald, Lord Rea;* and the issuing of a Commission, by Charles in 1638, under the great seal of the Kingdom of Scotland, for an assembly to consider ecclesiastical matters,^ and the granting a commission in 1638 to the Marquis of Hamilton, who was 1 Rush worth IV, 655 58. 2 Rushworth I, 399, and 660-1. 3 Fuller's Ephemeris Parliamentaria. 4 Rushworth 1 1, 112. 5 Baillie's Letters and Journals, I, 424, note. -114- sent as High Commissioner to Scotland to meet the general Assembly at Glasgow. ^ In February, 1637, Charles I sent a letter to the Chief Justices of the Bench enclosing an inquiry as to whether the king had the right to levy ship-money when in his judgment the danger of the Kingdom demanded immediate action. Both the letter and the inquiry were in English. The judges replied in the affirmative. Then the king resorted to legal writs for the levying of the money, and sent them to the various towns and counties of England. On the fourth of August, 1637, the writ was directed to the sheriff of the county of Bucks, containing an order for the raising of ship- money together with an explanation of the reasons for such an order. By virtue of this writ it was that John Hampden was assessed twenty shillings. Latin imparted to the action an air of ancient authority and legal justification.' This legal formality pursued Hampden through the celebrated trial which followed, and ended with a Latin sentence against him.^ Though Charles I never made any personal display of learning, yet his relying on "the known laws of the land" marks his reign with a sprinkling of Latin letters and docu- ments. Further examples are found in 1640 and 1643, both in connection with important battles. In September, 1640, after his defeat at Newburn on the Tyne by the Scots, he issued writs to require the Lords Spiritual and Temporal to meet him in a great council at York. The writs were in formal and sonorous Latin. The Salutation, for example, in that addressed to the great champion of form and ceremony, Archbishop Laud of Canterbury, were as follows : Rex Rev- erendissimo in Christo Pari ac fideli conciliario nostro Wil- 1 Rushworth II, 747-8. The commission was in Latin, the letter to the Assembly in English. The legral form sought the ancient tongue. Compare the Latin letter and English petition sent to parliament by the Universities, p. 111-2. 2 Rushworth 1 1 1, Appendix, 177-8. 3 Do. 253. —115— helmo Cantuar. Archiepiscopo, totius Angliae primati et Metropolitano Salutem.'^ In the year 1643 the valiant cava- lier Sir Ralph Horton rendered signal service at the battle of Stratton, and later at Oxford was created Baron of Strat- ton by his king. This form of creation, like a diploma, was in Latin, recounting at great length the special service for which the honor was con f erred. ^ 1 Greetings from the king to the most reverend father in Christ and faithful councillor William, Archbishop of Canterbury, primate and metropolitan of all England. 2 Fuller's Worthies, I, 332-4. CHAPTER VIII. Latin Prose. We have seen in Chapter VI how Latin was used in books appealing to the learned of the world, and not intended pri- marily for Englishmen. A typical example of this sort of work was Dr. Harvey's De Circulatione Sanguinis or Hobbes's De Give. But it is not always to be taken for granted that because a book or treatise was in Latin it therefore looked abroad for its readers. Sometimes a writer had before him only or at least chiefly English patronage, yet for reasons of dignity, or prestige, or even vanity, chose Latin. It is not always possible to draw the line between an author's world-wide outlook and a merely national one: a piece of literature in speaking to the world thereby included England in the audience; but one cannot positively infer that a Latin production always faced toward the continent. Here arises the interesting question whether an English- man, writing in Latin for an English audience, chose the older language because of its intrinsic superiority in the matter of clearness, discrimination, and force, or because of the external advantages of fashion, antiquity, and authority. Was English regarded as a merely vulgar tongue, not yet risen, if it ever would rise, to a capacity for philosophical con- notation and exactitude? Prof essor John Earle contends' that Shakspeare had proved to all Englishmen that everything they might have to say could be amply and precisely uttered in the native tongue; that all publications in Latin sought to command the wider European attention; and that the motive of English writers of Latin in the seventeenth and in the nineteenth century was the same, — that Bacon and Keble had 1 Earle's English Prose, 435-6. -117— equal regard for the adequacy of their native language but chose Latin for its more universal appeal to scholarship. While generally speaking this contention holds good, yet in some cases it seems certain that the English user of Latin believed he was wielding a tool of finer edge, and that his precious thought attained perfect expression only in the incomparable language of the ancients. Hobbes confessed the comparative weakness of the English vocabulary by resort- ing not infrequently to Latin for the only word which could express his meaning. For example, in Human Nature, VII, 3, he says: "As we call good and evil the things that please and displease; so call we goodness and badness, the qualities whereby they do it: and the signs of that goodness are called by the Latins in one word jpulchritiido, and the signs of evil turpitudo; to which we find no words precisely answerable." English had too little training in scientific discourse to furnish complete diction to the careful nominalist. And not only in point of vocabulary, but also of grammatical structure, English was wanting. Bacon in De Augmentis, Book VI, reasons on this difference. "Is not it a fact," he says, "worthy of observation (though it may be a little shock to the spirit of us moderns) that the ancient languages were full of declensions, cases, conjugations, tenses, and the like, while the modern are nearly stripped of them, and perform most of their work lazily by prepositions and verbs auxiliary? Surely a man may easily conjecture (how well so ever we may think of ourselves) that the wits of the early ages were much subtler and acuter than our own. There are number- less observations of this kind, enough to fill a volume. And therefore it is not amiss to distinguish Philosophical Gram- mar from Grammar Simple and Literary, and to set it down as wanting."' Bacon here regards Latin excellence as intrinsic, due to its innermost and vital syntactic structure, and not to any extraneous considerations like antiquity or fashion or academic prestige. It is not with us a question of whether he and his contemporaries erred in this regard: the 1 Spedding IV, 442. —118— point of interest is that they really believed Latin a superior instrument of expression. Speddin^, the editor of Bacon's complete works, recog- nized and asserted the excellence of Bacon's Latin over any possible translation, however liberal. This may be the same as saying that translation is always inferior, and that a Latin translation, by Spedding or other scholar, of Bacon's English works would betray the same inadequacy. But a quotation from Spedding, who writes after long experience in trans- lating, and in comparing the two languages, will indicate a belief on his part that there is something essentially fine in the Latin which Bacon himself could not have transferred to his mother tongue. "The translations," says Spedding, "are intended especially for the benefit of those who cannot read Latin. Those who can, will find the original not only richer, stronger, and more impressive, but also (at least after a little practice) easier to follow and pleasanter to read. In Bacon's time Latin was still a living language among schol- ars. They used it not only to show how well they could imitate the mariner in which Cicero or Tacitus expressed his thoughts, but to express their own; and in Bacon's hands it became an organ of expression extremely powerful and sensi- tive, full of felicities and delicate effects, dependent upon its own peculiar resources, and not transferable in the same form into a language of different structure. A literal trans- lation in English might indeed explain them, and so help an imperfect scholar to understand the original if read along with it, but would not at all convey to an Englishman the effect of the original if read by itself."' Considering Bacon's praise of Philosophical Grammar over Simple Grammar in the light of this testimony from a diligent translator of his works, one will discern another motive on the part of English users of Latin besides the obvious one of reaching a larger audience of scholars. Even the most zealous defenders of English did not go so far as to contend for its equality with Latin or the other 1 Spedding, preface to Vol. IV. —119- languages which had been tested by the ages. In 1644 was pubHshed a short pamphlet entitled "Vindex Anglicus: or, The Perfections of the English Language defended and asserted." The author compares his native tongue with others ancient and modern, and though he finds it equal or superior to Spanish, French, and Italian, he humbly con- cedes its inferiority to the ancient languages. ''Let no one think," he says, "that I stand in any competition to the sacred Hebrew, learned Greeks, or fluent Latins, or claim a superiority over the rest; my ambition extends not so high, though you see I want not pretence for it. Let us look upon ours as a language, equal to the best of the vulgar; and, for my part, 'Let others retain their ancient dignity and esteem.' '' Again he says: "Though in this conclusion I here strike sail, and vail to the learned languages; let that not detract from the worth of ours, which is parallel, if not superior to the best remaining. "1 There is an additional argument against Earle's position that Latin was chosen for the same jreasons by seventeenth and nineteenth century EngHshmen. In Milton's time there was no acknowledged standard of English prose. This came later, after the Restoration and during the eighteenth cen- tury, when the genius of the language was allowed to assert and develop itself. But before the Restoration its syntax was not fixed, its sentence structure lacked power and effect- iveness, its vocabulary lacked wealth and refinement. How- ever much the great prose writers contemporary with Milton were misguided in the worship of the classics, they certainly believed and felt their native prose to be still an inadequate and imperfect instrument, not yet far removed from vul- garity and barbarism. How were these writers and scholars to give full and satisfactory expression to their thoughts? Was there no means at hand for worthy literary utterance? They answered the question by their actions. They could either use Latin, the language whose capacity and power no 1 Harleian Miscellany, 1 1, 37-42. -120- man ever questioned, or they could take up the ill-formed English, and mould it into Latinized forms: make its syntax, sentence-structure, its roll and volume, and in some measure its vocabulary like the long approved and honored Latin. Hence we have the prose of Milton, often impossible to parse, often scarcely intelligible; likewise the prose of Thomas Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Thomas Browne, and Lord Claren- don. If these men believed English the equal of Latin in controversy, philosophy, history, and all other serious utter- ance, why did they commit the absurdity of straining after the style of Cicero, and distorting their native tongue out of its approved adequacy and perfection into the monstrosities of an alien idiom? It was a sincere effort, no doubt, "to adorn the native tongue," as Milton confessed; to make English what Latin had been of old, by adopting the supreme merits of the ancient tongue. The mistake was in not recognizing the different genius and character of the tw^o languages, and in not fostering, surely and steadily, the native, inherent qualities of homely English. This mistake was committed by scholars not only in prose but also in attempting to stretch English verse to the measure of the classical forms. Mention will be made of a few works which appear to have been addressed chiefly or only to Englishmen. In 1616^ Francis Godwin, later Bishop of Hereford, published in London: Rerum Anglicarum Henrico VIII Edwardo & Maria regnantihus, AnnalesY In the same year he pub- lished De Praesulibus Angliae Cominentarii,^ which had been previously written and issued in English under the following title: "A Catalogue of the Bishops of England, since the first Planting of the Christian Religion in this Island, together with a brief History of their Lives and mem- orable Actions, so near as they can be gathered out of Antiquity. ' * One might suppose that the usual motives urged 1 History of England during the reign of Henry VIII, Edward V I, and Mary. 3 Commentaries on the Bishops of England. Wood, Fasti, Part 1 1, 555, ff. —121— the a'lthor to turn his pretentious work into Latin, but Wood recordo a pecuHar reason, if we are to take it seriously. The history "being very full of faults, and not to be endured by any ordinary reader, he hath put forthwith into Latin." If the book could boast of no other merit, it should at least be "learned." In 1633 Sir Henry Wotton published in London Plaiisiis & Vota ad Regent e Scotia Reducem,^ a greeting to King Charles on his return for his coronation in Holyrood Abbey. Wotton was author also of Henrici VUi Angliae et Galliarum Regis, Hiberniae Domini, Etonensis ad Tamesin Collegii Conditoris, Vita et Excessus. Scriptore Henrico Anglo-Cantiano Ejusdem Collegii Praefecto.'- In these two pieces of Latin prose Sir Henry could expect only or chiefly English readers. His themes had to do with royalty: in addressing a king, or in writing the life of a king who was at the same time the founder of a college, no language could be too learned and dignified. On occasions of great formality Latin was sometimes chosen for public address even outside the Universities. Such an occasion of learning and dignity was the Convocation of Divines, which met at the same time with Parliament in 1640. "On the first day thereof", says Thomas Fuller, "Dr. Turner, chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury, made a Latin ser- mon in the quire of St. Paul's. His text, Matth. X, 16, Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. . . . Next day of sitting we met at Westminster, in the chapel of King Henry the Seventh, both the houses of convocation being joined together, when the archbishop of Canterbury entertained them with a Latin speech, well nigh three-quarters of an hour gravely uttered, his eyes ofttimes being but one remove from weeping." 1 A Panegyric to the King on his return from Scotland. Smith's Life of Wotton, II, Append. I., B. - Life and death of Henry V I, K'\n^ of En{?land and France, Lord of Ireland, Founder of Eton College on the Thames. By Henry, an English- man of Kent, Provost of the same College. Smith's Life of Wotton, 1 1, Appendix I, B. —122- CHAPTER IX. Latin Poetry. In discussing the several international uses of Latin, we did not find a place for poetry, because there seemed to be no poetry in England whose primary purpose was to address foreign readers. It is hard to think of a poet's making verses for outlandish admirers only; his first readers must always be among his countrymen, even though his name may in course of time outrun the boundaries of a single nation. Yet one grows to feel, the more he looks into the Latin liter- ature of this time, that the English writers of Latin prose or verse, even when their themes were insular, had the habit of eying the continent and secretly hoping that their names, like Horace's, would be syllabled far from Rome: qua violens obstrepit Aufidus et qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestium regnavit populorum ex humili potens. ' We shall assume that all Latin poetry written by English- men at home was intended first for readers among their scholarly countrymen, however much an ambition may have been cherished toward the larger circle of the whole learned world. We have accordingly placed all Latin poetry in two classes: first, academic poetry, treated above in Chapter III; second, non-academic poetry, produced in England and for English readers. These two classes cannot always be kept accurately apart. Our general guide is the question whether 1 Where brawls loud Aufidus, and came Parched Daunus erst a horde Of rustic boors to sway, my name Shall be a household word. Hor. Ill, 30- Martin's Trans. —123— the purpose and occasion, the author and the place of com- position, were intimately connected with the Universities or not. If the poem was written and published on the grounds by a University man, on an academic theme, it has been called academic Latin; if it was published outside, or by its subject-matter made an appeal to outside readers, or was addressed to an outsider, even though by a University man, it has been reserved for consideration in this chapter. Latin versifying, begun early in academic innocence, and continued by habit into maturer years and often into old age, was all but universal among men who boasted scholarship, or coveted a reputation for wit and literary talent. It was a poor scholar who had put forth into the world no Latin hex- ameters or elegiacs, who could not turn an epigram, or pass a compliment in Latin verse. Wood's remark about Robert Burhill, who died in 1641, that he was "in his younger days a noted Latin poet", illustrates the fashion of the time in building transient fame out of hard-wrought Latin verse. Such expressions in biographical notices as "an admirable linguist", "an excellent master of the Latin and Greek tongues," etc., are commonly followed by reference to epi- grams and poems in Latin or Greek. The reward for all such achievement was, according to the biographer, to lie at last beneath an unabridged Latin epitaph. The aspiring youth, whose aim was preferment in church or state, knew no better way to advertise his merit than to hail the archbishop or king in a Latin poem, or better still, in a whole volume of poems In 1628 Alexander Gill, Milton's old tutor at St. Paul's, fell under the merciless censure of the Star Chamber for having entertained and uttered' doubts as to the absolute wisdom of the king. He had declared among a group of boon companions in Trinity College, Oxford, that "our king was fitter to stand in a Cheapside shop with an apron before him and say. 'what lack ye?', than to rule a kingdom." He had further assured his fellows that the Duke of Buckingham, recently assassinated by Felton, "had gone down to hell to meet James there." and that he was sorry "Felton had deprived him of the honor of doing that —124- brave deed." Gill's heroic spirit was soon put to exercise by the censure of the Star Chamber, degrading? him from his min- istry, removing his University degrees, fining him 20001., and condemning him to lose one ear at London and the other at Oxford. Later, on the petition of his honored old father, the corporal punishment was remitted and the fine mitigated. Young Gill was properly grateful and changed his mind about * 'our king. ' ' In 1632 he published Poetici Conatus, ' with a ded- ication Serenissimo Domino nostro Carolo, Regi optimo, Principum exemplo, maxima liter arum ac artium fautori.'^ Nor did the volume neglect the archbishop: it contained a Latin poem addressed most submissively to the great Laud of Canterbury. Gill was doing his best to recover his lost ground, and he knew the fashionable and effective way of flattery. Andrew Marvell, ambitious to rise in the world, after traveling abroad and tutoring in Lord Fairfax's house, came to London in 1652. About this time Milton, as Foreign Secretary, wrote a letter to Bradshaw in recom- mendation of the young man, calling him "a scholar, and well read in the Latin and Greek authors." Mar- vell had proved his scholarship and his worthiness to be recommended to the great, by his aspiring Latin poems.^ Another was a rather long string of elegiacs entitled: Doctori IngelOy cum Domino Whitlocke, ad Reginarn Sueciae Delegato a Protectore, Residenti, Epistola^ He wrote also In Effigiem Oliveri CromivelW and In Eandem,^ Reginae Sueciae Transmissam. It is noticeable that Marvell ventured no direct address to Cromwell but to men very near him, 1 Poetical Essays. 2 To our most serene Lord. Charles, best of Kings, paragon of princes, greatest patron of arts and letters. Masson I, 153. 3 Masson IV. 478-9. 4 To Dr. Ingelus, resident with Lord Whitlocke Envoy from the Pro- tector to the Queen of Sweden. Masson IV, 623-4. 5 On the Portrait of Oliver Cromwell. Do. 624. 6 On the same, sent to the Queen of Sweden. Do. —125— and care was taken to mention the protector's name. The persistent young poet was finally rewarded for all his pains and learning by being appointed assistant to the Latin Sec- retary John Milton. Latin poetry was written not only to gain recommenda- tion for preferment, but to indulge in the pleasure of com- posing, or to join the association of wits and scholars, or to win the reputation of having done a clever piece of work. In 1637, when the brilliant Bishop Williams was fined 20,0001. and committed to the Tower during the King's pleasure, one of his amusements which prison walls could not bar out was the writing of Latin verses. ' In 1638, when the memory of Ben Jonson was to "be revived by the friends of the muses," the wits joined together in publishing Jonsoims Virbius, and filled the evergreen volume with poems, English, Latin, and Greek.- An example of clever work, of exhibiting a sort of linguistic legerdemain, is a book by Henry Stubbe called Horae Subsecivae, "consisting of translations of Jonah and other parts of the old Testament, and of Latin Epigrams by Randolph and others, into Greek. "^ Stubbe was guilty of more than one volume of Latin and Greek verse, not knowing at the time but that immortal fame grew on such soil. Examples in chronological order of noteworthy Latin poems may now be considered. In 1619 the epigrams of John Owen, who had produced them almost beyond number, were sifted, and a choice selection was translated into English by John Vicars, usher of Christ Hospital, in London; and again in 1659 six hundred of them were translated by Thomas Pecke.* It would seem that Latin poetry written by an Englishman was not felt to have been intended for English readers, if later a translation into English was considered worth while in order apparently to bring the pieces back home to the author's countrymen. But it was not to be sup- posed that such translations were made because the message 1 Masson I, 540. 3 Masson I, 510. 3 Masson VI, 317-18. 4 Wood, Fasti, Parti I, 322. —126- of the poems had any great value, or could not otherwise than by translation j?et to its destined readers. The linguistic and literary gymnastics which the exercise afforded was all the translators cared for: the display of their skill in piecing together syllables into a certain order honorably known as rhythm or metre, and words into certain interesting combin- tions called syntax. The usher of Christ Hospital would probably have been happier if John Owen's epigrams had originally been in English, in order that his translation of them might bring him out on the more glorious side of Latin; and he probably had no more faith in conveying a messege to Englishmen then Henry Stubbe had when he translated Jonah into Greek. Both must have worked to the same end: to exhibit their skill in verbal manipulation, their close famil- iarity with languages. This heavy literary fashion was the child of scholasticism and the narrow humanism of the schools. William Slatyer was a notable victim of the same tyranny. In 1621 he pub- lished in London "Palae- Albion: or the History of Great Britain from the first peopling of the Island to the Reign of King James," a folio in Latin and English verse, the Latin on one side, the English on the other. In 1630 he published "Genethliacum sive Stemma Regis Jacobi,''''- a folio in Latin and English, with the genealogy derived all the way from Adam. There was more excuse for the production of certain poems by Alexander Gill, who has been mentioned above in connection with the Star Chamber. In 1623, at the fatal vespers in Blackfriars, over one hundred Catholics were killed in the fall of the house; whereupon young Gill wrote a Latin ode In ruinam Camerae Papisticae Londini.' In 1625 he put forth two poems of fellow- ship and piety: one w^as addressed to Thomas Farnaby, the great schoolmaster, and was sent along with a skin of canary in a true Horatian spirit; the other was a greeting to 1 Wood's Athenae, III, 227. "Birthday poem, or Pedigree of King James." 2 On the fall of the Papal House in London. Masson I, 72-3. —127— his father on his sixtieth birthday. Gill was also author of 'Er.vAv.uiv de Gestis, Successibus, et Victoriis Regis Sueciae in Germania,^ in 1631, which was later "Englished and explained in marginal notes by W. H. under the title of 'A Song of Vic- tory'. " Gill must have felt himself all the more a seven- teenth century Horace, to have his Latin poems translated and elucidated with scholarly annotation. William Vaughn, the son of Walt. Vaughn of the Golden Grove in Caermarthenshire, "though indifferently learned, yet went beyond most men of his time for Latin, especially, and English poetry." Among his poems was one published in London in 1625 and dedicated to Charles I, the author modestly assuming the name of Orpheus Junior. The com- plete title was: Cambrensium Caroleia. Quihus Nuptiae regales celebrantur, Memoria Regis Pacifici renovatur & Praecepta necessaria ad Rempub. nostram foeliciter admini- strandam intexunhir: reportata e Colchide Cambriola ex A21- stralissima novae terrae Plaga.^ Charles's family events, it seems, were not to be the exclusive property of the Cam- bridge and Oxford muses. Raphael Thorius was a Frenchman by birth, but sojourned among the Oxonians, practiced medicine in London, and wrote Latin poetry. His Hymnus Tabaci, sive de Paeto Libri diio^ wsis "an elegant Latin poem translated into English by Peter Hausted, M. A. of Cambridge," in 1631. His Chrimonopegnion, A Winter Song, was also translated into English by the faithful Hausted. Thorius died in 1625 of the plague and was commemorated by a friend in the poem: Lessus in Funere Raphaelis Thori Medici et Poetae Prae- stantissimi, Qui Londini Peste extincttis bonis et doctis omni- 1 Ode on the Deeds and Victories of the King of Sweden in Germany. Wood's Athenae 1 1 1, 43. 2 Welsh Tributes to Charles. Whereby the royal nuptials are cele- brated, the memory of the Pacific King is revived, and needful counsel intertwined for happily conducting the affairs of state: brought from Cambriol Colchis, out of the southermost part of the island called New- foundland. Wood, Fasti, Part 1 1, 445. 3 Hymn to Tobacco. Wood, Fasti, Part II, 379-80. —128- bus triste s^ti Desiderium reliquit. Anno 1625^ When one reads such superlatives as Praestantissimi bestowed upon a now unknown writer, one hardly knows whether to account it a mere sonorous convention, or to imagine another and upper world in which Latin was the language and in which a poet might have actually become very famous without ever being heard of among the vulgar-tongued multitude below. Chief among the scholars who about 1632 were exercising their ingenuity in Latin epigrams, elegies and the like, were James Duport and Thomas May. Duport, of Trinity College, Cambridge, had his eye on subjects outside of College, and wrote an ode in Benjaminium Jonsonum, Poetam Laurea- tum, et dramaticoriim sui secidi facile principem.'^ Years later he addressed two Latin poems to his master Isaac Wal- ton, which were published in the second edition of the Com- plete Angler, in 1655. '^ May, according to Masson a Latinist of far higher power than Duport, * published in 1640 his Sup- plementum Lucani Lib. V I,^ which brought the narrative of the Roman poet down to the death of Caesar. It was writ- ten, says Wood, "in so lofty and happy Latin hexameter, that he hath attained to much more reputation abroad, than he hath lost at home." May not only enlarged Latin litera- ture by supplementing Lucan, but paid equal tribute to his mother tongue by rendering into English Lucan 's Pharsalia and Virgil's Georgics. He stood with the one language on one hand, and the other on the other, and it could not be said of him that he let not his right hand know what his left hand did. For his much pains he was rewarded at last with a plentiful epitaph by Marchamont Needham. 1 Lamentation on the death of Ralph Thorius. physician and most excellent poet, who died in London of the plague and left sorrowful regret among all good and learned men, in the year 1625. Wood, Fasti, Part n, 379-80. and footnote. 2 On Ben Johnson, poet laureate and easily the first dramatic writer of his age. Masson I, 400. 3 Marston's Walton, 240-L * Masson I, 400. 5 Supplement to Lucan, Six Books. Wood, Athenae III, 810. -129— Francis Kinaston, "first regent of the college or academy called Musaeum Minervae", and author of "The Constitu- tions of Musaeum Minervae", laid hands on old Chaucer with more piety than Dryden did later, and translated his Troilus and Cresseid into the venerable Latin, entitling the work Amorum Troili & Creseidae Lihri Duo Priores Anglico-La- tini,^ published at Oxford in 1635; "which", says Wood, "being beheld as an excellent translation, was ushered into the world by 15 copies of verses made by Oxford men." About the same time Richard James published at Oxford Poemata quaedam in Mort. Clariss. Viri Roberti Cottoni & Thomas Alleni."' He was author also of sermons in Latin and in English, and at his death in 1638 left behind a num- ber of Latin manuscripts. Nothing was wanting to him and his studies, says Wood, "but a sinecure or a prebendship; either of which, if conferred upon him, Hercules his labours would have seemed a trifle." In 1637 there was published in Amsterdam, at the expense of a patriotic Scot, Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum,'^ a work which challenged the criticism of the world at that time, and excites our wonder to-day. It was a collection, in two small but densely packed volumes, of choice Latin poems, by thirty- seven Scottish authors who were styled the "glory of this age." These thirty-seven were only a handful to the infinite host that had remained athome— the innumerabiles poetarum veluti exercitits* representing extremum hunc angidum pa£ne sub ipso mundi cardine jacentem.^ Among the best were John Scot, at whose expense the volume was published, and Arthur Johnston, the editor. Besides being a Latin poet, Johnston had a distinguished career as a Doctor of Medicine of the University of Padua, Professor in the Universities of 1 The Loves of Troilus and Cressida: first two books, English and Latin. Wood's Athenae III, 38-9. 2 Poems on the death of those very famous men, Robert Cotton and Thomas Allen. Wood's Athenae, 1 1 1, 38. 3 Delights of the Scottish Poets. * Countless armies of poets. 5 This uttermost point of land lying almost under the pole. -130- Heidelberg: andSedon, Rector of the University and of Kin^^'s College, Aberdeen, and physician to James I and Charles I. He had his residence in London, as Medicus Rexjhis^ His first publication with his name was on the death of James: Elegia in obitiim Jacobi I, London, 1625. There fol- lowed in great profusion elegies, epigrams, paraphrases, parerga. He wrote, strangely enough, being a Scot, Musae Querulae, de Regis in Scotiam Profectone,'^ irt 1633, which was published in ten pages with Latin oh the left hand pages and English on the right. His most cel- ebrated work was a Latin version of the Psalms: Artiwi Jon- stoni Psalmi Davidici inter pretatione, argumentis, notisque illitstrati: in iisum Serenissimi Principis^ The bibliography of Arthur Johnston, as collected and published by William Johnston in 1896,^ show as many as thirty- four extant editions of his works, all but one being in Latin. And Johnston was only one among the innumerabiles poetariim exercitus. Thomas Hobbes, though in all his philosophical works he wrote with bitter sarcasm against the teachings of the Univer- sities, and in his Leviathan declared his belief "that there was never anything so dearly bought as these Western parts have bought the learning of the Greek and Latin tongues,"-^ yet himself was a Latin author of prose and verse, from youth down to the last years of a remarkably long life. He composed prior to 1628 but published in 1636 De Mirabilibus Pecci, containing over 500 Latin hexameters which "give a lively account of an excursion from Chatsworth round the Seven Wonders of the Derbyshire Peak." At the age of sixty-four he wrote his own life in Latin elegiacs, which were not published till 1679, a year after his death. 1 Physician to the King. 2 Complaints of the muse on the departure of the King for Scotland; 3 Arthur Johnston's Psalms of David, illustrated with translation, arguments, and notes: for the use of the most serene Prince. 4 Bibliography and Portraits of Arthur Johnston, by William John- ston, Aberdeen University Press, 1896. 5 Leviathan, Ch. XX I, p. 144. -131— John Dryden was not the only poet in England who resetted the death of Cromwell the Protector and later rejoiced at the restoration of Charles the King. In 1653 Robert Whitehall wrote Carmen gratulatorium Olivero Crom- well in Protectorem Angliae inaiigu7'ato;^ and in 1657, Carmen Onomasticon Gratulatorium Ricardo Cromwell in Cancellarii Officium & Dignitatem foeliciter Elector These friendly verses to Oliver and Richard Cromwell served as exercises to train .Whitehall for congratulating Oxford on the return of Charles 1 1, and for saluting Edward Hyde as High Chancellor of England and as much-desired Chancellor of Oxford. The poem containing this change of sentiment, addressed Edvardo Hyde, summo Angliae & optato Oxoniae Cancellario,^ was printed on one side of a sheet in both Latin and English, and given to the world promptly in the year 1660. Payne Fisher, who translated his name into Paganus Pis- cator, celebrated the great deeds in war and at last the death of Cromwell; publishing in 1659 Marston Moore: sen de Obsi- dione Proelioque Eboracensi Carmen, Lib. 6;^ and in 1658 a dirge entitled: Threnodia Triumphalis, in Obitiim seretisis)^. nostri Prinx^ipis Olivari Angliae, Scotiae, &c. , nuper Pro- tectorisJ' Milton, like the Robert Burhill mentioned above, was "in his younger days a noted Latin poet.'' In 1645, Humphrey Moses, who did all he could to promote fine literature by its publication and sale at his shop in St. Paul's church-yard, published Milton's poems, both Latin and English. These poems were all minor at that time, in the sense we now use 1 Gratulatory poem to Oliver Cromwell on his inauguration as Pro- tector of England. 2 Gratulatory poem to Richard Cromwell happily elected to the office and dignity of Chancellor. 3 To Edward Hyde, High Chancellor of England and desired Chancel- lor of Oxford. Wood IV, 177. 4 Marston Moor: or Song on the Seigeand Battle of York; si.x books. •■> Triumphal Dirge on the death of our most serene Prince Oliver, late Protector of England, Scotland, &c. Wood IV, 378-9. -132— the word. The volume was divided into two parts, each part separately titled and pap:ed. The first contained the English poems which filled 120 pages. The second part, of 88 pages, contained the Latin pieces, with the following on the title page: Joannis Miltoni Londiniensis Poemata: quorum pier ague intra annum aetatis vigesimum conscripsit: nunc primum edifa^ A preface to this second part was writ- ten by the poet himself. In 1G73, a new edition of Milton's minor poems was issued, being however merely a reprint of the 1645 edition, with the addition of two Latin poems: Apologus de Rustico et Hero- and Ad Joannem Rousium.-^ Both the 1645 and the 1673 editions had prefixed to the Latin part five pieces, three in Latin elegiacs, one in Italian verse, one in Latin prose, addressed to Milton by the Italian wits he had met during his residence in Italy in 1638 and 1639. The volume published in 1645 contained in the Latin division: (1) the book of elegies— Elegiarum Liber — consist- ing of seven elegies averaging about one hundred lines each, and of eight short pieces in elegiac meter; (2) the Silvae, consisting of six Latin poems written during Milton's Cam- bridge days, two short pieces in Greek verse, two Latin poems addressed to Italian acquaintances Salsillus and Mansus. and finally Epitaphimn Damonis. The whole volume contained about eighteen hundred lines of Latin and twenty-seven lines of Greek, not counting four Greek lines printed under the poet's portrait in the book and addressed by him to the wretched engraver. The seven elegies were written during Milton's Univer- sity career, between the years seventeen and twenty. Three — the first, fourth, and sixth— were sent as letters or in let- ters to friends at a distance. The Elegi a Prima, written in the spring of 1626, while the poet was at home in exile from college, was addressed to his best friend, Charles Diodati : it 1 Poems of John Milton of London: most of which were written before the completion of his twentieth year; now first edited. 2 Apologue of the countryman and his master. 3 To John Rous. -133- is an eloquent rhetorical exercise, full of ancient mythology, and various fanciful and learned allusions. It declared, among other things, that gloria virginibus dehetur prima Britannis:^ the world has nothing to show as fair as the girls of England; one of whom, a few years later, he was so pleasantly to encounter. The second elegy, on the death of the University Herald, and the third, on the death of the Bishop of Winchester, — In obitum Praeconis Academici Cantabrigiensis and In obitiim Praesulis Wiyitoniensis, — were written at the age of seven- teen. Elegy Four, composed during the long vacation of 1627, was addressed "to Thomas Young, his praeceptor, dis- charging the office of pastor among the English merchants at Hamburg" — Ad Tliomam Junium, Praeceptorem suum apud Mercatores Anglicos Hamburgae Agentes Pastoris Munere Fungentem. It was a fluent exercise in elegiac verse, bidding the exiled Puritan be of good cheer and cling to hope, the last resort for the wretched, and above all demonstrating that his old pupil had not neglected his Latin or his classical mythology.' The fifth elegy, on the Return of Spring, —/ii Adventum Veris, — written in April, 1629, contains one hundred and forty verses heavy with mythological allusions. •'^ The sixth was written after Christmas, 1629, in reply to verses sent by Diodati. In this epistle the poet mentions his occupation with the ode on the Nativity; and gives to Diodati a signifi- cant picture of one destined to become an epic bard — a writer of Heaven and Hell: he must live plain, follow a vegetable diet, drink water, keep clean hands and a pure heart.' The seventeenth elegy,'' written at nineteen, celebrates the first love pangs of the poet, who on the first of May had looked too closely in the streets of London atone of the fair maidens whom he called in his first elegy the glory of Britain. 1 Masson I, 119-120. 2 Masson I, 132. 3 Do., 15G 7. 4 Do. 163-4. 5 Do. 135-C>. -134— The eigfht short pieces followinpr the elegries are all in elegiac meter, and the first five celebrate Guy Faux and the Gunpowder Plot, and the invention of punpov^der: the titles being: In Prodithvcm Bombardicam, InEandem, In Eandern, In Eandern, In Inventorem Bombardae.'^ Milton's repeated celebration of that dreadful event illustrates the force of the well-known lines: I see no reason why gunpower treason Should ever be forgot. The last three pieces in the book of elegies belong to Milton's Italian journey, and are addressed to the famous singer Leonora Baroni, whom he heard sing at Rome. They are entitled; Ad Leonoram Romae Canentem, Ad Eandern, Ad Eandern :- Of the Silvarum Ldber the first on the death of the Vice- chancellor's physician, — In Obitum Procancellarii Medici, — written at seventeen, is the only extant example of Milton's original Horatian stanzas. The second of the Silvae, on the Gunpowder Plot, or On the Fifth of November, — In Quintum Novembris, — is in Virgilian Hexameters, and tells the story of the event in grand epic style decorated with the diction of classical mythology. After two hundred and twenty-six majestic verses, the story ends with the well-believed opinion that no other day in all the three hundred and sixty-five is so notable as the Fifth of November: Quintoqice Novembris Nvlla dies toto occurrit celebratior anno. The third of the Silvae, in the only extant example of Milton's use of the Iambic Strophe, commemorates the death of the Bishop of Ely. The fourth is in hexameters, wTitten in 1628 for a fellow-student of Christ's, to use in a public Act, and sent by Milton to Alexander Gill along with a Latin letter on July 2, 1628.'' It is a scholastic exercise to prove by fluent 1 On the Gunpowder Treason: On the Same; On the Same; On the Same; On the Inventor of Gunpowder. 2 To Leonora, singing at Rome; To the Same; To the Same. Masson I, 635 6. 3 Masson I, 139-40. —135- rhetoric that Nature never suffers old age: Naturam non pati Senium. The fifth of the Silvae, in the Iambic Tri- meter, treats the Platonic Idea, — De Idea Platonica, — being an academic exercise, and "is interesting," says Masson, "as showing Milton's affection for Plato and his philosophy." The sixth poem in the Silvae, addressed to the poet's father. Ad patrem, is in hexameters, but in a simpler and less rhetor- ical strain than the academic pieces. It is an interesting bit of autobiography, showing the elder Milton's early encour- agement of his son's poetic tastes, and the young man's grat- itude for that friendship and sympathy. Of the Greek pieces, the first is a translation in hexa- meters of the ll4th Psalm; the second contains five hexa- meters, being the answer of a philosopher to the king who had by accident placed him among the criminals. The Latin poems following the Greek were addressed to Italian friends of Milton's— the first, in scazons, to Salsillus, the Roman poet who was sick. Ad Salsillum, Poetam Romanum, Aegrotantem; the second in hexameters, to Mansus. After these was placed Epitaphiiim Damonis. The 1673 edition of the minor poems added, after Epitaphiiim Damonis, the poem in strophes and antistrophes, addressed in 1647 to John Rous— A(i Joannem Rousium. Rous was librarian in the Bodleian of Oxford, and Milton had sent him a volume of his prose and one of his poetry to be placed in the library. The poetry was lost in transmission, and at Rous's request the poet forwarded a second volume, with this ode written on a sheet of paper and inserted by a binder between the English and Latin parts of the volume. In elaborate form, with three strophes each followed by an antistrophe and the whole concluded by an epode, the poet speaks affectionately to his little book which he is sending on its way to a secure and happy seat in the home of the muses. ^ Epitaphium Damonis was written after Milton's return to England in 1639, in memory of his dearest friend, his old 1 Masson III, 646 ff. —136— schoolmate and correspondent, Charles Diodati, who had died while the poet was absent on his Italian journey. Its two hundred and nineteen hexameters follow the eclogues of Vir Ba)1e Banister Maynard, Esquire," and its general preface, both in English. The Church History, by the same author, has only •one of its sections prefaced with a Latin address after the manner of the History of Cambridge, that is. Section IX of Volume VI. IV. Epitaphs. The esteem of Latin above English on occasions of dig- nity and formality was nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in epitaphs. The appropriateness of the older language for this purpose was conservatively maintained for genera- tions and has not yet altogether yielded to the language of the people. If Dr. Johnson in 1776 wrote Goldsmith's epi- taph in Latin, refusing, as he said, to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English epitaph, in Milton's day there was less argument in favor of English for such obituary dignity. The vernacular had indeed come into prominent use in epitaph-writing, but the pomp anrd impressiveness of the venerable ancient tongue were still commonly sought by the conservative and the learned.^ It was not uncommon for a scholar to bequeath his own epitaph to his memory, and thus, if possible, insure himself against a nameless tomb or a mere English inscription. Such a careful testator was Sir Henry Wotton, who illustrated nearly all the correct Latin tendencies of the time. After giving directions in his will as to the disposal of his body, he proceeded to command his executors to erect over his grave a a marble stone, plain and not costly. "And considering," says Walton, his biographer, "that time moulders even marble to dust; for Monuments themselves must die, therefore did he (waving the common way) think fit rather to preserve his name (to which the son of Sirach adviseth all men) by a useful apophthegm than by a large enumeration of his descent or merits, of both which he might justly have boasted ; but he was content to forget them, and did choose 1 Chronicles of the Tombs. Pettigrew, pfx 37, 52~55. —149— only this prudent, pious sentence, to discover his disposition and preserve his memory. It was directed by him to be thus inscribed: Hie jacet hujus sententiae primus author, Disputandi Pruritus Ecclesiarum Scabies. Nomen alias quaere. Which may be Englished thus: Here lies the first author of this sentence: The itch of disputation will prove the scab of the church. Inquire his name elsewhere."' An epitaph prepared by the subject of it or by others was not always piously inscribed. It may have been neg- lected by friends, or omitted for lack of friends, or apparently in some cases by reason of its very length. An instance is recorded by Wood of Thomas Roe, scholar, gentleman, courtier, who died in 1644 and was buried in the church of Woodford near to Nausted in Essex. "I shall gratify the reader," says Wood, ^ "with a most noble epitaph made for him by Langbaine, but for what reason it was not put over his grave I know not." The epitaph is given, — an elaborate affair of over three hundred words in Latin prose and about sixty in English. To look at it is to wonder how Wood could have been in doubt as to why it was never inscribed. The purpose of an epitaph to honor the dead is often unfulfilled in the case of the long Latin ones, which turn the mind of the reader from thought of the person praised to admiration of the eloquent composer. Oftentimes the most lavish and elaborate inscription is bestowed on a name other- wise unremembered, while a distinguished scholar may receive only the meager record of birth and death. This was true of John Selden, one of the most learned men of his age. Dying in 1654, he was buried in the Temple Church, and his epitaph,^ though properly in Latin, had not a word concern- ing his character and attainments. But in 1659 when his library was acquired by the University of Oxford, a tablet 1 Walton's Lives, 168-9 ( Ed. 1852) ; Lyte's Eton, 236-6. 3 Wood's Athenae, 1 1 1, 114. 3 Fuller's Worthies, 1 1 1, 259; Wood's Athenae, I. XXXVII-VIII, foot note. -150- ^appropriately inscribed was erected in a window of the rooTn where the books were placed. In this tablet Selden was said to be without a peer in the luster of genius, purity of charac- ter, and excellence of teaching {nitore ingemi, caTidore morum, praecellentia doctrinae imparilis viri), and his books were dedicated to the great University for the enduring memory of so great a man and for the encouragement of lit- •erature {in duraturam tanti viri memoriam et rei literariae bonitm). The epitaph of Sir Francis Bacon was brief but of genu- ine significance, composed as it was by "that accomplished gentleman and rare wit, Sir Henry Wotten," The monu- ment, erected in St. Michael's Church at St Alban's, was of white marble and represented the full figure of the philos- 'opher in the posture of study. The inscription was as follows:^ Franciscus Bacon, Baro de Verulam, St Albani Yicmes, Seu notioribus titulis Scientiarum Lumen Facundiae Lex Sic Sedebat Qui postquam Omnia Naturalis Sapientiae Et Civilis Arcana Evolvisset Naturae Decretum Explevit An. D«^" M. DC. XXVI Aetat^s LXVL Tanti Viri mem. Thomas Meantus * Superstitis Cultor Defuncti Admirator H. P. 1 Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Viscount St Albans, or of more distinguished titles, — the Ligh%of Science and the Law of Eloquence, — used to sit thus. Who after unfolding all the secrets of natural and civil wisdom fulfilled the decree of nature that the organized should be dis- solved, A. D. 1626, aet. 66. In memory of so great a man Thomas Meantus, follower while he lived, admirer since he is dead, places this monument — Spedding, I, 18. —151— When the subject of an inscription is otherwise unknown, the interest of the epitaph lies either in its curious sentiment or peculiar style. For Dr. William Butler, M. A , the most celebrated physician of his age, everything was done that inscriptions could do, but the interest now is in the eloquent effort rather than in the man honored thereby. He died at Cambridge in 1618, eighty-three years old, and "was buried in Great St. Mary's. On the South side of the chancel is a mural monument, with his bust, in the costume of the period. Around the bust is inscribed, 'Nunc PositisNovus Exuviis.' ' On each side of the bust is a statue, one of labor, the other of rest. There are also his arms (sable, a fess lozengy, between three covered cups, or.) and these inscriptions:" A piece of Latin prose, six Latin elegiacs, and three Latin hexameters. They all praise his gifts and warn other men, if he died, so they. For example, Abi viator, et ad tuos re- versus narra, te vidisse locum in quo Salu^ jacet.^ Fuller so admired the prose part of the inscription that he said it "might have served for Joseph of Arimitheato have inscribed on the tomb of our Saviour. ' '^ Robert Burton, author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, died January 1640, and was buried in the Cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford. Over his grave was erected a comely mon- ument, with his bust painted in life. On the right hand was given the calculation of his nativity; under the bust this inscription of his own composition: Faucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, Hie jacet Democritis Junior Cui vitam dedit et mortem Melancholia.^ Thomas Fuller had a special relish for interesting epi- taphs, and reproduced many a one in his book of English 1 He lives a new life, the old cast off. Cooper's Cambridge, III, 124. 2 Go, traveller, return to your people aiyi tell them, that you have seen the spot v/here Health lies buried. 3 Fuller's Hist. Cambridge, quoted by Cooper, III, 124, foot-note. 4 Known to few, unknown to fewer, here lies Democritis junior, to whom Melancholy gave both life and death. —Middleton's ed. Anatomy of Melancholy, I, 10. —152— Worthies. He told of John Gregory, born in 1607 and bred at Oxford, that "he so appHed his book, that he studied six- teen hours of the four and twenty for many years together. He attained to be an exquisite linguist and general scholar I find a smart epitaph, made by a friend, on his memory; and it was, in my mind, as well valiantly (con- sider the times) as truly indited: Ne premas cineres hosce, viator, Nescis quot sub hoc jacet lapillo; Graeculus, Hebraeus, Syrus, Et qui te quovis vincet idiomate. At ne molestus sis Ausculta, et causam auribus tuis imbibe: Templo exclusus Et avita Religione Jam senescente (ne dicam sublata) Mutavit Chorum, altiorem ut capesceret. Vade nunc, si libet, et imitare."^ Fuller, like his contemporaries generally, admired a fine Latin phrase, or new conceit, cleverly turned. But he never seemed happier than when he lighted on a 'smart epitaph, valiantly and truly indited.' V. Mottoes. Mottoes were, like epitaphs and dedications, chips from the Latin workshop. It was the custom to adorn the title- page of a book or pamphlet with an appropriate text from a classic author, which struck the key-note of the treatise. Milton was devoted to this custom. His Comus when first published bore between the title and the publisher's name a line from Virgil's second Eclogue: Eheu! quid volui misero mihi? Floribiis austrum perditus.' He chose a motto from the Hicetides of Euripides for Areopagitica, in 1644; and one 1 Stranger, refrain from pressing these ashes; you know not how many he is that lies under this stone: Greek, Hebrew, Syrian, and one who will surpass you in any tongue you please. But lest you be offended, listen, and drink in with your ears the reason: Shut out from the temple and his ancestral religion, which was yielding to age (not to mention attack), he gave up one chorus to enter a higher. Go now, if you like, and imitate him. — Fuller's Worthies, I, p. 208. 2 Alas, what have I done? Ruined my flowers with the south wind. -153— from the Medea for His Tetrachordon, in 1645^. For his Fast political pamphlet, the Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, 1660, he took a passage from the bit- terest of Roman satirists, Juvenal, I, 15, 16:. Et nos CoTisilvwm dedimius Sullae; demits Pbpnlomtnc.^ The reference was probably Milton's recent letter of advice- to General Monk, who had a way af following- his own coun- sel. The quotation suggests the ironical and satirical mood, of the old pamphleteer, who felt the foundations of liberty as sand under his feet. Personal mottoes, used over and over again in speech, or writing, or ftxed in badges, were most frequently in the serious moral language of the Romans. Wentworth-'s cele- brated motto of Proemium and Poenar furnished the key for his policy of Thorough. George Wither, the darling poet of the people, enjoyed independence in the mood of Nee habeo, nee careo, nee curo.'^ The gallant and romantic Marquis of Montrose had a, standard of white damask, blazoned with. his famous device of the lion rampant to spring the chasm between the rocks, and motto Nil Medium, Charles I cheered his desperate furtunes with Dum spiro^ spero, which was his favorite sentence, and which he wrote in the Second Folio edition of Shakspeare^ and many other of his books. ^ VI. Quotations. Not all men wrote books or made s{>eeches in Latin, but few who wrote at all neglected to flavor their discourse with classical quotations. The sentences of the Roman moral phil- osophers and poets, learned in school and impressed on the young mind by exacting tutors, became a substantial part of a man's mental equipment, a concrete, measurable fund of knowledge and culture, always ready for use. Men have at all times treasured proverbs and words fitly spoken. But 1 We have given advice to Sulla, now let ua try the people. Masson V, 678. 3 Punishment and Reward. Masson I, 548. •T Do., .364. I have nothing, want nothing, and I don't care. « While I have breath I have hope. Masson 1 I I, 515, foot note. -154— during this age of intense study in the classics, the whole nation seems to have gone hunting for the aptest sentences in Latin books and to have esteemed discourse according to its wealth of jewels gathered out of classics minds. This age produced the Anatomy of Melancholy, the ne plus ultra of quotation gathering. The author, Robert Bur- ton, early manifested his genius, or mania, for remembering and applying sentences out of books, and became famous at the University of Oxford for excelling in the art that every- body ambitiously cultivated. He was, according to Wood, a general reader, a thorough-paced philologist, a devourer of authors. "I have heard," he writes, "some of the ancients of Christ Church often say, that his company was very merry, facete and juvenile; and no man in his time did sur- pass him for his ready and dexterous interlarding his common discourses among them with verses from the poets, or sen- tences from the classical authors; which being then all the fashion in the University, made his company the more acceptable.'"' Burton gave his genius free rein in making up his Anatomy of Melancholy, which was first published in 1621 and attained its seventh edition in 1660. For this book the author sifted the literatures of Greece, Rome, the Bible, and the Mediaeval Latinists; he "ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes." The Latin classics delivered him the richest tribute. Every page displays quotations, long or short, from the single word or phrase to half a page in length. These quotations are either separate sentences, or integral parts of English sentences; and they serve as texts for further comment, or act themselves as comments on pre- ceding texts. This remarkable book became an inexhaustible storehouse of supply for all who sought to live up to the fashion of the age without themselves being able to display first-hand learning. Men of scanty education found in Burton's Anatomy "Latin quotations to last them all their lives. "'^ 1 Quoted by Middleton, ed. Anatomy of Melancholy, I, 8. 2 Wood, paraphrased by Masson, I, 414. —155- ''During- a pedantic age, like that in which Burton's pro duction appeared, it must have been eminently serviceable to writers of many descriptions. Hence the unlearned might furnish themselves with appropriate scraps of Greek and Latin, while men of learning would find their inquiries short- ened, by knowing where they might look for what both ancients and moderns have advanced on the subject of human passions. I confess my inability to point out any other Eng- lish author who has so largely dealt in apt an original quota- tion.'" King James I was not one of those who had to depend on the Anatomy of Melancholy to retail him Latin sentences for all occasions. From his own royal cultivation of the classics he gathered golden fruit at will. His speech before Parlia- ment in January, 1621, epitomized in the first two sentences the two prevaihng fashions of the age: learning and religion, or rather, devotion to the letter of the Classics and devotion to the letter of the Bible. The first sentence is nothing but a Latin proverb; the second concludes with a verse from Scripture: "My Lords Spiritual and Temporal," spoke his Majesty, "and you the Commons: — Cut Multiloquio non deest peccatum.- In the last Parliament I made a long discourse, especially to them of the lower house: I did open the true thoughts of my heart; but I may say with my Saviour, / have piped to you and you have not danced; I have mourned and ye have not lamented.'' Without reading further it is not hard to see that the question of supplies is the message about to be tactfully delivered. Pretty soon the speaker comes squarely upon his desire with the words of his beloved lan- guage: Bis dat, qui cito dat.^ The King regarded Latin-quoting so essential a part of royal statecraft, that he sometimes went manifestly out of his way to get the needful sentiment. In December, 1621, in answer to a second petition sent him by parliament, he 1 Quoted by Middleton, ed. Anatomy of Melancholy, I, 14-15. - A man of many words is not without sin. 3 He gives twice who gives quickly. Rushworth I, 21 ff. —156— replied: "We must begin here in the same fashion that we would have done, if the first petition had come to our hands before we made a stay thereof, which is to repeat the first words of the late Queen of famous memory, used by her, in an Answer to an insolent Proposition made by a Polonian Ambas- sador unto her; that is, Legatum expectabamus, Heraldum accipitniis.'^^ If we cannot honor the king for political wis- dom, we must admire the ingenuity with which he sought and found a solid Latin basis for his sentence period. The son and heir of James I inherited none of his pride of learning if one may judge from the use of Latin in the dis- courses of Charles L "When blessed King James," it was said in 1644, "was taken from us to Heaven, Sol occiibuit et nox nulla secutaestr Latin-quoting may have been the light referred to. Even the English letters, speeches, and procla- mations of Charles I were short, and the use of classical sen- tences and phrases is very scanty. But he would have been a strange Englishman of that day had he been absolutely innocent of classical quotation. In 1616, as Prince of Wales, he went honorably attended to Oxford, and while there "was pleased with his own handwriting, to matriculate himself of that University, Aug. 28, with this symbol or sentence: Si vis omnia siibjicere, siihjice te ratione".^ In addressing Par- liament in 1628, he used one Latin phrase and the following sentence to emphasize his demand for supplies: Verbum sapienti satis esU During his captivity in the hands of the Parliamentary army he used to copy consolatory sentences in his book, his favorite motto being, as was mentioned above, Dum spiro, spero. His record, however, for Latin quotation and learned habits in general is not worthy of comparison with that of most of his great contemporaries. 1 We were expecting a messenger, here is a herald. Rushworth, r, 46-7. 2 The sun sank and night came on. Rushworth, VI 1 1, 129. * If you wish to subdue all things, subdue yourself with reason. Wal- ton's Lives, 1 1, 172-3, and footnote. (Ed. 1817). 4 A word to the wise is sufficient —157— Archbishop Laud was much addicted to the habit of Latin quoting, and was fond of supplying his own immediate translation. In a speech in Star Chamber. June 16, 1637, at censure of the stubborn Puritans, John Bastwick, Henry Bur- ton, and William Prinn, he began by speaking of alleged inno- vations in the Church, and said: "I shall not need to speak of the infamous course of libelling in any kind, . . . nor how patiently some great men, very great men indeed, have borne animo civili (that's Suetonius's word) laceratam existimationem, the tearing and rending of their Credit and Reputation, with a gentle, nay, a generous mind." Seven years later he began, at his own trial, a speech of defence with a sentence from Seneca, and a copious translation attached: "My Lords, my being in this place in this condi- tion, recalls to my memory that which I have long since read in Seneca: Tormentum est etiamsi absolutiis quis fuerit, causam dixisse. 'Tis not a grief only, no; 'Tis no less than a torment for an ingenuous man to plead capitally, or criminally, though it should so fall out that he be absolved."^ Livy had been the Roman author to supply a passage for another noble Englishman on trial for malfeas- ance in high office. Lord Bacon in his confession before the House of Lords, implored their leniency, and gave as an appeal the following sentiment: Neque minus firmata est Disciplina militaris periculo Quinti Maximi, quam miserahili supplicio Titi Manlii.^ Quotations sometimes fell so thick that the speaker had difficulty in making his way along, but the very sound of Latin carried a certain argumentative force which seemed to outweigh the confusion and discontinuity of reasoning. Sir Thomas Sackville, speaking in Commons in 1623 on the ques- tion of supplies, said: "Sure such a dullness must needs accuse us of much weakness, if it admit of no worse con- struction {bis dat, qui cito dat) freeness in giving graceth the 1 Rushworth V, 776. 2 Military discipline was as much established by the trial of Quintus Maximus, as by the severe punishment of Titus Manlius. — Rushworth, 1,30. —158- gift: Dimidiiim facli qui bene coepit hahet.^ We have along journey to go, and to set forward is half the way. How press- ing the occasion is, my tongue faints to tell (vox faucibus haeret):- The Foxes have holes, the Birds of the air have nests, but the daughter of our king and kingdom scarce Icnows where to lay her head, or if she do, not where in safety." Sackville was arguing immediate supplies for the proposed war with Spain, but, if his speech is correctly reported, he was using the best possible means to retard legislation. The trained talent for happy rendering of Latin into English could easily be employed for witty mistranslation, as the following story will show. "On the 9th of December [1651] the Parliament ordered a bill to be brought in for the settling 20001. on the wife^ and children of Ireton, out of the lands belonging to George duke of Bucks, and on the 17th of the said month, his carcass being landed at Bristol, was pom- pously conveyed toward London, and lying in state for a time in Somerset-house, all hung with black, there was hung over the common gate an atchievement commonly called a hatch- ment, with this motto under his arms depicted thereon Dulce et decorum pro patria mori,^ which was Englished by an honest cavalier thus, It is good for his country that he is dead."^ Latin was quoted most copiously in legal and political writings and speeches. The old laws of England being in Latin, and the works of Cicero and his countrymen containing the highest known political wisdom, the lawyer and states- man had to have their quivers full of sharp arrows of quota- tion. Interesting examples of legal Latin are found in the great trials held during the reign of Charles I: the trials of Hampden, Strafford, Laud, and Charles himself. For instance, in January, 1649, when the King's trial was nearly over, he desired of the court that before sentence be pro- 1 He has half done who has made a good beginning. 2 My voice sticks in my throat. 3 The daughter of Oliver Cromwell. Ireton died in Ireland. 4 It is sweet and comely to die for one's fatherland. 5 Wood, 1 1 1, 300. —159— nounced he might be heard in the Painted Chamber, before the Lords and Commons. His motion was considered and an answer made that the present court acted by the highest authority of the land, and that they are good words in the Great Old Charter of England: Nulli negabimus, nulli ven- demus, nulli defer emus, Justitiam vel Rectum.' ^^ The English love of law was manifested by ability not only to quote it, but also to find quotations in its praise. Sir Dudley Diggs in a speech at a conference of Commons and Lords, in 1628, made a eulogy on England's ancient laws, and exclaimed: "My good Lords, as the Poet said of Fame, I may say of our Common Law, Ingrediturque solo, caput inter nubila condit. "2 The commissioners sent from the Scotch Parliament to Charles I at Whitehall, March, 1640, had as spokesman Lord Loudon, who, in his defense and petition for Scotland, gave the king a number of sharp legal reminders, e. g: De min- imis non curat Lex, Salus populi est suprema lex, Unusquis- que est optimum interpres sui, Sublata causa tollitur effectus, Accessorium sequitur suum principale.^ Charles's declara- tion in reply contained no Latin; if the king's will was law, what need had he to rest on any other foundation? That Latin-quoting was sometimes more than mere show, and had vital meaning for speaker and hearer, appears from the case of Sir John EUiot. In his speech in the impeach- ment of the Duke of Buckingham, he handled Latin freely, and in one place said: "I end this passage,^ as Cicero did in like case, Ne gravioribus utar verbis quam, rei natura fert, aut levioribus quam causae necessitas postulabat.**^ Further 1 We will deny to no man, we will sell to no man, we will surrender to no man, Justice, or Right. Rushworth VII, 1423. 2 It walks on earth but hides its head in the clouds. Rushworth I, 528- 3 Law takes no note of particulars. The safety of the people is the supreme law. Everyone is the best interpreter of his own words. Removal of the cause removes the effect An accessory follows its princi- pal. 4 A severe one. 5 I may not use harsher words than the nature of the case permits, nor milder words than the necessity of the case requires. -160— on he declared of the Duke: "I can hardly find him a match in all Presidents; none so like him as Sejanus, who is thus described by Tacitus, Audax, mii obtegens, in alios crimi- nator, juxta adulator et .'iuperbu.'i/'^ Elliot's speech was the epilogue in the impeachment, and both he and Sir Dudley Diggs, who uttered the prologue, were committed to the Tower. Their Latin had had effect. For, not long after, Sir John was taken from the Tower, and summoned to the House, "where the Vice-Chamberlain, Sir Dudley Charlton, charged him for saying in his speech that man, in speaking of the Duke; which phrase in all languages is accounted a great indignity to persons of honour; that he made scandalous comparisons between the Duke and Sejanus; .... that he brake off ambiguously and abruptly with a sentence of Cicero, as if something else might be which was not discovered." Latin was not always mere cant and display, but might, as in this case, be the most telling and dangerous part of an argument or invective. - 1 Daring, exonerating himself, assailing another, equally flattering and haughty. 2 Rushworth I. 355-62. coNCLusro^r, The main conclusions to which the preceding chapters point may well be summed up and emphasized in this final chapter. England of the seventeenth century was overgrown and overshadowed with the language and ideas of ancient Rome, The ambitious young Englishmen who every year entered the universities- to rival one another in intellectual exercises and honorable pursuits found classical learning the one field for their eager encounter. The high places in church and. state, the positions at the right hand of the king,, were to be won by learning^ the learning which had a more specific meaning than it has now. To read and quote Latin aptly and copiously, as did the facetious Robert Burton and the sober Archbishop Laud, was a necessary and splendid accom- plishment, but the greatest thing of all was to have original, first-hand power over the imperial language of Cicero. Out of the honor and dignity which attached to it, the ancient tongue gave rise to a vast production of Latin literature in the land of Englishmen. Latin, in a literal sense, was a living and potent lan- guage. In the amount of attention and training directly received, it enjoyed advantages infinitely superior to those of the humble vernacular. In almost every department of human activity, it shared with English the burden of com- munication, and in a few special services it alone was acknowledged to be worthy of employment. Its superior virtue as an instrument of expression attracted the genius of the greatest thinkers and philosophers: and even those who stuck to their native English adopted portions of the Latin idiom and vocabulary to reinforce and dignify a weak, unhonored tongue. Apart from inherent worth, the ancient -162- language held the exceeding great advantage of a wider, more intellectual, and more honorable audience. Its eternal vitality was supposed to impart life and power to every thing it touched. English prose suffered in its development, both from close rivalry with Latin and from the false belief that its constitution and character, naturally defective, needed sup- port from the great and time-honored foreign idiom. Instead of cultivating the native genius of English prose as English poetry had been cultivated, the best writers of the time, under the influence of the schools, under the pressure of national custom and tradition, wrote strange and monstrous English sentences, being as proud to transplant the Latin period in England as Horace was to bring the Greek metres into Rome. All the efforts of Milton's admirers have failed and will forever fail to make his prose permanently attractive to readers who love the simplicity and straightforwardness of genuine, idiomatic English, If he had fostered the native qualities of prose as he did of poetry, his controversial tracts, with all their high-minded wisdom and passionate logic, would excel Paradise Lost in appeal to modern readers. Latin, by its engrossing claims, must bear also the accu- sation of having debarred the minds of Englishmen from many other worthy pursuits. Investigation in scientific fields was shorn of its best energy by the exactions of a language which boasted to be itself the most deserving object of attention, and which at the very least demanded to be the voice of all science and philosophy. Inquiry into mat- ters of religion, or politics, or mathematics, or natural phil- osophy always ran the risk of being checked or utterly defeated by the interposition of linguistic controversy. Two notable instances of this circumstance we found in the disputes between Milton and Salmasius on questions of state, between Hobbes and Wallis on questions of mathematics. Even quiet, philosophical minds like these, subject as they were to formal customs and traditions, sometimes turned from the pursuit of truth, which makes free, to quarrels about the letter, which kills. —163— Intercourse of man with man, which should on familiar occasions be easy and cordial, was often clothed in the unnat- ural dignity of a stately foreign language. The oppressive reign of Latin over the minds of young men in the univer- sities, together with the prevailing severity of religious doc- trine, imparted a manner of thought and expression the very opposite of simple and charming. The correspondence of the period furnishes a marked example of such monotonous formality. The Familiar Letters of Milton, like assigned exercises in the schools, unfold little or nothing of his pri- vate and domestic views; with all their rhetorical eloquence they are, as private letters of a great man whose life we would know, more barren than his public tracts and contro- versies, more disappointing than any other collection of let- ters called familiar. Among seventeenth century English- men, of Milton's day, even when Latin was not the language of correspondence it was required to furnish quotations and allusions, and to lend idiom and style to grammar and sen- tence. Almost the only notable productions of the period possessing literary ease and simplicity were the songs of the cavalier poets and parts of Walton's Complete Angler. The door to English literature and history of the seven- teenth century is open wide only to those who are at ease in the presence of Latin. Many writings and events of the time may doubtless be understood and enjoyed by readers ignorant of the classics, but to them the heart and spirit of the period as a whole will hardly be revealed. Poetry, phil- osophy, history, biography, controversy, sermons, corre- spondence, even conversation, — all have come down to us from the age of Milton either written in or so touched with Latin that one is compelled to enter seventeenth century England by way of Rome as Rome must be entered by way of Athens. BIBLIOGRAPHY. (The following list contains the works referred to in the text and foot-notes.) Arber, Edward. A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London. 5 Vols. London: 1875. Bacon, Francis. Works. Ed. by Spedding, Ellis, and Heath. 7 Vols. London: 1857-9. Baillie, Robert. Letters and Journals. Ed. by David Lang, Esq. 3 Vols. Edinburgh: 1841. Bowes, Robert. A Catalogue of Books Printed at or Relating to the University Town and County of Cambridge, from 1521 to 1893, with Bib- liographical and Biographical Notes. Cambridge: 1894. Burton, Robert. Anatomy of Melancholy. Pub. by W. J. Middle- ton. 3 Vols. New York: 1871. Clarendon. History of the Great Rebellion. Cooper, Charles Henry. Annals of Cambridge. 5 Vols. Cam- bridge: 1842-62. Cox, Robert The Literature of the Sabbath Question* 2 Vols. Edinburgh: 1865. Dictionary of National Biography. Disraeli, Isaac. The Calamities and Quarrels of Authors. Lon- don: 1859. Drax, Thos. Calliopeia, or a Rich Store-House of Elegant Latin Words and Phrases, etc. Dublin: 1612. Earle, John. English Prose. New York: 1891. Emerson, 0. W. History of the English Language. New York: 1907. Encyclopedia Britannica, XI Edition. Evelyn, John. Diary. Fuller, Thos. The Church History of Britain. Ed. by Rev. J. S. Brewer. 6 Vols. Oxford, University Press: 1845. Fuller, Thos. History of the University of Cambridge. Ed. by James Nichols. London: 1840. Fuller, Thos. The Church History of Britain. Ed. by James Nich- ols. 3 Vols. London: 1868. Fuller, Thos. History of the Worthies of England. Ed. by P. Austin Nuttall. 3 Vols. London: 1868. Fuller, Thomas. Ephemeris Parliamentaria. London: 1654. Heywood, James. Cambridge University Transactions, during Puri- tan Controversies of 16th and 17th Centuries. Collected by James Hey- wood and Thomas Wright. 2 Vols. Pub. by Henry G. Bohn. London: 1854. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. London: George Routledge & Sons. Hobbes, Thomas. English Works. Ed. by Sir William Molesworth. London: 1840. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellshaft. Vierunddreissig- ster Jahrgang. Weimar: 1898. Johnston, William. The Bibliography and Portraits of Arthur Johns- ton. University Press, Aberdeen: 1896. Laudian Code of Oxford Statutes. Ed. by John Griffiths. Clarendon Press, Oxford: 1888. Lyte, H. C. Maxwell. A History of Eton College. London: 1875. Mark, H. T. Educational Theories in England. Syracuse, N. Y. : 1899. Marston, R. B. Walton and Some Earlier Writers on Fish and Fish- ing. London: 1894. Masson, David. Life and Times of John Milton. 6 Vols. Milton, John. Of Education, Areopagitica, and the Commonwealth, Ed. by Laura E. Lockwood. Boston: 1911. Milton, John. Prose Works. Ed. by J. A. St. John. (Bohn's Li- braries). 5 Vols. Milton, John. Poetical Works. Ed. by David Masson. 3 Vols. New York: 1890. Monroe, Paul. A Text-Book in the History of Education. New York: 1907. Park, Thomas. Harleian Miscellany. Ed. by Thomas Park. 10 Vols. London: 1813. Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph. Chronicles of the Tombs. London: 1864. Robertson, George Croom. Hobbes. Edinburgh and London: 1905. Rushworth, John. Historical Collections. 8 Vols. London: 1721. Ryves, Bruno. Mercurius Rusticus. (Containing also John Bar- wick's Querela Cantabrigiensis.) Oxford: 1646. Walton, Izaak. Lives. Ed. by Thomas Zouch. 2 Vols. York: 1817. Walton's Lives. George P. Putnam. New York: 1852. Ward, A. W. A History of the English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne. 3 Vols. 1899. Willis, R., M. D. William Harvey. London: 1878. Wright, Thomas. (See Hey wood.) Wood, Anthony A. Athenae Oxonienses. Ed. by Philip Bliss. 5 Vols. London: 1813. Wood, Anthony A. Fasti Oxiensis. Ed. by Philip Bliss. (Published as Vol. V of Athenae Oxonienses). Wotton, Sir Henry. Letters and Dispatches of Sir Henry Wotton to James I and his ministers, MDCXVII-XX. London: 1860. Wotton, Sir Henry. Life and Letters. By Logan Pearsall Smith. 2 Vols. Clarenden Press, Oxford: 1907. Wotton, Sir Henry. Reliquiae Wottonianae. London: 1651. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW ^ AN INITIAL fTn^ qp 25 CENTS W.UL INCREASE TO^St. °''^- "^"^ PENALTY OAY AND TO J oo " J^ °^ ^HE FOURTH OVERDUE. °'' ^"^ SEVENTH DAY .WC/R, ffB207J Ll) 21-20 '"■5, '39 (9269s) ,U C BERKELEY LIBRARIES ll|l|lll|ll||ll|ll|ll fill I iliilliiili III iiiNliiii|iii|ii||ii|{i|[| |n| I lllllllllll III! UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY ?••