The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 14

[231] _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ iv. 5806.

[232] _Ibid._ iv. 4560.

[233] "... m'a comande et encharge de reduire et mectre en escript la maniere coment g'ay procede envers ses dictz progeniteurs et predecesseurs, coe celle aussi y la quelle ie l'ay (tellement quellement) instruit et instruis iournellment... ."

[234] _Privy purse expenses of the Princess Mary_, ed. F. Madden, 1831, pp. xli-xliii.

[235] "Duwes avait d'une main leste et sure esquisse la pet.i.te grammaire de Lh.o.m.ond: Palsgrave avait laborieus.e.m.e.nt compile la grammaire des grammaires: L'in-folio fut etouffe par l'in-8vo. Cela se voit souvent dans la litterature ou le quatrain de St. Aulaire triomphe de la Pucelle de Chapelain" (Genin's Introduction).

It seems an exaggeration to use the word "etouffer." At any rate the victory was not final. Palsgrave's work is not forgotten to-day, like that of Duwes.

[236] There are copies of all three editions in the Bodleian. The British Museum contains one copy of Bourman's edition, and two of Waley's (the third). Genin used G.o.dfray's edition in his reprint.

[237] E. G. Duff, _A Century of the English Book Trade_, Bibliog.

Society, 1905.

[238] There are, however, a larger number of Palsgrave's one edition extant than of Duwes's three. This is, no doubt, because its size and value prevented it from being used with the lack of respect with which school-books are usually treated. There is a copy of the _Esclarciss.e.m.e.nt_ in the Bibliotheque Mazarine at Paris; two in the British Museum; one in the Bodleian, one in Cambridge University Library, and one in the Rylands Library.

[239] _Supra_, p. 92.

[240] Dated September 2, twenty-second year of his reign (_i.e._ 1530).

[241] There were three drafts of the indenture with Pynson, _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ iii. 3680, iv. 39. The first two were probably drawn up in 1523. The last is dated January 18, 1524. The first two were printed by Dr. Furnivall for the Philological Society, 1868. The third draft is in Cromwell's hand, corrected by Palsgrave.

There is a clause that Pynson shall not print more than the given number--750--until that number is sold. Pynson seems to have printed only the first two parts of 59 leaves. After this there comes a third part, with a fresh numbering of leaves from 1 to 473. The printing was finished July 18, 1530, by J. Hawkins.

[242] At the rate of 6s. 8d. a ream.

[243] Ellis, _Orig. Letters_, 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 214.

[244] He found it useful in diplomatic service. He writes to his patron: "I am well a.s.seyed here and my little knowledge of French well exercised" (Brussels, Nov. 20, 1538), _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ xiii. pt. ii. No. 882.

[245] "O devotz amateurs de bonnes lettres pleust a Dieu que quelque n.o.ble coeur s'employast a mettre et ordonner par regle nostre langaige francois! Ce seroit moyen que maints milliers d'hommes se evertueroient a souvent user de belles et bonnes paroles. S'il n'y est mis et ordonne on trouvera que de cinquante en cinquante ans la langue francoise pour la plus grande part sera changee et pervertie" (folio 1, verso). Tory sketched a plan of a great work on the language to which his _Champ fleury_ was intended only as an introduction.

[246] Genin is 'certain' that the date given on the frontispiece of Palsgrave's work is a year earlier than that on which it actually appeared. He draws this conclusion from the date of the king's privilege, twenty-second year of Henry VIII., who came to the throne in 1509; 9 + 22 = 31. This leaves Palsgrave a longer period to gather what he could from Tory's work, says Genin. But the twenty-second year of the reign of Henry VIII. began in April 1530, and the printing of Palsgrave's work was completed on the 18th of July.

[247] _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ i. Nos. 513 and 3094.

[248] _Ibid._ vi. No. 1199. Duwes also received numerous grants of money and licences to import Gascon wine.

[249] Printed in _Theatrum Chemic.u.m_, Ursel, 1602, vol. ii. pp. 95-123, and reprinted in J. J. Manget's _Bibliotheca Chemica_, Geneva, 1702, vol. ii. Two copies of an English translation are in the Bodleian (Ashmole MSS.). See _Dict. Nat. Biog._

[250] He is called "schoolmaster to my Lady Princess of Castile," in the Book of Payments, March 1513, _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ ii. No. 1460.

[251] _Ibid._ ii. 295.

[252] _Ibid._ i. 5582.

[253] Bale, _Britanniae Scriptorum_, 1548, fol. 219.

[254] _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ ii. pt. 2, 1107.

[255] J. G. Nichols, _Memoir of the Duke of Richmond_, 1855, Camden Society, _Miscellany_, iii. pp. xxiii-xxiv; also _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ iv. 5806, and v. 1596, 1793, 2069, 2081.

[256] _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._ iv. 5806.

[257] _Ibid._ iv. 4560: Letter dated July 27, 1528.

[258] _Ibid._ iv. 5806, 5807.

[259] "Instructions for Syr Wm. Stevynson, what he shall do for one John Palsgrave with the Frenche Queenes Grace and the Duke of Suffolk her espouse": _ibid._ v. 5808.

[260] Wood, _Athen. Oxon._ ed. Bliss, i. 121.

[261] _Letters and Papers_, v. 621-622: Letter dated Oct. 18, 1532.

[262] Palsgrave received ecclesiastical preferment from time to time.

Amongst others, he was collated to the prebend of Portpoole in St.

Paul's Cathedral by Bishop Fitzjames in 1514, and to the Rectory of St.

Dunstan-in-the-East by Cranmer in 1533, and to that of Wadenhoe, Northamptons.h.i.+re, in 1545, by the same Archbishop. (Thompson Cooper in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._)

[263] Written by a Dutch contemporary, Fullonius, in 1529.

[264] J. G. Nichols, _Literary Remains of Edward VI._, Roxburghe Club, 1857, p. 210.

[265] _Ibid._ p. lxxviii.

[266] These have been printed by J. G. Nichols in his _Literary Remains_, p. 144 _et seq._ The MS. of the first is at Trin. Col. Cantab.

R 7, 31, of the second in the Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 9000, and of the third at Biblio. Pub. Cantab. Dd 12, 59, and Brit. Mus. Addit. 5464.

Nichols uses the text of the first of these.

[267] "Apres avoir note en ma Bible en Anglois plusieurs sentences qui contredisent a toute ydolatrie, a celle fin de m'apprendre et exercer en l'ecriture Francoise, je me suis amuse a les translater en ladite langue Francoise, puis les ay fait rescrire en ce pet.i.t livret, lequel de tres bon coeur je vous offre" (_Literary Remains ..._, p. 144).

[268] "Lettre inedite de Bellemain": _Bulletin de la Soc. de l'Hist. du Protestantisme Francais_, vol. xv., 1866, pp. 203-5.

[269] It was, however, translated into English and published in 1681 (two copies in the Brit. Mus.), and reprinted by Rev. J. Duncan in 1811 (no copy known), and by the Religious Tract Soc., _Vol. of Writings of Ed. VI._, etc.

[270] Calvin wrote to Edward VI. in French: "C'est grand chose d'estre roy, mesme d'un tel pays. Toutesfois je ne doubte pas que vous n'estimez sans comparaison mieux d'estre chrestien. C'est doncq un privilege inestimable que Dieu vous a faict, Sire, que vous soiez roy chrestien, voire que luy servez de lieutenant pour ordonner et maintenir le royaulme de J. Christ en Angleterre" (_Bulletin_, _ut supra_).

[271] There is a copy of this in Brit. Mus. Royal MSS. 20, A xiv.

[272] Ellis, _Orig. Letters_, ser. 1, vol. i. p. 132, and translated in Halliwell's _Letters of the Kings of England_, ii. 33.

[273] J. C. Nichols, _Literary Remains_, p. 32.

[274] _Ibid._ p. li.

[275] Huguenot Soc. Publications, vol. viii. ad nom.