The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 38

cit._ p. 373.

[757] Diary, reprinted: Malone's _Historical Account of the English Stage_, in an edition of Shakespeare's works, completed by Boswell, 1821, iii. pp. 120, 122. Herbert makes many of his entries in French.

[758] Meurier, _Communications familieres_, 1563.

[759] While the English visited France in great numbers, very few Frenchmen came to England, except those engaged on diplomatic missions, or exiles. Thus, Ronsard, Jacques Grevin, Brantome, Bodin, in the sixteenth century; Schelandre, d'a.s.soucy, Boisrobert, Le Pays, Pavillon, Voiture, Malleville, and a few others in the early seventeenth century, spent a short time in England. Among scholars, Peiresc, Henri Estienne, Justel, Bochart, and Casaubon visited our country. St. Amant was twice in England, and on the occasion of his second visit wrote a satirical poem, _Albion_, in which he gave vent to his dislike of the people and the country (_Oeuvres_, ed. Livet, 1855, vol. ii.). Guide-books to England were few, and far from giving a good impression of the country.

See Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, pp. 8, 129.

[760] Rathery, _Relations sociales et intellectuelles entre la France et l'Angleterre_, pp. 22-23, 48 sqq.

[761] "Lord ghest tholb be sua virtiuff be intelligence, aff yi body schal biff be naturall rehutht tholb suld of me pety have for natur ..."

(_Oeuvres de Rabelais_, ed. C. Marty Laveaux, i. 261).

[762] Pet.i.tot et Monmerque, _Collection des Memoires_, tom. 68, Paris, 1828.

[763] A. Cohn, _Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_, London, 1865, pp. xxviii, cx.x.xiv, cx.x.xv.

[764] Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, 1899, pp. 51 _sqq._; E.

Soulie, _Recherches sur Moliere_, Paris, 1863, p. 153.

[765] _Journal de Jean Hervard sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Louis XIII, 1601-28_, Paris, 1868. Quoted by Jusserand, _op. cit._ p. 57 n.

One of Louis's tutors was an Englishman, Richard Smith.

[766] S. Lee, "The Beginnings of French Translations from the English,"

_Proceedings of the Bibliog. Soc._ viii., 1907, pp. 85-112.

[767] Tourval was for long engaged on turning James I.'s compositions into French, and complains of not receiving any reward nor even his expenses.

[768] He also translated G.o.dwin's _Man in the Moon_, 1648, which had some influence on Cyrano de Bergerac. He was probably the Jean Baudouin who studied at Edinburgh in 1597.

[769] Gerbier, _Interpreter of the Academy_, 1648.

[770] T. B. Squire, in Simon Daines's _Orthoepia Anglicana_, reprinted by R. Brotanek in _Neudrucke fruhneuenglischer Grammatiken_, Bd. iii., 1908.

[771] By the end of the sixteenth century it was quite a usual thing for learned subjects to be treated in English. Ascham apologised for using English in his _Toxophilus_ (1545), but in his _Scholemaster_ (1570) he used it as a matter of course.

[772] Jusserand, _Histoire litteraire du peuple anglais_, 1904, p. 316.

[773] Florio makes the same claim in his _First Frutes_ for teaching Italian and English.

[774] _Grammaire Angloise et Francoise pour facilement et promptement apprendre la Langue angloise et francoise._ A Rouen, chez la veuve Oursel, 1595, 8vo. The Brit. Mus. copy contains MS. notes of a French student.

[775] In 1586 he translated three letters of Henry of Navarre, and in following years a continuous series of similar works; in 1587 the _Politicke and Militarie Discourse_ of La Noue; in 1588 the _Discourse concerning the right which the House of Guise have to the crown of France_, etc. His latest translation appears to have been Louis XIII.'s _Declaration upon his Edicts for Combats_, 1613. This E. A. may have been identical with Erondell (or, as sometimes written, Arundel), who gives his name as "P. Erondell (E. A.)" in his translation of the _Declaration and Catholic exhortation_ (1586).

[776] It bears a strong resemblance to the first dialogue in Erondell's _French Garden_.

[777] Such as the works of Sir Thomas Smith, John Cheke, John Hart, all of which appeared before 1580.

[778] By P. Greenwood (1594), Ed. Coote (1596), A. Gill (1619), J.

Herves (1624), Ch. Butler (1633). Some are reprinted by Brotanek, _op.

cit._; cp. F. Watson, _Modern Subjects_, chap. i.

[779] Reprinted by Brotanek, _op. cit._ vol. iii., 1908.

[780] _Works_, 1875, vol. ix. pp. 229 _sqq._

[781] Reprinted by R. Brotanek, _op. cit._ Heft i., 1905, pp. 105.

[782] Pp. 60 _sqq._

[783] It had no place in the earlier editions of 1534 and 1537.

CHAPTER II

FRENCH GRAMMARS--BOOKS FOR TEACHING LATIN AND FRENCH--FRENCH IN PRIVATE INSt.i.tUTIONS

One of the most noted teachers of English as well as of French was Robert Sherwood, who in 1632 completed his English-French Dictionary which was appended to the new edition of Cotgrave's work issued in that year.[784] Sherwood was born in Norfolk,[785] although he later called himself a Londoner. In July 1622 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1626. He then moved to London and opened a language school in St. Sepulchre's Churchyard, where he continued to teach for many years. He also taught English to many French, German, Danish, and Flemish n.o.bles and gentlemen who visited London. To these distinguished visitors he dedicated his dictionary in 1632, as well as the second edition of his French grammar in 1634, expressing the hope that he would soon be able to produce an English grammar "toute entiere," for only the practical exercises in French and English could be of use to them in their study of English. His French grammar was intended "for the furtherance and practice of gentlemen, scollers and others desirous of the said language." We gather that Sherwood's school was limited entirely to the higher cla.s.ses, and was very different from Holyband's noisy and bustling establishment.

The first edition of Sherwood's _French Tutour_, as he called his grammar, saw the light in 1625,[786] just before he graduated at Cambridge. He had probably worked at it as well as at his dictionary during his residence there, and appears to have taught French to private pupils. How he first acquired his knowledge of French, we do not know.

He may have spent some years in France before going to Cambridge, since he would not find much opportunity of studying the language there. His work is little more than a translation of selections from the French grammar of Charles Maupas of Blois (1625). Perhaps he studied the language with Maupas himself, of whom he speaks with great respect. In parts of his grammar, however, Sherwood drew on his own "long experience" in teaching French.

The second edition of the _French Tutour_ (1634) is said to be carefully corrected and enlarged. In it Sherwood follows the usual order of treatment. First come rules of p.r.o.nunciation, then of grammar, which show "the nature and use of the Articles, a thing of no small importance in this language: also the way to find out the gender of all nounes: the conjugation of all the verbs regular and irregular; and after which followeth a list of most of the indeclinable parts (which commonly do much hinder learners) Alphabetically Englished; with a most ample syntax of all the parts of speech." This section closes with an alphabetical index "interpreting such nounes and verbes as are unenglished in the grammar." The practical exercises are in the form of "three dialogues and a touch of French compliments," in French and English, arranged in two parallel columns on a page. The first deals with familiar talk by the wayside, depicting travellers on their road to London, and, on their arrival, taking lodgings at the Black Swan in Holborn, doing their shopping, and taking their evening meal. The other two dialogues treat of less familiar subjects; and, on the whole, Sherwood's book was not of a popular kind, but was intended for the "learned." One describes the exercises and studies of the n.o.bility, dancing, riding, fencing, hunting, geography, cosmography, and so forth; and the other turns on the subject of travel in foreign countries, in which Sherwood emphasizes the necessity for the traveller of "some good and fundamental beginning in the language of the country whither he goeth." The _Tutour_ closes with a selection of French compliments from the book of M. L. Miche on French courtesy, to which Sherwood added an English version.

Another Englishman also ventured in the early years of the seventeenth century to write on the French language--William Colson, who called himself a Professor of Literal and Liberal Sciences. He had spent many years abroad as [Header: WILLIAM COLSON] travelling companion to young English gentlemen, "as well learning as teaching such laudable arts and qualities as are most fitting for a gentleman's exercise." Seemingly he spent some time in the Low Countries, and he may have found his pupils among the English troops serving there, as in 1603 he published at Liege a book in French on arithmetic which also provides military information.

Before 1612 he had returned to London, where he composed a similar work in English, dedicated to the Lords of the Privy Council.[787] He tells us that on his return from his travels he wrote "certaine litteral workes," mostly on the teaching of languages, and like an earlier English writer, John Eliote, evolved a special method which he called "arte locall or the arte of memorie." He expounds his "method," which is very vague and obscure in its application, in one of his French text-books which appeared in London in 1620 and was called _The First Part of the French grammar, Artificially Deduced, into Tables by Arte Locall, called the Arte of Memorie_. Colson desired to reconcile the old orthography with the new, as Holyband had done earlier, by means of a reformed alphabet of twenty-six letters, and of a triple distinction of characters, Roman, Italian, and English. Roman type was to stand for the _proper_ p.r.o.nunciation, that is, letters which are p.r.o.nounced as they are written; the Italian for the _improper_, that is, letters which are not given their usual p.r.o.nunciation; and finally the letters written but not sounded were to be printed in black letter. In his reformed alphabet he divides the letters into seven vowels and eighteen consonants, and subdivides the consonants into semivowels and mutes. He gives each letter its usual name, and then its special name according to his own scheme, as follows:

A E' E O I Y V | H | S Z X I | L R N M | a e e o i y u | eh | es ez ex ei | el er en em | proper names | | | | speciall names | he | se ze xe ie | le re ne me | _____________/ __________________________/ Aspiration 8 semivowels

F [^] B P : D T G K | C Q ef e[^] eb ep : ed et eg ek | ec eq | fe [^]e be pe : de te ge ke | ce qe ________________________________/ 10 mutes ______________________________/ 7 vowels 18 consonants ___________________________________________________________/ Elements and Letters

And all the said Alphabet is briefly contained in these five artificiall words to be learnt by heart:--Haeiou--sezexeie--lereneme--fe[^]ebepe-- detegeke.

After treating of the letters, Colson proceeds to deal with the other three chief parts of grammar--"the sillible, the diction, and the locution" (the last two dealing with accidence and syntax respectively) in a similarly intricate and obscure style. It is difficult to imagine what can have been his reasons for his scheme of complicated divisions and sub-divisions, more like a puzzle than anything else. Yet he appears to have been serious, and a.s.sures us that once his reformed alphabet is mastered "the perfect p.r.o.nunciation, reading, and writing of the French tongue is gotten in the s.p.a.ce of one month or thereabouts." It is not surprising that his attempted reform pa.s.sed quite unheeded.

This _First Part of the French grammar_, which is dedicated to "the Wors.h.i.+ppfull, worthie and vertuous gentleman, M. Emanuel Giffard, Esquire," seems to be the only one of Colson's works on the French language which has survived. At its close is a large folding sheet, containing the table of his reformed alphabet, dedicated to Sir Michael Stanhope and Sir William Cornwallis by their affectionate servant. The date is 1613. Colson informs us that he had also compiled a French grammar divided into four parts, after a new method. He likewise refers to "all his bookes tending to the instruction of the French tongue,"

such as his "booke of the declination of nouns, and conjugation of Verbes," and his "three repertories of the English, French, and Latine tongues, compounded by arte locall for aiding the memorie in learning most speedily the words of the foresaide tongues by heart in halfe time": his "Repertoire of all syllables in general and of all French words in particular containing the Art to learn them easily by heart in verie short time and with little labour to the great contentment of him which is desirous of the French tongue, all reduced into Tables by Art Locall as before said": and "other works of ours shortly to be printed tending to the knowledge of the foresaid tongues, in which works is set downe by Art and order local (called the Art of Memory) most easy and brief rules to learne the foresaid bookes by heart." Most of these, no doubt, were short pamphlets, perhaps in the shape of the large folding sheet inserted at the end of the Grammar of 1620, and so stood but little chance of survival.

At this same period the popular French grammar of Charles Maupas, well known to many travellers to France, was translated into English by William Aufeild and published in 1634. [Header: WILLIAM AUFEILD]

Maupas's grammar, first printed at Blois in 1607, had won a considerable reputation in England, and was not without noticeable influence on the French grammars published in London. Sherwood, who had made free use of Maupas, praised him very highly. James Howell, in his edition of Cotgrave's Dictionary, advises students to seek fuller grammatical information in Maupas's Grammar, "the exactest and most scholarlike of all." William Aufeild, the translator of the book--"the best instructions for that language by the consent of all that know the book, that were ever written"--considers that it excels all the French grammars ever produced in England: "all of them put together do not teach half so well the idiom of the French tongue as this one doth." We are a.s.sured that the work was in great demand when it first appeared in England, and that a great number of the n.o.bility and gentry were commonly taught by means of it. Finding that the fact that it was written in French was a great drawback, as it could only be used by those who already understood French, Aufeild decided to translate it into English, and dedicated his work to the young Duke of Buckingham,[788]

son of the duke to whom Maupas had offered the original. Aufeild tells that he had been studying French for ten years when he undertook his task. He called the translation _A French grammar and Syntaxe, contayning most exact and certaine Rules for the p.r.o.nunciation, Orthography, construction and use of the French language_.[789]

To adapt the work to the use of the English, the translator placed a small cross under letters not p.r.o.nounced in the French word, thus adopting Holyband's plan. These letters were also printed in a different type, "that better notice might be taken of them." He also endeavours to give the sounds of the French alphabet in English spelling, so that if the student "p.r.o.nounce the one like an Englishman, he must needs p.r.o.nounce the same sounds, written after the French manner, like a Frenchman." This, he says, is the only invention which he claims as his own in the whole work. "The examples as well as the text, are englished to save the reader so many lookings in his Dictionary"; and the word to which the rule has special reference is printed in different type from the rest of the example. Occasionally the text is expanded by additional explanations, included in parentheses.

Aufeild advises the student of French to read the whole grammar through first, in order to get a general notion of the language. It is vain, he argues, to begin learning rules for the p.r.o.nunciation of a language of which you are totally ignorant. Especially is this so in the case of the "unlearned," that is, those unacquainted with Latin grammar. For instance, "you shall find that in all the third persons plural of verbes ending in _-ent_, _n_ is not p.r.o.nounced," and so on. Now, "unless a man can distinguish an adverbe from a verbe," he says, "or till he know how the plurall number is made of the singular how shall he know ... when to leave out _n_ before _t_?" "In my opinion," he adds, "it is but a dull and wearisome thing for a man to take a great deale of paines, in learning to p.r.o.nounce what he understandeth not." Clearly his ideal was a preliminary grounding in the general principles of grammar. When you have a general knowledge of the whole language you may begin at the p.r.o.nunciation and "so goe through it againe in order as it lieth." In the second reading the student should take into account the less important rules which are omitted in the first perusal.