The Teaching and Cultivation of the French Language in England Part 33

[646] Garnier was also the author of familiar dialogues, published in French, Spanish, Italian, and German in 1656.

[647] _Lettres sur les Anglais et sur les Francais_ (end of seventeenth century), 1725, p. 305.

[648] Another grammar specially intended for the use of strangers was _Le vray orthographe francois contenant les reigles et preceptes infallibles pour se rendre certain, correct et parfait a bien parler francois, tres utile et necessaire tant aux francois qu'estrangers. Par le sieur de Palliot secretaire ordinaire de la chambre du roy._ 1608.

[649] Gailhard, _op. cit._ p. 33.

[650] _Method for Travell_, 1598.

[651] _Records of the English Catholics_, i. pp. 275 _et sqq._; F. C.

Petre, _English Colleges and Convents established on the Continent ..._, Norwich, 1849; G. Cardon, _La Fondation de l'Universite de Douai_, Paris, 1802.

[652] Cp. p. 343 _infra_.

[653] Cp. account by M. Nicolas, in _Bulletin de la societe de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Francais_, iv. pp. 503 _sqq._ and pp. 582 _sqq._ Twenty-five such colleges are named.

[654] _Bulletin_, i. p. 301; ii. pp. 43, 303, 354 _sqq._; also articles in vols. iii., iv., v., vi., ix., and Bourchenin's _etudes sur les Academies Protestantes_.

[655] Suppressed as early as 1620.

[656] Driven from Scotland, in many cases, by James I.'s attempt to introduce the English Liturgy into the Scottish churches. Robert Monteith, author of the _Histoire des Troubles de la Grande Bretagne_, was professor of philosophy at Saumur for four years (_Dict. Nat.

Biog._).

[657] He composed in French _A faithful and familiar exposition of Ecclesiastes_, Geneva, 1557; cp. _Dict. Nat. Biog._, ad nom.

[658] Cp. Nicolas, _Histoire de l'ancienne Academie de Montauban_, Montauban, 1885.

[659] There was an early Academy at Lausanne which emigrated to Geneva and a.s.sured the latter's success (1559); cp. H. Vuilleumier, _L'Academie de Lausanne_, Lausanne, 1891.

[660] _Essai de remarques particulieres sur la langue francoise pour la ville de Geneve_, 1691. Quoted by Borgeaud, _Histoire de l'Universite de Geneve_, 1900, p. 445.

[661] C. Borgeaud, _op. cit._

[662] They were united at Nimes in 1617, and finally suppressed in 1644.

[663] Pattison, _Isaac Casaubon_, Oxford, 1892, pp. 40-42, 155. On the English at Geneva, cp. _ibid._ p. 20.

[664] _Autobiography_, ed. Sir S. Lee (2nd ed., 1906), p. 56.

[665] T. Scot, _Philomythie_, London, 1622.

[666] _Satyra_ (addressed to Ben Jonson), 1608. _Poems of Lord Herbert of Cherbury_, ed. J. Churton Collins, London, 1881.

[667] _Henry VIII._, Act I. Sc. 3.

[668] A. T. Thomson, _Memoirs of the Court of Henry VIII._, London, 1826, i. p. 259.

[669] Epigram by Sir Th. More: translated from Latin by J. H. Marsden, _Philomorus_, 2nd ed., 1878, p. 222.

[670] _English Monsieur: Works_, London, 1875, viii. p. 190. Cp. other satires and epigrams of the time: Hall, _Satires_, lib. iii. satire 7; _Skialetheia_, 1598, No. 27; H. Parrot, _Laquei_, 1613, No. 207; _Scourge of Villanie_, ed. Grosart, 1879, p. 158.

[671] H. Glapthorne, "The Ladies' Privilege," _Plays and Poems_, 1874, ii. pp. 81 _sqq._ It was sometimes the good fortune of the gallant to "live like a king," "teaching tongues" (T. Scot, _Philomythie_, 1622).

[672] 1510? Colophon: "Here endeth this treatise made of a galaunt.

Emprinted at London in the Flete St. at the sygne of the sonne by Wynkyn de Worde." Alex. Barclay, Andrew Borde, Skelton and others, all satirize the mania for French fashions. Every opportunity of getting the latest French fashion was eagerly seized. Thus Lady Lisle, wife of Henry VIII.'s deputy at Calais, constantly sent her friends in England articles of dress "such as the French ladies wear" (_Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._, i. 3892). Moryson says the English are "more light than the lightest French."

[673] Purchas, _Pilgrimes_, 1625.

[674] Sylvester, _Lacrymae Lacrymarum: Works_ (ed. Grosart), ii. p. 278.

[675] Sir T. Overbury, _Characters_, 1614: "The Affected Traveller."

[676] George Pettie, _Civile Conversation_, 1586 (preface to translation of Guazzo's work).

[677] _As You Like It_, Act IV. Sc. 1.

[678] Nash, _Pierce Pennilesse_, quoted by J. J. Jusserand, _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_, 1899, p. 322.

[679] Wilson, _Arte of Rhetorique_ (1553), ed. G. H. Mair, 1909, p. 162.

[680] Hall, _Quo Vadis_, 1617.

[681] Humphrey, _The n.o.bles or of n.o.bilitye_, London, 1563.

[682] Overbury, _Characters_, 1614.

[683] _The Unfortunate Traveller_ (1587), Works, ed. McKerrow, ii. p.

300.

[684] _Letters_ (1618), ed. Warner, _Epistolary Curiosities_, 1818, p.

3.

CHAPTER VIII

THE STUDY OF FRENCH AMONG MERCHANTS AND SOLDIERS

Merchants, always a very important and influential cla.s.s in England, claim a place by the side of the higher cla.s.ses as learners of French.

They were continually in need of foreign languages, and French was certainly the most useful, and, for those trading with France and the Netherlands, quite indispensable. As to their own language, we are told that when English merchants were out of England "it liketh them not, and they do not use it."[685] Those sons of gentlemen and others who wished to engage in trade were usually apprenticed to merchants. For instance, Sir William Petty (b. 1623) first went to school where he got a smattering of Latin and Greek, and, at the age of twelve, was bound apprentice to a sea captain. At fifteen he went to Caen in Normandy aboard a merchant vessel, and began to trade there with such success that he managed to maintain and educate himself. He learnt French and perfected himself in Latin, and had enough Greek to serve his turn.

Thence he travelled to Paris and studied anatomy.[686] Sylvester, no doubt, had many opportunities of putting to the test the French he first learnt in Saravia's school when later in life he became a merchant adventurer. It appears that many merchants belonged to the cla.s.s of travellers who picked up the language abroad by mixing with those who spoke it. Fynes Moryson accuses merchants, women, and children of neglecting any serious study of languages and "rushing into rash practice." "They doe many times," he admits, "p.r.o.nounce the tongue and speake common speeches more gracefully than others, but they seldome write the tongue well, and alwaies forget it in short time, wanting the practice." The many practical little manuals of conversation which had appeared in the Middle Ages, and the "litle pages set in print without rules or precepts" which succeeded them, would certainly encourage this "rushing into rash practice"; such, indeed, was their aim. The majority of merchants acquired their French, we may be sure, either by the help of such little handbooks, intended to be learnt by heart, or simply by "ear."

Dialogues for merchants are provided in almost all French text-books of the time, giving phrases for buying and selling and enquiring the way.

Barclay describes his grammar (1521) as particularly useful to merchants. There was, moreover, a very popular little book specially intended for that cla.s.s--_A plaine pathway to the French Tongue, very profitable for Marchants and also all other which desire the same, aptly devided into nineteen chapters_, which appeared first in 1575, and in at least one,[687] and probably several other editions.[688] The aim of the book would explain how it has come about that only one copy has survived the wear and tear of the demands made upon it. Again James Howell dedicated his edition of Cotgrave's dictionary (1650) to the n.o.bility and gentry, and to the "merchant adventurers as well English as the worthy company of Dutch here resident and others to whom the language is necessary for commerce and foren correspondence." Books such as those of Holyband and Du Ploich were written for the use of the middle cla.s.s, and, no doubt, for merchants also; and a later writer, John Wodroeph, describes his collection of common phrases as "more profitable for the merchants than for the loathsome curtier who cannot digest such coa.r.s.e meats."

Dutch merchants are mentioned by Howell in the dedication of Cotgrave's dictionary, and the close relations, existing between England and the Netherlands in the time of Elizabeth, possibly account for the fact that the Netherlanders took some part in instructing the English, chiefly merchants, in the French tongue. It has already been seen how unfavourably the Huguenot teachers in England criticized their fellow-teachers of French from the Low Countries, and we are not surprised to find that the latter contented themselves with teaching the language orally, and avoided the risk of committing their views to paper. [Header: FRENCH TEXT-BOOKS FOR MERCHANTS] In the Netherlands, however, no such compunction was felt, and some manuals composed there made their way to England. At an early date one was reprinted in London.

Holyband, the chief of the group of Huguenot teachers, was quickly up in arms against it. "Je ne diray rien," he writes in 1573, "d'un nouveau livre venu d'Anvers, et dernierement imprime a Londres, a cause que, ne gardant ryme ne raison, soit en son parler, phrase, orthographe, maniere de converser et communiquer entre gens d'estat; et cependant qu'il pindarise en son iargon il monstre de quel cru il est sorti, que si nos chartiers d'Orleans, Bourges ou de Bloys avoyent oui gazouiller l'autheur d'icelluy, ilz le renvoyeroient bailler entre ses geais, apres luy avoir donne cinquante coups de leur fouet sur ses echines." Let this writer teach his jargon to the Flemings, the Burgundians, and the people of Hainault; it is a true saying that a good Burgundian was never a good Frenchman. "Lesquelles choses considerees," concludes the irate Holyband, "i'espere que l'autheur de ce beau livre ne nous contraindra point de manger ses glands, ayans trouve le pur froment."