Imatges de pàgina
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Latin again. About St. Lawrence tide, after, to prove how he profited, I did choose out Torquatus' talk de Amicitia, in the latter end of the first book de Finibus, because that place was the same in the matter, like in words and phrases, nigh to the form and fashion of sentences, as he had learned before in de Amicitia. I did translate it myself into plain English, and gave it him to turn into Latin, which he did so choicely, so orderly, so without any great miss in the hardest points of grammar, that some in seven year in grammar schools, yea, and some in the University too, can not do half so well."

The author next discusses "the six ways appointed by the best learned men for the learning of tongues and increase of eloquence, as 1. Translation; 2. Paraphrase; 3. Metaphrasis; 4. Epitome; 5. Imitation."

I. "Translation, is easy in the beginning for the scholar, and bringeth also much learning and great judgment to the master. It is most common and most commendable of all other exercises for youth: most common; for all your constructions in grammar schools be nothing else but translations. But because they be not double translations, as I do require, they bring forth but simple and single commodity; and because also they lack the daily use of writing which is the only thing that breedeth deep root, both in the wit for good understanding, and in the memory for sure keeping of all that is learned."

Ascham justifies his views on the subject by citing the opinions of Cicero, Quintilian, and Pliny, and thus concludes:

"And by these authorities and reasons am I moved to think this way of double translating, either only, or chiefly, to be fittest for the speedy and perfect attaining of any tongue. And for speedy attaining, I durst venture a good wager, if a scholar in whom is aptness, love, diligence, and constancy, would but translate after this sort one little book in Tully (as de Senectute, with two Epistles, the first ad Q. Fratrem, the other ad Lentulum the last save one in the First Book,) that scholar, I say, should come to a better knowledge in the Latin tongue than the most part do that spend four or five years in tossing all the rules of grammar in common schools. Indeed, this one Book with these two Epistles, is not sufficient to afford all Latin words (which is not necessary for a young scholar to know,) but it is able to furnish him fully, for all points of grammar, with the right placing, ordering, and use of words, in all kind of matter. And why not? For it is read, that Dion Prusæus,* that wise philosopher and excellent orator of all his time, did come to the great learning and utterance that was in him, by reading and following only two books, Phædon Platonis, and Demosthenes' most notable Oration Περι Παραπρεσβείας.

And a better and nearer example herein may be our most noble Queen Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her hand, after the first declining of a noun and a verb; but only by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, without missing, every forenoon, and likewise some part of Tully every afternoon, for the space of a year or two, hath attained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues, and to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with a judgment, as they be few in number in both the Universities, or elsewhere in England, that be in both tongues comparable with her Majesty."

II. Paraphrasis is defined as being "not only to express at large with more words, but to shine and contend to translate the best Latin authors into other

* That is, Chrysostom, whose name was Dion, and who was a native of Prusa in Bithynia.

Latin words, as many, or thereabout." This method Ascham decidedly condemns as a school exercise, on the same grounds on which it is disapproved of ' by Cicero and the younger Pliny, the latter of whom in one his Epistles calls it audax contentio, an audacious contention. "It is a bold comparison, indeed," says our author, "to think to say better than that is best. Such turning of the best into worse, is much like the turning of good wine, out of a fair sweet flagon of silver, into a foul musty bottle of leather; or to turn pure gold and silver into foul brass and copper.

Paraphrasis, therefore, by mine opinion, is not meet for grammar schools, nor yet very fit for young men in the University, until study and time have bred in them perfect learning and steadfast judgment."

III. Metaphrasis. "This kind of exercise," says Ascham, "is all one with paraphrasis, save it is out of verse either into prose, or into some other kind of meter; or else out of prose into verse, which was Socrates's exercise and pastime, as Plato reporteth, when he was in prison, to translate Æsop's fables into verse. Quintilian doth greatly praise also this exercise; but because Tully doth disallow it in young men, by mine opinion it were not well to use it in grammar schools, even for the self-same causes that he recited against paraphrasis."

IV. “Epitome is good privately for himself that doth work it, but ill commonly for all others that use other men's labor therein. A silly poor kind of study, not unlike to the doing of those poor folk which neither till, nor sow, nor reap themselves, but glean by stealth upon other men's ground. Such have empty barns for dear years."

"I do wish," he afterwards remarks, in reference to the common books of exercises used at schools, "that all rules for young scholars were shorter than they be. For without doubt, Grammatica itself is sooner and surer learned by examples of good authors than by the naked rules of grammarians. Epitome hurteth more in the universities and study of philosophy, but most of all in divinity itself."

He acknowledges, however, that "books of common places be very necessary to induce a man into an orderly general knowledge, how to refer orderly all that he readeth ad certa rerum capita (to certain heads,) and not wander in study."

"Epitome is most necessary of all in a man's own writing, as we learn of that noble poet Virgil, who, if Donatus say true, in writing that perfect work of the Georgics, used daily, when he had written forty or fifty verses, not to cease cutting, paring, and polishing of them, till he had brought them to the number of ten or twelve.

And this exercise is not more needfully done in a great work than wisely, done in our common daily writing, either of letter or other thing else; that is to say, to peruse diligently, and see and spy wisely, what is always more than needeth. For twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little; even as twenty to one fall into sickness rather by over much fullness than by any lack or emptiness. * * * *

And of all other men, even those that have the inventivest heads for all purposes, and roundest tongues in all matters and places (except they learn and use this good lesson of epitome,) commit commonly greater faults than dull, staying, silent men do. For quick inventors, and fair ready speakers, being boldened

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with their present ability to say more, and perchance better too, at the sudden for that present than any others can do, use less help of diligence and study than they ought to do, and so have in them commonly less learning and weaker judgment for all deep considerations than some duller heads and slower tongues

have.

And therefore ready speakers generally be not the best, plainest, and wisest writers, nor yet the deepest judgers in weighty affairs; because they do not tarry to weigh and judge all things as they should, but having their heads over full of matter, be like pens over full of ink, which will sooner blot than make any fair letter at all. Time was, when I had experience of two ambassadors in one place, the one of a hot head to invent, and of a hasty hand to write; the other cold and staid in both; but what difference of their doings was made by wise men is not unknown to some persons. The Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, had a quick head and a ready tongue, and yet was not the best writer in England. Cicero in Brutus doth wisely note the same in Serg. Galba and Q. Hortensius, who were both hot, lusty, and plain speakers, but cold, loose, and rough writers. And Tully telleth the cause why, saying, when they spoke, their tongue was naturally carried with full tide and wind of their wit; when they wrote, their head was solitary, dull, and calm; and so their style was blunt and their writing cold." The author then quotes a remark from Cicero, to the effect, that the fault in question is one by which men of much natural ability, but insufficiently instructed, are often found to be characterized. "And therefore," he concludes, "all quick inventors and ready fair speakers must be careful that, to their goodness of nature, they add also in any wise study, labor, leisure, learning, and judgment, and then they shall indeed pass all other (as I know some do in whom all those qualities are fully planted,) or else if they give over much to their wit, and over little to their labor and learning, they will soonest overreach in talk, and farthest come behind in writing, whatsoever they take in hand. The method of epitome is most necessary for such kind of men."

V. Imitation Ascham defines to be "a faculty to express lively and perfectly that example which you go about to follow." "All languages," he continues, "both learned, and mother tongues, be gotten, and gotten solely, by imitation. For as ye use to hear, so ye learn to speak; if ye hear no other, ye speak not yourself; and whom ye only hear, of them ye only learn.

And therefore if ye would speak as the best and wisest do, ye must be conversant where the best and wisest are; but if you be born or brought up in a rude country, ye shall not choose but speak rudely. The rudest man of all knoweth this to be true.

Yet nevertheless, the rudeness of common and mother tongues is no bar for wise speaking. For in the rudest country, and most barbarous mother language, many be found that can speak very wisely; but in the Greek and Latin tongues, the two only learned tongues, which be kept not in common talk, but in private books, we find always wisdom and eloquence, good matter and good utterance, never or seldom asunder. For all such authors, as be fullest of good matter and right judgment in doctrine, be likewise always most proper in words, most apt in sentence, most plain and pure in uttering the same."

After examining what has been said upon the subject of imitation by various writers, ancient and modern, he advises "a good student to journey through all authors," but to dwell only, "after God's Holy Bible, with Tully in Latin, Plato, Aristotle, Zenophon, Isocrates, and Demosthenes in Greek."

LORD BACON,

HIS PHILOSOPHY, AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON EDUCATION.

(Translated from the German of Von Raumer, for the American Journal of Education.)

FRANCIS BACON was born at London, on the 22d of January, 1561. His father, Nicholas Bacon, was Lord Keeper of the Seal, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; his mother, whose maiden name was Anna Cook, was a pious and highly intellectual lady, well versed both in the Greek and Latin classics. When quite young, Bacon displayed such a mature judgment, that Queen Elizabeth, who took great pleasure in conversing with him, addressed him as her little Keeper of the Seal. When not quite sixteen years of age, he was placed at Trinity College, Cambridge. His principal instructor there was John Whitgift, a doctor of theology, and afterward Archbishop of Canterbury. While at Cambridge, he bestowed diligent study upon Aristotle, but with all his regard for him, he conceived a distaste for his doctrines; and, even from this early period, we may date the commencement of his warfare against scholasticism.

After he had completed his education at the university, his father, wishing to initiate him in politics, commended him to the charge of Paulett, English ambassador at the Court of France. During Bacon's residence at Paris, his father died, leaving but a moderate property to be divided between himself and his four brothers. In after years, his brother Anthony bequeathed him an independent fortune.

On his return to England, he applied himself with ardor to the study of law, and was soon chosen councilor by Elizabeth; but she did not advance him to any higher post of honor. This was reserved for James I., who made him Lord High Chancellor, with the titles of Verulam and Vice-Count St. Albans.

He married the daughter of a wealthy London alderman, whose name was Burnham, by whom, however, he had no issue.

Six years before his death, he was deposed from his office. And that he had been guilty of misdemeanor therein, is, alas! but too evident. He was convicted of having used his high judicial function in the service of bribery, and James I. could do no more than mitigate the sentence that was pronounced against him, nor could he

ever afterward recover the influence that he had lost, though he sought it with the most fulsome flatteries.

It is truly painful to see a man of such commanding talents sink into such depths of moral degradation. It would appear, in some instances, as if an over-exertion of the intellectual powers operated to the injury of the moral nature; since constant mental labor leaves no time for self-consecration and self-conquest, yea, in the end, destroys all power and capacity therefor,-so much does such labor engross the whole man.

But the closing years of Bacon's life redounded to the inestimable advantage of science; for he gave his undivided attention to it, after his removal from the service of the state.

of his age, year

He died on the 9th of April, 1626, in the 66th having lived to be three years older than Shakspeare, whom he survived ten years. Seldom have two such eminent men lived at the same time, and in the same place,-men of such vast, and yet opposite endowments. It would almost appear that, in Bacon, the genius of prose, in Shakspeare, of poetry, came into the world in person: in one, an understanding, the highest, clearest, most searching, and methodical; and, in the other, an imagination of unbounded creative capacity. The poet, it is true, manifested a keen intellectual insight, together with a wonderfully comprehensive knowledge of human nature; but we can hardly concede to Bacon much of that sense of beauty which is so marked an attribute of the poet. Both of them, however, were alike in achieving superior fame by the exercise of their understanding, and in suffering the glory of that fame to be tarnished by the abuse of their imagination. How far justice was meted out to Bacon, we shall be better able to judge in the sequel.

A third great genius, born in the same decade with Shakspeare and Bacon (1571,) deserves mention here, as ranking with the mightiest minds that the world ever produced; I refer to Kepler. But what a remarkable contrast does the mutual non-intercourse of these three giant spirits present to the warm and living fellowship that subsisted between Luther and Melancthon. It is as though they had not known of each other's existence. Bacon, notwithstanding the universality of his writings, has no where made mention of Shakspeare; he treats of dramatic poetry, but utters not a syllable in regard to the greatest dramatist "that ever lived in the tide of times," although this one was even his fellow-citizen. So, likewise, Bacon treats often of astronomy, and introduces Copernicus and Galileo, but Kepler And yet, Kepler must have been known to him, for, in the year 1618, he dedicated his great work, "Harmonice Mundi," to the

never.

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