Replere quod deest: Detrahere quod obest : Expungere quod inane est. And that which requireth more skill and deeper consideration Premere tumentia: Extollere humilia : Componere dissoluta. The master may here only stumble, and perchance fall in teaching, to the marring and maiming of the scholar in learning, when it is a matter of much reading, of great learning, and tried judgment to make true difference betwixt Sublime, et tumidum : Decorum, et ineptum : Some men of our time, counted perfect masters of eloquence, in their own opinion the best, in other men's judgments very good, as Omphalius everywhere, Sadoletus in many places, yea also my friend Osorius-namely, in his "Epistle to the Queen" and in his whole book de Justitia-have so overreached themselves in making true difference in the points afore rehearsed, as though they had been brought up in some school in Asia to learn to decline, rather than in Athens with Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes (from whence Tully fetched his eloquence), to understand what in every matter to be spoken or written on is in very deed Nimium, Satis, Parumthat is for to say, to all considerations, decorum, which, as it is the hardest point in all learning, so is it the fairest and only mark that scholars in all their study must always shoot at, if they purpose another day to be either sound in religion, or wise and discreet in any vocation of the commonwealth. Again, in the lowest degree, it is no low point of learning and judgment for a schoolmaster to make true difference betwixt Humile, et depressum: Lene, et remissum ; Siccum, et aridum: Exile, et macrum : Inaffectatum, et neglectum. In these points some, loving Melancthon well, as he was well worthy, but yet not considering well nor wisely how he of nature and all his life and study by judgment was wholly spent in genere Disciplinabili— that is, in teaching, reading, and expounding plainly and aptly school matters, and therefore employed thereunto a fit, sensible, and calm kind of speaking and writing; some, I say, with very well living, but not with very well weighing Melancthon's doings, do frame themselves a style cold, lean, and weak, though the matter be never so warm and earnest, not much unlike unto one that had a pleasure, in a rough, rainy, winter day, to clothe himself with nothing else but a demi-buckram cassock, plain without pleats and single without lining, which will neither bear of wind nor weather, nor yet keep out the sun in any hot day. Some suppose, and that by good reason, that Melancthon himself came to this low kind of writing by using over-much paraphrasis in reading; for studying thereby to make everything straight and easy, in smoothing and planing all things to much never leaveth, while the sense itself be left both loose and lazy. And some of those paraphrases of Melancthon be set out in print as Pro Archia Poeta, et Marco Marcello; but a scholar by mine opinion is better occupied in playing or sleeping than in spending time not only vainly, but also harmfully in such a kind of exercise. If a master would have a perfect example to follow how in Genere sublimi to avoid Nimium, or in Mediocri to attain Satis, or in Humili to eschew Parum, let him read diligently for the first "Secundam Philippicam," for the mean " De Natura Deorum," and for the lowest "Partitiones." Or if in another tongue ye look for like example in like perfection for all those three degrees, read "Pro Ctesiphonte, Ad Leptinem, 66 et Contra Olympiodorum," and what wit, art, and diligence is able to afford ye shall plainly see. For our time the odd man to perform all three perfectly whatsoever he doth, and to know the way to do them skilfully, whensoever he list, is in my poor opinion Joannes Sturmius. He also counselleth all scholars to beware of paraphrasis, except it be from worse to better, from rude and barbarous to proper and pure Latin, and yet no man to exercise that neither, except such one as is already furnished with plenty of learning and grounded with steadfast judgment before. All these faults, that thus many wise men do find with the exercise of paraphrasis in turning the best Latin into other as good as they can-that is, ye may be sure, into a great deal worse than it was, both in right choice for propriety and true placing for good order are committed also commonly in all common schools by the schoolmasters in tossing and troubling young wits (as I said in the beginning) with that butcherly fear in making of Latins. Therefore in place of Latins for young scholars and of paraphrasis for the masters, I would have double translation specially used. For in double translating a perfect piece of Tully or Cæsar, neither the scholar in learning nor the master in teaching can err. A true touchstone, a sure metwand lieth before both their eyes. For all right congruity, propriety of words, 94 order in sentences, the right imitation, to invent good matter, to dispose it in good order, to confirm it with good reason, to express any purpose fitly and orderly, is learned thus both easily and perfectly. Yea, to miss sometime in this kind of translation bringeth more profit than to hit right either in paraphrasi or making of Latins. For though ye say well in a Latin-making or in a paraphrasis, yet you being but in doubt and uncertainty, whether ye say well or no, ye gather and lay up in memory no sure fruit of learning thereby. But if ye fault in translation, ye are easily taught how perfectly to amend it, and so well warned how after to eschew all such faults again. 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. There is a kind of paraphrasis which may be used without all hurt to much profit, but it serveth only the Greek and not the Latin, nor no other tongue, as to alter linguam Ionicam aut Doricam into meram Atticam. A notable example there is left unto us by a notable learned man, Diony. Halicarn., who in his book Tepi σvvráğews doth translate the goodly story of Candaules and Gyges in 1 Herodoti out of Ionica lingua into Atticam. Read the place, and ye shall take both pleasure and profit in conference of it. A 1–日 4-1909 |