Chapter X (1)

HISTORY OF ANCIENT LITERATURE IN EUROPE, FROM 1550 TO 1600.

SECT. I.

_Progress of classical learning--Principal critical scholars--Editions of ancient authors--Lexicons and Grammars--Best writers of Latin-- Muretus--Manutius--Decline of taste--Scaliger--Casaubon--Classical learning in England under Elizabeth._

|Progress of Philology.|

1. In the first part of the sixteenth century we have seen that the foundations of a solid structure of classical learning had been laid in many parts of Europe; the superiority of Italy had generally become far less conspicuous, or might perhaps be wholly denied; in all the German empire, in France, and partly in England, the study of ancient literature had been almost uniformly progressive. But it was the subsequent period of fifty years, which we now approach, that more eminently deserved the title of an age of scholars, and filled our public libraries with immense fruits of literary labour. In all matters of criticism and philology, what was written before the year 1550 is little in comparison with what the next age produced.

|First editions of classics.|

2. It may be useful in this place to lay before the reader at one view the dates of the first editions of Greek and Latin authors, omitting some of inconsiderable reputation or length. In this list I follow the authority of Dr. Dibdin, to which no exception will probably be taken:--

Ælian 1545. _Rome._
Æschylus 1518. _Venice_, _Aldus_.
Æsop 1480? _Milan._
Ammianus 1474. _Rome._
Anacreon 1554. _Paris._
Antoninus 1558. _Zurich._
Apollonius Rhodius 1496. _Florence._
Appianus 1551. _Paris._
Apuleius 1469. _Rome._
Aristophanes 1498. _Venice._
Aristoteles 1495-8. _Venice._
Arrian 1535. _Venice._
Athenæus 1514. _Venice._
Aulus Gellius 1469. _Rome._
Ausonius 1472. _Venice._
Boethius Absque anno. circ. 1470.
Cæsar 1469. _Rome._
Callimachus Absque anno. Florence.
Catullus 1472. _Venice._
Ciceronis Opera 1498. _Milan._
Cicero de Officiis 1465. _Mentz._
Cicero Epistolæ Famil. 1467.} _Rome._
---- Epistolæ ad Attic. 1469.}
---- de Oratore 1465. _Mentz and Subiaco._
---- Rhetorica 1490. _Venice._
---- Orationes 1471. _Rome._
---- Opera Philosoph. 1469.} _Rome._
1471.}
Claudian. Absque anno. _Brescia._
Demosthenes 1504. _Venice._
Diodorus, v. lib. 1539. _Basle._
---- xv. lib. 1559. _Paris._
Diogenes Laertius 1533. _Basle._
Dio Cassius 1548. _Paris._
Dionysius Halicarn. 1546. _Paris._
Epictetus 1528. _Venice._
Euripides 1513. _Venice._
Euclid 1533. _Basle._
Florus 1470. _Paris._
Herodian 1513. _Venice._
Herodotus 1502. _Venice._
Hesiod. Op. et Dies 1493. _Milan._
---- Op. omnia 1495. _Venice._
Homer 1488. _Florence._
Horatius Absque anno.
Isocrates 1493. _Milan._
Josephus 1544. _Basle._
Justin 1470. _Venice._
Juvenal Absque anno. _Rome._
Livius 1469. _Rome._
Longinus 1584. _Basle._
Lucan 1469. _Rome._
Lucian 1496. _Florence._
Lucretius 1473. _Brescia._
Lysias 1513. _Venice._
Macrobius 1472. _Venice._
Manilius Ante 1474. _Nuremburg._
Oppian 1515. _Florence._
Orpheus 1500. _Florence._
Ovid 1471. _Bologna._
Pausanias 1516. _Venice._
Petronius 1476?
Phædrus 1596. _Troyes._
Photius 1601. _Augsburg._
Pindar 1513. _Venice._
Plato 1513. _Venice._
Plautus 1472. _Venice._
Plinii, Nat. Hist. 1469. _Venice._
Plinii Epist. 1471.
Plutarch Op. Moral. 1509. _Venice._
---- Vitæ 1517. _Venice._
Polybius 1530. _Haguenow._
Quintilian 1470. _Rome._
Quintus Curtius Absque anno. _Rome._
Sallust 1470. _Paris._
Seneca 1475. _Naples._
Senecæ Tragediæ 1484. _Ferrara._
Silius Italicus 1471. _Rome._
Sophocles 1512. _Venice._
Statius 1472?
Strabo 1516. _Venice._
Suetonius 1470. _Rome._
Tacitus 1468? _Venice._
Terence Ante 1470? _Strasburg._
Theocritus 1493. _Milan._
Thucydides 1502. _Venice._
Valerius Flaccus 1474. _Rome._
Valerius Maximus Ante 1470? _Strasburg._
Valleius Paterculus 1520. _Basle._
Virgil 1469. _Rome._
Xenophon 1516. _Florence._

|Change in character of learning.|

3. It will be perceived that even in the middle of this century, some far from uncommon writers had not yet been given to the press. But most of the rest had gone through several editions, which it would be tedious to enumerate; and the means of acquiring an extensive, though not in all respects very exact, erudition might perhaps be nearly as copious as at present. In consequence, probably, among other reasons, of these augmented stores of classical literature, its character underwent a change. It became less polished and elegant, but more laborious and profound. The German or Cisalpine type, if I may use the word, prevailed over the Italian, the school of Budæus over that of Bembo; nor was Italy herself exempt from its ascendancy. This advance of erudition at the expense of taste was perhaps already perceptible in 1550, for we cannot accommodate our arbitrary divisions to the real changes of things; yet it was not hitherto so evident in Italy, as it became in the latter part of the century. The writers of this age, between 1550 and 1600, distinguish themselves from their predecessors not only by a disregard for the graces of language, but by a more prodigal accumulation of quotations, and more elaborate efforts to discriminate and to prove their positions. Aware of the censors whom they may encounter in an increasing body of scholars, they seek to secure themselves in the event of controversy, or to sustain their own differences from those who have gone already over the same ground. Thus books of critical as well as antiquarian learning often contain little of original disquisition, which is not interrupted at every sentence by quotation, and in some instances are hardly more than the adversaria, or commonplace books, in which the learned were accustomed to register their daily observations in study. A late German historian remarks the contrast between the Commentary of Paulus Cortesius on the scholastic philosophy, published in 1503, and the Mythologia of Natalis Comes, in 1551. The first, in spite of its subject, is classical in style, full of animation and good sense; the second is a tedious mass of quotations, the materials of a book rather than a book, without a notion of representing anything in its spirit and general result.[882] This is, in great measure, a characteristic of the age, and grew worse towards the end of the century. Such a book as the Annals of Baronius, the same writer says, so shapeless, so destitute of every trace of eloquence, could not have appeared in the age of Leo. But it may be added, that, with all the defects of Baronius, no one, in the age of Leo, could have put the reader in the possession of so much knowledge.

[882] Ranke, Die Päpste des 16ten und 17ten Jahrhunderts, i. 484.

|Cultivation of Greek.|

4. We may reckon among the chief causes of this diminution of elegance in style, the increased culture of the Greek language; not certainly that the great writers in Greek are inferior models to those in Latin, but because the practice of composition was confined to the latter. Nor was the Greek really understood, in its proper structure and syntax, till a much later period. It was however a sufficiently laborious task, with the defective aids then in existence, to learn even the single words of that most copious tongue; and in this some were eminently successful. Greek was not very much studied in Italy; we may perhaps say, on the contrary, that no one native of that country, after the middle of the century, except Angelus Caninius and Æmilius Portus, both of whom lived wholly on this side of the Alps, acquired any remarkable reputation in it; for Petrus Victorius had been distinguished in the earlier period. It is to France and Germany that we should look for those who made Grecian literature the domain of scholars. It is impossible to mention every name, but we must select the more eminent; not however distinguishing the labourers in the two vineyards of ancient learning, since they frequently lent their service alternately to each.

|Principal scholars: Turnebus.|

5. The university of Paris, thanks to the encouragement given by Francis I., stood in the first rank for philological learning; and as no other in France could pretend to vie with her, she attracted students from every part. Toussain, Danes, and Dorat were conspicuous professors of Greek. The last was also one of the celebrated pleiad of French poets, but far more distinguished in the dead tongues than in his own. But her chief boast was Turnebus, so called by the gods, but by men Tournebœuf, and, as some have said, of a Scots family, who must have been denominated Turnbull.[883] Turnebus was one of those industrious scholars who did not scorn the useful labour of translating Greek authors into Latin, and is among the best of that class. But his reputation is chiefly founded on the Adversaria, the first part of which appeared in 1564, the second in 1565, the third, posthumously, in 1580. It is wholly miscellaneous, divided into chapters, merely as resting-places to the reader; for the contents of each are mostly a collection of unconnected notes. Such books, truly adversaria or commonplaces, were not unusual; but can of course only be read in a desultory manner, or consulted upon occasion. The Adversaria of Turnebus contain several thousand explanations of Latin passages. They are eminent for conciseness, few remarks exceeding half a page, and the greater part being much shorter. He passes without notice from one subject to another the most remote, and has been so much too rapid for his editor, that the titles of each chapter, multifarious as they are, afford frequently but imperfect notions of its contents. The phrases explained are generally difficult; so that this miscellany gives a high notion of the erudition of Turnebus, and it has furnished abundant materials to later commentators. The best critics of that and the succeeding age, Gesner, Scaliger, Lipsius, Barthius, are loud in his praises; nor has he been blamed, except for his excess of brevity and rather too great proneness to amend the text of authors, wherein he is not remarkably successful.[884] Montaigne has taken notice of another merit in Turnebus, that with more learning than any who had gone before for a thousand years, he was wholly exempt from the pedantry characteristic of scholars, and could converse upon topics remote from his own profession, as if he had lived continually in the world.

[883] Biogr. Univ.--The penultimate of Turnebus is made both short and
long by the Latin poets of the age, but more commonly the latter,
which seems contrary to what we should think right. Even Greek will
not help us, for we find him called both τουρνεβος [tournebos] and
τουρνηβος [tournêbos]. Maittaire, Vitæ Stephanor, vol. iii.

[884] Blount, Baillet. The latter begins his collection of these
testimonies by saying that Turnebus has had as many admirers
as readers, and is almost the only critic whom envy has not
presumed to attack. Baillet, however, speaks of his correction of
_Greek_ and Latin passages. I have not observed any of the
former in the Adversaria; the book, if I am not mistaken, relates
wholly to Latin criticism. Muretus calls Turnebus, “Homo immensa
quadam doctrinæ copia instructus, sed interdum nimis propere, et
nimis cupidè amplexari solitus est ea quæ in mentem venerant.”
Variæ Lectiones, l. x. c. 18. Muretus, as usual with critics,
_vineta cædit sua_; the same change might be brought against
himself.

|Petrus Victorius.|

6. A work very similar in its nature to the Adversaria of Turnebus was the Variæ Lectiones of Petrus Victorius (Vettori), professor of Greek and Latin rhetoric at Florence during the greater part of a long life, which ended in 1585. Thuanus has said, with some hyperbole, that Victorius saw the revival and almost the extinction of learning in Italy.[885] No one, perhaps, deserved more praise in the restoration of the text of Cicero; no one, according to Huet, translated better from Greek; no one was more accurate in observing the readings of manuscripts, or more cautious in his own corrections. But his Variæ Lectiones, in 38 books, of which the first edition appeared in 1583, though generally extolled, has not escaped the severity of Scaliger, who says that there is less of valuable matter in the whole work than in one book of the Adversaria of Turnebus.[886] Scaliger, however, had previously spoken in high terms of Victorius: there had been afterwards, as he admits, some ill-will between them; and the tongue or pen of this great scholar are never guided by candour towards an opponent. I am not acquainted with the Variæ Lectiones of Victorius except through my authorities.

[885] Petrus Victorius longæva ætate id consecutus est, ut literas in
Italia renascentes et pæne extinctas viderit. Thuanus ad ann, 1585,
apud Blount.

[886] Scaligerana Secunda.

|Muretus.|

7. The same title was given to a similar miscellany by Marc Antony Muretus, a native of Limoges. The first part of this, containing eight books, was published in 1559, seven more books in 1586, the last four in 1600. This great classical scholar of the sixteenth century found in the eighteenth one well worthy to be his editor, Ruhnkenius of Leyden, who has called the Variæ Lectiones of Muretus “a work worthy of Phidias,” an expression rather amusingly characteristic of the value which verbal critics set upon their labours. This book of Muretus contains only miscellaneous illustrations of passages which might seem obscure, in the manner of those we have already mentioned. Sometimes he mingles conjectural criticisms; and in many chapters only points out parallel passages, or relates incidentally some classical story. His emendations are frequently good and certain, though at other times we may justly think him too bold.[887] Muretus is read with far more pleasure than Turnebus; his illustrations relate more to the attractive parts of Latin criticism, and may be compared to the miscellaneous remarks of Jortin.[888] But in depth of erudition he is probably much below the Parisian professor. Muretus seems to take pleasure in censuring Victorius.

[887] The following will serve as an instance. In the speech of
Galgacus (Taciti vita Agricolæ) instead of “libertatem non in
præsentia laturi,” which indeed is unintelligible enough, he would
read, “in libertatem, non in populi Romani servitium nati.” Such a
conjecture would not be endured in the present state of criticism.
Muretus, however, settles it in the current style; vulgus quid
probet, quid non probet, nunquam laboravi.

[888] The following titles of chapters, from the eighth book of the
Variæ Lectiones, will show the agreeable diversity of Muretus’s
illustrations:--

1. Comparison of poets to bees, by Pindar, Horace, Lucretius. Line
of Horace--

Necte meo Lamiæ coronam;

illustrated by Euripides.

2. A passage in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, lib. ii. explained
differently from P. Victorius.

3. Comparison of a passage in the Phædrus of Plato, with Cicero’s
translation.

4. Passage in the Apologia Socratis, corrected and explained.

5. Line in Virgil, shown to be imitated from Homer.

6. Slips of memory in P. Victorius, noticed.

7. Passage in Aristotle’s Rhetoric explained from his Metaphysics.

8. Another passage in the same book explained.

9. Passage in Cicero pro Rabirio, corrected.

10. Imitation of Æschines in two passages of Cicero’s 3rd
Catilinarian oration.

11. Imitation of Æschines and Demosthenes in two passages of
Cicero’s Declamation against Sallust. [Not genuine.]

12. Inficetus is the right word, not infacetus.

13. Passage in 5th book of Aristotle’s Ethics corrected.

14. The word διαψευδεσθαι [diapseudesthai], in the 2d book of
Aristotle’s Rhetoric, not rightly explained by Victorius.

15. The word asinus, in Catullus (Carm. 95) does not signify an
ass, but a mill-stone.

16. Lines of Euripides, ill-translated by Cicero.

17. Passage in Cicero’s Epistles misunderstood by Politian and
Victorius.

18. Passage in the Phædrus explained.

19. Difference between accusation and invective, illustrated from
Demosthenes and Cicero.

20. Imitation of Æschines by Cicero. Two passages of Livy amended.

21. Mulieres eruditas plerumque libidinosas esse, from Juvenal and
Euripides.

22. Nobleness of character displayed by Iphicrates.

23. That Hercules was a physician, who cured Alcestis when given
over.

24. Cruelty of king Dejotarus, related from Plutarch.

25. Humane law of the Persians.

|Grater’s Thesaurus Criticus.|

8. Turnebus, Victorius, Muretus, with two who have been mentioned in the first volume, Cœlius Rhodiginus, and Alexander ab Alexandro, may be reckoned the chief contributors to this general work of literary criticism in the sixteenth century. But there were many more, and some of considerable merit, whom we must pass over. At the beginning of the next century, Gruter collected the labours of preceding critics in six very thick and closely printed volumes, to which Paræus, in 1623, added a seventh, entitled “Lampas, sive Fax Liberalium Artium,” but more commonly called Thesaurus Criticus. A small portion of these belong to the fifteenth century, but none extend beyond the following. Most of the numerous treatises in this ample collection belong to the class of Adversaria, or miscellaneous remarks. Though not so studiously concise as those of Turnebus, each of these is generally contained in a page or two, and their multitude is consequently immense. Those who now by glancing at a note obtain the result of the patient diligence of these men, should feel some respect for their names, and some admiration for their acuteness and strength of memory. They had to collate the whole of antiquity, they plunged into depths which the indolence of modern philology, screening itself under the garb of fastidiousness, affects to deem unworthy to be explored, and thought themselves bound to become lawyers, physicians, historians, artists, agriculturists, to elucidate the difficulties which ancient writers present. It may be doubted also, whether our more recent editions of the classics have preserved all the important materials which the indefatigable exertions of the men of the sixteenth century accumulated. In the present state of philology, there is incomparably more knowledge of grammatical niceties, at least in the Greek language, than they possessed, and more critical acuteness perhaps in correction, though in this they were not always deficient; but for the exegetical part of criticism--the interpretation and illustration of passages, not corrupt, but obscure--we may not be wrong in suspecting that more has been lost than added in the eighteenth and present centuries to the _savans in us_, as the French affect to call them, whom we find in the bulky and forgotten volumes of Gruter.

|Editions of Greek and Latin Authors.|

9. Another and more numerous class of those who devoted themselves to the same labour, were the editors of Greek and Roman authors. And here again it is impossible to do more than mention a few, who seem, in the judgment of the best scholars, to stand above their contemporaries. The early translations of Greek, made in the fifteenth century, and generally very defective through the slight knowledge of the language that even the best scholars then possessed, were replaced by others more exact; the versions of Xenophon by Leunclavius, of Plutarch by Xylander, of Demosthenes by Wolf, of Euripides and Aristides by Canter, are greatly esteemed. Of the first, Huet says, that he omits or perverts nothing, his Latin often answering to the Greek, word for word, and preserving the construction and arrangement, so that we find the original author complete, yet with a purity of idiom, and a free and natural air not often met with.[889] Stephens however, according to Scaliger, did not highly esteem the learning of Leunclavius.[890] France, Germany, and the Low Countries, besides Basle and Geneva, were the prolific parents of new editions, in many cases very copiously illustrated by erudite commentaries.

[889] Baillet. Blount. Niceron, vol. 26.

[890] Scaligerana Secunda.

|Tacitus of Lipsius.|

10. The Tacitus of Lipsius is his best work, in the opinion of Scaliger and in his own. So great a master was he of this favourite author, that he offered to repeat any passage with a dagger at his breast, to be used against him on a failure of memory.[891] Lipsius, after residing several years at Leyden in the profession of the reformed religion, went to Louvain, and discredited himself by writing in favour of the legendary miracles of that country, losing sight of all his critical sagacity. The Protestants treated his desertion and these later writings with a contempt which has perhaps sometimes been extended to his productions of a superior character. The article on Lipsius, in Bayle, betrays some of this spirit; and it appears in other Protestants, especially Dutch critics. Hence they undervalue his Greek learning, as if he had not been able to read the language, and impute plagiarism, when there seems to be little ground for the charge. Casaubon admits that Lipsius has translated Polybius better than his predecessors, though he does not rate his Greek knowledge very high.[892]

[891] Niceron, xxiv. 219.

[892] Casaub. Epist. xxi. A long and elaborate critique on Lipsius
will be found in Baillet, vol. ii. (4to edit.), art. 437. See also
Blount, Bayle, and Niceron.

|Horace of Lambinus.|

11. Acidalius, whose premature death robbed philological literature of one from whom much had been expected,[893] Paulus Manutius, and Petrus Victorius, are to be named with honour for the criticism of Latin authors, and the Lucretius of Giffen or Giphanius, published at Antwerp, 1566, is still esteemed.[894] But we may select the Horace of Lambinus as a conspicuous testimony to the classical learning of this age. It appeared in 1561. In this he claims to have amended the text, by the help of ten manuscripts, most of them found by him in Italy, whither he had gone in the suite of Cardinal Tournon. He had previously made large collections for the illustration of Horace, from the Greek philosophers and poets, from Athenæus, Stobæus and Pausanias, and other sources with which the earlier interpreters had been less familiar. Those commentators, however, among whom Hermannus Figulus, Badius Ascensius, and Antonius Mancinellus, as well as some who had confined themselves to the Ars Poetica, Grisolius, Achilles Statius (in his real name Estaço, one of the few good scholars of Portugal), and Luisinius, are the most considerable, had not left unreaped a very abundant harvest of mere explanation. But Lambinus contributed much to a more elegant criticism, by pointing out parallel passages, and by displaying the true spirit and feeling of his author. The text acquired a new aspect, we may almost say, in the hands of Lambinus, at least when we compare it with the edition of Landino in 1482; but some of the gross errors in this had been corrected by intermediate editors. It may be observed, that he had far less assistance from prior commentators in the Satires and Epistles than in the Odes. Lambinus, who became professor of Greek at Paris in 1561, is known also by his editions of Demosthenes, of Lucretius, and of Cicero.[895] That of Plautus is in less esteem. He has been reproached with a prolixity and tediousness, which has naturalised the verb _lambiner_ in the French language. But this imputation is not in my opinion applicable to his commentary upon Horace, which I should rather characterise as concise. It is always pertinent and full of matter. Another charge against Lambinus is for rashness in conjectural[896] emendation, no unusual failing of ingenious and spirited editors.

[893] The notes of Acidalius (who died at the age of 28, in 1595), on
Tacitus, Plautus, and other Latin authors, are much esteemed. He is
a bold corrector of the text. The Biographie Universelle has a
better article than that in the 34th volume of Niceron.

[894] Biogr. Univ.

[895] This edition by Lambinus is said to mark the beginning of one of
the seven ages in which those of the great Roman orator have been
arranged. The first comprehends the early editions of separate
works. The second begins with the earliest entire edition, that of
Milan in 1498. The third is dated from the first edition which
contains copious notes, that of Venice, by Petrus Victorius, in
1534. The fourth, from the more extensive annotations given not
long afterwards by Paulus Manutius. The fifth, as has just been
said, from this edition by Lambinus, in 1566, which has been
thought too rash in correction of the text. A sixth epoch was made
by Gruter, in 1618; and this period is reckoned to comprehend most
editions of that and the succeeding century; for the seventh and
last age dates, it seems, only from the edition of Ernesti, in
1774. Biogr. Univ., art. Cicero. See Blount, for discrepant
opinions expressed by the critics about the general merits of
Lambinus.

[896] Henry Stephens says, that no one had been so audacious in
altering the text by conjecture as Lambinus. In Manutio non tantam
quantam in Lambino audaciam, sed valde tamen periculosam et citam.
Maittaire, vitæ Stephanorum, p. 401. It will be seen that Scaliger
finds exactly the same fault with Stephens himself.

|Of Cruquius.|

12. Cruquius (de Crusques) of Ypres, having the advantage of several new manuscripts of Horace, which he discovered in a convent at Ghent, published an edition with many notes of his own, besides an abundant commentary, collected from the glosses he found in his manuscripts, usually styled the Scholiast of Cruquius. The Odes appear at Bruges, 1565; the Epodes at Antwerp, 1569; the Satires in 1575; the whole together was first published in 1578. But the Scholiast is found in no edition of Cruquius’s Horace before 1595.[897] Cruquius appears to me inferior as a critic to Lambinus; and borrowing much from him as well as Turnebus, seldom names him except for censure. An edition of Horace at Basle, in 1580, sometimes called that of the forty commentators, including a very few before the extinction of letters, is interesting in philological history, by the light it throws on the state of criticism in the earlier part of the century, for it is remarkable that Lambinus is not included in the number, and it will, I think, confirm what has been said above in favour of those older critics.

[897] Biogr. Univ.

|Henry Stephens.|

13. Henry Stephens, thus better known among us than by his real surname Etienne, the most illustrious (if indeed he surpassed his father) of a family of great printers, began his labours at Paris in 1554, with the princeps editio of Anacreon.[898] He had been educated in that city under Danes Toussain and Turnebus;[899] and, though equally learned in both languages, devoted himself to Greek, as being more neglected than Latin.[900] The press of Stephens might be called the central point of illumination to Europe. In the year 1557 alone, he published, as Maittaire observes, more editions of ancient authors than would have been sufficient to make the reputation of another author. His publications, as enumerated by Niceron (I have not counted them in Maittaire) amount to 103, of which by far the greater part are classical editions, more valuable than his original works. Baillet says of Henry Stephens, that he was second only to Budæus in Greek learning, though he seems to put Turnebus and Camerarius nearly on the same level. But perhaps the majority of scholars would think him superior on the whole to all the three; and certainly Turnebus, whose Adversaria are confined to Latin interpretation, whatever renown he might deserve by his oral lectures, has left nothing that could warrant our assigning him an equal place. Scaliger, however, accuses Henry Stephens of spoiling all the authors he edited by wrong alterations of the text.[901] This charge is by no means unfrequently brought against the critics of this age.

[898] An excellent life of Henry Stephens, as well as others of the
rest of his family, was written by Maittaire, but which does not
supersede those formerly published by Almeloveen. These together
are among the best illustrations of the philological history of the
16th century that we possess. They have been abridged, with some
new matter, by Mr. Greswell, in his Early History of the Parisian
Greek Press. Almeloveen, Vitæ Stephanorum, p. 60. Maittaire, p. 200.

[899] Almeloveen, p. 70. His father made him learn Greek before he had
acquired Latin. Maittaire, p. 198.

[900] The life of Stephens in the 36th volume of Niceron is long and
useful. That in the Biographie Universelle is not bad, but
enumerates few editions published by this most laborious scholar,
and thus reduces the number of his works to twenty-six. Huet says
(whom I quote from Blount), that Stephens may be called “The
Translator par excellence;” such is his diligence and accuracy, so
happy his skill in giving the character of his author, so great his
perspicuity and elegance.

[901] Omnes quotquot edidit, editve libros, etiam meos, suo arbitrio
jam corrupit et deinceps corrumpet. Scalig. Prima, p. 96. Against
this sharp, and perhaps rash, judgment, we may set that of
Maittaire, a competent scholar, though not like Scaliger, and
without his arrogance and scorn of the world. Henrici editiones
ideo miror, quod eas, quam posset accuratissime aut ipse aut per
alios, quos complures noverat, viros eruditos, ad omnium tum
manuscriptorum tum impressorum codicum fidem, non sine maximo
delectu et suo (quo maximè in Græcis præsertim pollebat) aliorumque
judicio elaboravit. Vitæ Stephanorum, t. ii. p. 284. No man perhaps
ever published so many editions as Stephens; nor was any other
printer of so much use to letters; for he knew much more than the
Aldi or the Juntas. Yet he had planned many more publications, as
Maittaire has collected from what he has dropped in various places,
p. 469.

|Lexicon of Constantin.|

14. The year 1572 is an epoch in Greek literature, by the publication of Stephens’s Thesaurus. A lexicon had been published at Basle in 1562, by Robert Constantin, who, though he made use of that famous press, lived at Caen, of which he was a native. Scaliger speaks in a disparaging tone both of Constantin and his lexicon. But its general reputation has been much higher. A modern critic observes, that “a very great proportion of the explanations and authorities in Stephens’s Thesaurus are borrowed from it.”[902] We must presume that this applies to the first edition; for the second, enlarged by Æmilius Portus, which is more common, did not appear till 1591.[903] “The principal defects of Constantin,” it is added, “are first the confused and ill-digested arrangement of the interpretation of words, and secondly, the absence of all distinction between primitives and derivatives.” It appears by a Greek letter of Constantin, prefixed to the first edition, that he had been assisted in his labours by Gesner, Henry Stephens, Turnebus, Camerarius, and other learned contemporaries. He gives his authorities, if not so much as we should desire, very far more than the editors of the former Basle lexicon. This lexicon, as was mentioned in the first volume, is extremely defective and full of errors, though a letter of Grynæus, prefixed to the edition of 1539, is nothing but a strain of unqualified eulogy, little warranted by the suffrage of later scholars. I found, however, on a loose calculation, the number of words in this edition to be not much less than 50,000.[904]

[902] Quarterly Review, vol. xxvii.

[903] The first edition of this Lexicon sometimes bears the name of
Crespin, the printer at Basle; and both Baillet and Bayle have
fallen into the mistake of believing that there were two different
works. See Niceron, vol. xxvii.

[904] Henry Stephens in an epistle, De suæ Typographiæ statu ad quosdam
amicos, gives an account of his own labours on the Thesaurus. The
following passage on the earlier lexicons may be worth reading. Iis
quæ circumferuntur lexicis Græco-Latinis primam imposuit manum
monachus quidam, frater Johannes Crastonus, Placentinus,
Carmelitanus; sed cum is jejunis expositionibus, in quibus
vernaculo etiam sermone interdum, id est Italico, utitur, contentus
fuisset, perfunctoriè item constructiones verborum indicasset,
nullos autorum locos proferens ex quibus illæ pariter et
significationes cognosci possent; multi postea certatim multa hinc
inde sine ullo delectu ac judicio excerpta inseruerunt. Donec
tandem indoctis typographis de augenda lexicorum mole inter se
certantibus, et præmia iis qui id præstarent proponentibus, quæ
jejunæ, et, si ita loqui licet, macilentæ antea erant expositiones,
adeo pingues et crassæ redditæ sunt, ut in illis passim nihil aliud
quam Bœoticam suem agnoscamus. Nam pauca ex Budæo, aliisque idoneis
autoribus, et ea quidem parum fideliter descripta, utpote parum
intellecta, multa contra ex Lapo Florentino, Leonardo Aretino,
aliisque ejusdem farinæ interpretibus, ut similes habent labra
lactucas, in opus illud transtulerunt. Ex iis quidem certe locis in
quorum interpretatione felix fuit Laurentius Valla, paucissimos
protulerunt; sed pro perverso suo judicio, perversissimas quasque
ejus interpretationes, quales prope innumeras a me annotatas in
Latinis Herodoti et Thucydidis editionibus videbis, delegerunt
egregii illi lexicorum seu consarcinatores seu interpolatores,
quibus, tanquam gemmis, illa insignirent. Quod si non quam multa,
sed duntaxat quam multorum generum errata ibi sint, commemorare
velim, merito certe exclamabo, τί ηρῶτον, τί δ' επειτα, τί δ'
ὑστάτιον καταλέξω [ti prôton, ti d’ epeita, ti d’ hustation
katalexô]; vix enim ullum vitii genus posse a nobis cogitari aut
fingi existimo, cujus ibi aliquod exemplum non extat, p. 156. He
produces afterwards some gross instances of error.

|Thesaurus of Stephens.|

15. Henry Stephens had devoted twelve years of his laborious life to this immense work, large materials for which had been collected by his father. In comprehensive and copious interpretation of words it not only left far behind every earlier dictionary, but is still the single Greek lexicon; one which some have ventured to abridge or enlarge, but none have presumed to supersede. Its arrangement, as is perhaps scarce necessary to say, is not according to an alphabetical, but radical order; that is, the supposed roots following each other alphabetically, every derivative or compound, of whatever initial letter, is placed after the primary word. This method is certainly not very convenient to the uninformed reader; and perhaps, even with a view to the scientific knowledge of the language, it should have been deferred for a more advanced stage of etymological learning. The Thesaurus embodies the critical writings of Budæus and Camerarius, with whatever else had been contributed by the Greek exiles of the preceding age, and by their learned disciples. Much, no doubt, has since been added to what we find in the Thesaurus of Stephens, as to the nicety of idiom and syntax, or to the principles of formation of words, but not, perhaps, in copiousness of explanation, which is the proper object of a dictionary. “The leading defects conspicuous in Stephens,” it is said by the critic already quoted, “are inaccurate or falsified quotations, the deficiency of several thousand words, and a wrong classification both of primitives and derivatives. At the same time, we ought rather to be surprised that, under existing disadvantages, he accomplished so much even in this last department, than that he left so much undone.”

|Abridged by Scapula.|

16. It has been questioned among bibliographers, whether there are two editions of the Thesaurus; the first in 1572, the second without a date, and probably after 1580. The affirmative seems to be sufficiently proved.[905] The sale, however, of so voluminous and expensive a work did not indemnify its author; and it has often been complained of, that Scapula, who had been employed under Stephens, injured his superior by the publication of his well-known abridgment in 1579. The fact, however, that Scapula had possessed this advantage, rests on little evidence, and his preface, if it were true, would be the highest degree of effrontery: it was natural that some one should abridge so voluminous a lexicon. Literature, at least, owes an obligation to Scapula.[906] The temper of Henry Stephens, restless and uncertain, was not likely to retain riches; he passed several years in wandering over Europe, and having wasted a considerable fortune amassed by his father, died in a public hospital at Lyons in 1598,[907] “opibus,” says his biographer, “atque etiam ingenio destitutus in nosocomio.”

[905] Niceron (vol. xxvi.) contends that the supposed second edition
differs only by a change in the title-page, wherein we find rather
an unhappy attempt at wit, in the following distich aimed at
Scapula:

Quidam επιτεμνων [epitemnôn] me capulo tenus abdidit ensem:
Æger eram a scapulis; sanus at huc redeo.

But it seems that Stephens, in his Palæstra de Lipsii Latinitate,
mentions this second edition, which is said by those who have
examined it, to have fewer typographical errors than the other,
though it is admitted that the leaves might be intermixed without
inconvenience, so close is the resemblance. Vid. Maittaire, p.
356-360. Brunet, Man. du Libr. Greswell, vol. ii. p. 289.

[906] Maittaire says that Scapula’s lexicon is as perfidious to the
reader as its author was to his master, and that Dr. Busby would
not suffer his boys to use it, p. 358. But this has hardly been the
general opinion. See Quarterly Review, _ubi suprâ_.

[907] Casaubon writes frequently to Scaliger about the strange behaviour
of his father-in-law, and complains that he had not even leave to
look at the books in the latter’s library, which he himself scarce
ever visited. Nôsti hominem, nôsti mores, nôsti quid apud eum
possim, hoc est, quam nihil possim, qui videtur in suam perniciem
conspirâsse. Epist. 21. And, still more severely, Epist. 41. Nam
noster, etsi vivens valensque, pridem numero hominum, certe
doctorum, eximi meruit; ea est illius inhumanitas, et quod invitus
dico, delirium; qui libros quoslibet veteres, ut Indici gryphi
aurum, aliis invidet, sibi perire sinit, sed quid ille habeat aut
non, juxta scio ego cum ignavissimo. After Stephens’s death, he
wrote in kinder terms than he had done before: but regretting some
publications, by which the editor of Casaubon’s letters thinks he
might mean the Apologie pour Herodote, and the Palæstra de Justi
Lipsii Latinitate; the former of which, a very well-known book,
contains a spirited attack on the Romish priesthood, but with less
regard either for truth or decorum in the selection of his stories
than became the character of Stephens; and the latter is of little
pertinence to its avowed subject. Henry Stephens had long been
subject to a disorder natural enough to laborious men, quædam
actionum consuetarum satietas et fastidium, Maittaire, p. 248.

Robert Stephens had carried with him to Geneva in 1550, the punches
of his types, made at the expense of Francis I., supposing,
perhaps, that they were a gift of the king. On the death, however,
of Henry Stephens, they were claimed by Henry IV., and the senate
of Geneva restored them. They had been pledged for 400 crowns, and
Casaubon complains as of a great injury, that the estate of
Stephens was made answerable to the creditor, when the pledge was
given up to the king of France. See Le Clerc’s remarks on this in
Bibliothèque Choisie, vol. xix. p. 219. Also a vindication of
Stephens by Maittaire from the charge of having stolen them (Vitæ
Stephanorum, i. 34), and again in Greswell’s Parisian Press, i.
399. He seems above the suspicion of theft; but whether he had just
cause to think the punches were his own, it is now impossible to
decide.

|Hellenismus of Caninius.|

|Vergara’s grammar.|

17. The Hellenismus of Angelus Caninius, a native of the Milanese, is merely a grammar. Tanaquil Faber prefers it not only to that of Clenardus, but to all which existed even in his own time. It was published at Paris in 1555. Those who do not express themselves so strongly, place him above his predecessors. Caninius is much fuller than Clenardus; the edition by Crenius (Leyden, 1700), containing 380 pages. The syntax is very scanty; but Caninius was well conversant with the mutations of words, and is diligent in noting the differences of dialects, in which he has been thought to excel. He was acquainted with the digamma, and with its Latin form. I will take this opportunity of observing that the Greek grammar of Vergara, mentioned in the first volume of this work (p. 488), and of which I now possess the Paris edition of 1557, printed by William Morel (ad Complutensem editionem excusum et restitutum) appears superior to those of Clenardus or Varenius. This book is doubtless very scarce; it is plain that Tanaquil Faber, Baillet, Morhof, and, I should add, Nicolas Antonio, had never seen it,[908] nor is it mentioned by Brunet or Watts.[909] There is, however, a copy in the British Museum. Scaliger says that it is very good, and that Caninius has borrowed from it the best parts.[910] Vergara had, of course, profited by the commentaries of Budæus, the great source of Greek philology in western Europe; but he displays, as far as I can judge by recollection more than comparison, an ampler knowledge of the rules of Greek than any of his other contemporaries. This grammar contains 438 pages, more than 100 of which are given to the syntax. A small grammar by Nunez, published at Valencia in 1555, seems chiefly borrowed from Clenardus or Vergara.

[908] Blount, Baillet.

[909] Antonio says it was printed at Alcala, 1573; deinde Parisiis,
1550. The first is of course a false print; if the second is not so
likewise, he had never seen the book.

[910] Scaligerana Secunda. F. Vergara, Espagnol, a composé une bonne
grammaire Grecque, mais Caninius a pris tout le meilleur de tous,
et a mis du sien aussi quelque chose dans son Hellenismus. This, as
Bayle truly observes, reduces the eulogies Scaliger has elsewhere
given Cannius to very little. Scaliger’s loose expressions are not
of much value. Yet he who had seen Vergara’s grammar, might better
know what was original in others, than Tanaquil Faber, who had
never seen it.

|Grammars of Ramus and Sylburgius.|

18. Peter Ramus, in 1557, gave a fresh proof of his acuteness and originality, by publishing a Greek grammar, with many important variances from his precursors. Scaliger speaks of it with little respect; but he is habitually contemptuous towards all but his immediate friends.[911] Lancelot, author of the Port Royal grammar, praises highly that of Ramus, though he reckons it too intricate. This grammar I have not seen in its original state, but Sylburgius published one in 1582, which he professes to have taken from the last edition of the Ramean grammar. It has been said that Laurence Rhodomann was the first who substituted the partition of the declensions of Greek nouns into three for that of Clenardus, who introduced or retained the prolix and unphilosophical division into ten.[912] But Ramus is clearly entitled to this credit. It would be doubted whether he is equally to be praised, as he certainly has not been equally followed, in making no distinction of conjugations, nor separating the verbs in μι [mi] from those in ὡ [ô], on the ground that their general flexion is the same. Much has been added to this grammar by Sylburgius himself, a man in the first rank of Greek scholars; “especially,” as he tells us, “in the latter books, so that it may be called rather a supplement than an abridgment of the grammar of Ramus.” The syntax in this grammar is much better than in Clenardus, from whom some have erroneously supposed Sylburgius to have borrowed; but I have not compared him with Vergara.[913] The Greek grammar of Sanctius is praised by Lancelot; yet, from what he tells us of it, we may infer that Sanctius, though a great master of Latin, being comparatively unlearned in Greek, displayed such temerity in his hypotheses as to fall into very great errors. The first edition was printed at Antwerp in 1581.

[911] Scaligerana. Casaubon, it must be owned, who had more candour
than Scaliger, speaks equally ill of the grammar of Ramus. Epist.
878.

[912] Morhof, l. iv. c. 6. Preface to translation of Matthiæ’s Greek
grammar. The learned author of this preface has not alluded to
Ramus, and though he praises Sylburgius for his improvements in the
mode of treating grammar, seems unacquainted with that work which I
mention in the text. Two editions of it are in the British Museum,
1582 and 1600: but, upon comparison, I believe that there is no
difference between them.

The best of these grammars of the sixteenth century bear no sort of
comparison with those which have been latterly published in
Germany. And it seems strange at first sight, that the old
scholars, such as Budæus, Erasmus, Camerarius, and many more,
should have written Greek, which they were fond of doing, much
better than from their great ignorance of many fundamental rules of
syntax we could have anticipated. But reading continually, and
thinking in Greek, they found comparative accuracy by a secret
tact, and by continual imitation of what they read. Language is
always a mosaic work, made up of associated fragments, not of
separate molecules; we repeat, not the simple words, but the
phrases and even the sentences we have caught from others. Budæus
wrote Greek without knowing its grammar, that is, without a
distinct notion of moods or tenses, as men speak their own language
tolerably well without having ever attended to a grammatical rule.
Still many faults must be found in such writing on a close
inspection. The case was partly the same in Latin during the Middle
Ages, except that Latin was at that time better understood than
Greek was in the sixteenth century; not that so many words were
known, but those who wrote it best had more correct notions of the
grammar.

[913] Vossius says of the grammarians in general, ex quibus doctrinæ
et industriæ laudem maxime mihi meruisse videntur Angelus Caninius
et Fridericus Sylburgius. Aristarchus, p. 6. It is said that, in
his own grammar, which is on the basis of Clenardus, Vossius added
little to what he had taken from the two former. Baillet, in
Caninio.

|Camerarius, Canter, Robortellus.|

19. A few more books of a grammatical nature, falling within the present period, may be found in Morhof, Baillet, and the bibliographical collections; but neither in number nor importance do they deserve much notice.[914] In a more miscellaneous philology, the Commentaries of Camerarius, 1551, are superior to any publication of the kind since that of Budæus in 1529. The Novæ Lectiones of William Canter, though the work of a very young man, deserve to be mentioned as almost the first effort of an art which has done much for ancient literature--that of restoring a corrupt text, through conjecture, not loose and empirical, but guided by a skilful sagacity, and upon principles which we may without impropriety not only call scientific, but approximating sometimes to the logic of the Novum Organum. The earlier critics, not always possessed of many manuscripts, had recourse, more indeed in Latin than in Greek, to conjectural emendation; the prejudice against which, often carried too far by those who are not sufficiently aware of the enormous ignorance and carelessness which ordinary manuscripts display, has also been heightened by the random and sometimes very improbable guesses of editors. Canter, besides the practice he showed in his Novæ Lectiones, laid down the principles of his theory in a “Syntagma de Ratione emendandi Græcos Auctores,” reprinted in the second volume of Jebb’s edition of Aristides. He here shows what letters are apt to be changed into others by error of transcription, or through a source not perhaps quite so obvious--the uniform manner of pronouncing several vowels and diphthongs among the later Greeks, which they were thus led to confound, especially when a copyist wrote from dictation. But besides these corruptions, it appears by the instances Canter gives, that almost any letters are liable to be changed into almost any others. The abbreviations of copyists are also great causes of corruption, and require to be known by those who would restore the text. Canter, however, was not altogether the founder of this school of criticism. Robortellus, whose vanity and rude contempt of one so much superior to himself as Sigonius, has perhaps caused his own real learning to be undervalued, had already written a treatise, entitled “De Arte sive Ratione corrigendi Antiquorum Libros Disputatio;” in which he claims to be the first who devised this art, “nunc primum à me excogitata.” It is not a bad work, though probably rather superficial, according to our present views. He points out the general characters of manuscripts, and the different styles of handwriting; after which he proceeds to the rules of conjecture, making good remarks on the causes of corruption and consequent means of restoration. It is published in the second volume of Gruter’s Thesaurus Criticus. Robortellus, however, does not advert to Greek manuscripts, a field upon which Canter first entered. The Novæ Lectiones of William Canter are not to be confounded with the Variæ Lectiones of his brother Theodore, a respectable but less eminent scholar. Canter, it may be added, was the first, according to Boissonade, who, in his edition of Euripides, restored some sort of order and measure to the choruses.[915]

[914] In the British Museum is a book by one Guillon, of whom I find
no account in biography, called Gnomon, on the quantity of Greek
syllables. This seems to be the earliest work of the kind; and he
professes himself to write against those who think “quidvis licere
in quantitate syllabarum.” It is printed at Paris, 1556; and it
appears by Watts that there are other editions.

[915] Biogr. Univ. The Life of Canter in Melchior Adam is one of the
best his collection contains; it seems to be copied from one by
Miræus. Canter was a man of great moral as well as literary
excellence; the account of his studies and mode of life in this
biography is very interesting. The author of it dwells justly on
Canter’s skill in exploring the text of manuscripts, and in
observing the variations of orthography. See also Blount, Baillet,
Niceron, vol. xxix., and Chalmers.

|Editions by Sylburgius.|

20. Sylburgius, whose grammar has been already praised, was of great use to Stephens in compiling the Thesaurus; it has even been said, but perhaps with German partiality, that the greater part of its value is due to him.[916] The editions of Sylburgius, especially those of Aristotle and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, are among the best of that age; none, indeed, containing the entire works of the Stagyrite, is equally esteemed.[917] He had never risen above the station of a schoolmaster in small German towns, till he relinquished the employment for that of superintendent of classical editions in the press of Wechel, and afterwards in that of Commelia. But the death of this humble and laborious man, in 1596, was deplored by Casaubon as one of the heaviest blows that learning could have sustained.

|Neander.|

21. Michael Neander, a disciple of Melanchthon and Camerarius, who became rector of a flourishing school at Isfeld in Thuringia soon after 1550, and remained there till his death in 1595, was certainly much inferior to Sylburgius; yet to him Germany was chiefly indebted for keeping alive, in the general course of study, some little taste for Grecian literature, which towards the end of the century was rapidly declining. The “Erotemata Græcæ Linguæ” of Neander, according to Eichhorn, drove the earlier grammars out of use in the schools.[918] But the publications of Neander appear to be little more than such extracts from the Greek writers as he thought would be useful in education.[919] Several of them are gnomologies, or collections of moral sentences from the poets; a species of compilation not uncommon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but neither exhibiting much learning nor favourable to the acquisition of a true feeling for ancient poetry. The Thesaurus of Basilius Faber, another work of the same class, published in 1571, is reckoned by Eichhorn among the most valuable school-books of this period, and continued to be used and reprinted for two hundred years.[920]

[916] Melchior Adam, p. 193. In the article of the Quarterly Review,
several times already quoted, it is said that the Thesaurus “bears
much plainer marks of the sagacity and erudition of Sylburgius than
of the desultory and hasty studies of his master, than whom he was
more clear-sighted;” a compliment at the expense of Stephens, not
perhaps easily reconcileable with the eulogy a little before passed
by the reviewer on the latter, as the greatest of Greek scholars
except Casaubon. Stephens says of himself, quem habuit
(Sylburgius), novo quodam more dominum simul ac præceptorem, quod
ille beneficium pro sua ingenuitate agnoscit (apud Maittaire, p.
421). But it has been remarked that Stephens was not equally
ingenuous, and never acknowledges any obligation to Sylburgius, p.
583. Scaliger says, Stephanus non solus fecit Thesaurum; plusieurs
y ont mis la main; and in another place, Sylburgius a travaillé au
Trésor de H. Estienne. But it is impossible for us to apportion the
disciple’s share in this great work; which might be more than
Stephens owned, and less than the Germans have claimed. Niceron,
which is remarkable, has no life of Sylburgius.

[917] The Aristotle of Sylburgius is properly a series of editions of
that philosopher’s separate works, published from 1584 to 1596. It
is in great request when found complete, which is rarely the case.
It has no Latin translation.

[918] Geschichte der Cultur. iii. 277.

[919] Niceron, vol. xxx.

[920] Eichhorn, 274.

|Gesner.|

22. Conrad Gesner belongs almost equally to the earlier and later periods of the sixteenth century. Endowed with unwearied diligence, and with a mind capacious of omnifarious erudition, he was probably the most comprehensive scholar of the age. Some of his writings have been mentioned in the first volume. His “Mithridates, sive de Differentiis Linguarum” is the earliest effort on a great scale to arrange the various languages of mankind by their origin and analogies. He was deeply versed in Greek literature, and especially in the medical and physical writers; but he did not confine himself to that province. It may be noticed here, that in his Stobæus, published in 1543, Gesner first printed Greek and Latin in double columns.[921] He was followed by Turnebus, in an edition of Aristotle’s Ethics (Paris, 1555), and the practice became gradually general, though some sturdy scholars, such as Stephens and Sylburgius, did not comply with it. Gesner seems to have had no expectation that the Greek text would be much read, and only recommends it as useful in conjunction with the Latin.[922] Scaliger, however, deprecates so indolent a mode of study, and ascribes the decline of Greek learning to these unlucky double columns.[923]

[921] This I give only on the authority of Chevillier, Origine de
l’Imprimerie de Paris.

[922] Id. p. 240.