given in sixteenth-century works. Even in 1633 a Scotch Grammar[1] tells us that “the genders are seven in number: masculine, feminine, neuter, common of two, common of three, promiscuous, and doubtful.” At this rate, why stop at seven? It is surprising that the writer did not bring their number up to twenty-one and work them into a mnemonic verse. For the beginner seven genders must have been a more crushing burden than the As in præsenti that caused such agony to our grandfathers.
The set of metrical rules beginning with this locution, as well as the Propria que maribus, were by Lily, one of the first masters at St. Paul’s School and afterwards high-master of Wolsey’s school at Ipswich, and are often found affixed to his Brevissima Institutio, the most popular Grammar ever written and the basis of the Eton Latin Grammar published in 1826.
Lily’s work appeared in many forms. The edition of 1577[2] is in English with a Latin appendix, and is prefaced by an injunction of Elizabeth “Not to teache your youth and scholers with any other Grammar than with this English introduction hereafter ensuing, and the Latine Grammar affixed to the same.” The use of the Brevissima Institutio was confined to England, but Lily’s Syntax met with considerable success on the continent. An edition[3] was brought out by Erasmus at Strasburg in 1515, and was afterwards reprinted at Basle, Paris, Antwerp, and Cologne.
We cannot leave Lily without giving some account of his rules Ad discipulos de moribus. These survey the whole field of school morality in elegiac verse.
- ↑ ‘Rudimenta Grammatices in Gratiam juventutis Scotiæ conscripta. Edinburgi. Excudebat Joannes Wrentoun. 1633.’Quid adfers de genere? Genera sunt numero septem: Masculinum, Fœmininum, Neutrum, Commune duum, Commune trium, Promiscuum, et Dubium.
- ↑ ‘A short introduction of Grammar generally to be used, compyled and set forth for the bringing up of all those that intend to attayne the knowledge of the Latin tongue.’ London, 1577.
- ↑ ‘Absolutissimus de octo Orationis partium constructione libellus, nuperrime recognitus. Argentorati, 1515.’
