enumerates him among the best writ- who has been employed by the poteners of comedy, and in Ben Jonson's tate to paint her portrait; here is a celebrated epitaph upon Shakespeare soliloquy in which her passion is reoccur the lines: vealed: I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine, etc. Campaspe, it is hard to. judge whether thy choice be more unwise, or thy chance unfortunate. Dost thou prefer - but stay, utter not that in words, which maketh Blount tells us that his plays "crowned thine ears to glow with thy thoughts. him with applause, and the spectators Tush, better thy tongue wag than thy with pleasure." Yet of all the produc-heart break. Hath a painter crept farther tions of the age they seem to me the into thy mind than a prince? Apelles most mediocre. The period in which than Alexander? fond wench! The basethey were composed between 1584 ness of thy mind bewrays the meanness of and 1589-ranks him among the pre-which kindleth as well in the bramble, as thy birth. But, alas affection is a fire Shakespearians - Kyd, Peele, Greene, in the oak, and catcheth hold where it first Lodge, Marlowe; but his style has lighteth, nor where it may best burn. nothing in common with theirs, it Larks that mount aloft in the air, build rather resembles that of a yet earlier their nests below in the earth; and women class of dramatic writers, such as that cast their eyes upon kings, may place George Gascoigne, and those others their hearts upon vassals. A needle will who translated or adapted classical become thy fingers better than a lute, and plays for the entertainment of the a distaff is fitter for thy hand than a universities and inns of court; in- sceptre. Ants live safely till they have deed, the six comedies reprinted by gotten wings; and juniper is not blown up, till it hath gotten on high top. The mean Blount in 1632 are styled "Court Comedies," and were all originally ueth without pride. estate is without care as long as it continrepresented before the queen by the children of Paul's on certain festivals What a soliloquy for a love-sick damfind the following exquisite song of sel! And yet in this same play we Apelles : Cupid and my Campaspe play'd The coral of his life, the rose as New Year's Night, Twelfth Night, Candlemas. All are written in prose, the plots and subjects being taken from Terence, Ovid, Pliny, etc. The language is for the most part correct and carefully finished, and is notable for a delicacy little characteristic of those free-speaking times; any one of these plays might now be read aloud in a mixed company with scarcely an omission. But while devoid of the licentious freedom of contemporary works they are equally barren of the fire, the poetry, the wit, the genius which condone that offence. Any productions more cold, more pedantic, more wearisomely uninteresting it would be diffiis a lyric worthy of Greene, cult to discover; scenes intended by Fletcher, and even Shakethe author to be witty and humorous speare. Can it be from the same pen are stuffed with dull conceits and dis- that wrote the preceding pedantic jartorted words, while the serious parts gon? It must be remarked that are destitute both of romance and pas- neither this, nor several other charmsion. Campaspe-to take an example ing songs scattered through the plays, from his first play, "Alexander and appeared in the original quartos, but Campaspe "-is loved by Alexander, only in Blount's edition, to which refbut has fallen in love with Apelles, erence has been made already; this With these, the crystal of his brow, Peele, ful. may render their authenticity doubt-and "Love's Metamorphosis," prose; the last bears the date 1601. Alexander, as here presented, is the These, then, like the other six, were very mildest of potentates, and when first represented by the children of he discovers Campaspe's love for Paul's, for, although one of the proApelles, relinquishes her with, "I per-logues informs us that " Alexander and ceive Alexander cannot subdue the Campaspe "" was at one time performed affections of men, though he conquer at the Blackfriars, it is evident that their countries. Love falleth like a dew, as well upon the low grass as upon the high cedar. Sparks have their heat, auts their gall, flies their spleen." Lyly was at no time a writer for the public theatres. Whether his muse was purposely subdued to suit the taste of those for whose entertainment she was evoked, or whether she was incapable of any bolder or loftier flights, it would be impossible to determine, but she certainly would not have been acceptable to the groundlings who delighted in the "Spanish Tragedy," or "Bussy d'Ambois." 29 At Shrovetide, in the same year in which he produced "Alexander and Campaspe,' ‚""Sappho and Phaon " was played before the queen by the same actors, the children of Paul's. And at the following Candlemas," Endymion." "Endymion" is an allegorical As a writer, Lyly can only be esplay, in which, under the character of teemed as a curious fossil, and it is Cynthia, the most fulsome flattery is scarcely possible that the wheel of lavished upon 66 the Virgin Queen." fashion can ever bring him into vogue Endymion's love is expressed in the again. same Sancho Panzian flow of proverbs and wise saws as that of Euphues or Campaspe. The humor of a portion of one of the scenes between the H. LACEY. From The Contemporary Review. BY JOHN STUART BLACKIE. knight and his page is drawn from THE METHOD OF TEACHING LANGUAGES. definitions contained in the author's Latin Grammar. The three remaining THE learning of foreign languages, court comedies, “Galathea," "6 Midas,' as the example of the ancient Greeks and "Mother Bombie" present much sufficiently shows, is an accomplishthe same features. In "Midas "ment by no means necessary to the occurs the following exquisite morceau; it is sung by Apollo in his contest with Pan: My Daphne's hair is twisted gold, And then no heavenlier warmth is felt, Besides these six comedies, there are three others extant, which have been assigned to Lyly: "The Woman in the Moon," in blank verse, "The Maid's Metamorphosis," in rhyme, highest culture; still, there are circumstances, social conditions, and historical connections which justly give it a high place in the field of popular education. In Russia, for instance, a farback country only half civilized, a man can neither do his duty to his country nor perform his part creditably in society without knowing French, or German, or English, or more probably all the three, in addition to his mothertongue. England also is a remote country, and a certain insularity of character and culture has long marked us off distinctively from the mass of European nations; but our native culture, from Chaucer downwards, has long been so rich, and so grand, and so various, that we have felt no urgent need, like Russia, to complement our linguistic deficiencies by foreign impor tation. Nevertheless, an obligation of ophy and medieval scholasticism, only a serious nature lies on the natives of vague conjectures and ingenious specthis stout old island to make ourselves ulations gave the law. Without modfamiliar with the tongues of foreign ern science, therefore, a modern peoples. Like the Romans, we are, in education, like scholarship without a sense, masters of the world; and as Greek and Latin, is a body without these old civilizers found themselves bones. Botany and geology, zoology, forced to study the language of the chemistry, mechanics - all present Greeks, the most cultivated people be- their claims to a place in the educaneath their sway, so we in the wide tional programme, with a force and a sweep of our political interests, coming pungency which it is impossible to in contact with all peoples from the resist. Let the educational. linguist Thames to the Seine, from the Seine to seriously consider this, and either bring the Nile, and from the Nile to the fewer languages into his programme, Ganges, have serious obligations laid or improve his method of inculcation on us to study the temper and the in such a fashion that three languages tongues of the people we strive to in- may be acquired in the time now necesfluence. But again the facilities of sary for one. That something effectual travel in these latter days are so many can be done in this latter alternative of and so manifold that in the mere the option, it will be the business of course of intelligent travel, the En- the present paper to consider. glishman abroad, who is not content to Happily, in this inquiry we have not lodge in hotels where English is far to seek for a starting-point. The spoken, finds himself forced to steal a starting-point is nature. Magna est glance into German souls through natura, et prævalebit. Every child not German, into Frenchmen through organically defective learns its motherFrench, into the Italian soul through tongue as certainly as it came from its Italian, and into the soul of living mother's womb. Let us examine the Greece through living Greck. But in process. In this primary school of liuaddition to this, Latin and the Greek guistic training the mother is the of the old Attic masters, in that noblest teacher; and how does she act? As of all tongues, have acquired a place in the child's observant faculties develop the higher culture of Englishmen which themselves, and are turned, now on brings them into the foreground of this interesting object, now on that, educational competition, with more fa- she accompanies the young observant miliar, and for social purposes more eye with a sound expressing the name useful, tongues; so that without men- of the object, and this sound being tioning Sanscrit and other Eastern dia- constantly repeated in conjunction with lects, which it is the special duty of the the object, is responded to by the rulers of India to cultivate, the field young speaker, as his faculty of voiceof linguistic appropriation which lies ful expression grows, and so becomes before an intelligent young English- indissolubly connected with the object. man is sufficiently formidable. The The thing seen thus becomes practiquestion then arises, how, by what cally one with the hearing ear, the method and appliances, shall the En- seeing eye, and the voiceful tongue. glish educator hope to gain some lau- The only points in the process, in addirels in this extensive field, without tion to this vital conjunction, in the Encroaching on the time necessary for case of the child and the mother, are other, and it may be more important, the vividness of the interest felt by the subjects of study. We live in an age child in the act of connecting a similar of science; from the days of Bacon sound with an interesting object, and and Newton downwards, a minute ex- the loving devotion of the mother in actness, along with a grace of descrip- watching and drawing out the linguistic tive detail, is found in regions where, faculty of her offspring. So much for in the good old times of Greek philos- the model teacher of languages, the the garden of flowers in the green mother. What now, we have to ask, is the specific difference between the position of this primary teacher in nature's school, and the official person who performs the same function in a village or a burgh school, or in a grand provincial college? The difference lies simply in this: that what the mother does incidentally, and as opportunity offers, the school-teacher is called upon to do systematically and as a formal business. In this systematic action of the professional teacher it is plain that an immense advantage lies; an advantage so great that, if faithful to the method of nature in its main direction, the regular teacher will train a novice to as great a familiarity with a foreigu tongue in five months as the mother or any unsystematic teacher can do in as many years. And if this is not always the case- or, rather, if the contrary is not seldom the case-it is simply because the teacher is not careful to follow the leading of nature in the matter, and instead of turning the classroom into a living echo-chamber of familiar sounds, as the mother does with her parlor and the nurse with her nursery, the maidservant with the whole house, and the cook with the kitchen, he remits his scholars all at once to an apparatus of dead books, with which of course a with books. Homer, I am sure, could living boy has no living sympathy. In- neither read nor write; and Plato, in a stead of books and grammar rules, the famous passage of the "Phædrus,” teacher of languages should commence maintains that letters and printed pawith giving the foreign name to all the per, though useful for record, are more familiar objects which the schoolroom hurtful thau helpful to the exercise of contains, and with which it is sur- the memory, on which the knowledge rounded. The door and the window, of languages mainly depends. Neverthe teacher's rostrum and the chil-theless, books — books of reading, and dren's seats, the fire, with the tongs grammar, and declensions- have their and poker, and the coal-scuttle, the use in the study of languages, but pictures on the wall, and the lobby, always in a secondary way, as a supwhere caps and great-coats, and um- plement to what direct commerce with brellas for a rainy day, and all the the object is inadequate to provide, but paraphernalia of a well-ordered school never as a substitute. Thus the sight are marshalled in orderly array. And of the field of Bannockburn may sugnot only inside but outside the school-gest the story of the Bruce, which house, everything that meets the eye throws the spectator back into the of the observant tyro should be greeted brightest page of a book on Scottish with the new name the old castle on history; and in the same way a visit to the brae, the hollow cave in the glen, the old palace of Holyrood naturally the flowers in the meadow, the cloud-leads the inquiring mind of youth into cleaving Ben that kisses the sky, and the history of the beautiful but unfor lunate Queen Mary, and the Episcopal natural sequence, through the direct despotism of the Stuarts. But even picturing of a living imagination; and here historical and topographical books, however excellent, are to be used by the learner of languages only in a secondary way. On a visit to Holyrood the teacher must first describe viva voce to the learner all the speaking facts that stir his soul in that rich repository of patriotic memories, and next day cause him to repeat viva voce as much of his vivid explanation as he has managed to carry off. Then, and only then, does the province of printed books and reading in the acquisition of languages come naturally and without prejudice into play. this sequence, while furnishing the mental picture-gallery in the first place, will have a reflex action in cultivating the memory; for the learner will in this way see that the verses of a song or a ballad follow one another as necessarily as the acts of a drama, and not only are in such and such an order, but must be so. This dramatic sequence of the verses of a well-constructed lyrical poem is specially characteristic of the Scottish popular songs, as compared with the songs of sentiment in the voicing of which our modern public singers are so fond of displaying their In the next place, with regard to the power. Take, for instance, "The function of books to be used in a sec- Bonnie Hoose o' Airlie," "Tak' yer ondary way, as a supplement to the Auld Cloak aboot Ye," or the humormaterials of familiar dialogue the ous ballads of "Duncan Gray," the main thing here will be to prepare a "Laird o' Cockpen," and the "Barrin' series of books rising from stage to o' the Door," which cannot be sung stage, of variety and expanse of matter effectively without a progressive idenand style, but all starting from the tification with the progressive stages material supplied by the living dia- of the situation; but this dramatic elelogue. Thus, if Bannockburn has ment, though particularly dominant in been viewed and discussed in its main the Scottish ballad, forms an essential features by living appeal through the feature in all popular poetry, as in object to the ear aud voice, some chap-"Was blasen die Trompeten" and ters of the great war of Scottish inde- other historical songs of the German pendence may wisely be read by the liberation war in 1813, and in the learner from a book of topographical, "Death of Nelson," the "Battle of historical, and descriptive natural his- the Nile," and other most popular extory in the foreign tongue, with the pressions of our patriotic seamanship. double object of enlarging his views. beyond what the narrow range of dialogue can supply, and furnishing him with a breadth and variety of expression which belong to the written rather than to the spoken style of language; but always he will be called upon by the wise teacher to express with grace, in the foreign tongue, the larger range of thought and feeling to which he has been introduced by his books. So much for reading; but there is one sort of books, commonly employed in the acquisition of foreign tongues, of which our method has as yet taken no account―viz., grammars. Is grammar not a science? And is it not a science, though abstract and formal, which bears the same relation to a proficient in any language that the study of anatomy does to the medical practitioner? Assuredly, in all good teachIn connection with books and read-ing of languages, grammar will have its ing the teacher will not neglect the place; but it comes in as the regulator opportunity presented by books, of im- of voiceful material, not the precedent. proving the imaginative faculty, while A regulating power is by its very naprofessionally he is only inculcating a ture secondary; it cannot come into new system of vocables. In reading play till there is something to regulate. an historical ballad, for instance, the Take an example: pointing to the sun learner must be trained to call up the when teaching Greek, I say before my different scenes of the story in their tyro in his first lesson, 'O λos λáμπETAI, |