Page:Arte or Crafte of Rhethoryke - 1899.djvu/36

 34 THE ARTE OR CRAFTE OF RHETHORYKE

writing, etc. Interesting peroration reciting the great masters of style, ancient and modern, and mentioning Chaucer, More, Eliot, Ascham, and Jewell. Will not touch upon the future, " nam de future nihil audeo in tanto praesertim tarn admira- bilium ingeniorum flore affirmare."

(g) Richard Mulcaster, " The First Part of the Elementarie which entreateth chefelie of the right writing of our English tung," 1582. Valuable and original observations on the art of writing English, and upon the theory of Education. Largely occupied with orthography. Warm defense of the possibilities of English. The first of handbooks of composition or rhetorics in the modern sense. An ele- mentary text-book of language-teaching, a treatise on education, and a practical rhetoric, all in one. Highly important in the history of Elizabethan prose criti- cism. Cf. the same writer's Positions, 1581 (reprinted, London, 1887).

(h] Dudley Fenner, " The Artes of Logike and Rhetorike, plainlie set foorth in the English Tounge, " 1 584, 1 592, etc. A rhetoric of style and figures, by a dissent- ing minister. A translation, as the author tells us. " Rhetorike is an Arte of speaking finely .... It hath two partes : Garnishing of speech, called Eloquution ; Garnishing of the maner of utterance, called Pronunciation." Barren, schematic, and inadequate.

(i) " The Arcadian Rhetorike: or, the Prgecepts of Rhetorike made plaine by examples, Gfeeke, Latin, English, Italian, French, Spanish, out of Homers Ilias and Odissea, Virgils ^Eglogs, Georgikes, and yEneis, Sir Philip Sydneis Arcadia, Songs and Sonets, Torquato Tassoes Goffredo, Aminta, Torrismondo, Salust his ludith, and both his Semaines, Boscan and Garcilassoes Sonets and /Eglogs. By Abraham Fraunce," 1588. Sufficiently described by the title. Excessively rare ; only one copy known, that in the Bodleian (?). A rhetoric of style and figures. Significant of new foreign literary influence, and of the style and literary standards then a la mode.

(/) With the rhetorics of style and figures should also be reckoned Book III of Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589. This is the most elaborate treatment of figures yet. See Arber's reprint, 1869.

(/) " The Orator: Handling a hundred seuerall Discourses, in forme of Decla- mations : . . . . Written in French by Alexander Seluayn, and Englished by L. P.," 1596. " Lfazarus] P[iot] " is one of Antony Munday's pseudonyms. The preface states that the aim of the book is to teach rhetoric. A collection of model orations most of them sufficiently spiced for the Elizabethan popular taste. The author of the original was Alexander van den Busche, called Le Sylvain.

All of these works were more or less popular and elementary. At the uni- versities the Latin rhetorics were studied. "At Cambridge in 1570 the study of rhetoric was based on Quintilian, Hermogenes, and the speeches of Cicero viewed as works of art. An Oxford statute of 1588 shows that the same books were used there" (Jebb, art. "Rhetoric," Encycl. Brit., 9th ed.).

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