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for searching only. EDUCATING THE "PRINCE"; KING EDWARD VI 221
though he had already picked up a few items in Greek, with which to make a show of learning.
Edward had evidently not begun the formal study of Greek in January, 1S46, since Cox would in his report have mentioned it. But by June 13, 1546, Edward quotes a sentence from Cato, the fourth one, in Greek, and gives the Latin translation. Since current texts usually contained both the Greek and the Latin, Edward may be merely copying the Greek, but he may also be simply memorizing the Greek along with the Latin in preparation for future use. His Aesop could have been treated the same way, as could Lucian also, to whom he refers about the following January 25, 1547. But there is no evidence that this was done, and it is more likely that Edward had only chance bits of Greek before he began the study of Talley's Greek grammar about 1547. The privilege to the book is dated November 13, 1546; it was printed under date of 1547, and Edward's signature as king in his copy is not earlier than February, 1547.5
After Talley, Edward probably had some more comprehensive Greek grammar. His copy of Budaeus, G., Comrnentarii linguae Graecae as printed at Paris in 1548 is in the British Museum (C. 83. i.8).Its margins show some signs that the volume has been consulted. Through the aid of Talley, and other helps now unrecorded, Edward had progressed, as we shall see, by April 1548 to Isocrates, whom he was reading in Greek along with his Aphthonius, for moral matter to furnish forth the fourteen minor forms of composition found therein.
This information comes from a collection of Edward's compositions now in the British Museum (MS. Addit. 4724). After our record of the official exercises in letter-writing stops wholly in September, 1547, we find Edward early in 1548 dealing with the next stage of composition, the fourteen minor forms preceding the formal oration, as presented by Aphthonius. Since these exercises and most of the subsequent ones were written on loose sheets, many of them undated, they would require detailed study to bring out their progression-a study which ought by all means to be made, for we shall not likely find a better illustration of how the oration was taught in Shakspere's time, and Shakspere himself writes many a set oration. Nichols
' Nichols records that among Edward's books was, "Petri Mosellani Paedologiae Traductio, Jodoco Velaraeo authore, x532" (Nichols, Edward, Vol. I, p. cccxxix), which one might have expected to serve for Greek colloquies; but the present binding is stamped "H. VIII R.," and I find no evidence that the volume belonged to Edward or was used by him.
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