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for searching only. 324 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE
the country because of the plague, presumably the performance occurred there. Johnson's anger at the crowd may in part have been due to fear of contagion.
While he was in minatory mood, Johnson gave the boys a bit of advice next day as to not using the maternal tongue and as to keeping their verbs, cases, genders, tenses, etc. straight. He wishes that in Pythagorean fashion those who were ignorant would keep quiet and learn, while those who knew something would speak only in pre-meditation (21r). It seems that some of the boys had set him off by claiming that in ,laying down his law he had been guilty of a solecism in using the phrase "abuse the mother tongue" to mean that they were not to use it. Evidently the boys were studying figures of speech, as was customary at this stage, and were attempting to turn their knowledge to practical advantage. These two dictates seem to have cooled Johnson down from Christmas, and he then continued with his regular moral and literary routine.
Thursday, February 3, 1564, of the second week of school after Christmas seems to have been the final day of rustication before returning "home" (24r). Johnson later gives the boys a poem, perhaps original, on Horace's precept to take a subject suited to one's powers (25v). He refuses a request from the boys to go to the woods (26r). On the Monday preceding Shrove Tuesday he lectures on "Nothing too much" (27r), and apparently on the following Wednesday refers to a play, seemingly in Greek, which they had given the day before (27v). He sums up neatly for them the divisions of all philosophy, in a dictate which is worth translating.
Philosophy is the knowledge of things human and divine. This is twofold; theoric which they call speculative, and practic which they call active. Of the first, there are three kinds, natural, supramundane, and mathematical. Of the latter, two, acting and making. To these are added as auxiliaries certain subsidiaries which they call trivials; grammar, rhetoric, dialectic. Natural considers the motion and quiet of those things which are under the circuit of the moon. Supramundane aspires higher and penetrating through the skies themselves reflects upon the divine nature. Mathematical treats either of numbers as music and arithmetic, or of measuring magnitude as geometry and astronomy. Practic contains moral philosophy, but doing contains mechanics. The trivials and mathematics are summed up in these
verses :7
z These verses are to be found with slight variations in at least some editions of Mirandula, Octavianus, I11us/rium Poetarum Flores under De /fete, also in Germbergius, Hermannus, Carminum Proeerbialism . . . Loci Communes under Art et Doctrine. Wilson gave an English version of them in metre in his Arm of Logike. For a representation of these seven liberal arts, see the title page of Lily's Grammar.
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