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stanced Whitney as an illustration of his system; Brinsley adds the statement of "Maister Touey" that this was the system he had used on Sir John Harington. Heartened by Tovey, Brinsley had set him-self to adapt this system, practiced by Ascham and Tovey, for the use of grammar schools, where individual tutoring could not be given.
Thus trying sundrie waies, which were ouer-long to recite, and amongst others, hauing seene in a chiefe Schoole in London, good vse of verball translations; amongst some other things, I began to thinke, that by the meanes of translations of the first Authors which Scholars Iearn; this translating might be practised in each lower Forme continually. But there were yet two maine difficulties, which had formerly hindred me from any such vse of them. First, that our vsuall translations did direct the young Scholars vncertainly, and sometimes amisse, being oft rather to expresse the sense, then the words in anie right order of Grammar; and that the learners must go by memorie, and as it were by rote, more then by anie certaintie of Rule, vnlesse they were of better judgement. And secondly, that for this and other inconueniences, translations were generally in disgrace in Schooles. Therefore, this then I thought necessarie to be my first labour, to finde out some certaine rule to follow, according to which to frame these translations, and which might be the guide of all.
And herein I, vnder Iesus Christ, acknowledge my selfe behol den for the rule of construing and translating, in the beginning of my Schoole labours, now aboue 3o. yeares ago [Le., about the time he took his M.A. in 1588], first to Maister Crusius: since to the reuerend and ancient Schoole-maister, Maister Leech. Thirdly, after them to that painefull, Maister Cook, of Hunsden in Essex, now with the Lord. And fourthly, to that learned Goclenius, and to some other of my acquaintance, who had likewise taken paines in this rule, which they willingly imparted vnto me .e
A "chiefe Schoole in London" where Brinsley had seen "good vse of verball translations" was that of Merchant Taylors' under William Hayne, who had prepared his construe of Lily's grammar in the early 'nineties, and had published a verbal translation of some of Cicero's Epistles in 1611, with a long list of many other works of his. In this Hayne explains,
Besides, Maister Brinsly, in the yeare one thousand sixe hundred and flue, (upon a report made by certaine very learned and reuerend Ministers,) coming from his Schoole in Lecester-shire, to London, of purpose, as he saide, to know this course of teaching: vnto whome, as vnto my old acquaintance and good friend, I freely related, and ingenuously imparted, whatsoeuer therin I eyther knew or had, as an assured testimony of my loue, gluing vnto him Lucians Dialogues verbally translated into English
Brinsley, Consolation (1622), pp. 36-37, misnumbered 44-45.
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