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So these three books of the Old Testament were to be used as vulgars for the boys to turn into Latin.
Now this is the preface to the authorized grammar, which had been revised from Paul's grammar. When we get Paul's curriculum some-thing over a century later, we see how this material was used.4 For the first form, the exercise for four days a week consisted of verses from Proverbs; for the second, from the Psalms; for the third and fourth, there were continued exercises upon the Proverbs or Psalms; the fifth turned Psalms into Latin verse.' Hoole in 166o advises the use of the Psalms and Proverbs in a similar way. The apochryphal Ecclesiasticus has been dropped, but the Psalter and Proverbs are still used, probably about as they were used in 1548, when these instructions are recorded in the preface of what had for already many years been Paul's grammar.
Later editions, except 1549, omit the specific reference to Biblical works to serve this function; but this does not mean lack of approval for them; it simply permits greater discretion in choice. We hear in 1547 that the Winchester authorities were attempting to impress some of the same sections of the Old. Testament upon the boys, but by a different device. There the Warden or his deputy was to read to the boys for an hour every Sunday or holy-day the Proverbs of Solomon and Ecclesiastes.' Laurence Humphrey in 156o thought that the nobleman should read Deuteronomy, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and the Psalms for ethics and morality.? It will be seen that the material regularly involved is the Psalter and, "The bokes of Salomon, namely Prouerbia, Ecclesiastes, Sapientia and Ecclesiasticus," as a collection printed in English translation about 1544 and having at least half a dozen editions by 1551 phrases it. So also James Duport published in 1646 at Cambridge a similar school collection in Greek verse as ZoXojsc;)v ''EKlAÈZpos, Sive Tres libri Solomonis scilicet, Prouerbia, Ecclesiastes, Cantica, Graeco carmine donati. This Solomon and pseudo-Solomon was a most highly approved source for sententiae. When
4 See above, pp. 1I9 if.
6 In i58o, Vautrollier published an edition of Buchanan's metrical translation into Latin of the Psalms, with the Iepthes attached. This has the air of a schoolbook, and a copy belonging to the University of Illinois Library shows that the Iepthes pretty certainly has been used for school reading. One remembers Hamlet's exclamation, "Q )ephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!" (Hamlet, II, 2, 422-423). While the context makes it appear that Ham-let's particular reference is to a ballad, yet Shakspere may well have known the story both from the Bible and from Buchanan's play. The library has also a copy of the Psalms and Iepthes printed by Robertus Stephanus in t58o, with his name written in Greek at the top of the page. 4 Wilkins, Coned/a, Vol. IV, p, 9. 7 See above, p. 317.
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