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for searching only. 96 SMALL LATINE AND LESSE GREEKE
These fundamental positions are exactly those of Erasmus, and they are eventually to shape the instructions to the authorized gram-mar.' Since Dean Colet dates his letter to Lily as of August I, 151o," these opinions apparently precede those of Erasmus into print, but Erasmus and Colet were so associated at this time that the ideas may have arisen from the theorist Erasmus. Colet and Lily together had given the simple rules demanded by Erasmus for the elementary stage of learning, and their work revised and expanded was to become the authorized Short Introduction. Thus the first part of the grammar conforms to the specifications of Erasmus.
Erasmus had also a hand in the construction of the Latin Syntax for Paul's which finally became the nucleus of the second part of the authorized grammar, entitled from at least as early as 1549 Breuissima Institutio.' In a letter of 1515, Erasmus tells of the origins of the work. Dean Colet had asked Lily to write a Latin Syntax in Latin. Lily had done so, and Colet had then sent the work to Erasmus for approval. Erasmus had revised it to such an extent that Lily did not feel himself entitled to place his name upon it. So Dean Colet had published it with an introductory recommendation to Lily for use at Paul's, but without naming an author. A copy printed by Pynson in 1513 under the title Libellus tie constructionet is in the Bodleian at Oxford. Gerardus Noviomagus writes in 1514 that he suspects the work is that of Erasmus,' and evidently it was at once reprinted under his name. Then in an edition of 151$, entitled Libellus De Octo Orationis Partium Constructione, Erasmus explained his connection with the work.l¬ This work, thoroughly revised and with ends re-versed, appears in the authorized Breuissima Institutio as the section De Constructione octo partium orationis. Presumably, therefore, this nucleus of the Latin Syntax was satisfactory to Erasmus, who is thus at the bottom of the second part of the authorized grammar also. For
5 Sir Thomas Elyot also agrees, The Boke named Me Gouernour (1531, University Micro-films, *10oo, from B. M., G. 735; S. T. C. 7635), folio 30 v ff.; Croft's ed., Vol. I, pp. S5 ff.
' So given in the edition of 1527, but as 1509 in Wolsey's edition of 1529. Since Lily became formally master on July 27, 1510 (Leach, A. F., "St. Paul's School," The journal of Education (London, X909), Vol. XXXI, p. 508), and since Erasmus was assisting in procuring an under-master in 1511 as well as in establishing a curriculum, the correct date would appear certainly to be 1510.
1 Watson, probably following Thomas Bayne, fails to notice that Lily wrote both an English and a Latin syntax, thus confounding confusion (Watson, F., The English Grammar Schools to' 66o, pp. 247 ff.). His account of the grammar is particularly ill-starred.
' Incidentally, S. T. C. lists it under Colet, who had nothing to do with actual authorship, and under Erasmus, who revised it; but not under Lily, who actually wrote it.
' Knight, Samuel, The Life of Dr.'ohn Colt, p.13on.
1a Erasmus, Opera (1703), Vol. I, pp. 167-168.
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