LILY'S LATIN GRAMMARS
[LILY, William.]
A short introduction of grammar compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those that intend to attain to the knowledge of the Latin tongue.
London, S. Buckley and T. Longman, 1738.
[bound with:]
HAINE, William, editor. Lily’s rules construed where unto are added Tho. Robinson’s Heteroclites, the Latin syntaxis, also there are added the rules for the genders of nouns and preterperfect tenses and supines of verbs in English alone. London, S. Buckley and T. Longman, 1736.
Two works in one volume, 8vo; pp. [10], 194, [4], woodcut border to title-page, woodcut initials, Brevissima institutio with own title-page with woodcut border, woodcut royal arms to p. 64, full-page woodcut to last page; pp. [2], 92, [2], title-page within woodcut border, text in two columns; marginal browning at beginning and end of volume, title-page of first work slightly creased, some bifolia to first work unopened, some creasing to fore-edges at end of second work; else very good in eighteenth-century sheep, blind double fillet border to covers, small centrepieces, two clasps and catches; some worming at head of lower joint, small abrasions to covers.
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A short introduction of grammar compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those that intend to attain to the knowledge of the Latin tongue.
Two beautifully printed eighteenth-century Latin grammars ascribed to the great grammarian and schoolmaster William Lily (1468?–1522/1523).
While named after Lily, ‘Lily’s grammar’ is in fact a composite work, with contributions by John Colet, Thomas Robertson and others. ‘During the sixteenth century the grammar was subjected to slight modifications by practising schoolmasters, but its basic structure remained intact. It reigned supreme from 1540 to 1757, when a more extensively revised edition ... was adopted as The Eton Latin Grammar under the title A Short Introduction to the Latin Tongue. The influence of Lily’s grammar was therefore further renewed, extending into the nineteenth century and beyond. The grammar’s effect on English literature was equally great: Shakespeare’s characters quote it verbatim, the dramatist John Lyly repeated lines from it, Ben Jonson adapted it, and Thomas Fuller complained of being beaten because of it’ (ODNB).
Both works here were printed by Samuel Buckley (1674–1741), a noted linguist, and Thomas Longman (1699–1755), founder of the great publishing house. The imprint to the first work proudly boasts of their status as ‘printers to the King’s most excellent majesty, in Latin, Greek and Hebrew’. The handsome title-page border to A short introduction features representations of the seven liberal arts (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy). The woodcut to the last page shows schoolchildren gathering apples from a tree, their schoolbooks set aside on the ground.
ESTC T175242 and T17866.
