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THE

PILGRIMAGES

OF

WALSINGHAM AND CANTERBURY.

BY DESIDERIUS ERASMUS.

TRANSLATED AND ILLUSTRATED WITH NOTES,

BY JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS, F.S.A.
TOGETHER WITH THE COLLOQUY ON RASH VOWS, AND THE CHARACTERS OF
ARCHBISHOP WARHAM AND DEAN COLET,

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

"The visit of the Archæological Institute to Walsingham two years ago, appears to have suggested to Mr. Nichols the present translation of the gossiping colloquies by Erasmus; colloquies of which no really modern translation exists, and which are rendered doubly acceptable by the very valuable and copious notes with which the zeal and learning of the Editor has illustrated and enriched the text. To those who are familiar with the Peregrinatio Religionis ergo' in the original, the annotations and pictorial embellishments of the work under notice will be not less acceptable than to the mere English reader, who has been accustomed to peruse the colloquies through the hazy mediums of the translations put forth by Sir Roger L'Estrange and Bailey. In the Appendix Mr. Nichols gives a very interesting dissertation on pilgrimages in general, and furnishes us with much curious information relative to Walsingham, and a judicious summary of facts and circumstances connected with the murder of Archbishop Becket. Altogether it is a work which the unlearned may read with profit, and which the antiquary will accept as a valuable addition to his stores of information upon subjects that are invested with an undying interest in the eyes of all to whom our mediæval history and medieval antiquities are dear."—Salisbury and Winchester Journal.

"This entertaining little volume will af ford to many a reader not only much information on the subject of Pilgrimages, but also numerous illustrations of the feelings and habits of the times."—Athenæum.

"There could not be a better antidote to the morbid yearning for the revival of mediæval religious practices, than the contem

poraneous exposure of what these practices really were, from the impartial pen of Erasmus."-John Bull.

"We can conceive no more perfect translation than Mr. Nichols has given; most delicately does he express the quiet eloquence and quieter irony of the original; while his Notes-which occupy about threefourths of the handsome volume--are full of the most curious, learned, and interesting matter."- Weekly News.

"A curious phase of life in the middle ages is here displayed in the words of the fearlessly speaking Erasmus; illustrated by the researches of a patient and pains-taking antiquary of our own day. The way in which that gentleman has illustrated his author by a vast fund of research, makes his book a pattern for annotators, and the engravings he adops are always appropriate and useful additions."-Art Journal.

"In the last division of the notes a point is raised of considerable historical importance and curiosity. It is stated by various historians that Henry VIII. proceeded against St. Thomas of Canterbury as if against a living party by quo warranto, &c. &c. This is one of those minute but important historical points which no man is more skilful in investigating than Mr. J. G. Nichols. In the present instance he has overturned a fiction which has taken its place in the history of England, and has found ready adoption with the numerous class of superficial persons who write but never investigate...... The book needs no recommendation from us. What we have written proves that it is important and interesting in its subject-matter, and that it is edited with care and pains. Every such book is sure to be popular."-Gentleman's Magazine.

*

Published by Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament Street.

GRAMMAR ON ITS TRUE BASIS,

IN CONNECTION WITH CORRESPONDENT WORKS ON

RHETORIC AND LOGIC,

By B. H. SMART,

AUTHOR OF WALKER'S DICTIONARY REMODELLED; THEORY AND PRACTICE OF ELOCUTION; &c.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR: each work separately, 12mo. cloth, cut.

1. The Accidence, 18.

2. The Principles, 38. 6d.

3. The Manual of Exercises, 2s. 6d.

4. The Key to the Manual, 18.

RHETORIC AND LOGIC: each work separately, 12mo. cloth, cut.

1. A Manual of Rhetoric, 28.

2. A Manual of Logic, 2s. 6d.

For a Synopsis of the Contents of these Works, see at the end of the Address hereunder.

THE FOREGOING WORKS, AMONG THOSE WHICH FORM

Smart's Course of English,

MAY BE HAD BOUND AS FOLLOWS:

1. Accidence, Manual, and Key, in one vol., 4s. roan.
2. Principles of Grammar, 4s. roan.

3. Rhetoric and Logic, in one vol., 4s. 6d. roan.

By the same Author, 8vo. cloth-lettered, 10s.

BEGINNINGS OF A NEW SCHOOL OF METAPHYSICS;

Three Essays in One Volume :-Outline of Sematology, published in 1831; Sequel to Sematology, published in 1837; Appendix, 1839.

LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

ADDRESS.

THE Author of these works has been widely known in private circles of the metropolis for the last forty years as a teacher of elocution. Elocution implies the practice of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; but the author's pupils, in great proportion, present themselves already educated in all respects except the practical issue of their acquirements in a significant, unaffected, forceful delivery. In trying to

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secure this result, he has generally found his tuition obstructed by theoretical prepossessions quite at variance with the practice of language, such as it is when it forms itself spontaneously under the force only of good example. Hence he was led to question the common theories under which language is explained to be the expounder of thought-of course, not to question whether it is the expounder of thought,—but the manner in which it fulfils this its acknowledged office. And the works advertised above, not hastily planned nor at once brought forth, are the completed result.

The prominent fact which led to the inquiries developed in the Essays was this, that thought (sense, meaning) attained, always is and must be in its nature single, and that in using an expression for it which is made up of parts, these must be parts only as regards the construction of the expression, having nothing which corresponds with them, as parts, in the thought (meaning) which they denote:-as regards the thought, the expression is one and indivisible, like the thought it stands for. The fact admitted, (and no competent judge has yet called it in question,) at once takes away all ground for the doctrine of predication in logic, and all justification of the usual way in which the parts of speech are defined in grammar. What, then, was to be done but to get rid of the old modes of treatment, and teach upon the principle thus detected? The author did so, and, with constantly increasing success and confidence, has done so ever since; and the practical works contain what his experience has enabled him to prepare for teachers and learners who choose to follow his steps. But the compilation of these was delayed:the author first sought the judgement of the learned, appealing to them in the three theoretical works, the first of which, published in 1831, bore for its title, “An Outline of Sematology; or an Essay towards establishing a new Theory of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric." He waited six years, and then published a “Sequel,” in which he stated his case as it then stood between his reviewers and himself; and two years after, he published the last essay as an "Appendix" to the others. That these essays had fallen into hands quite able and quite willing to demolish the leading principle contained in them if it could have been demolished, was by this time evident;* and the author, having thus gained the point which was

Censure is approval, and even silence, when a jealous, or other unfriendly motive, is easily exted. With regard, however, to censure, the author has met with so little during the twenty she has waited for opponents, that he can easily indicate the instances. In 1837, a critic in the Athenæum notices the "Sequel" with some contempt for endeavouring to revive the study metaphysics; a study which "the experience of ages has proved to be barren." This is prewhat the essay proposes to show; and the critic betrays, by the observation, that he had the work when he sat down to find fault with it. More lately, in the same periodical, in Aristotelian easily recognised-charges the author with a want of honesty in causing , under the title of a Manual of Logic, a work in which "Smart shines with unborrowed Aristotle is put in the dark corner." The critic had a presentation copy: he surely nghave inquired what was the full title of the work as sold before he preferred such a hy that of dishonesty. For cavils like these which are made at the expense of fact, the himself abundantly recompensed by the honourable reference to his essays in such Whowell's Mechanical Euclid, Mr. J. Stuart Mill's System of Logic, and, more J. D. Morell's History of Modern Speculative Science; nor has he any objection a the last mentioned work, that Mr. Morell "cannot make up his mind as to the

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sought by the theoretical works, commenced, and has now completed the practical

series.

These practical works examined on their surface, will be found, as may be seen by a glance at the Synopsis hereafter, not to deviate much from similar works in use, the utmost care being taken to avoid all changes not essentially necessary, and to employ, for practice, exercises that had already been found useful. Further, it will appear that though, in theory, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, can be clearly discriminated, yet as in practice they go together, so, in teaching that practice, the subjects are, to a certain degree, carried on together: also that Rhetoric, which follows Logic in theory, is, for practical reasons, placed before it. It will likewise be found, with regard to Rhetoric, that in this, nothing new is proposed even in theory: for whatever be the true basis of Grammar and Logic, since Rhetoric, in its cultivated practice, includes the practice of those two, it can have no independent basis; and hence, whatever is theoretically different from other works in those which are advertised above, will be found only in the Accidence, the Principles, and Manual of Grammar; and in the Manual of Logic. And this difference begins with Grammar, and leads to that which will be found in Logic:—it is by ascertaining the true basis and proper confines of the former, that the province of the other becomes evident. Now with regard to the name Grammar, it is not denied that it has been employed, and is still liable to be employed so as to comprehend all instruction for the proper use of language; and, in fact, if this widest of meanings is not, in some treatises, attached to it, yet a meaning not much narrower seldom fails to be assumed. What, however, is the boundary which the scholar understands who is taught grammar through the medium of Latin? Does it include more than correct CONSTRUCTION under the laws of concord and government? These laws being fulfilled, the form of expression is recognised as grammatical, however much it may be wanting in sense, or elegance, or both. In spite, then, of the too wide and consequently indistinct views of the proper province of grammar which are opened in almost all elementary books on the subject; yet, since these views are narrowed in practice to their true dimen

propriety of altering so widely the ancient landmarks between logic and rhetoric;" and "cannot divest himself of the feeling that the metaphysical views lead to an indefinite and unsatisfactory result." Change of one's habits of thought is no doubt always difficult; and the author, forty years ago, would have found the transition which his views have undergone in that time, as impossible immediately to him, as it now is to Mr. Morell. Among the anonymous critics, who, about the time of its appearance, examined the first Essay with care and ability, the contributor to the Examiner, March 25 and April 1, 1832 (one year after its publication), may be mentioned. From internal evidence, he was conjectured to be Mr. J. Stuart Mill, though the way in which this gentleman has since treated logic, has weakened the conjecture. Whoever was the critic, the author has no desire to extenuate that which is objected to the essay as its principal fault, namely, "its pretension to the character of a new theory." New it cannot be, if all persons in the spontaneous use of language act upon it. If the author can flatter himself with only having plainly enunciated what was already known tacitly,-if, "having clearly conceived and firmly grasped one fundamental idea, he has followed it into its numerous ramifications, and traced its bearings upon the general problems of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric,"-if he has accomplished thus much, he seeks no higher praise.

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sions in learning Latin, their first indistinctness is scarcely a mischief to the tyro in Latin. But to the tyro in English they are so prejudicial, that if he learns only through the medium of what are called English grammars, it may be safely said he will never know what grammar is :-he will constantly confound propriety of sense in joining words together, with propriety of construction; for the grammarians themselves do their utmost to confound them; teaching that, because sense and grammar ought in practice to go together, they are one and the same in theory. Hence they begin with some such vague definition of grammar as, "the art of speaking and writing a language with propriety;" and with differences among the parts from differences of meaning, as, a noun is a word signifying so and so ;-a verb signifying so and so ;-a preposition so and so;" when in point of fact the independent meaning of a word has nothing at all to do with its function as a part of speech, since the moment it actually becomes a part, that is, enters into construction with other parts to form a whole, it loses its independent meaning, by merging it in the meaning of the whole expression which it helps to form.

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The proper limits of grammar being ascertained, it is next an obvious inquirysince sense and grammar should of course go together-it is obvious to ask, what that department of learning is, which provides that words, in joining, shall make sense, while grammar provides that they shall make construction. Is there any impropriety in calling it Logic? On the contrary, is there not a manifest propriety? But this will not be the logic of the schools-not formal but informal logic. If the former were no longer in the way, the latter might fairly claim its place; and, in fact, from the decline of scholastic learning up to the beginning of the present century, the formal logic had gradually sunk in reputation, till at length it was never referred to but as a by-gone instrument of pedantry. The history of its revival seems to be this:-Some thirty years ago or more, Dr. Whately of Oxford was engaged to write the articles on Logic and Rhetoric for the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, a work then publishing. Far too sensible a thinker, and too much identified with modern progress to treat logic after the manner of the schoolmen, he yet had a strong bias in favour of Aristotle; for whom at Oxford, and at Oxford alone, there still lingered some of the worship that the schools had paid him. Hence Dr. Whately persuaded himself, and then set about persuading others, that the Aristotelian artifice of reasoning by extremes and middle term, founded as it is on the invaluable art of definition by genera and species, is the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE OF REASONING, however it may lie concealed under informal shapes; and then, taking up informal logic as belonging to the other in the relation of art to science, he treats of both under the one name Logic with so much skill, as to have revived, for the present, a very wide opinion in favour of Aristotle. It is true that Sir William Hamilton, in the splendid article, "Recent Publications on Logical Science," which appeared in the 115th number of the Edinburgh Review, (April 1833,) complains that Dr. Whately and his followers have "conciliated to the declining study a broader interest than its own;" but instead of repudiating Aristotle, Sir William repudiates that as a part of logic which had been mingled with Aristotle's, and claims for Aristotle alone all the revived respect which Dr. Whately and his followers, and, more lately, Mr. J. Stuart Mill, have secured for logic, by

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