A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes Part 1

A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes.

by Richard Sherry.

INTRODUCTION

Richard Sherry's _A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes_ (1550), a familiar work of the Renaissance, is primarily thought of as a sixteenth-century English textbook on the figures. Yet it is also a mirror of one variation of rhetoric which came to be called the rhetoric of style. As a representative of this stylistic school, it offers little that is new to the third part of cla.s.sical rhetoric. Instead, it carries forward the medieval concept that ornateness in communication is desirable; it suggests that figures are tools for achieving this ornateness; it supplies examples of ornateness to be imitated in writing and speaking; it supports knowing the figures in order to understand both secular and religious writings; it proposes that clarity is found in the figures. In short, the work a.s.sisted Englishmen to understand eloquence as well as to create it.

Four-fifths of ancient rhetoric is omitted in the _Treatise_. The nod is given to elocution. Invention is discussed, but only as a tool to a.s.sist the communicator in amplifying his ideas, as a means to spin out his thoughts to extreme lengths. Arrangement, memory, and delivery are overlooked. Accordingly, the _Treatise_ neatly fits into the category of a Renaissance rhetoric on style. It is this school which recognized the traditional five Ciceronian parts of rhetoric, but considered style to be the most significant precept. The _Treatise_ is not the first to support an emphasis wholly on style, nor the foremost. We know that Aristotle's _Rhetoric_, Cicero's works on rhetoric, and Quintilian's _Inst.i.tutes_ discussed the significance of style, but they had a broad view. However, in England, about the time of Bede, arose a limited concept that rhetoric is mainly style, particularly that of the figures.

It is this latter truncated version of rhetoric that the _Treatise_ continues in the Renaissance. Rhetoric in Sherry's work has lost its ancient meaning.

The _Treatise_ is highly prescriptive. It was born in an age of rules.

So much so, that the rhetorician who named his rules and tools was not out of rapport with the period. This accounts for the rigidity, the love of cla.s.sification, and the schematic presentation of the work. It is nothing more than a highly organized dictionary of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance schemes and tropes. In fact, the major variation from previous Latin compilers is to be found in the headnotes relative to the various kinds of figures. Nor is it as thorough in handling the figures as its predecessors. It utilizes, however, the customary Greek and Latin terms and supplies a definition, but here the similarity with contemporaries and ancients ends. It is weak in amplification of examples during an age when amplification was practiced. Sherry economizes by selecting usually one example in support of a figure while contemporary cataloguers, and ancients for that matter, are more definitive.

Whether the work was ever popular within the schools or without is unclear. Probably it did not have extensive success because only one issue of the work appeared and a revised edition was brought out in 1555. By contrast, during the sixteenth century, Erasmus' _De Copia_ (1512) had at least eleven printings, Mosella.n.u.s' _Table_ (c. 1529) had at least eight editions, Susenbrotus' _Epitome_ (1541) had at least twenty printings, Peacham's _Garden_ (1577) had two editions, and Day's _Secretorie_ (1586) underwent at least five editions. Some of these works had new editions printed in the seventeenth century and would seem to reflect a greater public acceptance than the _Treatise_. Some were also written in Latin while Sherry moves in the vernacular. It still was an age of Latin, and Sherry in part recognized this by his alternate Latin and English movement in his second rhetoric on style published in 1555. Moreover, people seemed content to remain with the giants of the Renaissance, notably Erasmus and his _De Copia_ instead of turning to a lesser light such as Sherry.

The _Treatise_ does have merit. The work cannot be judged entirely by tallying its meager number of editions, its lack of thoroughness, or its artificial divisions. Its signal contribution rests upon the fact that it is a pioneering effort at permitting the figures to march, for the first time, in English. Here Sherry had an opportunity to provide the English reader with additional words, ideas, and material to be employed in vernacular communication. His efforts in his works on rhetoric, the two editions of the _Treatise_, provided the sixteenth century Englishman with the identical schemes and tropes which had been a heritage of the Latin language since antiquity. Hence the work can be called a complicated ordering of the figures, but it is also a sincere attempt to provide in English those figures which would lend ornateness to the expression of an idea.

To indicate that the _Treatise_ was part of a continuing school of rhetoric, we must consider a few rhetoricians subsequent to Sherry's work. Indeed, one notices the continuance of dictionaries of figures which carry the admonition that the usual manner of utterance was to be despised. Thomas Wilson's _The Arte of Rhetorique_ (1553), although preserving the cla.s.sical idea of rhetoric, also felt the definition of a figure employed in communication involved the uncommon. Twenty-seven years subsequent to Sherry, England again has a pure catalogue of the figures; this is Peacham's _Garden of Eloquence_. More elaborate than the _Treatise_, it too suggests that rhetoric is decoration. Continued interest in the stylistic tools is also seen in Puttenham's The _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589). When we move to the latter part of the sixteenth century and then change the genre as exemplified in Day's _The English Secretorie_, we see a stylistic extension to the art of letter writing which borrowed rhetorical terms and rules and applied them to written correspondence. The emphasis in these rhetorics on style is the same: ornateness in communication is achieved through using the figures.

When we look in the opposite direction, to works which preceded Sherry, the figures, definitions, and examples in the _Treatise_ derive more from contemporaries than from the ancients. It relies extensively upon intermediaries. Sherry explains that Erasmus and Mosella.n.u.s will be major sources. Hence the _De Copia_, the _Ecclesiastae_, and the _Tabulae de schematibus et tropis_ are used with regularity. Although further removed in time, the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ is the primary ancient source. But beyond this first-hand reliance on the ancients, examples from Vergil, Cicero, and Terence, to mention several, as well as definitions of the figures, depend heavily upon neo-cla.s.sical intermediaries.

Appended to the text on the figures of rhetoric is a seemingly gratuitous section ent.i.tled "That chyldren oughte to be taught and brought vp gently in vertue and learnynge, and that euen forthwyth from theyr natiuitie: a declamacion of a briefe theme, by Erasmus of Roterodame." This essay occupies almost two-thirds of the _Treatise_ and receives its first English translation from the Latin at the hands of Sherry. William Woodward in his _Desiderius Erasmus Concerning the Aim and Method of Education_ gave us another English translation in 1904.

One other translation, in German, by August Israel, is ent.i.tled "Vortrag uber die Nothwendigkeit, die Knaben gleich von der Geburt an in einer fur Freigeborne wurdigen Weise sittlich und wissenschaftlich ausbilden zu la.s.sen."

The reason for the inclusion of the Erasmian essay is never clearly stated in the other sections of the _Treatise_. Nor do the other translators suppose a reason. From the internal evidence of the essay and from headnotes preceding it, we may a.s.sume that the purpose is one of supplying readers with an example of amplification of a brief theme, first ill.u.s.trated in miniature, and then full blown into a long declamation. The essay does not appear to be ill.u.s.trating the numerous figures discussed in the initial section of the work.

Of Sherry we know little. Beyond the dates in the DNB, we infer from his works that he had an intense interest in English and had a desire for his countrymen to communicate well in the vernacular. He was interested in religion, was most likely a Protestant, and hoped to continue an interest in religion which he developed in his youth. He was also a teacher. And although Latin was still a living language, the task of inculcating a new tongue in the students fell to the schoolmaster; Sherry was active in this capacity. This does not weaken an acclamation we possess of the man: "He was a Person elegantly learned."

HERBERT W. HILDEBRANDT

_The University of Michigan February 25, 1960_

To the ryght worshyp ful Master Thomas Brooke Esquire, Rychard Shyrrey wysheth health euer- lastynge.

[Sidenote: The tytle of thys worcke straunge.] I doubt not but that the t.i.tle of this treatise all straunge vnto our Englyshe eares, wil cause some men at the fyrst syghte to maruayle what the matter of it should meane: yea, and peraduenture if they be rashe of iudgement, to cal it some newe fangle, and so casting it hastily from th?, wil not once vouchsafe to reade it: and if they do, yet perceiuynge nothing to be therin that pleaseth their phansy, wyl count it but a tryfle, & a tale of Robynhoode. But of thys sorte as I doubte not to fynde manye, so perhaps there wyll be other, whiche moued with the noueltye thereof, wyll thynke it worthye to be looked vpon, and se what is contained therin. [Sidenote: Sheme and Trope.] These words, _Scheme_ and _Trope_, are not vsed in our Englishe tongue, neither bene they Englyshe wordes.

[Sidenote: Vse maketh strauge thinges familier.] No more be manye whiche nowe in oure tyme be made by continual vse, very familier to most men, and come so often in speakyng, that aswel is knowen amongest vs the meanyng of them, as if they had bene of oure owne natiue broode. Who hath not in hys mouthe nowe thys worde Paraphrasis, homelies, vsurped, abolyshed, wyth manye other lyke? And what maruail is it if these words haue not bene vsed heretofore, seynge there was no suche thynge in oure Englishe tgue where vnto they shuld be applyed? Good cause haue we therefore to gyue thankes vnto certayne G.o.dlye and well learned men, whych by their greate studye enrychynge our tongue both wyth matter and wordes, haue endeuoured to make it so copyous and plentyfull that therein it maye compare wyth anye other whiche so euer is the best.

[Sidenote: Oure language falsely accused of barbarousnes.] It is not vnknowen that oure language for the barbarousnes and lacke of eloquence hathe bene complayned of, and yet not trewely, for anye defaut in the toungue it selfe, but rather for slackenes of our coutrimen, whiche haue alwayes set lyght by searchyng out the elegance and proper speaches that be ful many in it: as plainly doth appere not only by the most excellent monumentes of our auci?t forewriters, [Sidenote: Gower. Chawcer. Lidgate.] Gower, Chawcer and Lydgate, but also by the famous workes of many other later: [Sidenote: Syr Thomas Elyot.] inespeciall of y^e ryght wors.h.i.+pful knyght syr Thomas Eliot, which first in hys dictionarye as it were generallye searchinge oute the copye of oure language in all kynde of wordes and phrases, after that setting abrode goodlye monumentes of hys wytte, lernynge and industrye, aswell in historycall knowledge, as of eyther the Philosophies, hathe herebi declared the plentyfulnes of our mother touge, loue toward hys country, hys tyme not spent in vanitye and tryfles.

What shuld I speake of that ornamente Syr Thomas Wyat?

which beside most excellente gyftes bothe of fortune and bodye, so flouryshed in the eloquence of hys natiue tongue, that as he pa.s.sed therin those wyth whome he lyued, so was he lykelye to haue bene equal wyth anye other before hym, had not enuious death to hastely beriued vs of thys iewel: teachyng al men verely, no filicitie in thys worlde to be so suer and stable, but that quicklye it may be ouerthrowen and broughte to the grounde. Manye other there be yet lyuynge whose excellente wrytynges do testifye wyth vs to be wordes apte and mete elogantly to declare oure myndes in al kindes of Sciences: and that, what sentence soeuer we conceiue, the same to haue Englyshe oracion natural, and holp? by art, wherby it may most eloqu?tly be vttered. [Sidenote: The occasion of thys treatise.] Of the whych thynge as I fortuned to talke wyth you, Master Brooke, among other matters this present argument of Schemes and Tropes came in place, and offered it selfe, demed to be bothe profitable and pleasaunte if they were gathered together, and handsomelye set in a playne ordre, and wyth theire descriptions hansomely put into our Englishe tongue.

And bicause longe ago, I was well acquaynted with them, when I red them to other in y^e Latin, and that they holpe me verye muche in the exposicion of goode auth.o.r.es, I was so muche the more ready to make them speak English, partli to renew the pleasure of mine old studies, and partelye to satysfy your request.

-- [Sidenote: Rodulphus Agricola.] Beside this, I was moued also wyth the authorytye of that famous clarke Rodulphus Agricola, whyche in a certeine epistle wryten vnto a frynde of hys, exhorteth m? what soeuer they reade in straunge tongues, diligently to translate the same into their owne language: because that in it we sonar perceiue if there be any faute in our speaking, and howe euerye thynge eyther rightly hangeth together or is darkely, ruggishly, and superfluously wrytt?. No lerned nacion hath there bene but y^e learned in it haue written of schemes & fygures, which thei wold not haue don, except thei had perceyued the valewe.

-- Wherefore after theyr example obtaynyng a lytle lesure, I red ouer sundrye treatises, as wel of those which wrot long ago, as of other now in our daies: fyndynge amonge them some to haue wrytten ouer brieflye, some confuselye, and falselye some.

[Sidenote: Mosellain.] Mosellane hathe in hys tables shewed a fewe fygures of grammer, and so hathe confouded them together, that his second order called of Loquucion pertayneth rather to the rhetoricians then to hys purpose. [Sidenote: Quintilian.]

Quintilian briefly hathe wrytten bothe of the Gramatical and rhetorical Shemes, but so that you may soone perceyue he did it by the waye, as muche as serued hys purpose. [Sidenote: Cicero.] Cicero in hys boke of an oratour with hys incompetable eloquence hathe so hid the preceptes, that sca.r.s.elye they may be tryed oute by theyr names, or by theyr exples.

[Sidenote: Erasmus.] Erasmus in hys double copye of words and thynges, hath made as y^e tytle declareth but a comentarye of them bothe, and as it wer a litle bil of remembrauce. Wherefore to make these thinges more playne to y^e students that lyst to reade them in oure tongue, I haue taken a lytle payne, more thorowelye to try the definicions, to apply the examples more aptly, & to make things defused more plaine, as in dede it shal ryght wel apere to the dylygente. I haue not translated them orderly out of anye one author, but runninge as I sayde thorowe many, and vsyng myne owne iudgement, haue broughte them into this body as you se, and set them in so playne an order, that redelye maye be founde the figure, and the vse wherevnto it serueth. Thoughe vnto greate wittes occupyed with weightye matters, they do not greatelye pertayne, yet to such as perchauce shal not haue perfecte instructoures, they may be commodious to helpe them selues for y^e better vnderstandynge of such good authors as they reade. -- For thys darre I saye, no eloquente wryter maye be perceiued as he shulde be, wythoute the knowledge of them: for asmuche as al togethers they belonge to Eloquucion, whyche is the thyrde and prync.i.p.all parte of rhetorique. The common scholemasters be wont in readynge, to saye vnto their scholers: _Hic est figura_: and sometyme to axe them, _Per quam figuram?_ But what profit is herein if they go no further? In speakynge and wrytynge nothyng is more folyshe than to affecte or fondly to laboure to speake darkelye for the nonce, sithe the proper vse of speach is to vtter the meaning of our mynd with as playne wordes as maye be. [Sidenote: A figure not to be vsed but for a cause.] But syth it so chaunseth y^t somtyme ether of necessitie, or to set out the matter more plaily we be compelled to speake otherwyse then after common facion, onles we wil be ignorante in the sence or meaninge of the mater that excellente authors do wryghte of, we muste nedes runne to the helpe of schemes & fygures: which verely come no sildomer in the writing and speaking of eloquente english men, then either of Grecians or Latins. Many thinges might I brynge in to proue not onely a great profyt to be in them but that they are to be learned euen of necessitie, for as muche as not only prophane authors wythout them may not be wel vnderstand, but that also they greatelye profit vs in the readinge of holye scripture, where if you be ignoraunte in the fyguratiue speches and Tropes, you are lyke in manye greate doubtes to make but a slender solucion: [Sidenote: Westimerus] as ryght wyll do testefy _Castelio Vestimerus_ and [Sidenote: Augustinus] y^t n.o.ble doctor saint Augustine. I confesse I haue not made the matter here so perfecte as my wyll and desyer is it shoulde haue ben, and that I haue but brieflye touched, and as it were with my litle fynger poynted to these thinges, which require a l?ger declaracion.

For what can be hasted, and absolute to? But if G.o.d spare me lyfe, I truste hereafter to make it an introducci, wherbi our youth not onlye shall saue that moste precious Iewell, Time, whyle they wander by them selues, readynge at all aduentures sundry and varyous authors: but that also thei shalbe able better to vnderstande and iudge of the goodlye gyftes and ornamentes in mooste famous and eloquente oratoures.

[Sidenote: And apte similitude.] For as lyke plesure is not to him whiche gooeth into a goodlye garden garnyshed wyth dyuers kindes of herbes and flowers, and that there doeth no more but beholde them, of whome it maye be sayde that he wente in for nothynge but that he wold come out, and to hym which besyde the corporall eie pleasure, knoeth of eueri one the name & propertye: so verelye much difference is there in readynge good authors, and in sundrye sortes of menne that do it: and muche more pleasure, and profit hathe he whiche vseth arte and iudgement, then the other, whiche wyth greate studye in dede turneth them ouer but for lacke of the knowledge of preceptes wanteth also the fruite and delectacyon that he more amplye myghte obtayne. The lyuynge G.o.d from whome all good giftes do procede, gyue vs grace so to order all oure words and speache, that it may be to his honour and glory for euer and euer. Amen.

-- Geuen at London the.

xiii. day of Decembre.

Anno .M.D.L.

-- A briefe note of eloquci, the third parte of Rhetoricke, wherunto all Figures and Tropes be referred.

[Sidenote: Eloquucion] _Eloquucion_, which the Greekes call Phrase, whereof also the name of eloquence dothe ryse, as of al partes it is the goodlyest, so also is it the most profitable and hardeste: in the whyche is seene that diuine myghte and vertue of an oratoure, whych as Cicero in hys oratorie particions defineth, is nothyng else but wisedom speakyng eloquently. For vnto the maruelous greate inuencion of all thynges, bothe it addeth a fulnes, and varietie: it setteth oute & garnysheth wyth lyghtes of eloquent speche, the thinges that be spoken of and also wyth very graue sentences, choyse wordes, proper, aptly translated, and wel soundyng, it bryngeth that greate fludde of eloquence vnto a certein kynd of stile and indyghtyng.

And oute of thys greate streame of eloquucion, not only must we chose apte, and mete wordes, but also take hede of placinge, and settinge them in order.

For the myghte and power of eloquucion consisteth in wordes considered by them selues, and when they be ioyned together. Apt wordes by searchyng muste be founde oute, and after by diligence conueniently coupled. For there is a garnyshynge, euen when they be pure and fyne by them selues, and an other, wh? they be ioyned together. To chose th? oute finely, and handsomlye to bestow them in their places, after the mynde of Cicero and Quintilian, is no easy thynge. So Marcus Antonius was wonte to say, that he had knowen many wel spoken men, but none eloquente. -- Tullye and Quintilian thoughte that inuencion and disposici were the partes of a wytty and prudent man, but eloquence of an oratour. For howe to finde out matter, and set it in order, may be comen to all men, whyche eyther make abridgementes of the excellent workes of aunciente wryters, and put histories in rem?braunce, or that speake of anye matter them selues: but to vtter the mynde aptely, distinctly, and ornately, is a gyft geuen to very fewe. And because we haue deuided eloquucion into two partes, that is, wordes symple, or considered by them selues, and compound or ioyned together in speache, accordyng to thys we saye, that euerye eloquente oracion must haue in it thre poyntes: euidence, which belongeth to the fyrst parte of eloquucion, composicion & dignitie, which belongeth to the other.

Of Euidence and plainenes.

Of these thynges that we put in eloquucion, lette thys be the fyrste care, to speake euidentlye after the dignitye and nature of thynges, and to vtter suche wordes, whych as Cicero sayth in hys oratour, no man may iustely reprehende. The playne and euident speche is learned of Gramarians, and it keepeth the oracion pure, and without all faute, and maketh that euerye thyng may seme to be spoken purelye apertlye, and clerelye. Euerye speche standeth by vsuall wordes that be in vse of daylye talke, and proper wordes that belonge to the thinge, of the which we shal speke.

Neyther be properties to be referred onely to the name of the thing, but much more to the strength and power of the significacion: & must be considered not by hearyng, but by vnderstandyng. So translacion in the whych comonly is the greatest vse of eloquuci, applieth wordes not the selfe proper thinges. But yet an vnvsed worde or poetical, hath also somtyme in the oracion hys dignitie, and beyng put in place (as Cicero sayeth) oftentymes the oracion may seme greater, and of more antiquitie, for that Poetes do speake in a maner as it were in another tonge, it is righte sone perceiued. Finally two fautes are cmitted in euerye language, whereby it is not pure: Barbarisme, and Solecisme. Of the whych, that on is committed, when anye worde is fautely spoken or writen: that other, when in many wordes ioyned together, the worde that foloweth is not wel applyed to that that goeth before. Of composicion and dygnitye, we wyll speake here after, when we come to the figures of rethoryque.

Of the three kyndes of style or endyghtynge.

Before we come to the precepts of garnis.h.i.+ng an oraci, we thinke good, bryeflye, to shewe you of the thre kyndes of stile or endyghting, in the whych all the eloquucion of an oratoure is occupied. For that there be thre sundry kyndes, called of the Grekes characters, of vs figures, I trowe there is no man, though he be meanlye learned, but he knoweth, namely when we se so manye wryters of sciences, bothe Greke and latine, whych haue ben before tyme, to haue folowed for the mooste parte sundrye sortes of wrytyng, the one vnlyke to the other. And there hath bene marked inespecially thre kyndes of endightynge: The greate, the small, the meane.

The greate kynde.

The greate, the n.o.ble, the mightye, and the full kynde of endyghtynge, wyth an incredible, & a certen diuine power of oracion, is vsed in wayghty causes: for it hathe wyth an ample maiestye verye garnyshed wordes, proper, translated, & graue sentences, whych ar handled in amplificacion, and commiseracion, and it hathe exornations bothe of woordes and sentences, wherunto in oracions they ascribe verye great strength and grauitie. And they that vse thys kynde, bee vehement, various, copious, graue, appoynted and readye thorowlye to moue and turne mens myndes.

Thys kynd dyd Cicero vse in the oracion for Aulus Cluencius, for Sylla, for t.i.tus Annius Milo, for Caius Rabirius: agaynste Catiline, agaynste Verres, agaynste Piso. But they that can not skyll of it oftentimes fall into fautes, when vnto them that seemeth a graue oracion, whych swelleth, and is puffed vp, whych vseth straunge wordes hardelye translated, or to olde, and that be nowe longe sythens lefte of from vse of daylye talke, or more graue then the thing requyreth.

The small kynde.

The small kynde of indighting, is in a subtile, pressed, and fyled oracion, meete for causes that be a lytel sharper then are in the comon vse of speakynge.

For it is a kynde of oracion that is lette downe euen to the mooste vsed custume of pure and clere speakyng.

It hathe fyne sentences, subtile, sharpe, teachyng all thynges, and makynge them more playne, not more ample.

-- And in the same kynde (as Cicero sayeth in hys oratoure) some bee craftye, but vnpolyshed, and of purpose lyke the rude and vnskylfull: Other in that leaues are trymme, that is somwhat floryshynge also and garnyshed. Cicero vsed thys kynde in hys philosophicall disputacions, in the oraci for Quincius for Roscius y^e Comedy plaier, & Ter?ce, & Plautus in their Comedies. Such as c not hdsomly vse them selues in that mery conceyted slendernes of wordes, fall into a drye and feble kynde of oracion.

The meane kynde.

The mean and temperate kynd of indyghting standeth of the lower, and yet not of the loweste, and moste comen wordes and sent?ces. And it is ryghtyly called the temperate kynde of speakyng, because it is very nygh vnto the small, and to the greate kynde, folowyng a moderacion and temper betwyxt th?. And it foloweth as we saye in one tenour, distinguyshyng all the oracion wyth small ornamentes both of wordes, and sentences.