delectus

Of the seventeenth-century school at Manchester we gain an accidental glimpse and notion from the Delectus of Latin Phrases which was prepared for use there by a former scholar, Thomas Bracebridge.

It is a MS. volume of no interest or moment, unless it is locally and personally regarded; but one is apt to cherish every added fraction of light as to the state of education in the Midlands in former days; and this Delectus carries us back precisely to the Restoration, so far as its mere date is concerned, but furnishes a fair idea of the sort of phrase-book which a Manchester teacher of 1660 thought suitable for the boys of his old school.

These were the Ainsworth and Riddle of our ancestors, who resorted to them where the required information was not forthcoming in the Primer or the Delectus.

But scarcely any books in the Greek character were printed in England until Edward Grant, head-master of Westminster School, brought out his Græcæ Linguæ Spicilegium, or Greek Delectus, in 1575.

The Coleti æditio, &c., of 1534 had much in common with Wolsey’s book; but the Dean of St. Paul’s claims the honour of having adapted some portions of the Delectus to what he considered to be the special requirements of his own institution.