From Sir Thomas Elyot’s, The Book Named Governor, 1531:

“…it shall be expedient that a nobleman’s son, in his infancy, have with him continually only such as may accustom him by little and little to speak pure and elegant Latin. Semblably the nurses and other women about him, if it be possible, to do the same; or at the leastways, that they speak none English but that which is clean, polite, perfectly and articulately pronounced, omitting no letter or syllable, as foolish women often times do of a wantonness, whereby divers noblemen and gentleman’s children (as I do at this day know) have attained corrupt and foul pronunciation.”

Some things about the English class system don’t seem to change…

Interesting, though,  that he’s expecting, or at least setting out as an ideal, that the female attendants in the nursery who are – except perhaps in the case of royalty – unlikely to be of high status or class, are being expected to know Latin, and indeed presumably know it quite well.
(Quote page 18, Everyman 1962 edition)

An interesting query from Holly, who’s been contributing to the “really dead women authors meme” about the location of Aphra Behn’s tomb in Westminister Abbey, and why she isn’t in “Poets’ Corner”.

I happen to have sitting beside my bed in my “to read” pile Maureen Duffy’s biography. It says:

“Thrysis [Thomas Sprat, “Birmingham’s old chaplain, who was Dean of Westminster], I believe, was responsible for her burial in Westminster Abbey on April 20th, no doubt backed by Burnet and by those of sufficient wit and position not to mind the odium or satire that accure to them from such an act. She lies in the cloister and not among the ‘trading poets’ in poets’ corner, but with the Bettertons and Anne Bracegirdle.” (p. 294)

So it sounds like she was classed as “theatre” rather than “literature”.

There’s an image of the tomb here.

Can anyone add to this?

With a hat-tip to Sharon on Early Modern Notes, nice to note that the bulk of the work of my favourite poet, Isabella Whitney, is now readily accessible online, via Representative Poetry Online. (Although there does seem to be a problem with the “Sweet Nosegay” link, which I’ve emailed them about. That is particularly important since it is the text hardest to otherwise obtain.)

A sample, from Isabella’s warning to “all maids in love”, about men, of course…

Beware of fair and painted talk,
beware of flattering tongues:
The Mermaids do pretend no good
for all their pleasant songs.

Some use the tears of crocodiles,
contrary to their heart:
And if they cannot always weep,
they wet their cheeks by art.

Ovid, within his Art of Love,
doth teach them this same knack
To wet their hand and touch their eyes,
so oft as tears they lack.

There are plenty of other poets there, from the 7th-century AD onwards. (And a not-bad representation of women.)

Elsewhere, from the inbox: the second edition of The Letters of William Herle, the Elizabethan intelligencer and diplomat, with “20 newly discovered letters”.

And Jim Chevallier, who posts a wonderful weekly miscellany on the 18th-century email list, has started collecting them on a website. It is particularly strong on recipes: You can learn how to bake a chicken into a lizard or, for those who think the past was polite, Floozy’s Flatulence.