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for searching only. ERASMUS, COPIA 177
length, those Erasmus plainly and perspicuously has not only collected clearly in his single commentary but even illustrates them with examples and proofs. Which method of teaching especially squares with juvenile capacity?
In this seventh chapter Erasmus renders the reader docile, briefly and perspicuously declaring the partition of this whole work and of the appointed material; namely that copy is twofold, to wit of words and of things. Copy of words is the ready faculty of varying the same sententra in many ways, and this of a truth flows from knowledge of words, which first grammar, then diligent reading and observation of good and especially of copious authors, and finally the habit of speaking correctly in familiar and daily conversation supply to the student. This first copy consists mostly in choice of words, as I shall show below in chapter ro and following, because, of words some are proper, some synonyms, some figured. Although there are also other differences of words. But as from connected letters syllables are made, from syllables are made words, so from words is composed a perfect speech expressing a full sense. Moreover as syllables are diverse, so also speech. But it is uniform or multiform, and various even as some speech is short, some long, according to the judgment of the speaker. But in kind there are seven divisions of copy of words, of which it is taught from chapter 10 to [33].8 The first division is twofold synonymy, that is of words, of which in chapter ro and the two following, and synonymy of construction, of which in chapter 13.+ To this is added also threefold equipollence, of which in chapter [24] and the following two. The second division is heterosis or enallage of the part or accident, of which below in chapter [13]. The third division is metaplasm, that is, the scheme of orthography or prosody, more common in verse than in prose. Of this below in the end of chapter 13. The fourth division is the trope of diction, and metaphor with their parts, below in chapter 14. The fifth division is the trope of speech, as allegory, irony, below in chapter [18]. The sixth division is the scheme of diction of the first order treated at chapter 30. At the end of which he explains also concerning knitting and resolving commas, proportions, and periods. The seventh division is the scheme of speech of the second order treated at chapter 32, be-cause as the metaplasms by grammarians, so the schemes of diction and speech by the rhetoricians are treated rather fully. And these seven divisions of copy of words can be referred wholly to three-fold synonymy, that is, of words, construction, and figures. For this copy changes and varies speech
' D. Erasmi Roterodami De Deplici Copia Ver6ortm 4c Rervm Commentarii Duo, muha accession, nouiolue forme/is locupletati. Yna cum commentarijs M. Peltkirehij Oratoriae prgfesseris in schola Wittenbergensi (London, 1573, copy in University of Illinois Library), pp. iv-sr; (1566), pp. 18-19. Someone has written an the title-page of the London, 1573, belonging to the British Museum, "Clerke de aulico." Evidently that work was also to see some use in grammar school.
' The punctuation in the edition of 1536 is wrong, causing the editor to substitute 13 for 33Ã Later editions correct the punctuation, but not the number. The other bracketed corrections I had made before I saw the edition of 1i36, which includes all of them. The London edition of 1573 agrees with the edition of 1536, except in the instances noted below.
5London, Ism p. 6v reads 31.
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