II. But there was no lack of instruments for carrying out the scheme of education in England, whatever the imperfections of it might be. There were, besides the ordinary pedagogue, whose accomplishments did not, perhaps, extend beyond the language of his own country, writing, and arithmetic, professors for French, Italian, and Dutch, and men whose training at college qualified them more or less to give instruction in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The German, Spanish, and Portuguese do not seem to have been much cultivated down to a comparatively recent date, which is the more extraordinary since our intercourse with all those countries was constant from the earliest period. There were certainly English versions of the Spanish grammars of Anthonio de Corro and Cesare Oudin made in the times of Elizabeth and her successor, as well as the original production by Lewis Owen, entitled, _The Key into the Spanish Tongue_. But these were assuredly never used as ordinary school-books, and were rather designed as manuals for travellers and literary students; and the same is predicable, I apprehend, of the anonymous Portuguese Dictionary and Grammar of 1701, which is framed on a scale hardly adapted for the requirements of the young. Yet at the same time these, and many more like the _Dutch Tutor_, the _Nether-Dutch Academy_, and so forth, were of eminent service in private tuition and select classes, where a pupil was placed with a coach for some special object, or to complete the studies which were not included in the school programmes. Moreover, it is not to be overlooked that in the polyglot vocabulary and phrase-book the student, either with or without the aid of a tutor, possessed in former times a very valuable machinery for gaining a knowledge of languages for conversational and commercial purposes; and these works sometimes comprised the German, as well as the more usual tongues employed in correspondence and intercourse. The title-page of one of them, published at Antwerp in 1576, expressly intimates its utility to all merchants; and a second of rather earlier date (1548) is specified as a book highly necessary to everybody desirous of learning the languages embraced in it, which are English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Flemish, German, and Latin--a remarkable complement, as very few are more than hexaglot. But these helps were of course outside the schoolroom, and were called into requisition chiefly by individuals whose vocations took them abroad, or rendered an acquaintance with foreign terms more or less imperative; and undoubtedly our extensive mercantile and diplomatic relations with all parts of the world made this class of supplementary instruction a livelihood for a very numerous body of teachers.