iting her in 1550, her mother, Mary of Guise, with her Scottish attendants, burst into tears of joy. Upon her removal to the French court, Mary became the envy of her sex, surpassing the most accomplished in the elegance and fluency of her language, the grace and loveliness of her movements, and the charm of her whole manner and behavior. She wrote with elegance in the Latin and French languages; and many of her compositions. have been preserved, consisting of poems, letters, and a discourse of royal advice to her son. Like Queen Elizabeth, she greatly excelled in music, especially on the virginal, an instrument in use among our ancestors prior to the invention of the spinnet and harpsichord: many compositions which were written for Elizabeth, are known in the musical world at the present day; and the identical virginal upon which the queen played is in existence in Worcestershire.

66

ROGER ASCHAM-HIS SCHOOLMASTER."

One of the most remarkable men of this period was Roger Ascham, who attained such proficiency in Greek, that, when a boy, he read lectures in it to other boys who were desirous of instruction; he also learned to play on musical instruments, and was one of the few who then excelled in the mechanical art of writing. He took the degree of M.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge; he commenced tutor when 20 years of age, and was one of those who restored the pronunciation of Greek to our own modern mode of utterance. His favorite amusement was archery, upon which he wrote a treatise, entitled Toxophilus, in 1544, which he dedicated to King Henry VIII., who rewarded him with a pension of 107. a-year. He taught the Lady Elizabeth to write a fair hand, and for two years he instructed her in the learned languages: he informs us that Elizabeth understood Greek better than the clergy of Windsor. He was next appointed Latin Secretary to King Edward: upon one occasion, he is stated to have composed and transcribed, with his usual elegance, in three days, 47 letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest. On the accession of Queen Elizabeth he was reappointed her Latin secretary and tutor, and read some hours with the Queen every day. In 1563, upon the invitation of Sir Richard Sackville, he began to write the Schoolmaster, a treatise on Education, considered by Dr. Johnson to contain the best advice that was ever given for the study of languages. Ascham died in 1568, lamented as a scholar and a man ; when Queen Elizabeth heard of his death, she exclaimed, "she would rather have thrown ten thousand pounds into the sea, than have lost her Ascham." His great benefit to literature was his

introduction of an easy and natural style into English writing, instead of the pedantic taste of his day; he adopted, he tells us, the counsel of an ancient writer, "to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do." One of Ascham's tracts (on the Affairs of Germany) is described by Dr. Johnson as written "in a style which to the ears of that age was undoubtedly mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine English."

LADY JANE GREY AND HER SCHOOLMASTER.

Foremost among the learned women of this time was the beauteous Lady Jane Grey, who was born at Bradgate, on the border of Charnwood Forest, four miles from Leicester, and educated by Aylmer, her father's chaplain. The story of her "almost infancy" would be incredible were it not well authenticated. Burton calls her "that most noble and admired Princess Lady Jane Grey; who being but young, at the age of seventeen years, as John Bale writeth, attained to such excellent learning, in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues, and also in the study of divinity, by the instruction of Mr. Aylmer, as appeareth by her many writings, letters, etc., that, as Mr. Fox saith of her, had her fortune been answerable to her bringing up, undoubtedly she might have been compared to the house of Vespasian, Sempronius, and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi in Rome, and, in these days, the chiefest men of the universities." At Bradgate Roger Ascham paid the Lady Jane a visit, which he thus describes in his Schoolmaster :

"Before I went into Germanie, I came to Brodegate, in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parentes, the Duke and the Dutchesse, with all the householde, Gentlemen and Gentleweemen, were hunting in the Parke: I found her in her chamber, reading Phædon Platonis in Greeke, and that with as much delite, as some gentleman would read a merry tale in Bocase. After salutation and dutie done, with some other talke, I asked her why shee should leese such pastime in the Parke. Smiling she answered me: I wisse, all their sport in the Parke, is but a shadow to that pleasure, that I finde in Plato: Alas good folke, they never felt what true pleasure ment. And how came you, Madame, quoth I, to this deepe knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you vnto it, seeing not many women, but very fewe men have attained thereunto? I will tell you, quoth shee, and tell you a troth, which perchance ye will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gauve me, is, that hee sente so sharp and seuere parentes, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speake, keepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merry, or sad, bee swoing, playing, dancing, or any thing els, I must doe it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, euen so perfectly, as God made the world, or ells, I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other wayes, which I will not name, for the honor I beare them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come, that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, with such faire allurements to learning, that I thinke all the time nothing, while I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, whatever I do els but learning, is full of greefe, trouble, feare, and whole misliking vnto mee; and thus my booke hath been so much my pleasure and more, that in respect to it, all other pleasure, in very deede, bee_but_trifles and troubles vnto mee.-I remember this talke gladly, both because it is so worthy of memory, and because also it was the last talke that ever I had, and the last time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady.” *

* Scholemaster, fol. edit. 1571.

On the morning of her execution, the Lady Jane wrote a letter in Greek to her sister on the blank leaf of a Testament in the same language, and in her note-book three sentences in Greek, Latin, and English, of which the last is as follows: "If my faults deserved punishment, my youth, at least, and my imprudence, were worthy of excuse. God and posterity will show me favour."

Fuller says of Jane: "She had the innocence of childhood, the beautie of youth, the soliditie of middle, the gravitie of old age, and all at eighteen: the bust of a princesse, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, yet the death of a malefactor, for her parents' offences.”

SIR ANTHONY COOK AND HIS FOUR LEARNED DAUGHTERS.

In the reign of Elizabeth, ladies generally understood Italian, French, the lute, often some Latin, and sometimes the use of the globes, and astronomy. The plan of the education of females which the example of Sir Thomas More had rendered popular, continued to be pursued among the superior classes of the community. The learned languages, which, in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, contained everything elegant in literature, still formed a requisite of fashionable education; and many young ladies could not only translate the authors of Greece and Rome, but compose in their languages with considerable elegance.

Sir Anthony Cook, whom we have already mentioned as tutor to Edward VI., bestowed the most careful education on his four daughters; and they severally rewarded his exertions, by becoming not only proficients in literature, but distinguished for their excellent conduct as mothers of families. Their classical acquirements made them conspicuous even among the women of fashion of that age. Katherine, who became Lady Killigrew, wrote Latin Hexameters and Pentameters, which would appear with credit in the Musa Etonenses. Mildred, the wife of Lord Burleigh, is described by Roger Ascham as the best Greek scholar among the young women of England, Lady Jane Grey always excepted. Anne, the mother of Francis Bacon, was distinguished both as a linguist and as a theologian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewell, and translated his Apologiæ from the Latin so correctly that neither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration. She also translated a series of sermons on fate and free-will, from the Tuscan.

Yet, Lord Macaulay considers the highly-educated ladies of this period, and their pursuits, to have been unfairly extolled at the expense of the women of our time, through one very obvious and very important circumstance being overlooked. "In

the time of our Henry VIII. and Edward VI.," says our historian, “ a person who did not read Greek and Latin could read nothing, or next to nothing. The Italian was the only modern language which presented anything that could be called a literature. All the valuable books extant in all the vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single shelf. England did not yet possess Shakspeare's Plays and the Fairy Queen, nor France Montaigne's Essays, nor Spain Don Quixote. In looking round a well-furnished library, how many English or French books can we find which were extant when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth received their education? Chaucer, Gower, Froissart, Rabelais, nearly complete the list. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary that a woman should be uneducated, or classically educated. Latin was then the language of courts, as well as of the schools; of diplomacy, and of theological and political controversy. This is no longer the case: the ancient tongues are supplanted by the modern languages of Europe, with which English women are at least as well acquainted as English men. When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane Grey with those of an accomplished young woman of our own time, we have no hestitation in awarding the superiority to the latter."

A TRUANT PUNISHED IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

Sir Peter Carew, born of a distinguished family in Devonshire, in 1514, after a turbulent youth, took an active part in the Continental wars of that period. He was at the battle of Pavia, subsequently became a favorite of Henry VIII., and lived through a part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His life was written by a cotemporary (John Vowell, alias Hooker, of Exeter), and describes Peter, "in his prime days, as very pert and forward, wherefore his father

brought him, heing about the age of twelve years, to Exeter, to school, and lodged him with one Thomas Hunt, a draper and alderman of that city, and did put him to school to one Freers, then master of the Grammar School there; and whether it were that he was in fear of the said Freers, for he was counted to be a very hard and cruel master, or whether it were for that he had no affection to his learning, true it is he would never keep his school, but was a daily truant, and always ranging; whereof the schoolmaster misliking did oftentimes complain unto the foresaid Thomas Hunt, his host; upon which complaint, so made, the said Thomas would go, and send, abroad to seek out the said Peter. And, among many times thus seeking him, it happened that he found him about the walls of the said city, and, he running to take him, the boy climbed up upon the top of one of the highest garrets of a turret of the said wall, and would not, for any request, come down, saying moreover to his host that, if he did press too fast upon him, he would surely cast himself down headlong over the wall; and then, said he, I shall break my neck, and thou shalt be hanged, because thou makest me to leap down.' His host, being afraid of the boy, departed, and left some to watch him, and so to take him, as soon as he came down. But forthwith he sent to ir William Carew, and did advertise him of this, and of sundry other shrewed parts of his son Peter, who, at his next coming then to Exeter, called his son before him, tied him in a line, and delivered him to one of his servants to be carried about the town, as one of his hounds, and they led him home to Mohun's ottery, like a dog. And after that, he being come to Mohun's ottery, he coupled him to one of his hounds, and so continued him for a time."

The discipline at Oxford was about this time very rigid; for we read that Samuel Parker, the Puritan, who was educated at Wadham College, "did," says Anthony à Wood, "according to his former breeding, lead a strict and religious life, fasted, prayed, with other students, weekly together, and for their refection, feeding on thin broth, made of oatmeal and water only, they were commonly called gruellers."

FLOGGING IN SCHOOLS.

In the Middle Ages, we read of, besides stationary, itinerant schoolmasters, and teachers of reading. In the wood-cuts of a work printed by Caxton, the schoolmaster holds a rod in his hand, and the boy kneels before him. The practice of flogging is sometimes engraved upon the seals of public schools: thus, the seal of St. Olave's School, dated 1576, represents the Master sitting in a high-backed chair at his desk, on which is a book, and the rod is conspicuously displayed to the terror of five scholars standing before him; and the seal of St. Saviour's School, 1573, represents the Master seated in a chair, with a group of thickly-trussed pupils before him. Dr. Busby, who was 50 years head-master of Westminster School, is said to have boasted his rod to be the sieve to prove good scholars; but his severity is traditional. The practice of flogging in Winchester is illustrated upon the walls of the great School, as already

described.

WESTMINSTER COLLEGE SCHOOL FOUNDED.

It is one of the unfading glories of ancient Westminster that it has been a seat of learning since the time when it was a "thorny island," and at least eight centuries since was rebuilt the Abbey Church "to the honour of God and St. Peter." The queen of the Confessor is related to have played with a Westminster scholar in grammar, verses, and logic, as she met him in his way from the monastery school to the palace, as related by the chronicler with all the circumstantial minuteness of the account of a royal visit of yesterday. Equally direct is the evidence that, from the latter part of the reign of Edward III., down to the dissolution of the Abbey, a salary was paid to a schoolmaster, styled "Magister Scholarium pro eruditione puerorum grammaticorum," who was distinguished from the person who taught the children of the choir to sing.

The earliest school was thus an appurtenance of the monastery; and is included in the draft (in the archives of the Chapter) of the new establishment for the See of Westminster.

During the reign of Queen Mary, Cardinal Pole appears to