Thomas Ascham

“ Ascham's invectives against the Italian school, and his hard-hearted strictures upon the innocent ebullitions of Petrarch and Boccaccio, have been noticed, with due judgment and spirit, by Mr. Burnet, in his pleasing analysis of our philosopher's works. See Specimens of English Prose Writers; vol. ii., p. 84. Our tutor's notions of academical education, and his courteous treatment of his royal and noble scholars, will be discoursed of anon; meantime, while we cursorily, but strongly, applaud Dr. Johnson's almost unqualified commendation of this able writer ”

“ Ascham says that among the prevailing evils there was none more grave than the large admission of the sons of rich men, indifferent to solid and far-reaching study [29] : while Bucer recorded his opinion that the indolent fellows [30] who were growing old on the different collegiate foundations, were an incubus on the University. Such academic activity as still remained was in Cambridge rather than in Oxford, as is shown by the names of Ascham, Cheke, Thomas Smith, and the illustrious Cecil, who was for a short time a Lecturer in Greek. ”

“ We have seen that Sir Thomas Elyot had some vigour of style. |Ascham.| Ascham, whose Toxophilus, or dialogue on archery, came out in 1544, does not excel him. But his works have been reprinted in modern times, and are consequently better known than those of Elyot. The early English writers are seldom select enough in their phrases to bear such a critical judgment as the academicians of Italy were wont to exercise. ”

“ Lady Jane Grey tells Ascham that her former teacher used to give her "pinches, and cuffs, and bobs," &c. The preface to the Schoolmaster informs us that two gentlemen, who dined with Ascham at Cecil's table, were of opinion that Nicolas Udal, then head master of Eaton School, "was the best schoolmaster of their time, and the greatest beater!" Bishop Latimer, in his fourth sermon (edit. 1562, fol. 15 to 18) , has drawn such a picture of the Londoners of this period that the philosopher may imagine that youths, who sprung from such parents, required to be ruled with a rod of iron. ”

“ Ascham's English letter, written when he was abroad, will be found at the end of Bennet's edition of his works, in 4to. They are curious and amusing. What relates to the Bibliomania I here select from similar specimens. "Oct. 4. At afternoon I went about the town [of Bruxelles] . I went to the frier Carmelites house, and heard their even song: after, I desired to see the Library. A frier was sent to me, and led me into it. There was not one good book but Lyra. The friar was learned, spoke Latin readily, entered into Greek, having a very good wit, and a greater desire to learning. ”

“ How far they have succeeded in fulfilling the aims of their founder only a careful study of their subsequent history can tell, and for that we have not space. But this, at least, we may say, that a college in which, generation after generation, there were enrolled men of such varying parts and powers as Sir Thomas Wyatt and William Grindall; as Sir John Cheke and Roger Ascham, the former the tutor of Edward VI., the latter of Queen Elizabeth, and both famous as among the most sagacious and original thinkers on the subject of education ”

“ He furnished Peter Martyr with funds to escape out of England, shielded Thomas Smith, formerly Secretary to Edward VI., from persecution, and generously allowed him a yearly pension of £100 for his support. Of his behaviour to Roger Ascham, the reformer himself said, “Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, High Chancellor of England, treated me with the utmost humanity and favour, so that I cannot easily decide whether Paget was more ready to commend me, or Winchester [Pg 375] to protect and benefit me ”

“ Left Oxford for Cambridge, as Erasmus had done, probably on account of the sworn hostility at Oxford to classical learning. See his “Answer” to Sir Thomas More, written in 1530 (Mullinger, The University of Cambridge p. 590) .
Greek Classics, Second period.
Roger Ascham, b. 1515, fellow of S. John’s. Reader in Greek and Public Orator in the university. Tutor to Mary, Elizabeth, and Lady Jane Grey.
Sir Thomas Smith, b. 1514, LL.D. Queens’. Regius Professor of Law and Reader in Greek at Cambridge, and Public Orator.
Sir John Cheke, b. 1514 at Cambridge, fellow of S. John’s. ”

“ He was chosen orator to the university on the removal of sir John Cheke to court, where he was made tutor to prince Edward. A man once distinguished soon gains admirers. Ascham was now received to notice by many of the nobility, and by great ladies, among whom it was then the fashion to study the ancient languages. Lee, archbishop of York, allowed him a yearly pension; how much we are not told. He was, probably, about this time, employed in teaching many illustrious persons to write a fine hand; and, among others, Henry and Charles, dukes of Suffolk, the princess Elizabeth, and prince Edward. ”

“ But when we consider that Ascham was Latin secretary to Edward the Sixth, to Mary, and to Elizabeth, and intimately acquainted with the transactions of these cabinets, with the sovereigns, and the ministers; and during three years held a personal intercourse with the highest foreign court;—we must regret, if we no not censure, the man who, possessing these rare advantages, with a vigorous intellect, and a felicitous genius, has left the world in silence. ”

“ There is no credit due to a rhetorician's account either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation. But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return with a good will to academical poverty. ”

“ To relieve the severities of study he practised archery; and wrote his "Toxophilus, the Schole of Shootinge," to recommend that old English art. In it he strongly advocated the old English language, and the abstinence from foreign terms, a recommendation which succeeding generations have wisely declined, to the vast enrichment of the language. But Ascham was a genuine Englishman, and advised his countrymen to follow the counsel of Aristotle, and "speak as the common people do, but think as wise men do." ”

“ Most of the writers of the Paston Letters were, though in some cases of good rank and fairly educated, persons entirely unacademic in character, and their society was that of the last trouble and convulsion through which the Early Middle Ages struggled into the Renaissance, so long delayed with us. Ascham was one of our chief representatives of the Renaissance itself—that is to say, of a type at once scholarly and man-of-the-worldly, a courtier and a diplomatist as well as a "don" and a man of letters; a sportsman as well as a schoolmaster. ”

“ Besides devoting himself to Greek, which he taught as an undergraduate to students younger than himself, Ascham made himself master of almost all extant Latin literature, paid some attention to mathematics, became an accomplished musician, and acquired singular skill in penmanship. On 18 Feb. 1533—4 he took the degree of B.A., and on 23 March following was admitted to a fellowship at St. John's, which, as he wrote later, was 'the whole foundation . . . of all the furderance that hitherto else where I have obteyned' (Scholemaster, p. 134) . ”

“ He still retained the public oratorship at Cambridge and a fellowship. Before the close of 1553 his fortunes improved. He sought the favour of his old friend Gardiner, and through him was appointed Latin secretary to Queen Mary, with an annual salary of twenty pounds. The bishop, on hearing how he had lost his pension, bade him have the patent written out again, and Ascham brought the document to him, leaving a blank space for the sum of money. ”

“ Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Of Studies
OTHER PROSE-WRITERS
1. Roger Ascham (1515–68) is representative of the earliest school of Elizabethan prose. He was born in Yorkshire, and educated privately and at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow (1535) and a teacher of Greek (1540) . He took part in the literary and religious disputes of the time, but managed to keep his feet on the shifting grounds of politics. ”

“ It is not surprising that in the presence of these unsatisfying 160things, and in the nonage of catholic literary criticism, men should have turned for help to those classics which were the general teachers and helpers of the time. |The temptations of Criticism in this respect.| There was indeed—already published just as Ascham had attained his year of discretion—a treatise, by the greatest man of letters for some fifteen hundred years at least, which contained the germ of a warning. ”

“ Ascham was proud, when alluding to his master the learned Cheke, and to his royal pupil Queen Elizabeth, of having been the pupil of the greatest scholar, and the preceptor to the greatest pupil in England; but we have rather to admire the intrepidity of his genius, which induced him to avow the noble design of setting an example of composing in our vernacular idiom. He tells us in his “Toxophilus,” “I write this English matter in the English language for Englishmen.” He introduced an easy and natural style in English prose, instead of the pedantry of the unformed taste of his day ”

“ In his English work 'The Schoolmaster,' -97-
-vol i-referring again to this interview with Jane Grey, Ascham adds the following curious and affecting particulars. Having asked her how at her age she could have attained to such perfection both in philosophy and Greek, "I will tell you," said she, "and tell you a truth, which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go ”

“ Their sport was archery, and Sir Humphry “himself would at term times bring down from London both bows and shafts and go with them himself to the field and see them shoot.” Hence Ascham’s earliest English work, the Toxophilus, the importance which he attributed to archery in educational establishments, and probably the provision for archery in the statutes of St Albans, Harrow and other Elizabethan schools. From this private tuition Ascham was sent “about 1530,” at the age, it is said, of fifteen, to St John’s College, Cambridge, then the largest and most learned college in either university. ”

“ J. E. B. Mayor has collected their testimonies in an appendix to his edition of the 'Scholemaster,' pp. 268-80. All scholars who were personally acquainted with him speak of his affectionate and gentle nature; but Camden adds in his 'Annals,' under date 1568: 'Nevertheless, being too much given todicing and cockfighting, he lived and died a poor man.' Upon this passage much discussion has arisen, and several writers have attributed the poverty of Ascham's later years to his habit of gambling. ”

“ The germ of the idea is also to be found in Lloyd's State Worthies, where speaking of Roger Ascham, he is characterised as "an honest man,—none being more able for, yet none more averse to, that circumlocution and contrivance wherewith some men shadow their main drift and purpose. ”

“ Before the reign of Henry VIII. great authors composed occasionally a book in Latin, which none but other great authors cared for, and which the people could not read. In the reign of Elizabeth, Roger Ascham appeared—one of those men of genius born to create a new era in the history of their nation. The first English author who may be regarded as the founder of our prose style was Roger Ascham, the venerable parent of our native literature. ”

“ That school-masters and lexicographers were not usually so well rewarded, notwithstanding the high value placed on classical literature at this period, may be drawn from the complaint of Ascham: "It is pitie," says he, "that commonlie more care is had, yea, and that amonge verie wise men, to find out rather a cunnynge man for their horse, than a cunnynge man for their children. They say nay in worde, but they do so in deede. ”

“ Of pedantry, however, there never seems to have been any danger in Court circles, either in Tudor or Stuart days. It took constant exhortations to make the majority of noblemen's sons learn anything at all out of books. For centuries the marks of a gentleman had been bravery, courtesy and a good seat in the saddle, and it was not to be supposed that a sudden fashionable enthusiasm for literature could change all that. Ascham had declared that the Elizabethan young bloods thought it shameful to be learned because the "Jentlemen of France" were not so. ”

“ M. Ascham was a good schoolmaster to Queen Elizabeth, but affliction was a better, as one well observeth. He that hateth reproof, whether it be by the rebukes of men, or the rod of God, is fallen below the stirrup of reason, he is a brute in man’s shape; nothing is more irrational than irreligion.—Trapp.
The most we can attain to in this life is, not to know, but only to have a love of knowledge; we know in part, and a partial knowledge is not to know indeed. ”

“ He was an ardent believer in persecution, was present at Hooper’s trial, sought Ascham’s ruin, and naturally lost his office and his seat on the privy council at Elizabeth’s succession. He retired to the continent before May 1559, and from that time until his death was an active participant in all schemes for the restoration of Roman Catholicism. ”