space at my disposal: but memoirs of men like Gilpin need bringing more prominently before the people, and the high heroism and pure disinterestedness they displayed should be inculcated to the rising generation,-our future men and women; for, as the great American poet beautifully sings:"Lives of great men all remind us To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind, THOMPSON'S Seasons-Spring. "It may be hoped that Ascham's works obtained for his family, after his decease, that support which he did not in his life very plenteously procure them Whether he was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and among us it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature. Of his manners nothing can be said but from his own testimony, and that of his contemporaries. Those who mention him allow him many virtues. His courtesy, benevolence, and liberality, are celebrated; and of his piety we have not only the testimony of his friends, but the evidence of his writings."-DR. JOHNSON. K Roger Ascham was born at Kirby Wisk, in the year 1515; when Harry the Eighth, then a young man of some twentyfour summers, had been but six years on the throne, and could amuse himself by riding a-Maying from Greenwich to the top of Shooter's Hill, accompanied by many of those nobles who had probably fought at the Battle of the Spurs and at Flodden Field, not two years agone, and, above all, by his highly educated queen, Catherine, (or more properly, Catalina,) of Arragon, whose rich auburn hair covered a head doomed to a life of undeserved persecution, from which-as from all other permitted evils-the Almighty caused blessings to spring: the year too when Henry's sister, the Princess Mary, released by death of her sadly-too-old husband, Louis the Twelfth of France, gave her hand to Charles Brandon, afterwards Duke of Suffolk, to whom the king, on the suppression of the monasteries, granted the neighbouring manor of Appleton Wisk, and to whose family, as well as the children of the king, we shall by and by see Roger Ascham become tutor. Thomas Wolsey, the Ipswich butcher's son, who the year previously had secured the sees of Lincoln and York, that same year received his cardinal's hat and red stockings, and became prime minister of state; and the monasteries were luxuriating in worldly wealth to the great detriment of true religion. Roger was the third son of John and Margaret Ascham. He had some sisters also. His father, John Ascham, was steward to the ancient family of Scroope; and his mother, Margaret, whose maiden name has not been handed down to us, is said to have been related to some high families. After living together as man and wife for forty-seven years, John and Margaret Ascham both died on one day, and nearly at the same hour. As the parish registers at Kirby Wisk do not commence until 1615, it is useless to search them for the subject of the present memoir. Roger Ascham, who displayed from childhood a love for learning, was received into the family of Sir Anthony Wingfield, and was educated with the two sons of his patron, under the tutorship of Mr. Robert Bond. "Let this," observes FULLER, in his Holy and Profane States, "amongst other motives, make schoolmasters careful in their place, that the eminences of their scholars have commended their schoolmasters to posterity, which otherwise in obscurity had been altogether forgotten." |