CHAPTER II.

SECOND HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY: ASCHAM, LYLY, SIDNEY, AND OTHER WRITERS OF SECULAR PROSE.

1. Roger Ascham.-2. John Lyly.-3. Sir Philip Sidney.-4. Literary History and Criticism; John Bale; William Webbe; George Puttenham.- 5. Literary Anthologies; John Bodenham; Francis Meres.-6. History and Biography; George Cavendish; Richard Grafton; John Stow; Ralph Holinshed. — 7. Books of Travel; Sir Humphrey Gilbert; Thomas Hariot; Richard Hakluyt.

1. THERE were during this period three great men of letters, whose writings are the most characteristic specimens of English literature, particularly in prose, for the second half of the sixteenth century, - Roger Ascham, John Lyly, and Sir Philip Sidney.

Roger Ascham was born about the year 1515, in Kirkby Wiske, in Yorkshire, his father being house-steward in the family of Lord Scrope. He was educated by Sir Humphrey Wingfield, of whom he said afterwards: "This worshipful man hath ever loved, and used to have many children brought up in learning in his house, among whom I myself was one, for whom at term-times he would bring down from London both bow and shafts. And when they should play he would go with them himself into the field, see them shoot; and he that shot fairest should have the best bow and shafts, and he that shot ill-favoredly should be mocked of his fellows till he shot better. Would to God all England had used or would use to lay the foundation of youth after the example of this worshipful man in bringing up children in the book and the bow; by which two things the whole commonwealth, both in peace and war, is chiefly valid and defended withal!" At fifteen Roger Ascham became a student at St. John's College, Cambridge. He took his B.A. in 1534; obtained a fellowship in his college; and in 1537 became

a college lecturer on Greek. He was at home for a couple of years after 1540, during which time he obtained a pension of forty shillings from the Archbishop of York. It ceased at the archbishop's death, in 1544. In that year Ascham wrote "Toxophilus ;" and in 1545, being then about twenty-nine years old, he presented "Toxophilus" to the king, at Greenwich, and was rewarded with a pension of ten pounds.

"Toxophilus" was a scholar's book, designed to encourage among all gentlemen and yeomen of England the practice of archery for defence of the realm. The treatise was divided into two books of dialogue between Philologus and Toxophilus; the first book containing general argument to commend shooting, the second a particular description of the art of shooting with the long-bow. Ascham argued for it as a worthy recreation — one very fit for scholars that in peace excludes ignoble pastimes, and in war gives to a nation strength. Men should seek, he said, to excel in it, and make it a study. Then he proceeded in the second part of his work to treat it as a study. The book was published in 1545, with a dedication to Henry VIII., and a preface, in which Ascham justified his use of English. To have written in another tongue would, he said, have better advanced his studies and his credit; but he wished to be read by the gentlemen and yeomen of England. He could not surpass what others had done in Greek and Latin; while English had usually been written by ignorant men so meanly, both for the matter and handling, that no man could do worse. Ascham was, in his preface to "Toxophilus," the first to suggest that English prose might be written with the same scholarly care that would be required for choice and ordering of words if one wrote Latin. "He that will write well in any tongue," said Ascham," must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do; and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him. Many English writers have not done so, but using strange words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark and hard." The manly simplicity of Ascham's own English is in good accord with his right doctrine. His Latin was so well esteemed that in the year after the appearance of " Toxophi

lus" he succeeded Cheke as public orator, and wrote the official letters of the University.

Ascham was famous also for his penmanship, and taught writing to the Prince who in 1547 became King Edward VI. Under Edward VI., Ascham had his pension confirmed and augmented. In 1548 he became tutor to the Princess Elizabeth, at Cheston; but he was annoyed by her steward, and had therefore returned to the University, when, in 1550, he was through Cheke's good offices appointed secretary to Sir Richard Morison, then going as ambassador to Charles V. He reached Augsburg in October, was away more than a year, and published in 1553 a "Report and Discourse written by Roger Ascham, of the Affairs and State of Germany and the Emperor Charles his Court, during certain years while the said Roger was there." Ascham, although a Protestant, had escaped persecution in the reign of Mary; his pension had been renewed, and in May, 1554, he had been appointed Latin secretary to the queen, with a salary of forty marks. In that year also he gave up his fellowship, and married Margaret Howe. By Queen Elizabeth, Roger Ascham, who had been one of her teachers in Greek, was still continued in his pension, and retained in his post of Latin secretary. In 1560 the queen gave him the prebend of Wetwang, in York Minster. The archbishop had given it to another, and Ascham did not get his dues without a lawsuit. In 1563, Ascham, as one in the queen's service, was dining with Sir William Cecil, when the conversation turned to the subject of education, from news of the running away of some boys from Eton, where there was much beating. Ascham argued that young children were sooner allured by love than driven by beating to obtain good learning. Sir Richard Sackville, father of Thomas Sackville, said nothing at the dinner-table, but he afterwards drew Ascham aside, agreed with his opinions, lamented his own past loss by a harsh schoolmaster, and said, Ascham tells us in the preface to his book, "Seeing it is but in vain to lament things past, and also wisdom to look to things to come, surely, God willing, if God lend me life, I will make this, my mishap, some occasion of good hap to little Robert Sackville, my son's son. For whose

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bringing-up I would gladly, if it so please you, use specially your good advice. I hear say you have a son much of his age [Ascham had three little sons]; we will deal thus together. Point you out a schoolmaster who by your order shall teach my son and yours, and for all the rest I will provide, yea, though they three do cost me a couple of hundred pounds by year: and besides you shall find me as fast a friend to you and yours as perchance any you have.' Which promise the worthy gentleman surely kept with me until his dying day." The conversation went into particulars, and in the course of it Sir Richard drew from Ascham what he thought of the common going of Englishmen into Italy. All ended with a request that Ascham would put in some order of writing the chief points of this our talk, concerning the right order of teaching and honesty of living, for the good bringing-up of children and young men." This was the origin of Ascham's book called "The Schoolmaster." Ascham wrote in Latin against the mass, and upon other subjects connected with religious controversy. His delicate health failed more and more, and he ended his pure life as a scholar in 1568, at the age of fifty-three. His "Schoolmaster" was left complete, and published in 1570 by his widow, with a dedication to Sir William Cecil. Beseeching him, she said, to take on him "the defence of the book, to avaunce the good that may come of it by your allowance and furtherance to publike use and benefite, and to accept the thanke full recognition of me and my poore children, trustyng of the continuance of your good memorie of M. Ascham and his, and dayly commendyng the prosperous estate of you and yours to God, whom you serve, and whose you are, I rest to trouble you. Your humble Margaret Ascham." The treatise is in two parts, one dealing with general principles, the other technical, as in "Toxophilus;" the first book teaching the bringing-up of youth, the second book teaching the ready way to the Latin tongue. Great stress is laid in Ascham's "Schoolmaster" on gentleness in teaching. As to the true notes of the best wit in a child, Ascham will take, he says, "the very judgment of him that was counted the best teacher and wisest man that learning maketh mention of, and that is Socrates in Plato,

who expresseth orderly these seven plain notes to choose a good wit in a child for learning." He was to be (1) euphues; (2) of good memory; (3) attached to learning; (4) prepared for labor and pains; (5) glad to learn of another; (6) free in questioning; and (7) happy in well-earned applause.

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The first of these qualities, Ascham describes at especial length: Euphues is he that is apt by goodness of wit, and appliable by readiness of will, to learning, having all other qualities of the mind and parts of the body that must another day serve learning, not troubled, mangled, and halved, but sound, whole, full, and able to do their office: as a tongue not stammering, or over hardly drawing forth words, but plain and ready to deliver the meaning of the mind; a voice not soft, weak, piping, womanish, but audible, strong, and manlike; a countenance not werish and crabbed, but fair and comely; a personage not wretched and deformed, but tall and goodly,for surely a comely countenance, with a goodly stature, giveth credit to learning, and authority to the person; otherwise, commonly, either open contempt or privy disfavor doth hurt or hinder both person and learning. And even as a fair stone requireth to be set in the finest gold, with the best workmanship, or else it loseth much of the grace and price, even so excellency in learning, and namely divinity, joined with a comely personage, is a marvellous jewel in the world. And how can a comely body be better employed than to serve the greatest exercise of God's greatest gift, and that is learning?"

In illustration of the force of gentleness in teaching, Ascham cited in "The Schoolmaster" his finding of Lady Jane Grey, when he called on her at Broadgate, in Leicestershire, before his going into Germany, reading Plato's "Phædo" in Greek, "and that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccaccio." He asked her how that was; and she said it was because God had given her severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster. At home she was so continually under punishment and censure, that she longed for the time when she must go to Mr. Aylmer, "who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the