THE LIFE OF 



CHAP. 



Epist. As- 



Joannye 



master: for when I am in presence either of father or 

 mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, 

 eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, 

 or doing any thing else, I must do it as it were in such 

 weight, mesure and number, even so perfectly as God 

 made the world ; or else I am so sharply taunted, so 

 cruelly threatned, yea presently sometimes with pinches, 

 nipps, and bobbs, and other ways, (which I will not name 

 for the honour I bear them,) so without mesure misor- 

 dered, that I think myself in hell, till time come that 

 I must go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, 

 so plesantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that 

 I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And 

 when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because 

 whatsoever I do else but learning, is full of grief, trouble, 

 fear, and wholly misliking to me. And thus my book 

 hath been so much my plesure, and bringeth daily to me 

 more plesure and more, that in respect of it, al other 

 plesures in very deed be but trifles and troubles unto 



me. 



While Ascham afterwards thought on this admirable 

 Lady, and of the employment he found her in, in her 

 chamber reading of Plato, he brake out into these words ; 

 ~12 Zsu xai 0soi ! divinam virginem, divinum divini Plato- 

 n Ph&donem Greece sedulo perlegentem : hac parte feli- 

 dor es judicanda, quam quod TrargoQev pyTpoQsvTs ex reg ibus 

 rcgimsque genus tuum deducts : i. e. &quot; O good God ! a di- 

 &quot; vine maid diligently reading in Greek the divine Phaedo 

 &quot; of divine Plato : in this respect you are to be reckoned 

 &quot; happier, than that both by father and mother you derive 

 &quot; your stock from kings and queens.&quot; And upon the same 

 account our Aylmer, whose scholar she was, he thus con 

 gratulates, (turning his speech to him, and then to her :) O 

 Elmarum meum fclicissimum, cm talis contigit discipula, 

 et te multo feliciorem, quce eum prceceptorem nacta es : 

 utriquc eerie et tibi qua discis, et illi qui docet, et gratulor, 

 et gaudeo: i. e. &quot;O my most fortunate Aylmer, to whose lot 

 &quot; it falls to have such a scholar : and you, madam, more 



