373 



ASCHAM, ROGER. 



ASCLEPIADES. 



S71 



the university, and privately in his own college. In 1544, on tha 

 resignation of Sir John Cheke, he was chosen University Orator, an 

 office which he filled with general approbation. 



In the following year (1545) appeared his 'Toxophilus, or the School 

 of Shootinge,' a treatise on archery, which he composed with a double 

 view : in the first place, to exhibit a specimen of English prose com- 

 position in a purer taste than then prevailed ; and in the second, to 

 attract the attention of king Henry VIII., then on the point of setting 

 out on his Boulogne expedition, and to obtain the means of visiting 

 Italy, which he much desired. He succeeded perfectly in the first 

 object, and partially in the second ; for the king was so well pleased 

 that he settled on the author a pension of 10/. per annum, at that time 

 a considerable sum, especially to a poor scholar. Ascham about this 

 time acquired other great patrons. He enjoyed a pension from 

 Archbishop Lee, acted for some time as tutor to Henry and Charles 

 Brandon, the two sons of the Duchess of Suffolk, and attracted the 

 friendly regards of the Chancellor Wriothesley, and other eminent 

 men. 



In 1548, on occasion of the death of William Grindal, who had been 

 his pupil at Cambridge, Ascham was appointed instructor in the 

 learned languages to the Lady Elizabeth, afterwards queen, a situation 

 which he filled for some time with great credit to himself and satis- 

 faction to his pupil. At the end of two years however, upon a disgust 

 he felt at the conduct of some of the princess's attendants, he suddenly 

 threw up his appointment, and retired to his college. He afterwards 

 had reason to regret the precipitancy of his conduct, which was perhaps 

 never entirely forgotten, though he succeeded in a great measure in 

 regaining the favour of Elizabeth. 



In 1550, while on a visit to his friends in Yorkshire, he was recalled 

 to court by a letter informing him that he had been appointed to 

 accompany Sir Richard Morysine on hia embassy to the court of the 

 Kmperor Charles V. It was on his way to London on this occasion 

 that he had his well-known interview with Lady Jane Grey, at her 

 father's seat at Broadgate in Leicestershire, where, according to his 

 beautiful relation of the scene in his ' Schole-Master,' he found her, a 

 young lady of fifteen, reading the ' Phsedon ' of Plato in the orginal 

 Greek, while the members of her family were hunting in the park. 

 Ascham embarked for Germany in the following September. He 

 accompanied Morysiue as a kind of secretary, though some of his 

 duties resembled those of a tutor. His spare hours he occupied in 

 preparing a ' Report on the Affairs of Germany,' which was subse- 

 quently printed. During his absence abroad his friends in England 

 procured not only the restoration of his pension, which had ceased at 

 the death of Henry VIII., but the place of Latin secretary to 

 Edward VI. For these favours he was indebted, as appears by a letter 

 of Ascham preserved in the Lansdowne Manuscripts, to the inter- 

 ference of Sir William Cecil, the ambassador Morysine, and Sir John 

 Cheke. 



The death of king Edward in 1553 led to the immediate recall of 

 the ambassador, with whom Ascham returned to England. By this 

 event he lost both his recent preferments, and the accession of a Roman 

 Catholic queen held out such dismal prospects for a zealous Protestant 

 like Ascham, that he retired to bis college almost in despair. Matters 

 however took an unexpected turn. Sir William Paget, whose recom- 

 mendation of the 'Toxophilus' to King Henry had procured his pension 

 fr JMI that monarch, now exerted his influence in his favour with Gar- 

 diner, bishop of Winchester, who, notwithstanding Ascham's staunch 

 Protestantism was often represented to him, proved his steady patron. 

 The ' Toxophilus ' was produced by the bishop at the council, and was 

 considered BO useful a work that the objections to the author's advance- 

 ment were removed. Ascham's pension was not only restored, but 

 doubled, and he was appointed Latin secretary to king Philip and the 

 queen. By the influence of Gardiner he was also enabled to retain his 

 fellowship and his post of public orator at the university. 



On the death of Queen Mary in 1553 Ascham was soon distinguished 

 by the notice of her successor. He was continued in office as Latin 

 secretary, and made tutor hi Greek to her majesty ; and during the 

 rest of his life was a constant resident at court. He spent some hours 

 every day in reading Greek and Latin authors with the queen, and 

 often enjoyed the more envied honour of being her partner or opponent 

 in g.-imea of chance. He obtained from her several pieces of prefer- 

 ment, the principal of which was the prebend of Wetwang in the 

 cathedral of York, which he received in 1559. 



Ascham had long been subject to a hectic disorder, accompanied 

 with want of sleep, and inability to study in tho afternoon or evening; 

 but at the end of 1568 he imprudently resumed the practice of night- 

 study, in order to complete a poem which he intended to present to 

 the Queen on new year's day. This brought on an attack of ague so 

 severe as to cause his death, after only a week's illness, on the 30th of 

 December, 1568. The news of his death caused universal regret, and 

 Queen Elizabeth was so moved on hearing it, that she declared, most 

 characteristically, that " she would rather have thrown ten thousand 

 pounds into the sea than have lost her Ascham." 



Ascham's greatest work, ' The Scholo-Maater,' did not appear until 

 after his death, when it was published by his widow, with a dedi- 

 cation to Sir William Cecil. The principal object of tho work, besides 

 the reprehension of severity on the part of teachers and parents, 

 is the introduction of a new system of teaching the Latin language- a 



system which has been partially revived of late years. Ascham pro- 

 poses, af^--:- teaching the rudiments of grammar, to commence a course 

 of double translation, first from Latin into English, and shortly after 

 from English into Latin, correcting the mistakes of the student, and 

 leading to the formation of a classic style, by pointing out the differ- 

 ences between the re-translation and the original, and explaining their 

 reasons. His whole system is built upon this principle of dispensing 

 as much as possible with the details of grammar ; and he supports his 

 theory by a triumphant reference to its practical effects, especially as 

 displayed in the case of Queen Elizabeth, whose well-known proficiency 

 in Latin he declares to have been attained without any grammatical 

 rules after the very simplest had been mastered. 



Ascham was in correspondence with most of the learned men of his 

 time, both in England and on the continent, especially with Sturmius, 

 whose name he gave to one of his three sons. After his death a col- 

 lection of his Latin letters was published by his friend Edward Grant, 

 master of Westminster School, together with a few poems, for the 

 benefit of Giles Ascham, who was then under Grant's tuition. To this 

 collection was prefixed a panegyric on Ascham, which ia the principal 

 source for his life, though his letters, and numerous allusions scattered 

 through his works, contribute to a knowledge of his personal history. 



Most of Ascham's works have passed through several editions. The 

 list includes: 1. ' Toxophilifs; the Schole of Shootinge,' London, 1545, 

 4to. This edition, printed by Edward Whytechurch, is very scarce, 

 and many bibliographers imagine a reprint by Marshe, 1571, to be the 

 first edition. 2. ' A Report and Discourse, written by Roger Ascham, 

 of the Affaires and State of Germany, and of the Emperor Charles his 

 Court, during certain years while the sayd Roger was there,' London, 

 fol., printed by John Daye. This work, which is in the form of a letter 

 to a friend, contains many curious particulars, especially as to the per- 

 sonal appearance of Charles V. and his courtiers. It bears no date in 

 the title-page, and, though written in 1552, was probably not published 

 for some years after. 3. ' The Schole-Master ; or Plain and Perfite 

 Way of teaching Children to Understand, Write, and Speake the Latin 

 Tongue, but specially purposed for the private bringing up of Youth 

 in Jentlemen and Noblemen's Houses,' London, 1571, fol. 4. ' Rogeri 

 Aschami Familiarium Epistolarum Libri Tres,' &c., prefixed to which 

 is Grant's ' Oratio de Vita et Obitu R.A., et ejus dictionis elegantia,' 

 12mo., London, 1576. The epistles have been several times reprinted. 

 5. 'Apologia pro Coma Dominica contra Missam et ejus preestigias,' &c., 

 1577, 8vo. The English works of Ascham were reprinted in a collected 

 form in 1 vol. 4to., in the year 1761, by Mr. J. Bennet, schoolmaster 

 of Hoddesdon. A life of the author was appended, which bears in 

 every line such strong marks of the hand of Dr. Johnson, that there 

 can be no doubt as to its origin. 



(Abridged from the Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the 

 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.) 



ASCLE'PIADES. This name was common to a great number of 

 persona, which has caused some confusion both in the ancient and 

 modern accounts of Asclepiades the celebrated physician, of whom 

 only we are going to treat. 



Asclepiades was a native of Prusa in Bithynia, but the time of his 

 birth is unknown, nor can we ascertain which of the three towns of 

 Bithyuia called Prusa claims the honour of his birth. He appears, 

 when young, to have spent some time at Alexandria, and at Parium, 

 on the Propontis ; probably also at Athens, where, if the story told in 

 Athenieus (iv. p. 168) refers to him, he gained his living at first by 

 grinding at a mill during the night, in order that he might attend 

 the lecturers on philosophy during the day. In Athens he appears 

 to have been on terms of intimacy with Antiochus, the academi- 

 cian, the master of Cicero. He appears to have come to Rome about 

 the beginning of the first century ; he was there at least during 

 the earlier part of Cicero's life, but he was probably some years older 

 than the Roman orator. He is said to have in the first instance prac- 

 tised at Rome as a teacher of rhetoric, and not succeeding in that 

 profession to havo turned to the study of medicine. The date of his 

 death is not recorded, but he is said to have lived to a great age, 

 free from all disease, and to have died by accidentally falling down 

 stairs. 



The foundation of the healing system of Asclepiades was the doc- 

 trine of corpuscles, which he borrowed from Heraclides of Poutus. 

 His corpuscular elements, which he called vytcoi, differed from the 

 atoms of Epicurus : they were without form, but still divisible, aud 

 subject to change. Disease, he argued, arose from inharmonious dis- 

 tribution of the corpuscles aud obstructions of the pores. He seems 

 to have been little acquainted with anatomy : he had no exact notion 

 of the difference between the veins and arteries, he was unacquainted 

 with the use of the nerves, and he confounded them with the liga- 

 ments. He is said to have been the first who divided diseases into 

 acute and chronic, and to have considered them essentially different. 

 He observed the double-tertian fever which was so common in Rome ; 

 and he distinguished very accurately between the violent or febrile 

 dropsy, and the chronic one, unaccompanied with fever. 



The practice of Asclepiades was in many respects that of an empiric, 

 but he was evidently a shrewd and observant man, and his mode of 

 treatment was no doubt often beneficial. He trusted more to dietetic 

 means than to the use of medicines ; often recommended a change iu 

 tho mode of living, iu which ho studiously attended to the most minute 



