to be, like Roger Ascham, our class would never have
deserved, or would victoriously wiped off, any obloquy. It
was extraordinary good quality, or more extraordinary good
fortune, that made the same man write _Toxophilus_ and _The
Schoolmaster_. And there need hardly be any admission of
possible good luck as causing, though some certainly helped,
his performance as a letter-writer. Something was said
before as to the importance of his "getting to English" in
this matter. But it may be permissible to remind, or perhaps
even inform, some readers of the curious combination which
made this importance. As a Renaissance scholar; as a College
tutor before the middle of the sixteenth century; as a
Secretary of Embassy on the Continent; and as Latin
Secretary at Court, he was positively _un_likely to favour
the vernacular. Nor could anyone be a warmer or wiser lover
of the classics than he was. But what he, being all these
things, did for English was all the more influential, while
the manner of his doing it could hardly be bettered.

Ascham's letters being partly in English and partly in
Latin, there is a certain temptation to translate one of the
latter and put it side by side with one of the former. But
the process might not be fair: and to give the fairer chance
of comparison between originals in the two tongues would be
out of the scheme of this book. I therefore choose a part of
one of his long letters of travel to Cambridge friends--one
of the earliest of the many "Up the Rhines" in English
literature--and another part of his letters to Cecil. He has
been reproached with the "begging" character of these, but
it was the way of the time with Renaissance scholars. In the
first "ioney" (Giles's text) must be wrong and towards the
end "vile" is an amusing blunder for "_o_ile." "Peter
Ailand" a Cambridge friend's child. "Brant" = "steep." In
the second "Denny" is Sir Anthony D., a great favourite of
Henry VIII. and Edward VI. who was now dead. "Cheke" the
still better known "Sir John" had "taught Cambridge and King
Edward Greek," and so raised the "goodly crop" but had taken
to politics, which were to bring him into trouble.[80]

3. TO MR. EDWARD RAVEN [EXTRACT]

AUGSBURG Jan. 20 1551

13 Octob. We took a fair barge, with goodly glass wind