ome hope,
leave an assured desperation, and shameless contempt of all goodness;
the furthest point in all mischief, as Xenophon doth most truly and most
wittily mark.

Therefore, to love or to hate, to like or contemn, to ply this way or
that way to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child in
his youth.

And one example whether love or fear doth work more in a child for
virtue and learning, I will gladly report; which may be heard with some
pleasure, and followed with more profit.

Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate in Leicestershire, to
take my leave of that noble lady, Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding
much beholding. Her parents, the duke and duchess, with all the
household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I found
her in her chamber, reading Phaedo Platonis in Greek, and that with as
much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccace. After
salutation and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her why she
would leese [lose] such pastime in the park? Smiling she answered me:
"Iwisse, all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure
that I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true
pleasure meant." "And how came you, madame," quoth I, "to this deep
knowledge of pleasure? and what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing
not many women, but very few men, have attained thereunto?" "I will tell
you," quoth she, "and tell you a truth, which perchance ye will marvel
at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is, that he sent
me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. 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 anything else, I must do it, as it were, in
such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the
world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea,
presently, sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways which
I will not name, for the honor I bear them, so without measure
misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go
to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, 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
whole mislikin