und the memory of the
last, which shines freshly and bright even in the age which produced a
Ben Jonson, and him "who was born with a star on his forehead to last
through all time"--Shakspeare.

The age of Elizabeth was especially a learned age. The study of the
dead languages had hitherto been confined almost exclusively to
ecclesiastics and scholars by profession, but from the time of Henry
the Seventh it had been gradually spreading amongst the higher
classes. The great and good Sir Thomas More gave his daughters a
learned education, and they did honour to it; Henry the Eighth
followed his example; Lady Jane Grey made learning lovely; and
Elizabeth's pedantry brought the habit into full fashion.

If a queen were to talk Sanscrit, her court would endeavour to do so
likewise. The example of learned studies was given by the queen
herself, who translated from the Greek a play of Euripides, and parts
of Isocrates, Xenophon, and Plutarch; from the Latin considerable
portions of Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, Horace, &c. She wrote many Latin
letters, and is said to have spoken five languages with facility. As a
natural consequence the nobility and gentry, their wives and
daughters, became enthusiasts in the cause of letters. The novelty
which attended these studies, the eager desire to possess what had
been so long studiously and jealously concealed, and the curiosity to
explore and rifle the treasures of the Greek and Roman world, which
mystery and imagination had swelled into the marvellous, contributed
to excite an absolute passion for study and for books. The court, the
ducal castle, and the baronial hall were suddenly converted into
academies, and could boast of splendid tapestries. In the first of
these, according to Ascham, might be seen the queen reading "more
Greeke every day than some prebendarie of this church doth read
_Latin_ in a whole week;" and while she was translating Isocrates or
Seneca, it may be easily conceived that her maids of honour found it
convenient to praise and to adopt the disposition of her time. In the
second, observes Warton, "the daughter of a duchess was taught not
only to distil strong waters, but to construe Greek; and in the third,
every young lady who aspired to be fashionable was compelled, in
imitation of the greater world, to exhibit similar marks of
erudition."

A contemporary writer says, that some of the ladies of the court
employ themselves "in continuall reading either of the ho