the _Phaedon_ of Plato in Greek!

He spoke, and Jane looked up. At once he asked her why she relinquished
such pastime as was then going on in the park for the sake of study?

With a smile Jane answered, "I think all their sport in the park is but
a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato!"

Interested and delighted, Ascham pursued the subject. "And how attained
you," he asked, "to this true knowledge of pleasure? And what did
chiefly allure you to it, seeing that few women and not many men have
arrived at it?"

"I will tell you," replied Lady Jane. "And tell you a truth which
perchance you may marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever
gave me is that He sent me, with sharp severe parents, so gentle a
schoolmaster (Aylmer). When I am in presence of either father or mother,
whether I speak, keep silent, sit, stand or go, or drink, be merry or
sad, be sewing, playing or dancing or doing anything else, I must do it
as it were in such measure weight and number, even as perfectly as God
made the earth, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened,
yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs, and other things
(which T will not name for the honour I bear them), that I think myself
in Hell 'till the time comes when I must go with Mr. Alymer who teacheth
me so gently, so pleasantly, that I think nothing of all the time whilst
I am with him, and when I am called from him I fall to weeping because
whatever I do else but learning is full of great trouble, fear and
wholesome misliking unto me."

Poor lonely little fourteen-year-old Lady Jane, what a clear light this
throws on the treatment her parents gave the responsive, sensitive
child, and how it shows up the mental forcing process of that day! Down
through the ages comes to us this picture of a sweet young girl sitting
alone poring over a Greek classic--thankful for that resource which
saved her for the moment from reproaches and taunts, "nips, bobs and
pinches."

From that time Roger Ascham was one of Lady Jane's closest friends, and
doubtless the comradeship was a real stimulus to the brilliant girl, as
letters from her to him show.

On October the eleventh, in 1551, Lady Jane's father was raised to the
peerage, which gave to him and his wife the new titles of the Duke and
Duchess of Suffolk. The family now went to London, to occupy Sheen
Abbey, and Lady Jane was presented at Court, taking her first prominent
part in Court festivities, whe