disgust, or receive with the highest delight.... Had I more leisure, I
would speak to you at greater length of the king, of the lady Elizabeth,
and of the daughters of the duke of Somerset, whose minds have also been
formed by the best literary instruction. But there are two English
ladies whom I cannot omit to mention; nor would I have you, my Sturmius,
omit them, if you meditate any celebration of your English friends, than
which nothing could be more agreeable to me. One is Jane Grey[13], the
other is Mildred Cecil, who understands and speaks Greek like English,
so that it may be doubted whether she is most happy in the possession of
this surpassing degree of knowledge, or in having had for her preceptor
and father sir Anthony Coke, whose singular erudition caused him to be
joined with John Cheke in the office of tutor to the king, or finally,
in having become the wife of William Cecil, lately appointed secretary
of state; a young man indeed, but mature in wisdom, and so deeply
skilled both in letters and in affairs, and endued with such moderation
in the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded by the
consenting voice of Englishmen the four-fold praise attributed to
Pericles by his rival Thucydides--'To know all that is fitting, to be
able to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superior
to money.'"

[Note 13: This lady is commemorated at greater length in another
place, and therefore a clause is here omitted.]

* * * * *

The learned, excellent, and unfortunate Jane Grey is repeatedly
mentioned by this writer with warm and merited eulogium. He relates to
Sturmius, that in the month of August 1550, taking his journey from
Yorkshire to the court, he had deviated from his course to visit the
family of the marquis of Dorset at his seat of Broadgate in
Leicestershire. Lady Jane was alone at his arrival, the rest of the
family being on a hunting party; and gaining admission to her apartment,
he found her reading by herself the Phaedo of Plato in the original,
which she understood so perfectly as to excite in him extreme wonder;
for she was at this time under fifteen years of age. She also possessed
the power of speaking and writing Greek, and she willingly promised to
address to him a letter in this language. In his English work 'The
Schoolmaster,' referring again to this interview with Jane Grey, Ascham
adds the following curious and affecting particul