, while holding this station, that
he resumed his lessons to his illustrious pupil.

"The lady Elizabeth and I," writes he to Sturmius, "are reading together
in Greek the Orations of AEschines and Demosthenes. She reads before me,
and at first sight she so learnedly comprehends not only the idiom of
the language and the meaning of the orator, but the whole grounds of
contention, the decrees of the people, and the customs and manners of
the Athenians, as you would greatly wonder to hear."

Under the reign of Elizabeth, Ascham retained his post of Latin
secretary, and was admitted to considerable intimacy by his royal
mistress. Addressing Sturmius he says, "I received your last letters on
the 15th of January 1560. Two passages in them, one relative to the
Scotch affairs, the other on the marriage of the queen, induced me to
give them to herself to read. She remarked and graciously acknowledged
in both of them your respectful observance of her. Your judgement in the
affairs of Scotland, as they then stood, she highly approved, and she
loves you for your solicitude respecting us and our concerns. The part
respecting her marriage she read over thrice, as I well remember, and
with somewhat of a gentle smile; but still preserving a modest and
bashful silence.

"Concerning that point indeed, my Sturmius, I have nothing certain to
write to you, nor does any one truly know what to judge. I told you
rightly, in one of my former letters, that in the whole ordinance of her
life she resembled not Phaedra but Hippolyta; for by nature, and not by
the counsels of others, she is thus averse and abstinent from marriage.
When I know any thing for certain, I will write it to you as soon as
possible; in the mean time I have no hopes to give you respecting the
king of Sweden."

In the same letter, after enlarging, somewhat too rhetorically perhaps,
on the praises of the queen and her government, Ascham recurs to his
favorite theme,--her learning; and roundly asserts, that there were not
four men in England, distinguished either in the church or the state,
who understood more Greek than her majesty: and as an instance of her
proficiency in other tongues, he mentions that he was once present at
court when she gave answers at the same time to three ambassadors, the
Imperial, the French, and the Swedish, in Italian, in French, and in
Latin; and all this, fluently, without confusion, and to the purpose.

A short epistle from queen Elizabeth t