ecting
this match.--Mary protects her sister.--Festivities at Hatfield,
Enfield, and Richmond.--King of Sweden's addresses to Elizabeth
rejected.--Letter of sir T. Pope respecting her dislike of
marriage.--Proceedings of the ecclesiastical commission.--Cruel
treatment of sir John Cheke.--General decay of national
prosperity.--Loss of Calais.--Death of Mary.

Notwithstanding the late fortunate change in her situation, Elizabeth
must have entertained an anxious sense of its remaining difficulties, if
not dangers; and the prudent circumspection of her character again, as
in the latter years of her brother, dictated the expediency of shrouding
herself in all the obscurity compatible with her rank and expectations.
To literature, the never failing resource of its votaries, she turned
again for solace and occupation; and claiming the assistance which
Ascham was proud and happy to afford her, she resumed the diligent
perusal of the Greek and Latin classics.

The concerns of the college of which sir Thomas Pope was the founder
likewise engaged a portion of her thoughts; and this gentleman, in a
letter to a friend, mentions that the lady Elizabeth, whom he served,
and who was "not only gracious but right learned," often asked him of
the course which he had devised for his scholars.

Classical literature was now daily declining from the eminence on which
the two preceding sovereigns had labored to place it. The destruction of
monastic institutions, and the dispersion of libraries, with the
impoverishment of public schools and colleges through the rapacity of
Edward's courtiers, had inflicted far deeper injury on the cause of
learning than the studious example of the young monarch and his chosen
companions was able to compensate. The persecuting spirit of Mary, by
driving into exile or suspending from the exercise of their functions
the able and enlightened professors of the protestant doctrine, had
robbed the church and the universities of their brightest luminaries;
and it was not under the auspices of her fierce and ignorant bigotry
that the cultivators of the elegant and humanizing arts would seek
encouragement or protection. Gardiner indeed, where particular
prejudices did not interfere, was inclined to favor the learned; and
Ascham owed to him the place of Latin secretary. Cardinal Pole also,
himself a scholar, was desirous to support, as much as present
circumstances would permit, his ancient character of a patron of