tonis in Greek, and that
with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in
Boccace. After salutation and duty done, with some other talk, I
asked her why she would leese [lose] such pastime in the park? Smiling
she answered me: "I wisse, all their sport in the park is but a shadow
to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never
felt what true pleasure meant." "And how came you, madame," quoth I,
"to this deep knowledge of pleasure? and what did chiefly allure you
unto it, seeing not many women, but very few men, have attained
thereunto?" "I will tell you," quoth she, "and tell you a truth, which
perchance ye will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever
God gave me, is, that He sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so
gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or
mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink,
be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else,
I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so
perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so
cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes with pinches, nibs, and
bobs, and other ways which I will not name, for the honor I bear them,
so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time
come that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me so gently, so
pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all
the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him,
I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning, is full
of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book
hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure
and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deed,
be but trifles and troubles unto me."

I remember this talk gladly, both because it is so worthy of memory,
and because also it was the last talk that ever I had, and the last
time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 23: From "The Schoolmaster."]

JOHN FOXE

Born in 1516, died in 1587; educated at Oxford; became in
1584 tutor to the children of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey;
in order to escape persecution as a Protestant, fled to the
Continent at the accession of Mary Tudor; returned to
England in 1559, becoming in 1563 prebendary in Salisbury
Cathedral; his "Book