Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/169

 Ascham 

But before the book had gone further Ascham died. In November 1568 he sat up many nights to finish a Latin poem which he desired to present to the queen on 17 Nov., the anniversary of her accession; some of these verses are printed in the various editions of Ascham's letters, excepting that of 1703. He had long suffered from sleeplessness and a kind of continuous fever. But on 23 Dec. his habitual ill-health assumed a fatal form. He lingered for a week in the utmost pain, and could give little attention to the ministrations at his bedside of William Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre's, London, in whose parish he was living, and of Alexander Nowell, dean of St. Paul's. He died in his fifty-fourth year on 30 Dec. 1568. His last words were : 'I desire to depart and be with Christ.' He was buried quietly in St, Sepulchre's Church, and Dean Nowell preached his funeral sermon, in which he declared that 'he had never seen or heard of any one who had lived more virtuously or died more christianly.' Queen Elizabeth, on hearing of his death, exclaimed that she would rather have cast 10,000l. into the sea than have lost her Ascham. His widow published the 'Scholemaster' in 1570 as her husband had left it, only adding a graceful dedication to Sir William Cecil, recently elected chancellor of Cambridge University.

All scholars in England and on the Continent lamented Ascham's death, and many of them expressed their grief in Latin verses to his memory. George Buchanan, who had dined with him at his house some years before ( Opera, ii. 762), and had already addressed him in complimentary Latin epigrams (bk. i. No. 29) wrote on his death —

A short time afterwards (1577) Gabriel Harvey panegyrised the style and matter of Ascham's 'Scholemaster' in his 'Ciceronianus,' p. 55; and in many of his letters Harvey refers to him as worthy of a place beside Chaucer and Spenser, More and Sidney. His 'period' he called 'the siren of Isocrates.' Others of the century who honoured Ascham's memory by flattering mention of him in their works were Mulcaster, Camden, Thomas Nash, and Bacon; and Mr. J. E. B. Mayor has collected their testimonies in an appendix to his edition of the 'Scholemaster,' pp. 268-80. All scholars who were personally acquainted with him speak of his affectionate and gentle nature; but Camden adds in his 'Annals,' under date 1568: 'Nevertheless, being too much given todicing and cockfighting, he lived and died a poor man.' Upon this passage much discussion has arisen, and several writers have attributed the poverty of Ascham's later years to his habit of gambling. In the 'Toxophilus,' however, he especially denounces 'cardes and dyse,' but he complains that 'those which use shooting be so much marked of men, and ofttimes blamed for it, and that in a maner as moche as those which play at cardes and dise' (p. 49). Camden's accusation may therefore rest on a confusion of the kind here indicated. As to the charge of cockfighting, thought by few of his contemporaries to be a discreditable pastime, Ascham, in the 'Scholemaster,' acknowledged his interest in the sport, and his intention, which was never fulfilled, of writing 'a book of the Cockpitte,' in which 'all kinde of pastime fitte for a gentleman' should be fully declared (p. 65). Ascham's undoubted love of sport is an interesting trait: it distinguishes him from the over-diligent students of the Renaissance, with whom he has much in common. His letters show him to have shared much of their irritability, and more than their customary freedom in demanding money of their patrons. But his treatment of his wife, of friends like Cheke and Sturm, and of his pupils, wholly relieves him of the charge of undue selfishness. His place in English literature depends less on his efforts to extend the knowledge of Greek at Cambridge, or to improve the method of teaching Latin — labours which were attended with eminent success — than on the simple vigour of his English prose. He precedes the Euphuistic period; his style, as Gabriel Harvey suggested, knows no tricks: its easy flow and straightforwardness, at a time when literary composition in English was seldom attempted, constitute the grounds of Ascham's reputation. As a letter-writer, both in English and in fluent Ciceronian Latin, he takes rank with the most eminent literary men.

Of the career of Ascham's widow after his death little is known. An unprinted letter from her to Queen Elizabeth at Hatfield, dated March 1582, proves her to have been still living then (Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv. 221). Of his surviving sons no information of Dudley, the younger, is extant. Giles, the elder, was given a pension in 1569, at Sir William Cecil's intercession; but its payment was delayed, and several letters from him to the lord treasurer are extant petitioning for money. It is clear from these and later letters among the Lansdowne MSS. that his life was, like his father's, a long struggle