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 thyself, whiche thou likest in another With whiche discrecion, who so beholdeth Tragedies, Comedies, plaies of histories, holie or prophane, or any pageaunt, on stage or on grounde, shall not mispende his time. But like as a Bee of diuers floures, that be of theire owne nature of smalle use, gathereth the swetenes of her honie: so thence gathereth he that which is commodious for the trade of his life, ioigneth it with his painfull trauaile, and declareth that soche histories and exercises bee the eloquence of the bodie.'

vii. 1563-8..

[From The Scholemaster (1570), as reprinted in W. A. Wright, ''English Works of Roger Ascham'' (1904), 171. The tract, which was largely based on the teaching of Ascham's friend John Sturm, was begun as a New Year gift for Elizabeth in December 1563, and left unfinished at the author's death in 1568. The best modern edition is by J. E. B. Mayor (1863).]

The first booke teachyng the brynging vp of youth P. 185. In the earliest stage of Latin, Ascham 'would haue the Scholer brought vp withall, till he had red, & translated ouer y^e first booke of [Cicero's] Epistles chosen out by Sturmius, with a good peece of a Comedie of Terence also P. 208. There be som seruing men do but ill seruice to their yong masters. Yea, rede Terence and Plaut. aduisedlie ouer, and ye shall finde in those two wise writers, almost in euery commedie, no vnthriftie yong man, that is not brought there vnto, by the sotle inticement of som lewd seruant. And euen now in our dayes Getae and Daui, Gnatos and manie bold bawdie Phormios to, be preasing in, to pratle on euerie stage, to medle in euerie matter, when honest Parmenos shall not be hard, but beare small swing with their masters The second booke teachyng the ready way to the Latin tong P. 238. Read dayly vnto him some Comedie of Terence or Plautus: but in Plautus, skilfull choice must be vsed by the master, to traine his Scholler to a iudgement, in cutting out perfitelie ouer old and vnproper wordes On Imitatio P. 266. The whole doctrine of Comedies and Tragedies, is a perfite imitation, or faire liuelie painted picture of the life of euerie degree of man One of the best examples, for right Imitation we lacke, and that is Menander, whom our Terence (as the matter required) in like argument, in the same Persons, with equall eloquence, foote by foote did follow. Som peeces remaine, like broken Iewelles, whereby men may rightlie esteme, and iustlie lament, the losse of the whole P. 276. In Tragedies, (the goodliest Argument of all, and for the vse, either of a learned preacher, or a Ciuill Ientleman, more profitable than Homer, Pindar, Vergill, and Horace: yea comparable in myne opinion, with the doctrine of Aristotle, Plato, and Xenophon,) the Grecians, Sophocles and Euripides far ouer match our Seneca, in Latin, namely in [Greek: oikonomia] et Decoro, although Senecaes elocution and verse be verie commendable for his tyme.' P. 284. Ascham describes some contemporary Latin tragedies P. 286. 'Of this short tyme of any pureness of the Latin tong, for the first fortie yeare of it, and all the tyme before, we haue no peece of learning