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. Roger Ascham.
[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
