ROGER ASCHAM AND HIS LETTERS.
To the epistles of Roger Ascham, given in Elstob's edition, have since been added several to Raven and others[[1]], two to Cecil[[2]], and several to Mrs. Astley, Bp. Gardiner, Sir Thos. Smith, Mr. Callibut, Sir W. Pawlett, Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and Mr. C. H.[owe].[[3]] Some of your correspondents will, doubtless, be able farther to enlarge this list of printed letters.
In a MS. volume, once belonging to Bp. Moore, now in the University Library, Cambridge, is a volume of transcripts[[4]], containing, amongst other documents, letters from Ascham to Petre[[5]] and to Cecil; one (p. 44.) "written by R. A., for a gent to a gentlewoman, in waie of marriage," and one to the B. of W.[inchester], which, though without a signature, is certainly Ascham's. In another MS. volume, in the same collection (Ee. v. 23.), are copies of Ascham's letter to his wife on the death of their child[[6]], and of a letter to Mr. Richard Goodrich. Lastly, Ascham's College (St. John's) possesses his original letter to Cardinal Pole, written on the fly-leaf of a copy of Osorius De nobilitate civili[[7]]; and also the original MS. of the translation of Œcumenius, accompanied by a Latin letter to Seton.[[8]]
These unpublished letters will shortly be printed for the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Early information respecting any other MS. works of Ascham, or collations of his published letters with the originals, will be thankfully acknowledged.
J. E. B. Mayor.
St. John's College, Cambridge.
P. S.—I may add that we have at St. John's a
copy of Ascham's Letters (ed. Elstob), with many dates and corrections in Baker's hand. There may be something new in Kennett's biographical notice of Ascham (Lansdowne MSS. 981. art. 41.)
Footnote 1:[(return)]
In The English Works of Roger Ascham, London, 1815, 8vo.: this edition is reprinted from Bennet's, with additions. Bennet took these letters from Baker's extracts (in his MSS. xiii. 275-295., now in the Harleian Collection), "from originals in Mr. Strype's hands." One letter is more fully given by Mr. Tytler, England under Edward VI. and Mary, vol. ii. p. 124.
In Sir H. Ellis's Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden Soc. Nos. 4 and 5. Correcter copies than had before appeared from the Lansdowne MSS.
Most incorrectly printed in Whitaker's History of Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 270. seq. The letters themselves are highly important and curious.
Dd. ix. 14. Some of the letters are transcribed by Baker, MSS. xxxii. p. 520. seq.
This letter has many sentences in common with that to Gardiner, of the date Jan. 18 [1554], printed by Whitaker (p. 271. seq.)
Whitaker, who prints this (p. 289. seq.) says that it had been printed before. Where?
This, I believe, unpublished letter is referred to by Osorius, in a letter to Ascham (Aschami Epistolæ, p. 397.: Oxon. 1703).
Both of these have been printed, the letter in Aschami Epistolæ, lib. i. ep. 4. p. 68. seq. Compare on the commentary, ibid. pp. 70. and 209.