If I should write oft, ye might think me too bold: and if I did leave off, ye might judge me either to forget your gentleness, or to mistrust your good will, who hath already so bound me unto you, as I shall rather forget myself, and wish God also to forget me, than not labour with all diligence and service to apply myself wholly to your will and purpose; and that ye shall well know how much I assure myself on your goodness, I will pass a piece of good manners, and be bold to borrow a little of your small leisure from your weighty affairs in the commonwealth. Therefore, if my letters shall find you at any leisure, they will trouble you a little in telling you ate length, as I promised in my last letters delivered unto you by Mr. Francis Yaxeley, why I am more desirous to have your help for my stay at Cambridge still than for any other kind of living elsewhere. I having now some experience of life led at home and abroad, and knowing what I can do most fitly, and how I would live most gladly, do well perceive there is no such quietness in England, nor pleasure in strange countries, as even in St. John's college, to keep company with the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Tully. Which my choice of quietness is not purposed to lie in idleness, nor constrained by a wilful nature, because I will not or can not serve elsewhere, when I trust I could apply myself to mo kinds of life than I hope any need shall ever drive me to seek, but only because in choosing aptly for myself I might bring some profit to many others. And in this mine opinion I stand the more gladly, because it is grounded upon the judgment of worthy Mr. Denny. For the summer twelvemonth before he departed, dinner and supper he had me commonly with him, whose excellent wisdom, mingled with so pleasant mirth, I can never forget: emonges many other talks he would say oft unto me, if two duties did not command him to serve, the one his prince, the other his wife, he would surely become a student in St. John's, saying, "The Court, Mr. Ascham, is a place so slippery, that duty never so well done, is not a staff stiff enough to stand by always very surely, where ye shall many times reap most unkindness where ye have sown greatest pleasures, and those also ready to do you most hurt to whom you never intended to think any harm." Which sentences I heard very gladly then, and felt them soon after myself to be true. Thus I, first ready by mine own nature, then moved by good counsel, after driven by ill fortune, lastly called by quietness, thought it good to couch myself in Cambridge again. And in very deed, too many be pluckt from thence before they be ripe, though I myself am withered before I be gathered, and yet not so for that I have stood too long, but rather because the fruit which I bear is so very small. Yet seeing the goodly crop of Mr. Cheke is almost clean carried from thence, and I in a manner alone of that time left a standing straggler, peradventure though my fruit be very small, yet because the ground from whence it sprung was so good, I may yet be thought somewhat fit for seed, when all you the rest are taken up for better store, wherewith the king and his realm is now so nobly served. And in such a scarcity both of those, that were worthily called away when they were fit, and of such as unwisely part from thence, before they be ready, I dare now bolden myself, when the best be gone, to do some good among the mean that do tarry, trusting that my diligence shall deal with my disability, and the rather because the desire of shooting is so well shot away in me, either ended by time or left off for better purpose. Yet I do amiss to mislike shooting too much, which hath been hitherto my best friend, and even now looking back to the pleasure which I found in it, and perceiving small repentence to follow after it, by Plato's judgment I may think well of it. No, it never called me to go from my book, but it made both wit the lustier, and will the readier, to run to it again, and perchance going back sometimes from learning may serve even as well as it doth at leaping, to pass some of those which keep always their standing at their book.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] The allusions to the writer's own Toxophilus at the end require, it is to be hoped, no annotation.
LADY MARY SIDNEY (?[81]-1586)
This "old Molly," as she so agreeably calls herself, was very unfortunate in her father (that intrusive holder for a short time of the title of Northumberland, who was offensive in success and abject in adversity) and not too lucky in her brother, Leicester. But she must have been far too good for her own breed; she had an excellent husband, Sir Henry Sidney, Deputy of Ireland and President of Wales, one of Elizabeth's best deserving and worst treated servants, and she was the mother of "Astrophel" and Astrophel's sister. "One has known persons more unfortunate," as a famous phrase of a French poem not very long after her own time has it. And she must have thoroughly deserved good fortune: for her letters show her as one of the best of wives and mothers (if not of spellers): though it is quite possible that she might not have made a good jurywoman or a good member of parliament. As her husband was not merely governor (repeatedly and with such success as was possible) of Ireland, but "President of Wales," they usually, when in England but not at Court or at Penshurst, lived at Ludlow Castle and so enjoyed two of the most beautiful homes in the country. But Sir Henry in these and other functions had seas of trouble, great expenses, and according to "Gloriana's" wont, very small thanks for it all. He is said, indeed, to have had his life shortened by weariness and worry. But his son and daughter[82] may have been a comfort to him: and his wife must have been so. The letter itself, as will be seen, is not to himself but to his secretary: and there was more correspondence on the subject of their lodging and its difficulties. Lady Mary was not well, and there must be a place to see friends, and the Queen might come in! The original letter[83] is better spelt than others of hers, the principal curiosity being the form "hit" for "it," which, however, is by no means peculiar.
5. To Edward Molineux, Esq.
You have used the matter very well; but we must do more yet for the good dear Lord [her husband] than let him be thus dealt withal. Hampton Court I never yet knew so full as there were not spare rooms in it, when it has been thrice better filled than at the present it is. But some would be sorry, perhaps, my Lord should have so sure a footing in the Court. Well, all may be as well when the good God will. The whilst, I pray let us do what we may for our Lord's ease and quiet. Whereunto I think if you go to my Lord Howard, and in my Lord's name also move his Lordship to shew his brother my Lord, (as they call each other)—to show him a cast of his office[84] and that it should not be known allege your former causes, I think he will find out some place to serve that purpose. And also if you go to Mr Bowyer,[85] the gentleman-Usher, and tell him his mother requireth him (which is myself) to help my Lord with some one room, but only for the dispatch of the multitude of Welsh and Irish people that follow him; and that you will give your word in my Lord's behalf and mine, it shall not be accounted as a lodging[86] or known of, I believe he will make what shift he can: you must assure him it is but for the day-time for his business, as indeed it is.
As for my brother's answer of[87] my stay here for five or six days, he knows I have ventured far already with so long absence, and am ill thought of for it,[88] so as that may not be. But when the worst is known, old Lord Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in parting[89] like good friends the small portion allotted our long service in Court, which as little as it is, seems something too much.[90] And this being all I can say to the matter, farewell, Mr. Ned.