STREET BONFIRES. 393 Bridge, while bonfires blaze, the Tower guns roar, the bells ring, and in some fires are burning copes and crosses, rood cloths, and popish books, amid cries of "Out on this knave of Rome!" CHAP. XVI. EDUCATION AND MISCELLANEA. The Elizabethan Gentlewoman. Lady Jane Grey's Youth. -Studies. - Popular Idea of Foreigners. - Letter Writing. - Euphuism.Conversation of the Day. - Introduction of Forks. - The Umbrella. — Italian Fashions.-The Elizabethan Lover.- Etymology of Elizabethan Words. To compare the Elizabethan ladies' education with that of our own day would be unfair, yet we cannot despise an age that could produce so spotless a character as Lady Jane Grey, who old Ascham found reading Plato, when her friends were out hunting below in the chase. Elizabeth herself was highly educated for any age. She spoke and wrote four or five languages, penned sensible and artistic verses, and translated from Seneca and Boethius. She danced well, and was a good musician. She wrote good letters, and could rule and diplomatise. One of her ELIZABETHAN GENTLEWOMEN. 395 court (Lady Lumley) translated Euripides. Another is said at twelve years of age to have been able to play on the virginal, theosbo, and cittern, and sing at sight. We hear that her ladies were skilled in Greek and Latin, French and Italian, needle and caul work, could play on the lute, sing, ride, and dance; yet they did not disdain to learn distilling and simple surgery, and were taught made dishes by a Portuguese cook; for real use in every room of Elizabeth's sixteen palaces, copies of the Bible and Fox's Martyrs were kept for the use of idlers who would listen while one of their number read aloud. The amusements of the court were eminently intellectual, and the conversation witty and poetical. The Elizabethan gentlewoman could always play upon the lute, viol, and virginal. She began the morning piously with prayer, and after an early breakfast of meat and ale (nothing ridiculous in that when you rise at daybreak) betook herself to her needle, and with her needle and its bright train of silk or silver, drew pictures of an acorn or a blossom as lively as the very pencil of Apelles, at least so her lovers would say; but lovers are not always the most truthful of mankind. She then would betake herself to the dairy, with a courtesy that made her queen of all hearts, to learn the mysteries of the dairy from Tib or Gillian. From thence she would repair to the pastry, in which she took much delight, and employed her white fingers in rearing pyramids of march pane, or shaping sweetmeats in the form of flowers or birds. Then the garden demanded her care, and she had to visit her bees, and had to see if the hemp and flax were coming up; for she was at once a spinster, a pastry cook, a stillroom woman, and a housewife. Lastly, she would delight the husbandman and ploughman by going to see how the cows fared, and watching the poultry in the farmyard.* But the most beautiful sketch of what a blue stocking may be, is Ascham's notice of his pupil, the unhappy Lady Jane Grey. "And one example, whether love or fear doth work more in a child for virtue and learninge, I will gladly report which maie be hard with some pleasure, and followed with more profit. Before I went into Germanie, I came to Brodiegate, in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceedinge much beholdinge. Her parents, the duke and the duches, with all the householde, gentlemen, and gentlewomen, were hunting in the parke, and found her in her chamber reading Phodon Platonis in Greeke, and that with as *Nash's Quaternion, p. 157. PLATO AND LADY JANE. 397 much delite as some gentlemen would read a merrie tale in Bocase. After salutation and dewtie done with some other taulke, I asked her why she leeve such pastime in the parke? Smiling, she answered me, 'I wisse with all their sport in the parke it but a shadde to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas! good folke, they never felt what true pleasure meant.' And how came you, madam,' quoth I, to this deep knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeinge not many women, but very few men, have attained thereunto.' 'I will tell you,' quoth she, and tell you a truth which perchance you will marvell at. One of the greatest benefites that ever God gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence eyther of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merie, be sad, be only playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfitlie as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presentlie sometimes with pinches, nippes, stabbes, and other waies, which I will not name for the honor I bear them; so without measure misordered that I thinke myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gentlie, so pleasantly, with such fair allure |