Alban Butler informs us, from William of Malmsbury, that he was a bishop, though of what nation or see is unknown, and that his name is in the English martyrology. Cressy says, that his body was buried at Tavistock, where, about 960, Ordgar, count of Devonshire, father to Elfrida, the second wife of king Edgar, built a monastery "very agreeable and pleasant, by reason of the great variety of woods, pastures, and river abounding with fish." St. Rumon consecrated the church. About thirty years afterwards, the monastery was destroyed and burnt by the Danes. It is memorable, that Edulf, a son of Ordgar, buried in that monastery, was a man of gigantic stature, and of such wonderful strength, that going to Exeter, and finding the gates shut and barred, he broke out the iron bars with his hands, burst open the gates with his foot, tore the locks and bolts asunder, and broke down part of the wall.
1568. On the 4th of January Roger Ascham died, and was buried at St. Sepulchre's church, London. He was born in Yorkshire about 1515, and is celebrated for his learning, for having been tutor and Latin secretary to queen Elizabeth, and for having written "the Scholemaster." This work originated from mention having been made at dinner that some Eton scholars "had run away from school for fear of beating." Ascham expressed his opinion that "young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning." He then retired up stairs "to read with the queen's majesty: we read then together that noble oration of Demosthenes against Æschines, for his false dealing in his embassy to king Philip of Macedon; sir Richard Sackville came up soon after." Sackville took Ascham aside, "A fond (silly) shoolmaster," said sir Richard, "before I was fully fourteen years old, drove me so, with fear of beating, from all love of learning, as now, when I know what difference it is to have learning, and to have little, or none at all, I feel it my greatest grief, and find it my greatest hurt, that ever came to me, that it was so my ill chance, to light upon so lewd (ignorant) a schoolmaster.["] The whole conversation was very interesting, and so im pressed Ascham with its importance, that he says, he "thought to prepare some little treatise for a new-year's gift that Christmas," but it grew beneath his hands and became his "Scholemaster, showing a plain and perfect way of teaching the learned languages." the best edition of this work, which Ascham did not live to publish, is that edited by the Rev. James Upton, 1743, octavo. The book was first printed by Ascham's widow, whom with her children he left in distress. It was eminently serviceable to the advancement of teachers and pupils, at a period when it was the fashion to flog. Its most remarkable feature is the frowning down of theis brutal practice, which, to the disgrace of our own times, is still heard of in certain seminaries, both public and private.The good old man says, "Beat a child if he dance not well, and cherish him though he learn not well, ye shall have him unwilling to go to dance, and glad to go to his book: knock him always when he draweth his shaft ill, and favour him again though he fault at his book, ye shall have him very loth to be in the field, and very willing to go to school." He observes, "If ever the nature of man be given at any time, more than another, to receive goodness, it is in innocency of young years before that experience of evil have taken root in him. For the pure, clean wit of a sweet young babe, is like the newest wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing; and like a new bright silver dish never occupied, to receive and keep clean any good thing that is put into it. therefore, to love or to hate, to like or contemn, to ply this way or that way, to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child in his youth." He exemplifies this by a delightful anecdote of the young, beautiful, and accomplished lady Jane Grey, who shortly afterwards perished by the axe of the executioner. Ascham, before he went into Germany, visited Broadgate in Leicestershire, to take leave of her. "Her parents, the duke and duchess, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I found her," says Ascham, "in her chamber, reading Phædo Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight, as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccace. After salutation, and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her, why she would lose such pastime in the park? Smiling, she answered me:
"'I wist, all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas! good-folk 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, seeing 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 marvel at. One of the greatest benefits 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 either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, and measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till sime come that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing, while I am with him: and when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatwoever I do else, but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me: and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me.'"
Surely this innocent creature's confession, that she was won to the love of learning and her teacher by his gentleness, and the disclosure of her affliction under the severe discipline of her parents, are positive testimony to the fact, that our children are to be governed and taught by the law of kindness: nor let it detract from the force of the remark, that in connection with her artless feelings and blameless deportment, if her hard fate call forth a versified effusion
INSCRIBED BENEATH A PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE GREY.
Original.
Young, beautiful, and learned Jane, intent
On knowledge, found it peace; her vast acquirement
Of goodness was her fall; she was content
With dulcet pleasures, such as calm retirementYields to the wise alone;—her only vice
Was virtue: in obedience to her sire
And lord she died, with them, a sacrifice
To their ambition: her own mild desireWas rather to be happy than be great;
For though at their request she claimed the crown,
That they, through her, might rise to rule the state,
Yet, the bright diadem, and gorgeous throne,
She view'd as cares, dimming the dignity
Of her unsullied mind, and pure benignity.1815. On the 4th of January, died Alexander Macdonald, Esq., who is no other way remarkable, than for a chivalrous devotion to the family of Stuart. He raised a monument in the vale of Glenfinnyn, at the head of Lochshiel, in the county of Inverness, with a Latin, Gaelic, and English inscription, to commemorate the last open efforts of that family, for the recovery of a crown they had forfeited by innumerable breaches of the laws, and whose aggressions on life and property being suffered, till
"Non-resistance could no further go,"
they were excluded from the throne of the people, by the aristocracy and commonalty of England in parliament assembled. As evidence of the spirit that dictated such a memorial, and of the proper feeling which permits that spirit to be expressed, in spite of its hostility to the principles that deposited and continued the diadem of the commonwealth in the custody of the house of Hanover, the inscription on the monument is placed in the next column. It stands in English in these words:
On the spot where
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
First raised his Standard,
On the 19th day of August, MDCCXLV,
when he made the daring and romantic attempt
To recover a Throne lost by the imprudence of his
Ancestors,
This column was erected by
ALEXANDER MACDONALD, Esq., of
Glenaladale,
To commemorate the generous zeal,
The undaunted bravery, and the inviolable fidelity,
Of his forefathers, and the rest of those
Who fought and bled in that
Arduous and unfortunate enterprise.
This Pillar is now,
Alas!
Also become the Monument
Of its amiable and accomplished Founder,
Who,
Before it was finished,
Died in Edinburgh, on the 4th day of January,
MDCCCXV.The "right line" of the Stuart race terminated in the late cardinal York. He was the second son of "the Pretender," and was born at Rome on the 26th of March 1725; where he was baptized by the name of Henry Benedict Maria Clemens: he died there in 1807, in the 83d year of his age. In 1745 he went to France to head an army of fifteen thousand men, assembled and Dunkirk for the invasion of England. The battle of Culloden settled "the arduous and unfortunate enterprise," which the "amiable and accomplished founder" of the monument commemorates, and not a single transport left Dunkirk roads. As soon as Henry Benedict heard of the affair at Culloden, he returned to Rome, entered into priest's orders, and in 1747 was made a cardinal by pope Benedict XIV. It was taunted by a former pope upon James II. that he "lost his kingdom for a mass;" and it is certain that Henry Benedict was better qualified to take a red-hat and pull on and off red stockings, than to attempt the conquest of a free protestant nation.
After the expulsion of pope Pius VI. from "the chair of St. Peter," by the French, he fled from his splendid residences at Rome and Fascati to Venice, infirm in health, distressed in circumstances, and at the age of seventy-five. He subsisted for awhile on the produce of some silver plate, which he had saved from the ruin of his property. By the friendly interference of sir John Cox Hippisley, the cardinal's situation was made known to his late majesty, and lord Minto had orders to remit him a present of 2000l., which he received in February 1800, with an intimation that he might draw for the same amount in the July following; and sir J. C. Hippisley communicated to him, that an annuity of 4000l. would be at his service, so long as his circumstances might require it. This liberality was received and acknowledged by the cardinal in terms of gratitude, and made a considerable impression on the reigning pope and his court. These facts are extracted from the Gentleman's Magazine, (vols. 74 and 77,) which also observes, that "from the time he devoted himself to ecclesiastical functions he seemed to have laid aside all worldly views, till his father's death in 1788, when he had medals struck, bearing on their face his head, with 'HENRICUS NONUS ANGLIÆ REX;' on the reverse, a city, with 'GRATIA DEI, SED NON VOLUNTATE HOMINUM:' if we are not misinformed, our sovereign has one of these medals." From one in the possession of the compiler of this work, he is enabled to present an engraving of it to his readers.
