burned,) and with me were three of the Throckmortons, sir Nicholas being one, and Mr. Kellum the other. By the same token, one unknown to me said, 'Ye are all marked that come to them, take heed of your lives.' Master Lascels, a gentleman of a right worshipful house of Gatford, in Nottinghamshire, mounted up into the window of the little parlour at Newgate, and there sat, and by him sir George. Master Lascels was merry and cheerful in the Lord, being come from hearing the sentence of his condemnation, and said these words, My lord bishop would have me confess the Roman church to be the catholic church, but that I cannot, for it is not true.'

"When the hour of darkness came, and their execution, Mrs. Anne Askew had been so racked that she could not stand, but was holden up between two sergeants, sitting there in a chair. And after the sermon was ended, they put fire to the reeds; the council looking on, and leaning in a window by the hospital, and among them sir Richard Southwell, (whose tutor Loud was.) And before God, (he declares,) at the first putting to of the fire, there fell a little dew, or a few pleasant drops upon us that stood by, a pleasing noise from heaven, God knows whether I may truly term it a thunder crack, as the people did in the pel, John xii. 29, or an angel, or rather God's own voice. But to leave every man to his own judgment, methought it seemed rather, that the angels in heaven rejoiced to receive their souls into bliss, whose bodies their popish tormentors cast into the fire."

gos

Bale relates the same circumstance from the narrative of some Dutch merchants then present. It caused considerable discussion at the time, and the papists urged that it was a testimony of the martyrs' damnation! This opinion Bale controverts with much ability.

the cause from the earl of Bedford, was much enraged, and ordered a pardon to be issued immediately. "Ah! my pig!" was the familiar exclamation of the monarch on seeing his rescued favourite. "Yea," answered sir George, on again hearing the appellation usually given him by the king, "if your majesty had not been better to me than your bishops, your pig had been roasted ere now!"

THE

PRECIOUS REMAINS

OF THE

LADY JANE GREY,

CONTAINING SOME ACCOUNT OF HER LIFE, HER LETTERS, AND OTHER PIECES.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF

LADY JANE GREY .*

LADY JANE GREY was an illustrious personage of the blood royal of England, by both parents-her grandmother on her father's side, (Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset,) being queen consort to Edward IV.; and her grandmother on her mother's, (lady Frances Brandon,) being daughter to Henry VII. queen dowager of France, and mother to Mary queen of Scots. Lady Jane had no brothers, she was the eldest of three daughters, and was born in 1537, at Bradgate, her father's seat in Leicestershire. She very early gave astonishing proofs of her uncommon abilities, insomuch that, upon a comparison with Edward VI., who was nearly of the same age, and thought a kind of miracle, the superiority has been given to her in every respect. Her genius appeared in the works of her needle, and the beautiful character in which she wrote; besides which she played adınirably on various instruments of music, and accompanied them with a voice exquisitely sweet in itself, assisted by all the graces that art could bestow. These, however, were only the inferior ornaments of her character; she was far from priding herself on them, while through the rigour of her parents in exacting such great attention to them, they became her grief more than her pleasure.

Her father had himself some taste for letters, and was a great patron of the learned. He had two chaplains, Hardingt

* There are several biographical sketches of Lady Jane Grey extant, which have supplied the substance of the present account. The most recent, "Howard's Lady Jane Grey and her times," contains numerous historical particulars relative to her family and contemporaries, which the author has collected with considerable industry. To the present sketch some letters are added, which have not before been accessible to the English reader.

+ Harding was a learned divine of Oxford. He professed the protestant religion on the accession of Edward VI., and became chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk. When queen Mary came to the throne, he

and Aylmer, both men of distinguished learning, whom he employed as tutors to his daughter; and under whose instructions she made such proficiency as surprised them both. Her own language she spoke and wrote with peculiar accuracy; the French, Italian, Latin, and, it is said, Greek, were as natural to her as her own; she not only understood them, but spoke and wrote them with the greatest freedom; she was versed likewise in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, and all this while a mere child. She had also a sedateness of temper, a quickness of apprehension, and a solidity of judgment, which enabled her not only to become the mistress of languages, but of sciences; so that she thought, spoke, and reasoned, upon subjects of the greatest importance, in a manner that surprised all. She was brought up in piety as well as learning. Her early letters show that she lived in the fear of God, and that she followed the protestant faith from principle. As Burnet observes, She read the Scriptures much, and acquired great knowledge in divinity.

With these endowments she had so much mildness, humility, and modesty, that she set no value upon those acquisitions; she was naturally fond of literature, and that fondness was much heightened as well by the severity of her parents in the feminine part of her education, as by the gentleness of her tutor Aylmer in this. When mortified and confounded by the unmerited chiding of the former, she returned with double pleasure to the lessons of the latter, and sought in Demosthenes and Plato, who were her favourite authors, the delight that was denied her in all other scenes of life, in which she mingled but little, and seldom with any satisfaction. It is true, her alliance to the crown, as well as the great favour in which the marquis of Dorset, her father, stood with Henry VIII. and Edward VI. unavoidably brought her sometimes to court, and she received many marks of Edward's attention, returned to popery, in consequence of which his former pupil addressed a letter to him written in severe terms, but such as he deserved for his apostasy. After the restoration of the protestant faith, Harding retired to the continent, and engaged in a warm and lengthened controversy with bishop Jewell.

* Aylmer was an active preacher of the Reformation; he boldly opposed popery on the accession of queen Mary. He then withdrew to the continent, where he remained till Elizabeth came to the throne. In 1576 he was appointed bishop of London. He is noticed in the life of Becon.

yet she seems to have continued for the most part in the country, at Bradgate.

Here she was with her beloved books in 1550, when the famous Roger Ascham* called on a visit to the family in August. All the rest being engaged in hunting, he went to wait upon Lady Jane in her apartment, and found her reading the "Phædon" of Plato in the original Greek. Astonished at this, after the first salutations, he asked her, why she lost such pastime as there needs must be in the park, at which smiling, she answered, "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."

This naturally leading him to inquire how a lady of her age had attained to such a depth of pleasure, both in the language and philosophy of Plato, she made the following very remarkable reply: "I will tell you, and I will tell you a truth, which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits which ever God gave me is, that he sent me such 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 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 time come that I must go to M. Aylmer, who teaches 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 to weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and wholly mis

* Ascham was an eminent scholar of the university of Cambridge, and particularly well skilled in Greek. In 1548, he was appointed tutor to the princess (afterwards queen) Elizabeth; afterwards he was Latin secretary to Edward VI. He continued to be a protestant in the reign of Mary, but was allowed to continue unmolested, and indeed patronized on account of his abilities. To his other attainments, he added that of writing a most beautiful hand. He was re-appointed Latin secretary and tutor to queen Elizabeth. Ascham died in 1568. His last words were, "I am suffering much pain, I sink under my disease; but this is my confession, this is my faith, this prayer contains all that I wish for, I desire to depart hence, and to be with Christ.'"