1559, the prebend of Westwang, in the cathedral of York, which he held till his death. In 1563 he was led by Sir Edward Sackville to write his "Schoolmaster," a treatise on education. Sackville's death, soon after it was commenced, interrupted the work. It remained unpublished during the author's life, and was printed by his widow. We wish the plan of our work admitted an analysis of a book that even yet may be studied with advantage by men practically engaged in the education of youth. Ascham's favourite maxim was—docendo disces. A letter to him from one of his Cambridge friends, written at an early period of Ascham's career, suggests to him that "a fable of Æsop, read and explained to thy pupil by thyself, will profit thee more than if thou shouldest hear the whole Iliad expounded in Latin by the learnedest man now living." Ascham at all times acted in the spirit of this letter, and with his pupils was himself, in many respects, a learner. It could seldom happen to a man to have such pupils, and though something must be allowed for the phraseology of the period, and for the exaggerations with which the accomplishments of princes are spoken of, yet there can be no doubt of the perfect success of the method pursued by Ascham in the case of King Edward and of Elizabeth, and by Aylmer in that of Lady Jane Grey; and perhaps, in the introduction of the New Learning—as the study of Greek was then called—into Cambridge, Ascham's own earnest character and gentle temper, with this well-considered system of teaching, effected more, in reality, than was afterwards done by him when his lessons were given to queens and ambassadors.
The latter years of Ascham's life are said to have been passed in poverty, brought on by gambling and cock-fighting. Both assertions have been disputed, and that of gambling, at least gambling with dice, the form which the accusation assumed, is not proven. That of cock-fighting, the "alectryomachia," cannot be denied. It is mentioned by his eulogist. Grant, in whose funeral oration Ascham's biographers have found most of their materials; and he himself refers to what he calls his "Book of the Cock-pit," a treatise which, if it ever existed in more than contemplation, has not been preserved. If he was fond of cockfighting, it is scarcely possible that he should not have been led to bet upon the birds, and this may have been the gaming.
The scandal and offence in Ascham's day did not arise from the inhumanity of the sport, but from its unsuitableness to the gravity of the scholastic character. It is unjust to judge of a question of this kind by a reference to modern manners. "A yearly cock-fight was, till lately, a part of the annual routine of the northern free schools. The master's perquisites are still called cock-pennies."
Any account, however brief, of Ascham, would be imperfect, which omitted Fuller's amusing words:—"He was," says the witty old chronicler, "an honest man, and a good shooter. Archery was his pastime in youth, which, in his old age, he exchanged for cock-fighting. His 'Toxophilus' is a good book for young men; his 'Schoolmaster' for old; his 'Epistles' for all men."
Ascham was never of a robust constitution. This he dwells on in his letters, and makes it an apology for his practice of out-of-door exercises, being unable to continue reading for any length of time. He at last, when he was little more than fifty years of age, grew so weak, that he was unable to read in the evenings, or at night. He then became, for a while, an early riser. The year before his death, he suffered from hectic, from which he never wholly recovered. On the 23d of December, 1568, he was led to resume his night studies, from his anxiety to present the queen with a Latin poem on the new year. This brought on ague, and death followed on the 30th. His death occasioned very general regret, and the queen is stated to have said that she would rather have ten thousand pounds thrown into the sea, than have lost her tutor Ascham.
Ascham's works are few. Of those in English we have spoken. The "Toxophilus," first printed in 1545, and after the author's death, in 1571 and 1579, has been now and then reprinted for archery societies, and is in the edition of his collected English works by Mr. Bennett, 1761. Bennett has printed from the edition of 1571, and does not seem to have known the previous one. The "Schoolmaster" is printed in Bennett's edition from an edition by Upton, and contains his very valuable notes, and a life by Johnson. The English works were reprinted in 1815; but in this edition, the spelling, and occasionally the language, is injudiciously modernized. The uncertainty of fame is shown by the fate of Ascham's works. It is probable that his Latin letters—the style of which was the admiration of his own age—are now but rarely looked into, and those in English seldom read, except for philological purposes. We have said that we think his English writings well worth study for other reasons; and there are so many curious facts of historical interest mentioned in his Latin letters, that we should not be surprised at their being, after a sleep of three hundred years, disturbed from the dust of old libraries. In these Latin letters, the style of Cicero is not unsuccessfully imitated. The Latin verses with which he was preparing to hail the queen on new-year's-day, are printed among his other poems in the earlier editions of his Latin works, the first of which was published in 1576, but have been omitted in Elstob's (1703), otherwise, we believe, the best edition.—(Biographia Britannica, Johnson's Life of Ascham, Grant, De vita et ob. Rogeri Ascham, H. Coleridge's Northern Worthies.)—J. A., D.
ASCHANEUS, Martin L., a Swedish author and ecclesiastic of the seventeenth century, and one of the three "royal antiquarians." He is supposed to have died about 1636.
* ASCHBACH, Joseph, an eminent German historical author, was born in 1801 at Höchst. He studied at Heidelberg, and became professor of history at Bonn in 1842. His most important historical researches relate to the earlier history of Spain, and are: "Geschichte der Westgothen," Frankfort, 1827; "Gesch. der Omaijaden in Spanien," 2 vols. Frankfort, 1829-30; "Gesch. Spaniens u. Portugals Zur Zeit der Herrschaft der Almoraviden u. Almohaden," 2 vols. Frankfort, 1833-37. The "Jahhrbücher" of Heidelberg and Berlin contain numerous essays on historical subjects by Professor Aschbach, and he was the projector and editor of the valuable "Kirchen-Lexicon," 4 vols., 1846, to which he contributed many articles.—A. M.
ASCHEBERG, Rutger Count von, a Swedish field-marshal, born 2nd June, 1621, died 17th April, 1693. He commenced his career as page to a colonel of cavalry, under whom he learned the art of war. He afterwards signalised himself in various campaigns in the Thirty Years' War in Germany.
ASCHENBRENNER, Christian Heinrich, a German musician, born at Alt Stettin, 29th December, 1654, and died at Jena, 13th December, 1732. He was instructed in music by his father, and in the course of his life acquired great eminence as a performer. At the age of seventy-one, he was esteemed in Vienna, where he resided, as the first violinist of his time.—G. M.
ASCLEPI, Giuseppe, an Italian physician, jesuit professor of philosophy at Sienna, and of mathematics at Rome, was born at Macerata in 1706, and died in 1776.
ASCLEPIADES, the name of a great number of Greek physicians, who were either regarded as actual descendants of the god Æsculapius, or more probably, as only united in a sort of brotherhood by the possession of certain secrets of the healing art, derived from the founder of their society. The temples of Greece and Asia Minor were their homes, and their art was usually exercised in conjunction with that of the priest. Those of the Asclepiadæ, as they were collectively called, worthy of mention, are noticed below among the poets and literary men who also bore the name of Asclepiades.
Asclepiades, a Platonic philosopher, known only from the story, in Athenæus, of his working in a mill by night, to be able to attend, during the day, the lectures of the Athenian philosophers. Died probably about the year 320.
Asclepiades, Bithynus or Prusinensis, supposed to have been a native of Prusa, in Bithynia, settled at Rome in the first century b.c., and, as it would appear from the statements concerning him in Pliny, gained a reputation of the first order as a physician. He is frequently mentioned by other ancient authors, generally with admiration of his talents and his character. His famous maxim, that a physician's duty is to cure his patients quickly, surely, and agreeably, and his good opinion of wine as a remedial agent, probably influenced his popularity. Some fragments only of his works are extant.
Asclepiades of Mendes, in Lower Egypt, cited by Suetonius in his life of Augustus, wrote a work entitled "Θεολογουμενα."
Asclepiades of Phliontus, a philosopher of the school of Eretria, and the personal friend of its founder, Menedemus.
Asclepiades of Apamea, a Greek grammarian, whose works are enumerated by Suidas, was a native of Bithynia, taught grammar at Rome in the time of Pompey the Great, and afterwards settled in Turdetania, in Spain.
