Roger Ascham, On imitation ( 1 570)

Abstract Roger As Cham (1515/ 16---68) was educated at StJohn’ s College Cambridge, where he was taught by John Cheke (1514-57), the outstanding classicist and first Regius Professor of Greek. A Fellow of St John’ s from 1534 to 1548, Ascham was elected to a Readership in Greek, and in 1546 to the University Orator ship. In 1548 he became the private tutor of Princess Elizabeth, teaching her Greek (Sophocles, Isocrates, Demosthenes) in the mornings, Latin (Cicero, Livy) in the afternoons, together with Protestant theology. From 1550 to 1553 Ascham was secretary to the English ambassador to the Emperor Charles V, and from 1553 to his death in 1568 he was Latin Secretary, both to the Catholic Queen Mary and to the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, with whom he resumed studies in Latin and Greek, now more as an equal than a teacher. Ascham also published a book recommending archery, Toxophilus, the Schole of Shootinge (1545; repr. 1571, 1589), and A Report of Germany (1570).