and. The doctrines of Luther had
already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with
controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets
of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or
ambitious of fame. Learning was, at that time, prosecuted with that
eagerness and perseverance, which, in this age of indifference and
dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. To teach or to learn, was, at
once, the business and the pleasure of the academical life; and an
emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the
present age, perhaps, owes many advantages, without remembering, or
knowing, its benefactors.

Ascham soon resolved to unite himself to those who were enlarging the
bounds of knowledge, and, immediately upon his admission into the
college, applied himself to the study of Greek. Those who were zealous
for the new learning, were often no great friends to the old religion;
and Ascham, as he became a Grecian, became a protestant. The
reformation was not yet begun; disaffection to popery was considered
as a crime justly punished by exclusion from favour and preferment,
and was not yet openly professed, though superstition was gradually
losing its hold upon the publick. The study of Greek was reputable
enough, and Ascham pursued it with diligence and success, equally
conspicuous. He thought a language might be most easily learned by
teaching it; and, when he had obtained some proficiency in Greek, read
lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys, who were desirous of
instruction. His industry was much encouraged by Pember, a man of
great eminence at that time, though I know not that he has left any
monuments behind him, but what the gratitude of his friends and
scholars has bestowed. He was one of the great encouragers of Greek
learning, and particularly applauded Ascham's lectures, assuring him
in a letter, of which Graunt has preserved an extract, that he would
gain more knowledge by explaining one of AEsop's fables to a boy, than
by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another.

Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, February 18, in the
eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common
now to enter the universities, than to take degrees, but which,
according to the modes of education then in use, had nothing of
remarkable prematurity. On the 23rd of March following, he was chosen
fellow of the college, which election he consid