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for searching only. EDUCATING THE "PRINCE"; PRINCESS ELIZABETH 283
Savile has also lauded Queen Elizabeth's scholarly accomplishments. In an oration to Queen Elizabeth at Oxford on September 23, 1592, he says that in spite of numerous enumerated duties,
Te magnam diei partem in gravissimorum autorum scriptis legendis audiendisque ponere. Neminem nisi sua lingua tecum loqui; to cum nemine nisi ipsorum aut omnium communibus Latina Graecaque. Omitto plebeios philosophos, quos rani in manus semis: quoties divinum Platonem animadverts tuis interpretationibus diviniorem effectum ! quoties Aristotelis obscuritates, principis philosophorum, a principe foeminarum evolutas atque explicatasl Dicerem Iibere, nemini unquam ad sacratissimam Majestatem tuam aditum patuisse semidocto, qui non ex tuis sermonibus discesserit doctissimus, nisi meae vehementer me poeniteret tarditatis, qui in tam illustri schola tam parilm profecerim."
This leads to the closing plea that Queen Elizabeth protect learning. We must remember that this tardy pupil of Queen Elizabeth's school not merely is not on his Bible oath, but on the contrary is most definitely upon his oratorical Pegasus, soaring in the empyrean. He could afford to be lavish in Queen Elizabeth's praise; he was well re-warded for it. He himself, as we have seen, is supposed several years earlier to have been Queen Elizabeth's tutor in Greek. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth did write a comment on Plato as Walpole says. Pretty certainly she was posing with Plato and Aristotle around 1592. Who was "teacher" for these?
The year before, Savile in his translation from Tacitus (1591) had already thrown a bouquet of the largest at these translations in general. In his dedication "To Her Most Sacred Maiestie," he mentions "the great account your Highnesse most worthily holdeth this Historie in," and hopes by his halting example
to incite your Maiesty by this as by a foile to communicate to the world, if not those admirable copositions of your owne, yet at the least those most rare and excellent translations of Histories (if I may call them translations, which haue so infinitelie exceeded the originals) making euident demonstration to all who haue scene them, that as the great actions of Princes are the subiect of stories, so stories composed or amended by Princes, are not only the best patterne and rule of great actios, but also the most naturall Registers thereof, the writers being persons of like degree and of proportionable conceits with the doers, etc.
At least, it is clear that Elizabeth delighted to pose as a lady learned in the classics. The laudatory letters of Ascham were published in 1576, and were not infrequently read in grammar school.
" Nichols, Elizabeth (1823), Vol. III, p. 167.
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