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He made a short excursion into Italy, and mentions in his Schoolmaster, with great severity, the vices of Venice. He was desirous of visiting Trent, while the council were sitting; but the scantiness of his purse defeated his curiosity.

In this journey he wrote his Report and Discourse of the Affairs in Germany, in which he describes the dispositions and interests of the German princes, like a man inquisitive and judicious, and recounts many particularities, which are lost in the mass of general history, in a style, which, to the ears of that age, was undoubtedly mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine English.

By the death of king Edward, in 1553, the reformation was stopped, Morisine was recalled, and Ascham’s pension and hopes were at an end. He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the deepest strain of plaintive declamation. “He was deprived of all his support,” says Graunt, “stripped of his pension, and cut off from the assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither pension nor estate to support him at Cambridge.” There is no credit due to a rhetorician’s account either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation. But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return with a good will to academical poverty.

He had, however, better fortune than he expected; and, if he lamented his condition, like his historian, better than he deserved. He had, during his absence in Germany, been appointed Latin secretary to king Edward; and, by the interest of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, he was instated in the same office under Philip and Mary, with a salary of twenty pounds a year.

Soon after his admission to his new employment, he gave an extraordinary specimen of his abilities and diligence, by composing and transcribing, with his usual elegance, in three days, forty-seven letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest.

How Ascham, who was known to be a protestant, could preserve the favour of Gardiner, and hold a place of honour and profit in queen Mary’s court, it must be very natural to inquire. Cheke, as is well known, was compelled to a recantation; and why Ascham was spared, cannot now be discovered. Graunt, at a time when the transactions of queen Mary’s reign must have been well enough remembered, declares, that Ascham always made open profession of the reformed religion, and that Englesfield and others often endeavoured to incite Gardiner against him, but found their accusations rejected with contempt: yet he allows, that suspicions and charges of temporization and compliance, had somewhat sullied his reputation. The author of the Biographia Britannica conjectures, that he owed his safety to his innocence and usefulness; that it would have been unpopular to attack a man so little liable to censure, and that the loss of his pen could not have been easily supplied. But the truth is, that morality was never suffered, in the days of persecution, to protect heresy: nor are we sure that Ascham was more clear from common failings than those who suffered more; and, whatever might be his abilities, they were not so necessary, but Gardiner could have easily filled his place with another secretary. Nothing is more vain, than, at a distant time, to examine the motives of discrimination and partiality; for the inquirer, having considered interest and policy, is obliged, at last, to admit more frequent and more active motives of human conduct, caprice, accident, and private affections.