“that no age was so productive of learned women as the sixteenth century.” “Learning,” he says, “was so very modish that the fair sex seemed to believe that Greek and Latin added to their charms, and that Plato and Aristotle untranslated were frequent ornaments of their closets. One would think by the effects that it was a proper way of educating them, since there are no accounts in history of so many great women in any one age as are to be found between the years fifteen and sixteen hundred.” Certainly England can show a roll during that period which is in striking contrast to the records of the preceding and succeeding centuries. For sound scholarship and solid acquirements, the women of the sixteenth century may challenge comparison with those of any subsequent period. It was not a time for brilliant authorship among women. The productions of the most renowned are not such as would be read in the present day. Latin distichs, translations of the classics and of theological works, orations in Greek and Latin, are not the writings which commend themselves to posterity, but they display a degree of erudition which was not only remarkable for that period, but would be highly commended in this age of university teaching and the advancement of women along the paths of the higher education. The following verses by a sixteenth-century writer well express the feeling of the times:-- “You men yt read the memoryes Of wonders done and paste, Remember well the historys Of women first and laste; And tell me if I saye not true, That women can do more than you, “And more than any man can doo So quicklie and so trym (fast?). What counterpointes of pollycie, Of arte and of artyfyce, But women w^{th} facylitie Can compas and forecaste.” Perhaps queens should not be taken as examples, inasmuch as they possess advantages peculiar to their position, and their acquirements are apt to be overstated. Henry VIII., the Sovereign Bluebeard, showed himself admirable as a father in at least one respect, and the care with which his daughters were educated goes some way towards palliating his crimes towards their mothers. If he had not obscured his own talent by his passions and vices, we should be better able to appreciate the encouragement he gave to literature and art, and his accomplishments as one of the best-educated gentlemen of the day. The tastes of the sovereign and the _personnel_ of the court had a more direct influence on society than at the present time. Individual members of the nobility who cultivated learning, did a good deal in raising the tone of their immediate circle.