In one of his discourses, Erasmus, possibly the most accomplished of the schoolmen of the time, opens to our view the opinion of the Church as to female scholarship when he represents an abbot as contending that if women were learned they could not be kept under subjection, "therefore it is a wicked, mischievous thing to revive the ancient custom of educating them." A remark in one of Erasmus's letters lays him open to the suspicion of sharing somewhat in this view, for, in his description of Sir Thomas More, he speaks of him as wise with the wise, and jesting with fools--"with women especially, and his own wife among them." Besides the graver matters of study which claimed their attention, the women of England were devoted to music, needlework, and dancing, which were the favorite fashionable pastimes. Erasmus speaks of them as the most accomplished in musical skill of any people. Early as the reign of Henry VIII., to read music at sight was not an uncommon accomplishment, while those who aspired to the technique of the subject were students of counterpoint. Musical literature was scanty; the principal instruments were the lute, the mandolin, the clavichord, and the virginals. Notwithstanding its literary flavor and its identity with the great themes of modern knowledge, the age of Elizabeth can hardly be called a serious one from the point of view of the spirit and manners of the people. Amusement was sought for its own sake, without regard to its character or quality. The spirit of enjoyment was hearty and unrestrained, and lacked discrimination and refinement. The society of the age, like its culture, was a reflex of the personality of the powerful queen, who stamped her character and her tastes upon her people. The queen, as well as her courtiers, could restrain herself upon occasion; but neither she nor her subjects felt that there was any moral or conventional need to place a check upon the expression of their emotions, and in consequence their manners were often unbecoming. It did not offend the sense of personal dignity of Elizabeth to spit at a courtier, the cut or color of whose coat displeased her, just as she might box his ears or rap out at him a flood of profanity. When Leicester was kneeling to receive his earldom, the dignity of the occasion was entirely destroyed by the volatile queen bending over to tickle his neck. As it was a case of like queen, like people, a man who could not or who would not swear was accounted "a peasant, a clown, a patch, an effeminate person." The _sine qua non_ for obtaining the queen's favor was to be amusing. It mattered nothing at all at whose expense, or how personal the witticism, or how sensitive the one who was made the butt of amusement; if the queen enjoyed it, and the boisterous laughter of the court sycophants was evoked, the sufferer had to appear gratified at the honor of his selection for his sovereign's entertainment. Coarse