_An offer of assistance_
[London], 15 _Jan_. 1554.
Your remarkable love of virtue and zeal for learning, most illustrious
lady, joined with such talents and perseverance, are worthy of great
praise in themselves, and greater still because you are a woman, but
greatest of all because you are a lady of the court; where there are
many other occupations for ladies, besides learning, and many other
pleasures besides the practice of the virtues. This double praise
is further enhanced by the two patterns that you have proposed to
yourself to follow, the one furnished you by the court, the other
by your family. I mean our illustrious queen Mary, and your noble
grandfather, Thomas More--a man whose virtues go to raise England
above all other nations....
I am led to write thus not altogether by my admiration of you, but
partly by my own wish and more from the nature of my own office. It
was I who was invited some years ago from the University of Cambridge
by your mother, Margaret Roper--a lady worthy of her great father,
and of you her daughter--to the house of your kinsman, Lord Giles
Alington, to teach you and her other children the Greek and Latin
tongues; but at that time no offers could induce me to leave the
University. It is sweet to me to bear in mind this request of your
mother's, and I now not only remind you thereof, but would offer you,
now that I am at court, if not to fulfil her wishes, yet to do my
best to fulfil them, were it not that you have so much learning
in yourself, and also the aid of those two learned men, Cole and
Christopherson, so that you need no help from me, unless in their
absence you make use of my assistance, and if you like, abuse it.
I write thus not because of any talents I possess (for I know they are
very small) but because of my will (which I know is very great), and
because of the opportunity long wished for and now granted me. For
by favour of that great bishop the Lord Stephen of Winchester, I have
been fetched away from the University to serve our illustrious queen
at court, and that too in such a post, that I can there follow the
same mode of life for the discharge of my duties as I did at the
University for study. My office is to write Latin letters for the
queen, and I hope I shall fulfil that office, if not with ability,
yet faithfully, diligently, and unblameably ... Farewell, most
accomplished lady!