Tell me who was thy nurse? "Fresh Youth in sugred joy." What was thy meate and dayly foode? "Sad sighes with great annoy." What hadst thou then to drinke? "Unsavoury lovers teares." What cradle wert thou rocked in? "In hope devoyde of feares." What lulld thee then asleepe? "Sweete speech, which likes me best." Tell me, where is thy dwelling place? "In gentle hartes I rest." What thing doth please thee most? "To gaze on beautye stille." Whom dost thou thinke to be thy foe? 66 Disdayn of my good wille." Doth companye displease? "Yea, surelye, many one." Where doth Desire delight to live? "He loves to live alone." Doth either tyme or age Then, fond Desire, farewelle, I sholde be lothe, methinkes, to dwelle THE JUDGEMENT OF DESIRE. THE lively larke stretch't forthe her wyng I went abroad to take the aire, Desire I did desire to staie, Awhile with him I craved talke: What thing did please and what did pain. He smil❜d, and thus he answered than; THE SHEPHEARD'S COMMENDATION OF HIS NIMPH. WHAT shepheard can expresse From which each throwes a dart No sweeter life I trie Than in her love to die. The lilly in the field That glories in his white For purenesse now must yeeld And render up his right. Heaven pictur'd in her face Faire Cynthiae's silver light So bright my nimph doth shine With this there is a red, When Phoebus from the bed The morning blushing red, He shewes in my nimphs face, This pleasant lilly white, These sun-beames in mine eye, A LOVER DISDAINED, COMPLAINETH. IF ever man had love too dearly bought, But shall I come ny you, Of forse I must flie you. What death, alas, may be compared to this? I plaie within the maze of my swete foe: And when I would of her but crave a kis, Disdaine enforceth her awaie to goe. Myself I check yet doe I twiste the twine: But shall I come ny you, Of forse I must flie you. You courtly wights, that want your pleasant choise, my chaunce: Happie are thei in love that can rejoyse, To their greate paines, where fortune doeth advance. Full fraight with care in grief still will I waile: I maie not come ny you. LINES ATTRIBUTED TO THE EARL OF OXFORD. IF Woemen coulde be fayre and yet not fonde, But when I se how frayll those creatures are, To marcke the choyse they make, and how they change, Who woulde not scorne and shake them from the fyste, Yet for disporte we fawne and flatter bothe, GEORGE GASCOIGNE was born at Walthamstow, in Essex, and, according to Wood, in 1540. But the great antiquary is certainly in error, for the poet, who died in 1577, speaks of his "croocked age and hoary heares," and describes the crow's foot as having grown under his eyes. He was educated at Cambridge-" whereof he was unworthy member once"-and entered at Gray's Inn; but his father Sir John Gascoigne, "of an honourable family in Essex," having disinherited him for his thoughtless prodigality, he was compelled to seek employment abroad, and served with distinction in the army of Holland, under the command of the Prince of Orange. Here he became, according to old Puttenham, "as painful a soldier in the affairs of his Prince and Country as he was a witty poet in his writing." The most valuable of his poems details his adventures in the Dutch war; one of these relates to a lady at the Hague, who, while the town was in possession of the enemy, sent him a letter which was intercepted in the camp. Reports were, in consequence, circulated against the loyalty of the soldier-poet, who, at once, laid the affair before the Prince; his jealous and envious accusers were discomfited, and Gascoigne received a passport which enabled him to visit his female friend. He was afterwards made prisoner by the Spaniards, endured a tedious imprisonment, and, on his release, returned to England, resided chiefly at Walthamstow, and resumed the study of the Law. In 1575, he accompanied Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses to Kenilworth, and recited before her a masque he had composed for her amusement. He died at Stamford, where his declining health had induced his friends to convey him; one of them speaks of himself as being an eye-witness of his godly and charitable end." "Falling into a lingering and wasting disease, he was taken to Stamford, and there being almost worn to a skeleton, but in a religious, calm, and happy state of mind, he expired without a struggle, recommending his wife and only child to the Queen's bounty." Whatever might have been the follies of his earlier years, he lived to establish a good reputation as a man, and to obtain high and enduring fame as a poet. Gascoigne is the author of the first prose comedy in our language, the "Supposes," which he partly translated from Ariosto; and his Jocasta, also in part a translation, from Euripides, is the second of our tragedies in blank verse. According to Nash, he "first beat the path to that perfection which our best poets have conspired to since his departure;" by another ancient critic he is classed among "the lesser poets whose works may be endured;" and by another, he is praised for "a goode meetre, and a plentiful vayne." More modern critics have as widely differed in estimating his merits. Mr. Headly states that "though he exhibits few marks of strength, he is not destitute of delicacy," and Mr. Ellis, although he lauds his comedy for "uncommon ease and elegance of dialogue," condemns his "smaller poems" as certainly too diffuse and full of conceit; while Mr. Warton is of opinion that he "has much exceeded all the poets of his age in smoothness and harmony of versification." His longest production is "the Fruites of Warre"-"written by sundrye tymes, as the Aucthour had vacaunt leysures from seruice." roughe," he continues in his dedication to the Lord Greye of Wylton, reason, sithence it treateth of roughe matters." In this, and in his other extended poem, "the Steele Glas," the reader will find many noble thoughts, conveyed in an easy and graceful style; but they are, we think, by no means so rich in fancy as some of his minor compositions. The leading characteristic of his writing is sound good sense; he had studied human nature, had seen the evils of a sinful course in youth, had learned how much of wisdom there is in virtue, and gave to the world his observations and the results of his experience in the form of verse. peecemeal at "The verse is "and a good His poems were first collected and published in 1587, as "The Pleasauntest Workes of George Gascoigne, Esquyre, newlye compyled into one volume, that is to saye: His Flowers, Hearbes, Weedes, the Fruites of Warre, the Comedie called Supposes, the Trajedie of Jocasta, the Steele-Glasse, the Complaint of Phylomene, the Story of Ferdinando Jeronimi, and the Pleasure of Kenelworth Castle." The volume bears the imprint of "Abel Jeffes, dwelling in the Fore Street, without Creepplegate, neere unto Grub-streete." During his life, however, in 1572, he had sent forth a work in Quarto,"A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, bound up in one small Posie; gathered partly in fyne outlandish gardens; and partly out of our owne fruitefull orchardes in Englande.” |