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GEORGE GASCOIGNE.

[GEORGE GASCOIGNE was born circ. 1536; died 1577. The dates of his poems are:

1572. A hundred Sundry Flowers bound up in one small Posy.

1575. The Posies corrected, perfected, and augmented by the Author.

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1576. The Steel Glass, with the Complaint of Philomene.

1587. The Pleasantest Works of George Gascoigne, newly compiled into one volume.]

Amongst the poets that immediately preceded the great Elizabethan Period, which may be said to begin with the publication of The Shepherd's Calendar in 1580, Gascoigne occupied, and occupies, a notable place. Bolton indeed, in his Hypercritica, speaks slightingly of him: 'Among the lesser late poets George Gascoigne's Works may be endured'; but for the most part he is mentioned with high respect and praise. Raleigh commends The Steel Glass in what are his earliest known verses. Puttenham distinguishes him for a good metre and for a plentiful vein.' Webbe calls him 'a witty gentleman, and the very chief of our late rimers'; 'gifts of wit,' he says, ' and natural promptness appear in him abundantly.' Amongst other eulogists may be named Nash, Gabriel Harvey, Whetstone.

He was a man of family and position, well known to and amongst the 'Inns of Court men,' who, in the Elizabethan age, as in that of Queen Anne, passed for the arch wits and critics as well as the first gentlemen of the day; and when campaigning in the Low Countries he met with adventures which added to his personal prestige. Thus he was a conspicuous figure in the society of his time, and for this reason, if for nothing else, his verses would win esteem and circulation.

Gascoigne, then, is interesting as a poet who was popular during Shakspere's boyhood and Spenser's adolescence. But he is yet more important as one who did real service in the way of extending and improving the form of literature-as a pioneer of the

Elizabethan Period. Whoever,' says Nash, 'my private opinion condemns as faulty, Master Gascoigne is not to be abridged of his deserved esteem, who first beat the path to that perfection which our best poets have aspired to since his departure; whereto he did ascend by comparing the Italian with the English, as Tully did Græca cum Latinis. He is the author of our earliest extant comedy in prose-possibly the earliest written-The Supposes, a translation of Ariosto's Suppositi, and in part the author of one of our earliest tragedies, of Jocasta-a paraphrase rather than a translation of the Phoinissai of Euripides; he is one of our earliest writers of formal satire and of blank verse, and in his 'Certain Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or rime in English written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati,' one of the earliest essayists, if not the earliest, on English metres.

Happily, we can add, his works have not only these historical claims on our attention; they have intrinsic merits. His lyrics are occasionally characterised by a certain lightness and grace, which give and will give them a permanent life. Singing of all a lover's moods and experiences -how he passions, laments, complains, recants, is refused, is encouraged he is never a mere mimic of his Italian masters, or, though somewhat monotonous, wanting in vigour and sincerity. His style is clear and unaffected. The crude taste of his age is often enough apparent; and in this respect his 'poor rude lines,' if we compare them with the bettering of the times,' may sometimes make but no great show; but here too he rises above his fellows, who are often simply grotesque when they mean to be fervent, and are dull when they are not grotesque. He writes in various metres with various facility and skill. Of blank verse his mastery is imperfect; he is like a child learning to walk, whose progress is from chair to chair; he lacks freedom and fluency. The metre of his Complaint of Philomene is ill chosen for its purpose. It is a jig, not a movement of 'even step and musing gait.' Much of his work is autobiographical. We can trace him 'from gay to grave,' perhaps we may add 'from lively to severe'; for in his later years, by a reaction that is common enough, it would seem he took a somewhat morbid view of the life he was leaving, under-prizing it, after the manner of zealots, even as in his youth he had prized it too highly.

JOHN W. HALES.

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF A LOVER.

At Beauty's bar as I did stand,
When false Suspect accused me,

George (quoth the Judge), hold up thy hand,
Thou art arraigned of flattery:

Tell therefore how thou wilt be tried:
Whose judgement here wilt thou abide?

My Lord (quoth I) this Lady here,
Whom I esteem above the rest,
Doth know my guilt if any were:
Wherefore her doom shall please me best.
Let her be Judge and Juror both,
To try me guiltless by mine oath.

Quoth Beauty, no, it fitteth not,
A prince herself to judge the cause:
Will is our Justice well you wot,
Appointed to discuss our laws:
If you will guiltless seem to go,
God and your country quit you so.

Then Craft the crier call'd a quest,
Of whom was Falsehood foremost fere,
A pack of pickthanks were the rest,
Which came false witness for to bear,
The jury such, the judge unjust,
Sentence was said I should be trussed.

Jealous the jailer bound me fast,
To hear the verdict of the bill,

George (quoth the Judge) now thou art cast,
Thou must go hence to Heavy Hill,

And there be hanged all but the head,

God rest thy soul when thou art dead.

Down fell I then upon my knee,
All flat before Dame Beauty's face,
And cried Good Lady pardon me,
Which here appeal unto your grace,
You know if I have been untrue,
It was in too much praising you.

And though this Judge do make such haste,
To shed with shame my guiltless blood:

Yet let your pity first be placed,

To save the man that meant you good,
So shall you show yourself a Queen,
And I may be your servant seen.

(Quoth Beauty) well: because I guess,
What thou dost mean henceforth to be,
Although thy faults deserve no less,
Than Justice here hath judged thee,
Wilt thou be bound to stint all strife
And be true prisoner all thy life?

Yea madam (quoth I) that I shall,
Lo Faith and Truth my sureties:
Why then (quoth she) come when I call,
I ask no better warrantise.

Thus am I Beauty's bounden thrall,
At her command when she doth call.

A STRANGE PASSION OF A LOVER.

Amid my bale I bathe in bliss,
I swim in Heaven, I sink in hell:
I find amends for every miss,

And yet my moan no tongue can tell.
I live and love (what would you more?)

As never lover lived before.

I laugh sometimes with little lust,

So jest I oft and feel no joy :
Mine eye is builded all on trust,
And yet mistrust breeds mine annoy.

I live and lack, I lack and have ;
I have and miss the thing I crave.

These things seem strange, yet are they true.
Believe me, sweet, my state is such,

One pleasure which I would eschew,

Both slakes my grief and breeds my grutch.
So doth one pain which I would shun,
Renew my joys where grief begun.

Then like the lark that passed the night,
In heavy sleep with cares oppressed;
Yet when she spies the pleasant light,
She sends sweet notes from out her breast.
So sing I now because I think

How joys approach, when sorrows shrink.

And as fair Philomene again

Can watch and sing when other sleep;
And taketh pleasure in her pain,

To wray the woe that makes her weep.
So sing I now for to bewray

The loathsome life I lead alway.

The which to thee dear wench I write,
That know'st my mirth but not my moan:
I pray God grant thee deep delight,
To live in joys when I am gone.

I cannot live; it will not be :

I die to think to part from thee.

PIERS PLOUGHMAN.

[From The Steel Glass.]

Behold him, priests, and though he stink of sweat,
Disdain him not: for shall I tell you what?
Such climb to heaven before the shaven crowns:
But how? forsooth with true humility.

Not that they hoard their grain when it is cheap,
Nor that they kill the calf to have the milk,

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