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GEORGE GASCOIGNE

[Born, 1536. Died, 1577.]

WAS born in 1536*, of an ancient family in Essex, was bred at Cambridge, and entered at Gray's-Inn; but being disinherited by his father for extravagance, he repaired to Holland, and obtained a commission under the Prince of Orange. A quarrel with his Colonel retarded his promotion in that service; and a circumstance occurred which had nearly cost him his life. A lady at the Hague (the town being then in the enemy's possession) sent him a letter, which was intercepted in the camp, and a report against his loyalty was made by those who had seized it. Gascoigne immediately laid the affair before the Prince, who saw through the design of his accusers, and gave him a passport for visiting his female friend. At the siege of Middleburgh he displayed so much bravery, that the Prince rewarded him with 300 gilders above his pay; but he was soon after made prisoner by the Spaniards, and having spent four months in captivity, re

turned to England, and resided generally at Walthamstow. In 1575 he accompanied Queen Elizabeth in one of her stately progresses, and wrote for her amusement a mask, entitled the Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle. He is generally said to have died at Stamford, in 1578; but the registers of that place have been searched in vain for his name, by the writer of an article in the Censura Literariat, who has corrected some mistakes in former accounts of him. It is not probable, however, that he lived long after 1576, as, from a manuscript in the British Museum, it appears that, in that year, he complains of his infirmities, and nothing afterwards came from his pen.

Gascoigne was one of the earliest contributors to our drama. He wrote The Supposes, a comedy, translated from Ariosto, and Jocasta, a tragedy from Euripides, with some other pieces.

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF A LOVER.

Ar Beauty's bar as I did stand,
When False Suspect accused me,
George, quoth the Judge, hold up thy hand,
Thou art arraign'd of Flattery;
Tell, therefore, how wilt thou be tried,
Whose judgment thou wilt here abide ?

My lord, quod I, this lady here,
Whom I esteem above the rest,
Doth know my guilt, if any were ;
Wherefore her doom doth 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 ye wot,
Appointed to discuss our laws;
If you will guiltless seem to go,
God and your country quit you so.

* Mr. Ellis conjectures that he was born much earlier.

↑ Cens. Lit. vol. i. p. 100. [Gascoigne died at Stamford on the 7th of October, 1577.-See COLLIER's Annals, vol. i. p. 192.]

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 truss'd."

Jealous the gaoler 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 hang'd 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 !
Who here appeal unto your grace;
You know if I have been untrue,
It was in too much praising you.

And though this Judge doth 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.

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VERSES ON A MOST STONY-HEARTED MAIDEN WHO DID SORELY BEGUILE THE NOBLE KNIGHT, MY TRUE FRIEND.

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SONNET MADE ON ISABELLA MARKHAM, WHEN I FIRST THOUGHT HER FAIR, AS SHE STOOD AT THE PRINCESS'S WINDOW, IN GOODLY ATTIRE, AND TALKED TO DIVERS IN THE COURT-YARD.

From the Nugæ Antiquæ, where the original Manuscript is said to be dated 1564.

WHENCE Comes my love? O heart, disclose;
It was from cheeks that shamed the rose,
From lips that spoil the ruby's praise,
From eyes that mock the diamond's blaze :
Whence comes my woe? as freely own;
Ah me! 'twas from a heart like stone.

The blushing cheek speaks modest mind,
The lips befitting words most kind,
The eye does tempt to love's desire,
And seems to say "'tis Cupid's fire;"
Yet all so fair but speak my moan,

Sith nought doth say the heart of stone.

Why thus, my love, so kind, bespeak
Sweet eye, sweet lip, sweet blushing cheek-
Yet not a heart to save my pain;

O Venus, take thy gifts again;
Make not so fair to cause our moan,
Or make a heart that's like our own.

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY.

[Born, 1554. Died, 1586.]

WITHOUT enduring Lord Orford's cold-blooded depreciation of this hero, it must be owned that his writings fall short of his traditional glory; nor were his actions of the very highest importance to his country. Still there is no necessity for supposing the impression which he made upon his contemporaries to have been either illusive or exaggerated. Traits of character will distinguish great men, independently of their pens or their swords. The contemporaries of Sydney knew the man: and foreigners, no less than his own countrymen, seem to have felt, from his personal influence and conversation, an homage for him, that could only be paid to a commanding intellect guiding the principles of a noble heart. The variety of his ambition, perhaps, unfavourably divided the force of his genius; feeling that he could take different paths to reputation, he did not confine himself to one, but was successively occupied in the punetilious duties of a courtier, the studies and pursuits of a scholar and traveller, and in the life of

a soldier, of which the chivalrous accomplishments could not be learnt without diligence and fatigue. All his excellence in those pursuits, and all the celebrity that would have placed him among the competitors for a crown, was gained in a life of thirty-two years. His sagacity and independence are recorded in the advice which he gave to his own sovereign. In the quarrel with Lord Oxford*, he opposed the rights of an English commoner to the prejudices of aristocracy and of royalty itself. At home he was the patron of literature. All England wore mourning for his death. Perhaps the well-known anecdote of his generosity to the dying soldier speaks more powerfully to the heart than the whole volumes of elegies, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, that were published at his death by the universities.

Mr. Ellis has exhausted the best specimens of his poetry. I have only offered a few short

ones.

* Vide the biographical notice of Lord Oxford.

TO SLEEP.

FROM THE ARCADIA

COME sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe;
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts despair doth at me throw :
O make in me those civil wars to cease,
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head;
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.

SONNET.

In martial sports I had my cunning tried,
And yet to break more staves did me address,
While with the people's shouts, I must confess,
Youth, luck, and praise, e'en fill'd my veins with
pride;

a Press, or crowd.

When Cupid having me his slave descried
In Mars's livery, prancing in the press,
"What now,
Sir Fool?" said he, "I would no less;
Look here, I say.”—I look'd, and Stella spied,
Who hard by made a window send forth light;
My heart then quaked, then dazzled were mine eyes;
One hand forgot to rule, the other to fight;
Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly cries.
My foe came on and beat the air for me,
Till that her blush taught me my shame to see.

SONNET.

O HAPPY Thames, that didst my Stella bear,
I saw myself, with many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face, joy's livery wear,
While those fair planets on thy streams did shine;
The boat for joy could not to dance forbear;
While wanton winds, with beauties so divine
Ravish'd, staid not till in her golden hair
They did themselves, oh sweetest prison! twine;
And fain those Eol's youth there would their stay
Have made, but forced by Nature still to fly,
First did with puffing kiss those locks display:
She, so dishevell'd, blush'd :—from window I,
With sight thereof, cried out, O fair disgrace,
Let Honour's self to thee grant highest place.

ROBERT GREENE

[Born, 1560. Died, 1592.]

Was born at Norwich about 1560, was educated at Cambridge, travelled in Spain and Italy, and on his return held, for about a year, the vicarage of Tollesbury, in Essex. The rest of his life seems to have been spent in London, with no other support than his pen, and in the society of men of more wit than worldly prudence. He is said to have died about 1592*, from a surfeit occasioned by pickled herrings and Rhenish wine. Greene has acknowledged, with great contrition, some of the follies of his life; but the charge of profligacy which has been so mercilessly laid on his memory must be taken with great abatement, as it was chiefly dictated by his bitterest enemy, Gabriel Harvey, who is said to have trampled on his dead body when laid in the grave. The story, it may be hoped, for the credit of human nature, is untrue; but it shows to what a pitch the malignity of Harvey was supposed to be capable of being excited. Greene is accused of having deserted an amiable wife; but his traducers rather inconsistently reproach him also with the necessity of writing for her maintenance.

[* Greene died on the 3rd Sept. 1592. See his Dramatic Works, by Dyce, 2 vols 8vo. 1831.]

A list of his writings, amounting to forty-five separate productions, is given in the Censura Literaria, including five plays, several amatory romances, and other pamphlets, of quaint titles. and rambling contents. The writer of that article has vindicated the personal memory of Greene with proper feeling, but he seems to overrate the importance that could have ever been attached to him as a writer. In proof of the once great popularity of Greene's writings, a passage is quoted from Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, where it is said that Saviolina uses as choice figures as any in the Arcadia, and Carlo subjoins, " or in Greene's works, whence she may steal with more security." This allusion to the facility of stealing without detection from an author surely argues the reverse of his being popular and well knownt. Greene's style is in truth most whimsical and grotesque. He lived before there was a good model of familiar prose; and his wit, like a stream that is too weak to force a channel for itself, is lost in rhapsody and diffuseness.

[ See Gifford's Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 71.]

DORASTUS ON FAWNIA.

Ан, were she pitiful as she is fair,
Or but as mild as she is seeming so,
Then were my hopes greater than my despair,
Then all the world were Heaven, nothing woe.
Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand,
That seems to melt e'en with the mildest touch,
Then knew I where to seat me in a land,
Under the wide Heavens, but yet not such.
So as she shows, she seems the budding rose,
Yet sweeter far than is an earthly flower;
Sovereign of beauty, like the spray she grows ;
Compass'd she is with thorns and canker'd flower* ;
Yet, were she willing to be pluck'd and worn,
She would be gather'd, though she grew on thorn.
Ah, when she sings, all music else be still,
For none must be compared to her note;
Ne'er breathed such glee from Philomela's bill,
Nor from the morning singer's swelling throat.
And when she riseth from her blissful bed,
She comforts all the world, as doth the sun.
[*Qy. power or stoure. Dyce, vol. ii, p. 242.]

JEALOUSY.

FROM TULLY'S LOVE.

WHEN gods had framed the sweets of woman's face,

And lockt men's looks within her golden hair, That Phoebus blush'd to see her matchless

grace,

And heavenly gods on earth did make repair, To quip fair Venus' overweening pride, Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied.

Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow,
The amber sweet of love is turn'd to gall !
Gloomy was Heaven; bright Phoebus did avow
He would be coy, and would not love at all;
Swearing no greater mischief could be wrought,
Than love united to a jealous thought.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

[Born, 1562. Died, May 1593.]

WAS born in 1562, took a bachelor's degree at Cambridge, and came to London, where he was a contemporary player and dramatic writer with Shakspeare. Had he lived longer to profit by the example of Shakspeare, it is not straining conjecture to suppose, that the strong misguided energy of Marlowe would have been kindled and refined to excellence by the rivalship; but his death, at the age of thirty, is alike to be lamented for its disgracefulness and prematurity, his own sword being forced upon him, in a quarrel at a brothel. Six tragedies, however, and his numerous translations from the classics, evince that if his life was profligate, it was not idle. The bishops ordered his translations of Ovid's Love Elegies to be burnt in public for their licentiousness. If all the licentious poems of that period had been included in the martyrdom, Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis would have hardly escaped the flames.

In Marlowe's tragedy of "Lust's Dominion" there is a scene of singular coincidence with an event that was 200 years after exhibited in the same country, namely Spain. A Spanish queen, instigated by an usurper, falsely proclaims her own son to be a bastard.

Prince Philip is a bastard born;

O give me leave to blush at mine own shame; But I for love to you-love to fair Spain, Chuse rather to rip up a queen's disgrace, Than, by concealing it, to set the crown Upon a bastard's head.

Lust's Dom. Sc. iv. Act 3.

Compare this avowal with the confession which Bonaparte either obtained, or pretended to have obtained, from the mother of Ferdinand VII., in 1808, and one might almost imagine that he had consulted Marlowe's tragedy.

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

COME live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

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