Come, courtiers, all draw near my mourning hearse, O pilgrims poor press near my pageant now, Some sweeter chance may bring your hearts to rest.1 In the Siege of Edinburgh Castle he has recourse to the same tricks of style which he employs in Jane Shore, namely, frequent alliteration and the accumulation of a number of images in illustration of some common truth. The flux of proverbial imagery in the second of the following stanzas, describing the effects produced by a lucky shot, fired during the siege, is quite in the vein of Sancho Panza : That cut the combs of many a bragging cock, That broke the gall, or galled the horse too sore, For after this they 'gan to step aback, And saw at hand come on their ruin and rack. A little harm doth breed a great mistrust; A small attempt makes mighty matters shake; George Gascoigne is a poet of a very different order; being, indeed, the most fertile, though not the most poetical, writer in the English language, since the appearance of Wyatt. Besides following the same auto2 Ibid. p. 206. 1 Churchyard's Chips (Collier), p. 125. Dascoigne biographical line as Churchyard, he wrote sonnets like Surrey; flowing lyrics like Turbervile; translated a comedy from the Italian, and adapted a tragedy from the Greek; amused the Queen with elaborated masques and improvised addresses; explored in blank verse the road of moral satire which Wyatt had attempted in terza rima ; and gave also the first critical account of the art of English poetry. His character in its great versatility presents some of the features of the "Italianate Englishman," the object of Roger Ascham's invective; and the men of the next generation compared him, not unnaturally, with Robert Greene, whom he also resembles in the edifying tone with which, in his latter years, he speaks of the riot of his youth. He was the eldest son of Sir John Gascoigne of Cardington in Bedfordshire, and was born about 1525. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he left the University without taking a degree, and proceeded, as was then frequently the custom with young men, to complete his education at the Inns of Court. His autobiographical poem, Dan Bartholomew of Bath, records the love adventures through which he passed probably at this period of his life; these have certainly nothing of the chivalrous character, nor is it very surprising, considering the manner in which he seems to have spent the early part of his time at the Middle Temple and Gray's Inn, that he should have been disinherited by his father. As he grew older he became steadier. A series of his poems, entitled "Memories," was written in earnest, as he tells us himself, of his intended reformation. "He had (in midst of his youth) determined to abandon all vain delights and to return to Gray's Inn, there to undertake again the study of the Common Laws. And being required by five sundry gentlemen to write in verse somewhat worthy to be remembered, before he entered into their fellowship, he compiled these five sundry sorts of metre upon five sundry themes, which they delivered unto him, and the first was at the request of Francis Kinwelmarshe, who delivered him this theme, Audaces fortuna juvat." The other gentlemen were Antony Kinwelmarshe, giving him Satis Sufficit; John Vaughan, Magnum vectigal parsimonia; Alexander Nevile, Sat cito si sat bene; and Richard Courthope,1 Durum, æneum et miserabile ævum. On these themes he wrote poems, he says, "amounting to the number of CCLVIII verses devised riding by the way, writing none of them till he came to the end of his journey, the which was no longer than one day in riding, one day in tarrying with his friend, and the third in returning to Gray's Inn, and therefore called 'Gascoigne's Memories.' " 2 The poet was proud of his powers of rapid production and improvisation; and he afterwards displayed them during Queen Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth, by attending her Majesty as she rode on horseback, in the character of the god of the woods, and discoursing with her in a strain of classical allegory. But as may be supposed from the circumstances of their composition his "Memories" "Memories" contain nothing worthy of remembrance. While he was at Gray's Inn he wrote, in 1566, for dramatic representation, his Supposes a translation of Ariosto's I Suppositi-and his Jocasta―an adaptation of the Phanissa of Euripidesboth of which will be mentioned again in another chapter. Two years later he married Elizabeth Breton, widow of William Breton, citizen of London. It may be suspected that this was a mariage de convenance, which perhaps proved irksome to one so unaccustomed as Gascoigne to the quiet of domestic life; at any rate in 1572 we find him campaigning in Flanders, Zeeland, and Holland, and encountering under William of Orange the fortunes which he afterwards made the subject of his autobiographical poem Dulce Bellum Inexpertis. During his absence from England one of his friends, no doubt with his connivance, printed some of his earlier poems, and thus gave him an opening on his return for republishing the volume, in 1575, with a kind of apology for the nature of its contents. The title of the book is very interesting as marking the approach of Euphuism: "A Hundred sundry Flowers bound up in one small Posy, gathered partly by 1 Or as the name was then frequently spelt Courtop. The theme was doubtless aëneum @vuт. 2 Gascoigne's Poems (Hazlitt), vol. i. pp. 63-72. translation in the fine Outlandish Gardens of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarch, Ariosto, and others and partly by Inventions out of our fruitful Orchards in England, Yielding sundry sweet Savours of Tragical, Comical, and Moral Discourses, both pleasant and profitable, to the wellswelling noses of learned readers." A very characteristic "Epistle to the Reverend Divines gave five reasons for the publication of the poems, which were as follows: (1) Poetry is an excellent quality; (2) "I have," he says, "always been of opinion that it is not impossible, either in poems or in prose, to write both compendiously and perfectly in our English tongue. And, therefore, although I challenge not unto myself the name of an English poet, yet may the reader find out in my writings that I have more faulted in keeping the old English words (quamvis jam obsoleta) than in borrowing of other languages such epithets and adjectives as smell of the inkhorn;" (3) he seeks advancement by virtue, and desires that his poetry may remain on record in token of the gifts with which it had pleased God to endow him; (4) there is more good than bad mingled with his writing; (5) his writing may serve as a mirror to unbridled youth.1 The poems, though comprised under the single name of posies are subdivided into "Flowers," "Herbs," and "Weeds"; flowers to comfort, herbs to cure, weeds to be avoided. Under the first head are included several lyric poems of considerable beauty, which show a fluency and sweetness beyond what is found in any previous English poet. Such, for example, are Gascoigne's "GoodMorrow," and "The Lullaby of a Lover." The former has the following stanzas : You that have spent the silent night In sleep and quiet rest, And joy to see the cheerful light That riseth in the East: Now clear your voice, now clear your heart, Each willing wight come bear a part To praise the Heavenly King. 1 Gascoigne's Complete Poems (Hazlitt), vol. i. pp. 2-4. And you whom care in prison keeps, Or sickness doth suppress, Or secret sorrow breaks your sleeps, Yet bear a part in doleful wise, Yea think it good accord And acceptable sacrifice, Each sprite, to praise the Lord. And if such haps and heavenly joys The day is like the day of doom, The sun the Son of Man, The skies the heavens, the earth the tomb, Wherein we rest till than. The rainbow bending in the sky, To drown the world no more, The little birds, which sing so sweet, Which render God his praises meet, And as they more esteem that mirth, Unto which joys for to attain, Lord for thy mercy lend us might 1 Gascoigne's Complete Poems, vol. i. pp. 56-58. |