More than to ride with pomp and pride, Such is my skill, and shall be still, 39. Too fond were I, here thus to lie, This causeth me, well pleas'd to be, As need, need shall, 40. Friend, all things weigh'd, that here is said, To seek some ways, my God to praise, 200 GEORGE GASCOIGNE. DIED OCTOBER 7th, 1577. THIS poet was of an honourable family in Essex, being son of Sir John Gascoigne, who disinherited him for his youthful prodigality. Gascoigne lived to amend the errors of his youth, and became a wise and good man; but the father died with the sin upon him of an unforgiving temper. The young man, who had been educated at Cambridge, and entered at Gray's Inn, was cast upon the world. He had sold such of his patrimony as could not be alienated from him; and finding his hopes of preferment at home fail him, embarked as an adventurer for Holland, in which country, it appears, he had previously travelled. We may believe him that he had shaken off his evil habits, but he had not shaken off his evil companions; for, on this occasion, he had for his fellow-adventurer that Rowland Yorke, who before that time was notorious as a profligate, and afterwards infamous as a traitor. The most valuable of his poems, if not the best, relate to his adventures on the voyage, and in the Dutch war, where he behaved well, and obtained the good opinion of the Prince of Orange, whose sterling worth he seems to have justly appreciated. After two years' hard service, he was compelled to surrender, with a body of five hundred English, in attempting to escape from the unfinished and indefensible fort at Valkenburg. It was during the memorable and dreadful siege of Leyden; they made their way to the walls of that city; but from suspicion, jealousy, and misunderstanding, combined with the dread of famine, the citizens refused to open the gates; the English were then fortunate in obtaining honourable terms of surrender; still more so in having them observed. For the Spaniards, in that age, were as regardless of honour as of faith, when heretics were to be dealt with; but it was their policy then to conciliate England, not to provoke it: and though Don Luys Gayetan, to whom they had surrendered, was for putting them to death, in conformity with the advice of the Spanish counsellors at the Hague, Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who, was then at Brussels, on his way to London as ambassador, desired that their lives might be spared, and that they might be sent home. During their imprisonment, they received every possible kindness from the Baron de Liques, and from Verdugo. This put an end to his military career. He resumed the study of the law, but with neither liking nor aptitude for the profession; and soon seems to have depended for his future prospects upon the fair character which he had now established, and upon those who were alike able to appreciate and to serve him; for he had friends among the best and noblest of the age. By some of these, (Raleigh perhaps, or Arthur Lord Grey, the friend and patron of Spenser,) he was introduced to the queen, whom he accompanied to Kenilworth in one of her progresses, and recited before her some of the verses which he composed on that occasion. His immediate means appear to have been such as might content one who had become a wise and thoughtful man. He married, settled at Walthamstow, amused himself with gardening, and employed himself in composition; but falling into a lingering and wasting disease, he was taken to Stamford by his friend George Whetstone, and there, being worn almost to a skeleton, but in a religious, calm, and happy frame of mind, he expired without a struggle, recommending his wife and only child to the queen's bounty. His age is not known, but it cannot have been under forty, for he frequently speaks of himself as in middle age; and says, in one place, that the crow's foot had grown under his eyes. Gascoigne wrote the first prose comedy in our language, and his Jocasta (partly paraphrased, partly abridged, from the Phoenissæ of Euripides), is the second of our tragedies that was written in blank verse, THE ARRAIGMENT OF A LOUER. Ar Beautyes barre as I dyd stande, George (quod the Judge) holde vp thy hande, Tell therefore howe thou wylt bee tryde: My Lorde (quod I) this Lady here, Quod Beautie, no, it fitteth not, Then crafte the cryer cal'd a quest, Jelous the Jayler bound mee fast, To heare the verdite of the byll, George (quod the Judge) nowe thou art cast, Thou must goe hence to heauie hill, And there be hangde all bye the head, God rest thy soule when thou art dead. Downe fell I then vpon my knee, All flatte before Dame Beauties face, And cryed, good Ladye pardon mee, Which here appeale vnto your grace, You knowe if I haue beene vntrue, It was in too much praysing you. And though this Judge doe make suche haste, (Quod Beautie) well: bicause I guesse, Yea Madame 'quod I) that I shall, Thus am I Beauties bounden thrall, Euer or neuer. Common Bayll. THE LULLABIE OF A LOUER. SING lullaby, as women doe, Wherewith they bring their babes to rest, As womanly as can the best. First lullaby my youthfull yeares, Since courage quayles, and commes behind, Next Lullaby my gazing eyes, And Lullaby my wanton will, Howe deare I haue thy fansies bought. With Lullaby nowe tak thyne ease, With Lullaby thy doubtes appease : Thus Lullabye my youth, myne eyes, GASCOIGNES GOOD MORROW. You that haue spent the silent night, And ioye to see the cheerefull lyght That ryseth in the East: Now cleare your voyce, now chere your hart, Eche willing wight come beare a part, And you whome care in prison keepes, Or secret sorowe breakes your sleepes, Yet beare a parte in dolfull wise, Yea thinke it good accorde, And acceptable sacrifice, Eche sprite to prayse the lorde. The dreadfull night with darkesomnesse, Had ouer spread the light, And sluggish sleepe with drowsynesse, Had ouer prest our might: A glasse wherin you may beholde, Our bed the graue, our clothes lyke molde, Yet as this deadly night did laste, But for a little space, And heauenly daye nowe night is past, So must we hope to see Gods face, When we haue chang'd this mortall place, And of such happes and heauenly ioyes, As then we hope to holde, All earthly sightes and wordly toyes, The daye is like the daye of doome, The skyes the heauens, the earth the tombe The Rainbowe bending in the skye, So by the bloud which Christ hath shead, The mistie cloudes that fall somtime, Are like to troubles of our time, The caryon Crowe, that lothsome beast, The little byrde which sing so swete, And as they more esteeme that myrth, So much we deeme our days on earth, Unto which Joyes for to attayne God graunt vs all his grace, And sende vs after worldly payne, In heauen to haue a place. Where wee maye still enioye that light, Lorde for thy mercy lend vs might, To see that ioyfull daye. Haud ictus sapio. GASCOYNES GOOD NIGHT. WHEN thou hast spent the lingring day in pleasure [at nighte: and delight, Or after toyle and wearie waye, dost seeke to rest Unto thy paynes or pleasures past, adde this one labour yet, [God forget, Ere sleepe close vp thyne eye to fast, do not thy But searche within thy secret thoughts, what deeds did thee befal : [call. And if thou find amisse in ought, to God for mercy Yea though thou find nothing amisse, which thou canst cal to mind, [behind : Yet euer more remember this, there is the more And thinke how well so euer it be, that thou hast spent the daye, [waye. It came of God, and not of thee, so to direct thy Thus if thou trie thy dayly deedes, and pleasure in this payne, Thy life shall clense thy corne from weeds, and thine shal be the gaine: [to winke, But if thy sinfull sluggishe eye, will venter for Before thy wading will may trye, how far thy soule maye sinke, [smoth is made, Beware and wake, for else thy bed, which soft and May heape more harm vpō thy head, than blowes of enmies blade. [thou doest lye, Thus if this paine procure thine ease, in bed as Perhaps it shall not God displease, to sing thus soberly; I see that sleepe is lent me here, to ease my wearye bones, [greeuous grones. As death at laste shall eke appeere, to ease my My dayly sportes, my panch full fed, haue causde my drousie eye, [soule to dye : As carelesse life in quiet led, might cause my The stretching armes, the yauning breath, which I to bedward vse, [me refuse. Are patternes of the pangs of death, when life will And of my bed eche sundrye part in shaddowes doth resemble, [flesh to treble. The sūdry shapes of deth, whose dart shal make my My bed it selfe is like the graue, my sheetes the winding sheete, [me most meete: My clothes the mould which I must haue, to couer The hungry fleas which friske so freshe, to wormes I can cōpare, [the bones ful bare : Which greedily shall gnaw my fleshe, and leaue The waking Cock that early crowes to weare the [the latter day. Puts in my minde the trumpe that blowes before And as I rise vp lustily, when sluggish sleepe is past, So hope I to rise ioyfully, to Judgement at the last. Thus wyll I wake, thus wyll I sleepe, thus wyl I [godly wyse. night awaye, hope to ryse, Thus wyll I neither waile nor weepe, but sing in My bones shall in this bed remaine, my soule in [earthly dust. By whome I hope to ryse againe from death and Haud ictus sapio. God shall trust, THE INTRODUCTION TO THE PSALME OF DE PROFUNDIS. THE skies gan scowle, orecast with misty clowdes, When (as I rode alone by London waye, Cloakelesse, vnclad) thus did I sing and say: Behold quoth I, bright Titan how he shroudes His head abacke, and yelds the raine his reach, GASCOIGNES MEMORIES, Written vpon this occasion. Hee had (in myddest of his youth) determined to abandone all vaine delightes and to returne vnto Greyes Inne, there to vndertake againe the studdie of the common Lawes. And being required by fiue sundry Gentlemen to write in verse somewhat worthye to bee remembred, before he entered into their fellowshippe, hee compiled these fiue sundrie sortes of metre vppon fiue sundrye theames, whiche they deliuered vnto him, and the first was at request of Frauncis Kinwelmarshe who deliuered him this theame. Audaces fortuna iuuat. And therevppon hee wrote this Sonnete following. Ir yelding feare, or cancred villanie, In Cæsars haughtie heart had tane the charge, despight. |