University of Virginia Library

George Gascoigne was a celebrated poet in the early part of Q. Elizabeth's reign, and appears to great advantage among the miscellaneous writers of that age. He was author of three or four plays, and of many smaller poems; one of the most remarkable of which is a satire in blank verse, called the Steele-glass, 1576. 4to.

Gascoigne was born in Essex, educated in both universities, whence he removed to Gray's-inn; but, disliking the study of the law, became first a dangler at court, and afterwards a soldier in the wars of the Low Countries. He had no great success in any of these pursuits, as appears from a poem of his, intitled, “Gascoigne's Wodmanship, written to lord Gray of Wilton.” Many of his epistles dedicatory are dated in 1575, 1576, from “his poore house in Walthamstoe:” where he died a middle-aged man in 1578, according to Anth. Wood: or rather in 1577, if he is the person meant in an old tract, intitled, “A remembrance of the well-employed Life and godly End of Geo. Gascoigne, Esq; who deceased at Stamford in Lincolnshire, Oct. 7. 1577. by Geo. Whetstone, Gent. an eyewitness of his godly and charitable end in this world,”

A very ingenious critic thinks “Gascoigne has much exceeded all the poets of his age, in smoothness and harmony of versification .” But the truth is, scarce any of the earlier poets of Q. Elizabeth's time are found deficient in harmony and smoothness, tho' those qualities appear so rare in the writings of their successors. In the Paradise of dainty devises , (the Dodsley's Miscellany of those times)

will hardly be found one rough, or inharmonious line : whereas the numbers of Jonson, Donne, and most of their contemporaries, frequently offend the ear, like the filing of a saw.—Perhaps this is in some measure to be accounted for from the growing pedantry of that age, and from the writers affecting to run their lines into one another, after the manner of the Latin and Greek poets.

The following poem (which the elegant writer above quoted hath recommended to notice, as possessed of a delicacy rarely to be seen in that early state of our poetry) properly consists of alexandrines of 12 and 14 syllables, and is printed from two quarto black-letter collections of Gascoigne's pieces; the first intitled, “A hundreth sundrie flowres, bounde up in one small posie, &c. London, imprinted for Richarde Smith:” without date, but from a letter of H. W. (p. 202.) compared with the Printer's epist. to the Reader, it appears to have been published in 1572, or 3. The other is intitled, “The Posies of George Gascoigne, Esq; corrected, perfected, and augmented by the authour; 1575.—Printed at Lond. for Richard Smith, &c.” No year, but the epist. dedicat. is dated 1576.

In the title page of this last (by way of printer's , or bookseller's device) is an ornamental wooden cut, tolerably well executed, wherein time is represented drawing the figure of Truth out of a pit or cavern, with this legend, Occulta veritas tempore patet [r. s.] This is mentioned because it is not improbable but the accidental sight of this or some other title-page containing the same device, suggested to Rubens that well-known design of a similar kind, which he has introduced into the Luxemburg gallery , and which has been so justly censured for the unnatural manner of its execution.—The device abovementioned being not ill adapted to the subject of this volume, is with some small variations copied in a plate, which to gratify the curiosity of the Reader is prefixed to Book III.