No More Learning

In the Handefull, it is consistently followed. The
tunes assigned are, sometimes, those of well known dances,
the new Rogero,' the 'Quarter Brailes,' the 'Black Almaine'; or
of popular ballads, such as “Greensleeves. Of the influence of
6
>
6


## p. 191 (#213) ############################################

Miscellanies
191
music on the lyrical poetry of the age more will be said in a later
chapter. So far as the Handefull is concerned, though by no
means free from doggerel, its contents have often an honest life
and spirit about them, which are welcome after the resuscitated,
ghostly air of the Gorgious Gallery. Still, the book belongs, by
subject and treatment, to the poetical age which was closing.
Twenty-five of the poems are anonymous, and, among them, those
of the editor, Clement Robinson. The named contributors are
Leon Gibson, the author of a lively Tantara; G. Mannington, whose
Sorrowful sonet made at Cambridge Castle is parodied at length
in Chapman, Marston and Jonson's Eastward Hoe (1603); R. Picks;
Thomas Richardson; and I. Thomson—the last of whom contributes
a New Sonet of Pyramus and Thisbie, which it is hard to believe
Shakespeare had not seen. He certainly had seen the song on
flowers, which contains the line : 'Rosemarie is for remembrance,
betweene us daie and night'


## p. 192 (#214) ############################################

CHAPTER IX
A MIRROR FOR MAGISTRATES
A Mirror for Magistrates constitutes an important link
between medieval and modern literature. It is a monument of
industry, extending, in its most recent edition, to more than 1400
closely printed pages, and retailing stories of misfortune and
wickedness in high places, stretching from the time of Albanact
(B. C. 1085) to that of queen Elizabeth. Its very title recalls a large
class of earlier works, of which Gower's Speculum Meditantis or
Mirour de l'Omme is a conspicuous example. Its aim is medieval,
whether we take the statement of its editor, Baldwin, in the address
to the nobility--'here as in a loking glass, you shal se if any vice be
in you, how the like hath ben punished in other heretofore, wherby
admonished, I trust it will be a good occasione to move to the
amendment'-or that in the address to the reader—' which might
be as a mirour for al men as well nobles as others to shewe the
slipery deceiptes of the wavering lady, and the due rewarde of all
kinde of vices. ' Its plan of stringing together a number of 'tragedies'
is medieval in its monotony—so much so that Chaucer put into
the mouth of both Knight and Host a vigorous protest against
it as adopted by himself in The Monk's Tale. The scheme of
the Mirror, with its medieval device of an interlocutor, was taken
over directly from Lydgate's translation (through Premierfait) of
Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, of which, indeed, the
Mirror is a continuation: originally, it was intended to be bound
up in one volume with The Fall of Princes, and the first ‘tragedy,'
in all the earlier editions, is entitled The Falle of Robert Tresilian.
On the other hand, the Mirror had a large share in the develop-
ment of historical poems and history plays in the Elizabethan
period, and Sackville's Induction is known to all who care for
English poetry.
Warton's ascription of the original design of the Mirror to
Sackville still passes current, and even later historians leave the issue
somewhat obscure. The assertion that Sackville was the originator


## p. 193 (#215) ############################################

The Original Design
193
of the whole work was not made by Niccols (editor of the 1610
version of the Mirror); Warton was misled by more recent
authorities that of Mrs Cooper, perhaps, in the Muses Library
(1738). It seems worth while to make the matter clear by quoting
what Niccols actually says in his edition as to Sackville's con-
nection with the undertaking:
This worthie president of learning, intending to perfect all this storie
himselfe from the Conquest, being called to a more serious expence of his
time in the great state affaires of his most royall ladie and soveraigne, left
the dispose thereof to M. Baldwine, M. Ferrers and others, the composers of
these tragedies, who continuing their methode which was by way of dialogue
or interlocution betwixt every tragedie, gave it onely place before the duke of
Buckingham's complaint.
There is nothing here ascribing to Sackville the original design.
Indeed, the words 'perfect' and 'continuing' imply that Sackville's
undertaking was preceded by that of Baldwin, Ferrers and others;
and this is plainly stated in Baldwin's preface of 1563. When he
proposed to read Sackville's Induction-
'Hath hee made a preface,' sayd one, 'what meaneth hee thereby, seeing
none other hath used the like order? ' 'I will tell you the cause thereof,' sayd
I, which is this; after that hee understoode that some of the counsayl would
not suffer the booke to bee printed in such order as wee had agreede and
determined, hee purposed to have gotten at my bandes all the tragedies that
were before the duke of Buckingham's, which hee would have preserved in
one volume. And from that time backward, even to the time of William the
Conquerour, he determined to continue and perfect all the story him selfe, in
such order as Lydgate (following Bochas) had already used. And therefore
to make a meete induction into the matter, hee devised this poesie. '
Stanzas 76 and 77 of the Induction and stanza 2 of The Complaynt
of Henry Duke of Buckingham show that Sackville intended to
write other complaints,' and there is some probability in Court-
hope's suggestion that “when the Council prohibited the publication
of the book, probably on account of its modern instances, he resolved
to begin with ancient history. According to the testimony of both
Baldwin and Niccols, he intended to begin at the Conquest and
to fill the gap between 1066 and 1388, which, as a matter of
fact, was not filled until 1610. But that Sackville was one of
the partners in the original design is doubtful, as he was only
eighteen years of age when the first edition of the Mirror was
being printed
Baldwin says in his ‘ Epistle dedicatory' (1559): The wurke was
begun, and part of it printed iii. years agoe,' and this statement
is borne out by a curious circumstance pointed out by W. F. Trench.
The title-page of the first edition has survived at the end of a few
E. L. III.
13
8
a
CH. IX.


## p. 194 (#216) ############################################

194
A Mirror for Magistrates
copies of Wayland's edition of Lydgate's Fall of Princes, and,
on the reverse, Wayland printed his licence, dated 20 October
1553, and beginning: 'Mary by the grace of God, Quene of
Englande, Fraunce, and Ireland, defendour of the faith and in
earth of the Churche of Englande, and also of Ireland, the
supreme head. Mary was relieved of the title "head of the
church' by a statute passed 4 January, 1555, and it was informally
dropped some months before that time. In the letter of John
Elder to the bishop of Caithness, dated 1 January 1555, and printed
by Wayland, the letters patent are reproduced with the omission
of the words italicised above. Wayland was a good Catholic
and a printer of (mainly) religious books, and, naturally, he would
make haste to conform with the law. Elder's letter, printed in
1555, shows that he did so, and A memorial of suche Princes as
since the tyme of King Richard the Seconde have been unfortunate
in the Realme of England (80 runs the original title-page) must
have been printed in 1554.
Wayland, however, was not the printer who originated the
undertaking, and his attempt to carry it into execution was
hindered by the lord chancellor, Stephen Gardiner. By the time
that a licence had been procured through the influence of lord
Stafford, Wayland had gone out of business, and the first editions
issued to the public were printed by Thomas Marsh. The first
editor of the Mirror, William Baldwin, apparently began his
connection with the work of publishing as servant to Edward
Whitchurch, who published his Treatise of Moral Philosophy
(1547) and The Canticles (1549). On the accession of queen
Mary, Whitchurch, who was a zealous protestant, apparently gave
up business, and sold his stock-in-trade to Wayland and Tottel
Baldwin then entered the service of Wayland, who had taken over
Whitchurch's office at the sign of the Sun in Fleet street; and
from his presses were issued Baldwin's Brief Memorial (1554)
and a new edition of the Moral Philosophy (1555). Whitchurch
had in hand an edition of Lydgate's Fall of Princes, and this
was taken up by both Wayland and Tottel. Tottel's edition bore
a title-page including one of Whitchurch's ornamental borders,
marked with his initials; Wayland's was issued from Whitchurch's
former office. Whitchurch, therefore, as Trench has shown, was
the printer referred to in the extract from Baldwin's address
"To the Reader'given below (1559); and this conclusion is borne
out by the fact that those concerned in the enterprise were,
with the exception of Wayland, all protestants. It leads to
6


## p. 195 (#217) ############################################

The Original Design
195
the further inference that the book was first planned in the
reign of Edward VI.
The origin of the enterprise is best set forth in Baldwin's own
words in the following extract from his address 'To the Reader'
(1559):
When the printer had purposed with hym selfe to printe Lidgate's booke
of the fall of Princes, and had made privye thereto, many both honourable
and worshipfull, he was counsailed by dyvers of them, to procure to have the
storye contynewed from where as Bochas lefte, unto this presente time,
chiefly of such as Fortune had dalyed with here in this ylande. . . which advice
liked him so well, that hee requyred mee to take paynes therein.
Baldwin refused to undertake the task without assistance, and
the printer, presumably still Whitchurch, persuaded divers learned
men to take upon them part of the work.
And when certayne of them to the nombre of seaven, were through a
generall assent at one apoynted time and place, gathered together to devise
thereupon I resorted unto them, bearing with mee the booke of Bochas,
translated by Dan Lidgate, for the better observation of his order: which
although wee liked well yet would it not conveniently serve, seeing that both
Bochas and Lidgate were deade, neyther were there any alive that medled
with like argument, to whome the unfortunate might make theyr mone. To
make therefore a state meete for the matter, they all agreede that I shoulde
usurpe Bochas' rome, and the wretched princes complayne unto mee: and
tooke upon themselves, every man for his part to be sundry personages, and
in theyr behalfes to bewaile unto mee theyr greevous chaunces, heavy des-
tenies, and woefull misfortunes.
Ferrers marvelled that Bochas had forgotten, among his miser-
able princes, those of our own nation-Britons, Danes, Saxons and
English down to his own time.
It were therefore a goodly and notable matter, to searche and discourse
our whole story from the first beginning of the inhabiting of the isle. But
seeing the printer's mind is to have us followe where Lidgate left, wee will
leave that greate laboure to other that maye entende it, and (as one being
bold first to breake the yse) I will begin at the time of Richarde the second,
a time as unfortunate as the ruler therein.
The original design was, therefore, suggested to Whitchurch,
and by him committed to Baldwin and his associates. Ferrers
thought of beginning from the time of the ancient Britons, and
it was the printer who decided that they should 'follow where
Lidgate left. ' Baldwin intended to continue the story to queen
Mary's time, but he was fain to end it much sooner. "Whan I first
tooke it in hand, I had the help of many graunted and offred of
sum, but of few perfourmed, skarce of any'('To the Nobilitie,'1559).
The original design of the Mirror was not carried out in its entirety
until 1610; all the later contributions to it were contemplated in
1342


## p. 196 (#218) ############################################

196
A Mirror for Magistrates
the plans of the original authors, and were, as we shall see, accom-
plished in consequence of their suggestions.
What were to have been the contents of the original issue in
folio, we do not know, except that they included the tragedies of
Richard II and Owen Glendower, and, probably, most of those of
part 1 (1559) and some of part II (1563).
It appears from the end-links of Clarence (Quarto 1) and Shore's
Wife (Q2) that Baldwin planned three parts or volumes: first to
the end of Edward IV's reign; then, to the end of Richard III;
and, lastly, 'to the ende of this King and Queene's reigne' (Philip
and Mary). It further appears, from a reference to 'our queene
because she is a woman, and our king because he is a straunger'
in the Blacksmith's end-link, that this tragedy was written at the
same time, although it was not given to the public until 1563. In
the Shore's Wife end-link (Q2), the tragedy of Somerset was also
mentioned, and, presumably, that also was in existence in the reign
of Philip and Mary, for a place was left for it in the first quarto,
although it was not published until the second quarto. As actually
given to the public, part I contained nineteen tragedies—those
of Tresilian, Mortimer, Gloucester, Mowbray, Richard II, Owen
Glendower, Northumberland, Cambridge, Salisbury, James I (of
Scotland), Suffolk, Cade, York, Clifford, Worcester, Warwick,
Henry VI, Clarence, Edward IV; in the prose links, mention is
made of three others-those of the duchess Eleanor and duke
Humphrey of Gloucester (printed in 1578) and that of Somerset
(printed 1563). Part II contained only eight tragedies--those of
Woodville, Hastings, Buckingham, Collingbourne, Richard III,
Shore's Wife, Somerset and the Blacksmith
In 1574, Marsh issued The First parte of the Mirour for
Magistrates, containing the falles of the first unfortunate Princes
of this lande. From the comming of Brute to the incarnation of
our saviour and redemer Jesu Christe. John Higgins, the editor,
says he was moved to the work by the words of Baldwin in his
address "To the Reader': 'the like infortunate princes offered
themselves unto me as matter very meete for imitation, the like
admonition, miter, and phrase. ' He, accordingly, took the earliest
period, up to the birth of Christ, and was inclined with time and
leisure 't'accomplish the residue til I came to the Conquest. ' His
first edition included the lives of Albanact (B. C. 1085), Humber,
Locrinus, Elstride, Sabrine, Madan, Malin, Mempricius, Bladud,
1 As to the authorship of parts I and II, see table in bibliography.
6
6


## p. 197 (#219) ############################################

>
Contents of the Parts
197
Cordila, Morgan, Forrex, Porrex, Kimarus, Morindus, Nennius,
and (in some copies) Irenglas (B. C. 51). These were all written by
himself and were reprinted in 1575 without noteworthy change.
Baldwin's first and second parts were now combined as the last
part and published by Marsh under that title in 1574 (Q 4) and,
again, in 1575 (Q5). The sixth quarto (1578) is a reprint of the
fifth, except that it includes the long promised tragedies of Eleanor
Cobham and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, by Ferrers.
The first and last parts were united in an edition published by
Marsh in 1587, and edited by Higgins, who had rewritten his own
legends of Bladud, Forrex and Porrex, and added to his list Iago,
Pinnar, Stater, Rudacke, Brennus, Emerianus, Chirinnus, Varianus,
Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, Guiderius, Hamo, Claudius, Nero,
Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Londricus, Severus, Fulgentius, Geta, Cara-
calla, making forty lives in all, and bringing his part of the work
down to A. D. 209. To the last part he added Sir Nicholas Burdet
(1441), written by himself; two poems, “pende above fifty yeares
agone,' by Francis Dingley of Munston—The Lamentation of
James IV and Flodden Field-and Cardinal Wolsey, by Church-
yard.
Meanwhile, Thomas Blenerhasset had set to work to fill the gap
left by Higgins after B. C. 51, and published in 1578 the following
tragedies, extending from A. D. 44 to 1066: Guidericus, Carassus,
Helena, Vortiger, Uther Pendragon, Cadwallader, Sigebert, Lady
Ebbe, Alurede, Egelrede, Edric, Harold. These were issued by
a different printer (Richard Webster) and, therefore, were not
included by Marsh in his edition of 1587, Higgins covering part
of the same ground, and having promised in his address ‘To the
Reader,' in 1574, to come down to the same point—the Conquest-
that Blenerhasset actually reached.
The next editor, Niccols (1610) adopted the plan suggested by
Sackville, and omitted the prose links. For the first part, he took
Higgins's Induction; for the second, Sackville's; and, for the third,
one of his own composition. The first part included the forty
tragedies by Higgins and ten of Blenerhasset's—omitting Guide-
ricus (supplied, since Blenerhasset wrote, by Higgins) and Alurede
(supplied by Niccols himself); for the latter reason, he omits
Richard III in part II and he also leaves out James I, James IV
and the Battle of Flodden, apparently out of consideration for the
Scots; part III contains ten tragedies of his own-Arthur, Edmund
Ironside, Alfred, Godwin, Robert Curthose, Richard I, John,
Edward II, Edward V, Richard III. England's Eliza, also his
own, with a separate Induction, describes the reign of queen


## p. 198 (#220) ############################################

198
A A Mirror for Magistrates
Elizabeth. Thus, the original design, projected in the reign of
Edward VI, was completed in the reign of James; but the day
of the Mirror had gone by. The new and complete edition did
not sell, and the sheets were re-issued under fresh titles in 1619,
1620 and 1621.
As to the popularity and influence of the successive editions of
A Mirror for Magistrates in the sixteenth century there can be
no doubt. Besides obvious imitations in title and method', many
other works were published similar in plan, though not in title.
Some of these, such as George Cavendish's Metrical Visions, were,
evidently, due to the example of Boccaccio's De Casibus through
Lydgate; others, such as A Poor Man's Pittance, are either
avowed or obvious imitations of the Mirror. In the last decade
of the century, isolated legends came into vogue, apparently
through the success of Churchyard's Jane Shore (Q2), which,
probably, suggested Daniel's Rosamond (1592) and this, in turn,
Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece? . Drayton's Cromwell (1607) was
actually included by Niccols in his edition of the Mirror, but,
together with his Legends of Robert Duke of Normandy, Matilda
the Chaste and Piers Gaveston (1596), Lodge's Tragical Com-
playnt of Elstred (1593) and Fletcher's Richard III (1593), it
belongs to the class of poems suggested by the Mirror rather than
to the cycle proper. Probably, the influence of the Mirror on the
public mind through the interest it aroused in the national history
did as much for literature as the direct imitations. In this way,
the Mirror contributed to the production of Daniel's Civil Wars,
Drayton's Barons' Wars, England's Heroicall Epistles and
Warner's Albion's England, though there is little evidence of
direct connection. As to the influence of the Mirror upon the
history plays, fuller investigation only serves to confirm Schelling's
summary of the probabilities:
Upwards of thirty historical plays exist, the subjects of which are treated
in The Mirour for Magistrates. And, although from its meditative and
elegiac character it is unlikely that it was often employed as an immediate
source, the influence of such a work in choice of subject and, at times, in
manner of treatment cannot but have been exceedingly great.
In critical esteem, the Mirror hardly survived the period of its
popular influence. No sooner had the book been given to the
public, than Jasper Heywood proclaimed the 'eternall fame' of its
first editor, Baldwin (prefatory verses to Seneca's Thyestes, 1560);
1 The following may be noted : the Mirror of Madness (1576), Mirror of Mutabilitie
(1579), Mirror of Modesty (1579), Mirror of Martinists (1589), Mirror of Magnanimity
(1599), Mirror of Martyrs (1601).
* Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 77.


## p. 199 (#221) ############################################

Sackville
199
Sidney, in his Apologie, praised the Mirror more discreetly as
'meetly furnished of beautiful parts’; Hake, in 1588, commended
it as 'penned by the choicest learned wits, which, for the stately
proportioned vein of the heroic style, and good meetly proportion
of verse, may challenge the best of Lydgate, and all our late
rhymers? '; and Harington, in his Ariosto (1591), praised the
tragedies without reserve as 'very well set downe, and in a good
verse. ' After this date, the fame of the Mirror became less
certain, and the modern reader will hardly feel surprise at the fate
which has overtaken it. The moralising is insufferably trite, and
unrelieved by a single spark of humour. Seldom does the style
rise to the dignity and pathos of subject and situation; the jog-trot
of the metre is indescribably monotonous, and one welcomes the
interruption of the connective passages in prose, with their quaint
phrases and no less quaint devices. Joseph Hall ridiculed its
'branded whining ghosts' and curses on the fates and fortune;
and, though Marston tried to turn the tables on Hall on this
point, his Reactio does not appear to have succeeded in impress-
ing the public. Chapman, in May Day (1611), makes fun of
Lorenzo as “an old Senator, one that has read Marcus Aurelius,
Gesta Romanorum, Mirror of Magistrates, etc. ' Edmund Bolton?
and Anthony à Wood imply that the Mirror had been rivalled, if
not superseded, in popular favour by Warner's Albion's England.
Both refer to it as belonging to a past age.
In the eighteenth century, when the Mirror was recalled to
notice in Mrs Cooper's Muses Library, it was to direct special
attention to the work of Sackville, but appreciation of the poetic
quality of Sackville was no new thing. It was the prevailing
opinion of his contemporaries that, if he had not been called to the
duties of statesmanship, he would have achieved great things in
poetry. Spenser gave expression to this view with his usual courtly
grace and in his own 'golden verse' in the sonnet addressed to
Sackville in 1590, commending The Faerie Queene to his protection:
In vain I thinke, right honourable Lord,
By this rude rime to memorize thy name,
Whose learned Muse hath writ her owne record
In golden verse, worthy immortal fame:
Thon much more fit (were leasure to the same)
Thy gracious Soverains praises to compile,
And her imperiall Majestie to frame
In loftie numbers and heroicke stile.
Some of Spenser's praise might be set down to the desire
1 Warton, ed. 1841, vol. iv, pp. 203-4.
Hypercritica, written c. 1620.
• Ed. 1813, vol. 11, p. 166.
2


## p. 200 (#222) ############################################

200
A Mirror for Magistrates
to conciliate an influential patron, for lord Buckhurst had just
been installed at Windsor as a knight companion of the order
of the Garter; and, in the following year, by the direct inter-
position of the queen, he was elected chancellor of the university of
Oxford. But, when all temptation to flattery had long passed away,
Pope chose him out for special commendation among the writers of
his age as distinguished by a propriety in sentiments, a dignity in
the sentences, an unaffected perspicuity of style, and an easy flow
of numbers; in a word, that chastity, correctness, and gravity of
style which are so essential to tragedy; and which all the tragic
poets who followed, not excepting Shakespeare himself, either little
understood or perpetually neglected. '
Only the small extent of Sackville's poetical work has prevented
him from inclusion among the masters of the grand style. This
distinction is the more remarkable because the occasion of which
he took advantage, and the material he used, were not particularly
favourable. He evidently felt that the vast design of Baldwin
and his fellows was inadequately introduced by the bald and
almost childish prose preface, with its frank acceptance of medieval
machinery, which had seemed sufficient to them. He turned to the
great examples of antiquity, Vergil and Dante; indeed, apparently,
he had intended to produce a Paradiso as well as an Inferno.
Sorrow says:
I shall thee guide first to the grisly lake,
And thence unto the blissful place of rest,
Where thou shall see, and hear, the plaint they make
That whilom here bare swing among the best:
This shalt thou see: but great is the unrest
That thou must bide, before thou canst attain
Unto the dreadful place where these remain.
The astonishing thing is that Sackville is not overwhelmed by the
models he has adopted. His command of his material is free and
masterful, although he has to vivify such shadowy medieval
abstractions as Remorse of Conscience, Dread, Revenge, Misery,
Care, Sleep, Old Age, Malady, Famine, Death and War. It is not
merely that his choice of phrase is adequate and his verse easy and
varied. He conceives greatly, and handles his great conceptions
with a sureness of touch which belongs only to the few. He was
undoubtedly indebted to Chaucer and Gavin Douglas, and, in his
turn, he influenced Spenser; but his verse bears the stamp of his
own individuality. The Induction has not Spenser's sensuous
melody; and it is far removed from Chaucer's ingenuous subtlety
and wayward charm; but it has an impassioned dignity and grave
majesty which are all its own.


## p. 201 (#223) ############################################

CHAPTER X
GEORGE GASCOIGNE
GASCOIGNE, like the writers of A Mirror for Magistrates,
belongs to a period of literary transition; his work is superior
to theirs as a whole, though nowhere does he rise to the full and
heightened style of Sackville's Induction. Like them, he was highly
esteemed in his own time, and made notable contributions to the
development of poetry, but his work soon came to be spoken of
with an air of condescension, as possessing antiquarian rather than
actual interest. Gabriel Harvey added highly appreciative notes
to his copy of The Posies, still preserved in the Bodleian library,
and bearing in his handwriting the date Cal. Sept. 1577; and, in
Gratulationes Valdinenses (1578) he mentions Gascoigne among
the poets to be included in every lady's library! Harvey, further,
wrote a Latin elegy and an English epitaph on Gascoigne at his
death? , and made complimentary references to the poet in his
earlier correspondences. But, in 1592, he adopted a patronising
tone : 'I once bemoned the decayed and blasted estate of M. Gas-
coigne : who wanted not some commendable parts of conceit and
endeavour"'; and, in 1593, he mentioned Gascoigne with Elderton,
Turbervile, Drant and Tarleton as belonging to an age outgrown:
'the winde is chaunged, and their is a busier pageant upon the
stage. About a year later, Sir John Davies gives point to one of
his Epigrammes, by an allusion to 'olde Gascoines rimes' as
hopelessly out of date. Edmund Bolton, in his Hypercritica
(c. 1620), says: 'Among the lesser late poets George Gascoigne's
Works may be endured'; and Drayton in his epistle Of Poets
and Poesy tells the truth even more bluntly. After speaking of
Surrey and Wyatt, he continues :
Gascoigne and Churchyard after them again
In the beginning of Eliza's reign,
Accounted were great meterers many a day,
But not inspired with brave fire, had they
Livd but a little longer, they had seen
Their works before them to have buried been.
1 Liber IV. De Aulica.
3
3 Harvey's Letter Book, Camden Society.
6 Pierce's Supererogation.
Sloane MSS, British Museum.
4 Foure Letters.
o In Ciprium, 22.


## p. 202 (#224) ############################################

202
George Gascoigne
In his attitude towards his work, Gascoigne further illustrates
this transition spirit. He took up poetry as an amusement, and,
somewhat unwillingly, came to acknowledge it as a profession.
Lack of resolution combined with the unfavourable conditions of
the time to prevent his attaining eminence. Gabriel Harvey, in
his somewhat pedantic fashion, remarks, in a Censura critica
written on a blank half page of Weedes, on the personal defects of
the author.
Sum vanity; and more levity; his special faultes, and the continual canses
of his misfortunes. Many other have maintained themselves gallantly upon
some one of his qualities: nothing fadgeth with him, for want of Resolution,
and Constancy to any one kind. He shall never thrive with any thing that
can brooke no crosses: or hath not learned to make the best of the worst, in
his profession. It is no marvel, though he had cold success in his actions,
that in his studdies, and Looves, thought upon the warres; in the warres,
mused upon his studdies, and Looves. The right floorishing man, in studdy,
is nothing but studdy; in Loove, nothing but Loove; in warr, nothing but
warr.
Gascoigne himself, in the poem on his 'woodmanship’ addressed to
lord Grey of Wilton', admits that he tried without success the
professions of a philosopher, a lawyer, a courtier and a soldier,
He was born of a good Bedfordshire family, and educated at
Trinity College, Cambridge, as appears from his references to the
university in The Steele Glas and the dedication of The Tale of
Hemetes the heremyte, and in Dulce bellum inexpertis? to his
‘master' Nevynson. He left the university without a degree,
entered Gray's Inn in 1555 and represented the county of Bedford
in parliament 1557–9. His youthful extravagances led to debt,
disgrace and disinheritance by his father, Sir John Gascoigne.
'In myddest of his youth'he tells us (1. 62) he determined to abandone
all vaine delightes and to returne unto Greyes Inne, there to undertake againe
the studdie of the common Lawes.
And being required by five sundry
Gentlemen to write in verse somewhat worthye to bee remembred, before he
entered into their fellowshippe, hee compiled these five sundrie sortes of metro
uppon five sundrye theames, whiche they delivered unto him. '
Gascoigne's ingenuous use of the word 'compiled' disarms criticism,
but it makes the whole incident only the more significant of the
attitude of himself and his companions towards his verse. It was
occasional and perfunctory, the work neither of an inspired artist
on the one hand, nor of a professional craftsman on the other.
However, Gascoigne not only wrote the versified exercises
* Cambridge edition, ed. Cunliffe, J. W. , vol. I, p. 348.
2 Stanza 199, vol. 1, p. 180 u. 8.
3 Stephen Nevynson was a fellow of Trinity and proceeded M. A. in 1548.


## p. 203 (#225) ############################################

His Life
203
demanded of him: he paid the fines for his neglected terms, was
called 'ancient'in 1565, and translated Supposes and (together with
Francis Kinwelmersh) Jocasta, which were presented at Gray's
Inn in 1566. He took a further step towards reform by marrying
a rich widow, whose children by her first marriage brought a suit
in 1568 for the protection of their interests. The action seems to
have been amicably settled, and he remained on good terms with
his stepson, Nicholas Breton, who was himself a poet of some
note. But it is to be feared that, as 'a man of middle age,'
Gascoigne returned to the evil courses of his youth, if we are to
accept the evidence of his autobiographical poem Dan Bartholmew
of Bathe. The last stanza but three (1, 136) makes the personal
character of the poem obvious, and this is probably one of the
‘glaunderous Pasquelles against divers personnes of greate callinge'
laid to his charge in the following petition, which, in May 1572,
prevented him from taking his seat in parliament:
Firste, he is indebted to a great nomber of personnes for the which cause
he hath absented him selfe from the Citie and hath lurked at Villages neere
unto the same Citie by a longe time, and nowe beinge returned for a Burgesse
of Midehurste in the Countie of Sussex doethe shewe his face openlie in
the despite of all his creditors.
Item he is a defamed person and noted as well for manslaughter as for
other greate cryemes.
Item he is a common Rymer and a deviser of slaunderous Pasquelles
against divers personnes of greate callinge.
Item he is a notorious Ruffianne and especiallie noted to be bothe a Spie,
an Atheist and Godles personne.
The obvious intention of the petition was to prevent Gascoigne
from pleading privilege against his creditors and securing immunity
from arrest, so the charges need not be taken as proving more
against him than he admitted in his autobiographical poems; in
any case, the document interests us only so far as it affected his
literary career. In the Councell given to Master Bartholmew
Withipoll (1, 347), written in 1572, Gascoigne expressed his in-
tention of joining his friend in the Low Countries in the August of
that year; and his Voyage into Hollande (1, 355) shows that he
actually sailed from Gravesend to Brill in March 1573. During
his absence (probably in the same year) there appeared the first
edition of his works, undated, and professedly piratical, though
Gascoigne afterwards acknowledged that it was published with his
knowledge and consent.
Of this edition, very few copies remain, and much interesting
matter which appeared only in it has been but lately put within


## p. 204 (#226) ############################################

204
George Gascoigne
6
the reach of the ordinary student- Unusual precautions were
taken, even for that day, to free the real author of the enter-
prise from responsibility. An anonymous H. W. delivers to an
anonymous A. B. to print a written book given to him by his
friend G. T. 'wherin he had collected divers discourses and verses,
invented uppon sundrie occasions, by sundrie gentlemen' (1, 490).
G. T. (who might be Gascoigne's friend George Turbervile, but
is much more likely to be Gascoigne himself) thus takes the place
of the editor of the volume, although he protests that, after having
with no small entreatie obteyned of Master F. J. and sundry other
toward young gentlemen, the sundry copies of these sundry matters,'
he gives them to H. W. for his private recreation only, and not for
publication. G. T. does not even know who wrote the greatest part
of' the verses, for they are unto me but a posie presented out of
sundry gardens' (1, 499). But, when the second edition appears in
1575 under the poet's own name, A. B. , G. T. , H. W. and F. J. all
dissolve into Gascoigne himself. The 'divers discourses and verses
. . . by sundrie gentlemen' all now appear as the ‘Posies of George
Gascoigne,' G. T. 's comment on the verses of Master F. J. is
printed as from Gascoigne's own hand, Gascoigne admits that the
original publication was by his consent and a close examination
of the two editions leads to the conclusion that the first was pre-
pared for the press and written from beginning to end by Gascoigne
himself, printer's preface and all. The following sentence in ‘The
Printer to the Reader' (1, 476)
And as the venemous spider wil sucke poison out of the most holesome
herbe, and the industrious Bee can gather hony out of the most stinking weede
is characteristic of Gascoigne's early euphuistic style, of which
we have several examples inserted by him in his translation of
Ariosto’s Suppositi (I, 197). And when Gascoigne comes to write
in his own name an epistle "To the reverende Divines' for the
second edition, from which the printer's address to the reader is
omitted, he repeats this very simile (1, 6):
I had alledged of late by a right reverende father, that although in deede
out of everie floure the industrious Bee may gather honie, yet by proofe the
Spider thereout also sucks mischeevous poyson.
He also adopts with the slightest possible emendations the intro-
ductory prefaces to the various poems for which G. T. took the
responsibility in the edition of 1573. All this is very characteristic
of the time and of the man. His eagerness for publication belongs
1 Ed. Cunliffe, J. W. , Cambridge English Classics.
6


## p. 205 (#227) ############################################

6
The Posies
205
to the age to come, his anxiety first to disown it and then to
excuse it is of his own and an earlier time.
Even in 1575, Gascoigne is still most anxious to preserve what
a modern athlete would call his 'amateur standing. He protests
that he never receyved of the Printer, or of anye other, one grote
or pennie for the first Copyes of these Posyes' (1, 4) and he describes
himself, not as an author, but as 'George Gascoigne Esquire pro-
fessing armes in the defence of Gods truth. '
In commemoration
of his exploits in the Low Countries, he adopted a new motto,
Tam Marti quam Mercurio, and this double profession of arms
and letters is also indicated in the device which adorns the Steele
Glas portrait of 1576—an arquebuss with powder and shot on one
side, and books with pen and ink on the other. In the frontispiece
to The Tale of Hemetes the heremyte, Gascoigne is pictured with a
pen in his ear and a sword by his side, a book in his right hand
and a spear in his left.
The Hundreth sundrie Flowers gave offence, Gascoigne himself
tells us, first by reason of 'sundrie wanton speeches and lascivious
phrases' and, secondly, by doubtful construction and scandal (1, 3).
The author professed that he had amended these defects in the
edition of 1575. A comparison of the two texts shows that only a
few minor poems were omitted completely (I, 500—2) and some
of these, apparently, by accident; while certain objectionable
passages and phrases in The Adventures of Master F. J. were
struck out. It was evidently this prose tale which gave the chief
offence, on both the grounds stated. Gascoigne protested that
there is no living creature touched or to be noted therby' (1, 7);
but his protest is not convincing. According to G. T. “it was in
the first beginning of his writings, as then he was no writer of any
long continuaunce' (1, 495) and the story apparently recounts an
intrigue of Gascoigne's youth, as Dan Bartholmew of Bathe one of
his 'middle age. In the second edition, the prose story is ascribed
to an unknown Italian writer Bartello, and in some new stanzas
added to Dan Bartholmew at the end the following occurs :
Bartello he which writeth ryding tales,
Bringes in a Knight which cladde was all in greene,
That sighed sore amidde his greevous gales,
And was in hold as Bartholmew hath beene.
But (for a placke) it maye therein be seene,
That, that same Knight which there his griefes begonne,
Is Batts owne Fathers Sisters brothers Sonne.
In this roundabout fashion, quite characteristic of Gascoigne
(cf. I, 405), he lets the reader know that Bartello and Bartholmew


## p. 206 (#228) ############################################

206
George Gascoigne
6
a
>
are the same as the green knight; and the green knight, as we
know from The fruite of Fetters, in which Bartello is again given
as authority, is Gascoigne himself. He did not improve matters
in this respect by the addition to the second issue of marginal
notes, evidently intended rather to heighten curiosity than to allay
it. With reference to his rival in Dan Bartholmew, he notes at
the side ‘These thinges are mistical and not to bee understoode
but by Thaucthour him selfe,' and, after this, the entry "Another
misterie' frequently occurs. Fleay has disregarded the author's
warning, and has endeavoured to identify the persons indicated,
not very satisfactorily. The fact is that by a ‘misterie' Gascoigne
simply means something scandalous. When in his Voyage into
Hollande he casts reflections on the chastity of the Dutch nuns,
he pulls himself up with the remark 'that is a misterie'; and the
husband in The Adventures of Master F. J. , who catches his wife
in flagrante delicto, forbids the handmaid to speak any word 'of
this mistery. '
The edition of 1573 is of further interest because it gives a list
of the author's works up to that date (1, 475) apparently arranged
in chronological order, beginning with Supposes, Jocasta and
The Adventures of Master F. J. , all known to be early works,
and ending with the Voyage into Hollande, written in 1573, and
Dan Bartholmew, which is left unfinished. The edition of 1575
completes this poem, and adds Dulce bellum inexpertis and The
fruite of Fetters, recounting Gascoigne's experiences of war and
imprisonment in Holland. Die groene Hopman, as the Dutch
called him, was not well regarded by the burghers, and the dislike
was mutual. Gascoigne ascribes the distrust of those to whom,
according to his own account, he rendered valiant and repeated
service, to a love affair with a lady in the Spanish camp; but it
was, perhaps, also due to his eagerness to make himself acquainted
with the burghers' affairs and to the ‘Cartes . . . Mappes . . . and
Models' which he offers to lay before lord Grey of Wilton in ex-
planation of 'Hollandes State' (1, 363). Gascoigne's poems on his
adventures in the Low Countries throw some remarkable sidelights
on the relations between the burghers and their English allies.
Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse
or ryme in English', appended to the edition of 1575, apparently
as an afterthought, for it is lacking in some copies, was, like
many
of Gascoigne's works, the first attempt in English of its kind, and
it was soon followed by the more elaborate treatises of Webbe
· See post, chap. XIV.


## p. 207 (#229) ############################################

His Later Works
207
and Puttenham. The Notes have the occasional character
common to much of Gascoigne's work; yet they mark, perhaps,
the division between his amateur and his professional career. He
now directed his literary activities to the two ends of winning
powerful patronage and establishing himself in public esteem. He
was employed by Leicester in this same year, 1575, to furnish com-
plimentary verses to the queen on her famous visit to Kenilworth
castle; his most elaborate effort on this occasion, the 'shew' of
Zabeta, was not presented, perhaps because it pressed on Elizabeth
somewhat too insistently the advantages of marriage. At Wood-
stock, he pronounced' The Tale of Hemetes the heremyte before
her majesty, and, in the following January, presented versions of
it in French, Latin and Italian to her as a New Year's gift, with a
request for employment. The request was evidently granted, for
his next New Year's gift, The Grief of Joye, is offered as witness
"how the interims and vacant hours of those daies which I spent
this somer in your service have byn bestowed. '
Though Gascoigne hardly attained the dignity of a literary
artist, he certainly succeeded in laying aside the frivolity of his
youth and became a portentous moralist. In the dedication of
his last acknowledged publication, A Delicate Diet, for daintie
mouthde Droonkardes, dated 10 August 1576, he contrasted the
wanton poems of his youth with the serious works of his maturity:
When my wanton (and worse smelling) Poesies, presumed fyrst to peark
abroade, they came forth sooner than I wyshed, and much before they
deserved to be lyked. So that (as you maye sithens perceyve) I was more
combred with correction of them, then comforted in the constructions where-
unto they were subject. And too make amendes for the lost time which I
misbestowed in wryting so wantonlie: I have of latter dayes used al my
travaile in matters both serious and Morall. I wrote first a tragicall com-
medie called The Glasse of Government: and now this last spring, I
translated and collected a worthy peece of worke, called The Droomme of
Doomes daie, and dedicated the same to my Lord and Maister: And I
invented a Satyre, and an Ellegie, called The Steele glasse: and The Com-
plaint of Phylomene. Both which I dedicated to your good Lord and myne,
The Lord Greye of Wylton: These works or Pamphlets, I esteeme both
Morall and Godly.
So, indeed, they are, but they are not of great literary im-
portance. The Steele Glas has, perhaps, received more than its
due meed of critical appreciation. It has none of the qualities of
the great Latin satirists imitated a generation later by Hall and
Marston : perhaps its greatest claim to distinction is the sympathy
with the hard lot of the labouring poor, shown also by Gascoigne
in some of his earlier work (cf. A gloze upon this text, Dominus


## p. 208 (#230) ############################################

208
George Gascoigne
iis opus habet). The Droomme of Doomesday is, in part, a trans-
lation of Innocent III's De Contemptu Mundi sive de Miseria
Humanae Conditionis, and A Delicate Diet, for daintie mouthde
Droonkardes has nothing to distinguish it from the religious tracts
of the time.
In the dedication of The Droomme of Doomesday, Gascoigne
wrote (2 May 1576) that he was ‘in weake plight for health as
your good L. well knoweth,' and he was unable, through illness, to
correct the proofs. He was again ill for some months before his
death on 7 October 1577. But, between these two illnesses he
evidently recovered sufficiently to be sent on a mission from the
privy council to the English merchant adventurers in Antwerp. He
wrote to the lord treasurer from Paris on his way on 15 September
1576 and again on 7 October, and in November he received twenty
pounds for 'bringinge of Letters in for her Majesties affaires frome
Andwarpe to Hampton Court. ' In the same month, his printer
issued anonymously, although 'seene and allowed, The Spoyle of
Antwerp Faithfully reported by a true Englishman, who was
present at the same. Recent events in Belgium lend the pamphlet
a special interest, but, apart from these painful associations, it is a
craftsman-like piece of reporting, giving Gascoigne an additional
claim to our attention as the first English war correspondent.
His authorship of the pamphlet, which was for a long time held
doubtful, was recently established beyond question by a com-
parison of the signatures of the letters preserved in the Record
office with that of George Gascoigne in the manuscript of Hemetes
the heremyte ; they are undoubtedly identical".
In many departments of literature Gascoigne wrote the first
work of its kind that has come down to us—the first prose tale of
modern life, the first prose comedy, the first tragedy translated
from the Italian, the first maske, the first regular satire, the first
treatise on poetry in English. He was a pioneer, and, as a pioneer,
,
he must be judged. Two of his contemporaries and immediate
successors passed upon him just and yet considerate verdicts.
Tom Nashe in his prefatory address in Greene's Menaphon, 'to the
Gentlemen Students of both Universities,' writes
i
Maister Gascoigne is not to bee abridged of his deserved esteeme, who first
beate 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 Graeca cum Latinis 2.
1 See the facsimiles published in Mod. Lang. Rev. vol. vı p. 90 (January 1911).
8 R. B. McKerrow, Works of Thos. Nashe, vol. III, p. 319.


## p. 209 (#231) ############################################

His Achievements
209
and R. Tofte says 'To the Courteous Reader' of The Blazon of
Jealousie (1615):
>
This nice Age, wherein wee now live, hath brought more neate and teirse
Wits, into the world; yet must not old George Gascoigne, and Turbervill,
with such others, be altogether rejected, since they first brake the Ice for our
quainter Poets, that now write, that they might the more safer swimme in
the maine Ocean of sweet Poesie.
These moderate estimates of Gascoigne's achievements have
stood the test of time, and the recent trend of criticism has been
in his favour. His poems give the impression of a distinct, though
not altogether pleasing, personality. He is the homme moyen
sensuel of the time, with added touches of reckless debauchery in
his youth, and of too insistent puritanism in his later days of ill-
health and repentance; even in his 'middle age' he is too much
inclined to recount his amatory adventures with a suggestive air of
mystery, bound to excite the curiosity of his readers and make
things uncomtortable for the ears of the ladies; his manners in
this respect are as bad as his morals. He was probably a better
soldier than lover, but one has a suspicion that his own account of
his exploits in the Netherlands does not tell the whole truth; he
was obviously intolerant of discipline and little inclined to conciliate
the burghers whose cause he had come to serve. As a writer, he
was distinguished among the men of his own time by his versatility.
N. R. , writing in commendation of the author of The Steele Glas,
after running over a list of the great poets of antiquity, says:
Thus divers men, with divers vaines did write,
But Gascoigne doth, in every vaine indite.
This dissipation of his energies over different fields of literature
prevented him from attaining excellence in any one kind, for he
had only moderate ability: the surprising thing is that he was
able to do many things well—most of them better than they
had been done by his predecessors, though in all he was easily
outstripped by the writers of the age that followed. His prose
style is easy and generally free from affectation, though he
indulges now and again in the curious similes and balanced allite-
ration which, later, became characteristic of euphuism. As a metrist,
he has a facility which extends over a wide range, but his fluency is
mechanical, the regular beat of his verse often giving the effect of
water coming out of a bottle. His long poems, whether in blank
verse or rimed measures, soon become monotonous and tedious,
The caesura in The Steele Glas occurs almost invariably after the
14
R. L. III.
CH. X.


## p. 210 (#232) ############################################

210
George Gascoigne
fourth syllable, and is regularly marked by Gascoigne with a
comma :
When vintners mix, no water with their wine,
When printers passe, none errours in their bookes,
When hatters use, to bye none olde cast robes? ,
and so on. In Dan Bartholmew of Bathe, in spite of a variety of
stanza forms, some of them elaborate enough, the general effect is
still monotonous. Gascoigne is seen at his best in trifles-short
poems which do not call for great depth of thought or sustained
interest, and in which his excessive fluency is kept within bounds.
Even in these he rarely hit upon a pregnant thought or striking
phrase"; but he succeeded in introducing into English poetry from
the Italian models whom he studied (Ariosto seems to have been his
especial favourite) a greater ease and smoothness than had been
attained by Wyatt and Surrey. The following sonnet is a good
example of his characteristic virtues :
That selfe same tonge which first did thee entreat
To linke thy liking with my lucky love:
That trustie tonge must nowe these wordes repeate,
I love thee still, my fancie cannot move.
That dreadlesse hart which durst attempt the thought
To win thy will with mine for to consent,
Maintaines that vow which love in me first wrought,
I love thee still, and never shall repent.
That happie hande which hardely did touch,
Thy tender body to my deepe delight:
Shall serve with sword to prove my passion such
As loves thee still, much more than it can write.
Thus love I still with tongue, hand, hart and all,
And when I chaunge, let vengeance on me falla.
Next to his love poetry, his verses in compliment to the queen
are perhaps most worthy of attention, especially those which he
wrote for the princely pleasures at Kenelworth Castle. ' He
directed his muse, with amazing ingenuousness, to the goal of
professional advancement, and this combined with other reasons
to prevent any lofty flight or permanent achievement; but, as the
first of the Elizabethan court poets, he is notable as the precursor of
an important movement.
i Cambridge edition, vol. II, p. 171.
· Ibid. , vol. I, p. 92.


## p. 211 (#233) ############################################

CHAPTER XI
THE POETRY OF SPENSER
The life of Spenser extended from the years 1552 to 1599, a
period which experienced a conflict of elementary intellectual
forces more stimulating to the emotions and imagination than,
perhaps, any other in the history of England. Throughout Europe,
the time-honoured system of society which had endured since the
age of Charles the Great was undergoing a complete transforma-
tion.