18. Gascoigne, George, the son of Sir John Gascoigne, was descended from an ancient family in Essex, and, after a private education under the care of Stephen Nevinson, L.L.D. he was sent to Cambridge, and from thence to Gray's Inn, for the purpose of studying the law. Like many men, however, of warm passions and strong imagination, he neglected his profession for the amusements and dissipation of a court, and having exhausted his paternal property, he found himself under the necessity of seeking abroad, in a military capacity, that support which he had failed to acquire at home. He accordingly accepted a Captain's commission in Holland, in 1572,
under William Prince of Orange, and having signalised his courage at the siege of Middleburg, had the misfortune to be captured by the Spaniards near Leyden, and, after four month's imprisonment, revisited his native country.
He now resumed his profession and his apartments at Gray's Inn; but in 1575, on his return from accompanying Queen Elizabeth in her progress to Kenelworth Castle, he fixed his residence at his "poore house," at Walthamstow, where he employed himself in collecting and publishing his poems. He was not long destined, however, to enjoy this literary leisure; for, according to George Whetstone, who was "an eye-witness of his godly and charitable end in this world[624:A]," he expired at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, on the 7th of October, 1577, when he was probably under forty years of age.[624:B]
The poetry of Gascoigne was twice collected during his life-time; firstly, in 1572, in a quarto volume, entitled, "A Hundreth sundrie Flowres bounde up in one small Poesie. Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarke, Ariosto, and others: and partly by invention, out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande: Yielding sundrie sweet savors of
Tragical, Comical, and Morall Discourses, both pleasaunt and profitable to the well smellyng noses of learned Readers. Meritum petere, grave. At London, Imprinted for Richarde Smith;" and secondly in 1575, with the title of "The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire. Corrected, perfected and augmented by the Authour. Tam Marti, quam Mercurio. Imprinted at London by H. Bynneman for Richard Smith." The edition is divided into three parts, under the appellation of Flowers, Hearbes, and Weedes, to which are annexed "Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati."
Besides these collections, Gascoigne published separately, "The Glasse of Government. A Tragical Comedie," 1575. "The Steele Glas. A Satyre," 1576. "The Princely Pleasures, at the Court at Kenelworth," 1576; and "A Delicate Diet for daintie mouthde Drunkards," a prose tract, 1576. After his death appeared, in 1586, his tract, entitled, "The Droome of Doomes Day;" and in 1587, was given to the world, a complete edition of his works, in small quarto, black letter.
Gascoigne, though patronised by several illustrious characters, among whom may be enumerated, Lord Grey of Wilton, the Earl of Bedford, and Sir Walter Raleigh, appears to have suffered so much from the envy and malignity of his critics, as to induce him to intimate, that the disease of which he died, was occasioned by the irritability of mind resulting from these attacks; and yet, as far as we have an opportunity of judging, his contemporaries seem to have done justice to his talents; at least Gabriel Harvey[625:A] and Arthur Hall[625:B], Nash[625:C], Webbe[625:D], and Puttenham[625:E], have together praised him for his wit, his imagination, and his metre; and in the Glosse
to Spenser's Calender, he is styled "the very chief of our late rymers."[626:A]
The poetry of our author has not, in modern times, met with all the attention which it deserves; specimens, it is true, have been selected by Cooper, Percy, Warton, Headley, Ellis, Brydges, and Haslewood; but, with the exception of the re-impression of 1810, in Mr. Chalmers's English Poets, no edition of his works has been published since 1587. This is the more extraordinary, for, as the ingenious editor just mentioned has remarked, "there are three respects in which his claims to originality require to be noticed as æras in a history of poetry. His Steele Glass is among the first specimens of blank verse in our language; his Jocasta is the second theatrical piece written in that measure; and his Supposes is the first comedy written in prose."[626:B] Warton has pronounced him to have "much exceeded all the poets of his age in smoothness and harmony of versification[626:C]," an encomium which peculiarly applies to the lyrical portion of his works, which is indeed exquisitely polished, though not altogether free from affectation and antithesis. Among these pieces, too, is to be discovered a considerable range of fancy, much tenderness and glow of sentiment, and a frequent felicity of expression. In moral and didactic poetry, he has likewise afforded us proofs approaching to excellence, and his satire entitled "The Steele Glass," includes a curious and minute picture of the manners and customs of the age.
To the "Supposes" of Gascoigne, a translation from the Suppotiti of Ariosto, executed with peculiar neatness and ease, Shakspeare has been indebted for a part of his plot of the "Taming of the Shrew."[626:D]