Tell me who was thy nurse? "Fresh Youth in sugred joy." What was thy meate and dayly foode? "Sad sighes with great annoy."

What hadst thou then to drinke? "Unsavoury lovers teares." What cradle wert thou rocked in? "In hope devoyde of feares."

What lulld thee then asleepe?

"Sweete speech, which likes me best." Tell me, where is thy dwelling place? "In gentle hartes I rest."

What thing doth please thee most? "To gaze on beautye stille."

Whom dost thou thinke to be thy foe?

66

Disdayn of my good wille."

Doth companye displease?

"Yea, surelye, many one."

Where doth Desire delight to live?

"He loves to live alone."

Doth either tyme or age
Bringe him unto decaye?
"No, no, Desire both lives and dyes
Ten thousand times a daye."

Then, fond Desire, farewelle,
Thou art no mate for mee;

I sholde be lothe, methinkes, to dwelle
With such a one as thee.

THE JUDGEMENT OF DESIRE.

THE lively larke stretch't forthe her wyng
The messenger of mornyng bright,
And with her cherefull voyce dyd syng
The daie's approche, dischargyng night:
When that Aurora, blushyng redd,
Discride the gilt of Thetis bedd.

I went abroad to take the aire,
And in the meadds I mett a knight,
Clad in carnation colour faire:
I did salute the youthfull wight,
Of him I did his name enquire,
He sigh'd and saied it was Desire.

Desire I did desire to staie,

Awhile with him I craved talke:
The courteous wight said me no naie,
But hande in hande with me did walke.
Then of Desire I ask'te againe,

What thing did please and what did pain.

He smil❜d, and thus he answered than;
Desire can have no greater paine,
Then for to see an other man
The thyng desired to obtaine:
Nor greater joye can be then this,
That to injoye that others misse.

THE SHEPHEARD'S COMMENDATION OF HIS NIMPH.

WHAT shepheard can expresse
The favour of her face?
To whom in this distresse
I doe appeale for grace;
A thousand cupids flye
About her gentle eye;

From which each throwes a dart
That kindleth soft sweet fire
Within my sighing heart,
Possessed by desire

No sweeter life I trie

Than in her love to die.

The lilly in the field

That glories in his white

For purenesse now must yeeld

And render up his right.

Heaven pictur'd in her face
Doth promise joy and grace.

Faire Cynthiae's silver light
That beates on running streames,
Compares not with her white;
Whose haires are all sun-beames.

So bright my nimph doth shine
As day unto my eyne.

With this there is a red,
Exceedes the damaske rose:
Which in her cheekes is spred
Where every favour growes;
In skie there is no starre
But she surmounts it farre.

When Phoebus from the bed
Of Thetis doth arise,

The morning blushing red,
In faire carnation wise:

He shewes in my nimphs face,
As Queene of every grace.

This pleasant lilly white,
This taint of roseate red,
This Cynthiae's silver light,
This sweet faire Dea spred,

These sun-beames in mine eye,
These beauties make me die.

A LOVER DISDAINED, COMPLAINETH.

IF ever man had love too dearly bought,
So I am he that plaies within her maze:
And finds no waie, to get the same I sought,
But as the Dere are driven unto the gaze.
And to augment the grief of my desire,
Myself to burne, I blowe the fire:

But shall I come ny you,

Of forse I must flie you.

What death, alas, may be compared to this? I plaie within the maze of my swete foe: And when I would of her but crave a kis, Disdaine enforceth her awaie to goe.

Myself I check yet doe I twiste the twine:
The pleasure hers, the paine is myne:

But shall I come ny you,

Of forse I must flie you.

You courtly wights, that want your pleasant choise,
Lende me a floud of teares to waile

my chaunce: Happie are thei in love that can rejoyse,

To their greate paines, where fortune doeth advance.
But sith my sute, alas, can not prevaile!

Full fraight with care in grief still will I waile:
Sith you will needs flie me,

I maie not come ny you.

LINES ATTRIBUTED TO THE EARL OF OXFORD.

IF Woemen coulde be fayre and yet not fonde,
Or that theyre love were firme not fickle still,
I would not mervaylle that they make me bonde
By servise longe to purchase theyre good will:

But when I se how frayll those creatures are,
I muse that men forget them selves so farr.

To marcke the choyse they make, and how they change,
How oft from Phoebus they do flee to Pann,
Unsettled still, like haggardes wild theye range,
These gentlle byrdes that flye from man to man:

Who woulde not scorne and shake them from the fyste,
And let them flye, fayre fooles, whiche waye they lyste.

Yet for disporte we fawne and flatter bothe,
To pass the tyme when nothinge else can please,
And trayne them to our lure with subtylle othe,
Till wearye of theyre wiles, our selves we easse:
And then we saye, when we theyre fancye trye,
To playe with fooles, oh! what a foole was I.

GEORGE GASCOIGNE was born at Walthamstow, in Essex, and, according to Wood, in 1540. But the great antiquary is certainly in error, for the poet, who died in 1577, speaks of his "croocked age and hoary heares," and describes the crow's foot as having grown under his eyes. He was educated at Cambridge-" whereof he was unworthy member once"-and entered at Gray's Inn; but his father Sir John Gascoigne, "of an honourable family in Essex," having disinherited him for his thoughtless prodigality, he was compelled to seek employment abroad, and served with distinction in the army of Holland, under the command of the Prince of Orange. Here he became, according to old Puttenham, "as painful a soldier in the affairs of his Prince and Country as he was a witty poet in his writing." The most valuable of his poems details his adventures in the Dutch war; one of these relates to a lady at the Hague, who, while the town was in possession of the enemy, sent him a letter which was intercepted in the camp. Reports were, in consequence, circulated against the loyalty of the soldier-poet, who, at once, laid the affair before the Prince; his jealous and envious accusers were discomfited, and Gascoigne received a passport which enabled him to visit his female friend. He was afterwards made prisoner by the Spaniards, endured a tedious imprisonment, and, on his release, returned to England, resided chiefly at Walthamstow, and resumed the study of the Law. In 1575, he accompanied Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses to Kenilworth, and recited before her a masque he had composed for her amusement. He died at Stamford, where his declining health had induced his friends to convey him; one of them speaks of himself as being an eye-witness of his godly and charitable end." "Falling into a lingering and wasting disease, he was taken to Stamford, and there being almost worn to a skeleton, but in a religious, calm, and happy state of mind, he expired without a struggle, recommending his wife and only child to the Queen's bounty." Whatever might have been the follies of his earlier years, he lived to establish a good reputation as a man, and to obtain high and enduring fame as a poet.

Gascoigne is the author of the first prose comedy in our language, the "Supposes," which he partly translated from Ariosto; and his Jocasta, also in part a translation, from Euripides, is the second of our tragedies in blank verse. According to Nash, he "first beat the path to that perfection which our best poets have conspired to since his departure;" by another ancient critic he is classed among "the lesser poets whose works may be endured;" and by another, he is praised for "a goode meetre, and a plentiful vayne." More modern critics have as widely differed in estimating his merits. Mr. Headly states that "though he exhibits few marks of strength, he is not destitute of delicacy," and Mr. Ellis, although he lauds his comedy for "uncommon ease and elegance of dialogue," condemns his "smaller poems" as certainly too diffuse and full of conceit; while Mr. Warton is of opinion that he "has much exceeded all the poets of his age in smoothness and harmony of versification." His longest production is "the Fruites of Warre"-"written by sundrye tymes, as the Aucthour had vacaunt leysures from seruice." roughe," he continues in his dedication to the Lord Greye of Wylton, reason, sithence it treateth of roughe matters." In this, and in his other extended poem, "the Steele Glas," the reader will find many noble thoughts, conveyed in an easy and graceful style; but they are, we think, by no means so rich in fancy as some of his minor compositions. The leading characteristic of his writing is sound good sense; he had studied human nature, had seen the evils of a sinful course in youth, had learned how much of wisdom there is in virtue, and gave to the world his observations and the results of his experience in the form of verse.

peecemeal at "The verse is "and a good

His poems were first collected and published in 1587, as "The Pleasauntest Workes of George Gascoigne, Esquyre, newlye compyled into one volume, that is to saye: His Flowers, Hearbes, Weedes, the Fruites of Warre, the Comedie called Supposes, the Trajedie of Jocasta, the Steele-Glasse, the Complaint of Phylomene, the Story of Ferdinando Jeronimi, and the Pleasure of Kenelworth Castle." The volume bears the imprint of "Abel Jeffes, dwelling in the Fore Street, without Creepplegate, neere unto Grub-streete." During his life, however, in 1572, he had sent forth a work in Quarto,"A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, bound up in one small Posie; gathered partly in fyne outlandish gardens; and partly out of our owne fruitefull orchardes in Englande.”