VI.
HAVING A SCAR IN HER FOREHEAD. ............................................................... VI. Gascoigne's Praise of the Fair Bridges, afterwards Lady Sandes, ON HER
ON HER HAVING A SCAR IN HER FOREHEAD.
George Gascoigne was a celebrated poet in the early part of Queen 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 theSteele-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 1577, if he is the person meant in an old tract, intitled, "A remembrance
of the well employed Life and godly End of George Gascoigne, Esq. who deceased at
Stamford in Lincolnshire, Oct. 7, 1577, by Geo. Whetstone, Gent. an eye-witness of
his godly and charitable end in this world," 4to. no date.-- [From a manuscript of
Oldys.]
Mr. Thomas Warton thinks "Gascoigne has much exceeded all the poets of his
age, in smoothness and harmony of versification."[1] But the truth is, scarce any of
the earlier poets of Queen Elizabeth's time are found deficient in harmony and
smoothness, though those qualities appear so rare in the writings of their successors.
In theParadise of dainty Devises[2] (the Dodsley's Miscellany of those times) will
hardly be found one rough, or inharmonious line:[3] 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 twelve and fourteen 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 epistle 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 author, 1575. Printed at London, 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,[4] 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,[5] and which has been so justly censured for the unnatural manner of its
execution.