Elizabethan Period. 'Whoever,' says Nash, 'my private opinion condemns as faulty, Master Gascoigne is not to be abridged of his deserved esteem, who first beat 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 Græca cum Latinis.' He is the author of our earliest extant comedy in prose-possibly the earliest written-The Supposes, a translation of Ariosto's Suppositi, and in part the author of one of our earliest tragedies, of Jocasta—a paraphrase rather than a translation of the Phoinissai of Euripides; he is one of our earliest writers of formal satire and of blank verse, and in his Certain Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or rime in English written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati,' one of the earliest essayists, if not the earliest, on English metres.

Happily, we can add, his works have not only these historical claims on our attention; they have intrinsic merits. His lyrics are occasionally characterised by a certain lightness and grace, which give and will give them a permanent life. Singing of all a lover's moods and experiences-how he passions, laments, complains, recants, is refused, is encouraged—he is never a mere mimic of his Italian masters, or, though somewhat monotonous, wanting in vigour and sincerity. His style is clear and unaffected. The crude taste of his age is often enough apparent; and in this respect his 'poor rude lines,' if we 'compare them with the bettering of the times,' may sometimes make but no great show; but here too he rises above his fellows, who are often simply grotesque when they mean to be fervent, and are dull when they are not grotesque. He writes in various metres with various facility and skill. Of blank verse his mastery is imperfect; he is like a child learning to walk, whose progress is from chair to chair; he lacks freedom and fluency. The metre of his Complaint of Philomene is ill chosen for its purpose. It is a jig, not a movement of 'even step and musing gait.' Much of his work is autobiographical. We can trace him 'from gay to grave,' perhaps we may add 'from lively to severe'; for in his later years, by a reaction that is common enough, it would seem he took a somewhat morbid view of the life he was leaving, under-prizing it, after the manner of zealots, even as in his youth he had prized it too highly.

JOHN W. HALES.

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF A LOVER.

At Beauty's bar as I did stand,
When false Suspect accused me,

George (quoth the Judge), hold up thy hand,
Thou art arraigned of flattery:

Tell therefore how thou wilt be tried:
Whose judgement here wilt thou abide?

My Lord (quoth I) this Lady here,
Whom I esteem above the rest,
Doth know my guilt if any were:
Wherefore her doom shall please me best.
Let her be Judge and Juror both,
To try me guiltless by mine oath.

Quoth Beauty, no, it fitteth not,
A prince herself to judge the cause:
Will is our Justice well you wot,
Appointed to discuss our laws:
If you will guiltless seem to go,
God and your country quit you so.

Then Craft the crier call'd a quest,
Of whom was Falsehood foremost fere,
A pack of pickthanks were the rest,
Which came false witness for to bear,
The jury such, the judge unjust,
Sentence was said I should be trussed.

Jealous the jailer bound me fast,
To hear the verdict of the bill,

George (quoth the Judge) now thou art cast,
Thou must go hence to Heavy Hill,

And there be hanged all but the head,

God rest thy soul when thou art dead.

Down fell I then upon my knee,
All flat before Dame Beauty's face,
And cried Good Lady pardon me,
Which here appeal unto your grace,
You know if I have been untrue,
It was in too much praising you.

And though this Judge do make such haste,
To shed with shame my guiltless blood:
Yet let your pity first be placed,

To save the man that meant you good,
So shall you show yourself a Queen,
And I may be your servant seen.

(Quoth Beauty) well: because I guess,
What thou dost mean henceforth to be,
Although thy faults deserve no less,
Than Justice here hath judged thee,
Wilt thou be bound to stint all strife
And be true prisoner all thy life?
Yea madam (quoth I) that I shall,

Lo Faith and Truth my sureties :
Why then (quoth she) come when I call
I ask no better warrantise.

Thus am I Beauty's bounden thrall,
At her command when she doth call.

A STRANGE PASSION OF A LOVER.

Amid my bale I bathe in bliss,
I swim in Heaven, I sink in hell:

I find amends for every miss,

And yet my moan no tongue can tell.

I live and love (what would you more ?)

As never lover lived before.

I laugh sometimes with little lust,
So jest I oft and feel no joy:
Mine eye is builded all on trust,
And yet mistrust breeds mine annoy.

I live and lack, I lack and have;
I have and miss the thing I crave.

These things seem strange, yet are they true.
Believe me, sweet, my state is such,

One pleasure which I would eschew,

Both slakes my grief and breeds my grutch.
So doth one pain which I would shun,
Renew my joys where grief begun.

Then like the lark that passed the night,
In heavy sleep with cares oppressed;
Yet when she spies the pleasant light,
She sends sweet notes from out her breast.
So sing I now because I think

How joys approach, when sorrows shrink.

And as fair Philomene again

Can watch and sing when other sleep;
And taketh pleasure in her pain,

To wray the woe that makes her weep.
So sing I now for to bewray

'The loathsome life I lead alway.

The which to thee dear wench I write,
That know'st my mirth but not my moan :

I pray God grant thee deep delight,
To live in joys when I am gone.

I cannot live; it will not be :

I die to think to part from thee.

PIERS PLOUGHMAN.

[From The Steel Glass.]

Behold him, priests, and though he stink of sweat,
Disdain him not: for shall I tell you what?
Such climb to heaven before the shaven crowns:
But how? forsooth with true humility.

Not that they hoard their grain when it is cheap,
Nor that they kill the calf to have the milk,

Nor that they set debate between their lords,
By earing up the balks that part their bounds:
Nor for because they can both crouch and creep
(The guileful'st men that ever God yet made)
When as they mean most mischief and deceit,
Nor that they can cry out on landlords loud,
And say they rack their rents an ace too high,
When they themselves do sell their landlord's lamb
For greater price than ewe was wont be worth.
(I see you Piers, my glass was lately scoured.)
But for they feed with fruits of their great pains
Both king and knight and priests in cloister pent:
Therefore I say that sooner some of them
Shall scale the walls which lead us up to heaven,
Than cornfed beasts, whose belly is their God,
Although they preach of more perfection.

EPILOGUS.

Alas, (my lord), my haste was all too hot,
I shut my glass before you gazed your fil,
And at a glimpse my seely self have spied,
A stranger troop than any yet were seen:
Behold, my lord, what monsters muster here,
With angels face, and harmful hellish hearts,
With smiling looks and deep deceitful thoughts,
With tender skins, and stony cruel minds,
With stealing steps, yet forward feet to fraud.
Behold, behold, they never stand content,
With God, with kind, with any help of Art,

But curl their locks with bodkins and with braids,
But dye their hair with sundry subtle sleights,

But paint and slick till fairest face be foul,

But bumbast, bolster, frizzle and perfume:

They marr with musk the balm which nature made, And dig for death in delicatest dishes.\

The younger sort come piping on apace,

In whistles made of fine enticing wood,