"Where would Desire then chuse to be?"

"He likes to muse alone."

"What feedeth most your sight?”

"To gaze on Favour still." "Who find you most to be your foe?" "Disdain of my good will."

"Will ever Age or Death

"Bring you unto decay?"

"No, no: Desire both lives and dies

"Ten thousand times a day."

BARNABY GOOGE,

A celebrated translator, but of whose life no particulars are known, except that he was educated at Christ's college, Cambridge, from whence he removed to Staple Inn. Supposing him to have published his first work at 25 years of age, he was born in 1535.

His principal work was the "Zodiake of Life," translated from Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus; a very moral but very tiresome satire, perfectly unconnected with astronomy, first printed complete in 1565, 12mo. The first three books had appeared in 1560, and the first six in 1561. In 1570 he translated, from Naogeorgus, a poem on Antichrist: in 1577, he did into English Herebach's œconomical treatise on Agriculture, &c.; in 1579, Lopes de Mendoza's Spanish Proverbs, and afterwards Aristotle's Categories. His "Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes," printed by T. Colwell, for Ralph Newbery, 1563, was considered by Mr. Steevens, as one of the rarest books in the English language; and the following extract from it is not the least favourable effusion of Googe's genius.

THE

[To the tune of " Appelles."]

HE rushing rivers that do run,

The valleys sweet, adorned new,

That leans their sides against the sun,
With flowers fresh of sundry hue;

Both ash, and elm, and oak so high,
Do all lament my woful cry.

While winter, black with hideous storms, Doth spoil the ground of summer's green, While spring-time sweet the leaf returns, That, late, on tree could not be seen; While summer burns, while harvest reigns, Still, still do rage my restless pains.

No end I find in all my smart,
But endless torment I sustain ;

Since first, alas, my woful acart

By sight of thee, was forc'd to plain;
Since that I lost my liberty,
Since that thou mad'st a slave of me.

My heart, that once abroad was free,

Thy beauty hath in durance brought; Once, reason rul'd and guided me,

And now is wit consum'd with thought. Once, I rejoic'd above the sky;

And now, for thee, alas, I die.

Once, I rejoic'd in company;

And now, my chief and whole delight

Is from my friends away to fly,

And keep, alone, my wearied sprite. Thy face divine, and my desire,

From flesh hath me transform'd to fire.

O Nature! thou that first did frame
My lady's hair of purest gold;
Her face of chrystal to the same;

Her lips of precious rubies mould;
Her neck of alabaster white
Surmounting far each other wight ;

Why didst thou not, that time, devise,
Why didst thou not foresee before,

The mischief that thereof doth rise,
And grief on grief doth heap with store,

To make her heart of wax alone,

And not of flint, and marble stone.

O lady! shew thy favour yet!

Let not thy servant die for thee; Where Rigour rul'd let Mercy sit: Let Pity conquer Cruelty!

Let not Disdain, a fiend of hell,

Possess the place where Grace should dwell.

>

GEORGE GASCOIGNE

Was educated at both universities; studied at Gray's Inn;
quitted the law for the army; served in the war in
the Low Countries, and died in 1577. If Wood's ac-
count be accurate, his birth may perhaps be placed about
the year 1540: but as he mentions his "crooked age and
"hoary hairs," I suspect that he was born much earlier.
"Among the lesser late poets," says Edmund Bolton, in his
Hypercritica, "George Gascoigne's works may be endured.”
Puttenham praises him for "a good metre and a plentiful
"vein ;" and Nash says of him, that "he first beat the
"path to that perfection which our best poets have aspired
66 to, since his departure." He is mentioned with praise
by the editor of the Reliques of Ancient Poetry; and Mr.
Warton is of opinion that he "has much exceeded all
"the poets of his age, in smoothness and harmony of
"versification."

His "Jocasta," in which he was assisted by Francis Kynwel-
marsh, is a very respectable performance: his "Supposes,"
a comedy translated from the Suppositi of Ariosto, is dis-
tinguished by an uncommon ease and elegance of dialogue;
but in his smaller poems he is certainly too diffuse, and full
of conceit.

There are three collected editions of his works, in 1572, 1575, and 1587, 4to. all of which are rare, and seldom found complete.