struggle to reinstate himself in good opinion almost more than he can face: I am derided, suspected, accused, and condemned: yea more than that, I am rygorously rejected when I proffer amendes for my harme. Should I therefore dispayre? Shall I yeelde unto jellosie? or drowne my dayes in idlenesse, because their beginning was bathed in wantonnesse? Surely (my Lord) the Magnanimitie of a noble minde will not suffer me, and the delightfulnesse of dilygence doth utterly forbydde me. There is more in the same vein : For whiles I bewayle mine own unworthynesse, and therewithal do set before mine eyes the lost time of my youth mispent, I seem to see a farre of (for my comfort) the high and triumphant vertue called Magnanimitie, accompanied with industrious diligence. The first doth encourage my faynting harte, the seconde doth beginne (already) to employ my understanding. . . . I have misgoverned my youth, I confesse it: what shall I do then? shall I yelde to mysery as a just plague apointed for my portion? Magnanimitie saith no, and Industrye seemeth to be of the same opinion. Later he refers again to his troubles : But (alas my lorde) I am not onely enforced still to carie on my shoulders the crosse of my carelesnesse, but therewithall I am also put to the plonge, too provide newe weapons wherewith I may defende all heavy frownes, deepe suspects, and dangerous detractions. And I finde myselfe so feeble, and so unable to endure that combat, as (were not the cordialles before rehearsed) I should either cast downe mine armoure and hide myselfe like a recreant, or else (of a malicious stubbornesse) should busie my braines with some Stratagem for to execute an envious revenge on mine adversaries. . . . And when the vertuous shall perceive indeede how I am occupied, then shall detraction be no lesse ashamed to have falsely accused me, than light credence shall have cause to repent his rashe conceypt: and Gravitie the judge shal not be abashed to cancel the sentence unjustly pronounced in my condemnation. In meane while I remaine amongst my bookes here at my poore house in Walkamstowe, where I praye daylie for speedy advauncement, and continual prosperitie of your good Lordship. I quote from this dedication at some length because it gives a good idea of Gascoigne's temperament, and of his state of mind and circumstances on his return to England from the Low Countries. Gascoigne was not a specially clever nor a well-educated man, and the range of his imagination is very limited; but he had an individual and idiomatic vein, and his poetry is interesting for its native sincerity. The earnest spirit of this dedication, with its sense of weakness and struggle, and of the hardness and misery of the world, with faith, however, in fortitude and effort, is the note also of the poem which follows, and the spirit of it is, in my opinion, wholly incompatible with some of the other pieces which appeared under Gascoigne's name during this period, i.e. from 1575 to 1577, in which year the poet died. I beg particular attention to the tone of this address, and will ask the reader, in considering certain other pieces to which I shall come, to remember that Gascoigne was at this time in illhealth and a man whose "joy of life" was a thing of the past. Thus in The Grief of Joye, a piece certainly by Gascoigne, dedicated to the Queen on 1st January 1577, he writes (in reference evidently to the same incident as that alluded to in the dedication to The Steele Glas): I have bene stronge (I thanke my God therefore) I lept, I ranne, I toylde and travailde soore, There is little art in this; but it has force through its simple sincerity, and gives expression to the sense of irreparable disaster which comes often from the slightest and most momentary causes. It is the typical, undisguised, autobiographic note, which is always present in Gascoigne's work. I will now draw attention to some further incongruities. On the 12th April 1576, three days before the dedication of The Steele Glas, Gascoigne wrote a prefatory epistle, apparently in the best of spirits, to A Discourse of a Three Discoverie for a new Passage to Cataia, which he professes was the work of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Ralegh's half-brother). He subscribes the epistle "From my lodging where I march amongst the Muses for lacke of exercise in martiall exployts, this 12 of April 1576. A friend to all well willing Readers. George Gascoine." This from the author of The Fruites of Warre! weeks later (2nd May 1576) he produced The Droomme of Doomes day, a theological tract of enormous length, which is said to be a translation from a Latin work of Pope Innocent III.1 It is dedicated to the Earl of Bedford, and subscribed "From my lodging where I finished this travayle in weake plight for health as your good L: well knoweth this second daye of Maye 1576. Your Lordshippes right humble and faithful servaunt, George Gascoigne." In "an advertisement of the Prynter to the Reader" it is stated that "whiles this work was in the presse, it pleased God to visit the translatour thereof with sicknesse. So that being unable himselfe to attend the dayly proofes, he appoynted a servaunt of his to over see the same." [Hence some faults, etc.] In the dedication we read that the work (which covers 240 pages of print) was begun after serious reflection, "not manye monethes since." But this is not the whole tale of the labours of this prolific period. On the Ist January 1576 The Tale of Hemetes the Heremyte, pronounced before the Queen at Woodstock in August 1575, was dedicated to the Queen, in four languages, English, Latin, Italian and French. The original is attributed to Gascoigne, but he does not claim it, as will be seen from the following extraordinary passage in the dedication : I will saye then that I fynd in my self some suffycyency to serve yo' highnes, wch causeth me thus presumpteowsly to present you wth theis rude lynes, having turned the eloquent tale of Hemetes the Heremyte (wherwth I saw yo' lerned judgment greatly pleased at Woodstock) into latyne, Italyan and frenche, nott that I thinke any of the same translations any waie comparable with 1 Arber, biographical notice. the first invencion, for if yo highnes compare myne ignorance wth thauctor skyll, or have regard to my rude phrases compared with his well polished style, you shall fynde my sentences as much disordered as arrowes shott owt of ploughes, and my theames as inaptly prosecuted as hares hunted wth oxen, for my latyne is rustye, myne Itallyan mustye, and my frenche forgrowne. Lastly, on 26th March 1576, appeared The Princely Pleasures at Kenelworth Castle, being an account of the "devices" and poetical entertainments produced before the Queen on her visit to the Earl of Leicester in July 1575 These various productions are wholly incompatible as the work of one man, and, in the particular case of Gascoigne, to accept them indiscriminately as his work seems to me uncritical to the last degree. We come now to The Princely Pleasures, which invites consideration more fully than in the case of the other pieces, because this work describes an incident of which there are thought by some to be memories in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and it has been suggested that Shakespeare, then a boy of eleven, was present at the festivities with the people from Stratford in the Castle grounds. The boy who was there, however, and who, in my belief, edited and partly wrote this collection, together with a companion piece on the same subject known under the title of Laneham's Letter, was Francis Bacon, then between fourteen and fifteen, either on vacation from Cambridge or having recently left it, and staying in the Castle on a visit to Kenilworth, as the son of the Lord Keeper, and perhaps temporarily attached to the household.' I will endeavour in what follows to make good this opinion. In July 1575 Queen Elizabeth visited Kenilworth, and was entertained with great sumptuousness by the Earl of Leicester. An account of the entertainments was published, under date 26th March 1576, as The Princelye pleasures at the Courte at Kenelwoorth. The account 1 See next page, and cf. p. 260, note. was published anonymously, but it bore Gascoigne's motto and passed under his name, and it was included in a complete edition of his works published after his death. Previous to this account another account had appeared, in the form of a letter "From the Court. At the City of Worcester, the twentieth August 1575," by one Robert Laneham, who subscribed himself jocosely as "Mercer, Merchaunt-adventurer, and Clerk of the Council-chamber door, and also Keeper of the same," to a brother "Mercer," addressed as "My good friend Master Humphrey Martin, Mercer." Nothing is known about this worthy, though a good deal has been written about him. He has been described as "conceited," "fantastic," "talkative," "entertaining," and his letter as "a very diverting tract, written by as great a coxcomb as ever blotted paper." All this is true, but it does not account for the personality of Laneham, who, regarded as the man he represents himself, or as a man at all, is a freak of nature so astonishing as to defy classification. Regarded, however, as a boy, he becomes intelligible, and in my belief he is an "impersonation" by young Francis Bacon. The extracts which I shall give from Laneham's Letter in the next chapter, read with other arguments submitted in this book, will, I hope, suffice to demonstrate this. Let us now examine The Princely Pleasures, called Gascoigne's. The sub-title is "A brief rehearsal, or rather a true copy of as much as was presented before her Majesty at Kenilworth, during her last abode there, as followeth." The account opens with the words, "Her Majesty came thither (as I remember) on Saturday being the ninth of July last past." Who was "I"? We turn to the introductory notice to the "Reader" and find it is by the "Printer ""The Printer to the Reader." He says that being advertised that in this last Progress, her Majesty was (by the Right Noble Earl of Leicester) honourably and triumphantly received and entertained at the castle of Kenilworth: and that sundrie Pleasant and Poetical Inventions were there expressed, |