George Gascoigne

Verse

The arraignment of a Lover
('At Beautyes barre as I dyd stande')

First published in A Hundreth sundrie Flowres (London, [1573]). Cunliffe, I, 38-9. Prouty, pp. 144-5. Pigman, No. 50, pp. 264-6, as Gascoignes araignement.

GaG 1

Copy, untitled, here beginning At beautyse bar where I dyd stand.

In: A small quarto miscellany of ballads, in several hands, 141 leaves.

Copy.

Mid-16th century.

Inscribed Gabriell Penn 1640.

This MS discussed in Andrew Taylor, The Songs and Travels of a Tudor Minstrel: Richard Sheale of Tamworth (York: York Medieval Press, 2012), 82-116.

This MS collated in Pigman, p. 627.

'Before the sturdye colte will byde the bytt'

See GaG 9.

The constancie of a lover hath thus sometymes ben briefly declared
('That selfe same tonge which first did thee entreat')

First published in A Hundreth sundrie Flowres (London, [1573]). Cunliffe, I, 92. Prouty, p. 74. Pigman, No. 32, p. 245.

GaG 1.5

Copy of lines 1-8, 13-14, headed To a frend & lover.

In: A folio composite volume of verse and some prose, in various hands, v + 179 leaves, in early 18th-century half-calf.

With a few additions in Rawlinson's hand.

This MS collated in Pigman, pp. 615-16.

Gascoignes araignement

See GaG 1.

Gascoignes good morrow
('You that have spent the silent night')

First published in A Hundreth sundrie Flowres (London, [1573]). Cunliffe, I, 55-7. Prouty, pp. 161-3. Pigman, No. 64, pp. 286-8.

GaG 2

Copy, in double columns.

In: A quarto notebook and miscellany, in Latin and English, chiefly in a small cursive largely secretary hand, closely written, 71 leaves, heavily damp-stained, in a recycled vellum sheet from a 15th-16th-century antiphoner, now within 19th-century half green morocco.

Compiled by Robert Dobbes, vicar of Runcorn, Cheshire.

c.1601-7.

Acquired from L. Stock, 1 July 1876.

This MS discussed in Pigman, p. 645.

GaG 2.5

Copy.

In: An oblong quarto miscellany of music, a play, and verse by John Redford and others, in several secretary hands, written largely across the width of the page with the spine uppermost, 63 leaves, in contemporary blind-stamped calf with initials S B on both covers. c.1530s-40s.

Scribbling (f. 63v) including Mr Heyborne [possibly Edward Heyborn].and Ann Chuntle is my name. Later owned by Benjamin Heywood Bright (1830-84), merchant and author. Sotheby's, 18-19 June 1844 (Bright sale), lot 245, to Thomas Rodd.

This MS discussed and largely edited in Arthur Brown, An Edition of the Play of Wit and Science by John Redford, from British Museum Additional Manuscript 15233, with a preliminary investigation of the manuscript and its remaining contents (unpublished MA thesis, University of London, 1949).

This MS discussed in Pigman, pp. 646-8.

Gascoignes good nyghte
('When thou hast spent the lingring day in pleasure and delight')

First published in A Hundreth sundrie Flowres (London, [1573]). Cunliffe, I, 58-9. Prouty, pp. 163-4. Pigman, No. 65, pp. 288-9.

GaG 2.8

Copy of two versions of the poem, one cancelled, in a second column.

In: A quarto notebook and miscellany, in Latin and English, chiefly in a small cursive largely secretary hand, closely written, 71 leaves, heavily damp-stained, in a recycled vellum sheet from a 15th-16th-century antiphoner, now within 19th-century half green morocco.

Compiled by Robert Dobbes, vicar of Runcorn, Cheshire.

c.1601-7.

Acquired from L. Stock, 1 July 1876.

This MS discussed in Pigman, pp. 646-8. Also edited in Mark Kilfoyle, This doubtfull shewe: George Gascoigne and the Voices of A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (University of Cambridge dissertation, 1993), 252-3, and in Arthur Brown, pp. 156-9.

The Grief of Joye
('The griefe of joye, in worthie wise to write')

First published in The Complete Poems of George Gascoigne, ed. W.C. Hazlitt (London, 1869-70), II, 253-302. Cunliffe, II, 511-57.

GaG 3
Copy, written as a New Year's gift for Queen Elizabeth, complete with dedication, preface, &c., the references to her in gilt, 1 + 38 quarto leaves, with remains of early vellum binding, part of a 14th-century Latin lectionary.

Presented to the Queen on 1 January 1576/7.

1576-77.

Edited from this MS in Hazlitt. Facsimile of the dedication (f. 3) in Alfred Fairbank and Bruce Dickins, The Italic Hand in Tudor Cambridge, Cambridge Bibliographical Society Monograph No. 5 (London, 1962), Plate 20.

'Pleasure on whome senses as seruants wayt'
A Ryddle
('A lady once did aske of me')

First published in A Hundreth sundrie Flowres (London, [1573]). Cunliffe, I, 340. Prouty. p. 139. Pigman, No. 43, pp. 257-8.

GaG 3.5
In: A folio composite volume of verse and some prose, in various hands, v + 179 leaves, in early 18th-century half-calf.

With a few additions in Rawlinson's hand.

This MS collated in Pigman, p. 624.

Dramatic Works

The Tale of Hemetes the Heremyte

First published (English and Latin) in Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene, A Paradoxe ([London], 1579). Cunliffe, II, 473-510. In the dedicatory epistle Gascoigne specifically disclaims authorship of the English version, which originally formed part of the royal entertainment at Woodstock in September 1575 and was probably written by Robert Garrett, Reader in Rhetoric at St John's College, Oxford.

*GaG 4
A formal copy, in a professional italic and secretary hand, the English text (probably by Garrett) accompanied by Gascoigne's translations into Latin, Italian, and French, prepared as a New Year's Gift for Queen Elizabeth, 1 January 1575/6, with a dedicatory letter signed by Gascoigne (f. 6v) and pen and ink drawings of Gascoigne presenting his book to the Queen, and other emblems, 37 quarto leaves, in 18th-century red morocco gilt. 1575-6.

Edited from this MS, with the drawings, in Cunliffe, II, 473-510. Facsimile of the dedicatory epistle in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXXVII(d). Discussed, with facsimiles of ff. 1r, 6v, 21r, and 22r, in Gabriel Heaton, The Queen and the Hermit: The Tale of Hemetes (1575), in Elizabeth I and the Culture of Writing, ed. Peter Beal and Grace Ioppolo (British Library, 2007), pp. 87-114, and, with a facsimile of f. 1r, in Gabriel Heaton, Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments (Oxford 2010). Four facsimile pages in Cunliffe, II, 472, 485, 494, and 502. Four facsimile pages in Gillian Austen, George Gascoigne (Cambridge, 2008), Figures 5-8, after p. 83.

GaG 4.5

Copy of a portion of the tale, headed The Hernitts tale, made by Garrett master of Arte of my proceedinge.

In: A folio compendium or entry book of state letters and other documents and memoranda, in various secretary and italic hands, 231 leaves (including numerous blanks), in modern half-calf.

Compiled over a period, and partly written, by Sir Stephen Powle (c.1553-1630), Clerk of the Crown.

This MS recorded in H. R. Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts 1558-1640 (Oxford, 1995), p. 72, and the ascription discussed in Gabriel Heaton, The Queen and the Hermit: The Tale of Hemetes (1575), in Elizabeth I and the Culture of Writing, ed. Peter Beal and Grace Ioppolo (British Library, 2007), pp. 87-114 (pp. 97-100).

GaG 5

Copy of the English version, imperfect, lacking the beginning.

In: A folio volume of entertainments presented by Sir Henry Lee and others, before Queen Elizabeth, in a single secretary hand, 22 leaves, imperfect and badly damp-stained, in modern half-morocco. c.1600.

Evidently once owned by Sir Henry Lee (1530-1610), of Ditchley, Oxfordshire, the Queen's Champion. Presented by Harold Arthur Lee-Dillon (1844-1932), seventeenth Viscount Dillon, CH, antiquary, together with his transcript of the greater part of the MS (now Add. MS 41499B).

Jocasta

Written by Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh, 1566. First published in A Hundreth sundrie Flowres (London, [1573]). Cunliffe, I, 244-324. Pigman, pp. 59-140.

GaG 6
Copy, in a single professional secretary hand, with a formal title-page Jocasta. A tragedie written in Greke by Euripedes translated and digested into Acte by George Gascoign and ffraunces Kynwelmrshe of Grays ynne. 1566, 38 folio leaves, in contemporary vellum. Late 16th century.

Inscribed (f. 1r) North: i.e. Roger North, second Baron North (1530-1600), and with the North family bookplate. Also bookplate of F.W. Cosens, FSA (1819-89), of Clapham Park, book collector. Purchased from Jarvis & Son, 15 June 1891.

This MS collated in Cunliffe and in Pigman.

Letters

Letter(s)
*GaG 7
Autograph letter signed, to Lord Burghley, 15 September 1576. 1576.

Facsimile in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXXVII.

*GaG 8
Autograph letter signed, to Lord Burghley, 7 October 1576. 1576.

Facsimile in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXXVII.

*GaG 9
Letter signed, in a professional italic hand, to Sir Nicholas Bacon of Stiffkey, including six lines of verse, beginning Before the sturdye colte will byde the bytt, surmounted by a drawing of two men with horses, 1 January 1576/7. 1577.

Owned by Marquess Townshend of Raynham.

Recorded in HMC, 11th Report, Appendix IV (1887), p. 3. Edited in B. M. Ward, George Gascoigne and his Circle, RES, 2 (1926), 32-41. Edited, with a facsimile, in The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, ed. A. Hassell Smith and Gillian M. Baker (Norwich, 1983), pp. 3-4. Facsimiles in Gabriel Heaton, The Queen and the Hermit: The Tale of Hemetes (1575), in Elizabeth I and the Culture of Writing, ed. Peter Beal and Grace Ioppolo (British Library, 2007), pp. 87-114 (p. 105), and in Gillian Austen, George Gascoigne (Cambridge, 2008), Figure 10, after p. 83.

Books Apparently Owned by Gascoigne

Petrarch. Il Petrarcha con la spositione di M. G. A. Gesualdo (Venice, 1553)
GaG 10
Gascoigne's printed exemplum.

Later owned by Richard Heber (1774-1833), book collector; by Reginald Charles Reed; and in 1942 by Leon Mandel of Chicago.

Facsimile of the title-page in Prouty, frontispiece.

Ivlii Clavdii Igvini Oratio Hortatoria
*GaG 11
A formally written manuscript of a political tract, advocating an offensive alliance against the Turks, dedicated and evidently presented to Henry VIII, 48 folio leaves, in contemporary olive morocco with royal arms (rebacked).

Signature of George Gascoyne on f. 48r.

Early 16th century.

Other ownership inscriptions by Arthur Bourchier, Jasperus Sherniganus, and John Hobart.

Porphyry Philosophi. Homeri Interpres (Strassbourg, 1539)
*GaG 12
An exemplum allegedly with Gascoigne's signature and notes.

Puttick & Simpson's, 3 March 1862, lot 121, to Hazlitt.