Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

George Gascoigne

1542?–1577

Introduction

None of the works attributed wholly or in part to Gascoigne in Cunliffe is known to survive in the author's hand. Of scribal manuscripts, the most important are the copies that Gascoigne presented to Queen Elizabeth of Hemetes the Hermit (*GaG 4) and The Grief of Joye (GaG 3), the former signed and with some drawings probably in his hand. Beside these two manuscripts, an early copy of Jocasta is preserved (GaG 6), and there is an early copy of the anonymous English version of Hemetes (GaG 5). The only other manuscripts of Gascoigne's works are verse extracts in miscellanies.

For an argument that two poems in a miscellany compiled by Edward Pudsey (1573-1613) may perhaps be attributed to Gascoigne on stylistic evidence, see Juliet Mary Gowan, An Edition of Edward Pudsey's Commonplace Book (c.1600-1615) (unpublished M. Phil., University of London, 1967). These poems are verses beginning Pleasure on whome senses as seruants wayt (Bodleian, MS Eng. poet. d. 3, f. 1v) and Dy dy desire and bid delight adew (ibid, f. 2). They have not been given separate entries below.

Letters

Three original letters by Gascoigne can be recorded, written to Lord Burghley and to Sir Nicholas Bacon (*GaG 7-9), the last notable for its semi-calligraphic verses and drawing of two men with horses. This is the only known survivor of what was evidently a series of emblematic letters that Gascoigne sent to all his lordes and good frendes in Cowrte.

Miscellaneous

Two printed books and a manuscript volume apparently owned by Gascoigne are recorded below (GaG 10-12). Various other documents relating to Gascoigne's life are cited in B.M. Ward, George Gascoigne and his Circle, Review of English Studies, 2 (1926), 32-4, and in Prouty's biography. A printed exemplum of The Whole woorkes of George Gascoigne (London, 1587) in the British Library (C.34.f.8) has three leaves at the end containing manuscript copies of additional poems by Gascoigne transcribed from printed sources; the hand is probably that of an eighteenth-century scholar. For Gabriel Harvey's exemplum of The Posies of George Gascoigne Esquire (1575), see *HvG 89. A copy of Gascoignes Lullabie, beginning Sing lullabie, as women do (Prouty, p. 150; Pigman, pp. 272-3) in the Folger (MS V.a.339, f. 181r) is a forgery by J.P. Collier: see Giles E. Dawson, John Payne Collier's Great Forgery, SB, 24 (1971), 1-26 (pp. 10-11).

Abbreviations

Cunliffe
The Complete Works of George Gascoigne, ed. John W. Cunliffe, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1907-10).
Pigman
George Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, ed. G.W. Pigman III (Oxford, 2000).
Prouty
George Gascoigne, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, ed. C.T. Prouty, University of Missouri Studies, 17 (Columbia, 1942).
Prouty's biography
C.T. Prouty, George Gascoigne: Elizabethan Courtier, Soldier, and Poet (New York, 1942).

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.

This MS collated in Pigman, p. 627.

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.

Bodleian Library, Ashmole Collection (MS Ashmole 48 ff. 139r-138v)
'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.

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

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.

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.

This MS discussed in Pigman, p. 645.

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.

GaG 2.5

Copy.

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

The British Library: Royal MSS (Royal MS 18 A. LXI)
'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.

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
Autograph

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.

The British Library: Royal MSS (Royal MS 18 A. XLVIII)
GaG 4.5

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

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).

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.

Bodleian Library, Tanner Collection (MS Tanner 169 f. 179r)
GaG 5

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

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

Autograph letter signed, to Lord Burghley, 15 September 1576.

1576

Facsimile in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXXVII.

*GaG 8
Autograph

Autograph letter signed, to Lord Burghley, 7 October 1576.

1576

Facsimile in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate XXXVII.

*GaG 9
Autograph

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
Autograph

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.

The British Library: Royal MSS (Royal MS 12 A. LXIII)
Porphyry Philosophi. Homeri Interpres (Strassbourg, 1539)
*GaG 12
Autograph

An exemplum allegedly with Gascoigne's signature and notes.

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

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Porphyry volume])

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