To cover so his own foul filthy fault):
This worthy bird hath taught my weary Muse
To sing a song, in spite of their despite
Which work my woe, withouten cause or crime,
And make my back a ladder for their feet
By slanderous steps and stairs of tickle talk
To climb the throne wherein myself should sit.
O Philomene, then help me now to chant!
And if dead beasts or living birds have ghosts
Which can conceive the cause of careful moan,
When wrong triumphs and right is overtrod,
Then help me now, O bird of gentle blood,
In barren verse to tell a fruitful tale,

A tale, I mean, which may content the minds
Of learned men, and grave philosophers.1

And you, my lord; whose hap hath heretofore
Been, lovingly to read my reckless rhymes,
And yet have deigned with favour to forget
The faults of youth which passed my hasty pen,
And therewithal, have graciously vouchsafed
To yield the rest much more than they deserved;
Vouchsafe, lo now, to read and to peruse

This rhymeless verse which flows from troubled mind.
Since that the line of that false caitiff king
Which ravishéd fair Philomene for lust,
And then cut out her trusty tongue for hate,
Lives yet, my lord, which words I weep to write.

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30

sixteenth century that glass mirrors were brought into more general use, by improvement of their manufacture in the famous Venetian glassworks, established originally in 1291, at Murano. It occurred to the glassworkers at Murano to cover the back of a mirror-plate, by a very simple process, with a smooth tin-foil saturated with quicksilver. Glass mirrors of rare brilliancy were thus obtained, and Murano, in Gascoigne's time, was beginning to draw customers for its looking-glasses from all parts of Europe. These glasses could be set against a wall as ornaments, could be as much as even four feet long for the luxurious, and were not only beautiful themselves, but seemed to give some of their lustre to the faces they so perfectly reflected; whereas it could certainly be said for the old steel handmirrors that they did not flatter.

1 Procne and Philomela (Philomene), says the story, were two daughters of Pandion, king of Athens, and Procne married Tereus, king of Thrace. When Philomela went to see her sister she was cruelly maltreated by her brother-in-law, who finally cut out her tongue, closely imprisoned her, and told her sister that she was dead. Twelve years afterwards she told her story by a piece of needlework that was sent to Procne. Procne, in wild guise of a bacchanal, released her sister, and dished up for Tereus his son Itys to eat. Then Tereus, when he knew what had been done, pursued the women, but was changed by the gods into a lapwing. Procne was at the same time turned into a swallow, Itys into a pheasant, and Philomel into a nightingale,

"And nightingale now named which Philomela hight Delights, for fear of force, to sing always by night; But when the sun to west doth bend his weary course, Then Philomene records the ruth which craveth just remorse, And for her foremost note Tereu! Tereu! doth sing, Complaining still upon the name of that false Thracian king." George Gascoigne wrote a poem upon Philomene, from which those lines are quoted, and in the dedication of it to his singular good lord (Lord Gray of Wilton), he says that, having written the opening lines of his "Steel Glass," "I called to mind that twelve or thirteen years past I had begun an elegy or sorrowful song called 'The Complaint of Philomene,' the which I began to devise riding by the highway between Chelmsford and London, and being overtaken by a sudden dash of rain, I changed my copy and struck over into the De Profundis,' which is placed among my other poesies, leaving 'The Complaint of Philomene' unfinished, and so it hath continued until this present month of April, 1575, when I begun my 'Steel Glass.' And because I have in mine exordium to 'The Steel Glass' begun with nightingale's notes, therefore I have not thought amiss now to finish and piece up the said 'Complaint of Philomene,'" &c., which he did, and by the 16th of April had it finished.

They live, they live, alas! the worse my luck,
Whose greedy lust, unbridled from their breast,
Hath rangéd long about the world so wide
To find a prey for their wide open mouths,
And me they found, O woeful tale to tell!
Whose harmless heart perceived not their deceit.

But that my lord may plainly understand
The mysteries of all that I do mean,

I am not he whom slanderous tongues have told
(False tongues indeed, and crafty subtle brains)
To be the man which meant a common spoil
Of loving dames whose ears would hear my words
Or trust the tales deviséd by my pen.

I n'am a man, as some do think I am;
(Laugh not, good lord), I am indeed a dame,
Or at the least, a right hermaphrodite.
And who desires at large to know my name,
My birth, my line, and every circumstance,
Lo read it here,-Plain-dealing was my sire,
And he begat me by Simplicity;

A pair of twins at one self burden born
My sister and I into this world were sent.
My sister's name was pleasant Poesis,
And I myself had Satira to name;

Whose hap was such, that in the prime of youth,
A lusty lad, a stately man to see,

Brought up in place where pleasures did abound
(I dare not say, in court, for both mine ears)
Began to woo my sister, not for wealth,
But for her face was lovely to behold,
And therewithal her speech was pleasant still.
This noble's name was called Vain Delight,
And in his train he had a comely crew

Of guileful wights: False Semblant was the first,
The second man was Fleering 2 Flattery,
Brethren belike, or very near of kin,
Then followed them Detraction and Deceit.
Sim Swash did bear a buckler3 for the first,
False Witness was the second stemly page;
And thus well armed, and in good equipage,
This gallant came unto my father's court
And wooed my sister, for she elder was
And fairer eke, but out of doubt at least
Her pleasant speech surpasséd mine so much,
That Vain Delight to her addressed his suit.
Short tale to make, she gave a free consent,
And forth she go'th to be his wedded make,
Enticed, percase, with gloss of gorgeous show,
Or else, perhaps, persuaded by his peers
That constant love had harboured in his breast,
Such errors grow where such false prophets preach
Howso it were, my sister liked him well,
And forth she go'th, in court with him to dwell,
Where when she had some years y-sojournéd,
And saw the world, and markéd each man's mind,
A deep desire her loving heart inflamed
To see me sit by her in seemly wise,

2 Fleering, blandly false. Icelandic " flærth," falsehood, falsehood with the notion of blandness; so "flærthar-senna," siren song. (Cleasby and Vigfussen's " Icelandic Dictionary.")

3 Sim Swash did bear a buckler. Swashbuckler was a common Elizabethan name for a bully. "Swash" meant noise and bluster. German "schwätzen," Dutch "zwetsen," to chatter idly; or from "swash," meaning a noisy sound, by addition of intensive s to wash. Stemly, vapouring or fuming. First English "stém," steam, vapour, smoke. 5 Make, mate. See Note 13, page 104.

2 Gascoigne's allegory here is levelled against those who in his day were saying that poetry and satire only ministered to vain delight. He says that where they have no higher calling, it is because they have been forced out of their true path; but speaking in the character of satire, he holds it slander to say that the English satirist exists only for false pleasure of the idle. Five or six years after the date of the "Steel Glass"-when the attacks on poetry bad grown more violentSir Philip Sidney wrote in prose his "Defence of Poesy"-the first piece of high criticism in our language-to repel ne accusations made against the poets by those who declared them to be corrupters of the commonwealth. Sidney not only replied to every clause of the indictment, but he argued that the poet's place was foremost among men who are helpers of mankind.

The cause thereof, and whence it should proceed,

My battered brains, which now be shrewdly bruised, 170 With cannon-shot of much misgovernment,

Can spy no cause but only one conceit,

Which makes me think the world go'th still awry.

I see,
and sigh, because it makes me sad
That peevish pride doth all the world possess,
And every wight will have a looking-glass
To see himself yet so he seeth him not:6
Yea shall I say? a Glass of common glass,
Which glistereth bright and shows a seemly show,
Is not enough; the days are past and gone,

That beryl glass, with foils of lovely brown,

Might serve to show a seemly favoured face.

That age is dead and vanished long ago

Which thought that Steel both trusty was and true, And needed not a foil of contraries,

But showed all things even as they were in deed.

Instead whereof, our curious years can find

The Crystal Glass which glimpseth brave and bright,
And shows the thing much better than it is,
Beguiled with foils of sundry subtle sights,

So that they Seem, and covet not to Be.

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190

3 When spring begins. Gascoigne is writing this early in April. Sce Note 1, page 185.

God grant my Lord may like it.

5 Surcudrie, presumption. See Note 13, page 50.

To see himself in such form that it shall not be himself as he really is.

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us
And foolish notion!

What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us,
And e'en devotion!"

sang Robert Burns long afterwards.
7 Rue, fall. Latin "ruo."

1

That knights consume their patrimony still,
That gentlemen do make the merchant rise;
That ploughmen beg, and craftsmen cannot thrive;
That clergy quails and hath small reverence;
That laymen live by moving mischief still;
That courtiers thrive at latter Lammas day; 1
That officers can scarce enrich their heirs;
That soldiers starve, or preach at Tyburn cross;
That lawyers buy, and purchase deadly hate;
That merchants climb, and fall again as fast;
That roisterers brag above their betters' room;
That sycophants are counted jolly guests;
That Lais leads a lady's life aloft,

And Lucrece lurks with sober bashful grace.

2

200

Wherein I see a frolic favour frounced +
With foul abuse of lawless lust in youth;
Wherein I see a Samson's grim regard
Disgraced yet with Alexander's beard:
Wherein I see a corpse of comely shape,
And such as might beseem the court full well,
Is cast at heel by courting all too soon;
Wherein I see a quick capacity
Bewrayed with blots of light inconstancy;6

An age suspect, because of youth's misdeeds;

A poet's brain possessed with lays of love;

A Cæsar's mind and yet a Codrus' might;

A soldier's heart suppressed with fearful dooms;

A philosopher foolishly fordone.

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Which never yet had good foundation.

And that the same may seem no feignéd dream,

But words of worth and worthy to be weighed,
I have presumed my lord for to present
With this poor Glass, which is of trusty Steel,
And came to me by will and testament
Of one that was a glass-maker indeed.

Lucilius this worthy man was named,
Who at his death bequeathed the Crystal Glass
To such as love to Seem but not to Be;
And unto those that love to see themselves,
How foul or fair soever that they are,
He gan bequeath a Glass of trusty Steel,
Wherein they may be bold always to look
Because it shows all things in their degree.
And since myself, now pride of youth is past,
Do love to Be, and let all Seeming pass,
Since I desire to see myself indeed
Not what I would but what I am or should,
Therefore I like this trusty Glass of Steel,

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1 Latter Lammas Day. Lammas Day was the 1st of August, on which day, in First English times, votive offerings were made in church of loaves as the first fruits of harvest. Hence the name Hlafmæsse, the Loaf-mass, Lammas, from First English "hlaf," a loaf. Lammas Day was one of the four cross quarter days: Whitsuntide, Lammas, Martinmas, and Candlemas, once not less familiar than Lady Day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas. Latter Lammas Day was a proverbial word for a Lammas Day that came after all the loaves were given.

Preach at Tyburn Cross, in allusion to the dying speeches often made at the gallows.

3 Lucilius. At Rome, Caius Lucilius (B.C. 148-103) was the inventor of satire. The banter of rude verses of the people developed among the Greeks into idyllic poetry, but in Rome took commonly the form of personal lampoons. There was also in Rome the satura, said to be named from the "satura lanx," a plate of various fruits offered to the gods, and to mean, like the plate of many fruits, a medley. The satura was, in jocular verse, dialogue with music and dancing, but without connected plot or unity of purpose. In one direction these rude beginnings of literature were associated with the rise of a regular drama; in another direction they were developed into such work as the metrical miscellanies of Ennius and Pacuvius; in another they prepared the way for the new satire of Lucilius. Professor Sellar, in his "Roman Poets of the Republic," writes of Lucilius, that although his art appears to have been rude and incomplete, "yet he was undoubtedly the first Roman writer who used his materials with the aim and in the manner which poetical satire has permanently assumed. The new satire differed from Latin comedy in form and style, and still more in its earnest national purpose." This is exactly what George Gascoigne meant in citing him as "one that was a glass-maker indeed," from who he derived as a satirist his own poor glass."

And therewithal, to comfort me again,

I see a world of worthy government:

A commonwealth with policy so ruled

As neither laws are sold, nor justice bought,

Nor riches sought, unless it be by right;
No cruelty nor tyranny can reign;
No right revenge doth raise rebellion ·
No spoils are ta'en although the sword prevail;
No riot spends the coin of commonwealth;
No rulers hoard the country's treasure up;
No man grows rich by subtlety nor sleight;
All people dread the magistrate's decree,
And all men fear the scourge of mighty Jove.
Lo this, my lord, may well deserve the name
Of such a land as milk and honey flows.
And this I see, within my Glass of Steel,
Set forth even so, by Solon, worthy wight,
Who taught King Croesus what it is to Seem,
And what to Be, by proof of happy end."
The like Lycurgus,8 Lacedemon king,
Did set to show, by view of this my Glass,
And left the same, a Mirror to behold,
To every prince of his posterity.

But now, aye me," the glozing Crystal Glass

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270

Frounced trimmed with plaits and puckers. French" fronçer," to wrinkle

"Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career
Till civil-suited Morn appear,

Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,

But kercheft in a comely cloud." ("Il Penseroso.")

5 Alexander's beard. Here there is a side-note to the first edition of the "Steel Glass: "-" Alexander Magnus had but a small beard." 6 The side-note here is, "He which will rebuke men's faults shall do well not to forget his own imperfections."

7 In the fabled interview between Solon and Croesus (Wisdom and Wealth), the last words of Solon were: "He, therefore, whom Heaven blesses with success to the last we hold to be the happy man. But the happiness of him who still lives and has the dangers of life to meet seems to us no better than that of a champion before one knows how the strife will end, and while the crown is doubtful."

The famous laws of Lycurgus were designed, says Plutarch, to secure within Sparta the conquest of luxury and to exterminate the love of riches. No man was at liberty to live as he pleased, "each man concluding that he was born not for himself but for his country," and the lawgiver considered the happiness of a state "like that of a private man, as flowing from virtue and self-consistency."

The preceding paragraph had for its marginal note, "Common Wealth." This paragraph had written in its margin "Common Woe."

Again I see, within my Glass of Steel,

But four estates to serve each country soil,

The King, the Knight, the Peasant, and the Priest. 290 The KING should care for all the subjects still,

The reader will observe that its description is, line for line, the reverse of that which preceded: "As neither laws are sold nor justice bought" has for its opposite, "Where favour sways the sentence of the law;" "Nor riches sought, unless it be by right," has for its opposite, "Where all is fish that cometh to the net;" and so with each succeeding line in the two pictures of "Common Wealth" and "Common Woe."

1 This copy from the picture supposed by George Vertue, who engraved it, to represent a visit of Queen Elizabeth to Hunsdon House in 1571, and certainly representing a stately reception of her Majesty about that time, will serve to illustrate various points in the luxury of costume, &c., condemned by Gascoigne. The Queen, in her canopy chair, is being conveyed into the house by six gentlemen, preceded by the nobleman who is her host, and Knights of the Garter in their collars, followed by the hostess in her best ruff and stomacher, and by a train of ladies.

To fill their ears with sound of instruments;
To break with bit the hot courageous horse;
To deck their halls with sumptuous cloth of gold;
To clothe themselves with silks of strange device;
To search the rocks for pearls and precious stones,
To delve the ground for mines of glistering gold,
And never care to maintain peace and rest;
To yield relief when needy lack appears;
To stop one ear until the poor man speak;
To seem to sleep when Justice still doth wake
To guard their lands from sudden sword and fire;
To fear the cries of guiltless suckling babes,
Whose ghosts may call for vengeance on their blood,
And stir the wrath of mighty thundering Jove.

I speak not this by any English King,
Nor by our Queen, whose high foresight provides
That dire debate is fled to foreign realms

310

Whiles we enjoy the golden fleece of peace.
But there to turn my tale from whence it came,
In olden days, good Kings and worthy Dukes
(Who saw themselves, in Glass of trusty Steel)
Contented were with pomps of little price,
And set their thoughts on Regal Government.

An order was, when Rome did flourish most, That no man might triumph in stately wise, But such as had, with blows of bloody blade, Five thousand foes in foughten field fordone. Now he that likes to look in Crystal Glass, May see proud pomps in high triumphant wise Where never blow was dealt with enemy.

When Sergius devised first the mean
To pen up fish within the swelling flood
And so content his mouth with dainty fare,
Then followed fast excess on Princes' boards,
And every dish was charged with new conceits
To please the taste of uncontented minds.
But had he seen the strain of strange device
Which epicures do now-a-days invent

To yield good smack unto their dainty tongues,
Could he conceive how Prince's paunch is filled
With secret cause of sickness oft unseen,
Whiles lust desires much more than nature craves,
Then would he say that all the Roman cost
Was common trash, compared to sundry sauce
Which Princes use to pamper appetite.

O Crystal Glass, thou settest things to show,
Which are, God know'th, of little worth indeed!
All eyes behold, with eager deep desire,
The falcon fly, the greyhound run his course,
The baited bull, the bear at stately stake,
These interludes, these new Italian sports,
And every gawd, that glads the mind of man:
But few regard their needy neighbour's back,
And few behold by contemplation
The joys of heaven, ne yet the pains of hell,
Few look to law, but all men gaze on lust.
A sweet consent of Music's sacred sound
Doth raise our minds, as rapt, all up on high:
But sweeter sounds, of concord, peace, and love,
Are out of tune and jar in every stop.

To toss and turn the sturdy trampling steed,
To bridle him, and make him meet to serve,
Deserves, no doubt, great commendation.
But such as have their stables full y-fraught

320

330

340

350

360

1 Here there is a side reference in the original edition to the third chapter of the second book of "Valerius Maximus."

2 Though there is no side reference here, it is again from "Valerius Maximus" that Gascoigne takes his illustration. The first chapter of the ninth book of "Memorable Sayings and Doings" illustrates luxury; and its first example is that lover of fish dinners, C. Sergius Orata, who invented hanging baths, and who also, "that his gullet might not be subject to the will of Neptune," made private seas of his own, by intercepting the tides, and stocked them with varieties of fish, that his table might be well supplied however the wind blew. Sergius Orata built for himself houses by the Lucrine Lake that he might get his shell-fish the fresher; and when an action was brought against him by Considius, a public officer, for encroachment on the public rights of water, L. Crassus, in pleading against him, said that "his friend Considius was wrong in supposing that if Orata were away from the lake he would want oysters, for if he was not allowed to look for them there he would discover them among the tiles upon his house-top."

With pampered jades, ought therewithal to weigh
What great excess upon them may be spent,
How many poor, which need not brake nor bit,
Might therewithal in godly wise be fed,
And Kings ought not so many horse to have.
The sumptuous house declares the prince's state,

But vain excess bewrays a prince's faults.

Our bombast hose,3 our treble double ruffs,

Our suits of silk, our comely guarded capes,

370

3 Our bombast hose were "slops" or "trunk-hose," stuffed often to an enormous size with bombast or cotton (Latin "bombax," cotton). It is the idle stuffing of which the name was applied figuratively to bombastic speech. Doublets known as pease-cod-bellied doublets" were also slashed, quilted, and stuffed with four or five pounds of bombast in each; silk, satin, taffeta, gold and silver stuff being among the material used for them. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign an arrangement was planned in the Parliament House to enable those to sit who were most gorgeously stuffed. Sometimes the hose were stuffed with hair, or with other things. Witness a story told in Harleian MS. 2014 ("Historical Collections concerning Chester,' written about 1656, by one of the family of Randle Hoime). In a chapter upon changes of fashion this writer says:-" About the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, A.D. 1578, the slops or trunk-hose with pease-cod-bellied doublets were much esteemed, which young men used to stuff with rags and other like things, to extend them in compass, with as great eagerness as women did take pleasure to wear great and stately verdingales, for this was the same in effect, being a kind of verdingale breeches; and so excessive were they herein, that a law was made against such as did so stuff their breeches to make them stand out. Whereof, when a certain prisoner in those times was accused of wearing his breeches contrary to the law, he began to excuse himself of the offence, and endeavoured by little and little to discharge himself of that which he did wear within them. He drew out of his breeches a pair of sheets, two table-cloths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass, a comb, and nightcaps, with other things of use, saying, 'Your lordship may understand that, because I have no safer a storehouse, these pockets do serve me for a home to lay by my goods in; and though it be a strait prison, yet it is a storehouse big enough for them, for I have many things more yet of value within them.' And so his discharge was accepted and well laughed at. And they commanded him that he should not alter the furniture of his storehouse, but that he should rid the hall of his stuff and keep them as it pleased him." The use of lawn and cambric for ruffs began in the second year of Elizabeth, and Mistress Dingham van der Plasse came to London, where she taught for twenty shillings the art of making starch, and for five pounds the art of using it. But ruffs grew to be so large and complicated that wire skeletons, called "sup. portasses," became requisite to keep them duly spread. A prose censor of fashion, Philip Stubbes, in his "Anatomie of Abuses," published in 1585, called starch the devil's liquor; and he told how at Antwerp, on the 22nd of May, 1582, a fearful judgment fell on a rich merchant's daughter who, in adorning herself for her wedding, lost patience over the difficulty of getting her ruffs starched to her mind. At last she wished that the devil might take her if she wore any of these ruffs again. A gentleman then entered, asked the cause of her annoyance, and politely set her ruffs so much to her taste, that she not only wore them again, but admired herself in them, and admired also the young man who had so pleased her. Then the young man kissed her, and in so doing wrung her neck asunder. She died; she became black and blue, with a face "ogglesome to behold;" and when she was to be carried out for burial, her coffin was so heavy that five strong men were unable to lift it. The standers-by marvelled at this, and caused the coffin to be opened, "when they found the body to be taken away, and a black cat, very lean and deformed, sitting in the coffin, a setting of great ruffs and frizzling of hair to the great fear and wonder of all the beholders."

Guarded capes were the little cloaks, various in colour and rich material, worn over the doublets, and guarded or trimmed with velvet, lace, or gold or silver fringe. Such fringes were called "guards," because originally meant to protect the edge of the material; but, as luxury advanced, they were superfluous fringings and lacings. In the "Merchant of Venice," Bassanio says of Lancelot, "Give him a livery more guarded than his fellows'." The knit silk stocks were the nether stocks or stockings which had parted from the upper stocks in the hose that once clothed the whole leg, and were now made of all available materials, including silk, and of all colours. They were "cunningly knit," said Stubbes, and "curiously indented in every point with quirks, clocks, open seams, and everything else