originals; but they certainly make up a remarkable
budget for one man. In addition to them, and to a good number of shorter
and miscellaneous poems, must be mentioned the _Glass of Government_ (a
kind of morality or serious comedy, moulded, it would seem, on German
originals), and the rather prettily, if fantastically termed _Flowers,
Herbs, and Weeds_. Gascoigne has a very fair command of metre: he is not a
great sinner in the childish alliteration which, surviving from the older
English poetry, helps to convert so much of his contemporaries' work into
doggerel. The pretty "Lullaby of a Lover," and "Gascoigne's Good Morrow"
may be mentioned, and part of one of them may be quoted, as a fair specimen
of his work, which is always tolerable if never first-rate.

"Sing lullaby, as women do,
Wherewith they bring their babes to rest,
And lullaby can I sing too,
As womanly as can the best.
With lullaby they still the child;
And if I be not much beguiled,
Full many wanton babes have I
Which must be stilled with lullaby.

"First lullaby, my youthful years.
It is now time to go to bed,
For crooked age and hoary hairs
Have won the hav'n within my head:
With lullaby then, youth, be still,
With lullaby content thy will,
Since courage quails and comes behind,
Go sleep and so beguile thy mind.

"Next lullaby, my gazing eyes,
Which wanton were to glance apace,
For every glass may now suffice
To show the furrows in my face.
With lullaby then wink awhile,
With lullaby your looks beguile;
Let no fair face, nor beauty bright,
Entice you oft with vain delight.

"And lullaby, my wanton will,
Let reason(s) rule now rein thy thought,
Since all too late I find by skill
How dear I have thy fancies bought:
With lullaby now take thine ease,
With lullaby thy doubts appease,
For trust to this, if thou be still
My body shall obey thy will."

Thomas Churchyard was an inferior sort of Gascoigne, who led a much longer
if less eventful life. He was about the Court for the greater part of the
century, and had a habit of calling his little books, which were numerous,
and written both in verse and prose, by alliterative titles playing on his
own name, such as _Churchyard's Chips_, _Churchyard's Choice_, and so
forth. He was a person of no great literary power, and chiefly noteworthy
because of his long life after