WEET were the sauce would please each kind of taste;

The life likewise were pure that

never swerved:

For spiteful tongues in cankered stomachs placed Deem worst of things which best (percase)

deserved.

But what for that? This medicine may suffice To scorn the rest, and seek to please the wise.

Though sundry minds in sundry sort do deem,

1

Yet worthiest wights yield praise for every pain;

Prefixed to George Gascoigne's "Steel Glass," 1576.

But envious brains do nought, or light, esteem

Such stately steps as they cannot attain :
For whoso reaps renown above the rest,
With heaps of hate shall surely be oppressed.

Wherefore, to write my censure of this book,

This Glass of Steel unpartially doth show Abuses all to such as in it look,

From prince to poor, from high estate to low. As for the verse, who list like trade to try. I fear me much, shall hardly reach so high.

II.

THE EXCUSE.

WRITTEN BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH IN HIS

YOUNGER YEARS.1

ALLING to mind, my eyes went long

about

To cause my heart for to forsake my

breast,

All in a rage I sought to pull them out,
As who had been such traitors to my rest:

Oldys' "Life of Raleigh," p. lv., "from the copy of a celebrated lady, Lady Isabella Thynne, who probably had it out of the family." Quoted by Puttenham in 1589, as a most excellent ditty, written by Sir Walter Raleigh." In MS. Ashm. 781, p. 138, it has the signature "Sr. Wa: Raleigh;" and in "Wit's Interpreter," 1671, p. 205, it is described as "by Sir Walter Raleigh." In the "Phoenix Nest," 1593, p. 72, in MS. Harl. 6910, fol. 142, verso, and in MS. Rawl. 85, fol. 104, verso, it is anonymous.

What could they say to win again my grace?— Forsooth, that they had seen my mistress' face. Another time, my heart I called to mind,

Thinking that he this woe on me had brought, Because that he to love his force resigned,

When of such wars my fancy never thought:
What could he say when I would him have slain?—
That he was hers, and had forgone my chain.
At last, when I perceived both eyes and heart
Excuse themselves, as guiltless of my ill,
I found myself the cause of all my smart,

And told myself that I myself would kill :
Yet when I saw myself to you was true,
I loved myself, because myself loved you.

III.

AN EPITAPH

UPON THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, KNIGHT, LORD GOVERNOR OF FLUSHING.1 (Died Oct. 7, 1586.)

O praise thy life or wail thy worthy death, And want thy wit,-thy wit high, pure, divine,―

Is far beyond the power of mortal line, Nor any one hath worth that draweth breath;

Quoted in 1591, by Sir J. Harington, as Sir W. Raleigh's; also at a later date by Drummond of Hawthornden.

Printed anonymously in the "Phoenix Nest," 1593, p. 8, and with Spenser's "Astrophel," 1595, Sign. K 2.