In this dedication he affects an unwillingness to print his "Tryfles," from the "grosenes of his style," which in truth bears considerable resemblance to that of his contemporary Turbervile.

A wood cut introduces two figures (Daphnis and Amintas.)

"L. Blundeston to the reader," dated May 27, 1562, (in prose).

"The preface of L. Blundeston," (in verse) concludes with the following lines:

Thus pushte I forth, strayghte to the printers hande,
These Eglogs, Sonets, Epytaphes of men,
Unto the readers eye, for to be skande,

With prayses suche as is due unto them,

Who, absent nowe, theyr Mayster may commende,
And feade his Fame, what soever foyleth him;
Give GOOGE therfore his own deserved fame,
Give Blundeston leave to wysh wel to his Name.

Eglogs.

These are eight in number, and have the following interlocutors.

Egloga Prima-Daphnis, Amintas. II. Dametas. III. Menalcas, Coridon. IV. Melibeus, Palemon. V. Mopsus, Agen. VI. Felix, Faustus. VII. Silvanus, Sirenus, Selvagia. VIII. Coridon, Cornix.

Epytaphes.

1. Of the Lorde Sheffeldes death. 2. Of M. Shelley,

Printed in the last edition of Noble Authors, i. 278.

slayne at Musselbroughe. 9. Of Maister Thomas Phayre.* 4. Of Nicolas Grimaold.*

Sonettes.

1. To Mayster Alex. Nowell. 2. To Doctor Bale. 3. To M. Edwarde Cobham. 4. Of Edwardes of the Chappell. 5. To L. Blundeston. 6. The aunswere of L. B. to the same. 7. To Alex. Nevell. 8. Alex. Nevells answere to the same. 9. To M. Henry Cobham, of the most blessed state of lyfe. 10. To Alex. Nevell, of the blessed state of him that feeles not the force of Cupid's flames. 11. Alex. Nevells aunswere to the same. 12. To Maystrisse A. 13. To George Holmedon, of a ronnynge heade. 14. To the translation of Pallingen. 15. The harte absent. 16. To Alex. Nevell. 17. The answere of A. Nevell to the same. 18. To Maystresse D. 19.

poet. 20. Three Sonnettes, sine tit.

syght, out of mynd.

Out of an olde

21. Out of

22. Of the unfortunate

choyse of his Valentyne. 23. The uncertayntie
of Lyfe. 24. A refusal. 25. Of Maistres D. S.
26. Of money.
27. Goyng towardes Spayne.
28. At Bonyvall in Fraunce. 29. Commynge
homewarde out of Spayne. 30. To L. Blundes-
ton. 31. Of Ingratitude. 32. The answere of
L. B. to the same. 33. To the time of " Appel-
les." 34. Cupido conquered.

Both these are printed in Steevens's Shakespeare, under the list of ancient translations.

+ Printed in Ellis's Specimens, vol. ii. where see a brief notice of the author.

The lines (No. 14) which appear to be blank verse, most singularly cleft into a kind of occasional rhyme, were thus addressed by Googe

But halfe hewd out

Before myne eyes to stande,

For I must needes

(No helpe) a whyle go toyle

In studyes, that

No kynde of Muse delyght,
And put my plow

In grosse untylled soyle,

And labour thus

With over weryed spryght,

But yf that God

Do graunt me greater yeares,

And take me not

From hence, before my tyme:

The Muses nyne,

The pleasaunt synging feares,*

Shall so enflame

My mynde with lust to ryme;

That, Palingen,

I wyll not leave the so;

But fynysh the

For pheares, companions.

Accordyng to my mynd:

And yf it be

My chaunce, away to go;

Let some the ende

That heare remayne behynde.

Googe lived to complete his anxious purpose, and his entire version was printed in 1565. To this laborious task he might have partly been encouraged by the following commendation, in a metrical preface to Jasper Heywood's translation of Seneca's Thyestes,

1560.

-GOOGE a gratefull name has gotte,
Reporte, that runneth ryfe,
Who crooked Compasse doth describe,
And Zodiake of Lyfe.

In the fullest title to Googe's Palingenius, the Christian poet is said to paint out most lively, the whole compasse of the world.

*

Googe was also the translator of Heresbachius and Naogeorgus, with part of Virgil's Georgics, and, it hath been said, of Aristotle's Categories, and Lopez de Mendoza's Spanish Proverbs.

Turbervile, in his "Songes and Sonets," 1570, has a poem addressed "to Maister Googe's fansie," that begins "Give monie me, take friendship who so list?" And another "To Maister Googe his Sonet, 'Out of

* This we gather from Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, published in 1586. See Mr. Haslewood's exact Reprint of the same, p. 54. The work itself does not appear to have passed the press. See Mr. Steevens's list of Ancient Translations from Classic Authors.

sight, out of thought:"" with other references of a similar kind.

Alexander Nevyll, in his copy of verses before the Egloges and Epytaphes of Googe, anticipates, somewhat vauntingly, their faultless and enduring fame. Robinson likewise, in his "Rewarde of Wickednesse," 1574, fancies himself, against all poetic probability, to be placed on Mount Helicon, and to espy BARNABY GOOGE seated there, with Lydgate, Skelton, Wager, and Heywood. But among all the deceptions practised by man upon himself, there is none perhaps more prevalent than that which leads him vainly to believe, that the puny productions of his own intellect shall live to more than an antediluvian age, shall endure to latest posterity. Not a poetaster, but can exclaim with Horace

Exegi monumentum ære perennius !

though his fame survive not the sarcasms of the next Monthly Review.

Of Googe's poems two copies only are now believed to be extant, though such flattering perpetuity was decreed for them in his day.

The second edition of the Zodiake of Life, in 1561, has a metrical preface, in which Melpomene is made to say to the Translator

Stand by, yong man, (quoth she) dispatch,

and take thy pen in hand—

Wryte thou the civill warres, and broyle,

in auncient Latines land.