"Master Gascoigne is not to bee abridged of his deserved esteeme, who first beate the path to that perfection which our best Poets have aspired too since his departure."

"There is hardly a writer of his period who is so little known in our day and whose poems ran through so many editions in his own day. The reviews praised his works; Gray spoke highly of them; Walpole was all adulation; Mrs. Siddons acted in one of his plays; Reynolds annotated one of his poems; Johnson admitted the power of his satire; and Warton went out of his way to bestow supreme commendation upon his didactic poetry. Works by Mason were done into German, French, and Italian; and more than a score of early biographies testify to the interest in his life and personality."

"From shortly after his death until the present Gascoigne's reputation as the foremost poet of his generation and as a precursor of the great Elizabethans has remained constant."

"Suffiseth this to proove my theame withall, That every bullet hath a lighting place."

"Sing lullabie, as women do, Wherewith they bring their babes to rest; And lullabie can I sing to, As womanly as can the best."

"When'er with soft serenity she smiled, Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise, How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild, The liquid lustre darted from her eyes?"

"Thou sorrow, venom Elfe. Is this thy play, To spin a web out of thyselfe To Catch a Fly? For Why? [...] To tangle Adams race In's stratigems To their Destructions, spoil'd, made base By venom things Damn'd Sins."

"Of justice yet must God in fine restore, This noble crowne unto the lawful heire For right will alwayes live, and rise at length, But wrong can never take deepe roote to last."

"The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty."

"The wrathfull winter proching on apace, With blustering blasts had all ybarde the treene, And olde Saturnus, with his frosty face With chilling cold had pearst the tender greene."

"Am I new minted by thy Stamp indeed? Mine Eyes are dim; I cannot clearly see. Be thou my Spectacles that I may read Thine Image and Inscription stampt on mee."

"The finest of the Rowley poems – Eclogues, Ballad of Charity &c rank absolutely with the finest poetry in the language…He was an absolute and untarnished hero."

"This is the most extraordinary young man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how the whelp has written such things."

"O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive! Sure thou would'st spread the canvass to the gale, And love, with us, the tinkling team to drive O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale; And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, Hanging, enraptur'd, on thy stately song! And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy All deftly mask'd, as hoar Antiquity."

"I cannot find in Chatterton's works any thing so extraordinary as the age at which they were written. They have a facility, vigour, and knowledge, which were prodigious in a boy of sixteen, but which would not have been so in a boy of twenty. He did not show extraordinary powers of genius, but extraordinary precocity. Nor do I believe he would have written better, had he lived. He knew this himself, or he would have lived. Great geniuses, like great kings, have too much to think of to kill themselves."

"The gatherd storme is rype; the bigge drops falle; The forswat meadowes smethe, and drenche the raine; The comyng ghastness do the cattle pall, And the full flockes are drivynge ore the plaine; Dashde from the cloudes the waters flott againe; The welkin opes; the yellow levynne flies; And the hot fierie smothe in the wide lowings dies."

"Liste! now the thunder's rattling clymmynge sound Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs, Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown'd, Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges; The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges; Again the levynne and the thunder poures, And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stonen showers."

"Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde. Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde, Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves; Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves."

"Here take this silver, it maie eathe thie care; We are Goddes stewards all, nete of oure owne we bare."

"Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride."

"How shall we celebrate the day, When God appeared in mortal clay, The mark of worldly scorn; When the Archangel's heavenly Lays, Attempted the Redeemer's Praise, And hail'd Salvation's Morn!"

"He was an instance that a complete genius and a complete rogue can be formed before a man is of age."

"Happy (if mortals can be) is the man, Who, not by priest but Reason, rules his span: Reason, to its possessor a sure guide, Reason, a thorn in Revelation’s side."

"The scene was more beautiful far to the eye Than if day in its pride had arrayed it."

"And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,— That star of life's tremulous ocean."

"Rattle his bones over the stones! He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns!"

"By the waters of Life we sat together, Hand in hand, in the golden days Of the beautiful early summer weather, When skies were purple and breath was praise."

"Mie love ys dedde, Gon to hys death-bedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes, Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde. I die; I comme; mie true love waytes. Thos the damselle spake, and dyed."

"Almighty Framer of the Skies! O let our pure devotion rise, Like Incense in thy Sight! Wrapt in impenetrable Shade, The Texture of our Souls were made, Till thy Command gave Light."

"Surrey, the Granville of a former age: Matchless his pen, victorious was his lance; Bold in the lists, and graceful in the dance."

"Surrey, for his justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, may justly be pronounced the first English classical poet."

"Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew, In prison pine, with bondage and restraint: And with remembrance of the greater grief, To banish the less, I find my chief relief."

"Death is a port whereby we pass to joy, Life is a lake that drowneth all in payn."

"So cruel prison how could betide, alas, As proud Windsor? where I, in lust and joy, With a King's son, my childish years did pass, In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy. Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour."

"With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth, In active games of nimbleness and strength, Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth, Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length. The secret groves, which oft we made resound Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise; Recording oft what grace each one had found, What hope of speed, what dread of long delays."

"Love, that liveth and reigneth in my thought, That built his seat within my captive breast; Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought, Oft in my face he doth his banner rest."

"Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail, Whereof the gift is small, and short the season; Flowering to-day, to-morrow apt to fail; Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason: Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail; Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason."

"And thus I see among these pleasant things Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!"

"But by and by, the cause of my disease Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting, When that I think what grief it is again To live and lack the thing should rid my pain."

"Then think I thus: "Sith such repair, So long time war of valiant men, Was all to win a lady fair, Shall I not learn to suffer then? And think my life well spent to be, Serving a worthier wight than she?""

"London! hast thou accused me Of breach of laws? the root of strife! Within whose breast did boil to see, So fervent hot, thy dissolute life."

"When raging love with extreme pain Most cruelly distrains my heart; When that my tears, as floods of rain, Bear witness of my woful smart; When sighs have wasted so my breath That I lie at the point of death: I call to mind the navy great That the Greeks brought to Troyè town: And how the boisterous winds did beat Their ships, and rent their sails adown; Till Agamemnon's daughter's blood Appeased the gods that them withstood."

"The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings, With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: The nightingale with feathers new she sings; The turtle to her make hath told her tale; Summer is come, for every spray now springs."

"O happy dames! that may embrace The fruit of your delight; Help to bewail the woful case, And eke the heavy plight Of me, that wonted to rejoice The fortune of my pleasant choice: Good ladies! help to fill my mourning voice."

"I know she swore with raging mind, Her kingdom only set apart, There was no loss, by law of kind, That could have gone so near her heart; And this was chiefly all her pain: "She could not make the like again"."

"Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest: Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain; And virtue sank the deeper in his breast: Such profit he by envy could obtain."

"His shaft procur'd a sharp, yet sugar'd smart."

"Away he flew, for why? his wings were dry; But left the arrow sticking in my breast, That sore I grieved I welcomed such a guest."

"To dry his plumes: I heard the boy complain; I op'd the door, and granted his desire, I rose myself, and made the wag a fire."

"Set a beggar on horseback, and they say he will never light."