And these conjectures are strengthened into fact when it is remembered (and this point seems hitherto to have been passed over) that Gascoigne was a close friend of Sir Humfrey Gilbert, and a kinsman to Martin Frobisher. "Now it happened," writes Gascoigne ("in a letter from my lodging, where I march among the Muses for lacke of exercise in martial exploytes"), "now it happened that my selfe being one (amongst manie) beholding to the said S. Humfrey Gilbert for sundrie curtesies did come to visit him in Winter last past at his house in Limehouse, and beeing verie bolde to demande of him howe he spente his time in this loytering vacation from martial stratagems: he curteously tooke me up into his studie and there shewed me sundrie profitable and verie commendable exercises which he had perfected painefully with his own penne: And amongst the rest this present Discourse. The which as well because it was not long, as also because I understoode that M. Fourboiser (a kinsman of mine) did pretend to travaile in the same Discouverie, I craved at the said S. Humfreyes handes for two or three dayes to reade and peruse. And hee verie friendly granted my request, but still seming to doubt that thereby the same might, contrarie to his former determination be Imprinted." Ralegh would meet Gascoigne often at Sir Humfrey's house, and to Gascoigne he probably owed his first impulse towards literature. For George Gascoigne was the most considerable man writing at that time; and though his work contained no actual greatness, it was very much on the right lines, that is to say, he was steeped in Chaucer and Gower, and acknowledged them his masters, rather than classical authors. Not that he was ignorant of either Latin or Greek; on the contrary, he was intimate with both, and his "Jocasta," which he adapted from an Italian translation by Dolce of the "Phoenissæ" of Euripides, was not only one of the first plays in blank verse, but also was the first known attempt to produce translated tragedy upon the English stage. And therein lies Gascoigne's chief quality. He was an innovator and original, and that bespeaks force of character, a trait which must have drawn young Ralegh to him. For like attracts like in a mysterious manner. Gascoigne holds an interesting place in the literature of the time. Since the publication of "Tottel's Miscellany," in 1557, there had, for some thirty years, been a distinct lull in the output of poetry, and the work of Gascoigne was a prelude to the revival that came about the years 1579-1582, when Sidney, Spenser, Watson, and Lyly first made their appearance, the true harbingers of the mighty tempest of song that broke upon the world in 1590, and continued for some twenty amazing years.