Julia, it's my belief that the Droomme is most explicable in terms of
Gascoigne's relationship with the Earl of Bedford, to whom he dedicated
it, and the letter must be of a piece with this. It's characteristic of
Gascoigne to tailor his work very precisely to the potential (or actual)
patron and occasion, even when he is writing very innovative and
original work. For example, the Steele Glas/ Complaynte of Phylomene is
entirely tailored to Lord Grey's taste for medieval literature (cf his
later patronage of Spenser) - but the volume includes the first original
blank verse in English, and Gascoigne is fully aware of how innovative
he's being and what a claim for poetic fame that is.

The Droomme strikes me very much like that kind of precisely customised
item, although it certainly isn't innovative in that way. It's worth
remembering that the two men had a past relationship: both were at
Gray's Inn together (Gascoigne entered in 1555 and Bedford in 1557).
Bedford had won a lawsuit against Gascoigne in what was probably a land
dispute, and Gascoigne had then re-opened the case in the late 1560s
(Prouty p. 45). Gascoigne's family was a substantial presence in
Bedfordshire; his father was an MP and his lands carried duties to
perform as an almoner at coronations, so there may have been some
crossover in their social or even courtly connections. And of course
Bedford was a substantial literary patron of moral works, so it was very
much in Gascoigne's interest to establish a good relationship with him.

In my book I argue that the Droomme was written (or rather translated)
in response to a remark made by the Earl of Bedford, as a form of
penance for Gascoigne's past flippancy, just as Gascoigne says. (I
should admit that George Pigman has objected in correspondence that I
can't be sure that Gascoigne is referring to Bedford, and he is quite
right, but there's no other candidate who would make sense in the
context.) In his dedicatory epistle, Gascoigne adopts his Reformed
Prodigal persona and talks of his plan for the present work as:

" ... some seryous travayle which might both perticulerly beare witnesse
of my reformation, and generally become profitable unto others.
Whereunto I was (now almost twelve moneths past) pricked and much moved,
by the grave and discreete wordes of one right worshipfull and mine
approved friend, who (in my presence) hearing my thriftlesse booke of
Poesyes undeservedly commended, dyd say: That he lyked the smell of
those Poesyes pretely well, but he would lyke the Gardyner much better
if he would employ his spade in no worse ground, then eyther Devinitie
or morall Philosophie." (Cunliffe, ii, 211-212)

This isn't evidence of a thoroughgoing personal reformation, by the way!
According to the model of Gascoigne's career expounded by his
biographer, C.T.Prouty, Gascoigne wrote only moralistic work after a
huge personal crisis and moral reformation in 1575, but it doesn't hold
together when you look at the chronology of his work. (I have the
greatest respect for Prouty's biography but I'm not persuaded by this
argument.) Much of Gascoigne's work was done simultaneously: for
example, the Droomme was published just two weeks after the Steele
Glas/Complaynte of Phylomene, so he must have been working on it for
some time previously. And there couldn't be a more courtly and playful
work than the Griefe of Joye, Gascoigne's last known work.

The idea of early and late Gascoigne is also misleading, caused by the
extreme brevity of his publishing career, which was only three years.
His first book, A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, was published in 1572/3 and
his last, The Spoyle of Antwerpe, in 1576. (The Griefe of Joye was a
manuscript, dated 1 January 1577.) So that also distorts our sense of
what he was doing. The model I propose for his career is that Gascoigne
deliberately cultivated two distinct portfolios of work: the moralistic
works like the Droomme which he published under his own name, using the
Reformed Prodigal persona, as a way of overcoming his poor personal
reputation and gaining patronage; and the courtly, experimental work he
developed in performance, manuscript or anonymous publication (to
preserve the integrity of the Reformed Prodigal persona). Often the two
strands were being developed alongside each other.

If I'm right in thinking Gascoigne first thought of preparing something
like this for Bedford a year previously, then he could have been working
on it intermittently from the Spring of 1575. That means he would have
set it aside when more courtly opportunities - like the commissions for
the Noble Arte of Venerie and the entertainments at Kenilworth - came
up, as we know he did with the Complaynte of Phylomene.

Although the Droomme seems heavyweight to modern students, it was pretty
much a fairly typical schoolboy exercise in Latin translation to
Gascoigne - admittedly a  very long exercise, but one which he could
easily put aside and pick up according to what other opportunities
arose. But the completed volume would demonstrate his willingness to
conform to a potential patron's taste and preferences.

It would make sense to me, from what I know of Gascoigne, that he must
have a particular reason for appending the letter to the assortment of
tracts which make up the Droomme. And it would be characteristic if
there were a personal connection, something shared between Gascoigne and
Bedford, like an acquaintance. So in looking for the author, I'd see if
I could find someone - quite possibly a clergyman or theologian - who
had links with Bedford himself and with Gascoigne. There may be
something in the Gray's Inn connection, so I'd certainly start by
looking at at Gray's Inn men in the mid-1550s - and as I suggested
before, eminent Bedfordshire families, like the Dyves and Gascoignes.

Gascoigne didn't habitually dissimulate, by the way; the current focus
on A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres, with its complex extended fiction of
unwilling and anonymous publication, does give that impression, and as
you say he adopted false sets of initials in that volume to try to cover
his identity. But when he revised and republished it in 1575 he seems to
have hit upon an alternative strategy, of adopting a range of poetic and
authorial personae in order to position himself and to manoeuvre within
the system of patronage. He pretty much kept to that for the rest of his
  short but prolific career.

I hope this is helpful, and that you'll let me know what you discover;
by all means contact me off-list too.

Best wishes
Gillian


Julia Staykova wrote:
 > I thank everyone for their helpful comments!
 >
 > Gillian, yes, my (unenlightened) hunch is also that Gascoigne's
predilection
 > for masquerading under different initials may not be the responsible for
 > these initials. I also suspect that the 1586 edition gives the wrong
 > initials. The original 1576 ed. has a table of errata, and the initials
 > aren't in it.
 >
 > What bothers me: the letter is a very apt summary of a traditional
genre of
 > meditations on death; it demonstrates a comfortable familiarity with the
 > whole tradition, rather than just Innocent III's tract translated by
 > Gascoigne. In fact, it captures the spirit of the meditative
tradition much
 > more energetically than does Innocent's bulky tract. Either G was a
lot more
 > into this material than is apparent from his other literary
shenanigans to a
 > non-Gascoigne reader like myself, or the author is a person who had more
 > involvement with this type of material. Most meditations on death were
 > produced by theologians rather than devout laity, and G doesn't even
strike
 > me as the latter type of person.
 >
 > Julia
 >
 >
 >
 > On 8 March 2010 15:21, Gillian Austen <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
 >
 >
 >>As has been observed, Gascoigne did at times compose letters and pass
them
 >>off as being by someone else (usually a printer, though). However,
I've had
 >>another look at this one and it just doesn't read like that to me.
The first
 >>couple of sentences have very slight echoes of "Certayne Notes of
 >>Instruction", so it may be worth considering the possibility that he
wrote
 >>them as a short preamble. But the rest just isn't literary enough; it is
 >>formally structured but it does not use any of Gascoigne's familiar
 >>rhetorical techniques, or even his vocabulary.
 >>
 >>It may be worth mentioning that he isn't always as disingenuous as his
 >>reputation suggests. Without more time to think about this, I see no
reason
 >>to think that it isn't a translation of a "private letter", as it's
 >>described in the contents, or an "olde letter", as Gascoigne
describes it. I
 >>think its author is much more likely to be linked with the Earl of
Bedford's
 >>circle than with Leicester's: Gascoigne was clearly looking to past
contacts
 >>and patrons at this time, publishing the Droomme for Bedford, the Steele
 >>Glas for Lord Grey of Wilton, and the Delicate Diet for Lewis Dyve,
head of
 >>another eminent Bedfordshire family. So I'd look in Bedfordshire
 >>(Gascoigne's own county) first.
 >>
 >>Regarding the initials, the 1586 edition is so badly set that I wouldn't
 >>set much store by the initials "I.P." as they are probably a misprint for
 >>"I.B.". (In the old STC there's a wonderful comment about it having
been set
 >>by a "mad, under-notice-to-quit, drunk and diseased apprentice" -
excuse my
 >>paraphrase.) So unless there is some other basis for the attribution that
 >>would put John Phillips out of the picture, as Prof Greg did.
 >>
 >>I'll forward Julia's question to the Gascoigne discussion list and see if
 >>anyone has any other ideas. It's an intriguing question!
 >>
 >>Gillian
 >>
 >>
 >>Julia Staykova wrote:
 >>
 >>
 >>>Dear List,
 >>>I am trying to identify the author of a letter appended to Gascoigne's
 >>>translation of Innocent III's treatise, The droomme of Doomes day
(1576).
 >>>The letter is entitled "A letter wrytten by I. B. vnto his famyliar
frende
 >>>G. P. teaching remedies against the bytternesse of Death." Gascoigne
 >>>describes it as "an olde letter" in his dedication:
 >>>I haue thought good to adde an olde letter which teacheth *Remedies
 >>>against
 >>>the bitternes of Death.* Being perticulerly and yet (in myne opinion)
 >>>eloquently and well wrytten by the originall aucthour.The printer simply
 >>>identifies it as "a private letter" in the table of contents. I am not a
 >>>Gascoigne scholar; any clues as to who are JB and GP? Was the letter in
 >>>Gascoigne's private possession? Or was it in wider circulation?Julia
 >>>
 >>>
 >>>
 >>>