Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/101

 Cinque Ports.’ When convocation proceeded three days after his death to elect a new beadle, Gayton was denounced by the vice-chancellor, Dr. John Fell, as ‘an ill husband and so improvident that he had but one farthing in his pocket when he died.’

Wood calls Gayton a vain and impertinent author, Hearne calls him vain and trifling. But his chief publication, ‘Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot’ (fol. London, 1654), a gossipy and anecdotal commentary in four books, in both prose and verse, is spiritedly written. It embodies many humorous anecdotes and quotations from the works of little-known contemporaries, besides references of high historical interest to contemporary society and ‘our late stage.’ Shakespeare is thrice mentioned, pp. 21, 95, 130, but Gayton regarded his ‘father, Ben,’ as the greater dramatist (cf. Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 161, x. 301). There is prefatory verse by John Speed, Anthony Hodges, and others. In the headlines of the pages the work is called ‘Festivous Notes.’ An expurgated, corrected, and greatly abbreviated edition in 12mo appeared (with an index) in 1768 as ‘Festivous Notes on the History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote.’ The editor, John Potter, writes of Gayton as ‘a man of sense, a scholar, and a wit.’ But Potter's introduction of original illustrations drawn from contemporary events, without any indication that they were not in Gayton's own work, drew down on him a sharp reprimand in the ‘Critical Review,’ September 1768, p. 203. Potter replied in a new edition in 1771. Gayton's other works are: 1. ‘Chartæ Scriptæ, or a new Game at Cards call'd Play by the Booke,’ printed in 1645; fantastic verse description of a pack of cards. An admiring versifier in a prefatory poem tells Gayton ‘your Pen reviv'd Ben Iohnson from his grave agen.’ 2. ‘Charity Triumphant, or the Virgin Hero. Exhibited 29 Oct. 1655, being the Lord Mayor's Day,’ London, 1655, dedicated to Alderman Dethicke. 3. ‘Hymnus de Febribus,’ 4to, London, 1655, dedicated to William, marquis of Hertford, with commendatory verse by Francis Aston: an account in Latin elegiacs of the symptoms, causes, &c., of fevers. 4. ‘Will. Bagnall's Ghost, or the Merry Devil of Gadmunton in his Perambulation of the Prisons of London,’ London, 1655, in prose and verse. 5. ‘The Art of Longevity, or A Diæteticall Institution,’ London; printed for the author 1659, dedicated to Elizabeth, wife of John Rous of Henham Hall, Suffolk. Sir Robert Stapylton, E. Aldrich, Captain Francis Aston, and others prefix verses. The book is a verse description of the wholesomeness or otherwise of various foods. Chapter xv.—‘Of the flesh of Swine, Deer, Hares, and Bears’—opens with a reference to the ‘Every Man out of his Humour’ of Gayton's ‘father’ Jonson. 6. ‘Wit Revived, or a new excellent way of Divertisement digested into most ingenious Questions and Answers,’ London, 1660, under the pseudonym ‘Asdryasdust Tossoffacan.’ 7. ‘Poem upon Mr. Jacob Bobard's Yewmen of the Guards to the Physic Garden to the tune of the Counter Scuffle,’ Oxford, 1662. 8. ‘Diegerticon ad Britanniam,’ Oxford, 1662. 9. ‘The Religion of a Physician, or Divine Meditations on the Grand and Lesser Festivals,’ London, 1663. 10. ‘The Glorious and Living Cinque Ports of our fortunate Island twice happy in the Person of his Sacred Majestie’ (Oxford, 1666), poems in heroic verse addressed to the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and others engaged in the battle with the Dutch off the Downs, June 1666. 11. ‘Poem written from Oxon. to Mr. Rob. Whitehall at the Wells at Astrop, Oxford, 1666.’ An answer prepared by Whitehall was not printed. Gayton also edited—‘not,’ writes Wood, ‘without some enlargements of his own, which hath made many to suppose that they were … devised’ by him—‘Harry Martens Familiar Letters to his Lady of Delight,’ Oxford, 1663, and is said by Wood to be the author of ‘Walk, Knaves, Walk; a discourse intended to have been spoken at Court. … By Hodge Turberville, chaplain to the late lord Hewson,’ London, 1659. Gayton likewise produced two Oxford broadsides, ‘Epulæ Oxonienses, or a jocular relation of a banquet presented to the best of kings by the best of prelates, in the year 1636, in the Mathematic Library at St. Jo. Bapt. Coll. (song with music in two parts),’ and ‘A Ballad on the Gyants in the Physic Garden in Oxon.,’ Oxford, 1662.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 756–8, iv. 275; Wood's Fasti; Robinson's Reg. Merchant Taylors' School; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. i. 317; Collier's Bibliographical Catalogue; Brit. Mus. Cat.]  GAYWOOD, RICHARD (fl. 1650–1680), engraver, was a pupil of [q. v.], and worked in the style and method of that artist, though without attaining at any time to the same excellence. He was a friend of Francis Barlow [q. v.], and engraved many of his designs. From a letter written by Barlow to John Evelyn, the diarist, dated 22 Dec. 1656 (see, Diary and Correspondence), it appears that the large etching from Titian's ‘Reclining Venus,’ Gaywood's most remarkable work,