Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/269

Gosson case of vesico-vaginal fistula of eleven years' standing. Sir Astley Cooper had previously treated the case unsuccessfully with the ordinary appliances. In 1835 he published a description of an improved tonsil iron, which facilitated the application of ligatures for the removal of enlarged tonsils. Having successfully applied nitric acid for the destruction of nævi for twenty years, he published in 1844 a paper showing the efficacy of that remedy. During the same year he detailed a simple yet effective mode of stopping hæmorrhage from leech-bites. He also reported an important case of the dislocation of the os malæ which occurred in 1824; of this a description likewise appeared in Sir Astley Cooper's ‘Treatise on Dislocations,’ pp. 347–8. He assisted too in introducing two instruments for dividing strictures of the urethra. The first was used at Guy's Hospital as early as 1818. Gosset was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1843; but, though warmly supported by many of the fellows and the whole medical press, he was never admitted to the membership of the council, on account of his not being attached to the staff of a public hospital. Upon his rejection he issued a manly protest to the profession. He died somewhat suddenly at Broad Street Buildings on 21 Oct. 1854, never having recovered from an attack of erysipelas incurred during a post-mortem examination. He was buried in the family vault at All Saints' Church, Edmonton. He had married early, and of a numerous family eight children survived him.

[Gent. Mag. new ser. xlii. 633–5.]  GOSSON, STEPHEN (1554–1624), author, ‘a Kentish man,’ was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 4 April 1572 (Oxford Univ. Reg., Oxford Hist. Soc. iii. 62). He graduated B.A. at the end of 1576. He complains in his ‘Playes Confuted’ that he ‘was pulled from the university before he was ripe, and withered in the country for want of sap.’ He soon, however, made his way to London, where, according to Wood, ‘he was noted for his admirable penning of pastorals.’ Francis Meres, in his ‘Palladis Tamia’ of 1598, ranks Gosson along with Sidney, Chaloner, Spenser, Fraunce, and Barnfield as ‘the best for pastorall’ of his day, but such little verse of Gosson as survives fails to justify the distinction. The theatre attracted him, and, according to his enemy Lodge, he became a player (, Defence of Plays, [1580], ed. 1853, p. 7). He also wrote comedies and tragedies for the London stage, but none of his plays were printed or are now extant. In his ‘Catilines Conspiracies,’ which he describes as ‘a pig of mine own sow,’ he aimed (he says) at showing ‘the reward of traitors in Catiline, and the necessary government of learned men in the person of Cicero’ (School of Abuse, ed. Arber, p. 40). His ‘Comedie of Captaine Mario’ was ‘a cast of Italian devices,’ and ‘Praise at Parting’ ‘a moral’ (Playes Confuted. Address to the Universities). About 1579 his views of the stage underwent a complete change. He perceived, he wrote, ‘such a Gordians knot of disorder in every playhouse … that I thought it better with Alexander to draw ye sword that should knappe it a sunder at one stroke.’ Thus moved, he wrote his ‘Schoole of Abuse,’ an extravagant and prudish attack on poets and players, interspersed with classical quotations, and written in euphuistic style. The dedication was addressed to Philip Sidney, and the book was entered in the ‘Stationers' Register,’ 22 July 1579. On its publication Gosson withdrew to the country, where he ‘continued with a very worshipfull gentleman, and reade to his sonnes in his own house’ (Playes Confuted. To the Reader). But he was quickly involved in a bitter controversy. He was first attacked in October 1579 in ‘Strange Newes out of Affrik.’ All that is now known of this work is to be found in Gosson's reply, entitled ‘The Ephemerides of Phialo … And a Short Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse,’ entered in the ‘Stationers' Register,’ 7 Nov. 1579. Gosson found his most powerful foe in Thomas Lodge, whose ‘Defence of Playes’ seems to have first appeared in 1580. The players likewise revenged themselves by reviving two of Gosson's plays, ‘Captaine Mario’ and ‘Praise at Parting,’ and produced a morality-play, ‘The Play of Playes,’ in which some attempt was made to defend the stage and hold up its ill-wishers to contempt (cf., Dramatic Poetry, ii. 197–8). In 1582 Gosson replied to this dramatic argument, as well as to Lodge's cavils, in ‘Playes Confuted in Fiue Actions,’ dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham. Lodge, in the preface to his ‘Alarum against Vsurers’ (1584), briefly rejoined, and the controversy practically closed. ‘I heare … of one,’ Spenser had written to Gabriel Harvey, 16 Oct. 1579, ‘that writing a certaine Booke called “The Schoole of Abuse,” and dedicating it to Maister Sidney, was for hys labor scorned’ (Three Letters, 1580). Sidney's scorn did not deter Gosson from paying him a like compliment in his ‘Ephemerides,’ and Sidney seems to have been goaded by these unwelcome attentions into