Barnabe Googe is important for his original poetry, for his translations, and for his position as a representative literary figure of his age. Eclogues, Epitaphs, and Sonnets (1563) is the first volume of English personal poetry published in the modern era by a gentleman poet during his lifetime, the eclogues (together with Alexander Barclay's) providing the earliest example of the form in English. The writings for which Googe was most highly praised in his own lifetime, however, and those which doubtless he most valued, were the translations he engaged in for the spiritual and material betterment of his less well educated compatriots. In everything he did he showed himself intensely aware of the duties and responsibilities of his privileged social status.

Googe's parents, Robert Goche (variously spelled Gouche, Gougge, and other ways) and Margaret Mantell, were married at Bekesbourne near Canterbury on 18 June 1539, and Barnabe was born 11 June 1540--Saint...