GOSSON, STEPHEN English satirist, was baptized at St. George's, Canterbury, on April 17, 15J4. He en tered Corpus Christi college, Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 he went to London. In 1598 Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia mentions him with Sidney, Spenser, Abraham Fraunce and others among the "best for pastorali," but no pastor als of his are extant. He is said to have been an actor, and by his own confession he wrote plays, for he speaks of Catiline's Con spiracies as a "Pig of mine own Sowe." To this play and some others, on account of their moral intention, he extends indulgence in the general condemnation of stage plays contained in his Schoole of Abuse, containing a pleasaunt invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters and such like Caterpillers of a Common welth 0579). Gosson justified his attack by consideration of the disorder which the love of melodrama and of vulgar comedy was introducing into the social life of London. The tract was dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, and Spenser, writing to Gabriel Harvey (Oct. 16, 15 79) of the dedication, says the author was for hys labor scorned." He dedicated, however, a second tract, The Ephemerides of Phialo . . . and A Short Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse, to Sidney on Oct. 28, Gosson's abuse of poets seems to have had a large share in inducing Sidney to write his Apologie for Poetrie, which probably dates from 1581. The publication of Gosson's polemic provoked many retorts, the most formidable of which was Thomas Lodge's Defence of Playes (158o). The players themselves retaliated by reviving Gosson's own plays. Gosson replied to his various opponents in 1582 by his Playes Confuted in Five Actions, dedicated to Sir Francis Walsing ham. Meanwhile he had taken orders, was made lecturer of the parish church at Stepney (1585), and was presented by the queen to the rectory of Great Wigborough, Essex, which he exchanged in i600 for St. Botolph's, Bishopgate. He died on Feb. 13, 1624. Pleasaunt Quippes for Upstart New-Jangled Gentlewomen ) a coarse satiric poem, is also ascribed to Gosson.