With Venus, and Bacchus, all their life long,
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart.
I cannot crouch nor truckle to such a wrong,
To worship them like God on earth alone
That are as wolves these sely lambs among.
I cannot with my words complain and moan,
And suffer nought; nor smart without complaint,
Nor turn the word that from my mouth has gone.
I cannot speak and look like as a saint,
Use wiles for wit and make deceit a pleasure,
Call craft counsel, for lucre still to paint;

I cannot wrest the law to fill the coffer,
With innocent blood to feed myself fat

And do most hurt where that most help I offer.
I am not he that can allow the state

Of high Caesar, and damn Cato to die,
That by his death did scape out of the gate
From Caesar's hands, if Livy doth not lie,
And would not live where Liberty was lost;
So did his heart the common wealth apply.
I am not he, such eloquence to boast
To make the crow in singing as the swan ;
Nor call the lion of coward beasts the most,
That cannot take a mouse as the cat can :
And he that dieth for hunger of the gold,
Call him Alexander, and say that Pan
Passeth Apollo in music manifold,
Praise Sir Topas for a noble tale

And scorn the story that the Knight told;
Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale;

Grin when he laughs, that beareth all the sway;
Frown when he frowns, and groan when he is pale
On other's lust to hang both night and day.
None of these points could ever frame in me;
My wit is nought, I cannot learn the way.

THE EARL OF SURREY.

[HENRY HOWARD was the eldest son of Thomas Earl of Surrey, by his second wife, the Lady Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. The date and place of his birth are alike unknown. It probably occurred in 1517. He became Earl of Surrey on the accession of his father to the dukedom of Norfolk in 1524. The incidents of his early life are buried in obscurity; the incidents of his later life rest on evidence rarely trustworthy and frequently apocryphal. He was beheaded on Tower Hill January 21, 1547, nominally on a charge of high treason, really in consequence of having fallen a victim to a Court intrigue, the particulars of which it is now impossible to unravel. With regard to the chronology of his various poems we have nothing to guide us. Though they were extensively circulated in manuscript during his lifetime, they were not printed till June 1557, when they made their appearance, together with Wyatt's poems and several fugitive pieces by other authors, in Totteľ's Miscellany.]

The works of Surrey, though not so numerous as those of his friend Wyatt, are of a very varied character. They consist of sonnets, of miscellaneous poems in different measures, of lyrics, of elegies, of translations, of Scriptural paraphrases, of two long versions from Virgil. The distinctive feature of Surrey's genius is its ductility; its characteristic qualities are grace, vivacity, pathos, picturesqueness. He had the temperament of a true poet, refinement, sensibility, a keen eye for the beauties of nature, a quick and lively imagination, great natural powers of expression. His tone is pure and lofty, and his whole writings breathe that chivalrous spirit which still lingered among the satellites of the eighth Henry. His diction is chaste and perspicuous, and though it bears all the marks of careful elaboration it has no trace of stiffness or pedantry. His verse is so smooth, and at times so delicately musical, that Warton questioned whether in these qualities at least our versification has advanced since Surrey tuned it for the first time. Without the learning of Wyatt, his literary skill is far greater. His taste is

exquisite. His love poetry, which is distinguished by touches of genuine feeling, is modelled for the most part on the Sonnetti and Ballati of Petrarch, though it has little of Petrarch's frigid puerility and none of his metaphysical extravagance. The Laura of Surrey is the fair Geraldine. We may perhaps suspect the existence of some less shadowy object. As a lyrical poet, when he permits himself to follow his own bent he is easy and graceful. His elegiac verses and his epitaph on Clere have been deservedly praised for their pathos, dignity, and terseness, and his translation from Martial makes us regret that he has not left us more in the same vein. His versions from Virgil we are not inclined to rank so highly as Warton does, but they are interesting as being the first English versions from the poets of antiquity worthy of the name, and as furnishing us with the earliest specimens of that verse which was to become the omnipotent instrument of Shakespeare and Milton. As a sonneteer he follows closely in the footsteps of Petrarch, though he is not, like Wyatt, a servile copyist, and he is entitled to the high praise of being not only the first who introduced the sonnet into our language, but of having made that difficult form of composition the obedient interpreter of a poet's feelings and of a poet's fancies. His most unsuccessful pieces are his Scriptural paraphrases and the poems written in Alexandrines, though one of these, The Complaint of a Dying Lover, is valuable as being, next to Henryson's Robine and Makyne, the first pastoral poem in British literature.

J. CHURTON COLLINS.

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING,

[Wherein each thing renews, save only the lover.]

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make1 hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale;
The busy bee her honey now she mings 2;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

A COMPLAINT BY NIGHT OF THE LOVER NOT BELOVED.

Alas! so all things now do hold their peace!
Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing;

The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease;

The nightës car the stars about doth bring.

Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less :
So am not I, whom love, alas! doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,
In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.

For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring;
But by and by, the cause of my disease

Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting.
When that I think what grief it is again,

To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

1 mate.

VOL I.

2 mingles.

S

[Prisoned in Windsor, he recounteth his pleasure there passed.]

So cruel prison how could betide, alas,

As proud Windsor? where I in lust and joy,
With a King's son, my childish years did pass,
In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy.
Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour,
The large green courts, where we were wont to hove',
With eyes cast up into the maiden's tower,
And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love.
The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue,
The dances short, long tales of great delight;
With words and looks, that tigers could but rue;
When each of us did plead the other's right.
The palme-play 2 where, despoiled for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball, and got sight of our dame,
To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above.
The gravelled ground, with sleeves tied on the helm,
On foaming horse, with swords and friendly hearts;
With cheer, as though one should another whelm,
When we have fought, and chased oft with darts;
With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth,
In active games of nimbleness and strength,
Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth,
Our tender limbs, that yet shot up in length.
The secret groves, which oft we made resound
Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise;
Recording oft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.
The wild forest, the clothed holts with green;
With reins availed, and swift ybreathed horse,
With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between,
When we did chase the fearful hart of force.
The void walls eke, that harboured us each night:
Wherewith, alas! reviveth in my breast

The sweet accord, such sleeps as yet delight;
The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest ;-