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liberties have been taken with the extracts, except where, in a few instances, obvious incorrectness in the printing or punctuation demanded to be put right.

To his Friend above alluded to, the Writer is under the greatest obligation for the use of books, for procuring him the loan of books, and introducing him to various sources of original information. His thanks are also due to the Very Rev. the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, for permission to examine a manuscript poem in their library; to the Rev. H. J. Todd for the loan of a scarce poem by the Rev. Thomas Curteis, and other books from his library; to Messrs. Longman and Co. Booksellers, for the loan of scarce and valuable books from their extensive collections; to Miss Duncombe of Canterbury, in an especial manner, for communications respecting Dr. Hawkesworth, the Rev. John Duncombe, Mrs. Duncombe, and Mr. William Jackson; to Mrs. Lukyn, of Canterbury, for the use of some manuscript poems, by Mr. William Jackson; and to Mrs. May of Herne, near Canterbury, for correct copies of some poems written, and published incorrectly, by her late brother Mr. James Six.

To those who, knowing the compiler's professional employments, may be inclined to censure him for supposed neglect of his more serious "calling" for the "idle trade" of authorship, upon a subject which they may deem light and trifling, he might reply, if there were not a tinge of vanity it, in the words of the post,

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he has, however, another quotation at hand, and with that, as it exactly suits his case, he will take his leave.

"Forsitan hoc studium possit furor esse videri:
Sed quiddam furor, hic utilitatis habet;
Semper in obtutu mentem vetat esse malorum,
Præsentis casus immemoremque facit."*

(Ovid. Trist. Lib. IV. Eleg. 1.)

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*Haply my love of verse may fully seem :
All though it be, this recompence I share,--
My mind it lures from many a painful theme,
And sweet oblivion brings of present care.

SIR THOMAS WYATT.

BORN 1503.-Died 1542.

"Then let me fly to Medway's stream,
Where flowing Wyatt used to dream
His moral fancies! Ivied towers,
'Neath which the silver Naiad pours
Her murmuring waves through verdant meads,
Where the rich herd luxuriant feeds;
How often in your still recesses,
I've seen the muse in flowing tresses,
Scatter her flowers as Wyatt bade,
In Spring's enamell'd colours clad!

SIR E. BRYDGES.

SIR THOMAS WYATT, was descended from a respectable family originally settled in Yorkshire. He was the son of Sir Henry Wyatt, being the eldest of three children. His brother Henry Wyatt lived also in Kent, but his family subsequently removed into the County of Essex,-His sister Margaret married Sir Anthony Lee, ancestor to the Earls of Litchfield.

Sir Henry Wyatt, the father of the poet, was a man distinguished in his time by the favour of two sovereigns. He seems to have attached himself to the House of Lancaster, and to have incurred in consequence the displeasure of Richard the third, by whose directions he was confined a prisoner in the Tower. There is a story connected with his confinement, which absurd as it certainly is, has attained with a late biographer some degree of credit,-We are told by the inscription on his Monument, "That he was imprisoned and tortured in the

Tower, in the reign of Richard the Third, and kept in that dungeon, when he was fed and preserved by a cat." The tradition illustrative of this record is, that the cat brought him every day a pigeon from a neighbouring dove-house. The untameable disposition, and total want of personal attachment, which are the well known characters of the domestic cat, are sufficient to confute this legend.

Sir Henry Wyatt was the first of his name who settled in Kent. About the year 1493, he purchased the castle and estate of Allington, near Maidstone, upon the banks of the Medway. Here he fixed his family, and his descendants as long as they retained it, made this pleasant seat the chief place of their residence.*

*Allington Castle seems to have been fortified so early as the time of Edward the first, when it belonged to Sir Stephen de Penchester. It was afterwards part of the ample possessions of the Cobhams. It reverted to the Crown upon the attainder of Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger, in 1554, and was given by Queen Elizabeth to the Astley family.-By this family the Castle was suffered to go to decay, and the park broken up and cultivated. The present ruins are extensive, but exhibit but little remains of a place of strength-the moat still exists, and an ancient gateway, built by one of the Cobhams, as well as one of the round towers, which is very large. "The Castle," says Dr. Nott," though partly in ruins, still serves as a residence to a farmer and three or four labourers. The situation is singularly pretty-it stands in an angle of a sweetly verdant meadow surrounded on three sides by the Medway. The opposite bank is abrupt, and clothed with hanging woods. The grounds behind the Castle form a gentle declivity, varied with groves of wood, and hop-grounds intermixed. The country dame who shews the Castle to strangers, takes them to one of the towers, and tells them it is the identical place where the old Sir Henry was imprisoned; and then points to an adjoining dove-house, whence the faithful cat, she assures them, regularly took the pigeon every day to support her master with." The ruins and estate form part of the possessions of the present Earl of Romney.

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