make incest, where a jealous or fickle tyrant could make laws at his will! Little is recorded of this nobleman, but two or three embassies to France, his being made governor of Dover and the Cinque Ports, and his subscribing the famous declaration to Clement the seventh. Like earl Rivers, he rose by the exaltation of his sister; like him, was innocently sacrificed on her

exclaimed tenderly, "Oh! where is my sweet brother?" The lieutenant, willing to spare her a new shock, replied, without telling her that the lord Rochford was committed too, “That he left him at York Place." Strype, vol. i. p. 280. The author of English Worthies tells a story which is related too by Fuller, in his Worthies of Wiltshire, p. 146: That on Jane Seymour's first coming to court, queen Anne snatched at a jewel pendent about this Jane's neck, and hurt her own hand with the violence she used.—She was struck with finding it thẹ king's picture. Page 848. [Mr. Andrews remarks, that Anne Boleyn had been bred at the court of France, and had there imbibed a levity of behaviour which, though it probably assisted in alluring the passions of Henry, most certainly af forded her enemies ample materials for her destruction. The natural timidity of her sex threw the unhappy queen into hysteric agonies on hearing the crimes imputed to her, and every exclamation was treasured up by her profligate sister-in-law, to be produced against her. Yet the delicate, the fearful Anne could find magnanimity enough in her last moments to jest with the executioner on the smallness of that neck which he was doomed to divide. But more affecting was the effort of maternal tenderness which caused the dying parent to deny herself the triumph of avowing her heart-felt innocence, lest she might irritate the flinty-hearted Henry against her infant daughter. Hist. of G. B. vol. ii. p. 273.]

account; and, like him, showed that the lustre of his situation did not make him neglect to add accomplishments of his own.

Antony Wood says he was much adored at court, especially by the female sex, for his admirable discourse and symmetry of body; which one may well believe: the king and the lady Rochford would scarce have suspected the queen of incest, unless her brother had had uncommon allurements in his person.-Wood ascribes to him

"Several Poems, Songs, and Sonnets, with other things of the like nature."

Bale calls them "Rythmos elegantissimos," lib. i. But none of his works are come down to us, unless any of the anonymous pieces, published along with the earl of Surrey's poems, be of his composition.

[Wood, probably, had his information from Holinshed, who says "George Bulleyn, lord Rocheforde, wrote dyvers songs and sonettes 4." By the Harington manuscripts, however, from which the Nuga Antiquæ were compiled, one piece of lord Rocheford's is identified; and is extolled for its simplicity, harmony,

4 Vol. ii. p. 1613, edit. 1577.

and elegance, by lord Orford, who proceeds to show that with some little alteration it might pass for the production of a more refined age 5.

Those readers who are disposed to agree in the noble critic's eulogy, will certainly be unwilling to see the original beauties which excited that applause, refined away. Instead, therefore, of his lordship's modern parody, the poem is here presented in the antiquated garb of the early printed copy in Tottell's collection" of "Songes and Sonnettes," dated 1557, compared with the copy which was extracted from the Harington manuscript, dated 15648,

THE LOVER COMPLAINETH THE UNKINDNES OF

HIS LOVE.

My lute awake, performe the last
Labour that thou and I shal wast;

And end that I have now begonne :
And when this. song is sung and past,
My lute be stil, for I have done.

• Works, vol. i. p. 528.

A parody, or modernization, of superior merit to lord Orford's, was printed with the rev. Mr. Ball's Odes and Elegies, &c. Dublin, 1772.

? To this collection Richard Smith seems to allude in his commendatory verses before Gascoigne's Poems, 1575: "Sweet Surrey suckt Pernassus' springs, And Wiat wrote of wondrous things; And Rochfort clambe the statelie throne Which muses hold in Helicone."

• Vid. Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. ii. p. 400.

As to be heard where eare is none,
As lead to grave in marble stone,

My song may pearse her heart as sone: Should we then sigh, or singe, or mone? No, no, my lute, for I have done.

The rockes do not so cruelly
Repulse the waves continually,

As she my sute and affection;
So that I am past remedy,

Whereby my lute and I have done.

Vengeaunce shall fall on thy disdaine That makest but game on earnest payne : Think not alone under the sunne, Unquit to cause thy lovers plain, Although my lute and I have done.

May chance thee lie withered and olde In winter nightes that are so colde,

Playning in vaine unto the moone; Thy wishes then dare not be tolde,

Care then who list, for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent
The time that thou hast lost and spent,

To cause thy lovers sigh and swowne; Then shalt thou know beautie but lent,

And wish and want, as I have done.

Now cease my lute: this is the last
Labour that thou and I shall wast,

And ended is that we begonne;-
Now is this song both song and past;
My lute be still, for I have done.

"Perchaunce they, &c. Harington MS

An original letter from lord Rocheford to Henry VIII. is here added from Cotton MS. Vesp. F. xiii.

It seems that his lordship had to convoy the French admiral from the coast to the court, which ceremonial he appears to have adjusted with Asiatic solemnity, as he only admitted him to travel a single stage a day.

"It may please your highnes to be advertised, that the admiral of Fraunce hath remaynyd here syns Thursday at nyght, and as yet hys hole train both of horses, mulettes, and men, be not come hyther nor unshyppyd. But by to-morow I doubt not but all hys hole train shalbe here assemblyd together: and upon Munday, I wyll bryng hym to Sytyngbourne, there to remayn that nyght, for that yt would be to sore a journey to bryng hys carriage to Rochester in a daye. On Tuesday from thence to Rochester. On : Wensday to Dartford; and on Thursday, by xij of the clocke at none, to Blacke-heth; where as my lord of Norffolk ys appointyd by your grace to mete hym.

"I would not have had hym remayn so long in this towne, but that hym self was very desyrous so to doo, because that he would comme with hys trayne hole together, which I thought I myght not for your graces honnor gain saye. And thus, besechyng God to have your hyghnes in hys kepyng, I make an ende.

"From Cantorbery, this Saterday xiiijth day of Novembre.

"Your gracys most humble and obedient

"Subject and sarvant,

"GEORGE ROCHEFORD."]