of his owne quarrell, shalbe with owt respecte alwayes reddie to be employed in his service; trustinge ons 2 so to redouble this error, which may be well repeted but not revoked: desyeringe your good lordshipps, that lyke as my offence hathe not byne, my submyssion may lyke wyse appere, which is all the recompence; that I may well thynke my doings aunswere not your grave heads, shulde ye consyder that nether am I the fyrst younge man that governed by furie hathe enterprysed suche thyngs as he hathe afterwarde repented; nether am I so wede to my owne wyll, that I had rather with favorable surmyses obstynatly to stande to the defence of my follye, then umbly to confesse the same, infected wythe anye suche spote as He knowethe to whom ther is nothynge unknowne, whoe preserve you to his pleasure. Amen."

As bishop Percy's edition of the Sonnets of lord Surrey is likely very soon to be in the hands of poetical readers, a single specimen of his lordship's versification may suffice; in which the measure is correct, the language polished, and the modulation musical3.

A PRAISE OF HIS LOVE,

WHEREIN HE REPROVETH THEM THAT COMPARE THEIR LADYES WITH HIS.

Give place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine :

My ladie's bewty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare wel saine,

Than doth the sunne the candle light,

Or brightest day the darkest night:

And therto hath a troth as just

As had Penelope the faire ;
For what she sayth, ye may it trust,

As it by writing sealed were:

And vertues hath she

many moe Than I with pen have skill to showe.

I could reherse, if that I would,

The whole effect of Nature's plaint, When she had lost the perfite mould,

The like to whom she could not paint. With wringyng handes how she did cry! And what she said, I know it, I.

I knowe she swore with ragyng minde,
Her kingdom only set apart,

There was no losse by lawe of kinde

That could have gone so neare her hart:

And this was chefely all her paine,
She could not make the like againe.

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise

To be the cheifest worke she wrought; In faith, me thinke, some better ways On your behalf might well be sought, Than to compare, as ye have done, To match the candle with the sun.

EDMUND,

LORD SHEFFIELD.

Or this lord little is recorded. He was made a baron' by Edward VI. and had his brains knocked out by a butcher at an insurrection in Norfolk 3, to quell which, he attended the marquis of Northampton. Falling into a ditch near Norwich, and raising his helmet to show the rebels who he was, he was dispatched.

4

To this little, Bale has added (what obliges us to give him a place in this catalogue), that he

wrote

"A Book of Sonnets, in the Italian Manner."

[To lord Orford's brief account of the catastrophe which befell this nobleman, the following poetic illustration cannot fail to be generally acceptable. I have

• [Of Butterwicke in Lincolnshire, 1547. See Beatson's Political Index, vol. i. p. 61.]

3

[A paper of directions from the lords of the council to the earl of Shrewsbury, Aug. 3, 1549, records this event, and says, "the lord Sheffeld, sir John Cleere, and another gentilman named Cornwales, were slayn in a skirmish with the rebells about Norwich." Lodge's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 133.]

4 P. 106.

been permitted to transcribe it from what Mr. Steevens considered as one of the scarcest books in the English language, by favour of its present possessor, Richard Heber, esq.

AN EPYTAPHE OF THE LORDE SHEFFELDES DEATH.

When brutysh broyle, and rage of war,

in clownysh harts began;

When tigres stoute, in tāners bonde

unmusled all they ran;

The noble SHEFFEYLD, lord by byrth,

and of a courage good,

Amyd the

prease of mastye curres

the valyant lorde was slayne.

And after such a sorte, (O ruth!)

that who can teares suppresse?

To thynke that dunghyll dogs shuld dawnt
the floure of worthynes!

Whyle as the ravenyng wolves he prayed

his gylteles lyfe to save,

A bluddy butcher, byg and blunt,

a vyle unweldy knave,

s A second copy occurs in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Vid. Capell's Shaksperiana.

• His horse falling into a ditch, says Dugdale, a butcher slew him with a club. Baronage, tome iii, p. 386.

With beastly blow of boysterous byll

at hym (O Lorde) let dryve,

And clefte his head, and sayd therwith,
"shalt thou be lefte alyve?"-

O Lorde, that I had present ben,
and Hector's force withall,
Before that from his carlysh hands

the cruell byll dyd fall.

Then shulde that peasaunt vyle have felt

the clap upon his crowne,

That shuld have dazed his dogged hart

from dryvyng lordes adowne:

Then shuld my hands have saved thy lyfe,
good lord, whom deare I loved;
Then shuld my hart, in doutfull case,

full well to the ben proved.

But all in vayne thy death I wayle,
thy corps in earth doth lye ;

Thy kyng and countrey for to serve
thou didst not feare to dye.
Farewel, good lord, thy deth bewayle
all suche as well the knewe;
And everye man laments thy case,

And Googe thy death doth rewe?.

Fuller speaks of lord Sheffield's great skill in music, and intimates that he was direct ancestor to the hopeful earl of Mulgrave 3.]

7 Eglogs, Epytaphes, &c. by B. Googe, 1563.

$ Worthies of Lincolnshire, p. 167.