"That the little fat priest were a jolly morsel for the Signora." This was their talk; it is not my device.” It may be remarked here, that my Lord of London is treated with very little ceremony throughout the whole of this speech, and must have made, as he assuredly deserved, a very ridiculous figure. The other priest alluded to was Dr. Haynes, the King's chaplain. After Sir Thomas Wyatt's acquittal, the King, to mark his sense of the injustice done him, conferred upon him several valuable grants of land, and offices of trust. But our Poet sought retirement, and the cultivation of his talents upon the banks of the Medway. Soon after this escape he composed many of his best pieces, and among others, his satires addressed to Poynz and Sir Francis Bryan, and his paraphrase of the seven penetentiary psalms, which was considered by him principally as a religious exercise. At this period of his life, Sir Thomas Wyatt seems to have had the command of a ship of war, as appears from a passage in a Latin poem by Leland the antiquary.* The sea service at this era was not a distinct branch of the military department of the state, and the command of ships was given indiscriminately to any approved leader. The circumstance, however, may be advanced in proof of the versatility of Wyatt's genius. In the autumn of 1542 Sir Thomas Wyatt was sent by order of the King, to meet the Imperial ambassador who had landed at Falmouth, for the purpose of con Hæc Pinus volucris; nova hæc triremis, Cui Præfectus erat meus Viatus; Cultor Nereidum volat celebris, Cultor Pieridum celebris ille, 'ducting him to London. The weather was hot, and Wyatt to shew his zeal in his master's service, rode with too much haste. On his arrival at Sherborne, he was seized with a fever, which in a few days, notwithstanding the care of one of his most intimate friends who resided in the neighbourhood, and who attended him assiduously, terminated his life. He was buried on the 11th of October, in the great church at Sherborne, but no monument has been raised there to his memory. Sir Thomas Wyatt died in the thirty-ninth year of his age. His widow afterwards married Sir Edward Warner. He had issue one Son only, who obtained the honour of knighthood in his father's life-time, and was commonly known by the appellation of Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger. His short and calamitous life forms part of the history of his time. In the general character of Sir Thomas Wyatt, there is much to admire. The Emperor Charles the fifth, a consummate judge, declared him to be the most accomplished gentleman of his time, and a man of the greatest penetration and acuteness in business. His own master, Henry the eighth, also no mean judge of merit, selected him as his favourite companion, delighted in his conversation, and employed his talents. How he was esteemed and mourned by the accomplished Surrey, will be shewn in the progress of this work. He was a Scholar, a Wit, a Poet, an Orator, a Man of the World, a Statesman, a Reformer, a Military and a Naval Commander. That he was attentive, in no common degree, to the retired and domestic duties, his beautiful letters to his son, and the care he took of his nephew's education, amply prove. He lived in the best society, and selected his friends from among the most eminent men of his age. His premature death was universally lamented as a national loss, and few men have enjoyed in a greater degree, the envied distinction of being praised by those whose praise is fame-landari a laudatis. Sir Thomas Wyatt, by the accounts of his contemporaries, was remarkably bandsome in his person. His friend, the Earl of Surrey, describes him to have had “ a visage stern but mild," and "a form where force and beauty met,"-Leland confirms this description in the following lines, "Addidit huic faciem qua non formosior altra Lumina fulgentes radiis imitantia stellis." Holbein, Dr, Nott informs us, has left two portraits of him. From one of these Dr. Nott has given us an engraving, but it is to be feared that the draughtsman has not done justice to the original. The other, a drawing in his Majesty's collection, represents him as a young man with a countenance of great beauty and sweetness of expression. As a poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt must be content to hold an inferior, though a respectable rank. In every thing that constitutes the claim to distinction, he was surpassed by his friend and contemporary, the celebrated Earl of Surrey.-He was deficient in invention, in harmony, and in grace. Few of his pieces are original, and his translations frequently degrade the subjects from which they are taken. In his more elaborate compositions he is less happy than in those of slighter fabric, and like many other artists, his smaller works are his best. Many of his poems are written in the rythmical measure, and cannot be read as verse without a due attention to the peculiarity of their construction. In his choice of words he has frequently selected a bad one where a better was at hand, and his pieces are much deformed by redundancies, and the frequent recurrence of monosyllables. He indulged in the use of the French accentuation, whether his words were of French origin or not, which was excusable in his own time when it was the common practice, but materially injures the effect of his poems at the present day. His metaphors are strained, harsh, and ill-selected. He seldom affords any description of natural scenery, although we are assured he loved the country, and admired the beauties of nature. His conceptions which are frequently beautiful, are too commonly shrouded in language uncongenial and deficient in the qualities of dignity and of grace. These are his defects. His merits are considerable. He is the first English poet, Chaucer not excepted, whose works may be read at the present day without disgust. He is also the first of our poets who attempted a great variety of metre; in this attempt for a beginner he was eminently successful, and has left but little for future inventors. In the various productions of his muse, we may trace a cultivated mind, extreme good sense, and intimate knowledge of the human heart. He is free from pedantry, in a degree unknown to the writers of the Elizabethan age, though his learning is always conspicuous. His poems display strong, correct, and manly feeling.-In many of them there is a striking character of moral dignity, often better imagined than expressed, indicating a well exer cised, profound, and powerful intellect. He was certainly the first English satirist, and it is much to be regretted that he has left so little in that department of literature, what he has accomplished being excellent. He had a talent for description, and if he had cultivated the dramatic muse, would probably have excelled in comedy. He frequently reminds us of Shakespeare, and many of his lighter pieces, composed to be sung to the lute, would not have disgraced the hand of that great master of song. The poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt were first collected and published in 1559. They were afterwards reprinted by Dr. Sewell, in 1717, and were admitted for the first time into a collection of English poetry, by Dr. Anderson, in 1793. Of late they have attracted the notice of a very indefatigable and distinguished editor in Dr. Nott, from whose ample volume published in 1816, the following extracts are taken. The Lover complaineth of the unkindness of his Love. And end that I have now begun; As to be heard where ear is none; My song may pierce her ears as soon: |