veyance cleanly, their termes proper, their meetre sweete and well-proportioned, in all imitating very naturally and studiously their maister Francis PetrarchaP." I forbear to recite the testimonies of Leland, Sydney, Turberville, Churchyard, and Drayton*. Nor have these pieces, although scarcely known at present, been without the panegyric of more recent times. Surrey is praised by Waller and Fenton; and he seems to have been a favourite with Pope. Pope, in WINDSOR-FOREST, having compared his patron lord Granville with Surrey, he was immediately reprinted, but without attracting many readers 9. It was vainly imagined, that all the world would eagerly wish to purchase the works of a neglected antient English poet, whom Pope had called the GRANVILLE of a former age. So rapid are the revolutions of our language, and such the uncertainty of literary fame, that Philips, Milton's nephew, who wrote about the year 1674, has remarked, that in his time Surrey's poetry was antiquated and totally forgotten'.

Our author's SONGES AND SONNETTES, as they have been stiled, were first collected and printed at London by Tottell, in 1557%. As it happens in collections of this kind, they are of various merit. Surrey is said, by the ingenious author [editor] of the MUSES LIBRARY, to have been the first who broke through the fashion of stanzas, and wrote in the heroic couplet. But all Surrey's poems are in the alternate rhyme; nor, had this been true, is the other position to be granted. Chaucer's Prologues and most of the Canterbury Tales are written in long verse: nor was the use of the couplet resumed, till late in the reign of Elisabeth+.

Others, in 1574.-1585.-1587.-Others appeared afterwards.

[Dr. Nott has ascertained that there were two editions in 1557. Others not included by Mr. Warton appeared in 1567 and 1569. The reprint by Meares, published with Sewell's biography of Surrey, is one of the most slovenly and defective books that has appeared.-PARK.]

[A passing tribute both to Chaucer and Surrey may here be noticed from a very rare miscellany published in 1578, and entitled "A Gorgeous Gallery of gallant Inventions."

If CHAUCER yet did lyve
Whose English tongue did
passe
Who sucked dry Parnassus spring
And dranke the juice there was:
If Surrey had not scalde
The height of Jove his throne

Unto whose head a pillow softe
Became Mount Helicon;

They with their Muses could
Not have pronounct the fame

Of D. faire dame, &c.-PARK.]

In the sonnets of Surrey, we are surprised to find nothing of that metaphysical cast which marks the Italian poets, his supposed masters, especially Petrarch. Surrey's sentiments are for the most part natural and unaffected; arising from his own feelings, and dictated by the present circumstances*. His poetry is alike unembarrassed by learned allusions, or elaborate conceits. If our author copies Petrarch, it is Petrarch's better manner: when he descends from his Platonic abstractions, his refinements of passion, his exaggerated compliments, and his play upon opposite sentiments, into a track of tenderness, simplicity, and Petrarch would have been a better poet had he been a worse scholar. Our author's mind was not too much overlaid by learning. The following is the poem above mentioned, in which he laments his imprisonment in Windsor Castle. But it is rather an elegy than a

nature.

sonnet.

So cruell prison, how could betyde, alas,

As proude Windsort! where I, in lust and joy",

W

Wyth a kynges sonne my childyshe years did passe,

In greater feastes than Priam's sonnes of Troye.

Where eche swete place returnes a taste full sower:
The large grene courtes where we were wont to hove*,
Wyth eyes cast up into the mayden's tower,
And easy sighes, such as folke drawe in love:

[Dr. Henry observes that English poetry, till refined by Surrey, degenerated into metrical chronicles or tasteless allegories. Hist. of Eng. xii. 292. Dr. Anderson deems his love verses equal to the best in our language; while in harmony of numbers, perspicuity of expression, and facility of phraseology, they approach so near the productions of the present age, as hardly to be believed they could have been produced in the reign of Henry VIII. Brit. Poets, i. 593.-PARK.]

How could the stately castle of Windsor become so miserable a prison ?-[Rather : what prison could be so miserable as the stately castle of Windsor, &c.-PRICE.]

In unrestrained gaiety and pleasure. "With the young duke of Richmond.

To hover, to loiter in expectation. So Chaucer, Troil. and Cress. B. 5. ver. 33. But at the yate there she should outride With certain folk he hovid her t'abide.

Y Swift's joke about the Maids of honour being lodged at Windsor in the round tower, in queen Anne's time, is too well known and too indelicate to be repeated here. But in the present instance, Surrey speaks loosely and poetically in making

the MAIDEN-TOWER, the true reading, the residence of the women. The maidentower was common in other castles, and means the principal tower, of the greatest strength and defence. MAIDEN is a corruption of the old French Magne, or Mayne, great. Thus Maidenhead (properly Maydenhithe) in Berkshire, signifies the great port or wharf on the river Thames. So also, Mayden-Bradley in Wiltshire is the great Bradley. The old Roman camp near Dorchester in Dorsetshire, a noble work, is called Maiden castle, the capital fortress in those parts. We have Maiden-down in Somersetshire with the same signification. A thousand other instances might be given. Hearne, not attending to this etymology, absurdly supposes, in one of his Prefaces, that a strong bastion in the old walls of the city of Oxford, called the MAIDENTOWER, was a prison for confining the prostitutes of the town. [Mai Dun are two ancient British words signifying a great hill. Thus the Maiden Castle (Edinburgh) is not Castra Puellarum, but a castle upon a high hill. Bradley (though Saxon) is comparatively a modern adjunct. See Baxter's Glossary, 109-163.-RITSON.]

The stately seates, the ladies bright of hewe,
The daunces shorte, long tales of great delight,
With wordes and lookes that tygers could but rewe2;
Where ech of us dyd pleade the others right.

The palme-play, where, dispoyled for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleames of love,
Have myst the ball, and got sight of our dame,
To bayted her eyes whych kept the leads above.

The gravell grounde, wyth sleves tied on the helmeo,
On fomyng horse, with swordes and frendly hartes;
Wyth chere as though one should another whelme',
Where we have fought and chased oft with dartes.-

The secret groves, which ofte we made resounde
Of pleasaunt playnt, and of our ladies prayse,
Recordyng ofte what gracek eche one had found,
What hope of speede', what dreade of long delayes.

The wylde forest, the clothed holtes with grene*,
With raynes avayled, and swift ybreathed horse,
With crye of houndes, and merry blastes betwene
Where we did chase the fearful harte of force.

"Avayle their tayles," to drop or lower.
So also in his December:

By that the welked Phebus gan AVAYLE
His wearie waine.-

And in the Faerie Queene, with the true
spelling, i. 1. 21. Of Nilus:

But when his latter ebbe gins to AVALE.

TO VALE, or avale, the bonnet, was a phrase for lowering the bonnet, or pulling off the hat. The word occurs in Chaucer, Troil. and Cress. iii. 627.

That such a raine from heaven gan AVAILE.
And in the fourth book of his Boethius,
"The light fire ariseth into height, and the
hevie yerthes AVAILEN by their weightes."
pag. 394. col. 2. edit. Urr. From the French
verb AVALER, which is from their adverb
AVAL, downward. See also Hearne's Gloss.
Rob. Br. p. 524. Drayton uses this word,
where perhaps it is not properly under-
stood. Ecl. iv. p. 1404. edit. 1753.

With that, she gan to VALE her head,
Her cheeks were like the roses red,

But not a word she said, &c.
That is, she did not veil, or cover, but
valed, held down her head for shame.

The void vales" eke, that harbourd us ech nyght,
Wherewith, alas, reviveth in my brest
The sweete accord! Such slepes as yet delyght;
The pleasant dreames, the quiet bed of rest.

The secret thoughtes imparted with such trust;
The wanton talke, the dyvers change of playe;
The friendship sworne, eche promise kept so just,
Wherewith we past the winter nightes away.

And wyth this thought the bloud forsakes the face;
The teares beraine my chekes of deadly hewe,
The whych as soone as sobbyng sighes, alas,
Upsupped have, thus I my plaint renewe!

*

"O place of blisse, renewer of my woes!

Give me accompt, where is my noble fere°,

Whom in thy walles thou doest eche night enclose,
To other leefe, but unto me most dere!"

Eccho, alas, that doth my sorrow rewe1,
Returns therto a hollow sounde of playut.
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grewe,
In pryson pine, with bondage and restraint.
And with remembrance of the greater greefe
To banish th' lesse, I finde my chief releefe.

In the poet's situation, nothing can be more natural and striking than the reflection with which he opens his complaint. There is also much beauty in the abruptness of his exordial exclamation. The superb palace, where he had passed the most pleasing days of his youth with the son of a king, was now converted into a tedious and solitary prison! This unexpected vicissitude of fortune awakens a new and interesting train of thought. The comparison of his past and present circumstances recals their juvenile sports and amusements; which were more to be regretted, as young Richmond was now dead. Having described some of these with great elegance, he recurs to his first idea by a beautiful

n

Probably the true reading is wales or walls. That is, lodgings, apartments, &c. These poems were very corruptly printed by Tottel. [The printed copy reads "wide vales." Dr. Nott has obtained the reading of the text from the Harrington MS., and illustrates it by observing: In Surrey's time, not only in noblemen's houses, but in royal palaces when the court was not resident, it was usual to take down all the tapestry and hangings. But why is vales suffered to stand when the same poem supplies us with the genuine orthography of Surrey?

apostrophe. He appeals to the place of his confinement, once the source of his highest pleasures: "O place of bliss, renewer of my woes! And where is now my noble friend, my companion in these delights, who was once your inhabitant? Echo alone either pities or answers my question, and returns a plaintive hollow sound!" He closes his complaint with an affecting and pathetic sentiment, much in the style of Petrarch: "To banish the miseries of my present distress, I am forced on the wretched expedient of remembering a greater!" This is the consolation of a warm fancy. It is the philosophy of poetry.

Some of the following stanzas, on a lover who presumed to compare his lady with the divine Geraldine, have almost the ease and gallantry of Waller. The leading compliment, which has been used by later writers, is in the spirit of an Italian fiction. It is very ingenious, and handled with a high degree of elegance.

Give place, ye Lovers, here before

That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine:
My Ladie's beauty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare wel sayne,
Than doth the sunne the candle lyght,

Or bryghtest day the darkest nyght.

And therto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the faire :

For what she sayth, ye may it trust,
As it by wryting 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 lyke 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 raging mynde,
Her kingdome only set apart,
There was no losse, by law of kynde,
That could have gone so nere her hart:
And this was chiefely all her payne

She could not make the like agayne.t

The versification of these stanzas is correct, the language polished, and the modulation musical. The following stanza, of another ode will hardly be believed to have been produced in the reign of Henry the Eighth.