poems contain; and his biography will attract and delight even more than his works.

But, although in his cafe, the life be of greater attraction than the poems, the poems are reward enough for a careful perufal, and their pofition. and influence in English literature will always command the attention of every student, nor will the general reader find himself a lofer by devoting a few hours to these once famous verfes. Among the very first of our poets to write in easy meafures, and a modern ftyle, his writings contain fcarcely any archaic difficulties; and are much more than could have been anticipated confonant with modern feeling and fentiment. There is a lyrical flow, and a fenfibility to mufical effects, which are furprising; and we read through these fhort pieces with almost as much ease as we should any by Tennyfon. Nor is this all. Although moft of the poems are written under the influence of a real or imaginary paffion for a real or imaginary mistress, they are not monotonous. Only those who have read the poems written in imitation of Petrarch, and in celebration of ideal Lauras, can sympathise properly with this praife. All Surrey's lovepieces can be read with a keen appreciation of the feelings under which they were written; and fo true is he to himself and nature, that he wins your active fympathy, and you echo his "praises," or figh at

his "complaint," while he is finging the triumphs or the failings, the raptures or the pains of love.

One more debt-and this the greatest-we owe to Surrey. And when we confider the priceless treasure of poetry enshrined in blank verse in our language the wonders of the dramatifts with Shakspeare at their head-the epic glories of Milton-the delightful pictures of Cowper-the unrestrained sweep of Thomson's fong-the rich mufic and variety of Tennyfon-when we conjure up these, and the thousand others who have made blank verfe the national metre of our tongue, how great is our debt to the man who first introduced the inftrument on which fo many have fo gloriously played! To Surrey we owe this. His tranflation of the Second and Fourth Books of "Virgil's Æneid," is the firft example of blank verse in English. To us, however, he has one more point of attraction-the one which entitles him to a place here. He was a Prison Poet.

Surrey was among the very nobleft of our noble houses. He was of the race of the Howards, and twice had his race formed royal alliances ere he beheld the light. Many noble and heroic ancestors had he to boast; many noble and heroic fucceffors have followed; and the name of the Howards is dear to England; but their greatest honour and their greatest claim to our admiration and praise is,

the one bright and glorifying fact, that to this stock belonged Surrey the Poet.

It is curious that about such a man any obscurity fhould reft. Yet it is fo. His birth-time and place are unknown. Little, if anything certain, can be ascertained about his youth. Romance and legend had gathered around his career. Impoffible fictions about him and his lady-love Geraldine have been circulated, and long were scrupulously believed. The labours of Dr. Nott and others have scattered all those idle stories to their proper limbo; and a brief narrative will now tell all that is truly known of the Earl of Surrey. About his birth his latest biographer fays, "Neither the date nor place of the poet's birth has been ascertained. The traditions that have come down to us on the fubject are fcanty and uncertain. It appears probable, however, that he was born in or about the year 1517; but whether the event took place at Framlingham, in Suffolk, as most of his biographers affert, Kenninghall, in Norfolk, which place was generally afsociated with his title, or Tending-hall, in Suffolk, where his father ufually lived, cannot be determined." *

Of his education we know little, but that it was most probably received at Cambridge. He could not, however, have gone through a regular course of tuition, as his education, fuch as it was, was

* Annotated Edition of the British Poets. By Robert Bell.

completed before his fifteenth year; for in 1526 he was cup-bearer to the king; in 1532 he, together with his youthful friend the Duke of Richmond, accompanied Henry the Eighth to Boulogne. When the "bluff" monarch married Anne Boleyn, a relative of Surrey's, he was appointed to carry the fourth fword, with the scabbard, upright before the king. He was often at court, and here-but when no one knows, "for it is impoffible to fix the exact date with even a diftant approach to accuracy,' "-he fell in love with his Geraldine. It is on this paffion that legend has been fo bufy, and about which fuch impoffible stories have been told. How he devoted himself, as did the Rinaldos and the Tancreds of the Jerusalem Delivered, to his lady's fervice. How, commanded by her, he travelled through Italy, proclaiming her beauty and virtue, and challenging all men to combat in her behalf. How, at Tuscany, the native place of Geraldine's forefathers, a grand tournament was held under the aufpices of the Duke; and how the gallant Englishman bore his lady's fleeve unsullied of them all. This is fo poetic, and fo in keeping with the nature of Surrey, that one almost wishes it were true; but it is not. Inexorable fact ftands up against it." Fiction, romance, legend, tournament, errant-adventures, challenges to "all the world in arms," must give place to fober truth; and all this bafeless

fabric of a vifion" is difperfed by fo common place a thing as a date. Geraldine was born in 1528. When Surrey was about fifteen or fixteen, in 1532, he was contracted in marriage to Lady Frances Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford; to this lady he was married in 1535; and the year in which he is faid to have been tilting in Florence in honour of his Geraldine, that charming young lady was about feven years old. Except to defend the life of fuch a child, or to have faved her from fome terrible calamity, we cannot conceive, rash and careless of his life as he always was, that Surrey would have exposed himself to the ridicule of imperilling it in fuch a way for fuch a mistress. We hear of him at joufts, but not at Florence, nor to prove the charms of his own lady-love, but in England in celebration of Henry's ill-favoured match with Anne of Cleves. Here, as might have been expected, he acquitted himself as a true champion of the fair fex, whose bright eyes, doubtlefs, rained fweet influence on their champion. There is strong reason for believing that he was never in Italy at all, much less in Italy as a gallant knight-errant and gay troubadour, finging his fair one's graces, and fighting in honour of her name. The lady, however, is not a myth. His own account of her is clear enough, and has been found to be literally true. This is the poet's