"DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS LOVE "From Tufcane came my lady's worthy race; The commentary on this is: her father was Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth earl of Kildare; her mother was Margaret, daughter of Thomas Gray, Marquis of Dorset, and was of royal connection. The Geralds were faid to have defcended from the Geraldi of Florence, and came to England in the reign of Alfred the Great. The other part of the fonnet is equally borne out by fact; and is fufficiently explicit in itself. Henry the Eighth's reign was not a particularly pleasant one for the nobility. This clafs of the community was watched with an unceafing vigilance of jealousy, which made their course a very precarious one. This day at the height of royal favour ; to-morrow condemned to the block for treason. A word, a look, a gesture, was enough to excite fus D picion; and to be suspected was to be destroyed. The Howards were no exception to this capricious feature in the king's character. From their house he felected a wife, the fair Catherine Howard, who perhaps deservedly met the doom, which, deservedly or not, was the ordinary fate of Henry's wives. Curiously enough, the beheading of Catherine did not alienate Henry from the Howards, nor the Howards from Henry. In fome two months from that event, Surrey was made a Knight of the Garter, and that at the early age of twenty-five; and both he and his father were employed in offices of great trust, confidence, and responsibility. Surrey had in 1540, the year of the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves, been commiffioned with Lord Ruffell and the Earl of Southampton, to put the English Pale at Guifnes in a proper state of defence, as a war with France was anticipated. In 1542 he bore a part, under his father's command, in the Scottish war, and was prefent at the burning of Kelfal. His bravery was not the rafhness of fimply blood and phyfical courage; for he was as fkilful as he was brave, and was most proficient in military knowledge, the guidance of which he did not neglect. not t but d In 1543 he volunteered in the army fent out under Sir John Wollop, to increase the forces of the Emperor Charles V., who was then at war with France. Landrecy, near Boulogne, was befieged, but Prove enco 1544 his f appo duri whi laid def fud per fto Ca tr W m be th n a not taken, for in November the siege was raised; but during this short time Surrey had fufficiently proved himself a true foldier, and won the warmest encomiums from his commander. In the next year, 1544, the war was refumed under the command of his father, the Duke of Norfolk, and Surrey was appointed marshal; and despite his brilliant conduct during this year's campaign, it was the epoch from which his ruin is to be dated. The English forces laid fiege to Montreuil in order to conceal their defigns on Boulogne; the strategy was completely fuccessful, but Surrey was ruined. The king in person invested Boulogne, and all the provisions, stores, and munitions, found their way to the king's camp; and through the baseft treachery, the Montreuil forces were left without food. Complaint was unavailing. The Earl of Hertford had determined their ruin, and there is every reason for believing that this neglect was intentional, and that the army was facrificed with the intention of making its lofs a caufe for the future facrifice of its coma manders. Want was of course followed by sickness; and those who remember the state of our army at Balaklava, may imagine the condition of Norfolk's forces at Montreuil. During the fiege, our poet performed many acts of fignal bravery; and once nearly loft his life, which was only faved by the heroism of his attendant Clere, who did not fcruple to facrifice himself in order to fave his loving master. Surrey honoured his memory with the following "EPITAPH. "Norfolk fprung-thee; Lambeth holds thee dead; Thine earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will; We scarcely know which to admire most, the fidelity of the attendant which could deferve, or the love of the mafter which could infpire fuch an eulogy. Surrey was now rapidly approaching his fate. He had twice been in prifon for youthful faults, he was now to enter one which he only quitted for the block. In 1542 he was fent to the Fleet for challenging a certain John à Leigh to fight. After a few weeks' durance he was liberated upon entering into his own recognizance of 10,000 marks not to moleft the said John à Leigh in the future. In 1543, like an ancient Marquis of Waterford, he, with Wyatt and Pickering in a drunken freak, rushed about the town, battering the doors and smashing the windows of fundry citizens. He was alfo charged with having eaten flesh in Lent. He pleaded guilty to both indictments; but for the first offence produced a licence; for the second he was again fent to the Fleet. During his incarceration he is faid to have written his first Prison Poem, entitled "A SATIRE AGAINST THE CITIZENS OF LONDON. "London! haft thou accused me Of breach of laws? the root of strife! In most quiet, are next ill rest. This made me with a reckless breast, To wake thy fluggards with my bow: Whose scourge for fin the Scriptures fhew. By fudden flame at hand we know ; Of pebble ftones the foundless rap, That pride might know, from conscience free, How lofty works may her defend; And envy find as he hath fought, |