his moft tender fonnets by a waxen taper. His imagination, which wanted not the flattering reprefentations and artificial incentives of illufion, was heated anew by this interefting and affecting fpectacle. Inflamed with every enthufiafm of the most romantic paffion, he haftened to Florence: and, on his arrival, immediately published a de-. fiance against any person who could handle a lance and was in love, whether Chriftian, Jew, Turk, Saracen, or Canibal, who should prefume to difpute the fuperiority of Geraldine's beauty. As the lady was pretended to be of Tufcan extraction, the pride of the Florentines was flattered on this occafion: and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. permitted a general and unmolefted ingrefs into his dominions of the combatants of all countries, till this important trial fhould be decided. The challenge was accepted, and the Earl victoriou + The fhield which he prefented to the Duke before the tournament began, is exhibited in Vertue's valuable plate of the Arundel family, and was actually in the poffeffion of the late duke of Norfolk ‡. These heroic vanities did not, however, fo totally engrofs the time which Surrey spent in Italy, as to alienate his mind from letters: he ftudied with the greatest fuccefs a critical knowledge of the Italian tongue, and, that he might give new luftre to the name of Geraldine, attained a juft tafte for the peculiar graces of the Italian poetry. He was recalled to England for fome idle reafon by the King, much fooner than he expected: and he returned home, the most elegant traveller, the most polite lover, the most learned nobleman, and the most accomplished gentleman, of his age. Dexterity in tilting, and gracefulness in managing a horfe under arms, were excellencies now viewed with a critical eye, and practifed with a high degree of emulation. In 1540, at a tournament held in the prefence of the Court at Westminster, and in which the principal of the nobility were engaged, Surrey was diftinguished above the reft for his addrefs in the ufe and exercise of arms. But his martial skill was not folely displayed in the parade and oftentation of thefe domeftic combats. In 152, he marched into Scotland, as a chief commander in his father's army; and was confpicuous for his conduct and bravery at the memorable battle of Flodden-field, where James the Fourth of Scotland was killed. The next year, we find the career of his victories impeded by an obstacle which no valour could refift. The cenfures of the church have humiliated the greatest heroes: and he was imprifoned in Windfor-caftle for eating fleth in Lent. The prohibition had been renewed or ftrengthened by a recent proclamation of the King. I mention this circumftance, not only as it marks his character, impatient of any controul, and careless of very ferious confequences which often arife from a contempt of petty formalities, but as it gave occafion to one of his moft fentimental and pathetic fonnets S. In 1544, he was Field-marthal of the English army in the expedition to Bologne, which he took. In that age, love and arms conftantly went together: and it was amid the fatigues of this pro • Drayton, Her. Epift.-Howard to Geraldine, v. 57. + Wood, ubi fupra. Fol. 6, 7. G 2 Walpole, Anecd. Paint. i. 76. tracted tracted campaign, that he composed his last fonnet called the FANSIE of a wearied Lover *. But as Surrey's popularity increafed, his intereft declined with the King; whofe caprices and jealoufies grew more violent with his years and infirmities. The brilliancy of Surrey's character, his celebrity in the military fcience, his general abilities, his wit, learning, and affability, were viewed by Henry with difguft and fufpicion. It was in vain that he poffeffed every advantageous qualification, which could adorn the fcholar, the courtier, and the foldier. In proportion as he was amiable in the eyes of the people, he became formidable to the King. His rifing reputation was mifconftrued into a dangerous ambition, and gave birth to accufations equally groundlefs and frivolous. He was fufpected of a defign to marry the Princefs Mary; and by that alliance, of approaching to a poffibility of wearing the crown. It was infinuated, that he converfed with foreigners, and held a correfpondence with Cardinal Pole. The addition of the efcocheon of Edward the Confeffor to his own, although ufed by the family of Norfolk for many years, and juflified by the authority of the heralds, was a fufficient foundation for an impeachment of high treafon. These motives were privately aggravated by thofe prejudices, with which Henry remembered the milbehaviour of Catharine Howard, and which were extended to all that lady's relations. At length, the Earl of Surrey fell a facrifice to the peevith injuftice of a merciless and ungrateful mafter. Notwithftanding his eloquent and mafculine defence, which, even in the caufe of guilt itself would have proved a powerful perfualive, he was condemned by the prepared fuffrage of a fervile and obfequious jury, and beheaded on Tower-hill in the year 1547 t. In the mean time we should remember, that Surrey's public conduct was not on all occafions quite unexceptionable. In the affair of Bologne he had made á falfe ftep. This had offended the King. But Henry, when once offended, could never forgive. And when Hertford was fent into France to take the command, he could not refrain from dropping fome reproachful expreffions against a measure which feemed to impeach his perfonal courage. Confcious of his high birth and capacity, he was above the little attentions of caution and referve; and he too frequently neglected to confult his own fituation, and the King's temper. It was his misfortune to ferve a monarch, whofe refentments, which were eafily provoked, could only be fatisfied by the moft fevere revenge. Henry brought thofe men to the block, which other monarchs would have only disgraced. Among these anecdotes of Surrey's life, I had almost forgot to mention what became of his amour with the fair Geraldine. We lament to find, that Surrey's devotion to this lady did not end in a wedding, and that all his gallantries and verfes availed fo little! No memoirs of that incurious age have informed us, whether her beauty was equalled by her cruelty; or whether her ambition prevailed fo far over her gratitude, as to tempt her to prefer the folid glories of a Fol. 18. See Dugd. Baronag. ii. p. 275. + See Stowe, Chron. p. 592. Challoner, de Republ. Angl. Inftaurand. lib. ii. p. 45. more by Henry. Le Rev. Aprie Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. 85 more fplendid title and ample fortune, to the challenges and the compliments of fo, magnanimous, fo faithful, and fo eloquent a lover. She appears, however, to have been afterwards the third wife of Edward Clinton, earl of Lincoln. Such alfo is the power of time and accident over amorous vows, that even Surrey himself outlived the violence of his paffion. He married Frances, daughter of John Earl of Oxford, by whom he left feveral children. One of his daughters, Jane Countess of Wellmoreland, was among the learned ladies of that age, and became famous for her knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages *.' The friend and poetical affociate of Surrey was Sir Thomas Wyat the Elder, who though inferior to Surrey as a writer of fonnets, yet, as a moral poet, had confiderable merit. Befides thefe, Sir Francis Bryan, George Boleyn, Earl of Rochford, and Lord Vaulx, were profeffed rhymers and fonnet-writers, and large contributors to the first printed poetical mifcellany in the English language, publifhed by Tottel in the year 1557. Even the favage Henry caught the infection of the times, and compofed fonnets and madrigals. I have been told, fays Mr. Warton, that the late Lord Eglintoun had a genuine book of manufcript fonnets, written by King Henry the Eighth. There is an old madrigal, fet to mufic by William Bird, fuppofed to be written by Henry when he first fell in love with Anne Boleyn †. It begins, The eagles force fubdues eche byrde that flyes, And melt the yce, and make the frofte retyre? It appeared in Bird's Pfalms, Songs, and Sonnets, printed with mufical notes, in 1611. Poetry and mufic are congenial; and it is certain, that Henry was killed in mufical compofition. Erafmus attefts, that he compofed fome church fervices : and one of his anthems ftill continues to be performed in the choir of Chrift-church at Cxford, of his foundation. It is in an admirable ftyle, and is for four voices. Henry, although a scholar, had little taite for the claffical elegancies which now began to be known in England. His education feems to have been altogether theological: and, whether it beft fuited his taste or his intereft, polemical divinity feems to have been his favourite science. He was a patron of learned men, when they humoured his vanities; and were wife enough not to interrupt his pleasures, his convenience, or his ambition." To trace this indefatigable antiquary through all the curious, if not interefting, matter which this volume contains, would får exceed the limits of our defign. To pafs over, therefore, Dugd Baron. i. 533. ii. 275. I must not forget, that a fong is afcribed to Anne Boleyn, but with little probability, called her Complaint. See Hawkins, Hift. Muf. iii. 32. v. 48ɔ. See alfo Nuga Antiquæ, ii. 248. § See Hawkins, Hit. Muf ii. 533. G 3 what what we should otherwife wish to dwell upon, let us proceed to that fection in which are pointed out the effects of the reforma tion on our poetry: The reformation of our church produced an alteration for a time in the general fyftem of study, and changed the character and fubjects of our poetry. Every mind, both learned and unlearned, was bufied in religious fpeculation; and every pen was employed in recommending, illuftrating, and familiarifing the Bible, which was now laid open to the people. The poetical annals of King Edward the Sixth, who removed thofe chains of bigotry which his father Henry had only loofened, are marked with metrical tranflations of various parts of the facred Scripture. Of thefe the chief is the verfification of the Pfalter by Sternhold and Hopkins; a performance, which has acquired an importance, and confequently claims a place in our feries, not fo much from any merit of its own, as from the circumftances with which it is connected. "It is extraordinary, that the Proteftant churches fhould be in-” debted to a country in which the reformation had never begun to make any progrefs, and even to the indulgence of a fociety which remains to this day the grand bulwark of the Catholic theology, for very distinguishing and effential part of their ritual. About the year 1540, Clement Marot, a valet of the bed-chamber to King Francis the First, was the favourite poet of France. This writer, having attained an unusual elegance and facility of style, added many new embellishments to the rude state of the French poetry. It is not the leaft of his praises, that La Fontaine used to call him his master. He was the inventor of the rondeau, and the reftorer of the madrigal: but he became chiefly eminent for his paftorals, ballads, fables, elegies, epigrams, and tranflations from Ovid and Petrarch. At length, being tired of the vanities of profane poetry, or rather privately tinctured with the principles of Lutheranifm, he attempted, with the affiftance of his friend Theodore Beza, and by the encouragement of the Profeffor of Hebrew in the University of Paris, a version of David's Pfalms into French rhymes. This tranflation, which did not aim at any innovation in the public worship, and which received the fanction of the Sorbonne as containing nothing contrary to found doctrine, he dedicated to his mafter, Francis the First, and to the Ladies of France. In the dedication to the Ladies, or les Dames des France, whom he had often before addreffed in the tendereft ftrains of paflion or compliment, he feems anxious to depre. cate the raillery which the new tone of his versification was likely to incur, and is embarraffed how to find an apology for turning faint. Conscious of his apoftacy from the levities of life, in a spirit of religious gallantry, he declares that his defign is to add to the happinefs of his fair readers, by fubftituting divine hymns in the place of chanjons d'amour, to infpire their fufceptible hearts with a paffion in which there is no torment, to banish that fickle and fantastic ceity Cupid from the world, and to fill their apartments with the praises, not of the little god, but of the true Jehovah. E voz doigts fur les efpinettes Pour dire SAINTES CHANSONETTES. He He adds, that the golden age would now be restored, when we fhould fee, the peafant at his plough, the carman in the streets, and the mechanic in his fhop, folacing their toils with pfalms and canticles: and the fhepherd and fhepherdefs repofing in the fhade, and teaching the rocks to echo the name of the Creator. Le Laboureur a fa charruë, Marot's Pfalms foon eclipfed the brilliancy of his madrigals and fonnets. Not fufpecting how prejudicial the predominant rage of pfalm-finging might prove to the ancient religion of Europe, the Catholics themselves adopted thefe facred fongs as ferious ballads, and as a more rational fpecies of domestic merriment. They were the common accompaniments of the fiddle. They were fold fo rapidly, that the printers could not fupply the Public with copies. In the festive and fplendid court of Francis the First, of a fudden nothing was heard but the Pfalms of Clement Marot. By each of the royal family and the principal nobility of the court a pfalm was chofen, and fitted to the ballad tune which each liked best. The Dauphin, Prince Henry, who delighted in hunting, was fond of Ainfi qu'on oit le cerf bruire, or, Like as the bart defireth the water brooks, which he conftantly fung in going out to the chafe. Madame de Valentinois, between whom and the young Prince there was an attachment, took Du fond de ma pensée, or, From the Depth of my heart, O Lord. The Queen's favourite was, Ne vueilles pas, O Sire, that is, O Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation, which the fung to a fashionable jig. Antony King of Navarre fung, Revenge moy, pren le querelle, or, Stand up, O Lord, to revenge my quarrel, to the air of a dance of Poitout. It was on very different principles that pfalmody flourished in the gloomy court of Cromwell. This fashion does not feem in the least to have diminished the gaiety and good humour of the court of Francis. At this period John Calvin, in oppofition to the difcipline and doctrines of Rome, was framing his novel church at Geneva: in which the whole substance and form of divine worship was reduced to praying, preaching, and finging. In the last of these three, he chofe to depart widely from the Catholic ufage: and, either becaufe he thought that novelty was fure to fucceed, that the practice of antiphonal chanting was fuperftitious, or that the people were excluded • Les Oeuvres de Clement Marot de Cahors, valet de chambre du Roy, &c. A Lyon, 1551. 12mo. See ad calc. Traductions, &c. P. 192. † See Bayle's Di&t. V. Marot. G4 from |