Whose perfing looke did represent a minde
With virtue fraught, repofed, voyd of gile.

A hart, where dreade was never fo impreft

To hide the thought that might the truth advance;

In neither fortune loft, nor yet repreft,

To fwell in welth, or yeld unto mifchance *.

The following lines on the fame subject are remarkable.

Divers thy deth do diverfly bemone :
Some that in prefence of thy lively hede

Lurked, whose breftes envy with hate had swolne,

Yeld Cefar's teares upon Pompeius' head*.

There is great dignity and propriety in the following Sonnet on Wyat's PSALMS.

The Macedon, that out of Perfia chased

Darius, of whofe

b

power

all Afia rong,

In the riche arke Dan Homer's rimes he placed,

Who fained geftes of heathen princes fong.
What holy grave, what worthy fepulture,
To Wyat's Pfalmes fhould Chriftians then purchase?
Where he doth paint the lively faith and pure;
The stedfast hope, the fwete returne to grace
Of juft David by perfite penitence.
Where rulers may fee in a mirrour clere
The bitter fruite of falfe concupifcence:
How Jewry bought Uria's deth ful dere..
In princes hartes God's fcourge imprinted depe
Ought them awake out of their finful flepe.

y Piercing.

z Fol. 17.

a Fol. 16.

с

b Cheft.

• Repository.

Fol. 16.

Probably

Probably the last lines may contain an oblique allusion to some of the king's amours.

Some paffages in his Description of the refilesse ftate of a Lover, are pictures of the heart, and touched with delicacy.

I wish for night, more covertly to plaine,
And me withdrawe from every haunted place;
Left by my
chere my chance appeare too plaine.
And in my mynde I mefure, pace by pace,
To seke the place where I myself had lost,
That day, when I was tangled in the lace,
In feming flack that knitteth ever most.

Lo, if I feke, how I do finde my fore!
And if I flee, I carry with me still
The venom'd fhaft, which doth its force restore
By hafte of flight. And I may plaine my fill
Unto myself, unleffe this carefull fong
Print in your hart fome parcel of my tene'.
For I, alas, in filence all too long,

Of mine old hurt yet fele the wound but grene

Surrey's talents, which are commonly fuppofed to have been confined to sentiment and amorous lamentation, were adapted to defcriptive poetry and the representations of rural imagery. A writer only that viewed the beauties of nature with poetic eyes, could have felected the vernal objects which compofe the following exquifite ode 1.

The foote season, that bud and blome forth brings,
With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale ;
The nightingale with fethers new she fings;
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale:

• Behaviour. Looks.

f Sorrow.

Fol. 2.

* Fol. z.

Somer

1

Somer is come, for every fpray now fprings.
The hart hath hong his old hed on the pale:
The buck in brake his winter coate he flings:
The fishes flete with new repayred scale;
The adder all her flough away the flings:
The swift fwalow pursueth the flies fmale:
The bufy bee her hony now she mings.
Winter is worne that was the flowers bale'.

I do not recollect a more faithful and finished version of Martial's HAPPY LIFE than the following.

MARTIAL, the thinges that doe attain
The happy life, be these I finde.
The richeffe left, not got with pain,
The fruitfull grounde, the quiet minde.
The equall frend, no grudge, no strife,
No charge of rule, nor governaunce;
Without disease, the healthful life:
The houshold of continuance.
The diet meane, no delicate fare,
Trewe wisdom joynde with simpleneffe:
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppresse.
The faithful wife without debate,
Such flepes as may begile the night:
Contented with thine owne estate,

Ne wish for death, ne feare his might'.

But Surrey was not merely the poet of idlenefs and gallantry. He was fitted both from nature and study, for the more folid and laborious parts of literature. He tranflated the fecond and fourth books of Virgil into blank verfe" and it seems probable, that

• Deftruction. Moderate.

1 Fol. 16.

■ They were first printed in 1557. 12mo.

his active fituations of life prevented him from completing a design of translating the whole Eneid.

This is the first compofition in blank verfe, extant in the English language. Nor has it merely the relative and accidental merit of being a curiofity. It is executed with great fidelity, yet not with a profaic fervility. The diction is often poetical, and the versification varied with proper pauses. This is the description of Dido and Eneas going to the field, in the fourth book. At the threshold of her chaumber-dore,

The Carthage lords did on the Quene attend:
The trampling fteed, with gold and purple trapt,
Chawing the foming bit ther fercely ftood.
Then iffued fhe, awayted with great train,
Clad in a cloke of Tyre embrawderd riche.
Her quyver hung behinde her backe, her treffe
Knotted in gold, her purple vesture eke
Buttned with gold. The Trojans of her train
Before her go, with gladfom Iulus.

Aeneas eke, the goodlieft of the route,

Makes one of them, and joyneth close the throng.
Lyke when Apollo leaveth Lycia,

His wintring place, and Xanthus' flood likewife,
To vifit Delos, his mother's manfion,

Repairing eft and furnishing her quire:
The Candians, and the folke of Driopes,

With painted Agathyrfies, fhoute and crye,
Environing the altars round about;

When that he walkes upon mount Cynthus' top,
His sparkled treffe repreft with garlandes softe
Of tender leaves, and truffed up in golde :
His quivering" dartes clattering behind his back.
So fresh and luftie did Aeneas feme.-

But to the hils and wilde holtes when they came,
From the rockes top the driven favage rose.

Perhaps the true reading is, inftead of quivering, " quiver and darts.”

Loe

Loe from the hills above, on thother fide,

Through the wide lawns they gan to take their course.
The harts likewise, in troupes taking their flight,
Rayfing the duft, the mountain-faft forfake.

The childe Iulus, blithe of his swift steede P

Amids the plaine, now pricks by them, now these;
And to encounter, wifheth oft in minde,

The foming bore, in fteede of fearfull beafts,

Or lion brown, might from the hill defcend.

The first stages of Dido's paffion, with its effects on the rifing city, are thus rendered.

And when they al were gone,

And the dimme moone doth eft withold her light;
And sliding starres provoked unto slepe:
Alone the mournes within her palace voide,
And fits her downe on her forfaken bed:
And absent him the heares, when he is gone,
And feeth eke. Oft in her lappe she holdes
Afcanius, trapped by his father's forme.
So to begile the love cannot be told!
The turrettes now arife not, erft begonne :
Neither the youth welde armes, nor they avance
The portes, nor other mete defence for warr.
Broken there hang the workes, and mighty frames

Of walles high raised, thretening the skie.

The introduction of the wooden horfe into Troy, in the fame book, is thus defcribed.

We cleft the walles, and closures of the towne,
Whereto all helpe: and underset the feet

Falling.

So Milton in Comus, y. 59. -Frolick of his full-grown age.

Which cannot, &c.