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m

In court to ferve, decked with freshe aray,
Of fugred meates feeling the swete repaste ;
The life in bankets, and fundry kindes of play,
Amid the prease of worldly lookes to waste :
Hath with it joinde oft times such bitter taste,
That whofo joyes fuch kind of life to hold,

In prifon joyes, fettred with chaines of gold".

Wyat may justly be deemed the first polished English satirist. I am of opinion, that he mistook his talents when, in compliance with the mode, he became a fonnetteer; and, if we may judge from a few inftances, that he was likely to have treated any other fubject with more fuccefs than that of love. His abilities were feduced and misapplied in fabricating fine speeches to an obdurate mistress. In the following little ode, or rather epigram, on a very different occafion, there is great fimplicity and propriety, together with a strain of poetic allufion. It is on his return from Spain into England.

Tagus farewel, that weftward with thy ftremes
Turnes up the graines of gold al redy tride!
For I with spurre and fayle go seke the Temes",
Gainward the funne that shewes her welthy pride:
And to the town that Brutus fought by dremes,
Like bended moone that leanes her lufty fide;
My king, my countrey I feke, for whom I live:
O mighty Jove, the windes for this me give'!

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Among Wyat's poems is an unfinished tranflation, in Alexandrine verfe, of the Song of Iopas in the first book of Virgil's Eneid". Wyat's and Surrey's verfions from Virgil are the first

m Delicious.

n Fol. 44.

• Pure gold.

The Thames.

A tradition in Geoffrey of Monmouth.

The old city from the river appeared in the shape of a crefcent.

Strong, flourishing, populous, &c. ↑ Fol. 44.

Fol. 49.

regular

regular translations in English of an antient claffic poet: and they are symptoms of the restoration of the study of the Roman writers, and of the revival of elegant literature. A verfion of David's Pfalms by Wyat is highly extolled by lord Surrey and Leland. But Wyat's verfion of the PENITENTIAL PSALMS seems to be a separate work from his tranflation of the whole Pfaltery, and probably that which is praised by Surrey, in an ode above quoted, and entitled, Praise of certain Pfalmes of David, tranflated by Sir T. Wyat the elder". They were printed with this title, in 1549. "Certaine Pfalmes chofen out of the "Pfalmes of David commonly called vij penytentiall Pfalmes, "drawen into Englishe meter by fir Thomas Wyat knyght, "whereunto is added a prolog of the authore before every "Pfalme very pleasant and profettable to the godly reader. "Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyarde at the fygne of "the starre by Thomas Raynald and John Harryngton, cum previlegio ad imprimendum folum, MDXLIX." Leland feems to speak of the larger verfion.

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Tranftulit in noftram Davidis carmina linguam,

Et numeros magna reddidit arte pares.

Non morietur OPUS terfum, SPECTABILE, facrum *.

But this verfion, with that of Surrey mentioned above, is now loft and the pious Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins are the only immortal translators of David's Pfalms.

A fimilarity, or rather fameness of ftudies, as it is a proof, fo perhaps it was the chief cement, of that inviolable friendship which is said to have subsisted between Wyat and Surrey. The principal fubject of their poetry was the fame: and they both treated the paffion of love in the spirit of the Italian poets,

Fol. 16. [See fupr. p. 18.] * NÆN, ut fupr.

See Hollinfh. CHRON. iii. p. 978. col. 2.

VOL. III.

F

and

and as profeffed difciples of Petrarch. They were alike devoted to the melioration of their native tongue, and an attainment of the elegancies of compofition. They were both engaged in tranflating Virgil, and in rendering select portions of Scripture into English metre.

SECT.

T

SECT. XXI.

O the poems of Surrey and Wyat are annexed, as I have before hinted, in Tottell's editions, thofe of uncertain authors. This latter collection forms the first printed poetical miscellany in the English language: although very early manuscript miscellanies of that kind are not uncommon. Many of these pieces are much in the manner of Surrey and Wyat, which was the fashion of the times. They are all anonymous; but probably, fir Francis Bryan, George Boleyn earl of Rochford, and lord Vaulx, all profeffed rhymers and fonnet-writers, were large contributors.

Drayton, in his elegy To his dearly loved friend HENRY REYNOLDS OF POETS AND POESIE, feems to have blended all the feveral collections of which Tottell's volume confifts.

Chaucer he says,

They with the Muses who converfed, were

That princely Surrey, early in the time

Of the eighth Henry, who was then the prime

Of England's noble youth. With him there came
Wyat, with reverence whom we still do name
Amongst our poets: Bryan had a share
With the two former, which accounted are
That time's best Makers, and the authors were
Of those small poems which the title bear
Of Songes and Sonnetts, wherein oft they hit
On many dainty paffages of wit'.

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Sir Francis Bryan was the friend of Wyat, as we have seen ; and served as a commander under Thomas earl of Surrey in an expedition into Brittany, by whom he was knighted for his bravery. Hence he probably became connected with lord Surrey the poet. But Bryan was one of the brilliant ornaments of the court of king Henry the eighth, which at least affected to be polite and from his popular accomplishments as a wit and a poet, he was made a gentleman of the privy-chamber to that monarch, who loved to be entertained by his domestics". Yet he enjoyed much more important appointments in that reign, and in the first year of Edward the fixth; and died chief jufticiary of Ireland, at Waterford, in the year 1548. On the principle of an unbiaffed attachment to the king, he wrote epistles on Henry's divorce, never published; and translated into English from the French, Antonio de Guevara's Spanish Differtation on the life of a courtier, printed at London in the year laft mentioned f. He was nephew to John Bourchier, lord Berners, the translator of Froiffart; who, at his defire, tranflated at Calais from French into English, the GOLDEN BOKE, or Life of Marcus Aurelius, about 1533. Which are Bryan's pieces I cannot ascertain.

George Boleyn, viscount Rochford, was fon of fir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards earl of Wiltshire and Ormond; and at Oxford discovered an early propenfity to polite letters and poetry. He was appointed to feveral dignities and offices by king Henry the eighth, and subscribed the famous declaration fent to Pope Clement the feventh. He was brother to queen Anne Boleyn, with whom he was fufpected of a criminal familiarity. The chief accufation against him seems to have been, that he was feen to whisper with the queen one morning while she was in

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