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

And when they were al gone,

And the dimme moone doth eft withold the light;
And sliding starres provoked unto sleepe:
Alone she mournes within her palace voide,
And sits her down on her forsaken bed:
And absent him she heares, when he is gone,
And seeth eke. Oft in her lappe she holdes
Ascanius, trapt by his father's forme.

So to begile the love cannot be told!
The turrettes now arise not, erst begonne:
Neither the youth weldes armes, nor they avaunce
The portes, nor other mete defence for warr.
Broken there hang the workes, and mighty frames
Of walles high raised, threatening the skie.

The introduction of the wooden horse into Troy, in the same book, is thus described.

P

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

With sliding rolles, and bound his neck with ropes.

This fatall gin thus overclambe our walles,

Stuft with armd men: about the which there ran

Children and maides, that holy carolles sang.

And well were they whoes hands might touch the cordes!
With thretning chere, thus slided through our town
The subtil tree, to Pallas temple-ward.

O native land, Ilion, and of the goddes

The mansion place! O warlik walles of Troy!

Fowr times it stopt in thentrie of our gate,

Fowr times the harnesse

falling. which cannot, &c. • That is, Boys and girls, pueri innuptæque puellæ. Antiently Child (or Children) was restrained to the young of the male sex. Thus, above, we have, "the Child Iulus," in the original Puer Ascanius. So the Children of the chapel, signifies the Boys of the king's chapel.

clattred in the womb.

And in the royal kitchen, the Children, i. e. the Boys of the Scullery. In the western counties, to this day, Maid simply and distinctly means Girl: as, "I have got a Boy and a Maid."-" My wife is brought to bed of a Maid," &c. &c.

t

arms, armour.

The shade of Hector, in the same book, thus appears.
Ah me! What one? That Hector how unlike,
Which erst returnd, clad with Achilles spoiles !
Or when he threw into the Grekish shippes
The Trojan flame! So was his beard defiled,
His crisped lockes al clustred with his blood:
With all such wounds as many he received,
About the walls of that his native town!
Whome franckly thus, methought, I spake unto,
With bitter teres, and dolefull deadly voice.
"O Troyan light! O only hope of thine!

What lettes so long thee staid? Or from what costes,
Our most desired Hector, doest thou come?
Whom, after slaughter of thy many frends,
And travail of the people, and thy towne,
Alweried, (lord!) how gladly we behold!
What sory chaunce hath staind thy lively face?
Or why see I these woundes, alas so wide!"
He answeard nought, nor in my vain demaundes
Abode: but from the bottom of his brest

Sighing he sayd: "Flee, flee, O goddesse son!
"And save thee from the furie of this flame!"

This was a noble attempt to break the bondage of rhyme. But blank verse was now growing fashionable in the Italian poetry, the school of Surrey. Felice Figlinei, a Sanese*, and Surrey's cotemporary, in his admirable Italian commentary on the ETHICS of Aristotle, entitled FILOSOFIA MORALE SOPRA IL Libri d'ETHICA D'ARISTOTILE, declaims against the barbarity of rhyme, and strongly recommends a total rejection of this Gothic ornament to his countrymen. He enforces his precept by his own example; and translates all Aristotle's quotations from Homer and Euripides into verse without rhyme. Gonsalvo Perez, the learned secretary to Philip of Spain, had also recently translated Homer's Odyssey into Spanish blank-verse.

[Or Sianese; a native of Sienna in Tuscany.-ASHBY.]

How much the excellent Roger Ascham approved of Surrey's disuse of rhyme in this translation from Virgil, appears from the following passage in his SCHOLEMASTER, written about the year 1564". "The noble lord Thomas earle of Surrey, FIRST of all ENGLISHMEN, in translating the fourth [and second] booke of Virgill: and Gonsalvo Perez, that excellent learned man, and secretarie to king Philip of Spayne", in translating the ULYSSES of Homer out of Greeke into Spanish, have both by good judgement avoyded the FAULT OF RYMING.-The spying of this fault now is not the curiositie of English eyes, but even the good judgement also of the best that write in these dayes in Italie. And you, that be able to understand no more than ye find in the Italian tong: and never went further than the schoole of PETRARCH and ARIOSTO abroade, or else of CHAUCER at home, though you have pleasure to wander blindlie still in your foule wronge way, envie not others, that seeke, as wise men have done before them, the FAYREST and RYGHTEST way. -And therefore, even as Virgill and Horace deserve most worthie prayse, that they, spying the unperfitness in Ennius and Plautus, by trewe imitation of Homer and Euripides, brought poetrie to the same perfectnes in Latin as it was in Greeke, even so those, that by the same way would BENEFIT THEIR TONG and country, deserve rather thankes than dispraysex."

The revival of the Greek and Roman poets in Italy, excited all the learned men of that country to copy the Roman versifi

I know of no English critic besides, who has mentioned Surrey's Virgil, except Bolton, a great reader of old English books. HYPERCRIT. p. 237. Oxon. 1772.

[Meres had spoken of it with commendation before Bolton; but his words are nearly a repetition of those uttered by Ascham. See Wits Treasury, 1598. An anonymous writer, in 1644, thus introduced Surrey with several of his successors in vindication of the English as a poetic language. "There is no sort of verse, either ancient or modern, which we are not able to equal by imitation. We have our English Virgil, Ovid, Se

neca, Lucan, Juvenal, Martial and Catullus; in the Earl of Surry, Daniel, Jonson, Spencer, Don, Shakespear, and the glory of the rest, Sandys and Sydney." Vindex Anglicus.-PARK.]

Among Ascham's Epistles, there is one to Perez, inscribed Clarissimo viro D. Gonsalvo Perisio Regis Catholici Secretario primario et Consiliario intimo, Amico meo carissimo. In which Ascham recommends the embassador sir William Cecil to his acquaintance and friendship. EPISTOL. LIB. UN. p. 228. b. edit. Lond. 1581.

4to.

B. ii. p. 54. b. 55. a. edit. 1589.

cation, and consequently banished the old Leonine Latin verse. The same classical idea operated in some degree on the vernacular poetry of Italy. In the year 1528*, Trissino published his ITALIA LIBERATA DI GOTI, or ITALY DELIVERED FROM THE GOTHS, an heroic poem, professedly written in imitation of the Iliad, without either rhyme, or the usual machineries of the Gothic romance. Trissino's design was to destroy the TERZA RIMA of Dante. We do not, however, find, whether it be from the facility with which the Italian tongue falls into rhyme, or that the best and established Italian poets wrote in the stanza, that these efforts to restore blank-verse produced any lasting effects in the progress of the Italian poetry. It is very probable, that this specimen of the Eneid in blank-verse by Surrey, led the way to Abraham Fleming's blank-verse translation of Virgil's Bucolics and Georgics, although done in Alexandrines, published in the year 1589.

Lord Surrey wrote many other English poems which were never published, and are now perhaps entirely lost. He translated the ECCLESIASTES of Solomon into English verse. This piece is cited in the Preface to the Translation of the Psalms +, printed at London in [about] 1567. He also translated a few of the Psalms into metre. These versions of Scripture shew that he was a friend to the reformation. Among his works are also recited, a Poem on his friend the young duke of Richmond, an Exhortation to the citizens of London, a Translation of Boccace's Epistle to Pinus, and a sett of Latin epistles. Aubrey has preserved a poetical Epitaph, written by Surrey on sir Thomas Clere, his faithful retainer and constant attendant, which was once in Lambeth-church; and which, for its affection and elegance, deserves to be printed among the earl's poems. I will quote a few lines.

[Dr. Nott conceives Surry could not have seen this poem, as it was not printed till after his death.-EDIT.] y London, 4to.

[Ascribed hereafter to archbishop Parker.-PARK.]

[The book of Epistles and the translation of Boccace's Epistle to Pinus have not hitherto been discovered.— DR. NOTT.]

Sce Aubrey's SURREY, V. 247.

Shelton for love, Surrey for lord thee chase 2:
(Aye me, while life did last that league was tender!)
Tracing whose steps, thou sawest Kelsall blase,
Laundersey burnt, and batterd Bulleyn's render*:
At Mortrell gates, hopeless of all recure,

Thine earle halfe dead gave in thy hand his Will;
Which cause did thee this pining death procure,

Ere summers foure tymes seven thou couldst fulfill.

Ah, Clere! if love had booted care or cost,

Heaven had not wonne, nor earth so timely lost!

John Clerc, who travelled into Italy with Pace, an eminent linguist of those times, and secretary to Thomas duke of Norfolk father of lord Surrey, in a dedication to the latter, prefixed to his TRETISE OF NOBILITIE printed at London in 1543d, has mentioned, with the highest commendations, many translations done by Surrey, from the Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish languages. But these it is probable were nothing more than juvenile exercises.

Surrey, for his justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, may justly be pronounced the first English classical poet. He unquestionably is the first polite writer of love-verses in our language. It must, however, be allowed, that there is a striking native beauty in some of our love-verses written much earlier than Surrey's. But in the most savage ages and countries, rude nature has taught elegance to the lover,

a surrender.

z chose. b Towns taken by lord Surrey in the Bologne expedition, [except Kelsal, which was burnt during the incursion into Scotland.-NOTT.]

He died in 1545. See Stowe's CHRON. p. 586. 588. edit. 1615.

d Lond. 12mo. A translation from the French.