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These Platonic doctrines are closed with a beautiful application of Virtue personified, and introduced in her irresistible charms of visible beauty. For those who deviate into vain and vicious pursuits,

None other payne pray I for them to be,

But when the rage doth leade them from the right,

That, loking backward, VERTUE they may se

Even as she is, so goodly fayre and bright!1

*

With these disinterested strains we may join the following single stanza, called THE COURTIers Life.

In court to serve, decked with freshe aray,

m

Of sugred meates feeling the swete repaste;
The life in bankets, and sundry kindes of play,
Amid the presse of worldly lookes to waste:
Hath with it joynde oft times such bitter taste,
That whoso joyes such kind of life to hold,

In prison 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 sonnetteer; and, if we may judge from a few instances, that he was likely to have treated any other subject with more success than that of love. His abilities were seduced and misapplied in fabricating fine speeches to an obdurate mistress. In the following little ode, or rather epigram, on a very different occasion, there is great simplicity and propriety, together with a strain of poetic allusion. It is on his return from Spain into England.

Tagus farewell, that westward with thy stremes
Turnes up the graines of gold already triede°!
For I with spurre and sayle go seke the Temes P,
Gaineward the sunne that shewes her welthy pride:

[Virtutem videant,_intabescantque relictâ, Pers. Sat. 3. If Surry copies but little, Wyatt doth plentifully.ASHBY.]

1 Fol. 45, 46.

"Fol. 44.

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pure gold.

the Thames.

m delicious.

And to the town that Brutus sought by dreames,

S

Like bended moone' that leanes her lusty side;
My king, my countrey I seke, for whom I live:
O mighty Jove, the wyndes for this me give!

Among Wyat's poems is an unfinished translation, in Alexandrine verse, of the Song of Iopas in the first book of Virgil's Eneid". Wyat's and Surrey's versions from Virgil are the first regular translations in English of an antient classic poet: and they are symptoms of the restoration of the study of the Roman writers, and of the revival of elegant literature. A version of David's Psalms by Wyat is highly extolled by lord Surrey and Leland. But Wyat's version of the Penitential PSALMS seems to be a separate work from his translation of the whole Psaltery, and probably that which is praised by Surrey, in an ode above quoted, and entitled, Praise of certain Psalmes of David, translated by Sir T. Wyat the elder." They were printed with this title, in 1549. "Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David commonly called the vij penytentiall Psalmes, drawen into Englyshe meter by sir Thomas Wyat knyght, whereunto is added a prologe of the auctore before every Psalme very pleasant and profettable to the godly reader. Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyarde at the sygne of thee starre by Thomas Raynald and John Harryngton, cum previlegio ad imprimendum solum, MDXLIX." Leland seems to speak of the larger version.

Transtulit in nostram Davidis carmina linguam,
Et numeros magna reddidit arte pares.

Non morietur OPUS tersum, SPECTABILE, sacrum. X

a tradition in Geoffrey of Monmouth.

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

8

strong, flourishing, populous, &c. t Fol. 44. u Fol. 49.

Fol. 16. (See supr. p. 304.) [These Psalms were reprinted by Bishop Percy with his ill-fated impression of Lord Surrey's 's poems, which perished in the warehouse of Mr. John Nicholls, 1808. To William Marquis of Northampton,

&c. &c. they were inscribed by John Harrington (the father probably of Sir John H.), who determined to print them, "that the noble fame of so worthy a knight as was the author hereof, Sir Thomas Wyat, should not perish, but remayne." Before each psalm is inserted an explanatory "Prologe of the Auctor," in eight-line stanzas: the translation is throughout in alternate verse. -PARK.]

xNEN. ut supr.

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

lost

A similarity, or rather sameness of studies, as it is a proof, so perhaps it was the chief cement, of that inviolable friendship which is said to have subsisted between Wyat and Surrey. The principal subject of their poetry was the same: and they both treated the passion of love in the spirit of the Italian poets, and as professed disciples of Petrarch. They were alike devoted to the melioration of their native tongue, and an attainment of the elegancies of composition. They were both engaged in translating Virgil*, and in rendering select portions of Scripture into English metre.

y See Hollinsh. CHRON. iii. p. 978. col. 2. [Dr. Nott is of opinion that Wyatt translated no more of the Psalter than the Penitential Psalms.-EDIT.]

* [There seems no reason for inferring

with Dr. Nott, that Warton intended by this expression a larger portion of Virgil than the Song of Iopas mentioned above.-EDIT.]

SECTION XXXIX.

To the poems of Surrey and Wyat are annexed, as I have

before hinted, in Tottell's editions, those 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, sir Francis Bryan, George Boleyn earl of Rochford, and lord Vaulx, all professed rhymers and sonnet-writers, were large contributors *.

Drayton, in his elegy [epistle] To his dearly loved friend HENRY REYNOLDS OF POETS AND POESIE, seems to have blended all the several collections of which Tottell's volume consists. After Chaucer he says,

a

They with the Muses who conversed, 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 passages of wit.

They begin at fol. 50.

[CHURCHYARD must also be added to this list of contributors on the following averment: "Many things in the booke of Songs and Sonets printed then (in queen Mary's time) were of my making." See notices of his works prefixed to his "Challenge" 1593. Heywood

and Harrington likewise have dormant claims to the honourable distinction of coadjutorship. Vid. infra, p. 332. and Nuga Antiquæ, vol. i. p. 95. and ii. 256. ed. 1775.-PARK.]

b WORKS, vol. iv. p. 1255. edit. Lond. 1759. 8vo.

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 Sixth; and died chief justiciary of Ireland, at Waterford, in the year 1548. On the principle of an unbiassed 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 Dissertation on the life of a courtier, printed at London in the year last mentioned'. He was nephew to John Bourchier, lord Berners, the translator of Froissart; who, at his desire, translated at Calais from French into English, the GOLDEN BOKE, or Life of Marcus Aurelius, about 15338. Which are Bryan's pieces I cannot ascertain.

George Boleyn, viscount Rochford, was son of sir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards earl of Wiltshire and Ormond; and at Oxford discovered an early propensity to polite letters and poetry. He was appointed to several dignities and offices by king Henry the Eighth, and subscribed the famous declaration sent to Pope Clement the Seventh. He was brother to queen Anne Boleyn, with whom he was suspected of a criminal familiarity. The chief accusation against him seems to have been, that he was seen to whisper with the queen one morning while she was in bed. As he had been raised by the exaltation, he was involved

C

Dugd. BAR. ii. 273. a.
Rymer, FOED. xiv. 380.

e Hollinsh. CHRON. i. 61. And Ibid.
Hooker's CONTIN. tom. ii. P. ii. pag.
See also Fox, MARTYR. p. 991.
f Cod. Impress. A. Wood, Mus. Ash-

110.

mol. Oxon. [Printed again in 1575, small 8vo.-PARK.]

See the COLOPHON. It was printed by Thomas Berthelett, in 1536, quarto. Often afterwards. Lord Berners was deputy general of Calais, and its Marches.

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