and the haven is at a distance P. At another, it is a spring trickling from the summit of the Alps, which gathering force in its fall, at length overflows all the plain beneath'. Sometimes, it is a gun, which being overcharged, expands the flame within itself, and bursts in pieces'. Sometimes it is like a prodigious mountain, which is perpetually weeping in copious fountains, and sending forth fighs from its forests : which bears more leaves than fruits : which breeds wild-beasts, the proper emblems of rage, and harbours birds that are always fingiog'. In another of his sonnets, he fays, that all nature sympathises with his passion. The woods resound his elegies, the rivers stop their course to hear him complain, and the grass weeps in dew. These thoughts are common and fantastic. But he adds an image which is new, and has múch nature and fentiment, although not well expressed.

The hugy okes have rored in the winde,

Eche thing, methought, complaining in theyr kinde. This is a touch of the pensive. And the apostrophe which follows is natural and simple.

Ah stony hart, who hath thus framed thee
So cruel, that art clothed with beautie!

And there is much strength in these lines of the lover to his bed.

The place of depe, wherein I do but wake,

Besprent with tears, my bed, I thee forfake"! But such paffages as these are not the general characteristics of Wyat's poetry. They strike us but seldom, amidst' an imprac

· Fol. 22. . Fol. 25. i Fol. 25. • Fol, 29.

i Fol. 36. 1 Fol. 24. • Fol. 25.

ticable

ticable mass of forced reflections, hyperbolical metaphors, and complaints that move no compassion.

But Wyat appears a much more pleasing writer, when he moralises on the felicities of retirement, and attacks the vanities and vices of a court, with the honest indignation of an independent philosopher, and the freedom and pleasantry of Horace. Three of his poetical epistles are professedly written in this strain, two to John Poines ", and the other to sir Francis Bryan: and we must regret, that he has not left more pieces in a style of composition for which he seems to have been eminently qualified. In one of the epistles to Poines on the life of a coure tier, are these spirited and manly reflections.

Myne owne John Poines, since ye delite to know
The causes why that homewarde I me drawe,
And flee the prease" of courtes, where so they go ';
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Of lordly looks, wrapped within my cloke ;
To will and lust learning to set a law :
It is not that, because I scorne or mocke
The power of them, whom Fortune here hath lent
Charge over us, of Right' to strike the stroke :
But true it is, that I have alwayes ment
Lefse to esteeme them, (than the common sort)
Of outwarde thinges that judge, in their entent,
Without regarde what inward doth resort.
I graunt sometime of glory that the fire
Doth touch my heart.

heart. Me list not to report",
Blame by honour, nor honour to desire.
But how can I this honour now attaine,
That cannot die the colour black a liar ?

• He seems to have been a person about the court. See Life of Sir Thomas Pope,

P. 46.

* The court was perpetually moving from one palace to another.

Justice. z To speak favourably of what is bad.

w Press. Crond,

My

My Poines, I cannot frame my tune to faine,
To cloke the truth, &c.

In pursuit of this argument, he declares his indisposition and inability to disguise the truth, and to flatter, by a variety of instances. Among others, he protests he cannot prefer Chaucer's Tale of sir THOPAS to his PALAMON AND ARCITE.

Prayse siR THOPAs for a noble tale,
And scorne the STORY that the KNIGHT tolde;
Praise him for counsell that is dronke of ale:
Grinne when he laughes, that beareth all the sway;
Frowne when he frownes, and grone when he is pale:
On others luft to hang both night and day, &c.

I mention this circumstance about Chaucer, to fhew the esteem in which the KNIGHT'S TALE, that noble epic poem of the dark ages, was held in the reign of Henry eighth, by men of taste.

The poet's execration of Aatterers and courtiers is contrasted with the following entertaining picture of his own private life and rural enjoyments at Allingham-castle in Kent.

This is the cause that I could never yet
Hang on their sleeves, that weigh, as thou maist se,
A chippe of chaunce more than a pounde of wit:
This maketh me at home to hunt and hawke,
And in fowle wether at my booke to fit;
In frost and snowe then with my bow to stalkes
No man doth marke wherefo I ride or go :
In lusty leas at liberty I walke :
And of these newes I fele no weale nor wo:

• Perhaps the reading is tongue.

In large fields. Quer fruitful grounds.

Save that a clogge doth hange yet at my heleo;
No force for that, for it is ordred fo,
That I may leape both hedge and dike ful wele.
I am not now in Fraunce, to judge the wine, &c.
But I am here in Kent and Christendome,
Among the Muses, where I reade and rime;
Where if thou lift, mine owne John Poines to come,
Thou shalt be judge how do I spende my time.

In another epistle to John Poines, on the security and happiness of a moderate fortune, he verfifies the fable of the City and Country Mouse with much humour,

My mother's maides, when they do fowe and spinne,
They fing a song made of the feldishe mouse, &c.

This fable appofitely suggests a train of sensible and pointed obe fervations on the weakness of human conduct, and the delusive plans of life.

Alas, my Poines, how men do feke the best,
And finde tħe worfe by errour as they stray :
And no marvell, when fight is so oppreft,
And blindes the guide : anone out of the way
Goeth guide and all, in feking quiet lyfe.
O wretched myndes ! There is no golde that may
Graunt that you seke: no warre, no peace, no ftrife :
No, no, although thy head were hoopt with golde :
Serjaunt at mace, with hawbert', fworde, nor knife,
Cannot repulse the care that folow shoulde.
Eche kinde of life hath with him his disease :
Live in delites, even as thy luft would,

& Fol. 47

• Probably he alludes to some office which he still held at court; and which fometimes recalled him, but not too frequently, from the country,

• Halbert. A parade of guards, &c. The classical allusion is obvious.

And

And thou shalt finde, when lust doth most thee please,
It irketh strait, and by itself doth fade.
A small thing is it, that may thy minde appease ?
None of

you

al there is that is so madde,
To seke for grapes on brambles or on breeress;
Nor nonne, I trowe, that hath a wit so badde,
To sett his hay for conneyes oer rivères.
Nor yet set not a drag net for a hare :
And yet the thing that most is your desire
You do mifseke, with more travell and care.
Make plaine thine hart, that it be not knotted
With hope or dreade: and se thy will be bare
From all affects, whom vice hath never fpotted.
Thyself content with that is thee affindek;
And use it wel that is to the allotted.
Then seke no more out of thyself to fynde,
The thing that thou hast sought so long before,
For thou Thalt feele it sticking in thy mynde.-

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 paine pray I for them to be,
But when the rage doth leade them from the right,
That, loking backwarde, Virtue they may se
Even as the is, so goodly faire and bright'!

With these disinterested strains we may join the following single stanza, called The Courtiers Life.