'HAD Henry the Eighth,' remarks our good Benedict, Dr. Warton, never murthered his wives, his politeness to the fair sex would have been unimpeached.'

Without entering into the lists with so able a commentator, we may here remark, that it was not Henry; it was a Frenchman who set the example of introducing ladies into those court festivities to which ecclesiastics were admitted. Francis the First mixed gallantry with learning.' He perfectly understood the fact, that splendid banquets, without the company of the fair sex, degenerate into vulgar carousals. All the court entertainments, in his time, were conducted not only with magnificence, but with elegance; and Henry emulated his royal neighbour. Poetry naturally followed refinement: besides, Henry was himself a writer of verses. The language and literature of Italy were the fashionable themes of the day, and led the way to a more graceful and sentimental style of poetry than had ever been known in England.

Amid the young nobles who set the brightest example of men, placing far less stress on their rank and condition than on their mental power, was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the son and grandson of two Lord Treasurers, Dukes of Norfolk.

This ill-starred and most accomplished young man had passed his childhood at Windsor Castle, where he was placed as a companion to Henry's natural son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke

of Richmond. Their companionship ceased not with their childhood; as at suitable ages both were removed to the noble institution just then completed at Oxford by Wolsey. Christ Church retains its pre-eminence as the most aristocratic and richest educational establishment in England, if not in Europe. At Bonn, at Berlin, and other universities abroad, it is true, the distinction of birth is strongly marked out in clubs; but there exist not in any other college the rich endowments, the grand revenues which are possessed by Christ Church. In 1524 the monastery of St. Frideswide, in Oxford, and forty smaller monasteries were suppressed, with the Pope's permission, by Henry. Their revenues were handed over to Wolsey, and in 1525 the Cardinal's College, which we now call Christ Church, was erected.

Hitherto, Oxford had been in a state of the greatest desolation;-its streets were half in ruins, its colleges half filled, and impoverished, the revenues of the university gone down to the lowest point. In vain had Katharine of Aragon, in 1518, paid a visit to the shrine of the virgin St. Frideswide : neither the Queen nor the Saint seemed able to do anything good for Oxford; and Wolsey's powerful hand could alone save the university from total ruin.

It was in 1525, whilst Christ Church was still called Cardinal's College, that Surrey and Henry Fitzroy matriculated there. Five years afterwards the Cardinal was in disgrace, and the noble structure was designated as 'King Henry the Eighth's College,' until becoming the seat of an episcopal see -the monastery of Oseney being destroyed, it was christened Christ Church.

Here Surrey passed two years. Historians have delighted to think of him in his boyhood at Windsor; but the sight of that slight figure in his academic gown, the glance of that keen bright eye,-must have often attracted attention during the time of the young poet's residence at Oxford, as he wandered in the delicious meadows of the College, or along

the stately avenue, or in the still more stately quadrangle of the building.

Henry Fitzroy, the beloved friend of Surrey, was the child of his royal father's affection: and it shows more strongly than ever the total brutality of mind to which the king sank, that he could, in after days, send to the scaffold the playmate, the college friend, the best loved associate of that son, of great promise, and of early doom.

The monarch had been eleven years married, and was deemed a pattern of constancy, when Elizabeth Blount, afterwards the wife of Sir Gilbert Talboys, 'came to the Court, and was the beauty and master-piece' of her time. The king saw and admired her; it did not then occur to him to divorce Katharine, and to place the fair Elizabeth on the throne; he took a less dangerous course-and Elizabeth gave birth, at the Priory of Blackamore, in Essex, to a son, named, conveniently, Henry Fitzroy. The king acknowledged him with pride, for the child resembled both his royal self, and his frail, beautiful mother. He was gifted, he was also good, and worthy of the affection borne to him by his beloved Surrey. And the bond was to have been cemented by the marriage of Fitzroy with the Lady Mary Howard, Surrey's sister: but death dissolved the union. Henry Fitzroy lived only to the age of seventeen, having never cohabited with his young wife.

After quitting Oxford, Surrey and Fitzroy went into France; and there, when at Calais, received King Henry, who was on his way to meet Francis the First. So delighted was Henry with the personal gifts and attainments of his son, that he is said to have contemplated making him heir to the crown; but Henry Fitzroy, happily for himself, by his early doom, escaped the dangers of a disputed succession.

The death of his friend, gifted like himself, and, like himself, refined and thoughtful, gave a tinge of melancholy to the character of the young Lord Surrey. This was deepened

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into a more earnest sentiment by a very youthful, a very infelicitous, but a real and lasting attachment to the fair daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare.

It is true that, probably even before Surrey ever saw Geraldine Fitzgerald, he was the affianced husband of another. About the time that Fitzroy was betrothed to Lady Mary Howard, Surrey was, it is believed, betrothed to the Lady Frances Vere, the daughter of the rich and powerful Earl of Oxford. But, in these early contracts, formed before either party had experience, or a will, or before either could dare to assert any sort of independence, one seeks-and even the most rigid moralist will not seek in vain—for a plea for the wandering affections. Such marriages as were formed in Henry's days have long since been virtually out of date in ours. Since the close of the sixteenth century the trothplight, or espousals, which sometimes took place in a church, sometimes in a private house as in France, have been disused. They were intended, no doubt, for persons of tender age chiefly, and ordinarily, if not always, were followed by marriage in due time. Hence in that perilous interval, sometimes of weeks only, sometimes of years (never, by law, less than forty days), the feelings and predilections which were every day expanding in the heart of a young man, were left to fix on any object, worthy or unworthy, that might fall in his way: if unworthy, the less danger; if worthy, he might still break the troth-plight, even at the risk of offending his parents. It was under these circumstances that Surrey saw the fair Geraldine. Although he travelled into Italy before his marriage, it was not at Florence, as has been erroneously stated, that he first beheld her. She was of Irish, not of Tuscan birth; but the origin of her family was Florentine. Anciently the Geralds and Fitzgeralds of Ireland were the Geraldi of Florence, owing their origin from Otho, a descendant of the Dukes of Tuscany, and to their having migrated into England in the days of King Alfred. The poetical