THE LIFE OF AFTER the death of Chaucer, no confiderable improvements were made in English poetry, till about the beginning of the fixteenth century. At that period, our intercourse with Italy, not only in troduced the study of claffical literature into England, but gave a new turn to our vernacular poetry. The language and the manners of Italy, were esteemed and studied. The sonnets of Petrarch, were the great models of compofition. They entered into the genius of the fashionable manners; and in the boisterous, but polished court of Henry the Eighth, Petrarch of course became the popular poet. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the unrivalled ornament of that court, and of his age, led the way to great improvements in English poetry, by a happy imitation of Petrarch, and other Italian poets, who had been most successful in painting the anxieties of love with pathos and propriety. He was the fon and grandson of two Lord Treasurers, Dukes of Norfolk; and in his early childhood, discovered the most promising marks of lively parts, and an active mind. While a boy, he was habituated to the modes of a court at Windsor Castle, where he resided, yet under the care of proper inftructors, in the quality of a companion to Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, a natural fon of King Henry, and of the highest expectations. A friendship of the closest kind commencing between them, about 1530, they were both removed to Cardinal Wolfey's College at Oxford; which was one of the first seminaries of an English univerfity that professed to explode the pedantries of the old barbarous philosophy, and to cultivate the graces of polite literature. Two years afterwards, he accompanied his noble friend into France, where they received King Henry on his arrival at Calais, to vifit Francis the First, with a most magnificent retinue. The friendship of these two young noblemen, was foon strengthened by a new tie; for Richmond married Lady Mary Howard, Surrey's fifter.-Richmond, however, appears to have died in 1536, about the age of seventeen, having never cohabited with his wife. It was long before he forgot the untimely loss of this amiable youth, the friend and associate of his childhood, and who nearly resembled himself in genius, refinement of manners, and liberal acquifitions. It is not known at what period he began his travels. They have the air of a romance. He made the tour of Europe in the true spirit of chivalry; proclaiming the unparalleled charms of Geraldine his mistress, and prepared to defend the cause of her beauty with the weapons of knight errantry. In his way to Italy, he passed a few days at the Emperor's court, where he became acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa. This celebrated adept in natural magic, fhewed him, in a mirror of glass, a living image of Geraldine, reclining on a couch, fick, and reading one of his most tender fonnets by a waxen taper. His imagination was heated anew by this interesting and affecting spectacle. Inflamed with every enthusiasm of the most romantic passion, he hastened to Florence, the original feat of the ancestors of his Geraldine; and on his arrival, immediately published a defiance against any person who should prefume to difpute the fuperiority of her beauty. The grand Duke of Tuscany permitted this important trial to be decided. The challenge was accepted, and Surrey victorious. His heroic vanities did not, however, fo totally engrofs the time which he spent in Italy, as to alienate his mind from literature: he ftudied, with the greatest fuccefs, a critical knowledge of the Italian language, and attained a just tafte for the peculiar graces of the Italian poetry. He was recalled to England, for fome idle reason, by the King, and appeared at court the moft polite lover, the most learned nobleman, and the most accomplished gentleman of his age. He fhone in the tournaments of the court; and his name is renowned in the military achieventents of that martial age. In 1542, he marched into Scotland as a chief commander in his father's army, and was confpicu ous for his conduct and bravery at the memorable battle of Flodden-field, where James the Fourth of -Scotland was killed. The year following, he was imprisoned in Windsor Castle, for eating flesh in Lent; a circumstance worthy of notice, only as it marks his character, impatient of any controul, and regardless of petty formalities, and as it gave occafion to one of his molt fentimental and pathetic fonnets. In 1544, he was field-marshal of the English army in the expedition to Boulogne, which he took; but being defeated, endeavouring to cut off a convoy of the enemy, a difgrace he repaired, he loft the King's favour, and was fuperfeded by the Earl of Hertford.. Conscious of his high birth and capacity, he could not refrain, upon this occasion, from droppiag fome reproachful expreffions against a measure which feemed to impeach his personal courage. It was his misfortune to ferve a monarch, whofe refentments, which were eafily provoked, could only be fatisfied by the most fevere revenge. The brilliancy of his character was viewed by Henry with disgust and suspicion. His popularity was misconstrued into a dangerous ambition, and gave birth to accufations equally groundless and frivolous. He was fufpected of a defign to marry the princefs Mary; and it was infinuated that he conver fed with foreigners, and correfponded with Cardinal Pole. The addition of the arms of Edward the Confeffor to his own, though justified by the ufage of his family, and the authority of the heralds, was inade a foundation for an impeachment of high treafon. He was arraigned at Guildhall; and notwithstanding his eloquent and manly defence, he was condemned by the prepared fuffrage of a fervile and obfequious jury, and beheaded on TowerLill, January 19th 1546-7. The Duke of Norfolk, charged with allegations equally groundless, efcaped the same unhappy fate, by the death of the tyrant, which happened nine days after the unmerited death of his fon. Surrey was buried in the church of All Hallows-Barking, Tower-street, but afterwards removed to Framlingham, Suffolk, where an honourable monument was erected to his memory, by his focond fon, Henry Earl of Northampton. He married Frances, daughter of John Earl of Oxford; by whom he left feveral children. One of his daughters, Jane, Countess of Weftmoreland, was among the learned ladies of that age, and be came famous for her knowledge of the Greck and Latin languages. History is filent as to the name of the fair Geraldine, the general object of his paffionate fonnets, and as to the reafons why the gallantries he performed for her, did not end in a marriage. The notices concerning her in his fonnets are obscure and indirect; but they have been illuftrated with the most happy fagacity by the prefent Earl of Orford, and applied to Lady Elizabeth Fazgerald, whofe poetical name is almost her real one. She was fecond daughter of Gerald Fitzger....', Earl of Kildare, fecond couûn to the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, bred up with them, as it is conjectured, at Hunfdon-Houfe, and afterwards the third wife of Edward Clinton, Earl of Lincoln. His Songes and Sonnettes, as they have been stiled, were first collected and printed at London, by Tottell, in 1557, together with the "Songes and Sonnettes" of his amiable and accomplished friend Sir Thomas Wyat, the elder, and of uncertain authors. Another edition appeared 1565. Others in 1574, 1585, 1587. The last edition was printed in 1717. They are now, for the first time, received into a collection of claffical English poetry. They were in high reputation with his contemporaries, and for many years afterwards, though they are scarcely known at present. They have been praised by Leland, Sydney, Tuberville, Puttenham, Churchyard, and Drayton, and in more recent times by Dryden, Waller, Fenton, and Pope. They merit attention equally as compositions of real and intrinsic merit, and as objects of curiofity. They are chiefly amatory and fentimental; but in elegance of sentiment, and in nature and sensibility, they are equal to the best love verfes in our language; and in harmony of numbers, perfpicui ty of expreffion, and facility of phraseology, they approach so near the productions of the present age, that they will hardly be believed to have been produced in the reign of Henry the Eighth. But Surrey was not merely the poet of idleness and gallantry. He was fitted, both from nature and study, for the more solid and laborious parts of literature. He translated the 2d and 4th books of the Eneid into blank verfe, which are the first compofitions extant, in that measure, in the English language. They were printed in 1557, 12mo; but the book is so extremely scarce, that a copy could not be procured for this edition of his works. He wrote many other poems, which were never published, and are now perhaps entirely loft. He tranflated the Ecclefiaftes of Solomon into English verse. He also translated a few of the Pfalms into metre. These versions of Scripture fhew that he was a friend to the Reformation. Among his works are also mentioned a poem on the death of his friend the Duke of Richmond, an exhortation to the city of London, a translation of Boccace's epiftle to Pinus, and several Latin epistles. All his biographers, particularly the Earl of Orford and Mr. Warton, have been lavish, and very justly, in his praise; he merits the highest encomiums, as the first refiner of our language, and the unrivalled ornament of his age and country, and challenges the gratitude and esteem of every man of literature, for the generous assistance he afforded it in its infancy, and his ready and liberal affistance to all men of merit in his time. His poetical character is so elegantly drawn by the happy pencil of Mr. Warton, as to render the bungling after-strokes of a cafual hand unnecessary. "In the fonnets of Surrey," says that judicious and classical critic, whose death is an irreparable lofs to English literature, "we are surprised to find nothing of that metaphysical cast, which marks the Italian poets, his fuppofed masters, especially Petrarch. Surrey's fentiments are for the most part natural and unaffected; arising from his own feelings, and dictated by the prefent circumstances. His poetry is alike unembarraffed by learned allusions, or elaborate conceits. If he copies Petrarch, it is Petrarch's best manner, where he defcends from his Platonic abstractions, his refinements of passion, his exaggerated compliments, and his play upon oppofite fentiments, into a track of tendernefs, fimplicity, and nature. "Surrey, for his justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, may justly be pronounced the first English claffical poet. He unquestionably is the first polite writer of love verfes in our language." VOL. I. PP |