Or hawk of the tower; Or hawk of the tower; Sweet Pomander, Well made, well wrought, So courteous, so kind, This midsummer flower, Or hawk of the tower. EARL OF SURREY. HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY, was the grandson of the Duke of Norfolk who, for his services in the battle of Flodden, regained the title of Duke, lost by his father at Bosworth, where 'Dickon, his master, was bought and sold.' Great obscurity hangs over the personal history of the accomplished Surrey, and the few known facts have been blended with a mass of fable. He was born about the year 1517; in 1526 was made cupbearer to the king; in 1532 accompanied Henry on his famous visit to Boulogne; and the same year was contracted in marriage to Lady Francis Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford. On account of the youth of Surrey, the marriage, however, did not take place till 1535. In March 1536 his son Thomas was born. In 1542 he accompanied his father, commander of the English forces, to Scotland, and assisted in the campaign which devastated the Scottish Borders. Surrey was present at the burning of Kelso. In the subsequent war with France, Surrey was again distinguished; but the army he commanded was overpowered by numbers near St Etienne in January 1545-6, and shortly afterwards he was virtually recalled. The enmity of Lord Hertford is supposed to have aggravated the royal displeasure towards Surrey. In December 1546 he was committed to the Tower; he was tried on 13th January 1545-6, and executed on the 21st. Henry VIII. died a week afterwards, on the 28th. The charge against Surrey was that he had assumed the royal armsthe arms of Edward the Confessor. When he did so Henry was on his deathbed, and the assumption was part of a scheme to claim the regency 3 for the Howards instead of the Seymours. The poems of this chivalrous and unfortunate nobleman were not printed until ten years after his death. They were published in a volume entitled Tottel's Miscellany, 1557, the first collection of English poetry by different writers, and which ran through six editions in seven years. The lovestrains of Surrey, addressed to some unknown Geraldine, were adopted by Nash, the well-known dramatic poet and miscellaneous writer, as the basis of a series of romantic fictions, in which the noble poet was represented as travelling in Italy, proclaiming the beauty of his Geraldine, and defending her matchless charms in tilt and tournament. At the court of the emperor, Surrey was said to have met with the famous magician, Cornelius Agrippa, who shewed him, in a necromantic mirror, his Geraldine languishing on a couch reading one of his sonnets! The whole of this knightly legend was a fabrication by Nash, but it long held possession of the popular mind. All that is known of the poet's Geraldine is contained in this sonnet : From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race; The description is here so minute and specific, that, if actually real, the lady must have been known to many of the readers of Surrey's manuscript verses. Horace Walpole endeavoured to prove that the Geraldine of the poet was Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald; but Lady Elizabeth was only twelve or thirteen years old when Surrey is supposed to have fallen in love with her. Mr Hallam has said that Surrey did much for his own country and his native language, but that his taste is more striking than his genius. His poetry is certainly remarkable for correctness of style and purity of expression. He was among the first, if not the very first, to introduce blank verse into our poetry, and to reject the pedantry which overflows in the pages of his predecessors. The palm-play, where, despoiled for the game, With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love, Have missed the ball and got sight of our dame, To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above. The gravel ground, with sleeves tied on the helm Of foaming horse,1 with swords and friendly hearts; With cheer, as though one should another whelm, Where we have fought, and chased oft with darts; With silver drops the mead yet spread for ruth, In active games of nimbleness and strength, Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth, Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length: The secret groves which oft we made resound, The wild forest, the clothed holts with green, With reins availed2 and swift ybreathed horse; With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between, Where we did chase the fearful hart of force. The wide vales, eke, that harboured us each night, The secret thoughts imparted with such trust, And with this thought, the blood forsakes the face, O place of bliss! renewer of my woes, Give me accounts, where is my noble fere ;3 Whom in thy walls, thou dost each night inclose; To other leef, but unto me most dear: Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue, Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint. And with remembrance of the greater grief How no Age is content with his Own Estate, and how the Age of Children is the happiest, if they had skill to understand it. Laid in my quiet bed, In study as I were, I saw within my troubled head A heap of thoughts appear. And every thought did shew So lively in mine eyes, That now I sighed, and then I smiled, As cause of thoughts did rise. I saw the little boy, In thought how oft that he Did wish of God, to scape the rod, A tall young man to be. The young man eke that feels His bones with pains opprest, How he would be a rich old man, To live and lie at rest: 1 A lover tied the sleeve of his mistress on the head of his horse. 2 Reins dropped. 3 Companion. 4 Agreeable. The rich old man that sees Whereat full oft I smiled, To see how all these three, From boy to man, from man to boy, Would chop and change degree: And musing thus, I think, The case is very strange, That man from wealth, to live in woe, Doth ever seek to change. Thus thoughtful as I lay, I saw my withered skin, How it doth shew my dented thews, The flesh was worn so thin; And eke my toothless chaps, 'The white and hoarish hairs, 'Bids thee lay hand, and feel Them hanging on my chin. The which do write two ages past, The third now coming in. 'Hang up, therefore, the bit Of thy young wanton time; And thou that therein beaten art, The happiest life define.' Whereat I sighed, and said: 'And tell them thus from me, The Means to Attain a Happy Life. The equal friend; no grudge, no strife; The mean diet, no delicate fare; The faithful wife, without debate; Ne wish for Death, ne fear his might. We add a few lines of Surrey's blank verse, from his translation of the Second Book of the Eneid: It was the time when, granted from the gods, Distained with bloody dust, whose feet were bowl'n1 SIR THOMAS WYATT. In Tottels Miscellany were also first printed the poems of SIR THOMAS WYATT (1503-1542), a distinguished courtier and man of wit, who was fortunate enough to escape the capricious tyranny of Henry VIII. and who may be said to have died in the king's service. While travelling on a mission to France, and riding fast in the heat of summer, he was attacked with a fever that proved mortal. Wyatt entertained a secret passion for Anne Boleyn, whom he has commemorated in his verse. His satires are more spirited than Surrey's, and one of his lighter pieces, his Ode to a Lute, is a fine amatory effusion. He was, however, inferior to his noble friend in general poetical power. The Lover's Lute cannot be blamed, though it sing of his Blame not my Lute! for he must sound For lack of wit the Lute is bound To give such tunes as pleaseth me; My Lute, alas! doth not offend, To sing to them that heareth me; My Lute and strings may not deny, But wreak thyself some other way; Spite asketh spite, and changing change, Blame but thyself that hast misdone, Change thou thy way, so evil begone, And then my Lute shall sound that same; 1 The participle of the Saxon verb to bolge, which gives the deri vation of bulge.-Tyrwhitt's Chaucer. But if till then my fingers play, Farewell! unknown; for though thou break The Re-cured Lover exulteth in his Freedom, and voweth to remain Free until Death. I am as I am, and so will I be ; But how that I am none knoweth truly. I am as I am, and so will I be. I lead my life indifferently; I mean nothing but honesty; And though folks judge full diversely, I am as I am, and so will I die. I do not rejoice, nor yet complain, Divers do judge as they do trow, But since judgers do thus decay, Who judgeth well, well God them send; Yet some there be that take delight, Praying you all that this do read, But how that is I leave to you; And from this mind I will not flee, I do protest, as ye may see, That Pleasure is mixed with every Pain. Venomous thorns that are so sharp and keen Bear flowers, we see, full fresh and fair of hue, Poison is also put in medicine, And unto man his health doth oft renew. The fire that all things eke consumeth clean, May hurt and heal: then if that this be true, I trust some time my harm may be my health, Since every woe is joined with some wealth. The Courtier's Life. In court to serve decked with fresh array, Of the Mean and Sure Estate. LORD VAUX-NICHOLAS GRIMOALD-) -RICHARD -VISCOUNT ROCHFORT. impression of their talents was great, and both And from the top of all my trust On a Contented Mind.-By Lord Vaux. In the end thus shall you find, To deem can be content The body subject is To fickle Fortune's power, When as the mind, which is divine, Companion none is like For many have been harmed by speech; THOMAS, LORD VAUX, was born about 1510, and died in the reign of Queen Mary. He was captain of the isle of Jersey under Henry VIII. Poems by Vaux are in Tottel's Miscellany, and no less than thirteen short pieces of his composition are in a second miscellany (prompted, no doubt, by the unexampled success of Tottel's collection), entitled The Paradise of Dainty Devices, 1576.NICHOLAS GRIMOALD (circa 1520-1563), a rhetorical lecturer in Oxford University, has two translations from the Latin of Philip Gaultier and Beza in Tottel's Miscellany, both of which are in blank verse. He wrote also several small poems.* -RICHARD EDWARDS (circa 1523-1566) was the most valuable contributor to the Dainty Devices. He was master of the singing-boys of the royal chapel, and is known as a writer of court interludes and masks. His verses, entitled Amantium Iræ, are among the best of the miscellaneous poems of that age.-WILLIAM HUNNIS, who died in 1568, was also attached to Edward VI.'s chapel, and afterwards master of the boys of Queen Elizabeth's chapel. He translated the Psalms, and wrote some religious treatises and scriptural interludes. Mr Hallam considers that Hunnis should be placed as high as Vaux or Edwards, were his productions all equal to one little piece (a song which we subjoin); 'but too often,' adds the critic, 'he falls into trivial morality and a ridiculous Amantium Ira Amoris Redintegratio Est.-By Richard excess of alliteration.' These defects characterise most of the minor poets of this period.—Drayton, in one of his poetical epistles, mentions SIR FRANCIS BRYAN, nephew to Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, as a contributor to Tottel's Miscellany; and GEORGE BOLEYN, VISCOUNT ROCH FORT (brother of Anne Boleyn), has been named as another contributor. The contemporary * In a sonnet by Sir Egerton Brydges on the death of Sir Walter Scott, is a fine line often quoted: The glory dies not, and the grief is past. The same sentiment had been thus expressed by Grimoald: In working well if travel you sustain, Our wealth leaves us at death; Our kinsmen at the grave; The heavens with us we have. Edwards. From the same. In going to my naked bed, as one that would have slept, I heard a wife sing to her child, that long before had wept. to rest, She sighed sore, and sang full sweet, to bring the babe child; 'I marvel much, pardie,' quoth she, 'for to behold the rout, To see man, woman, boy, and beast, to toss the world about; Some kneel, some crouch, some beck, some check, and some can smoothly smile, And some embrace others in arms, and there think many a wile. Some stand aloof at cap and knee, some humble, and some stout, Yet are they never friends indeed until they once fall out.' Thus ended she her song, and said, before she did remove: 'The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love.' Song.-By William Hunnis. From the same. When first mine eyes did view and mark And when in mind I did consent O flatterer false! thou traitor born- And him to wound in sundry wise, A Praise of his Lady-Said to be by George Boleyn, beheaded in 1536. Also claimed for John Heywood. From Tottel's Miscellany. Give place, you ladies, and be gone; I wish to have none other books In each of her two crystal eyes It would you all in heart suffice I think Nature hath lost the mould THOMAS TUSSER, author of the first didactic poem in the language, was born about 1515, of an ancient family, had a good education, and commenced life at court, under the patronage of Lord Paget. Afterwards he practised farming successively at Ratwood in Sussex, Ipswich, Fairsted in Essex, Norwich, and other places; but not succeeding in that walk, he betook himself to other occupations, amongst which were those of a chorister and, it is said, a fiddler. As might be expected of one so inconstant, he did not prosper in the world, but died poor in London, in 1580. Tusser's poem, entitled a Hondreth Good Points of Husbandrie, which was first published in 1557, is a series of practical directions for farming, expressed in simple and inelegant, but not always dull verse. It was afterwards expanded by other writers, and published under the title of Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandrie: the last of a considerable number of editions appeared in 1710. |