Or hawk of the tower;
With solace and gladness,
Much mirth and no madness,
All good and no badness;
So joyously,
So maidenly,
So womanly,
Her demeaning,
In everything,
Far, far passing
That I can indite,
Or suffice to write,
Of Merry Margaret,
As midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,

Or hawk of the tower;
As patient and as still,
And as full of good will,
As fair Isiphil,
Coliander,

Sweet Pomander,
Good Cassander;
Steadfast of thought,

Well made, well wrought,
Far may be sought,
Ere you can find

So courteous, so kind,
As Merry Margaret,

This midsummer flower,
Gentle as falcon,

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;
Fair Florence was sometime their ancient seat;
The western isle whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat:
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast;
Her sire, an earl; her dame of princes' blood :
From tender years, in Britain doth she rest
With king's child, where she tasteth costly food.
Hunsdon did first present her to my eyen:
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight:
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine;
And Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight.
Her beauty of kind, her virtue from above-
Happy is he that can obtain her love!

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,
Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise,
Recording oft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays:

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,
Wherewith, alas, reviveth in my breast,
The sweet accord such sleeps as yet delight,
The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest:

The secret thoughts imparted with such trust,
The wanton talk, the divers change of play,
The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just ;
Wherewith we passed the winter nights away.

And with this thought, the blood forsakes the face,
The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue,
The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas,
Upsupped have, thus I my plaint renew:

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.
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine with bondage and restraint,

And with remembrance of the greater grief
To banish the less, I find my chief relief.

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
His end draw on so sore,
How he would be a boy again,
To live so much the more!

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 gates of my right way,
That opes and shuts as I do speak,
Do thus unto me say:

'The white and hoarish hairs,
The messengers of age,
That shew, like lines of true belief,
That this life doth assuage;

'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:
'Farewell, my wonted joy,
Truss up thy pack, and trudge from me,
To every little boy;

'And tell them thus from me,
Their time most happy is,
If to their time they reason had,
To know the truth of this.'

The Means to Attain a Happy Life.
Martial, the things that do attain
The happy life, be these, I find,
The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind,

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthful life;
The household of continuance :

The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care;
Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night;
Contented with thine own estate,

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,
The first sleep creeps most sweet in weary folk,
Lo, in my dream before mine eyes, methought
With rueful cheer I saw where Hector stood
(Out of whose eyes there gushed streams of tears),
Drawn at a car as he of late had been,

Distained with bloody dust, whose feet were bowl'n1
With the strait cords wherewith they haled him.
Ay me, what one? That Hector how unlike
Which erst returned clad with Achilles' spoils,
Or when he threw into the Greekish ships
The Trojan flame !-So was his beard defiled,
His crisped locks all clustered with his blood,
With all such wounds as many he received
About the walls of that his native town.

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
Lady's Unkindness.

Blame not my Lute! for he must sound
Of this or that as liketh me;

For lack of wit the Lute is bound

To give such tunes as pleaseth me;
Though my songs be somewhat strange,
And speak such words as touch my change,
Blame not my Lute!

My Lute, alas! doth not offend,
Though that perforce he must agree
To sound such tunes as I intend

To sing to them that heareth me;
Then though my songs be somewhat plain,
And toucheth some that use to feign,
Blame not my Lute!

My Lute and strings may not deny,
But as I strike they must obey;
Break not them so wrongfully,

But wreak thyself some other way;
And though the songs which I indite
Do quit thy change with rightful spite,
Blame not my Lute!

Spite asketh spite, and changing change,
And falsed faith must needs be known;
The faults so great, the case so strange;
Of right it must abroad be blown:
Then since that by thine own desert
My songs do tell how true thou art,
Blame not my Lute!

Blame but thyself that hast misdone,
And well deserved to have blame;

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,
By thy desert their wonted way,
Blame not my Lute!

Farewell! unknown; for though thou break
My strings in spite with great disdain,
Yet have I found out, for thy sake,
Strings for to string my Lute again:
And if perchance this silly rhyme
Do make thee blush at any time,
Blame not my Lute!

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.
Be it ill, be it well, be I bond, be I free,

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,
Both mirth and sadness I do refrain,
And use the means since folks will feign;
Yet I am as I am, be it pleasant or pain.

Divers do judge as they do trow,
Some of pleasure and some of woe,
Yet for all that nothing they know;
But I am as I am, wheresoever I go.

But since judgers do thus decay,
Let every man his judgment say;
I will it take in sport and play,
For I am as I am, whosoever say nay.

Who judgeth well, well God them send;
Who judgeth evil, God them amend;
To judge the best therefore intend.
For I am as I am, and so will I end.

Yet some there be that take delight,
To judge folk's thought for envy and spite;
But whether they judge me wrong or right,
I am as I am, and so do I write.

Praying you all that this do read,
To trust it as you do your creed;
And not to think I change my weed,
For I am as I am, however I speed.

But how that is I leave to you;
Judge as ye list, false or true,
Ye know no more than afore ye knew,
Yet I am as I am, whatever ensue.

And from this mind I will not flee,
But to you all that misjudge me,

I do protest, as ye may see,
That I am as I am, and so will be.

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.

'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
Thy beauty fair for to behold,
And when mine ears 'gan first to hark
The pleasant words that thou me told,
I would as then I had been free
From ears to hear and eyes to see.

And when in mind I did consent
To follow thus my fancy's will,
And when my heart did first relent
To taste such bait myself to spill,
I would my heart had been as thine,
Or else thy heart as soft as mine.

O flatterer false! thou traitor born-
What mischief more might thou devise
Than thy dear friend to have in scorn,

And him to wound in sundry wise,
Which still a friend pretends to be,
But art not so by proof, I see-
Fie, fie upon such treachery!

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;
Boast not yourselves at all,
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.
The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone;

I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.

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.