exquisite. His love poetry, which is distinguished by touches of genuine feeling, is modelled for the most part on the Sonnetti and Ballate of Petrarch, though it has little of Petrarch's frigid puerility and none of his metaphysical extravagance. The Laura of Surrey is the fair Geraldine. We may perhaps suspect the existence of some less shadowy object. As a lyrical poet, when he permits himself to follow his own bent he is easy and graceful. His elegiac verses and his epitaph on Clere have been deservedly praised for their pathos, dignity, and terseness, and his translation from Martial makes us regret that he has not left us more in the same vein. His versions from Virgil we are not inclined to rank so highly as Warton does, but they are interesting as being the first English versions from the poets of antiquity worthy of the name, and as furnishing us with the earliest specimens of that verse which was to become the omnipotent instrument of Shakespeare and Milton. As a son+ neteer he follows closely in the footsteps of Petrarch, though he is not, like Wyatt, a servile copyist, and he is entitled to the high praise not only of being the first who introduced the sonnet into our language, but of having made that difficult form of composition the obedient interpreter of a poet's feelings and of a poet's fancies. His most unsuccessful pieces are his Scriptural paraphrases and the poems written in Alexandrines, though one of these, The Complaint of a Dying Lover, is valuable as being, after Henryson's Robine and Makyne, the first pastoral poem in British literature.

J. CHURTON Collins.

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING,

[Wherein each thing renews, save only the lover.]

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings, a
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings.;
The turtle to her make1 hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale ;
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings.;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale; b
The busy bee her honey now she mings2; a
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale. b

And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs! C

A COMPLAINT BY NIGHT OF THE LOVER NOT BELOVED.

Alas! so all things now do hold their peace!
Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing;

b

The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease;
The nightës car the stars about doth bring.

Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less:
So am not I, whom love, alas! doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,

In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.

For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring;
But by and by, the cause of my disease

Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting.
When that I think what grief it is again,

To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

1 mate.

VOL I.

2 mingles.

S

[Prisoned in Windsor, he recounteth his pleasure there passed.]

So cruel prison how could betide, alas,

As proud Windsor? where I in lust and joy,
With a King's son, my childish years did pass,

In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy.
Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour,
The large green courts, where we were wont to hove',
With eyes cast up into the maiden's tower,

And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love.

The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue,

The dances short, long tales of great delight;
With words and looks, that tigers could but rue;
When each of us did plead the other's right.
The palme-play2 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 gravelled ground, with sleeves tied on the helm,
On foaming horse, with swords and friendly hearts;
With cheer, as though one should another whelm,
When 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 availed, and swift ybreathed horse,
With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between,
When we did chase the fearful hart of force.
The void walls 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 night 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 account, where is my noble fere1,
Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose,
To other lief2, but unto me most dear.'

Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue
Returns thereat 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.

1

THE MEANS TO ATTAIN HAPPY LIFE.
[Translated from Martial.]

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.
$ moderate.

companion.

2 dear.

A PRAISE OF HIS LOVE.

[Wherein he reproveth them that compare their ladies with his.]

Give place, ye lovers, here before

That spent your boasts and brags in vain;

My lady's beauty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare well sayen,

Than doth the sun the candle light
Or brightest day the darkest night.

And thereto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair;
For what she saith, ye may it trust,
As it by writing sealed were:
And virtues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to show.

I could rehearse, if that I would,
The whole effect of Nature's plaint,
When she had lost the perfect mould,
The like to whom she could not paint:
With wringing hands, how she did cry,
And what she said, I know it, I.

I know she swore with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart,

There was no loss by law of kind

That could have gone so near her heart;

And this was chiefly all her pain;

'She could not make the like again.'

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise,
To be the chiefest work she wrought;
In faith, methinks! some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare, as ye have done,
To match the candle with the sun.