Forget not! oh! forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is
The mind that never meant amiss.
Forget not yet!

Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved:
Forget not yet!

[The lover complaineth of the unkindness of his love.]

My lute, awake! perform the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste;
And end that I have now begun :
And when this song is sung and past,
My lute! be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none;
As lead to grave in marble stone,
My song may pierce her heart as soon;
Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan?
No, no, my lute! for I have done.

The rock doth not so cruelly,
Repulse the waves continually,
As she my suit and affection :
So that I am past remedy;
Whereby my lute and I have done.

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got
Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot,
By whom, unkind, thou hast them won;
Think not he hath his bow forgot,
Although my lute and I have done.

Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain,
That makest but game of earnest pain;
Trow not alone under the sun

Unquit to cause thy lovers plain,

Although my lute and I have done.

May chance thee lie withered and old
In winter nights, that are so cold,
Plaining in vain unto the moon ;
Thy wishes then dare not be told:
Care then who list, for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent
The time that thou hast lost and spent,
To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon:
Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,
And wish and want, as I have done.

Now cease, my lute! This is the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste;
And ended is that we begun :
Now is thy song both sung and past;
My lute, be still, for I have done.

ON HIS RETURN FROM SPAIN.

Tagus farewell! that westward with thy streams
Turns up the grains of gold already tried;
For I with spur and sail go seek the Thames
Gainward the sun that showeth her wealthy pride.
And to the town that Brutus sought by dreams,
Like bended moon that leans her lusty side;
My king, my country alone for whom I live,
Of mighty Love the winds for this me give 1!

FROM THE SECOND SATIRE.

My Poins, I cannot frame my tongue to feign,
To cloak the truth for praise without desert
Of them that list all vices to retain.

I cannot honour them that set their part

1 Al. My king, my country, I seek, for whom I live; O mighty Jove, the winds for this me give!

With Venus, and Bacchus, all their life long,
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart.
I cannot crouch nor truckle to such a wrong,
To worship them like God on earth alone
That are as wolves these sely lambs among.
I cannot with my words complain and moan,
And suffer nought; nor smart without complaint,
Nor turn the word that from my mouth has gone.

I cannot speak and look like as a saint,
Use wiles for wit and make deceit a pleasure,
Call craft counsel, for lucre still to paint;

I cannot wrest the law to fill the coffer,
With innocent blood to feed myself fat

And do most hurt where that most help I offer.
I am not he that can allow the state

Of high Caesar, and damn Cato to die,
That by his death did scape out of the gate
From Caesar's hands, if Livy doth not lie,
And would not live where Liberty was lost;
So did his heart the common wealth apply.
I am not he, such eloquence to boast
To make the crow in singing as the swan ;
Nor call the lion of coward beasts the most,
That cannot take a mouse as the cat can :
And he that dieth for hunger of the gold,
Call him Alexander, and say that Pan
Passeth Apollo in music manifold,
Praise Sir Topas for a noble tale

And scorn the story that the Knight told;

Praise him for counsel that is drunk of ale;

Grin when he laughs, that beareth all the sway;
Frown when he frowns, and groan when he is pale

On other's lust to hang both night and day.
None of these points could ever frame in me ;
My wit is nought, I cannot learn the way.

THE EARL OF SURREY.

[HENRY HOWARD was the eldest son of Thomas Earl of Surrey, by his second wife, the Lady Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. The date and place of his birth are alike unknown. It probably occurred in 1517. He became Earl of Surrey on the accession of his father to the dukedom of Norfolk in 1524. The incidents of his early life are buried in obscurity; the incidents of his later life rest on evidence rarely trustworthy and frequently apocryphal. He was beheaded on Tower Hill January 21, 1547, nominally on a charge of high treason, really in consequence of having fallen a victim to a Court intrigue, the particulars of which it is now impossible to unravel. With regard to the chronology of his various poems we have nothing to guide us. Though they were extensively circulated in manuscript during his lifetime, they were not printed till June 1557, when they made their appearance, together with Wyatt's poems and several fugitive pieces by other authors, in Tottel's Miscellany.]

The works of Surrey, though not so numerous as those of his friend Wyatt, are of a very varied character. They consist of sonnets, of miscellaneous poems in different measures, of lyrics, of elegies, of translations, of Scriptural paraphrases, of two long versions from Virgil. The distinctive feature of Surrey's genius is its ductility; its characteristic qualities are grace, vivacity, pathos, picturesqueness. He had the temperament of a true poet, refinement, sensibility, a keen eye for the beauties of nature, a quick and lively imagination, great natural powers of expression. His tone is pure and lofty, and his whole writings breathe that chivalrous spirit which still lingered among the satellites of the eighth Henry. His diction is chaste and perspicuous, and though it bears all the marks of careful elaboration it has no trace of stiffness or pedantry. His verse is so smooth, and at times so delicately musical, that Warton questioned whether in these qualities at least our versification has advanced since Surrey tuned it for the first time. Without the learning of Wyatt, his literary skill is far greater. His taste is

exquisite. His love poetry, which is distinguished by touches of genuine feeling, is modelled for the most part on the Sonnetti and Ballati 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 sonneteer 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 of being not only 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, next to Henryson's Robine and Makyne, the first pastoral poem in British literature.

J. CHURTON COLLINS.