SQUYRE MELDRUM, AFTER MANY FOREIGN EXPLOITS, COMES

HOME AND HAS THE FOLLOWING LOVE-ADVENTURE.

Out throw the land then sprang the fame,
That Squyer Meldrum was come hame.
Quhen they heard tell how he debaitit,'
With every man he was sa treitet,"
That quhen he travellit throw the land,
They bankettit" him fra hand to hand
With greit solace, till, at the last,

Out throw Stratherne the Squyer past.
And as it did approach the nicht,
Of ane castell he gat ane sicht,
Beside ane montane in ane vale,
And then eftir his greit travaill
He purposit him to repoisez
Quhare ilk man did of him rejois.
Of this triumphant pleasand place
Ane lustie lady was maistrés,
Quhais lord was dead schort time befoir,
Quhairthrow her dolour wes the moir;
Bot yit scho tuik some comforting,
To heir the plesant dulce talking
Of this young Squiyer, of his chance,
And how it fortunit him in France.
This Squyer and the ladie genta
Did wesche, and then to supper went:
During that nicht there was nocht ellis'
But for to heir of his novellis.c
Enéas, quhen he fled from Troy,

Did not Quene Dido greiter joy: . . . .
The wonderis that he did rehers,
Were langsum for to put in vers,
Of quhilk this lady did rejois:
They drank and syned went to repois,
He found his chalmere well arrayit
With dornik work on bord displayit:
Of venison he had his waill,s
Gude aquavitae, wyne, and aill,
With nobill confeittis, bran, and geill
And swa the Squyer fuir richt weill.
Sa to heir mair of his narration,
The ladie cam to his collation,
Sayand he was richt welcum hame,
Grand-mercie, then, quod he, Madame!
They past the time with ches and tabill,
For he to everie game was abill.
Than unto bed drew everie wicht;
To chalmer went this ladie bricht;
The quilk this Squyer did convoy,
Syne till his bed he went with joy.
That nicht he sleepit never ane wink,
But still did on the ladie think.
Cupido, with his fyrie dart,

t Fought.-u Entertained.-v Feasted.-w Toil. Repose.y Handsome, pleasant.- Whose. Neat, pretty. Else. News.-d Then.- Chamber.-f Napery.Choice. Jelly.-i Fared.-j Slept.

Did piers him sa throwout the hart,
Sa all that nicht he did but murnit-
Sum tyme sat up, and sum tyme turnit-
Sichand, with mony gant and grane,
To fair Venus makand his mane,
Sayand,' fair ladie, what may this mene,
I was ane free man laitm yestreen,
And now ane cative bound and thrall,
For ane that I think flowr of all.

I pray to God sen scho knew my mynd,
How for hir saik I am sa pynd:
Wald God I had been yit in France,
Or I had hapnit sic mischance;

To be subject or serviture

Till ane quhilk takes of me na cure.
This ladie ludgit" nearhand by,
And hard the Squyer prively,
With dreidful hart makand his mane,
With monie careful gant and grane;"
Hir hart fulfillit with pitie,
Thocht scho wald haif of him mercie,
And said, howbeit I suld be slane,
He sall have lufe for lufe agayne:
Wald God I micht, with my honour,
Have him to be my paramour.
This was the merrie tyme of May,
Quhen this fair ladie, freshe and gay,
Start up to take the hailsump air,
With pantouns? on her feit ane pair,
Airlie into ane cleir morning,
Befoir fair Phoebus' uprysing:
Kirtill alone, withouten clok,
And saw the Squyers door unlok.
She slippit in or evir he wist,
And feynitlier past till ane kist,
And with hir keys oppenit the lokkis,
And made hir to take furth ane boxe,
Bot that was not hir errand thare:
With that this lustie young Squyar
Saw this ladie so pleasantile
Com to his chalmer quyetlie,
In kirtill of fyne damais brown,
Hir golden tresses hingand' doun;
Hir pappis were hard, round, and quhyte,
Quhome to behold was greit deleit;
Lyke the quhyte lillie was her lyre ;"
Hir hair wes like the reid gold weir;
Her schankis quhyte, withouten hois,"
Quhareat the Squyar did rejois,

And said, then, now vailye quod valye,"
Upon the ladie thow mak ane sailye.

Hir courtlyke kirtill was unlaist,

And sone into his armis hir braist..

CALLED the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, who suffered in the reign of Queen Mary, was born at Allington Castle, in Kent, in 1503, and was educated at Cambridge. He married early in life, and was still earlier distinguished at the court of Henry VIII. with whom his interest and favour were so great as to be proverbial. His person was majestic and beautiful, his visage (according to Surrey's interesting description) was "stern and mild :" he sung and played the lute with remarkable sweetness, spoke foreign languages with grace and fluency, and possessed an inexhaustible fund of wit. At the death of Wolsey he could not be more than nineteen; yet he is said to have contributed to that minister's downfall by a humorous story, and to have promoted the reformation by a seasonable jest. At the coronation of Anne Boleyn he officiated for his father as ewerer, and possibly witnessed the ceremony not with the most festive emotions, as there is reason to suspect that he was secretly attached to the royal bride. When the tragic end of that princess was approaching, one of the calumnies circulated against her was that Sir Thomas Wyat had confessed having had an illicit intimacy with her. The scandal was certainly false; but that it arose from a tender partiality really believed to exist between them seems to be no overstrained conjecture. His poetical mistress's name is Anna: and in one of his sonnets he complains of being obliged to desist from the pursuit of a beloved object, on account of its being the king's. The perusal of his poetry was one of the unfortunate queen's last consolations in prison. A tradition of Wyat's attachment to her was long preserved in his family. She retained his sister to the last about her person; and as she was about to lay her head on the block, gave her weeping attendant a small prayer-book, as a token of remembrance, with a smile of which the sweetness was not effaced by the horrors of approaching death. Wyat's favour at court, however, continued undiminished; and notwithstanding a quarrel with the Duke of Suffolk, which occasioned his being committed to the Tower, he was, immediately on his liberation, appointed to a command under the Duke of Norfolk, in the army that was to act against the rebels. He was also knighted, and, in the following year, made high-sheriff of Kent.

When the Emperor Charles the Fifth, after the death of Anne Boleyn, apparently forgetting the disgrace of his aunt in the sacrifice of her successor, showed a more conciliatory disposition towards England, Wyat was, in 1537, selected to go as ambassador to the Spanish court. His situation there was rendered exceedingly difficult, by the mutual insincerity of the negotiating powers, and by his religion, which exposed

12

him to prejudice, and even at one time to danger from the Inquisition. He had to invest Henry's bullying remonstrances with the graces of moderate diplomacy, and to keep terms with a bigoted court while he questioned the Pope's supremacy. In spite of those obstacles, the dignity and discernment of Wyat gave him such weight in negotiation, that he succeeded in expelling from Spain his master's most dreaded enemy, Cardinal Pole, who was so ill received at Madrid that the haughty legate quitted it with indignation. The records of his different embassies exhibit not only personal activity in following the Emperor Charles to his most important interviews with Francis, but sagacity in foreseeing consequences, and in giving advice to his own sovereign. Neither the dark policy, nor the immovable countenance of Charles, eluded his penetration. When the Emperor, on the death of Lady Jane Seymour, offered the King of England the Duchess of Milan in marriage, Henry's avidity caught at the offer of her duchy, and Heynes and Bonner were sent out to Spain as special commissioners on the business; but it fell off, as Wyat had predicted, from the Spanish monarch's insincerity.

Bonner, who had done no good to the English mission, and who had felt himself lowered at the Spanish court by the superior ascendancy of Wyat, on his return home sought to indemnify himself for the mortification, by calumniating his late colleague. In order to answer those calumnies, Wyat was obliged to obtain his recall from Spain; and Bonner's charges, on being investigated, fell to the ground. But the Emperor's journey through France having raised another crisis of expectation, Wyat was sent out once more to watch the motions of Charles, and to fathom his designs. At Blois he had an interview with Francis, and another with the Emperor, whose friendship for the king of France he pronounced, from all that he observed, to be insincere. "He is constrained (said the English ambassador) to come to a show of friendship, meaning to make him a mockery when he has done." When events are made familiar to us by history, we are perhaps disposed to undervalue the wisdom that foretold them; but this much is clear, that if Charles's rival had been as wise as Sir Thomas Wyat, the Emperor would not have made a mockery of Francis. Wyat's advice to his own sovereign at this period was to support the Duke of Cleves, and to ingratiate himself with the German protestant princes. His zeal was praised: but the advice, though sanctioned by Cromwell, was not followed by Henry. Warned probably, at last, of the approaching downfall of Cromwell, he obtained his final recall from Spain. On his return, Bonner had sufficient interest to H 2

89

get him committed to the Tower, where he was harshly treated and unfairly tried, but was nevertheless most honourably acquitted; and Henry, satisfied of his innocence, made him considerable donations of land. Leland informs us, that about this time he had the command of a ship of war. The sea service was not then, as it is now, a distinct profession.

Much of his time, however, after his return to England, must be supposed, from his writings, to

have been spent at his paternal seat of Allington, in study and rural amusements. From that pleasant retreat he was summoned, in the autumn of 1542, by order of the king, to meet the Spanish ambassador, who had landed at Falmouth, and to conduct him from thence to London. In his zeal

to perform this duty he accidentally overheated himself with riding, and was seized, at Sherborne with a malignant fever, which carried him off, after a few days' illness, in his thirty-ninth year.

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 rocks do 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 mak'st but game of earnest payne.
Think not alone under the sun,
Unquit the cause thy lovers plaine,
Although my lute and I have done.

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

And then may chaunce 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 I begun;
Now is this song both sung and past;
My lute! be still, for I have done.

FROM HIS SONGS AND EPIGRAMS.

A DESCRIPTION OF SUCH A ONE AS HE WOULD LOVE.

A FACE that should content me wondrous well,
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold
With gladsome cheer, all grief for to expell;
With sober looks so would I that it should
Speak without words, such words as none can tell;
The tress also should be of crisped gold.
With wit and these, might chance I might be tied,
And knit again with knot that should not slide.

FROM THE SAME.

OF 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 which Brutus sought by dreams,
Like bended moon, doth lend her lusty side.
My king, my country, I seek for whom I live,
Of mighty Jove the winds for this me give.

FROM HIS ODES.

AN EARNEST SUIT TO HIS UNKIND MISTRESS NOT TO
FORSAKE HIM.

AND wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay! for shame!
To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and grame.
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay!

And wilt thou leave me thus?
That hath loved thee so long?
In wealth and woe among:
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus ?
Say nay! say nay!

And wilt thou leave me thus?
That hath given thee my heart,
Never for to depart,

Neither for pain nor smart, And wilt thou leave me thus?

Say nay! say nay!

And wilt thou leave me thus?

And have no more pity

Of him that loveth thee;
Alas! thy cruelty!

And wilt thou leave me thus?

Say nay! say nay!

If it be not, show no cause why

I should so think, then care I not; For I shall so myself apply

To be that I appear not.

That is, as one that shall not shrink
To be your own until I die;
And if that be not as I think,
Likewise to think it is not.

HE LAMENTETH THAT HE HAD EVER CAUSE
TO DOUBT HIS LADY'S FAITH.

DEEM as ye list upon good cause,
I may or think of this or that;
But what or why myself best knows,
Whereby I think and fear not.
But thereunto I may well think
The doubtful sentence of this clause;
I would it were not as I think;
I would I thought it were not.
For if I thought it were not so,
Though it were so, it grieved me not;
Unto my thought it were as thô
I hearkened though I hear not.
At that I see I cannot wink,

Nor from my thought so let it go:

I would it were not as I think;

I would I thought it were not.

Lo! how my thought might make me free,
Of that perchance it needs not:
Perchance none doubt the dread I see;
I shrink at that I bear not.

But in my heart this word shall sink,
Until the proof may better be:
I would it were not as I think;
I would I thought it were not.

TO HIS MISTRESS.

FORGET not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life, ye know since whan,
The suit, the service, none tell can;
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet!

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 this!

WALPOLE, Ellis, and Warton, gravely inform us that Lord Surrey contributed to the victory of Flodden, a victory which was gained before Lord Surrey was born. The mistakes of such writers may teach charity to criticism. Dr. Nott, who has cleared away much fable and anachronism from the noble poet's biography, supposes that he was born in or about the year 1516, and that he was educated at Cambridge, of which university he was afterwards elected high steward. At the early age of sixteen he was contracted in marriage to the Lady Frances Vere, daughter to John Earl of Oxford. The Duke of Richmond was afterwards affianced to Surrey's sister. It was customary, in those times, to delay, frequently for years, the consummations of such juvenile matches; and the writer of Lord Surrey's life, already mentioned, gives reasons for supposing that the poet's residence at Windsor, and his intimate friendship with Richmond, so tenderly recorded in his verses, took place, not in their absolute childhood, as has been generally imagined, but immediately after

their being contracted to their respective brides. If this was the case, the poet's allusion to

The secret groves which oft we made resound Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise. may be charitably understood as only recording the aspirations of their conjugal impatience.

Surrey's marriage was consummated in 1535. In the subsequent year he sat with his father, as Earl Marshal, on the trial of his kinswoman Anne Boleyn. Of the impression which that event made upon his mind, there is no trace to be found either in his poetry, or in tradition. His grief for the amiable Richmond, whom he lost soon after, is more satisfactorily testified. It is about this period that the fiction of Nash, unfaithfully misapplied as reality by Anthony Wood, and from him copied, by mistake, by Walpole and Warton, sends the poet on his romantic tour to Italy, as the knight-errant of the fair Geraldine. There is no proof, however, that Surrey was ever in

*Nash's History of Jack Wilton.

Italy. At the period of his imagined errantry, his repeated appearance at the court of England can be ascertained; and Geraldine, if she was a daughter of the Earl of Kildare, was then only a child of seven years old.*

That Surrey entertained romantic sentiments for the fair Geraldine, seems, however, to admit of little doubt; and that too at a period of her youth which makes his homage rather surprising. The fashion of the age sanctioned such courtships, under the liberal interpretation of their being platonic. Both Sir P. Sydney and the Chevalier Bayard avowed attachments of this exalted nature to married ladies, whose reputations were never sullied, even when the mistress wept openly at parting from her admirer. Of the nature of Surrey's attachment we may conjecture what we please, but can have no certain test even in his verses, which might convey either much more or much less than he felt; and how shall we search in the graves of men for the shades and limits of passions that elude our living observation?

Towards the close of 1540, Surrey embarked in public business. A rupture with France being anticipated, he was sent over to that kingdom, with Lord Russell and the Earl of Southampton, to see that every thing was in a proper state of defence within the English pale. He had previously been knighted; and had jousted in honour of Anne of Cleves, upon her marriage with Henry. The commission did not detain him long in France. He returned to England before Christmas, having acquitted himself entirely to the king's satisfaction. In the next year, 1541, we may suppose him to have been occupied in his literary pursuits-perhaps in his translation of Virgil. England was then at peace both at home and abroad, and in no other subsequent year of Surrey's life could his active service have allowed him leisure. In 1542 he received the order of the Garter, and followed his father in the expedition of that year into Scotland, where he acquired his first military experience. Amidst these early distinctions it is somewhat mortifying to find him, about this period, twice committed to the Fleet prison; on one occasion on account of a private quarrel, on another for eating meat on Lent, and for breaking the windows of the citizens of London with stones from his crossbow. This was a strange misdemeanour indeed, for a hero and a man of letters. His apology, perhaps as curious as the fact itself, turns the action only into quixotic absurdity. His motive, he said, was religious. He saw the citizens sunk in papal corruption of manners, and he wished to break in upon their guilty secrecy by a sudden chastisement, that should remind them of Divine retribution!

The war with France called him into more honourable activity. In the first campaign he

If concurring proofs did not so strongly point out his poetical mistress Geraldine to be the daughter of the Earl of Kildare, we might well suspect, from the date of Surrey's attachment, that the object of his praises must have been some other person. Geraldine, when he declared his de votion to her, was only thirteen years of age. She was taken in her childhood under the protection of the court,

joined the army under Sir John Wallop, at the siege of Landrecy; and in the second and larger expedition he went as marshal of the army of which his father commanded the vanguard. The siege of Montreuil was allotted to the Duke of Norfolk and his gallant son; but their operations were impeded by the want of money, ammunition, and artillery, supplies most probably detained from reaching them by the influence of the Earl of Hertford, who had long regarded both Surrey and his father with a jealous eye. In these disastrous circumstances Surrey seconded the duke's efforts with zeal and ability. On one expedition he was out two days and two nights, spread destruction among the resources of the enemy, and returned to the camp with a load of supplies, and without the loss of a single man. In a bold attempt to storm the town he succeeded so far as to make a lodgment in one of the gates; but was dangerously wounded, and owed his life to the devoted bravery of his attendant Clere, who received a hurt in rescuing him, of which he died a month after. On the report of the Dauphin of France's approach with 60,000 men, the English made an able retreat, of which Surrey conducted the movements as marshal of the camp.

He returned with his father to England, but must have made only a short stay at home, as we find him soon after fighting a spirited action in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, in which he chased back the French as far as Montreuil. The following year he commanded the vanguard of the army of Boulogne, and finally solicited and obtained the government of that place. It was then nearly defenceless; the breaches unrepaired, the fortifications in decay, and the enemy, with superior numbers, established so near as to be able to command the harbour, and to fire upon the lower town. Under such disadvantages, Surrey entered on his command, and drew up and sent home a plan of alterations in the works, which was approved of by the king, and ordered to be acted upon. Nor were his efforts merely defensive. On one occasion he led his men into the enemy's country as far as Samerau-Bois, which he destroyed, and returned in safety with considerable booty. Afterwards, hearing that the French intended to revictual their camp at Outreau, he compelled them to abandon their object, pursued them as far as Hardilot, and was only prevented from gaining a complete victory through the want of cavalry. But his plan for the defence of Boulogne, which, by his own extant memorial, is said to evince great military skill, was marred by the issue of one unfortunate sally. In order to prevent the French from revictualling a fortress that menaced the safety of Boulogne, he found it necessary, with his slender forces, to risk another attack at St. Etienne. His cavalry first charged and routed those of the

and attended the Princess Mary. At the age of fifteen she married Sir Anthony Wood, a man of sixty, and after his death accepted the Earl of Lincoln. From Surrey's verses we find that she slighted his addresses, after having for some time encouraged them: and from his conduct it appears that he hurried into war and public business in order to forget her indifference.