SURREY'S DEATH.

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daughter; pursued her with sonnets, poems, imprecations, entreaties, as melodious as Petrarch's, until she was herself married to Sir Anthony Brown. He amused himself meantime building magnificent palaces that have long perished; wrote religious poems; translated part of the Æneid; and was the first to introduce blank verse into English poetry. And now, in his thirtieth year, the cloud of rain gathered around him. His enemy, the Earl of Hertford, filled the king's mind with suspicions that were not, perhaps, altogether ill founded. It was said that Surrey aspired to the crown, and used the royal arms; that he and his father were papists in disguise. They were sent to the Tower separately, neither knowing of the other's fate; were examined apart; tried; and when Surrey had made a bold and animated defense, he was convicted by his mother's and his sister's testimony. He died (1547) on the scaffold, in his thirtieth year.

Never was there a more active life. Even Sidney did no more than Surrey. His translation of the second book of the Eneid opens thus:

They whisted all, with fixed face attent,
When Prince Æneas from the royal seat

Thus 'gan to speak. O Queen! it is thy will

I should renew a woe cannot be told,
How that the Greeks did spoil and overthrow
The Phrygian wealth and wailful realm of Troy
Those ruthful things that I myself beheld,
And whereof no small part fell to my share,
Which to express who could refrain from tears?
What Myrmidons, etc.

This is the first English blank verse: it is not without melody. Imprisoned at Windsor, Surrey thus sighs over the memory of his friend Richmond:

The secret groves, which oft we made resound
Of pleasant plaint and of our ladies' praise,
Recording soft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.

In a sharp satire on London, he calls it "the shop of craft, the den of ire." But Surrey's letters, poems, prose, translations, hymns, helped to awaken the taste of England and transplant Dante and Petrarch to his native land. His natural ear for melody produced a verse that was only surpassed by Shakspeare and Spenser.

Sir Thomas Wyatt. - Wyatt, Surrey's friend and poetical ally, but many years older, was born in 1503. He was a courtier of eminence, wealth, influence. When a young man, he had aspired to the affections of Anne

Boleyn; but when Wyatt heard that a royal suitor had interposed, he prudently withdrew. Anne probably introduced him to her cousin, young Surrey. They became close friends, but Wyatt was soon engaged in embassies and public business. His life was passed in the stormy politics of the court of Henry VIII. Sometimes he was imprisoned "in a dark and noisome dungeon;" sometimes he fled to his fine seat, Allington, to seek a poetical repose. He died 1542, perhaps not too soon. His son was that impulsive Protestant Wyatt, who was also Surrey's companion, and who perished in Mary's reign. Wyatt's poetry is inferior to Surrey's, but not without some traits of excellence. Its inversions and omissions are fewer than one would look for.

CLASSIC AND ITALIAN TRANSLATIONS.

From Surrey's death until the appearance of Spenser was a period of preparation for literary effort. A flood of translations and editions from the classics, the Italian and French, filled all England with the new knowledge. In Edward's period (15471553) the literary revival was scarcely begun; but a better taste in prose had already produced Cranmer's Prayer-book and an

English Bible. In Mary's reign (1553–1558), literature slumbered. In the earlier part of Elizabeth's, until about 1570, no remarkable progress will be observed. But in the period from 1570 to 1590, the era of translation began. An intense desire prevailed to study the literature of the past. A splendor of mental light, scholarship, research, covered England. The example of Henry VIII. and his intelligent family; the rising vigor of reform; the craving of the awakened intellect for knowledge which could alone be satisfied by profuse reading—a thousand impulses seemed to move the national mind at once. The French ballads were translated, German legends, medieval tales; the songs of Lancelot and Guinevere gave rise to the Faery Queen; Oriental tales, Indian fables, the Gesta Romanorum, follow; Boccaccio's novels appear in 1566, romances from the Italian; a thousand stories are published from many languages; the early Spanish romances are popular, and Palmerin and Amadis de Gaul fill the minds of Englishmen. The passion for fiction from 1570 to 1590 ruled with intense ardor, and the countless romances of the time offered profuse materials for the dramatist and the poet.

THE CLASSICS.-SIDNEY.

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SCHOLARSHIP AND THE CLASSICS.

In the midst of this light play of the fancy appear many of the higher or more laborious efforts of the intellect. Scholars like Sir Henry Savile or Sir Thomas Smith edited the classics, and urged on the study of the ancient authors. Tacitus appeared in English; nearly all the Greeks and Latins. Scholars of unrivalled attainments pursue their silent studies, publish Latin and Greek grammars, collect rare books. Puttenham, Ascham, Gascoigne, write on English composition; Ariosto is translated; Lyly's Euphues appears in 1581; and Shakspeare might read and Spenser study nearly all the finer productions of Italy, Greece, Rome, France, Spain, translated into their own tongue. The legends of Wales, the songs of Trouveurs, even some of the stirring ballads of the Norse poets, all the fanciful literature of the Middle Ages, are found mingling with the poetical conceptions of the Elizabethan authors, and giving a framework to Hamlet or a graceful setting to the Faery Queen.

Sir Philip Sidney.-In 1587 all London assembled to celebrate the funeral of a

"It was accounted a sin for any Gentleman of