The stately seates, the ladies bright of hewe,
The daunces shorte, long tales of great delight,
With wordes and lookes that tygers could but rewe2;
Where ech of us dyd pleade the others right.

The palme-play", where, dispoyled for the game,
With dazed eyes oft we by gleames of love,
Have myst the ball, and got sight of our dame,
To bayted her eyes whych kept the leads above.

The gravell grounde', wyth sleves tied on the helmes,
On fomyng horse, with swordes and frendly hartes;
Wyth chere h
as though one should another whelme',
Where we have fought and chased oft with dartes.-

The secret groves, which ofte we made resounde
Of pleasaunt playnt, and of our ladies prayse,
Recordyng ofte what gracek eche one had found,
What hope of speede', what dreade of long delayes.

The wylde forest, the clothed holtes with grene*,
With raynes avayledTM, and swift ybreathed horse,
With crye of houndes, and merry blastes betwene
Where we did chase the fearful harte of force.

brendered unfit, or unable, to play. [Despoiled, is the spogliato of the Italian: stripped for the game.—NOTT.]

c dazzled eyes.

to tempt, to catch.

e The ladies were ranged on the leads, or battlements, of the castle to see the play.

The ground, or area, was strown with gravel, where they were trained in chivalry.

At tournaments they fixed the sleeves of their mistresses on some part of their

"Avayle their tayles," to drop or lower.
So also in his December:

By that the welked Phebus gan AVAYLE
His wearie waine.-

And in the Faerie Queene, with the true
spelling, i. 1. 21. Of Nilus:

But when his latter ebbe gins to AVALE.

TO VALE, or avale, the bonnet, was a phrase for lowering the bonnet, or pulling off the hat. The word occurs in Chaucer, Troil. and Cress. iii. 627.

That such a raine from heaven gan AVAILE. And in the fourth book of his Boethius, "The light fire ariseth into height, and the hevie yerthes AVAILEN by their weightes." pag. 394. col. 2. edit. Urr. From the French verb AVALER, which is from their adverb AVAL, downward. See also Hearne's Gloss. Rob. Br. p. 524. Drayton uses this word, where perhaps it is not properly understood. Ecl. iv. p. 1404. edit. 1753.

The void vales" eke, that harbourd us ech nyght,
Wherewith, alas, reviveth in my brest
The sweete accord! Such slepes as yet delyght:
The pleasant dreames, the quiet bed of rest.

The secret thoughtes imparted with such trust;
The wanton talke, the dyvers change of playe;
The friendship sworne, eche promise kept so just,
Wherewith we past the winter nightes away.

And wyth this thought the bloud forsakes the face;
The teares beraine my chekes of deadly hewe,
The whych as soone as sobbyng sighes, alas,
Upsupped have, thus I my plaint renewe!

*

"O place of blisse, renewer of my woes!

Give me accompt, where is my noble fereo,

Whom in thy walles thou doest eche night enclose,
To other leefe, but unto me most dere!"

Eccho, alas, that doth my sorrow rewer,
Returns therto a hollow sounde of playnt.
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grewe,
In pryson pine, with bondage and restraint.
And with remembrance of the greater greefe
To banish th' lesse, I finde my chief releefe."`

In the poet's situation, nothing can be more natural and striking than the reflection with which he opens his complaint. There is also much beauty in the abruptness of his exordial exclamation. The superb palace, where he had passed the most pleasing days of his youth with the son of a king, was now converted into a tedious and solitary prison! This unexpected vicissitude of fortune awakens a new and interesting train of thought. The comparison of his past and present circumstances recals their juvenile sports and amusements; which were more to be regretted, as young Richmond was now dead. Having described some of these with great elegance, he recurs to his first idea by a beautiful

n

Probably the true reading is wales or walls. That is, lodgings, apartments, &c. These poems were very corruptly printed by Tottel. [The printed copy reads "wide vales." Dr. Nott has obtained the reading of the text from the Harrington MS., and illustrates it by observing: In Surrey's time, not only in noblemen's houses, but in royal palaces when the court was not resident, it was usual to take down all the tapestry and hangings. But why is vales suffered to stand when the same poem supplies us with the genuine orthography of Surrey?

apostrophe. He appeals to the place of his confinement, once the source of his highest pleasures: "O place of bliss, renewer of my woes! And where is now my noble friend, my companion in these delights, who was once your inhabitant? Echo alone either pities or answers my question, and returns a plaintive hollow sound!" He closes his complaint with an affecting and pathetic sentiment, much in the style of Petrarch: "To banish the miseries of my present distress, I am forced on the wretched expedient of remembering a greater!" This is the consolation of a warm fancy. It is the philosophy of poetry.

Some of the following stanzas, on a lover who presumed to compare his lady with the divine Geraldine, have almost the ease and gallantry of Waller. The leading compliment, which has been used by later writers, is in the spirit of an Italian fiction. It is very ingenious, and handled with a high degree of elegance.

Give place, ye Lovers, here before

That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine:
My Ladie's beauty passeth more

The best of yours, I dare wel sayne,
Than doth the sunne the candle lyght,
Or bryghtest day the darkest nyght.

And therto hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the faire:

For what she sayth, ye may it trust,
As it by wryting sealed were:
And vertues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to showe.

I could reherse, if that I would,
The whole effect of NATURE's plaint,
When she had lost the perfite mould,
The lyke to whom she could not paint.
With wringyng handes how she did cry!
And what she said, I know it, I.

I knowe, she swore with raging mynde,
Her kingdome only set apart,
There was no losse, by law of kynde,
That could have gone so nere her hart:
And this was chiefely all her payne

She could not make the like agayne.

The versification of these stanzas is correct, the language polished, and the modulation musical. The following stanza, of another ode will hardly be believed to have been produced in the reign of Henry the Eighth.

Spite drave me into Boreas' raigne",
Where hory frostes the frutes do bite;
When hilles were spred and every plaine
With stormy winter's mantle white.w

In an Elegy on the elder sir Thomas Wyat's death, his character is delineated in the following nervous and manly quatraines.

A visage, sterne and milde; where both did growe,
Vice to contemne, in vertue to rejoyce;

Amid great stormes, whom grace assured so,
To live upright, and smile at fortune's choyce.--
A toung that serv'd in forein realmes his king,
Whose courteous talke to vertue did enflame
Eche noble harte; a worthy guide to bring
Our English youth by travail unto fame.
An eye, whose judgment none affect could blind,
Frendes to allure, and foes to reconcyle:
Whose persingy looke did represent a mynde
With vertue fraught, reposed, voyde of gile.

A hart, where dreade was never so imprest

To hide the thought that might the troth avance;
In neither fortune lost, nor yet represt,

To swell in welth, or yeld unto mischance.”

The following lines on the same subject are remarkable.
Divers thy death do diversly bemone:

Some that in presence of thy livelyhede

Lurked, whose brestes envy with hate had swolne,

Yeld Cesar's teares upon Pompeius' head.a

There is great dignity and propriety in the following Sonnet on

Wyat's PSALMS.

In the riche ark Dan Homer's rimes he placed,
Who fained gestes of heathen princes song.

What holy grave, what worthy sepulchre,

To Wiattes Psalmes should Christians then purchàse?
Where he doth paint the lyvely faith and pure;
The stedfast hope, the sweete returne to gracę

Of just David by perfite penitence.
Where rulers may see in a mirrour clere
The bitter frute of false concupiscence:
How Jewry bought Uria's deth ful dere.

"Her anger drove me into a colder climate.

y piercing.
a Fol. 16.
repository.

2 Fol. 17.
b chest.

In princes hartes God's scourge imprinted depe

Ought them awake out of their sinful slepe.d

Probably the last lines may contain an oblique allusion to some of the king's amours.

Some passages in his Description of the restlesse state of a Lover, are pictures of the heart, and touched with delicacy.

I wish for night, more covertly to plaine,
And me withdraw from every haunted place;
Lest by my chere my chaunce appeare too plaine.
And in my minde I measure, pace by pace,

To seke the place where I myself had lost,
That day, when I was tangled in the lace,
In seming slack that knitteth ever most.-
Lo, if I seke, how I do finde my sore!
And if I flee, I carry with me still

The venom'd shaft, which doth its force restore
By haste of flight. And I may plaine my fill

Unto myself, unlesse this carefull song

Print in your hart some parcel of

For I, alas, in silence all too long,

my tenef.

Of mine old hurt yet fele the wound but grene.

Surrey's talents, which are commonly supposed to have been confined to sentiment and amorous lamentation, were adapted to descriptive poetry and the representations of rural imagery. A writer only that viewed the beauties of nature with poetic eyes, could have selected the vernal objects which compose the following exquisite ode.h

The soote season, that bud and blome forth brings,
With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale;
The nightingale with fethers new she sings;
The turtle to her mate hath tolde her tale:
Somer is come, for every spray now springs.
The hart hath hong his old hed on the pale*:
The buck in brake his winter coate he flings:
The fishes flete with new repayred scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings:
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale:
The busy bee her hony now she mings.
Winter is worne that was the flowers balei.

d Fol. 16.

e behaviour, looks. f sorrow. 8 Fol. 2. h Fol. 2. *[The following lines from Turberville's poems, 1567, denote a close attention to Surrey.

Since snakes do cast their shrivelled skinnes

And bucks hange up their heads on pale;

Since frisking fishes lose their finnes
And glide with new repaired scale;
Then I of force, with greedie eie
Must hope to finde to ease my smart,
Since eche annoy in spring doth die,
And cares to comfort doe convart.

i destruction.

f. 110.-PARK.]