crude conceits and unintelligible tortuosities of thought and rhyme. Much as he sings of love, he is, on the whole, a frigid writer, and has preserved purity at the expense of nature and fervour of passion. He was a star in the poetic horizon when stars were few, and owes it to darkness and to distance rather than to merit that his light still glimmers-it can hardly be said to shine-upon us; and we accept it not as poetry itself, but merely as containing in it the hope and promise of future and far superior song.

Surrey's principal claim to consideration lies in his versification. He undoubtedly improved the mechanical part of our poetry. He found that in the last state of anarchy and disorganisation. Heroic verse, instead of being confined to ten syllables, was often expanded to eleven, twelve, and even fourteen. The results were languor and a sprawling motion. The variation of pauses, too, was entirely neglected. Surrey limited the heroic verse to ten syllables, and divided these into five equal Iambic feet. To prevent the monotony produced by the Iambic measure, he broke his lines by pauses interposed wherever he thought the harmony of the verse required them. He also employed, in general, simple and colloquial expressions, avoiding foreign idioms and far-fetched words. His introduction of a studied mode of involution into his periods is probably a less happy innovation. But he deserves credit, it has been said, when he "discountenanced altogether the French mode of laying an unnatural stress upon final syllables, and followed the obvious and common pronunciation of our language, carefully avoiding all double terminations, and using only those words for rhyme which were noble and harmonious, and such as the ear might dwell upon with pleasure."

These are not great achievements, and were competent to one who had even less of the "vision and the Faculty Divine" than Surrey. But when we recollect the miracles of melody produced since by our Miltons, Drydens, Shelleys, and Coleridges, and that these are in part owing to the improvements introduced by Surrey, we feel that we owe him a debt of considerable gratitude as a mechanical artist, whatever we may think of his genius as a poet.

EARL OF SURREY'S POETICAL WORKS.

SONGS AND SONNETS.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESTLESS STATE OF A LOVER,

WITH SUIT TO HIS LADY, TO RUE ON HIS DYING HEART.

THE sun hath twice brought forth his tender green,
Twice clad the earth in lively lustiness;

Once have the winds the trees despoiled clean,
And once again begins their cruelness,
Since I have hid under my breast the harm
That never shall recover healthfulness.
The winter's hurt recovers with the warm;
The parched green restorèd is with shade;

What warmth, alas! may serve for to disarm

The frozen heart, that mine in flame hath made? 10

What cold again is able to restore

My fresh green years, that wither thus and fade?
Alas! I see nothing hath hurt so sore

But Time, in time, reduceth a return :
In time my harm increaseth more and more,
And seems to have my cure always in scorn.
Strange kind of death in life that I do try!

At hand, to melt; far off, in flame to burn.

And like as time list to my cure apply,

So doth each place my comfort clean refuse.

All things alive, that see'th the heavens with eye,
With cloak of night may cover, and excuse
Itself from travail of the day's unrest,

Save I, alas! against all others' use,
That then stir up the torments of my breast,
And curse each star as causer of my fate.
And when the sun hath eke the dark oppress'd,
And brought the day, it doth nothing abate
The travails of mine endless smart and pain;
For then, as one that hath the light in ĥate,
I wish for night, more covertly to plain ;

And me withdraw from every haunted place,
Lest by my chere 1
my chance appear too plain :
And in my mind I measure pace by pace,
To seek the place where I myself had lost,

That day that I was tangled in the lace,2
In seeming slack, that knitteth ever most.

But never yet the travail of my thought, Of better state could catch a cause to boast.

For if I found, some time that I have sought, Those stars by whom I trusted of the port,

My sails do fall, and I advance right nought; As anchor'd fast my spirits do all resort

To stand agazed, and sink in more and more The deadly harm which she doth take in sport. Lo! if I seek, how I do find my sore!

And if I flee, I carry with me still

The venom'd shaft, which doth his force restore

By haste of flight; and I may plain my fill

Unto myself, unless this careful song

'Chere:' countenance, behaviour.-Lace: 'a snare.

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Print in your heart some parcel of my tene,1
For I, alas! in silence all too long,
Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green.
Rue on my life, or else your cruel wrong
Shall well appear, and by my death be seen.

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DESCRIPTION OF SPRING,

WHEREIN EVERYTHING REnews, save ONLY THE LOVER.
THE Soote 2 season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale:
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

The turtle to her make3 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 flings;

The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ;5

The busy bee her honey now she mings ;6

Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.7

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs !

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESTLESS STATE OF A LOVER.

1 WHEN youth had led me half the race That Cupid's scourge had made me run,

I looked back to mete the place

From whence my weary course begun.

Tene: sorrow.-2 Soote :' sweet.-Make:' mate.-'Flete: float.

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5 Smale:' small.—Mings:' mingles. - Bale:' destruction.

2 And then I saw how my desire
By guiding ill had let the way:
Mine eyen, too greedy of their hire,
Had made me lose a better prey.

3 For when in sighs I spent the day,

And could not cloak my grief with game,1
The boiling smoke did still bewray
The present heat of secret flame.

4 And when salt tears do bain2 my breast, Where Love his pleasant trains hath sown, Her beauty hath the fruits oppress'd,

Ere that the buds were sprung and blown.

5 And when mine eyen did still pursue The flying chase of their request, Their greedy looks did oft renew

The hidden wound within my breast.

6 When every look these cheeks might stain,
From deadly pale to glowing red,

By outward signs appeared plain,
To her for help my heart was fled.

7 But all too late Love learneth me

To paint all kind of colours new,
To blind their eyes that else should see
My speckled cheeks with Cupid's hue.

8 And now the covert breast I claim,
That worshipp'd Cupid secretly,
And nourished his sacred flame,
From whence no blazing sparks do fly.

Game:' cheerfulness.-2 Bain' bathe.