tho' I can manage him, yet no fucceffor of mine will ever be able to do fo; for which "reason I have dispatched him in my own time." He was first interred in the chapel of the Tower, and afterwards in the reign of King James, his remains were removed to Farmingam in Suffolk, by his fecond fon Henry Earl of Northampton, with this epitaph. Henrico Howardo, Thomæ fecundi Ducis Norfolcia filio primogenito. Thomæ tertii Patri, Comiti Surriæ, & Georgiani Ordinis Equiti Aurato, immature Anno Salutis 1546 abrepto. Et Francifcæ Uxoris ejus, filiæ Johannis Comitis Oxoniæ. Henricus Howardus Comes Northamptonia filius fecundo genitus, hoc fupremum pietatis in parentes monumentum pofuit, A. D. 1614. Upon the acceffion of Queen Mary the attainder was taken off his father, which circumstance has furnished fome people with an opportunity to fay, that the princefs was fond of, and would have married, the Earl of Surry. I fhall transcribe the act of repeal as I find it in Collins's Peerage of England, which has fomething fingular enough in it. That there was no special matter in the A&t of Attainder, but only general words of treafon and confpiracy and that out of their care for the prefervation of the King and the Prince they paffed it, and this Act of Repeal further fets forth, that the only thing of which he ftood charged, was for bearing of arms, which he and his ancestors had born within and without the kingdom in the King's prefence, and fight of his progenitors, as they might lawfully bear and give, as by good and fubftantial matter of record it did appear. It also added, that the King died after the date of the commiffion; likewife that he only empowered 'them ་ them to give his confent; but did not give it himself; and that it did not appear by any record that they gave it. Moreover, that the King did not fign the commiffion with his own hand, his itamp being only fet to it, and that not to the upper part, but to the nether part of it, contrary to the King's cuitom.' Befides the amorous and other poetical pieces of this noble author, he tranflated Virgil's Æneid, and rendered (fays Wood) the firft, fecond, and third book almoft word for word:All the Biographers of the poets have been lavish, and very juftly, in his praife; he merits the highest encomiums as the refiner of our language. and challenges the gratitude and esteem of every man of literature, for the generous affiftance he afforded it in its infancy, and his ready and liberal patronage to all men of merit in his time. W Sir THOMAS WYAT. AS diftinguished by the appellation of the Elder, as there was one of the fame name who raised a rebellion in the time of Queen Mary. He was fon to Henry Wyat of Alingtoncaftle in Kent. He received the rudiments of his education at Cambridge, and was afterwards placed at Oxford to finish it. He was in great eleem with King Henry VIII. on account of his wit and Love Elegies, pieces of poetry in which he remarkably fucceeded. The affair of Anne Bullen came on, when he made fome oppofition to the King's paffion for her, that was likely to prove fatal to him, but by 153 his his prudent behaviour, and retracting what he had formerly advanced, he was restored again to his roy. al patronage. He was cotemporary with the Earl of Surry, who held him in high efteem. He travelled into foreign parts, and as we have observed in the Earl of Surry's life, he added fomething towards refining the English ftile, and polishing our numbers, tho' he feems not to have done fo much in that way as his lordship. Pitts and Bale have entirely neglected him, yet for his tranflation of David's Pfalms into English metre and other poetical works, Leland fcruples not to compare him with Dante and Petrarch, by giving him this ample commendation. Let Florence fair her Dantes juftly boast, And royal Rome, her Petrarchs numbered feet, In English Wyat both of them doth coaft: In whom all graceful eloquence doth meet. Leland published all his works under the title of Nænia. Some of his Biographers (Mrs. Cooper and Winstanley) fay that he died of the plague as he was going on an embaffy to the Emperor Charles V. but Wood afferts, that he was only fent to Falmo by the King to meet the Spanish ambaffador on the road, and conduct him to the court, which it feems demanded very great expedition; that by over-fatiguing himself, he was thrown into a fever, and in the thirty-eighth year of his age died in a little country-town in England, greatly lamented by all lovers of learning and politenefs. In his poetical capacity, he does not appear to have much imagination, neither are his verfes fo mufical and well polished as lord Surry's. Thofe of gallantry in particular feem to be too artificial and laboured for a lover, without that artless fimplicity which is the genuine mark of feeling; and too stiff, and negligent of harmony for a poet. His letters to John Poynes and Sir Francis Bryan deferve more notice, they argue him a man of great fenfe and honour, a critical obferver of manners, and well-qualified for an elegant and genteel fatirift. Thefe letters contain obfervations on the Courtier's Life, and I fhall quote a few lines as a fpecimen, by which it will be feen how much he falls fhort of his noble cotemporary, lord Surry, and is above those writers that preceded him in verfification. The COURTIERS LIFE. In court to ferve decked with fresh araye, That whofo joys fuch kind of life to holde, AS fon of Richard Sackville and Wini W frede, daughter of Sir John Bruges, Lord Mayor of London. *He was born at Buckhurst in the parish of Withiam in Suffex, and from his childhood was diftinguished for wit and manly behaviour: He was firft of the University of Oxford, but taking no degree there, he went to Cambridge, and commenced master of arts; he afterwards ftudied the law in the Inner-Temple, and became a * Fuller's Worthies, p. 105. D 4 barrifter; barrister; but his genius being too lively to be confined to a dull plodding study, he chofe rather to dedicate his hours to poetry and pleafure; he was the first that wrote fcenes in verfe, the Tragedy of Ferrex and Perrex, fons to 'Gorboduc King of Britain, being performed in the prefence of Queen Elizabeth, long before Shakespear appeared ton the ftage, by the Gentlemen of the Inner-Temple, at Whitehall the 18th of January, 1561, which Sir Philip Sidney thus characterises:" It is full of ftate ly fpeeches, and well founding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca's ftile, and as full of no"table morality, which it doth moft delightfully "teach, and fo obtain the very end of poetry." In the courfe of his ftudies, he was moit delighted with the history of his own country, and being likewife well acquainted with antient history, he formed a defign of writing the lives of feveral great perfonages in verfe, of which we have a fpecimen in a book published 1610, called the Mirror of Magiftrates, being a true Chronicle Hiftory of the untimely falls of fuch unfortunate princes and men of note, as have happened fince the first entrance of Brute into this liland until his own time. It appears by a preface of Richard Nicolls, that the original plan of the Mirror of Magiftrates was principally owing to him, a work of great labour, use and beauty. The induction, from which I fhall quote a few lines, is indeed a master-piece, and if the whole could have been compleated in the fame manner, it would have been an honour to the nation to this day, nor could have funk under the ruins of time; but the courtier put an end to the poet; and one cannot help wifhing for the fake of our national reputation, that his rife at court had been a little longer delayed: It may easily be feen that allegory was brought to great perfection before Wood Ath. Ox. præd. the |