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And thus I see, among these pleasant things,
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!

DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS LOVE, GERALDINE.

FROM Tuscane came my lady's worthy race; Fair Florence was, sometime, her ancient seat; The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth face Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat. Foster'd she was with milk of Irish breast;

Her sire an earl; her dame of princes' blood: From tender years, in Britain she doth rest,

With king's child, where she tasteth costly food. Honsdon did first present her to mine ey❜n;

Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight; Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine, And Windsor, alas, doth chase me from her sight!

Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above;
Happy is he that can obtain her love.

SIR THOMAS WYATT.

BORN 1503-DIED 1541.

THIS gentleman, a poet, courtier, and statesman, was one of the most distinguished ornaments of the court of Henry VIII., as a writer inferior to his friend Surrey in elegance of fancy, and harmony and variety of numbers, but surpassing him in terseness and moral vigour. Surrey's love-verses spring from passion and unaffected

impulse, refined by gallantry, and animated by a natu rally warm imagination. Wyatt has penned many amorous ditties, because such was the courtly fashion; but his element is philosophic reflection and dignified satire. Sir Thomas was the son of Sir Henry Wyatt of Allington

Castle, Kent, of whom a singular story is told. While imprisoned in the Tower by the tyrant Richard III., he was preserved by a cat which brought him food. His pictures, according to the local historian of Kent, are always drawn with his preserver either in his arms or beside him.

Young Wyatt was educated at Cambridge, and, on coming to court, from the beauty of his person, his graceful accomplishments, talent for repartee, and polite and sprightly manners, he became a general favourite. These qualities recommended him to the King, who employed him on several embassies. He married very young; but when Henry grew tired of the wife it had cost him so much to obtain-Anne Boleyn,-Wyatt was one of her many imputed lovers. There is small remaining evidence to support the alleged attachment, at least on the part of Wyatt; for though he fell under the displeasure of his capricious sovereign, and was twice imprisoned, and once tried for his life, he carried his head on his shoulders to the grave, a rather unusual circumstance with Henry's favourites. Mr Campbell says, that a tradition of this attachment long remained in the Wyatt family, and that the poetical name of his mistress is Anna. But the poetical name of his mistress is also Phillis. It is more certain, that perusing his sonnets was one of the last consolations of the unhappy Queen in the prison which led to the scaffold, and that she retained Wyatt's sister near her till the last moment of her life. Wyatt, with many brilliant accomplishments, possessed prudence, penetration, and firmness; and abundance of that knowledge of life and manners which gains friends and increases personal in

fluence. His wit in early life was as agreeable to the King as his talents for business were afterwards useful; yet he lived to feel and declare, "that all is vanity and vexation of spirit." His important services to the state abroad could not save him from the malevolence of Bonner. Few persons ever sought to make the natural jealousy and cruelty of Henry the instrument of their private malice without succeeding. But in the case of Wyatt the attempt failed. Either Henry, whose moods were as capricious as the caged savage beast, which will at one time suffer the caresses of his keeper, and at another growl and threaten, or turn and rend him, refused to be cheered on to the prey, or the jury were less subservient than usual; for Wyatt was acquitted, and retired to his country-seat, where he passed the short remainder of his life in study and in the business of a country gentleman. He died in his thirty-ninth year of a malignant fever, caught by overheating and fatiguing himself in riding to meet the Spanish ambassador at Dover. By the historian of English poetry, he is pronounced the first polished satirist in the language; and of his conversational talents, it is recorded that he promoted the Reformation by a jest, and contributed to the downfal of Wolsey by a humorous story. The well-timed courtly jest, to which is attached such important consequences, made when the King affected to have scruples of conscience about his divorce from Queen Catherine, was this exclamation," Lord! that a man cannot repent him of his sin without the Pope's leave!" And when the ruin of Wolsey was already determined, "Sir Thomas," in the words of his old biographer, "ups with a story of the curs baiting the butcher's dog." Wolsey was the son of a butcher.

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 approv'd,
The which so long hath thee so lov'd,
Whose steadfast faith yet never mov'd,
Forget not this!

OF HIS RETURNE FROM SPAINE.

TAGUS farewell, that westward with thy stremes, Turnes up the graines of gold already tried;

For I with spurre and saile go seke the Temmes, Gainward the Sunne that sheweth her welthy pride;

And to the town that Brutus sought by dreames,
Like bended mone that leaues her lusty side,

My king, my countrey I seke, for whom I live,
O mighty love the windes for this me give.

OF THE MEAN AND SURE ESTATE.
[From Seneca's Chorus.]

STOND Who So list upon the slipper wheele
Of hie estate, and let me here reioyce,
And use my life in quietnesse eche dele,
Unknowen in court that hath the wanton toyes,
In hydden place my time shall slowly passe,
And when my yeres be past withouten noyse,
Let me die old after the common trace;
For gripes of death doth he too hardly pass;
That knowen is to all, but to himself, alas!
He dyeth unknowen, dased with dreadfull face.

OF THE COURTIER'S LIFE.

MYNE Own John Poins, since ye delite to know
The causes why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the prease of courtes, where so they go,
Rather than to liue thrall vnder the awe
Of lordly lokes, wrapped within my cloke;
To will and lust learning to set a lawe :
It is not, that because I scorne or mocke

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