want of cavalry. But his plan for the defence of Boulogne, which, by his own extant memorial, is said to evince great military skill, was marred by the issue of one unfortunate sally. In order to prevent the French from revictualling a fortress that menaced the safety of Boulogne, he found it necessary, with his slender forces, to risk another attack at St. Etienne. His cavalry first charged and routed those of the French: the foot, which he commanded in person, next advanced, and the first line, consisting chiefly of gentlemen armed with corselets, behaved gallantly, but the second line, in coming to the push of the pike, were seized with a sudden panic, and fled back to Boulogne, in spite of all the efforts of their commander to rally them. Within a few months after this affair he was recalled to England, and Hertford went out to France as the king's lieutenant-general. It does not appear, however, that the loss of this action was the pretext for his recal, or the direct cause of the king's vengeance, by which he was subsequently destined to fall. If the faction of Hertford, that was intriguing against him at home, ever succeeded in fretting the king's humour against him, by turning his misfortune into a topic of blame, Henry's irritation must have passed away, as we find Surrey recalled, with promises of being replaced in his command, (a promise, however, which was basely falsified,) and again appearing at court in an honourable station. But the event of his recal, (though it does not seem to have been marked by tokens of royal displeasure,) certainly contributed indirectly to his ruin, by goading his proud temper to farther hostilities with Hertford. Surrey, on his return to England, spoke of his enemy with indignation and menaces, and imprudently expressed his hopes of being revenged in a succeeding reign. His words were reported, probably with exaggeration, to the king, and occasioned his being sent, for some time, as a prisoner to Windsor. He was liberated, however, from thence, and again made his appearance at court, unsuspicious of his impending ruin. It is difficult to trace any personal motives that could impel Henry to wish for his destruction. He could not be jealous of his intentions to marry the princess Mary-that fable is disproved by the discovery of Surrey's widow having survived him. Nor is it likely that the king dreaded him as an enemy to the Reformation, as there is every reason to believe that he was a protestant. The natural cruelty of Henry seems to have been but an instrument in the designing hands of Hertford, whose ambition, fear, and jealousy, prompted him to seek the destruction of Norfolk and his son. His measures were unhappily aided by the vindictive resentment of the duchess of Norfolk against her husband, from whom she had been long separated, and by the still more unaccountable and unnatural hatred of the duchess of Richmond against her own brother. Surrey was arrested on the 12th of December, 1546, and committed to the tower. The depositions of witnesses against him, whose collective testimony did not substantiate even a legal offence, were transmitted to the king's judges at Norwich, and a verdict was returned, in consequence of which he was indicted for high treason. We are not told the full particulars of his defence, but are only generally informed that it was acute and spirited. With respect to the main accusation, of his bearing the arms of the Confessor, he proved that he had the authority of the heralds in so doing, and that he had worn them himself in the king's presence, as his ancestors had worn them in the presence of former kings. Notwithstanding his manifest innocence, the jury was base enough to find him guilty. The chancellor pronounced sentence of death upon him; and in the flower of his age, in his 31st year, this noble soldier, and accomplished poet, was beheaded on Tower-hill. Surry was not, as has been said, the inventor of our metrical versification; nor had his genius the potent voice and the magic spell which rouse all the dormant energies of a language. In certain walks of composition, though not in the highest, viz. in the ode, elegy, and epitaph, he set a chaste and delicate example; but he was cut off too early in life, and cultivated poetry too slightly, to carry the pure stream of his style into the broad and bold channels of inventive fiction. Much, undoubtedly, he did, in giving sweetness to our numbers, and in substituting for the rude tautology of a former age, a style of soft and brilliant ornament, of selected expression, and of verbal arrangement, which often winds into graceful novelties; though sometimes a little objectionable from its involution. Our language was also indebted to him for the introduction of blank verse. It may be noticed at the same time that blank verse, if it had continued to be written as Surrey wrote it, would have had a cadence too uniform and cautious to be a happy vehicle for the dramatic expression of the passions. Grimoald, the second poet who used it after Lord Surrey, gave it a little more variety of pauses; but it was not till it had been tried as a measure by several composers, that it acquired a bold and flexible modulation. EARL OF SURREY. DESCRIPTION OF SPRING. WHEREIN ECHE THING RENEWES SAUE ONELY THE LOVER. THE Soote season, that bud and blome forth brings, With grene hath clad the hill, and eke the vale: |