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LIFE OF SURREY.

DR. NOTT, who has cleared away much fable and anachronism from this noble poet's biography, supposes that he was born in or about the year 1516, and that he was educated at Cambridge, of which university he was afterwards elected high steward. At the early age of sixteen he was contracted in marriage to the Lady Frances Vere, daughter to John Earl of Oxford. The Duke of Richmond was afterwards affianced to Surrey's sister. It was customary, in those times, to delay, frequently for years, the consummations of such juvenile matches; and the writer of Lord Surrey's life, already men. tioned, gives reasons for supposing that the poet's residence at Windsor, and his intimate friendship with Richmond, so tenderly recorded in his verses, took place, not in their absolute childhood, as has been generally imagined, but immediately after their being contracted to their respective brides. If this was the case, the poet's allusion to

The secret groves which oft we made resound
Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies love,

may be charitably understood as only recording the aspirations of their conjugal impatience.

Surrey's marriage was consummated in 1535. In the subsequent year he sat, with lfis father, as Earl Marshal, on the trial of his kinswoman Anne Bo

leyn. Of the impression which that event made upon his mind, there is no trace to be found either in his poetry, or in tradition. His grief for the amiable Richmond, whom he lost soon after, is more satisfactorily testified. It is about this period that the fiction of Nash, unfaithfully misapplied as reality by Anthony Wood, and from him copied, by mistake, by Walpole and Warton, sends the poet on his romantic tour to Italy, as the knight errant of the fair Geraldine There is no proof, however, that Surrey was ever in Italy. At the period of his imagined errantry his repeated appearance at the court of England can be ascertained; and Geraldine, if she was a daughter of the earl of Kildare, was then only a child of seven years old.

That Surrey entertained romantic sentiments for the fair Geraldine, seems, however, to admit of little doubt; and that too at a period of her youth which makes his homage rather surprising. The fashion of the age sanctioned such courtships, under the liberal interpretation of their being platonic. Both Sir P. Sidney and the Chevalier Bayard avowed attachments of this exalted nature to married ladies, whose reputations were never sullied, even when the mistress wept openly at parting from her admirer. Of the nature of Surrey's attachment we may conjecture what we please, but can have no certain test even in his verses, which might convey either much more or much less than he felt; and how shall we search in the graves of men for the shades and limits of passions that elude our living observation?

Towards the close of 1540 Surrey embarked in public business. A rupture with France being anticipated, he was sent over to that kingdom, with Lord Russel and the Earl of Southampton, to see that every thing was in a proper state of defence within the English pale. He had previously been knighted: and had jousted in honour of Anne of

Cleves, upon her marriage with Henry. The commission did not detain him long in France. He returned to England before Christmas, having acquitted himself entirely to the king's satisfaction. In the next year, 1541, we may suppose him to have been occupied in his literary pursuits-perhaps in his translation of Virgil. England was then at peace both at home and abroad, and in no other subsequent year of Surrey's life could his active service have allowed him leisure. In 1542 he received the order of the garter, and followed his father in the expedition of that year into Scotland, where he acquired his first military experience. Amidst these early distinctions it is somewhat mortifying to find him, about this period, twice committed to the Fleet prison, on one occasion on account of a private quarrel, on another for eating meat in Lent, and for breaking the windows of the citizens of London with stones from his cross bow. This was a strange misdemeanour indeed, for a hero and a man of letters. His apology, perhaps as curious as the fact itself, turns the action only into quixotic absurdity. His motive, he said, was religious. He saw the citizens sunk in corruption of manners, and he wished to break in upon their guilty secrecy by a sudden chastisement, that should remind them of divine retribution.

The war with France called him into more honourable activity. In the first campaign he joined the army under Sir John Wallop, at the siege of Landrecy; and in the second and larger expedition he went as marshal of the army of which his father commanded the vanguard. The siege of Montreuil was allotted to the duke of Norfolk and his gallant son; but their operations were impeded by the want of money, ammunition, and artillery, supplies most probably detained from reaching them by the influence of the earl of Hertford, who had long regarded both Surrey and his father with a jealous

eye. In these disastrous circumstances Surrey seconded the duke's efforts with zeal and ability. On one expedition he was out two days and two nights, spread destruction among the resources of the enemy, and returned to the camp with a load of supplies, and without the loss of a single man. In a bold attempt to storm the town he succeeded so far as to make a lodgement in one of the gates; but was dangerously wounded, and owed his life to the devoted bravery of his attendant Clere, who received a hurt in rescuing him, of which he died a month after. On the report of the dauphin of France's approach, with 60,000 men, the English made an able retreat, of which Surrey conducted the movements, as marshal of the camp.

He returned with his father to England, but must have made only a short stay at home, as we find him soon after fighting a spirited action in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, in which he chased back the French as far as Montreuil. The following year he commanded the vanguard of the army of Boulogne, and finally solicited and obtained the government of that place. It was then nearly defenceless; the breaches unrepaired, the fortifications in decay, and the enemy, with superior numbers, established so near as to be able to command the harbour, and to fire upon the lower town. Under such disadvantages, Surrey entered on his command, and drew up and sent home a plan of alterations in the works, which was approved of by the king, and ordered to be acted upon. Nor were his efforts merely defensive. On one occasion he led his men into the enemy's country as far as Samer au Bois, which he destroyed, and returned in safety with considerable booty. Afterwards, hearing that the French intended to revictual their camp at Outreau, he compelled them to abandon their object, pursued them as far as Hardilot, and was only prevented from gaining a complete victory through the

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

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