the opprobrium of his name. This young nobleman, disliking, probably, the polemics of the times, and with an ardent love of poetry and the fine arts, visited the land where he could most successfully gratify his taste - Italy. His residence there was an annoyance to the king, who detested the Italians; and when, on his return to his native land, he brought some Italians with him, the king believed they came as spies, employed by his enemy, Cardinal Pole. The earl's relationship to Catherine Howard, the king's frail wife, was another offence; and probably the accomplishments which made Surrey the idol of the young and gay stimulated Henry's dislike. He pretended that Surrey aspired to the hand of the Princess Mary, and on that and other frivolous charges, brought this gifted young nobleman to the block.

The Earl of Surrey introduced blank verse into our poetic literature; though he most admired the sonnet, and transplanted that graceful exotic from Italy to our comparatively rugged clime. The Italians have a passionate admiration of this little poem, that requires a thought to be expressed in fourteen lines. But it was long considered that a sonnet on the Italian model was unsuited to the genius of our language. Even Shakspeare seemed to feel the difficulty of the numerous rhymes, and his sonnets are constructed

on the plan of three four-line verses of alternate rhymes, ending with a couplet. Milton's sonnets are perfect in structure. The modern poets,

male and female, have carried this kind of composition to a very high degree of perfection.

A romantic history attaches to the Earl of Surrey. He was called the English Petrarch, chiefly because he celebrated the fair Geraldine in his sonnets, as Petrarch had celebrated his Laura. There was an air of mystery, however, thrown over this attachment; but modern research has discovered that the fair Geraldine was the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, afterwards the wife of the Earl of Lincoln.

Besides his sonnets, the Earl of Surrey translated the second book of Virgil's Æneid into blank verse, and gave a version of the Ecclesiastes.

His poetical paraphrase of the 73rd Psalm is interesting as being one of the earliest specimens of metrical rendering of the Scriptures: we subjoin a few stanzas.

Quam bonus Israel, Deus.-Psalm lxxiii.

THOUGHE, Lord, to Israell

Thy graces plenteous be,

I meane to such, with pure intent,

As fix their trust in The;

Yet whiles the faith did faynt

That shold have been my guyde,

Lyke them that walk in slipper pathes,
My feet began to slyde:

Whiles I did grudge at those
That glorey in their golde,
Whose lothsom pryde rejoyseth welth
In quiet as they wolde.

To se by course of yeres
What nature doth appere,
The palayces of princely fourme
Succede from heire to heire.

When I behelde their pryde,
And slackness of thy hand,
I gan bewaile the wofull state
Wherin thy chosen stand;
And as I sought wherof

Thy sufferaunce, Lord, shold groo,
I found no witt could perce so far,
Thy holy domes to knoo;

And that no mysteryes

Nor dought could be distrust,
Till I com to the holly place,
The mansion of the just;
Where I shall se what end
Thy justice shall prepare,

For such as buyld on worldly welth,
And dye their colours faire.

Oh! how their ground is false, And all their buylding vayne; And they shall fall, their power shall faile That did their pryde mayntayne, As charged harts with care,

That dreme some pleasaunt tourne,

After their sleape fynd their abuse,

And to their plaint retourne:

So shall their glorye faade;
Thy sword of vengeaunce shall
Unto their dronken eyes in blood
Disclose their errours all.

In other succour, then,

O Lord, why should I trust;
But only thyn, whom I have found
In thy behight so just?

And suche for drede or gayne
As shall thy name refuse,

Shall perishe with their golden godds

That did their harts seduce;

Where I, that in thy worde

Have set my trust and joye,

The high reward that longs thereto

Shall quietlye enjoye:

And my unworthye lypps,

Inspired with thy grace,

Shall thus forespeke thy secret works,

In sight of Adams race.

Of the mental activity of this period an admirable writer has said of the Reformation, "This event gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry, and agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion was general; but the shock was greatest in this country. It toppled down the full-grown, intolerable abuses of cen

* William Hazlitt's "Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.”

turies at a blow, heaved the ground from under the feet of bigoted faith and slavish obedience; and the roar and clashing of opinions, loosened from their accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet subsided. Germany first broke the spell of misbegotten fear, and gave the watchword; but England joined the shout and echoed it back with her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer and a louder strain. With that cry the genius of Great Britain rose and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation; the waters were out; public opinion was in a state of projection; liberty was held out to all to think and speak the truth. Men's brains were busy, their spirits stirring, their hearts full, and their hands not idle. Their eyes were opened to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with curiosity and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free. The death blow that had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy loosened their tongues, and made the talismans and love tokens of popish superstition, with which she had beguiled her followers and committed abominations with the people, fall harmless from their necks.

"The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a