zous journey performed without valuable plate of the Arundel fa. mily, and was actually in the pos feffion of the late duke of Nor folk. Thefe heroic vanities did not, however, fo totally engrois the time which Surrey spent in Italy, as to alienate his mind from letters: he ftudied with the greatest fuccefs a critical knowledge of the Italian tongue, and, that he might give new luftre to be name of Geraldine, attained a jift tafte for the peculiar graces of the Italian poctry. He was recalled to England for fone idle reafon by the king, much fooner than he expected: and he returned home, the moft elegant traveller, the most polite lover, the most learned nobleman, and the moft accomplishe gentleman of his age Dexterity in tilting, and gracefulness in managing a horfe underarms, were excellencies now viewed with a critical eye, and practised with a high degree of emulation. In 1540, at a tournament held in the prefence of the courtat Westminster, and in which the principal of the nobility were engaged, Surrey was diftinguished above the reft for his address in the ufe and exercife of arms. But his martial skill was not folely dif played in the parade and oftentation of thefe domestic combats. In 1542 he marched into Scotland, as a chief commander in his father's army; and was confpicuous for his conduct and bravery at the memorable battle of Floddenfield, where James the fourth of Scotland was killed. The next year, we find the career of his vic Lady Elifabeth Fitzgerald, fecond daughter to Gerald Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare. 1 tories, impeded by an obftacle which no valour could refift. The cenfures of the church have humiliated the greatest heroes: and he was imprifoned in Windfor-caftle for eating flesh in Lent. The prohibition had been renewed or itrengthened by a recent proclamation of the king. I mention this circumftance, not only as it marks his character, impatient of any controul, and careless of very ferious confequences which often arife from a contempt of petty formalities, but as it gave occafion to one of his most sentimental and pathetic fonnets. In 1544 he was field-marshal of the English army in the expedition to Bologne, which he took. In that age, love and arms conftantly went together: and it was amid the fatigues of this protracted campaign, that he compofed his laft fonnet called the Fanfie of a wearied Lover. But as Surrey's popularity increased, his intereft declined with the king; whofe caprices and jealoufies grew more violent with his years and infirmities. The brilliancy of Surrey's character, his celebrity in the military fcience, his general abilities, his wit, learning, and affability, were viewed by Henry with difguft and fufpicion. It was in vain that he poffeffed every advantageous qualification, which could adorn the fcholar, the courtier, and the foldier. In proportion as he was amiable in the eyes of the people, he became formidable to the king. His rifing reputation was mifconftrued into a dangerous ambition, and gave birth to accufations equally groundlefs and frivolous. He was fufpected of a design to marry the princefs Mary; and, by that alliance, of approaching to a poffibility of wearing the crown. It was infinuated, that he converfed with foreigners, and held a correfpondence with cardinal Pole. The addition of the efchutcheon of Edward the Confeffor to his own, although ufed by the family of Norfolk for many years, and juftified by the authority of the heralds, was a fufficient foundation for an impeachment of high treafon. Thefe motives were privately aggravated by those prejudices, with which Henry remembered the misbehaviour of Catharine Howard, and which were extended to all that lady's relations. At length, the earl of Surrey fell a facrifice to the peevish injuftice of a mercilefs and ungrateful mafter. Notwitstanding his eloquent and mafculine defence, which even in the cause of guilt itfelf would have proved a powerful perfuafive, he was condemned by the prepared fuffrage of a fervile and obfequious jury, and beheaded on Tower-hill in the year 1547. In the mean time we fhould re member, that Surrey's public conduct was not on all occafions quite unexceptionable. In the affair of Bologne he had made a falfe ftep. This had offended the king. But Henry, when once offended, could never forgive. And when Hertford was fent into France to take the command, he could not refrain from dropping fome reproachful expreflions against a meafure which feemed to impeach his perfonal courage. Confcious of his high birth and capacity, he was above the little attentions of caution and reserve; and he too frequently neglected to confult his own own fituation, and the king's temper. It was his misfortune to ferve a monarch, whofe refentments, which were eafily provoked, could only be fatisfied by the most severe revenge. Henry brought thofe men to the block, which other monarchs would have only difgraced. Among thofe anecdotes of Surrey's life, I had almost forgot to mention what became of his amour with the fair Geraldine. We lament to find, that Surrey's devotion to this lady did not end in a wedding, and that all his gallantries and verses availed fo little! No memoirs of that incurious age have informed us, whether her beauty was equalled by her cruelty; or whether her ambition prevailed fo far over her gratitude, as to tempt her to prefer the folid glories of a more fplendid title and ample fortune, to the challenges and the compliments, of fomagnanimous, fo faithful, and fo eloquent a lover. She appears, however, to have been afterwards the third wife of Edward Clinton, earl of Lincoln. Such alfo is the power of time and accident over amorous vows, that even Surrey himself outlived the violence of his paffion. He married Frances, daughter of John earl of Oxford, by whom he left several children. One of his daughters, Jane countefs of Westmoreland, was among the learned ladies of that age, and became famous for her knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages. Surrey's poems were in high reputation with his cotemporaries, and for many years afterwards. He is thus chara terifed by the author of the old Arte of English Poefie, whofe opinion remained long as a rule of criticifm. "In the latter end of the fame kinges [Henry] raigne, fpronge up a new company of court'y makers, of whom fir Thomas Wyat the elder and Henry earle of Surrey were the two chieftaines, who having travelled into Italie, and there tafted the sweete and stately meafures and ftyle of the Italian poefie, as novices newly crept out of the fchooles of Dante, Ariofto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poefie from that it had bene before, and for that caufe may juftly be fayd the first reformers of our English meeter and ftile." And again, towards the close of the fame chapter. "Henry earle of Surrey, and fir Thomas Wyat, between whom I find very little difference, I repute them (as before) for the two chief lanternes of light to all others that have fince einployed their pennes upon English poefie: their conceits were loftie, their ftiles ftately, their conveyance cleanly, their termes proper, their meetre fweete and well-proportioned, in all imitating very naturally and ftudiously their maister Francis Petrarcha." I forbear to recite the teftimonies of Leland, Sydney, Tuberville, Churchyard, and Drayton. Nor have thefe pieces, although fcarcely known at prefent, been without the panegyric of more recent times. Surrey is praised by Waller and Fenton; and he seems to have been a favourite with Pope. Pope, in Windfor-foreft, having compared his patron lord Granville with Surrey, he was immediately reprinted, but without attracting many readers. It was vainly imagined, that all the world would eagerly eagerly wish to purchase the works of a neglected antient English poet, whom Pope had called the Granville of a former age. So rapid are the revolutions of our language, and fuch the uncertainty of literary fame, that Philips, Milton's nephew, who wrote about the year 1674, has remarked, that in his time Surrey's poetry was antiquated and totally forgotten. Character of Thomas Sackville, the fir? Lord Buckhurst; from the fame Author. rature, by compofing a tragedy for the entertainment and honour of his fellow-ftudents. His high birth, however, and ample patrimony, foon advanced him to more important fituations and employ ments. His eminent accomplishments and abilities having acquir ed the confidence and efteem of queen Elifabeth, the poet was foon loft in the ftatefman, and negotia tions and embaffies extinguished the milder ambitions of the ingenuous muse. Yet it fhould be remembered, that he was uncorrupted amidst the intrigues of an artful court, that in the character of ACKVILLE was born at a firft minifter he preserved the ina a man, Buckhurst, a principal feat of tegrity of a private man, and that his antient and illuftrious family his family refufed the offer of an in the parish of Withiam in Suf- apology to his memory, when it fex. His birth is placed, but with was infulted by the malicious infi evident inaccuracy, under the nuations of a rival party. Nor is year 1536. At least it fhould be it foreign to our purpose to replaced fix years before. Discover- mark, that his original elegance ing a vigorous understanding in and brilliancy of mind fometimes his childhood, from a domestic tu- broke forth, in the exercise of his ition he was removed, as it may more formal political functions. reasonably be conjectured, to He was frequently disgusted at the Hart-hall, now Hertford-college, pedantry and official barbarity of in Oxford. But he appears to have tyle, with which the public letbeen a mafter of arts at Cambridge. ters and inftruments were usually At both universities he became framed; and Naunton relates, celebrated as a Latin and English that his "fecretaries had difficulty poet; and he carried his love of to please him, he was fo facete and poetry, which he feems to have choice in his ftyle." Even in the almoft folely cultivated, to the In- decifions and pleadings of that ner Temple. It was now fashion- rigid tribunal the ftar-chamber, able for every young man of for- which was never esteemed the tune, before he began his travels, school of rhetoric, he practifed or was admitted into parliament, and encouraged an unaccustomed to be initiated in the ftudy of the ftrain of eloquent and graceful law. But instead of pursuing a oratory on which account, fays fcience, which could not be his Lloyd, "fo flowing was his inprofeffion, and which was unac- vention, that he was called the commodated to the bias of his ge- ftar-chamber bell." After he was nius, he betrayed his predilection made a peer by the title of lord to a more pleasing fpecies of lite- Buckhurft, and had fucceeded to a moft * most extenfive inheritance, and was now discharging the bufinefs of an envoy to Paris, he found time to prefix a Latin epiftle to Clerke's Latin tranflation of Caftilio's Courtier, printed at London in 1571, which is not an unworthy recommendation of a treatife remarkable for its polite Latinity. It was either because his mistress Elifabeth paid a fincere compliment to his fingular learn ing and fidelity, or because the was willing to indulge an affected fit of indignation againft the object of her capricious paffion, that when Sackville, in 1591, was a candidate for the chancellorship of the univerfity of Oxford, the condefcended earneftly to folicit the university in his favour, and in oppofition to his competitor the earl of Effex. At leaft the appears to have approved the choice, for her majefty foon afterwards vifited Oxford, where she was entertained by the new chancellor with fplendid banquets and much folid erudition. It is neither my defign nor my province, to develope the profound policy with which he conducted a peace with Spain, the addrefs with which he penetrated or baffled the machinations of Effex, and the circumfpection and fuccefs with which he managed the treasury of two opulent fovereigns. fubjects, the world is indulgent enough to accept the embellishments which a warm imagination may add to a few plain facts, but the language of eulogy is always fufpected, and confequently much more exposed to the feverity of remark; yet if any fubject that I am acquainted with will bear a more than ordinary warmth of expreffion, it certainly may be indulged in a tribute to the memory of the late Dr. Fothergill. The general voice has placed him amongft the illuftrious characers of the prefent age; but, what is more to his honour, it has placed him amongst the best of men. May the memorial I am giving to the public preferve his nameunblemished by mifreprefentation, till fome more equal pen fhall hand it down to pofterity, as a bright example of what great usefulness extraordinary talents may prove to fociety, when under the direction of a good heart, fine feelings, and an enlarged philanthropy! His understanding was of a manly, energetic caft; it was penetrating, comprehentive, and highly cultivated: there was a firm dignity in his character, which, though it could not bend to any thing unbecoming itself, yet was accompanied by a certain foftnefs and complacency of manners peculiarly conciliating. His heart was fincere, friendly, compaffionate, and liberal to excefs. His hand was an unfparing diftributor, and the bounties of it, left they might not reach the truly worthy, were, not unfrequently, diffused amongst the impofing and the ungrateful. His practice as a phyfician was by |