Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XIX.LORD SURREY.ABOUT A.D. 1540.Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was born about a.d. 1518^His grandfather had the command of the Enghsh army at thebattle of Flodden Field, and his father, Thomas Howard, thirdDuke of Norfolk, was uncle to the Catharine Howard who isfound in the list of the wives of Henry VHI. Father and sonwere arrested on the 12th of December, 1546, and lodged in theTower, on the charge of having quartered the royal arms withtheir own. The young poet was executed Jan. 19, 1547, but hisfather's life was saved by a reprieve, and by the opportune deathof the king a few days later^ Jan. 28. Surrey's chief praise is thathe was the earliest writer of decasyllabic blank verse, into whichmetre he~fehdered parts of the Mne'id, with much success.Hissonnets and other similar writings are natural and graceful, andare in general beautifully melodious. The first extract is from'Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis, turned into English meter bythe right honorable lorde, Henry Earle of Surrey,' and the restare from Songes and ' Sonettes, written by the ryght honorableLorde Henry Haward [sic] late Earle of Surrey, and other,' bothof which were first printed by Richard Tottell in the year 1557 ;the former on the 21st of June, and the latter (generally knownas ' Tottell's Miscellany') on the 5th of the same month.^ Some say 1 5 16; but the portrait by Titian, engraved in 'Lodge's Portrais,' has the inscription ' Anno do/«/ui 1526, aetatis sve 29.'