This beautiful incident is too celebrated, too touching, not to be one of the articles of our poetical faith. It was believed by Surrey's contemporaries, and in the age immediately following was gravely related by a grave historian. It shows at least the celebrity which his poetry, unequalled at that time, had given to his love, and the object of it. In fact, when divested of the antique spelling, which, at the first glance, revolts by the impression it gives of difficulty and obscurity, some of the lyrics of Surrey have not since been surpassed either in elegance of sentiment, or flowing grace of expression:--for example-- A Praise of his Love, wherein he reproveth them that compare their Ladies with his. Give place ye lovers here before, That spent your boastes and braggs in vain, My ladye's beauty passeth more The best of yours, I dare well sayne, Then doth the sun the candle light, Or brightest day the darkest night. And thereto hath a truth as just, As had Penelope the fair: For what she sayeth you may it trust. As it by writing sealed were; And virtues hath she many moe, Than I with pen have skill to show. The following sonnet is rather a specimen of versification than of sentiment: the subject is borrowed from Petrarch. A COMPLAINT, BY NIGHT, OF A LOVER NOT BELOVED. Alas! so all things now do hold their peace, Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing; The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease, And the night's car the stars about doth bring: Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less: So am not I, whom love, alas! doth wring, Bringing before my face the great increase Of my desires, whereas I weep and sing, In joy and woe, as in a doubtful case. For my sweet thoughts, some time do pleasure bring; But by and by, the cause of my disease, Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting, When that I think, what grief it is again To live, and lack the thing should rid my pain.