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A STUDY OF
SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

A STUDY OF

SIR THOMAS WYATT'S

POEMS

BY
A. K. FOXWELL, M.A. (LoND.)

BEING PART I OF A THESIS APPROVED FOR THE DEGREE
OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF LONDON, JUNE

Xonfcon: THnfv>er0itE of Xonfcon {press

PUBLISHED FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, LTD.
BY HODDER & STOUGHTON, WARWICK SQUARE, E.G.

1911

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

PUBLISHERS TO

THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS

2.AOA

T. GREGORY FOSTER

" Da che concetto ha 1'arte intera e diva
La forma e gli atti d'alcun, poi di quello
D'umil materia un semplice modello
£ '1 primo parto che da quel deriva."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

PREFATORY NOTICE

THIS book is merely an introduction to an edition of
Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poems, with Life and Notes. It aims
primarily at setting forth the importance of the E MS.
above all the other MSS. for the following reasons —

1. A constant system of a versification peculiar to the

Wyatt MS.

2. A well-marked order of poems, and development of

style.

3. Corrections and alterations in Wyatt's hand apart

from corrections that are spurious.

The Poems, with the Life and Notes, are in MS., and should
form the second part to the book. My grateful thanks are
due to Dr. T. Gregory Foster, for help throughout, and
particularly for his loan of the first forty poems transcribed
from the E MS. ; to Professor W. P. Ker, for his interest
and sympathy, and to the Officials of the MS. Department,
British Museum, for their courteous aid in palaeographical
difficulties.

A. K. F.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I INTRODUCTORY ... . . ~ . . ' '*. . 1

II DESCRIPTION OP THE MSS. . . . . . 7

III COMPARISON OF THE MSS. E, A, AND D • .' . 11

IV THE PSALMS . . . . . . . .20

. v WYATT'S LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR . . . 29

VI COMPARISON OF WYATT's VERSIFICATION WITH PYNSON'S

EDITION OF CHAUCER ...... 39

VII CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE . . „ '• . . . 52

VIII FRENCH INFLUENCE . . , .... 59

IX ITALIAN INFLUENCE . . . . . . . 79

X THE COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS _. ._ 103

XI CLASSICAL INFLUENCE . . . . . ... 117

XII CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . 119

HISTORY OF THE D MS. APPENDIX A . . . .125

SPECIMEN SHEETS OF POEMS. APPENDIX B . . .136

SPECIMEN SHEETS FROM THE TABLE OF VARIANTS.

APPENDIX C . . : . . . . . 140

FIRST LINES OF THE POEMS IN E MS. APPENDIX D . 147
GLOSSARY . . . . . . ... . 153

BIBLIOGRAPHY 156

A STUDY OF
SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

TOTTEL'S Miscellany was published in 1557. It contained
poems by the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Grimoald,
and " Uncertayn Authors." Wyatt had been dead fifteen
years ; the only previous publication of any part of his
poems was the Penitential Psalms, issued by John Harring
ton, the father of the translator of the Orlando Furioso.
The Miscellany went through six editions, with Tottel as
editor ; a seventh edition was published by T. Windet in
1585, and an eighth edition by R. Robinson in 1587.

The first edition marks the inauguration of the modern
English anthology. It contains careful and regular verse,
and bears witness that there were many authors who could
write a decasyllabic line with ease, but none whose lips had
touched the glowing coal of genius. It was, in fact, the
period of stillness before the dawn, the time of inactivity
which always has preceded a great epoch in literature.
Thirty years later Robinson's edition was published in a
time of intense literary activity. Shakespeare had come
to London (1586); Marlowe had written his Tamburlaine, in
which his " mighty line " took the place of " jigging rhyme " ;
a crowd of University men — Nash, Greene, and Peele among
them — had taken to writing as a profession ; Sidney, courtly
poet and literary critic, was just dead; Spenser was writing
the Faery Queene.

B 1

2 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Two years later, Puttenham, reviewing the field of litera
ture in his Arte of English Poesie, paid his great tribute of
praise to the two chieftains of the courtly makers — the Earl
of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt.

" They did," he says, " greately polish our rude and
homely manner of vulgar poesie from that it had been before,
and for this cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of
our English metre and style; " and again, he terms them
" the two chief lanternes of light to all others that have
since employed their pennes upon English Poesie . . . their
conceits were lofty, their style stately, their conveyance
cleanely, their termes proper, their metre sweete and well
proportioned, in all imitating very naturally and studiously
their master, Francis Petrarcha."

Puttenham, in this encomium, set the fashion for including
Surrey and Wyatt in the self -same criticism. Surrey, too,
was placed first, an honour doubtless due to his rank, but
succeeding generations took it as a sign of his literary
superiority. G. F. Nott,1 in the beginning of the nineteenth
century, writes of Wyatt and Surrey as if they had been
companions, who composed their pieces side by side and
criticized one another's work. The Edinburgh Review,
December 1816, however, while according some degree of
merit to the Surrey volume, dismisses the Wyatt volume
in these words : " Sir Thomas Wyatt was a man of wit, a
shrewd observer and a subtle politician, but in no true sense
of the word was he a poet, and since our object is to criticize
poetry we shall now take our leave of him at once. Having
caused some reputation in the volume devoted to Surrey,
Mr. Nott bids fair to lose it again by his unwarrantable zeal
for proportion in the Wyatt volume." Time has had its
revenge; Wyatt and others who were laid under the lash
of the caustic remarks of the Edinburgh reviewers, are now
recognized in their true worth; a late criticism, which has
1 Works of Howard and Wyatt. By G. F. Nott. 2 vols. 1816.

INTRODUCTORY 3

exploded the false theories of Surrey's love for Geraldine, has
thrown light upon the position of the two poets and has
unhesitatingly declared Wyatt to be the pioneer. Wyatt
was Surrey's senior by fifteen years ; he had written the bulk
of his poems by 1536, while all the evidence goes to prove
that Surrey did not begin to write until 1536.

The Miscellany was reprinted in the eighteenth century,
and towards the end of the century, Warton, in his History
of Literature, wrote a just criticism of Wyatt. He describes
him as a genius of a moral and didactic order, capable of
composing an occasional lyric with some degree of sweet
ness, but wanting in harmony of numbers and facility of
phraseology.

In 1807, the projected two-volume edition of Bishop Percy
and George Stevens was burnt in the great fire which swept
away the printing establishment of Nichols. Four copies,
previously sent out for final revision, escaped ; and one,
belonging to Thomas Park, is now in the British Museum.
It is of some importance because it contains Wyatt's
Psalms. The original edition of John Harrington was
evidently used in the compilation, for the facsimile title
page of the 1549 edition is reprinted in this copy.

Five years later, 1812, Dr. John Nott's edition of Wyatt
suffered the same fate through a printer's fire.

In 1816, G. F. Nott, the nephew of Dr. John Nott, pub
lished his massive two-volume edition of Howard and Wyatt.
He used the material gathered together by his uncle, and he
seems to have obtained information from other writers, and
borrowed without giving the authors due credit, for Mr.
Padelford, in his paper on the Relations of the 1812 and the
1815—16 editions,^ describes this edition as " the most surpris
ing of literary borrowings "; notes in the 1816 edition are
identical, or almost identical with notes made in Sewell and
Park's editions of the Miscellany in the British Museum.
1 Anglia, vol. xxix, part ii.

B 2

4 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Now, the chief interest in the 1816 edition lay in the fact
that it had been prepared from the MSS. ; and G. F. Nott,
in his introduction, gave as his aim the faithful reproduction
of the MSS., for he had made the discovery that Tottel
differed from the MSS. Recent investigation, however, has
proved that Nott's text can by no means claim to be a
faithful reproduction throughout; but he collected a vast
amount of information, and he has since been the chief
source of all later editions. The Aldine edition appeared
in 1830, Bell's edition in 1854, Gilfillan's edition (Edinburgh)
in 1858, and at the end of the century, Arber's reprint of
the Miscellany and the Wyatt and Surrey Anthology, were
published.

Meanwhile the MSS. had come into the possession of the
British Museum. In 1848 the Devonshire MS. was acquired ;
in 1889, the Egerton; and in 1900 a further addition to
Wyatt and Surrey's poems was made in the acquisition of
the P MS. It was at length possible to go to the sources;
in 1895-7 Prof. Fliigel made an exact transcript of the
Egerton MS. in his contributions to the Anglia, vols.
xviii-xix. In 1906 Mr. Padelford, who had already con
tributed Surrey's MS. poems to the Anglia, vol. xxiii,
published the Sixteenth Century Lyrics, in the Belles Lett res
Series, including thirty of Wyatt 's poems from the MS., and
for the first time exact transcripts of Wyatt appeared in an
anthology.

The relative values of the various MSS. and of Tottel's
edition still remain undecided, although certain opinions
have been advanced. Prof. Fliigel thinks that Tottel is the
best text : he says, " dass der Text von E nicht der beste,
glatteste, und am leichtesten zu geniessende ist, sieht man
sofort, T besonders stellt einen viel glatteren, poetischeren,
aber auch viel spateren Text dar, einen Text, der mehr der
Zeit der Elisabeth als der Heinrich VIII angehort. Was E
so wertvoll macht ist die Thatsache, dass es Wyatts eigene

INTRODUCTORY 5

urspriingliche Fassung haufig in seiner eigenen Hand
giebt."

With regard to the A and D MSS., Profs. Fliigel and
Padelford decide that A is tolerably faithful to the E text;
curiously, however, both these critics give two instances
of alteration in the A text which in fact do not occur. This
will be referred to later in the examination of the MSS.,
page 9.

Mr. Padelford says of the D MS., " I find that though D
is a pre-Elizabethan MS. it is less cautious in emendation
than A, in fact, next to E it (i. e. A) is the most trustworthy
of the Wyatt MSS."

Now the D MS. is not only " pre-Elizabethan " but
contemporary with Wyatt; it contains contributions by,
and signatures of, personal friends of his, and the question
that arises in reading the views of the above mentioned
critics is : " Are the differences in the D MS. to be taken as
emendations, or are they Wyatt's first drafts which have
been corrected in his autograph (E) MS. ? "

Again, if A is the most trustworthy of the MSS. after E,
wherein lies its excellence ? Clearly the variants in A must
be of a different type from those in D. The question can
only be decided by a comparison of the variants in the three
important MSS. E, A, and D; and by a further comparison
of the variants with those of Tottel's edition. The E MS.
must be taken as the basis of inquiry because it is Wyatt's
autograph volume; and if Wyatt has followed any sys
tematic method in form and style, the comparison of the
variants will reveal that style; it will, moreover, make
clear to us whether deviations from his earlier style
have justified the alterations found in the text of Tottel's
Miscellany.

The comparison of variants, then, must disclose : (1)
Wyatt's system of work (if he had one), (2) the deviations
from this system in the other MSS., and (3) will further show

6 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

whether Tottel's variations are justified by an alteration
of method seen in Wyatt's later work.

Once and for all, this paper is not concerned with a
smoother, better, or more poetical text, but with Wyatt's
text, in order to discover his method of procedure, as the
pioneer of our modern poetry. It was he who brought order
out of chaos and re-established the line of five stresses —
the line which figures so largely in Chaucer, and which had
become a forgotten art since his day. With Wyatt we go
into the workshop to see how he accomplished his task; we
do not expect perfection of form or transcendental genius;
because he was engaged in the foundation of the building,
and not in the ornamentation of it. He introduced certain
forms and marked out a definite way. The Elizabethans
added the finishing touches.

CHAPTER II

DESCRIPTION OF THE MSS.

THE poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt are found in the
following MSS. :—

The Egerton (E) MS. No. 2711 British Museum.

The Devonshire (D) MS. Add 17492

The Harrington (A) MS. No. 2, Add. 28635 „

The P MS. Add. 36529

The Harleian MS. No. 78

The Harrington MS. No. 1, Add. 28636

The Parker MS. Corpus Christi Library, Cambridge.

The poems in the E MS. are written in a fine hand, signed
and, in some cases, corrected, by Sir Thomas Wyatt. On
f. 54a and ff. 66-100 the poems are written in Wyatt's own
handwriting; they include the Psalms, which are written
carelessly, and show marks of correction and re-correction
by the author.

One poem of Surrey's occurs — a sonnet written in praise
of the Psalms, beginning —

The Great Macedon that owte of Perse chased.

Surrey's sonnet is written by another hand, on a blank page
immediately preceding the Psalms. The latter part of the
MS. contains Sir John Harrington's version of the Penitential
Psalms written in six-lined stanzas, a page of moral sayings
in Latin and English, and twelve French epigrams, including
one of C. Marot's. Nott considers that the sentences and
epigrams are written in Wyatt's hand; this, however, is not

8 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

the case, for the handwriting differs considerably from that
of the Psalms, which we know to be Wyatt's. See copy
of Wyatt's letter, Cotton MS. Vesp. F XIII, f. 160b. The
handwriting is most likely that of John Harrington, into
whose possession the MS. came on Wyatt's death. The MS.
suffered considerably from the zeal of Puritan members of the
family. Regarding secular poetry as the work of the devil,
they endeavoured to efface the original contents by using
the volume as a note- book to mark down heads of sermons,
Hebrew sentences, and mathematical problems. For this
reason, it is extremely difficult in some parts to decipher
Wyatt's writing, but in spite of the vandalism, Wyatt's
ink has proved more indelible than that of the puritans.

That the poems were intended for publication is evident
from certain headings in the E MS. The rondeaus and short
poems are marked 1 Ent. ; the sonnets, 2 Ent. ; the larger odes,
3 Ent. ; the Psalms, 4 Ent. ; the satires, 5 Ent. ; and two letters
" written to hys son oute of Spain " (and evidently copied
later by a different hand), are marked Ent. 6.

The Devonshire (D) MS. is a small quarto volume, and
consists chiefly of lyrics, sixty-three of which are found
in no other MS., nor in Tottel ; for this reason alone it is
highly important. The poems in the earlier part of the
volume are not written continuously as in the E MS., but
occur in small groups, interspersed with poems by well-
known personages at the court of Henry VIII. Further
on, ff. 69-87, a large group of Wyatt's poems are written
continuously and in one handwriting, signed in the same
style as the autograph poems in the E MS., i. e. two letters,
T.V. interlaced.

The D MS. is of peculiar interest; its history and the
problems connected with it are discussed in Appendix I.

The A MS. is a transcript of a MS. said to have been

DESCRIPTION OF THE MSS. 9

formerly in the possession of Mr. Harrington of Bath. The
original has disappeared. This MS. contains many of the
sonnets, besides the satires, the Penitential Psalms, and a
few lyrics; and poems by uncertain authors.

Prof. Fliigel and Mr. Padelford consider that this MS.
does not greatly differ from E, and Mr. Padelford prefers
it to the D MS. Both critics quote instances where A
occasionally differs from E, resulting in the alteration of
the sense; but in two instances quoted by them the state
ments are incorrect. The first instance occurs in the

sonnet —

My galy charged with forgetfulness,

the reading of 1. 4 in E MS. is : " that is my lord stereth
with cruelnes " ; now the same reading is found in A MS.,
but both critics quote the line as : " that is my lord stereth
up with cruelnes." Mr. Padelford followed Fliigel here, but
later, when he included this sonnet in the Sixteenth Century
Lyrics, he gave no alteration in the reading of A.

The second instance occurs in the sonnet, " Ther was never
ffile." The A reading is shown to differ from that in E.
But there are two versions in A, f. 37 and f. 40. The first
version, f. 37, is different from that in E, and follows the
D MS.; the second version, f. 40, is exactly like E except
one word, written in the past tense in E (pardond) and in
the present tense in A (pardons). This difference may be
safely assumed to be a copyist's error.

Prof. Fliigel evidently compared the first version of the
A MS. with E, in ignorance of the fact that a second
version in the A MS. followed the reading of the E version.
The A MS. contains four poems which are found in no other
MS., but are included in Tottel's Miscellany —

(1) The flaming sighes that boile within my breast.

(2) The pillar pearisht is wherto I lent.

(3) A ladye gave me a gyfte she had not.

(4) Stond who so list upon the slipper top.

10 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

The P MS. is the latest accession to the Wyatt MS. It
contains nine of Wyatt's poems; two of which are included
in Tottel, but found in no other MS. They are —

(1) Luckes my fair falcon.

(2) A face that shuld content me.

Thomas Park used this MS. for the Nugce Antiquce, 1804.

The Harleian MS. contains seven of Wyatt's poems,
three are included by Tottel, but are found in no other MS. ;
they are —

(1) Under this stone ther lieth at rest.

(2) Sighes air my fode, drinck ar my teares.

(3) Like as the wind with raging blast.

The Harrington No. 1 is an exact transcript of the Egerton
MS.; it needs no consideration.

The Parker MS.1 contains the only complete version of
the satire, " Mine owne John Poynz." All the other MSS.
are deficient in a line or two, while the E MS., through a
missing page, has lines 1-52 wanting. One other poem —

Lyke as the byrde within the cage enclosed —
is found in this MS. only, but is included in Tottel.

The MSS. E, D, and A furnish the bulk of the poems,
and D contains poems not found in Tottel. The other MSS.
contain eighteen poems between them, all found in Tottel,
but are interesting as giving MS. proof of Wyatt's author
ship; they are not necessary, however, in the investigation
of the variants.

1 Corpus Christi College Library, Cambridge.

CHAPTER III

COMPARISON OF THE MSS. E, A, AND D

THE poems in the MSS. E, A, and D are divided into
three groups for the purpose of discovering the differences
in the nature of the variants.

1. Poems common to all three MSS.

2. Poems common to the A and D MSS.

3. Poems common to the D and E MSS.

Group 1 is fairly representative of Wyatt's work. It
includes six sonnets, three epigrams, and poems in stanzas
of seven, six, five, and four lines respectively, and satires.
Specimens of the variants of these poems are given in
Appendix C.

An examination of these variants gives the following
results —

1. The number of instances where A differs from E is

small in the sonnets; very slight in the odes, and
considerable in the satires.

2. The D version differs considerably from E, and the

style of difference in D is unlike that of A.

The Sonnets in A are often found to be exact transcripts
of the E version; the only instance where A differs con
siderably is in the sonnet, " Ther was never ffile "; and it
has already been shown that A contains two versions; the
first follows D, and the second follows E. It was the com
parison of the first version with E instead of the second
that caused Prof. Fliigel to quote this sonnet as an

12 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

example of the difference of reading in the A and E MSS.1
The nature of the differences in the A and E MSS. is as
follows : —

(a) The E and A versions differ in slight words ; (6) in some poems,
particularly the satires, there is a tendency to add an extra syllable to the
line in the A version, for example —

E thevyn (a very rare contraction), A the heaven ;

„ feld, » feldish ;

„ toseke, » to seke f or ;

„ spyd, » espyd.

(e) Differences having the appearance of copyist's errors—

E se a drag net, A set a drag net ;

„ sitting, „ sticking ;

„ ye do misseke, „ ye do mislike.

(d) Change in the idea (1) for political reasons, (2) through a want of

understanding of the original —

(1) E So sacks of dirt be fitted up A So sacks of dirt be filled:

in the cloyster ; the neat courtier.

(2) E Lerne at Eittson that in a A Lerne of the ladde that in a

long white cote ; long white cote.

(e) The absence of an archaic word in A —

E so swine ... A so swin . . .

„ . . . chaw the tordes ; „ . . . chaw dung.

One alteration occurs which is difficult to explain—

E Onles it be as to a calfe A Onles it be as to a Dogge

a chese ; a chese.

Nature of the differences in E and D : —

1. The reading in the D version is occasionally found as the first reading
in the E MS, which is crossed out, and the corrected word over-written
in Wyatt's hand, thus —

D Who hath herd of such E. Who hath herd of such

tyranny before ; cruelty

tyranny before.

2. A weak initial syllable is sometimes omitted in E —

T> Now farewell love ; E Farewell love.

1 The whole Table of Variants is in MS., but for purposes of utility only
specimens are shown in this book. See Appendix C, page 140.

COMPARISON OF THE MSS. 13

3. Plurals found in D are sometimes corrected for the singular in E —

D Thy baytid hokes ; E Thy baytid hoke.

4. Substitution of a better word in E —

D Under the scornful brow ; E Under disdaynful brow.

5. Alliteration in D avoided in E —

D My grete greiff ; E My grete payne.

6. The pronouns are occasionally altered from particular (D) to general

(E)-

D Patiens do what she will ; E Patience do what they will.

Now these changes are such as an author is likely to make
in his work, whereas the variants in A suggest copyist's
errors, or emendations made for various reasons at a later
time than the author wrote.

If the difference in the variants of the E and D versions
are due to the author, D must contain the earlier versions
which were later, but in Wyatt's lifetime, copied into the
E MS., and revised by him. If the poems common to D
and E (Group 3) corroborate this view, there will be just
reason for concluding that D contains earlier versions of
the poems. t

GROUP 2

The poems common to the A and E MSS. are sonnets,
satires, and the Song of lopas; short poems, and the Psalms.
The satires have been considered under Group 1 because
portions of the satires are found in D. The Psalms will be
considered by themselves and compared with the 1807
copy of the Psalms (Percy & Stevens edition).

Nature of the variants —

As in the first group, the sonnets show slight differences
and copyist's errors. In the sonnet, " My galy charged
with forge tfulness," the word " light " is crossed out in

14 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

the Aversion and replaced by the word "lyfe"; the line

reads —

lyfe

As tho that deth were ligb* l in such a case.

This is no doubt an error due to the connecting of two
opposite ideas, such as day and night, life and death (as
here). There is a similar case in the D MS. where " day and
nyght " occurs and " day and howre is required for the rhyme.

The sonnet " Avysing the bright bemes," E, reads
" Ad vy sing," in A. It is derived from the verb " avissare,
to gaze at; the copyist of the A version alters the word
to " advising." In one instance the words " hir of cruelnes "
occur in E. This is not understood by the copyist of the
A version, and he left a gap in the line. Another " Italian-
ate " word, atraced, (E) is altered to araced (A), youthely
desire (E) is altered to youthely fraile desire (A). In the
last case it will be seen that an extra syllable is gained in
the A version, but the insertion of the word " fraile " in
A balances youthely in E, for it was meant to be read as a
trisyllable, and the A copyist took it for a dissyllable. The
poem " Mine olde dere enemy " varies considerably. For
example —

E. st. XIX, 1. 5- A.

1. 6. Where I am | that I j here That I j here not | as sound j ing

not | my plainte | to renew to | reneue

1. 7. And he | himself | he know- My plaintes : | Himself | he

eth | that 1 say \ is true. | knowjeth that | I say j is truej

E. st. VI. 2- A.

The changes made in the A version in the above examples
are in order to bring the lines into the compass of ten

1 The Italian runs: Che la tempesta e'l fin par ch'abbi a scherno.
Wyatt translates freely, " As tho that deth were light in such a case.'*

COMPARISON OF THE MSS.

syllables : the E version comes into a five-stressed line l by
slurring vowels in juxtaposition and by admitting trisyllabic
feet; but this is one of the most faulty of Wyatt's poems,
and by its position in the E MS. is an early attempt.

The style of variant in Group 2 is similar to that in Group
1, namely, differences of slight words, copyists' errors,
changes which ensure a ten-syllable line in A, and alteration
to avoid archaic, or Italianate words.

GROUP 3. — Poems common to D and E.
Rondeaus, Odes and Songs.

The following examples in the variants produce a better
poetical effect in the E version —

1. " Behold love-"

D To the disdaynful
To the dispyteful ;

2. " Resound my voice — '

D 0 Tygers hert who hath thus

clokid the

that art so cruel covered with
bewtie ;

3. " They fle from me— "

But sins that I so gentilly

am servid
What think you by this that

she hath deservid ;

4. " I find no peace — "

I flye aboute the hevin yet
can I not aryse ;

5. " Hevyn and erth — "

My herte, my lowke, my

teris
Myn lyes my words and eke

my drery chere ;

6. " Desire alas my master and my fo." This epigram differs in every

line, it is written out entire in the Variant Table. E has the
stronger and more poetical version, the phrasing is better and
alliteration is avoided in the last line.

E To the disdaynful
To the spiteful.

E 0 stony hert ho hath thus

joyned the

So cruell thou art cloked with
bealtie.

But sins that I so kyndely am

servid
/ would jain know what she

hath deserved

I flye above the ivind yet can I
not arise.

My face my lowke my teres
Myn lyes . . .

Wyatt employs Alexandrines occasionally; see last quotation on p. 14.

16 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

In all these examples, the E version is an improvement
on the D version. Example 1 avoids a repetition of the
prefix " dis; " Example 2 alters " Tygers hert " with its idea
of fierce cruelty, to " stony hert," in order to express the
coldness of the lady. The alteration of " gentilly " for
" kyndely " in Example 3 avoids repetition, for gentilnes
occurs in a previous line, and the idea is this : Through my
gentleness I have been made to suffer, and am now treated
" gentilly " by her ... " gentilly " is used ironically, but
gives a false idea, for if the lover receives " gentilnes " for
" gentihies " he cannot complain. The ironical meaning is
therefore better brought out by another word.

Example 4. — The D version translates the Italian " e
volo supra '1 cielo," but the E version expresses the existence
" of the two contraries in oon degre," by showing that
there was no apparent obstacle in the way of his flight.
" I flye above the wind yet can I not arise," E.

Example 5. — The E version prevents confusion of ideas,
by expressing the outward signs of grief only, " My face,
my lowke. . . . The D version confuses the metaphor of
the outward signs with the hidden seat of grief, ..." My
hert, my lowke. . . .

The weak initial syllable is occasionally suppressed
in E—

D And therwithal swetely . . . ; E Therwithal swetely.

The pronoun is changed from the particular to the
general —

D I am not ded altho I had a E He is not dede that sometyme
fall ; had a fall.

The variants in E and D, Group 3, are similar to those
in Group 1 . The E version in many instances is an amend
ment of the D version, and is of such a character as an
author would be likely to make in his work when he had
attained to greater skill in composition.

COMPARISON OF THE MSS. 17

There is one example in D of an amended version. The
Rondeau, " Thou hast no faith," has an extra syllable in
nearly every line, in order to obtain a regular decasyllabic
version —

D Thou hast no faith of him that E Thou hast no faith of him that

eke hath none hath none

but thou must love him nedes but thou must love him nedes

bye good reason bye reson

for as the proverbe saith ryght for as saieth a proverbe nota-

notable ble

Everything seketh his sem- Eche thing seketh his sembla-

blable ; ble.

Now it is extremely rare that a variant in the E version is
caused by the addition of a syllable for the sake of metre
alone, and in D this is the only example of the kind that
occurs. This rondeau probably circulated in MS. before it
was copied into D MS. and was altered during its circulation.1
The original version was evidently copied into the E MS.;
in the other cases E has been corrected ; proofs are found hi
the crossing out in E of the original D version, the im
provement in phraseology, and the clearer expression of
the idea.

Summing up the results of the comparison of the variants
in E, A, and D : A shows signs of being copied at a later
period without the supervision of the author ; hence
copyist's errors, misunderstanding of words derived from
the Italian, changes for political reasons, and occasional

1 This is a very important point. The E version is a sonnet hitherto
regarded as hopelessly irregular, yet it was never corrected by Wyatt.
It was probably one of his metrical experiments, for which he had
Dante's authority in combining lines of various lengths, here eights and
tens, with extra end syllables, making a ninth or eleventh. Wyatt was
closely studying form at this time, and noted the Italian preference
(Dante's authority) for odd numbers. Wyatt read Dante's treatise in
Trissino's Italian version, published for the first time together with
Trissino's Poetica, 1529, but instead of employing weak endings, the
last syllable in every case is accented,
c

18 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

alterations to ensure a ten-syllable line. There are no
changes in language or in meaning in order to obtain a
better version of the poem. The change made for political
reasons gives some clue to the date of the A version.

E So sackes of durt be filled up A So sacks of dirt be filled : the

in the cloyster ; neat courtier.

Tottel keeps the reading of A. The Miscellany was
printed in 1557, a year previous to Elizabeth's accession.
Mary came to the throne in 1553, and it was during her reign
that reflections on monastic life were regarded as heretical,
and were punished accordingly. The satires in the A version
are therefore not earlier than 1553, or later than 1557. By
internal evidence, part of the A version is at least eleven
years later than Wyatt, who died in 1542. Language had
become more fixed, spelling more uniform, and the ten-
syllable line was written with ease. The copyist of the A
version at times either misunderstood or was ignorant of
the expression and the metre of Wyatt.

On the other hand, the variants in D bear evidence of
being the original version, for they are found in E, corrected
by Wyatt in his own handwriting. The versions in E are
characteristic of the author.

There is no attempt in the E MS. to regulate the line to
a ten-syllable, but a five-stressed line may be made out by
admitting trisyllabic feet and slurring vowels with occasional
Alexandrines. The addition or omission of syllables is
never found for the sake of the metre only, whereas in A
there is a distinct tendency to bring the line within the
compass of ten syllables (i. e. of five Iambic feet). There
is but one instance in D in which a poem has evidently
been corrected for the sake of the metre; the non-corrected
form is found in E, and is meant as a metrical experiment
by Wyatt.

D, except in this one instance, shows signs of containing

COMPARISON OF THE MSS. 19

the first versions, and E is the corrected version of D ;
certain characteristic changes are observable in E which
point to correction (by the author) of the D text.

The nature of the variants in A, E, and D are uniform
throughout the MSS., but vary considerably from one
another.

C 2

CHAPTER IV

THE PSALMS

The Penitential Psalms remain to be considered. They
are written in Wyatt's own hand, and except for the Song
of lopas (unfinished) they are the last entries made in
the E MS. They were printed by John Harrington and
Thomas Raynauld in 1549, and they are found in the A
version, but were not included in Tottel's Miscellany.

The question of the Psalms is important. Nott suggested
that Wyatt may have written another version, carefully
corrected, because the Psalms in the E MS. show signs of
being hastily written, and are corrected and re -corrected,
giving the impression that the E MS. contains the rough
draft.

The Psalms were written in 1540, during the latter part
of the year; Wyatt was imprisoned in 1541. If the Psalms
had been revised again, and another copy made, as Nott
suggests, it must have been at the end of his life, 154 1-2. x
John Harrington in all probability would have received
this version, together with the E MS., on Wyatt's death, and
would have used it for the publication of the Psalms in 1549.
If striking differences occur, they should be traced in the
1807 edition of Percy and Stevens, for these editors used
the 1549 edition, together with the MSS., to make their
variorum edition of the Psalms, which is to be seen in

1 But from his release, 1541, to his death in 1542, he was actively engaged
in the King's service. During this last eighteen months of his life, Henry
VIII seems to have placed more trust in Wyatt than in any other man in
the kingdom.

THE PSALMS 21

Thomas Park's copy, in the British Museum. Now refer
ences are made in this copy to the MSS. and " P.O." These
letters evidently stand for printed copy, i. e. the 1549 copy.
Where " P.O." differs from the MSS. it is found to agree
with the E version ; it is therefore safe to conclude that
Wyatt did not make another copy of the Psalms ; as they
appear in the E version, so they were printed by John
Harrington.

The most important variants in the Psalms will be found
on page 145 of the Variant Table. A has slight variants 4
such as have been noted throughout the poems — omission
or admission of small words, changes in a word without
alteration of the sense, and changes with alterations of the
meaning.

There are eight instances of change affecting the meaning.
All these changes result in the weakening of the passage,
while the reading of " P.O." follows the E version, except
the line " For that in heins to fle his rage so ryff," E. The
reading in "P.O." is "To foreign realms to fle his rage so
ryff." The reading in A is, " In foreign realms to fle his
rage so ryff/' The same readings are found in E and
" P.C," while the A version not only has a change of
meaning but shows deterioration of the text ; for example —

Ps. 143. 1. By skourge and whipp and prykyng spurr. E and " P.C."
By skorge and whipp and prykyng soures. A.

2. But to this samble runyng in the way. E and " P.C."
But to this sample rouning in the way. A.

In Example 1 the vigour of the line is quite spoiled by
changing the word " spurr " to " soures."

In Example 2 ' samble " (E) means assembly. Wyatt,
in a particularly forcible passage, describes the nations and
peoples streaming towards the gates of the heavenly Jeru
salem, but breaks off because of his inability to call up an
image of so vast a multitude; " runyng " means running.

22 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

In A the alteration results in nonsense : " but to this
sample rouning " (i. e. whispering) " in the way."

In the essential points of difference between E and A, E
and " P.O." are found to have the same readings, except
in the alteration of the word "heins"; in every case of
difference, A is either weak or absolutely faulty. All the
available evidence, therefore, proves that E contains the
only version of the Psalms made by Wyatt; that the " P.O."
(or printed copy), i. e. the 1549 edition, was made from the
E version; and that John Harrington, being ignorant of the
word " heins," made a paraphrase from the English version
of the Psalms, in this particular verse. "Heins 1 " is a dialectal
word, used in old Yorkshire dialect, and traceable to Ice
landic origin. Wyatt's family was of Yorkshire origin, hence
his use of the word. It never occurs in the South; this fact
may account for its omission in John Harrington's edition.

The Paraphrase of the Psalms is Wyatt's longest piece of
work, and it was written late (1540). It will be advisable
to compare some of his characteristic lines in the Psalms
with examples taken from the earlier poems, in order to find
out whether his method altered. These examples will then
be compared with Tottel's version. In this way we shall
discover whether Tottel was carrying out Wyatt's method,
by following up hints discovered in his later work.

Examples of versification in the E version of the Psalms —

1. Initial strong stress —

2. Inverted stress —

L6ve to | give law | unto his subjects hertes
Stode in | the lyes | of Barsabe the bryght

3. Slurring of vocal syllables —

1 Heins : for meaning see Glossary.

THE PSALMS 23

The chere the manere bealtie and contenance (E)

Oh happy are they y* have forgyffnes gott

Altho in the be no alteration

So ar myn entrailis infect with fervent sore

O Lord thou knowst the inward contemplation.

4. Slurring of weak syllables ending in r, I, or n, before another weak
syllable — ^

In evil for good agaynst me they be bent

and the for ever eternity doth crown
tho I have fallen by frailty overthwart.

5. Spirit is monosyllabic, and -eth is generally non-syllabic in the body
of the verse —

Nor in his spryte is ought undiscovered

And gynneth to allow his payne and penitence.

Examples will now be taken from the earlier poems in
order to compare Tottel's version —

1. Initial strong stress, and strong stress after the caesura —

Farewell | I say || part\wg Farewell | I say | depart | ing. . .

from | the fyre ;

2. Slurring of vocal syllables —

3. Slurring of vowel with a following " h "-

4. The termination -eth is generally regarded as non-syllabic in the

body of the verse. Tottel avoids this termination —

E Me lysteth no longer rotten T Me lyst no long[er . . .
boughs to clyme ;

Thus, in the earlier poems, as in the Psa ms, Wyatt uses
certain methods of versification. Tottel avoids them.

Other characteristics in the E version not found in Tottel
are the employment of final -er, -ed, -en, -6n, at the end of

24 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

a line; this is a method adopted in Wyatt's earlier, and
avoided in his later, poems—

-fcdf E T

well | filed | well | yfiled.

To frame oth6r while I was be- To frame other while that I was
giled ; begiled.

-er, E T

Then gile | begiljed plained Then gile begiled plained shuld

shuld be | nev^r b6 we'v(er)

And th6 reward littte trust f6r And the reward is little trust for

ever. ei;(er).

-en, E T

I ser|ved th6 | not to | be for- I served the not that I shuld b6

sakew forsak(en)

But to preserve it was to th6 But to preserve lo it to the was

taken. tdk(&n).

-on, E T

Now sins in th6 is none other Now sins in thee is there non
reasdw . . . 6ther reas(on).

All these examples show definite rules of construction
followed by Wyatt in the E version. Changes are made
in Tottel in order to avoid these rules, and to adhere to a
regular decasyllabic or hendecasyllabic line with alternating
weak and strong stresses. It may be noted here that
whereas the A version of the sonnets is very similar to
that of E, Tottel has numerous alterations for metrical
purposes. (See table.)

Finally, we are able to compare the last poem (The Song
of lopas) in the E MS. with Tottel, for this song is
included in the Miscellany. If there are any differences in
Wyatt's late method it ought to be discovered here —
A 1. 3—
That myghty~Atlas did teche the That mighty Atlas taught the

supper lastyng long ; supper lasting long.

(6) 1. 4.

With crispid lockes on golden With crispid lockes on golden
harp lopas sang in his song ; harp /opas sang in song.

THE PSALMS 25

And it is calld by name the first And it is called by name the
moving heven ; first and moving heaven.

(d) 1. 19.

Artik the one northward that Artik the one northward we se.
we se ;

In these examples, slurring of vowels, two strong stresses
without an intervening weak stress, and the use of a tri
syllable in the E version are avoided in Tottel.

Mr. Simonds l pointed out that some of the variants in
T show a want of understanding of the poem ; for example,
" first and moving " (Example c above) implies that the other
heavens were stationary, whereas the whole seven heavens
are moving.

1. 31 reads—

E And eke those erryng seven in T And eke those erryng seven in
circles as they stray ; circle as they stray.

By employing the singular Tottel again fails to bring out
the idea of each of the seven heavens in a plane of its own,
revolving on a common axis. The most striking example
of Tottel's misunderstanding of the text occurs in 1. 54 —

E And in the same the day, his yie T And in the same the ddyes eye the
the sonne therin he stix. sonne therin her sticks.

" His yie " is in apposition to the " sonne," and object of
" the day." Tottel reads " dayes eye " as possessive and
changes " he " to " her."

1. 61, E T

The sky is last and first next us. The sky is last and fixt next

us.

" First " is evidently the correct reading, " fixt " is again
at variance with the idea of the moving heaven.

Mr. Simond's 2 theory was the result of a comparison of

1 Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Poems. 1889.

2 See W. E. Simond's monograph, Sir Thomas Wyali and his Poems
1889.

26 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

the text of Nott with that of Tottel; had he been able to
examine the E text, he would have discovered that his
surmise was correct, and that the text of Tottel is inferior;
in other cases Tottel corrects for purposes of metre, without
weakening the text.

It is of importance, then, to note that in Wyatt's latest
work in the E MS., The Psalms, and The Song, the Psalms
in the A version show distinct deterioration, and the Song
in Tottel's version is in parts inferior to the original version.

The poems have now been revised ; a glance at the Table
of Variants shows that the lyrical songs present few, if any,
differences in structure, for the reason that they are chiefly
composed in eights, sixes, or fours; or in combinations of
these verses. The changes result from the differences of
treatment in the decasyllabic line; A shows a tendency,
and Tottel a distinct aim, to make the line a decasyllabic
or hendecasyllable by alternate weak and strong syllables
of five Iambic feet ; the D and E version give a wider scope
to the line, by allowing trisyllabic feet, absence of weak
stresses, and other devices to ensure, not a regular alterna
tion of weak and strong syllables, but a line with five strong
stresses. Many of the lyrics in D are not found elsewhere.
The Rondeaus and Sonnets, common to D and E, are found
revised in E by means of certain characteristic changes
which might naturally be made by the author. On the other
hand, where poems are common to A and E, the changes
in A are not those which we should expect from the author,
but are such as would naturally occur in copying poems
at a later date, and consist of copyists' errors, omission of
archaic words, and, in the case of the Psalms, deterioration
of the text.

Tottel carries out thoroughly what we find in A occasion
ally — the regulating of Wyatt's five-stressed line with varia
tions, to a five-foot Iambic line; deterioration of the text
also occurs in Tottel in the case of the Song of lopas.

THE PSALMS 27

Tottel varies considerably in the Sonnets, A follows the
E version. In the Satires both A and Tottel vary greatly
from E. A change is made both in the A version and in
Tottel for political reasons — to avoid any reflection on
monastic life. This gives us a date for the A MS. which
must lie between the years 1553-7. These satires present
many differences. It seems probable, then, that since the
Sonnets hi A follow E fairly closely, and the later poems,
especially the Psalms and the Satires, vary considerably —
that there were two periods for the writing of the A MS.;
the Sonnets were copied without any intention to revise.
Later, certainly eleven years after Wyatt's death, the
Satires and the Psalms were revised according to the
principles of the regular ten-syllable line.

CONCLUSION

The result of the examination proves that Wyatt has
certain well-defined characteristics, and he adheres to a
certain standard, both in the earlier and the later poems.
The aim in the A version is contrary to this standard, and
Tottel ignores or deliberately changes it. The D version
is proved in some instances to contain the earlier version,
but where in other respects E differs, it appears to be a
corrected form due to the author himself. Thus D, though
differing from E, is not only reliable, but presents Wyatt's
earlier work, which is corrected by him in his autograph MS.
One instance only occurs in D where the form of the poem
is evidently revised by another hand than Wyatt's.

A and Tottel have certain characteristics in common;
A is tentative, but Tottel is thorough. These characteristics
are entirely at variance with Wyatt's method, both in the
earlier and in the later poems. Tottel deliberately sets
aside Wyatt's standard, for a regular ten-syllable line,

28 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

whereas Wyatt inclines to a, five-stressed line with much freedom
within the line; therefore Tottel is of no use for Wyatt's
text; his importance is indubitable as presenting a certain
stage in versification of his own day, showing exactly the
change that had taken place since Wyatt's death.

Therefore we must turn to the E text, Wyatt's own MS.,
for versification as he understood it, and accept Tottel as a
later stage in the insistence of regularly alternating weak
and strong stresses; it is the reducing of the line to a dead
level of correctness that makes it so dull, but it was neces
sary as a basis for the Elizabethan poets, who fused it with
the fire of genius.

As Wyatt's scheme is disclosed we comprehend that he
was dimly conscious of, and groping after, the possibilities
of the English five-foot line; he wanted to make of rhyme
what Shakespeare finally achieved in blank verse, but he
did not grasp the fact that verse bounded by rhyme cannot
be allowed the freedom which blank verse may possess.

Surrey, indeed, introduced blank verse, but it was Wyatt's
line at its best, with its freedom and strength, which antici
pated Shakespeare; the absence of weak stresses, and the
juxtaposition of two strong stresses together with enjambe-
ment, were the means by which Shakespeare arrived at his
magnificent periods in blank verse.

If Wyatt had lived to see his poems published, they
would certainly have been the text of the E MS., and not
that of Tottel.

Tottel " sees a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it,"

Wyatt " with a great aim to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it."

CHAPTER V
WYATT'S LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

WYATT'S language presents one of the difficulties in the
way of understanding his verse. The early sixteenth-century
language in England and France was in a state of flux,
and words, modern in appearance, had a different pronun
ciation. The halting, irregular effect of Wyatt's verse in
the present day is largely due to persistently reading him
in a modern way. The necessity of constantly changing
the accent or even the pronunciation of the rhyming words
which no longer rhyme together, produces an unnecessary
harshness. But clothe Wyatt's thoughts in his own language
and much of the irregularity disappears, for the eye is an
aid to the ear, and the sixteenth-century spelling helps us
to adopt the accent that Wyatt intended.

The use of the Romance accent forms the basis of Wyatt's
pronunciation in the early poems. It was generally on the
last syllable, instead of the first or root syllable after the
English manner — hence reason, season, pleasure instead of
reason, season, pleasure.

In Wyatt's day the accent was steadily shifting to the
root syllable in all Romance words, and Wyatt seems to have
been deliberately archaic in the earlier poems. In his later
work it is less noticeable, for there he avoids the Romance
accent in his rhyming scheme.

In the Sonnets and Rondeaus particularly, the accent
often falls on the syllables -er, -en, -or, -ed, at the end of
a line, but Wyatt avoids such rhymes in the Satires and

30 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

the Psalms. The earlier rhymes have certain series which
Wyatt constantly uses — for example, done, gone, alone, one,
moan, rhyme together, and were probably pronounced
approximately to the New English word " gone."

The following series constantly occur in the earlier part
of the E MS.-

Wise, devise, ise (i.e. ice), arise, ser- -ise pronounced like N.E. ease.

vis, guise, rise, paradise ;

%Harber, banner, suffer, danger, -er pronounced like modern French

nere ; final " ere."

Hert, smert, perse, reverse ; -er pronounced like N.E. -ere, in

there.

Gone, alone, one, done, mone ; -one pr. like N.E. gone.

Cas, apase rhymes with pass, alas,

ben, often „ „ then sildam,

truys (truce), use . f/i V „ „ abuse, refuse,
come, some . . . '. 'li. „ „ doom (come is sometimes

spelt cume),

madame ,, „ flame,

endever, perse ver ... „ ,, ever, lever,
hete, great . . . . .' „ „ frete,

wordea „ „ bordes,

last, past, tast .... „ „ hast, wast.

The Psalms, Satires, and Song of lopas show a great
advance in the variety and choice of rhyme, Romance accents
are avoided, the rhyme word is generally accented in the
modern manner, but such rhymes as the following are found
occasionally —

glose, disclose, rhyming with unlose,
cher (cheer) „ „ wher,

passe „ „ face,

grace, case, apace „ „ alase (alas).

All the above rhymes are found in Chaucer; moreover,
they are the rhymes that most commonly occur in the
Canterbury Tales. Wyatt, therefore, was archaic in his
spelling, and did not adopt a more modern style until
about 1536, when he began the Satires.

WYATT'S LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR 31

Wyatt's spelling may be summarized under certain
definite rules. Like every other early sixteenth and mid-
sixteenth century writer, his spelling was very varied, some
words are spelt in five or six different ways, but underlying
the irregularity there are certain tendencies which remain
constant throughout his work. He preferred —

e, to ea or ee, New English spelling,
o, to oa or oo „ „

y» to i »

We find teres, teris, terys, but very rarely tears, as in A. and T.
We find hert, herte, hart, but very rarely heart, as in A. and T.

Use of " e."
Wyatt. New English.
e ea brest, ded, endever, hevin, helth, reddily, thret,

dense, dred, hed, hevinesse, mesur, shred, welth.
er(e) ear appere, clere, forbere, here, nerre, dere, eryes, fere,

lern, wery.

e ea bequeth, beme, clene, ech, festid, leve, lede, mede.

e ee aggre> fele> repete, tre, degre, pele, se, the (pers.

pronoun),
er ar dert, ferr, hert, sperklid, sterve, sherp, derk, herd,

sperk, sperkling, sterre.
e a brend, then (for than).

Occasionally e, for i, N.E., and ei for ai, N.E.
e i ferm, kendlid, shert, shever, wether (wither),

ei ai feith, streight, and dialectal heins.

Use of " o."

o oa boste, coles, cloke, grone, mone, oke, oth.

o oo boke, fote, fole, loke, sone, schole, wode ; but

foole, schoole are found.

oo o In monosyllables — doo, foo, goo, too (-to),

-oun on, -un hounger, thounder, wounder.

-our -or fourther, retourn, swourd (also retorn).

-ow ou bowgh, clowd, cowd (also could), dowtful, mowth.

-aw au cawse, cawme (calm), lawrill, pawse.

-owre our howre, lowre, powre, sowre.

y is constantly used in early sixteenth-century spelling in place of
N.E. "i."

32 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Wyatt. New English.
y i fynd, kynde, revyse, tyme, tyer ; find, right, spider,

tire, are also found,
y i gyve, kysse, lyve, styng, wyng ; ring, bring, sing,

are also found,
-ayn -ain complayne, payne, trayn, disdayne, remayne, vayne;

also vain, disdain.

-yng -ing The poems in Wyatt' s handwriting and the copyist

-yth -eth of the D MS. prefers -yng and -yth. The scribe of

the E MS. usually writes -ing and -eth.

Consonants.
is(e) ice devise, ise, perse, prise, servis, twise, voyse ; also

voyce.

-ns -nee hens, negligens, resistans.

k c (guttural) rankled, skarr, sikk, skant, wikednes.
nek nk drinck, thinck, thanck.

double single fisshe, gentill, pomppe, releffe, sobbe, gnasshe,
consonants gonne, prouff, sellf, sonne.

There is confusion in gh, ght and the combinations wh.
gt ght lengt, strengt.

ght gh sight (sigh), thought (though).

wh w or h whote (hot), whete (wet), whaite for both wait and

weight.

Wyatt reserves the use of -ea for Romance words in -ai
pleasur, reason, season, peace (Fr. plaisir, raison, saison,
paix), but mesur (Fr. mesure).

A MS. and Tottel have the " ea " spelling for native and
Romance words indiscriminately.

Romance words accented on the last syllable figure
largely in the earlier part of the E MS. When the metre
requires it these words take the English accent, and we find,
fortune and fortune, crystal and crystal, honor and honor.
The following Romance suffixes are found — l

-age image, outrage, visage,

-ail(l) travaill, marvaill.

-ain certain, uncertayn.

1 This list is partly derived from Alscher, Sir Thomas Wyatt und Seine
SteUung. Wien, 1886.

WYATT'S LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR 33

-al crystal.

-ance contenance.

-ence presens.

-aunce grevaunce, mischaunce.

-aunt plesaunt, semblaunt.

-esse maistresse, distresse.

-er maner, suffer.

-et secret.

-ise, -ice servis, justice.

-i-all speciall.

-on, -or reason, season, honor, error, favor.

-une fortune.

-ur(e) mesur, displeasur(e), pleasur(e).

-ie, (y)e, beautie, libertie, nativite.

Wyatt has adopted the sixteenth -century French spelling
in the words faict, perfaict, fruict, beaultie; learned in
fluence had restored the " c " in words like faict, and the
" 1 " in words like beaultie, in ignorance of the philo
logical development of the language where factum > fait,

and bellitatem > beaute.

The words fievre and liepre show French spelling; the
English equivalents in the sixteenth century were " fever "
and "leprous person"; the word "leper" was used for
leprosy. Example : " The leper of him was clensid."
(Wyclif's Bible.)

Italianate words found in Wyatt are : Avysing, traced,
atraced, depaynted.

There is an attempt to differentiate between the words
"fair" (comely), and "fair" (market), but the attempt
breaks down —

fair (comely) spelt fayre < O.E. faegr.
fair (market) spelt faire < Fr. foire.

The word " fourther " is employed in the sense of helping
forward, " furder " is employed adverbially.

Words found only in Wyatt are kapper and heins, derived
from northern dialectal words. (See Glossary.) They are
due to his Yorkshire origin.

34 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

The only distinctive Kentish word found in Wyatt is
" cant," employed for a piece of land, and hence " a
portion."

Grammatical Constructions —

Final " e " is found in adjectives, verbs and nouns, and
the adjectival " e " is kept before the adverbial termina
tion -ly.

Adjectives : bolde, longe, fayre, softe.

Verbs : Examples occur in the infinitive and first person singular of the
present tense, to'hounte, bo we, burne.

Nouns : hewe, origine, doubte, clowde, and kynde-nes.
Adverbs : kyndely, softely, richely, goodely, youthely.

This final " e " is by no means constant.
Plurals —

The Plural ending -es is found in the E MS.; the usual
form in the D MS. is -is, -ys.

E MS. Wittes, thoughtes, daies, wordes, doubtes, teres.
D MS. yeris, eris, wittis, teris, hookis,

erys, terys.

Old Neuter Plural occurs in lyen, as well as the forms lyes, yes, eyes.
Genitive termination -es.

" bodyes ease, labourer salve."-
Old Feminine Genitive ending -e, occurs in herte
" herte sorrow."

There is an interesting survival of the third person plural
personal pronouns side by side with the modern forms;
these examples occur in the poems written in Wyatt's own
handwriting —

Norn, thei, also the, they,

Gen. theire „ their,

Dat. theim „ them.

Verbal endings —

E. MS. Third person sing., present -eth D MS. -es.

rarely -yth „ -ys.

,, Past part, ending . . -ed „ -id.

„ Pres. part -ing

rarely -yng.

WYATT'S LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR 35

One example occurs of archaic participial ending in
" quaky nd." Past part, prefix " y- " occurs rarely,
"yfixed," "yknowen."

NOTE. — The y- prefix is found in Tottel as a device for obtaining an
extra syllable.

Strong Verbs —

Remains of the original ablaut series are found in the
following verbs —

drave, chase, to-torn, bacen, shapen, strake.
Present. Pret. sing. Past part.

Cl. I. (drifan) (draf)

drave
Cl. II. (ceosan) (ceas)

chase (M.E. chese) Cf. Surrey :
" Surrey for love than chase."

Cl. III. (beran) (baer) (boren)

to-torn.

Cl. VI. (faran) (for) (faren)

bacen.

The past part. " to-torn " contains an example of the
O.E. intensitive prefix " to."

One instance occurs (cowd) of an old form of the preterite
present verb. The usual spelling is " could."

Cl. II. Can, cufce, > cude > coud, before the intrusion of " 1 " on
analogy with would, and should.

The Preterite yede occurs in the Psalms —

O.E. geode,>M.E. zeode, zede, yede, by ordinary palatal development
of " g " before front vowels.

The intensitive prefix " for " occurs in for-done.

Weak Verbs—

Unusual forms of weak verbs are found in the following : kest, staulk.
shright, quent. (See Glossary.)

Shrighte is found in Chaucer, A 2817 :

" Shrighte Emelie and howleth Palamon."
D 2

36 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Wyatt used this preterite form (1) as an infinitive, and (2) as a verbal
noun.

(1) And you so reddy sighes to make me shright.

(2) With dedly shright and cry.

Traces of dialect in Wyatt are few. The use of " k " in
skant, sikk, skar, and kest, denote northern influence.
The plural termination -ys, -is, and the past part, -id, found
in the D MS., may be due to Northern origin,1 and the
words kapper, heins, found only in Wyatt, are traced to a
northern source.

Wyatt's early rhymes and his manner of spelling suggest
that Chaucer was his model, but his method of versification
at first sight seems to be sufficient answer to prove the
contrary; can there be any possible connection between
Wyatt's ideas of the ten-syllable line and the smooth,
regular, flowing line of Chaucer ? Moreover (it may be
argued), Wyatt's poems do not suggest Chaucerian in
fluences, there are no nature touches, no descriptions of
" the sote season," which we find in Surrey's verse.

But it is within recent times that Chaucer and his system
of versification has been discovered ; down to the end of the
eighteenth century he was travestied by his editors; the
syllabic " e "which forms the basis of his verse was neg
lected for want of being understood; even Dryden, while
recognizing his worth, thought it necessary to set him before
the public in modern language. " The verse of Chaucer,"
he said, " is not melodious to us, it is a rough diamond which
must be polished ere it shines."

Dryden's remarks in the Essays prepare for the theory
that Wyatt may have taken Chaucer as a model : " The
verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but
'tis like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it

1 Lekebuscli, Londoner Urkundesprache von 1430-1500 (Ed. 1907),
shows that these northern forms are used indiscriminately with the mid
land forms in the London speech of this period.

WYATT'S LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR 37

was auribus istius temporis accommoda : they who lived
with him and some time after him, thought it musical ; and
it continues so, even in our judgment, if compared with the
numbers of Lidgate and Gower, his contemporaries; there is
the rudeness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleas
ing, though not perfect." Such is Dryden's criticism on
Chaucer's verse, at the very moment that he is setting
forth the native genius of the poet, and comparing him on
the one hand with Ovid, and on the other with Boccaccio.
Dryden explains in the same essay what is lacking in
Chaucer's verse : "It were an easy matter to produce
some thousands of his verses, which are lame for want of
half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no pro
nunciation can make otherwise." (Fables, Essays, vol. ii,
ed. W. P. Ker.)

Wyatt had very serious intentions in versification when
he turned from Court poetry to introduce the sonnet, and
to establish a ten-syllable line. He was a scholar, and under
took the work carefully; he chose Petrarch as his master,
but needed at the same time an English model. His
thoughts must have turned to Chaucer, as the great national
poet, to help him with the versification.

Now Richard Pynson, printer to the king, had published
the Boke of Canterbury Tales in 1526. He had previously
printed a very beautiful edition of the Tales 1490-3 ? (exact
date unknown), said to have been arranged by Caxton; but
this work was published in troublous times, and it was not
until the Tudors were settled firmly on the throne that an
interest was taken in literature. That the 1526 edition was
known and widely read is evident from the fact that four
years later Thomas Thynne published his edition, claiming
for it completeness and freedom from errors " which had
crept into the earlier editions." There is little difference
in the merit of the 1526 and 1532 editions; the later
publication, however, contains more of Chaucer's works;

38 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

both show examples of the omission of the syllabic " e " and
consequent crippling of the rhythm.

Wyatt learned from Chaucer the use of a syllabic " e."
Examples have been given in the grammar section show
ing that it occurs in nouns, adjectives, and verbs, and
before the adverbial termination. This is not merely
orthographical. Reading over Wyatt's versification from
the E MS., it is evident that he means a syllabic " e "
to be read in certain places; the plural termination -es is
also syllabic at times. Wyatt understood the art of musical
composition, and just as he employed a dotted note or a
rest to fill up the bar in music, so he made use of the syllabic
" e " to give the full number of syllables to the line. Wyatt
was also helped by his early training in Romance languages,
where the final " e " plays an important part in versification ;
thus he was peculiarly fitted to cope with difficulties and to
grasp the truth concerning the syllabic " e " in Chaucer
which others might have passed over.

COMPARISON OF WYATT'S VERSIFICATION WITH PYNSON's
EDITION OF CHAUCER

IT is worth while turning to the text of the 1526 edition
of Chaucer to see exactly how he appeared to Wyatt. The
first few lines of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales run as
follows —

Richard Pynson's edition of Chaucer, 1526 —

1. When that | Aprill || with \ his shour|es sote

2. The drought of March | hath per\c'ed the rote

4, 3. The tenjder cropp|es and | the yong|e sonne

1. Hath in | the Ram | halfe \ his cours | yronne

5. That slep | en all night | with ojpen eye

6. So pricket | hem na|ture in | her cor | ages

7. Then long | en folke | to go on | pilgrim [ages

2. And palmers | to sech|e strong \e strondes

The numbers refer to the rules which he derived from a
study of these lines.

1. Weak syllable omitted after the caesura.

2. Two strong syllables without intervening weak syllable : " perced,"

1. 2, " palmers," 1. 10, Englande, 1. 13.

3. Syllabic " e " required in sote, yonge.

4. Plural ending -es, syllabic.

5. An octosyllabic line with weak syllable " en " slurred before weak

syllable.

6. Verbal ending -eth slurred within the verse.

40 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

7. Slurring of vowels in juxtaposition " go on."

8. Slurring of weak syllable " -ur " before following weak syllable in

The first few lines of the 1526 Chaucer furnish eight rules,
which Wyatt frequently made use of in his versification.
This is encouraging. Wyatt certainly appears to have copied
Chaucer's versification, but before deciding, it is necessary
.to classify all Wyatt's rules of versification, in order to find
out whether we are justified in considering Chaucer his
model.

Wyatt's rules of verse may be classified as follows —

(a) Inverted stress of the first foot.

Examples from Chaucer. Ed. 1526 —

Wide was | his par|isshe||and housjes far | asonder. (Parson.)
Tr6uth and | honour || fredom and ciirtesy. (Knight.)

(b) Strong stress for the first foot.
As|sured by craft to excuse thy fault
For | after the blast as is no wound er

un|der cragjgy rockes || they have | full bar|ren playnes.

Examples from Chaucer—

H6te | he was || (Somonour)

Lyke | a staffe || ther nys no calfe ysene. (Reve.)

That | had led of dunge many a foder. (Plowman.)

So that with tery yen || swolne and instable
Thy vertus to let || though that frowardnes
What webbes he hath wrought || well he perceveth
The sea waterless || fisshe in the montayne
Blynded with the stroke || erryng here and there
Lyveth at rest || still in |disple|asur.

COMPARISON OF WYATT WITH PYNSON 41

Examples from Chaucer —

Ne of his techynge || daun[gerous ne digne. (Parson.)

And at a knight || first 1 1 wol begin. (Prol.)

That if golde rust || what shulde yren do. (Parson).

In fellowshypp || could | she laugh | and crye. (W. of B.)

Besyde | a grove || stand |yng in a dale. (T. of Nonnes Pr.)

In examples (c) there is sometimes a compensatory weak
syllable before the caesura, but it is more often omitted.

(d) Extra weak syllable before caesura with full comple

ment of syllables after the caesura.

I fede | me in sor(owe) || and thus | I hate myself.
In fros(en) || tho now and now || it stondeth in flame.

Examples from Chaucer —

By good ensamp(Ze) || this was | his busyness. (Parson.)
This noble ensdm(ple) \\ unto his shepe he gave. (Parson.)
He was a shep(AenZ) \\ and not a mercenary. (Parson.)

(e) Trisyllabic feet are very common in Wyatt's verse,

they are found in the first, second, fourth, and fifth
foot.

First Foot—

I desire to perisshe || and thus I hate myself
Of fortune | me holdeth ||
Of thatrestjlesbirdes ||

Examples from Chaucer —

Other with | a bro|therheed || to be with-holde. (Parson.)
He was nat | to synful men to dispitous. (Ibid.)

Second Foot —

Rejoyce || let me dreme || of your felicitie
Wherby | If 1 laught || any time or season
Are cause | that by 16ve||I | myself destroy
The spryte | of comfort || in him revyvid is.

Example from Chaucer —

This wi|dowe of which || I tell you in my tale. (T. of N. Pr.)

42 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Third or fourth foot —
(e 3) And where it was at wisshej| It could not | remayne.

Example from Chaucer (third foot)—

Of Aristot(le) || and of his | philosophye. (Cl. of O.)

Fifth foot—

(e 4) Twixt mi|sery | and welth j| twixt er\n£st and game.
Proferd you myn hert || but you | do not use.

NOTE. — This is not to be confused with the hendecasyllable verse.
Chaucer often employs a hendecasyllable (extra weak syllable at the end
of the line), but we never find a trisyllable, with the strong accent on
the last syllable. Therefore Wyatt has no authority in Chaucer for
this freedom; from other examples he has extended the use of the trisyl
lable to the fifth foot.

(/) Slurring takes place with weak syllables ending in
r, 1, n, when followed by another weak syllable;
Enemy is dissyllabic.

Examples from Chaucer —

He wayjted af|ter no pompe | ne reverence. (Parson.)
As brode | as it were | a bok\eler or \ a targe. (W. of B.)
A reve ther was a slender co|lerike man | (Reve.)
A swerde and a bokjeler bare | he by his syde. (Miller.)
And ev|er he rode | the hindmost of the route. (Reve.)
This no|ble ensamp(le) || unto his shepe he gave. (Parson.)

An extension of rule (/) occurs with the words spirit, cruel,
heven, containing a weak syllable in r, 1, n, respectively,
always regarded as monosyllabic when followed by a
weak syllable; occasionally " cruell" is dissyllabic when the
metre requires it ; it will then be found that a strong syllable
follows —

COMPARISON OF WYATT WITH PYNSON 43

Example —

As cm; ell cause | that did the speritt son hast.
For sure I fele | my spryte | doth faynt apace

His cruell | dispyte for to disgorge and quite.
Thevyn it | would lo and eke her chaunce was so.

(The verbal ending -eth is usually slurred in the body of
the verse.)

(g) The termination -ayn in words such as rayn, fayn, is
often dissyllabic, and pleasure in one instance has
three syllables.
Examples —

IE amours faith an hert unfayned —
If long error in a blynde way chained —
Whereby with himself on love he playneth
With fayned visage now sad now mery
Liveth at rest still in displeasur.

" Rayned " is monosyllabic in one line —

Be rayned | by reajson shame | and reverence.

When " cruell," " rayned," are monosyllabic, we find
certain indicatory marks in Wyatt's hand in the E MS.
Examples from Chaucer —

And renjne to | Londoun | to se|int Poules

And se|ke him | a chaunjterye | for soules. (Parson.)

Hir gre|test o|the was | by Se|mt Loy (Prioresse).

A parallel to displeasur is found in the following line of
Chaucer —

1 Ne cre|ature | that of | hem mak|ed is. (W. of B.)
(h) Verbal ending -eth is usually slurred in the body
of the verse : an extension of this rule includes
" hath " and " with " at times —

So chaunceth it 6ft that every pas|sion
That fedeth him with my care and misery.
1 Creature is often a trisyllable in Chaucer. (See Skeat's edition.)

44 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Example from Chaucer —

So pricketh hem najture in j her corages.

Extension of rule —

What webbes hehath wrought || well | he perjceveth |
Wherby"with | himself j on love | he plajyneth.
In the first case "h" is regarded as no letter; in the

second case " w " has vocal force.

(i) Slurring of vowels in juxtaposition. " y " is regarded
as a vowel, and " h " as no letter.

In the first foot —

And f~al|wayes playntes | that passe | thorough | my throte
To~utter the smart that I suffer within.

In the second foot —

I fede | mein sor(owe) || and laugh in all my payne
What webbes | hehath wrought || well | he per|ceveth.

In the third foot —

In the fourth foot —

With few | glad || and ma|ny a div|ers thought.
In the fifth foot —

Example from Chaucer —

Then long | en f 61ke to goon || pilgrim | ages.

This is Wyatt's probable reading of the line, and so he
finds support in Chaucer for slurring. It is a marked
feature of Wyatt's verse, and must be attributed to his

COMPARISON OF WYATT WITH PYNSON 45

knowledge of Italian verse, where the slurring of vowels
is the basis of scansion; from this example in Chaucer he
considered that he was justified in following the Romance
method of slurring vowels.

As a consequence of Wyatt's system of slurring vowels,
hiatus is very rare —

YS, old | mule that thinck | yourself | so faire.
1 desire | to perisshe || and yet | / ask\e helth.

(k) Wyatt avoids syncopation; it is not found except
in the words "ton," "tothr"; and " thevyn "
(t'hevyn) occurs once in the Satire " My mothers
maydes."

" Thevyn it | would lo | and eke her chaunce was so."

Slurring is used instead of syncopation with the first
personal pronoun singular followed by have, wot, will,
would, and the infinitive " to have " is included in this
rule.

I will not | yet in | my grave | be burjied.

And I ame | not of | such manjer condition.

I would have | offerd | unto | the sa| orifice.

But if the pronoun " I " follow the verb, it is usually regarded
as a syllable —

To the | have I called | O Lord to be my borow.

In this case the second foot is a trisyllable.

(I) Two stressed syllables without an intervening weak
syllable is a favourite device in Wyatt. It occurs in
the first and second, and the fourth and fifth foot — -
Examples in first and second —

46 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Examples in fourth and fifth foot —

: that erst | for fere | shook
: and yet | I aske | helth.

Examples in Chaucer of two strong stresses —

It is also found in the third and fourth foot —

Make morjtrewes||and well | bake | a pie.

In some of these instances in Wyatt there is a time pause
marked by the presence of a final " e " which would be
sounded if the words were sung ; there is no means of finding
out whether this were intentional ; however, we do know
that the Songs and the Rondeaus were written to be sung;
the final " e " marks a pause, as a rest in music ; in the other
cases, the long accent was regarded as a dotted note to be
prolonged for the full complement of time to fill out the
bar. The examples from Chaucer gave Wyatt a precedent,
and the fact that there is no final " e " between the two
strong -stressed syllables in the examples from the Prologue
inclines to a conclusion that in these instances Wyatt 's use
of final " e " is merely orthographical.

It should be noted that Wyatt certainly meant a pause
after " Beholde love," " The longe love," and the other
examples, for he has marked the caesura in some of these
instances; the line was not meant to be read " The longe love
that . . .," as all Wyatt's critics have done in describing
his methods of verse. Prof. Saintsbury, in particular, reads
' The long love " Sonnet in a way which is utterly at
variance with the metrical scheme as seen in the E MS.
(See the specimen Sonnet in Appendix D, "The Long
Love.")

(ra) Lines occur in Wyatt which are quite regular if a
final " e " or plural termination -es is regarded as syllabic —

COMPARISON OF WYATT WITH PYNSON 47

Are cause that by love myself I destroy
To hast to slack my pass-e lesse or more
And onely my loke declareth my hert
But sins that I so kyndely am servid.
And will that my trust and lustes negligens.

Example from Chaucer —

To draw£ folke to heven with fayrenesae.

Copious examples are to be found in the 1526 edition, in
spite of the omission of the final " e " in many cases.

(n) An occasional Alexandrine or octosyllabic line occurs
in poems written in the five-stressed line —

Who may the hold thy hert || but thou thyself unbynde
Though othr be present || thou art not all behynde
Of tyme | trouthe | and love || to save the from offence
But dayly yet the ill || doeth change into the wourse
The sonne bemes | to turne || with so gret vehemence
Which comforteth | the mynde || that erst j for fere | shoke.

Example from Chaucer —

Upon | an am|buler ||full ea|sely j she sat.

One rondeau, " What vaileth truth," begins in a verse of
five stresses, and concludes in octosyllabic verse.

The epigram, " Ryght true it is," concludes with an octo
syllabic verse, " That with the blase his berd syngeth."

The 1526 edition of Chaucer has many examples of octo
syllabic lines in the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales —

Full big he was of braune and bones
His nostrylles blacke were and wyde (Miller).
And eke ye know well that a jay (Somnour).
God loved he beste with all his herte (Parson).

(o) The csesura is carefully marked after the fourth syllable
in Wyatt's early verse in the E MS. —

Beholde love :
Go burning sighes :
Right true it is :
O small hony :
O lost servis :

(Wyatt's caesura mark is a colon.)

48 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Many examples of this caesura occur in the first few lines

of the Prologue —

When that Aprill //
The drought of March //
Enspyred hath //
Hath in the Ram. //

Experience in versification led to greater freedom in the
use of the caesura; it is found after the third foot, and after
the first foot. Occasionally a very harsh effect is produced
by a caesura placed in the middle of a ten-syllable line ; this
is avoided in Wyatt's later poems.

Ccesura after the third foot —

Or~els in | my spark) ling voyce || lower or higher.

Ccesura after the first foot —

(1) At last || both eohe for himself concluded.

(2) Rejoyce || let me dreme || of thy felicitie.

(3) In fros(en) || tho nowe and nowe || it stondeth in flame.

In the last two examples there is a second pause less
marked, after the second and the third foot respectively.

Ccesura after the fifth syllable —

fs | my pa^n|ful luff || the bur | den of ire.
So | call I | for help || I not when | nor where
It is | as In dreme jj unjperfaict | and lame.

Examples in Chaucer —

His berde is shave || as nigh as he can. (Reve.)
Out of the gospell || the wordes he caught. (Parson.)

(p) Enjanibement or overflow of the line —
The later style of Wyatt's versification is marked by
the overflow of the line. Alscher l has worked this out
thoroughly and finds that the subject is divided from the
predicate, the predicate from the object, or the predicate
from the extension, by enjambement —

And therwithall I alway in the lash
Abyd the stroke : and with me everywher
I bere my fawte. (Psalms.)

1 Sir Thomas Wyatt und seine Stellung . . . Alsclier.

COMPARISON OF WYATT WITH PYNSON 49

Examples from the Psalms —

(a) He then inflamed with far more hote effect

Of God ...
(6) Oh Happy are they that have forgiffnes gott

Of their offence . . .
(c) Shamid be they all that so ly in whaite

To compas me . . .

Examples from the Satires —

(a) Use vertue as it goeth now a dayes so

In wordes alone to make thy language swete . . .

(6) By which retorn be sure to wyn a kant
Of half at leste . . .

(d) And say that Favell hath a goodly grace
In eloquence, and crueltye to name
Zele of justice . . .

Examples from Chaucer —

The bright sonne

The ark of the artificial day had ronne
The fourth part . . . (Prol., Man of Lawes Tale.)
And that my might be worthy to serve
Thy godhed . . . (Knigiites Tale.)
Chaste goddess || wel wotest thou that I
Desire to be a mayden all my life . . . (Kn. T.)

Such is Wyatt's system of verse. Corresponding examples
are found in the 1526 edition of Chaucer. Even in the
matter of slurring vowels, very largely used by him, and
certainly derived from his Italian studies, he finds an instance
in Chaucer " to go on pilgrimages." No doubt many critics
will not admit such a reading of this line, but it is quite
evident that Wyatt read it thus to rhyme with the preceding
line, " her corjages." Again, the 1526 edition supplies
several instances of trisyllabic feet, excepting in the fifth
foot. Wyatt, finding support in Chaucer for trisyllables
within the line, extended the privilege to the last foot. These
are the only two instances that can be called in question.
An investigation of the Prologue (1526 edition) which has

50 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

afforded the examples in the scheme of versification above,
proves beyond a doubt that Chaucer was Wyatt's model at
the time that he was working with Petrarch for his master,
both in form and matter. The most striking proof is the
resolution of eight of Wyatt's rules from the first few lines
of the Prologue. It also shows us that Dry den was justified
in his remarks on Chaucer's metre.

It would be absurd to argue from the likeness of the rhyme,
or the language, or the archaic spelling alone, but when we
find that the rhyming system, the spelling, grammatical
endings, and archaisms follow Chaucer, and when the versi
fication shows itself to be entirely built upon the 1526
edition of Chaucer, there can be no further doubt of the
matter. Wyatt deliberately and conscientiously studied
Chaucer with a view of carrying on his method of work,
and made his exercise in versification parallel with his
introduction of the Petrarchan Sonnet.

Paradoxical as it may seem to those who only know
Chaucer's smooth, regular, flowing system of verse, from
Skeat, or the Globe edition, and who know Wyatt only from
Tottel's edition, Wyatt does stand revealed, deliberately
following Chaucer's teaching in verse and endeavouring
to find a system in the faulty text of Pynson's edition : he
found there many good decasyllabic lines, he found also a
variety of rules that sprang in some cases from the omission
of the syllabic " e." On the other hand, the slurring of
weak syllables ending in vowel-likes r, 1, n, and the slurring
of vowels, were not only rules in Chaucer's prosodic system
(and consequently lie apart from irregularities gleaned from
a faulty text), but were rules on which the system of Milton's
blank verse was based. It is a noteworthy fact that the
finest and strongest work has been achieved by Milton and
Shakespeare through the slurring of certain weak syllables,
inverted stress on the first foot, and in majestic periods
achieved by the overflow of the line; in Shakespeare, too,

COMPARISON OF WYATT WITH PYNSON 51

strong effects are produced by the presence of two strong
stresses without an intervening weak stress. Wyatt was
the first writer of modern verse to allow such freedom,
though he applied it to rhyme, while Milton and Shakespeare
confined their usage to blank verse. The sonnet was the
worst possible form for Wyatt 's earliest examples in this
system of versification, but the very nature of the sonnet,
with its limitations, was the best means of gaining experi
ence, and Wyatt would never have gained the freedom and
the skill in his satires without his preliminary exercises
in the sonnet.

Since Chaucer's connection with Wyatt is established —
and the proofs are too many to be sceptical about it — we
can no longer regard Wyatt as the solitary figure working
in the dark, and groping in ignorance towards a solution
of the difficulties of the ten-syllable line; his course was
tentative, the achievement was difficult, but the model
lay before him in the 1526 edition of Chaucer. Therefore,
Wyatt, as the product of a new age, of the new learning and
of Neoplatonism, had his roots firmly fixed in the past.
He had new things to say, and a new form in which to
express these new utterances, but he turned to the great
national poet for assistance in the task. Little did Chaucer
think when he translated Petrarch's eighty-eighth Sonnet
(Troilus and Cressida, 1. 400-420)—

S'Amor non e che dunque e quel ch'isento ?
Ma s'egli e amor, per Dio, che cosa e quale ?

or when he met him at Padua (?), that before thirteen de
cades had passed away another English poet should arise,
largely influenced, as Chaucer was, by French and Italian
writers, one destined to combine the form and rime of
Petrarch with Chaucer's versification, and so unite in his
poetry in ttye early sixteenth century the two greatest poets
of the fourteenth century.

E 2

VII

CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE

•

THE years of Wyatt's apprenticeship in the ten-syllable
line were passed at Calais 1528-32. He translated Petrarch
and used Chaucer as a model for his verse. Later, distinct
Chaucerian influence is to be traced in his poems.

In 1532 Thynne's edition of Chaucer was published; it
professed to be a complete edition. Pynson and Thynne
both ascribed poems to Chaucer which are now rejected.
The 15261 edition contained, among other poems, "La
Belle Dame sans Merci " l and " Dido's letter to Eneas "
(Prologue and Playnte).

The 1532 edition included " La Belle Dame " with a
different envoy from that in 1526, the " Ballade of Fortune,"
" How Pitie is ded and buried in a gen til hert," besides the
" Boethius," " Legend of Good Women," and other authentic
poems.

The 1532 edition was well read by the Court. Surrey
derived his inspiration from it; verses from "La Belle
Dame " are written in the D MS., and there are lines and
phrases in Wyatt which suggest a knowledge of the poems
in Thynne's edition.

" La Belle Dame " is the ultimate source of Wyatt's
duologue . "It burneth yet alas my hertes desyre ' ' ; although
he possibly owes something to Mellin de St. Gelais' rendering
of the same theme. " La Belle Dame " is a dull thing — a
translation of Alain Chartier's poem; it was ascribed to
Chaucer, but is now said to be the work of Richard Ros.

1 Skeat refers to the later (1632) edition in his Works of Chaucer.

CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE 53

Wyatt's poem is full of feeling and its restraint makes it
a thing of beauty.

There are lines in Dido's letter l which may be compared
with Wyatt—

Prologue : Much better it were to have good contenaunce . . .
That folke perceyve not your grefe and he vines.

In the poem " Patiens for my devyce " the line occurs —

Let no man know your payne
The " Complaynte " begins—

Ryght as the swanne when her deth is nygh . . .
One of the lyrics (D MS.) begins —

Lyke as the swanne towardis her deth . . .

The phrase " alas, alas, the while," occurs in the " Amorous
Complaynte." The title may have suggested Wyatt's
poem which may be called an Amorous Complaynte (E MS.)
beginning —

Ther was never nothyng more me payned.

In this poem the refrain to every quatrain is " Alas the
whyle."

The "Playnte to Fortune " 2 is a duologue between Fortune
and Pleintif. Pleintif bemoans his wretchedness, Fortune

replies —

No man is wretched but himself it wene
He that hath himself hath sufficaunce
And eke thou hast thy best friend on lyve.

This " Playnte " is evidently the source of Wyatt's poem
" Most wretched hert," a duologue between the two inner
voices. The burden of the first voice is —

Most wretched hert why art though not ded.

The burden of the second voice is —

And he is wretched that wenes him so.

The verses run alternately with the burden of the first and
second voice, as a refrain to every quatrain.

1 1526 edition. 2 1532 edition.

54 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

U Envoy (1532 edition) contains the following lines —

Better is to suffer and fortune abide

Than hastily to clime and sodenly to slyde.

This couplet probably influenced Wyatt's poem (D MS.) —

I abide and abide and better abide
And after the old proverbe the happie day
And ever my lady to me doeth say
Let me alone and I will provyde.

Fortune is personified in this, and several other of Wyatt's
poems, as " My lady."

" Agaynst Women Unconstant " (1532 edition) contains
the line —

Madame for your new fangilnes

I take my leve for your unstedefastness. . . .

Wyatt, in the poem " They flee from me," says —

And I have leve to go of her goodenes
And she also to use newfangilnes.

The " Knightes Tale " offers several parallels —

A rare form of the preterite of the M.E. verb " schrichen "
is found in the line —

Shrighte Emelye and howleth Palamon.
Wyatt uses it as an infinitive and as a verbal substantive.

(1) And you so reddy sighes to make me shrighte.

(Sonnet, Bicause I have.)

(2) With dedly shrighte and cry.

(Myne owne dere enemy.)

References to May in the " Knightes Tale " and in the
Troilus are imitated by Wyatt —

In a mornyng of May
She was arisen and all redy dight
For May will have no slogarde anyght.

Wyatt writes —

Arise for shame do way your slogardy
Arise I say do May some observaunce.

CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE 55

Cf . also lines from Troilus and Cressida —

Do wey your bok, rys up and lat us daunce
And let us don to May some observaunce.

The conceit of the heart wounded by a glance through
the eye is found in the " Knightes Tale," but, it must be
added, this idea is ubiquitous —

(1) This Palamon answered . . .

But I was hurt nowe through myn eye
Unto myn herte . . .

and aga'n —

Ye slee me with your eyen Emely.

Wyatt's poem —

So unwarely was never no man cawght.'* (D MS.)
re-echoes the idea —

Thorow my eyes the strocke from hyers did slyde
Dyrectly down unto my hert ytt ranne.

This conceit can be traced to a Provencal source. It
made its way into Italy, and is found in all the Petrarchists.
Chrestien de Troyes seems to have first used it in Fiance.

2. Again —

It stycked thorough my careful herte
That shapen was erst my deth then my sherte. (Kn. T.)
Cf. Wyatt—

Alas the greffe the dedly woful smert
The careful chaunce shapen afore my sherte.

Troilus and Cressida —

The invocation of Cithera is echoed in Wyatt's poem.
" Though this port "—

O Love, O Charite
Thy moder eke, Citherea the swete
After thyself next heried be she
Venus mene I the wel-willy planete. (Tr. III. 1254-7.)

Wyatt's lines run —

Though this (the) port and I thy servaunt true
And thou thyself dost cast thy b ernes from hye

56 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

From thy chieff howse promising to renew
Boeth joy and eke delite behold yet how that I
Banished from my blisse carefully do crye
Helpe now Citherea, my lady dere.

Courthope (Hist, of Engl. Lit.) quotes many more ex
pressions in Wyatt traceable to Troilus and Cressida.

Wyatt's use of the word " stemyng " is taken from

Chaucer —

Hise eyen stepe and rollyng in his hed
That stemed as a forneys of a led. (Monk.)

The cat is described in the satire, " My Mothers Maydes,"

with —

. . . two stemyng eyes
In a round head.

This word sorely puzzled Nott; he suggests streaming !
Selden proposed " staring."

The language and the humorous tone throughout " My
Mothers Maydes " suggest Chaucerian influence; there are,
moreover, direct allusions to Chaucer —

Praise Sir Thopas for a noble tale

And scorn the story that the knight tolde.

(Myn own John Poynz.)
Allusion to Pandarus —

But ware I say so golde the helpe and sped
That in this case thou be not so unwise
As Pandare was in such a like dede.

(A spending hand.)
Wyatt knew the Boethius —

for swin so groyns

And drivell in perilles the hed still in the manger
Then of the harp the asse to hed the sound.

Cf. Boethius, prose 4 —

Artow lik? an asse to the harpe ?
The second line of the epigram —

Tagus farewell that westward with thy stremes
Torns up the grayns of gold alredy tryd —

is derived from Boethius, Metrum 10.

CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE 57

All the thinges that the river Tagus gyveth you with his goldene gravelis.

One poem only appears to be entirely founded on Chaucer —

If thou wilt mighty be fle from the rage —

but it is one of Wyatt's latest works, and may either be
adapted from Chaucer or translated from the Latin original.
It consists of three stanzas —

The first is from the Metrum 5 Boethius III,
the second is from the Metrum 6 Boethius III,
the third is from the Metrum 3 Boethius III.

Wyatt. Chaucer's Translation.

(1) If thow wilt mighty be flee Who so wol ben myghtie he

from the rage
Of cruel will . . . most daunten his cruel corages . .

(2) If to be noble and high thy mind All the lynage of men that ben

be moved in erth . . .

Consider well . . . thy beginning

(3) All were it so thou had a flode All were it so that a rich covetous

of gold . . . man . . .

Latin Boethius.

(1) Qui se volet esse potentem
Animas domat | ille feroces . . .

(2) Omne hominis genus in terris
Simili surgit ab ortu ...

(3) Quamvis fluente divis auri gurgiti . . .

SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

French Sources of Wyatfs Poems.

The following French sources have been found for the
first time.

Rondeaus —
For to love her . . .
If it be so ...
Thou hast no faith . . .

Douzaine —
Madame withouten |
maney wordes ;

A New Year's Gift-
To seke eche where |
where man doeth live

Duologue —

It burneth yet alas my |
herts desire :

Epigram —

Desyre alas my maister |
and my f oo.

Rondeaux —

D' estre amoureux. (Clement Marot. )
S'ilestainsy „ „

cf. Amor et Foi ,, „

Douzaine —

S' amour vous a donne un cueur en gage.
(St. Gelais.)

Etrenne —

Ce nouvel an pour etrenne vous donne.

(Clement Marot.}

Duologue —

Me veuillez Madame

la peine ignorer
Que ma vraie flamme
vous veult declarer.

(Mellin de St. Gelais.}
Dizaine —
Tant est nature en volante puissante.

(Maurice Seve.)

CHAPTER VIII

FRENCH INFLUENCE

IT is difficult to trace French influence to a definite source,
for this reason : Italy was the fountain head of all inspiration
• in the early and mid-sixteenth century, and we therefore
expect to trace to a common Italian source the likenesses
that appear in English and French poems; yet it must be
remembered that in England, as also in France, Italian
influence was felt in every direction of life before it was
perceptible in Literature.1 The early years of the sixteenth
century saw Italian Secretaries at Court; Italian tutors in
noblemen's houses, and Italian scholars at the universities;
Italians, too, taught riding and general etiquette as well as
inculcating morals, while Italian influence swayed commerce.

Meanwhile Skelton, the Court poet, wrote rhymes which
were " ragged, tattered, and jagged," and showed no signs
of a new influence. Wyatt, coming to Court in the second
decade of the sixteenth century, speedily made himself
the leader of a band of courtiers, versifiers, and composers
of Court songs, which merely carried on the traditions of the
fifteenth century.

In France, Marot and Mellin de St. Gelais used mediaeval
forms, such as the Rondeau and Ballad — forms which, a
quarter of a century later, were to be swept aside when the
clarion notes of Du Bellay's Defense resounded through the
land.

" Laissez," he said, " les rondeaux, virelais, chansons,
ballades, et autres epiceries et jette toi aux odes, epistres,

1 Italian Renaissance in England. Einstein.
59

60 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

satires . . . et sonnets selon Petrarch et quelques modernes
Italiens." These words heralded the reign of the Pleiade,
and the poems of Marot and St. Gelais were consigned to
oblivion. But signs of Italian influence appear in their late
work; and the question is still undecided whether these
French poets or Wyatt first showed Italian influence. While
most critics believe that Italian influence is later in France,
an absence of definite facts has led to such literary con
troversies as the theory that St. Gelais translated into
French Wyatt's English rendering of Sannazaro's sonnet,
" Simile a questi smisurati monti."

Now Prof. Koeppel, in 1891, traced the source of Wyatt's
sonnet, " Like to these immeasurable montaynes," to St.
Gelais' version, " Voyant ces monts " (Anglia, xiii); but in
1902 (Modern Language Quarterly, vol. v) Arthur Tilley
discovered Sannazaro's Italian source. Literary critics,
ignorant of Tilley 's discovery, still regarded the French
version as the source, and Child (Cambridge History of
Literature, 1909), Courthope, and Padelford, all name the
French version as the source. A comparison of the three
versions shows that Wyatt's translation is undoubtedly a
version of the Italian, so that the " originality " hitherto
imputed to him in differing from the French version is now
seen merely to be a closer adherence to the Italian.

Mr. Padelford (1907), still unaware of the real source, had
his doubts about the French version, for he made this
remark in his notes on the above sonnet (Sixteenth Century
Lyrics) : " Did Wyatt imitate this French sonnet, or did
St. Gelais imitate Wyatt, or did they both translate from
a common original ? "

Berdan, acting upon this suggestion, set forth his theories
in Modern Language Notes, 1908, where he discussed the
" Migrations of a Sonnet," and mapped out the genealogy
of the sonnet in question; it may briefly be set forth as
follows —

FRENCH INFLUENCE 61

Sonetto Sannazaro " Simile a questi."

I I

Sonnet Wyatt " Like to those."

I I

Sonnet St. Gelais " Voyant ces monts."

I I

Madrigal Barnes " Like to these mountains."

A long discussion followed between Mr. Berdan and Mr.
L. E. Kastner (Modern Language Review, 1909), but the
only definite result is the narrowing of the date of St. Gelais'
sonnet from 1536 to a possible 1531, and the proving that it
is most unsafe ground to regard any French version as a
translation of an English version in the sixteenth century.

It is important to find some definite facts which may
have turned the attention of the French poets towards the
sonnet form, and a clue may, I think, be found in the poet
Alamanni, the Florentine exile. In 1530 he was exiled a
second time from Florence and appeared at the French
Court. A recent life of Alamanni l shows that his first exile
in France was passed in obscurity and poverty, and that
Francis I, probably from political motives, took no notice of
him.

In 1530 circumstances had altered. Foreign relations
were less strained, Alamanni approached the King with an
offering of Italian sonnets,2 dedicated to Francis I, and
setting forth his glory. The King accepted them and
became Alamanni's patron, and from 1530 until his death in
1556, except for one short interval, his life was bound up in
French interests, and at times he undertook no unimportant
part in French affairs.

1 Un exile florentin d la cour de Fratice. H. Hauvette. 1903.

2 Luigi Alamanni presented a medal of Cellini's workmanship at the same
time. Cellini says, " The medal came into the hands of Messer Luigi
Alamanni, who after a little time took it to present in person to Francis,
King of France, accompanied by some of his finest compositions. The king
was exceedingly delighted." (See Cellini's Autobiography, Lib. I, xliv.
J. A. Symond's Trans., 1888.)

62 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

The presence of Alamanni at Court, the publication of
his poems (1532-3) under the King's patronage and by means
of his pecuniary help, and their dedication to the royal
patron, were bound to have an effect upon the French
Court poets. As good courtiers they studied the King's
pleasure, and his evident interest in Alamanni's poems
was undoubtedly one of the causes which resulted in trans
lations of Italian sonnets by Marot and St. Gelais. Sanna-
zaro's poems were published in 1531, many editions followed,
but in this and the 1533 Florentine edition, Part III was
included, containing the " Simile a questi " sonnet, which
was omitted in many editions. St. Gelais translated this
sonnet, and it is interesting to note that when he allowed
a few of his poems to be printed in 1549, this translated
sonnet was the only poem in sonnet form. Meanwhile,
except for a short visit to the Court at Blois in 1533, Marot
was in disgrace and in forced retirement until 1536.

In the interval he spent some time at Lyons with his
young friend Maurice Seve, a rising poet, who gathered
round him a group of followers, and formed a coterie known
as the " Ecole Lyonais," whence sprang the Pleiade.
Studying at Avignon in 1533, Maurice Seve had found the
supposed tomb of Petrarch's Laura in a convent of the
Cordeliers. A keen follower of Petrarch and a nature
dreamer, he wrote a series of symbolical poems called
Delie, in which he set forth certain aspects of nature as
analogous to his own states of consciousness. Marot,
coming into contact with Maurice Seve, no doubt caught
some of the enthusiasm of this earnest student of Petrarch,
an enthusiasm which afterwards found vent in his poem to
Laura. He also had opportunities of studying Art and
Italian Literature at Venice, but he was not happy in his
exile, and earnest entreaties to the Dauphin at length pro
cured his pardon and he returned to Court in 1536. Lines
such as the following were probably the cause of his pardon,

FRENCH INFLUENCE 63

and show that he was capable of a degree of tenderness
rarely discernible in his poetry.

Ce que je quiers et que de vous j'espere

C'est qui il vous plaise au roi, votre chere pere

Parler pour moi . . .

Non pour aller visiter mes chateaux

Mais bien pour voir mes petits marotteaux.

(Epistle to the Dauphin.)

For seven years (1536-43) Marot enjoyed the King's
favour and protection. Contact with Seve, the ardent
Petrarchist; l the presence of Alamanni at Court, and the
King's pleasure in his sonnets and other poems, were the
causes that made him turn to Italian forms. He translated
six sonnets of Petrarch, and the Vision; he composed an
elegy on Laura, and in 1539 wrote the famous " Pan et
Robin " eclogue to the King. St. Gelais, too, translated
Petrarch and Ariosto and wrote numerous sonnets.

There are, then, many reasons to explain why Marot
and St. Gelais turned their attention to Italian forms during
the years 1530 to 1540.

In 1539 Marot translated the Psalms. He presented
them to the Emperor in 1540; they were the cause of his
second exile, and he died in 1544.

As far as Marot is concerned, direct Italian influence is
traced between the years 1533-40, and with St. Gelais not
earlier than 1531 (the date of the publication of a complete
edition of Sannazaro's works); but St. Gelais never took
the initiative, and it is likely that he waited until Marot 's

1 It has been inferred that because Seve wrote in dizaines, and not in
sonnet form, that he had escaped Petrarchan influence. There is no
doubt that he was an ardent Petrarchist, but his particular and uncommon
genius preferred a certain type of verse. It was the age of independent
and original work, his Delie was published at the time when Cellini was
proving new possibilities in goldsmith craft, and Michael Angelo was
expressing all the height and breadth of his thought in terms of the human
body.

64 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

return to Court before venturing on new forms. There is
no trace of deliberate attention to Italian models before
Alamanni's appearance in 1530. Slight Italianisms in
St. Gelais' writing are due to his youthful studies in Italy,
but Marot was always his master, whom he followed in his
taste for mediaeval forms, and light, graceful, and witty
verse.

Both French writers made their mark in writing sparkling
little songs or witty tours de force on every conceivable
trivial subject. Marot, in that light mocking style which
can only be defined as esprit gaulois, is inimitable in
his epigrams and etrennes. The mediaeval forms of their
verse were scorned by Ronsard and the other members of
the Pleiade, for although in late years they attempted the
sonnet form and translated Petrarch and other " modernes
Italians," they entirely missed the contemplative spirit, and
the visions of Love and Beauty seen through the medium
of nature. Neither had they expressed the great thoughts
of the ancients; they retained their mediaeval stock in
trade to the end, only giving examples of Italian forms to
please a new fashion but not breaking with the old. Marot
and St. Gelais were, in fact, conscious that they excelled
and were able to please in these old forms ; exercises in the
new Italian style were tentative, and they both preferred to
be masters in their own art than simply scholars in a new.
So they showed that they were conscious of the new fashion
by contributing sonnets, but the Petrarchan spirit is absent
until the rise of the Pleiade.

Italian influence is to be seen in Marot and St. Gelais
after the year 1530. Wyatt came into contact with them
prior to this date, and therefore any influence traceable to
the poets may be considered purely French. Wyatt joined
Sir Thomas Cheney's Embassy to France in 1526. Marot
was Gentleman of the Chamber to the King. Mellin de
St. Gelais possessed a sweet voice, and played the lute per-

FRENCH INFLUENCE 65

fectly. Many years later Du Bellay described his poems

as —

Vers emmeillers

Qu' aussi doux que ton voix coulent.

Wyatt was a musician and peculiarly sensitive to refrains,
and he carried away with him snatches of these French
songs and rondeaus. Marot's poems circulated in MS.,
and in 1529 l a few were published for the first time, and
amongst these occur poems which are reproduced in some of
Wyatt 's rondeaus. Mellin de St. Gelais did not allow his
poems to circulate; it was not until 1549 that he sanctioned
the publication of a few of his poems ; among these the only
sonnet is the translation of Sannazaro's " Simile a questi."

French influence in Wyatt is due to contact with lively,
witty, and musical poets, personages after his own heart,
and the names in which French refrains and ideas occur in
his rondeaus and other pieces suggest memory and not
translation; this view is borne out by the facts of their
publications noted above.

Wyatt wrote nine rondeaus, the first about 1526 (D MS.),
the last 1532-3 (E MS.). Seven rondeaus occur on the
first few pages of the E MS., and were written about 1528
and onwards, in the intervals of more severe labour with
the sonnet form. Two of these, " Go burning sighes,"
and " Behold Love," are translations from Petrarch, the
other five suggest French influence; they are as follows —

(1) Help me to seke.

(2) What vaileth troth.

(3) For to love her.

(4) Thou hast no faith.

(5) If it be so.

The theme of the first is a lost heart, and is found con
stantly among the chansons of Marot and St. Gelais. It is
a very bright little poem, and Wyatt seems to have written

1 Adolescence Clementine. 1529. Brit. Mus.
F

66 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

it in a mocking spirit, as a reflection on all the poems of
hearts gone astray ; there is a noticeable play upon words,

too —

It was my hert, I pray you hertely
Help me to seke.

This rondeau is a metrical experiment, and consists of
a combination of two-syllable with three-syllable feet,
resulting in a light,1 tripping style, which harmonizes with
the humorous spirit of the rondeau.

The idea of " What vaileth troth " is also found in many
of the chansons. " For to love her " is clearly a reminis
cence of Marot's rondeau, " D'estre Amoureux (Rondeau x)
and of " S'il est ainsy " (Rondeau Ixi).

Compare the following lines in " For to love her " —

1. 4. But she hath made another Car celle la qui je cuidais estre

promesse ; La bien aymee m'a faict bien

apparoistre.

1. 7. For on my faith I loved too Qu'au faict d'amor n'y a que
surely ; fiction

Mais d'autre ami a prins posses
sion. (Oeuvres. Rondeau x.)

1. 8. But reason will that I do Amor commande et la raison

cease ordonne

For to love her ; Que j e te laisse.

(Rondeau Ixi.)

Rondeau x is one of the poems in the Adolescence
Clementine, 1529. Again, the rondeau, " Thou hast not
faith," recalls Marot's " Amor et Foy " (No. Ivi).

Si 1'amour faut le Foy n'est plus cherie
Si Foy peut, 1'amour s'en va perie
Pour oe les ay en devise liey
Amour et Foy.

The rondeau, " If it be so," has a closer connection; it
was undoubtedly written by Wyatt, with Marot's " S'il est
ainsy " in his mind.

1 I disagree with Mr. Padelford here, who quotes this rondeau as an
instance of a clumsy attempt at being lively.

FRENCH INFLUENCE

If it be so that I forsake the
As banysshed from thy company
Yet my hert, my mynde and my

affection
Shall still remain in my possession.

But myself I say on this fashion
I have her hert in my possession
And of itself it cannot perdy
By no means love an hertless lady
And on my faith, good is the reason
If it be so.

S'il est ainsy que ce corps te habon-

donne
Amour commande et la raison

ordonne

Que je te laisse en charge de ma foi
Le cueur je tien car par honnete loi
Aulcun ne doit reprendre ce qu'il

donna. (Rondeau Ixi.)

Car j'ay son cueur et corps san

cueur de soy
Ne peut aymer la raison est tres

bonne

S'il est ainsy.

In this rondeau the likeness is unmistakable, yet it
suggests the work of the memory rather than actual trans
lation. (Rondeau published in 1532.)

The following douzaine has lines which are an exact
translation of St. Gelais' douzaine.

Wyatt— St. Gelais—

Madame withouten many wordes S' amour vous a donne un cueur en

gage
Ons I am sure ye will or no, De quoi vous sert user tant de

langage ?
And if ye will, then leve your bordes Or vous voulez ou vous ne voulez

point ;
And use youre wit and show it so, Quand vous voudrez deus mille ans

deviser,

And with a beck ye shall me call; Si foudroit il a la fin s'aviser
And if on oon that burneth alwaye Qu'on s'en ennuye et venir a un

point ;

Ye have any pitie at all, Si vous voulez me faites que branler

Answer her faire with ye or nay. Car j'entendray le moindre signe

en 1'air

If it be ye I shall be fayne, Et vous serez ami non decevant

If it be nay frendes as before, S'il ne vous plaist ? amis comme

devant
Ye shall another man obtayne Un autre aurez et moy ne pouvant

estre

And I myne owne and youres no Servant de vous de moi je seray
more. maistre.

F 2

68 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

There can be no doubt as to the influence of these French
poets upon Wyatt in the early stage of his career as a poet ;
the songs quoted above were composed to music; Wyatt's
ear was peculiarly sensitive to refrains and catches of songs,
and it is no doubt the remembrance of the music that
revived the ideas of the song, for it is much more easy for a
person with a musical ear to remember the words of a song,
than to remember a poem with no musical accompaniment.
It will be also noted that Wyatt makes no attempt at a
metrical scheme for the douzaine, but simply writes twelve
lines consisting of three quatrains.

Certain conceits treated in Wyatt's poems are found to
correspond with similar ideas in French and Italian forms.
When this is so, it either points to a common Italian source
for the French and English, as in the case of Sannazaro's
sonnet, or to a very common idea found in these languages
irrespective of contemporary influence, and may therefore
be examples of a general stock of ideas ultimately traceable
to the Provenyal School; such are the poems on a " Kysse,"
and on contradictions. The poem on a " Kysse " may be
compared in Wyatt, Marot, and Serafino respectively, but
the idea is ubiquitous.

Wyatt. " Alas Madame "— Marot. " En la baisant," 1529—

I. 6. Another kysse shall have 1. 9. Bref mon esprit sans co
rny lyff through ended gnoissance d'ame
1. 7. For to my mowth the first 1. 10. Vivoit alors sur la bouche

my hert did suck a ma dame

1. 8. The next shall clene owt of 1. 11. Dont se mouvoit le corps
my brest it pluck. enamour^

1. 12. Et si le lievre eust gueres

demoure

1. 13. Contre la mienne elle ma
sucie Tame

En la baisant.
Serafino 's strambotto runs —

1. 5. Che tal dolcezza in quelli labri accolsi
1. 6. Che'l spirto mio fu per fuggirsi via

FRENCH INFLUENCE 69

1. 7. So ch'al secondo tocco usciva fora
1. 8. Bastare ti de, che per tal fallo mora.

Now, from the position of the poem in the E MS., Wyatt
appears to have written it some time after the passing
phase of the French influence, and had already made trans
lations of Serafino's strambotti.1 Marot's version is found
in one of the " Adolescence poems " published in 1532,2 and
may be due to Italian influence, but a comparison of the
three versions shows a close likeness to the Italian in Wyatt,
while Marot's poem is much more free. The conceit of the
two contraries is a very common theme among the Petrarch-
ists of the Quattrocento ; we find it in Wyatt and the French
poets. " I find no peace till all my war is done," is a trans
lation of Petrarch's "Pace non trovo." St. Gelais and
Marot wrote rondeaus in the same style ; for example :
" J'ay trop de peine et peu de recompense " (St. Gelais) and
the rondeau " Par Contradictions " (Marot).3 When Wyatt
employs conceits there is direct translation of Petrarch and
Serafino. The French poets probably gave expression to the
ideas which had made their way into France from Proven$al
writers among whom conceits flourished. The Italians
expressed the same ideas of the Provengal School in new
terms, with new power derived from a revival of the classics
and the study of Plato ; Wyatt presented these ideas in the
English tongue by translating from the Italian.

On the other hand, a purely French influence is unmistak
able in the rondeaus and douzaine quoted above.

In later years Wyatt occasionally shows signs of a French
influence. " Though this [the] port " has a French refrain :
" En voyant la galere."

A poem which might be called " A New Year's Gift,"
written in Spain sometime between 1537-9, affords an

1 See Appendix D, p. 149.

2 The 1532 collection is the second publication of some of Marot's works.

3 Adolescence Clementine. 1529.

70 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

interesting parallel to one of Marot's etrennes. The
French poem is not only regarded as one of Marot's best
pieces, but has been called one of the happiest in French
literature.1 It is in epigram form consisting of a double
quatrain interlaced by means of the rhyming in the fourth
and fifth lines, thus, abab, bcbc2 (which, by the way, is
probably responsible for Spenser's form of the quatrain in
the sonnet, for, it will be remembered, he studied Marot

closely).

Ce nouvel an pour etrenne vous donne
Mon cueur blesse d'une nouvelle plaie
Contraint j'y suis, amour ainsi 1'ordonne
En qui un cas bien contraire j'essaie
Car ce cueur la c'est ma richesse vraie
Le demeurant n'est rien ou je ne fonde
Et faut donner le meilleur bien que j'aie
Si j'ay vouloir d' estre riche en ce monde."

Wyatt expanded this idea into a graceful poem of four
six-lined stanzas, composed of four octosyllabic followed by
two decasyllabic lines, and the metre runs in the form of two
triplets, a a b, a b b.
It begins —

To seke eche where where man doth live

The sea, the land, the rock, the olive

France, Spain and Inde everywhere;

Is none a greater gyf t to gyve

Less set by oft and is so lief and dere

Dare I well say than that I give to yere.

This stanza is expanded from " Le demeurant n'est rien
ou je ne fonde," and the first line, " Ce nouvel an pour
etrenne vous donne," is neatly expressed by Wyatt as a
refrain to every stanza, " I give to yere."

Wyatt also keeps the expectation alive as to the nature
of the gift until the last line of the poem.

1 Hist, de la Litt. Fran$aise. Faguet.

2 The form used by Chaucer for his octave in the Monk's Tale and
the A B C ,

FRENCH INFLUENCE 71

The last stanza runs —

To the therefore the same retayne
The like of the to have agayne
France would I give if mine it were;
Is none alyve in whom doeth rayne
Lesser disdayne, freely therefore lo here
Dare I well give I say my hert to yere.

The line " France, Spain, and Inde," and the occurrence
of the word " Fraunce " in the last stanza has puzzled critics,
for it was not written in France. The discovery of Marot's
etrenne, which is, I think, certainly the source of Wyatt's
idea, explains its use. Wyatt was writing in the spirit of
the French poem, and placed France first, then he mentions
Spain, where he was staying at the time, and " Inde "
expresses the uttermost corner of the earth.

The poem is distinguished by grace and freshness, and
Wyatt has added a singularly happy touch in the line —

It is both whole and pure withouten peer
Dare I well say the gyf 1 1 give to yere.

This is an improvement upon Marot's artificial and less
pleasing " Mon cueur blessd d'une nouvelle plaie." The poem
is typical of Wyatt's later work. He took the idea from
Marot, but developed it on his own lines; the expression of
graceful thoughts, the harmony of language, and the form
itself, show what an advance Wyatt had made since the
rondeau days.

One more name needs mention in connection with French
influence — that of Maurice Seve, the symbolist, native of
Lyons. In 1533 he discovered Laura's supposed tomb; in
1544 was published first the D6liet consisting of 449 dizaines.
It was customary for a poet's productions to circulate in MS.
long before their publication, so that it is quite possible that
the Delie was begun at least ten years before it was printed.
Moreover, his friendship with Marot, his ardent Petrarchist
tendencies, and his leadership of the coterie at Lyons,

72 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

afterwards known as the " ficole Lyonais," precludes the
possibility of his being unknown to Wyatt. In 1538,
ambassadorial duties led Wyatt to Marseilles, and it is not
unlikely that he then met Seve. He wrote about this time
the epigram, " Desire alas my master and my fo," which
may be compared with one of S eve's dizaines. Wyatt was
intensely imitative, and the style of his epigram suggests
contact with Seve; it is interesting to compare the two
poems —

Wyatt— Seve—

Desire alas my master and my fo Tant est nature en volonte puis-

sante
So sore altered thyself how mayst Et volonteuse en son foible pou-

thow se voir

Sometyme thou I sought that Que bien souvent a son veuil

drives me to an fro blandissante

Sometyme thou ledst ledythe the Se vait par soy grandement

and me decevoir

What reson is to ruwle thy sub- A mon instinct je laisse concevoir
jects so Un doux souhait qui non encor

bien n6

By forcyd law and mutabilitie Et de plaisir nourriz et gouverne

For when by the I dowted to have Se paissant plus de chose plus

blame haultaine

Even now by hate agane I dowt Hor estant creu en desire effrene
the same. Plus je 1' attire et plus a soy

m'entraine.

Many of the dizaines in the 1544 edition are preceded by
a woodcut.

The " Tant est nature " dizaine is illustrated by a bull,
which a cowherd is endeavouring to hold in. The ultimate
source for the idea is to be found in Petrarch's sonnet, " lo
sentio dentr' al cor gia venir meno."

" Largai '1 desio, ch' i teng or molto a freno
Et misil per la via quasi smarrita
Pero che di e notte indi m' invita
Et io contra sua voglia altrende '1 meno."

Now the prevailing idea is to regard Seve as a recluse,

FRENCH INFLUENCE 73

whose fame in his lifetime did not extend beyond Lyons.
He is described as a " Solitaire dont la torche fumeuse
n'atteignit jusqu' a Paris." But as early as 1535 his
Romance, translated from Juan de Flores, was printed at
Lyons, and in the following year at Paris.

Marot's works l disclose the fact that he was in communi
cation not only with Seve, but with other literary spirits of
Lyons ; Marot was also befriended and protected by Seve at
Lyons when forced to retire from the French Court in 1533,
and the fact that he claimed the discovery of Laura's tomb
was quite sufficient to spread his fame among all students of
Petrarch. It is quite true that he played an important part
in connection with the Pleiade, but it seems to me that he is
by no means unimportant in the consideration of the transla
tions of Petrarch at the French Court between 1530 and 1540;
and probably through Marot he became known to Wyatt.

Lastly, Wyatt's poem, " It burneth yet alas my hert's
desyre," 2 may be compared with Mellin de St. Gelais for
style, though the idea is found in the mediaeval poem, " La
Belle Dame Sans Merci," in the Pynson and Thynne
editions of Chaucer. (See Skeat's copy of Thynne's version.)

Mellin de St. Gelais' version is doubtless formed on the
original French of Alain Chartier, but it is a graceful render
ing in short quatrains ; he keeps also to the spirit of the old
poem ; Wyatt, doubtless for artistic purposes, gives a happy
ending. The French poem begins —

L'homme. Me veuillez madame Lover. It burneth yet alas my

La peine ignorer hert's desire

Que mon vraie flamme Lady. What is the thing that
Vous veult declarer. hath enflamed thy hert

1 Cf. 1. Lines to M. Seve Lyonais. (Oeuvres de Marot.)

2. „ J. Seve

3. „ J. Faye „

4. Poem to Fra^ois Sagon „ „

2 Compare also the Serventese of Trissino, between the lover and the
lady. Le Rime. Vicenza. 1529.

74 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

La Dame. Je vous pry me taire Lover. A certain point as fervent

Vostre mal ou bien as the fire

Je m'en ay que faire Lady. The hete shall cese if that
J'ay assez du mien. thow wilt convert.

The opening verses in the French and English versions
of the old poem show at once the difference in spirit. The
French rendering carries out the mediaeval idea and is
merely a game in gallantry. The English version ex
presses real sentiment and tenderness, and the rapid move
ment of the English poem, its quick interchange of thought,
and tense dialogue, give both force and charm to Wyatt's
poem. It is, unfortunately, absent from every known MS.,
but the manner of handling the theme, the genuine senti
ment and polished style mark it as a late work. On the
whole, the French influence in Wyatt is transitory, and
affects the earlier part of his work in the rondeaus ; a
striking resemblance is seen in the douzaine, but the impres
sion formed on comparing these French and English parallels
is that they were the result of memory, and not translation,
for he reproduces the refrains and a line here and there
from the rondeaus ; and the douzaine, though almost word
for word translation in parts, has no special metrical form
in English; it is merely twelve lines composed of three
quatrains; if Wyatt had translated with the French poem
before him, he would undoubtedly have made some metrical
scheme for a douzaine, for it is clear throughout his work
that he took special note of form.

Between the years 1537-9 two poems were written in
Wyatt's best manner, the one with a French refrain, the other
evidently deriving its inspiration from Marot's etrenne.
Otherwise, Italian influence is predominant in Wyatt at
the later period.

Once again Wyatt met Marot at the French Court
1539-40, at the time when the French poet presented
Charles V with his version of the Psalms. This event may

FRENCH INFLUENCE 75

have been instrumental in determining Wyatt to write his
Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms, although his model
was Italian.

To conclude, it must be claimed for Wyatt that French
influence in his poetry is not intangible. It shows itself in
reminiscences of snatches of songs and refrains. In his
public life he kept in touch with France and from time to
time, no doubt, read French poems, such as Marot's etrenne.
French influence though transitory is definite, but was not
carried on with those serious aims to which Wyatt applied
himself to Italian forms. He turned to Italy as the centre
of literary influence, but he reproduced French songs in
reminiscence of happy hours with gay and witty French
poets.

Sources traced to Italian Poets.
Sonnets.

Petrarch (ed. by Giosue Carducci, 1899)—

Amor che nel pen-

sier

Cesare poi che
Una Candida Cerva
[Cf. also Roman-

ello " Una cerva

qu til."]

lo non fu d'amor
S'una fede amorosa
Son animali al

mondo
Because I have the Perch'' io t'abbio

The Long Love

Cesar when that
Whoso list to hount

Was I never yet
If amours faith
Some foules ther be

Sonetto
in Vita 140
„ 102
190

224

guardato

I fynde no peace

Pace non trovo

„ 134

My galy charged

Passe la nave

„ 189

Avysing the bright

Mirando '1 sol

„ "173

bemes

Ever myn hap

Mia ventura al venir

„ 201

Love fortune and my

Amor fortuna et

„ 124

mynde

The lyvely sperkes

Vive faville uscian

„ 258

Such vayn thoughtes

Pien d'un vago pen-

„ 169

sier

How oft have I

Mille fiate

If waker care

S'une fede amorosa

„ 224

My pillar perished

Rotta e 1'alta co-

Sonetto

lonna

in Morte 269

Sannazaro —

Like to these un-

Simile a questi

Opere Part III.

mesurable

Sonetto 3

Filosseno —

Unstable dreme

Pareavi in questi

Strambotto

nocte

By whom
discovered.

Nott, G.

Tilley, A.

Koeppel, E.

ITALIAN INFLUENCE

Serafino —
My hert I gave the

By whom
discovered.

II cor ti diedi Strambotti Nott, G.

La donna di natura f. 151, ed. 1516

Rondeaus.

Petrarch —

Go burning sighes

Ite caldi sospiri

Sonetto

in Vita 153

Behold Love

Or vedi amor

Madrigale 125

Koeppel, E.

Epigrams.

Serafino —

Alas Madame

In colpa Donna

Nott, G.

What nedeth these

A che minacci

„

The furyous gonne

Se una bombardo

Venemous thorns

Ogni pugnente

„

He is not ded

S'io son caduto

„

Arioslo —

From these hye hilles

Forza e al fin

Cap. Amo-

Koeppel, E.

rosi

The wandering gad-

Timida pastorella

Orlando

Fliigel, E.

ling

Furioso

Petrarch —
Off Cartage he

Various Measures
Petrarch —
So feble is the thred

Vinse Hannibal

Si e debili il filo

Sonetto

Nott, G.

Canzone
in Vita No. 37

Canzone
in Morte 360

Myne olde dere enemy Quel antique mio
dolce

Adapted from Petrarch —
0 restful place O cameretta

O goodly hand O bella mane

Perdy I saide it not S'i'l dissi mai

So unwarely was never Per fara una
w... [Chi vuel veder

Je ' ' ' IQual piu diverza

So unwarely was never lo mi rivolgo
To cause accord

Hevyn and erth Idea traced to lines in Sestina iii.

All hevy myndes „ „ Qual grazia

Nott, G.

Koeppel, E.

Nott, G.
Koeppel, E.

78 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

By whom
discovered ,

Sometyme I sigh Idea traced to lines in In dubbio di

mio stato.
Tibaldeo—
When first myn eyes Deh perche non. Sonetto. Koeppel, E.

Adapted from Serafino —

Resownd my voyce. Strambotto, L'aer che senti. Padelford,

All in thy loke. Strambotto, 78, ed. 1516. F. M.

Tangled I was. Refrain only borrowed from Barzaletta ix. Koeppel, E.
For want of will. Strambotto, 302.
Like as the swanne. Cf. Barzaletta ii, last strophe.
Me list no more to say. Strambotto.

Satires in terza rima.
Luigi Alamanni —
Myn owne John Poynz. Tommaso mio gentil. Sat. x. Nott, G

New Sources.

Pietro Aretino —

Penitential Psalms in terza Isette Salmi R. Esdaile.

rima

Serafino —
Patience of all my smart Patientia alia malora A. K. F.

Adapted from Barzaletta xviii.
Petrarch —

Desyre alas. Largai M desio A. K. F.

Adapted from Sonetto 47, 11. 5-8

CHAPTER IX

ITALIAN INFLUENCE

PETRARCHISM is that aspect of Wyatt's poetry which has
been already investigated. J. A. Symonds and others have
sho\v a how Italian lyrical song sprang to life in the thirteenth
centurr through the spiritualizing medium of Guinicelli,
Guittone, and Dante upon the Provengal School of poetry.
Guinicelli's exquisite lyric, translated by D. G. Rossetti, " Al
cor gen til ripara sempre Amore," was one of the earliest
expressions of a new power in poetry. The revivifying
element is due to the study of Plato, as for example the idea
found in the following lines from the Symposium, " For
love walks not upon the earth nor over the heads of men
but he dwells within . . . having established his habitation
within the souls of gods and men." (Shelley's Translation.)

This and similar ideas in the Phcedo were responsible for
that finer sense of beauty within the soul at one with external
nature that metamorphosed the artificial lyrics of the
Provengal poets in the thirteenth century by superimposing
upon their stanzas the new power of love. A complete
expression was reached in Dante's Vita Nuova.1

But the sensuous beauty of love idealized and spiritual
ized by Dante differs from Petrarch's ideal, whose genius

1 The idea is expressed in its purity in M. Angel o's sonnets later, cf.
No. liii, " Non e sempre di copi." [Love is not always harsh. Trans.
J. A. Symonds.]

Love is not always harsh and deadly sin,
If it be love of loveliness divine
It leaves the heart all soft and infantine
For rays of God's own grace to enter in.

80 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

interpreted a form of sensuous beauty which hovered between
an intensity of spiritual passion and a physical beauty de
lighted in for itself alone. His poems are set in a perfect
form, and excel in grace and harmony of language, with
those delicate nature touches inspired by the beauties of
the Vale of Vaucluse.

The skilful blending of nature with grace of expression
made Petrarch the master of lyrical form in the Quattrocento,
and indeed for all time. His material is sometimes of ,iess
worth, and it is this fact which helps us to understanr why
the Petrarchists fell so far short of their master. Seizing
upon his theme — love for a certain lady — and dwelling
upon his mannerisms, but lacking the gift of perfect style
and exquisite harmony of language in which Petrarch revels ;
wanting, too, in the magic of his nature touches (though
an appreciation of nature is the birthright of all Italians),
their verses are on a different plane. All complain to a
certain lady, all seize upon the trick of conceits; all, in
fact, write so-called love sonnets, and all burn and freeze,
despair and hope, wish for life and long for death, at one
and the same moment.

The more material side of Petrarch's art was thus accen
tuated; it degenerated, in the later Renaissance poets, into
sensuality, until in Pietro Aretino we find embodied all the
worst literary vices of the period with an utter absence of
spiritualizing force, yet with the appreciation of nature,
inherent in every Italian of the sixteenth century, sharply
defined. In him an extraordinarily clear perception was
interpreted in vivid speech, and his description of a Vene
tian sunset in one of the " Letters "Ms justly famed as the
dawning of a true and natural criticism which found no other
exponent until many years later in France.

Wyatt ignored the beauty of nature and the physical

1 See Letters, iii. No. 48. To Titian, and concluding " 0 Titiano dove
sete mo' ! n

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 81

aspect of the lady — the two prominent features of Petrarch-
ism; in so doing he cut himself off from the most beautiful
of the Sonetti and Canzone, and confined himself, for the
most part, to the translation of the conceited sonnets.

He has been blamed for this preference, but in the process
of selection and rejection his individuality emerges. He
was intensely interested in humanity, and as an observer
of character and states of mind he had no affinity for ex
ternal nature and solitary meditation. Wyatt had studied
Petrarch from boyhood, but he showed no signs of Italian
influence in his poems until after his visit to Italy in 1527.
He then determined to study versification seriously in order
to introduce some of the metrical forms then flourishing
in Italy, and his task was made easier in this respect by
the publication in 1529 of Trissino's Poetica together with
his translation of Dante's De Vulgari Eloquentia.

The Quattrocento was in its decline, and the rise of the
Quincento group of writers is marked by the death of Sanna-
zaro and the publication of his poems in 1530. Under the
literary dictatorship of Bembo and Polizian new aims were set
forward, and perfection of form was sought ; the high water
mark of achievement is seen in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso
and Tasso's Gerusalemme. But as a literary style is
always more in evidence when it is in decadence, Wyatt
caught up the mannerisms of the Quattrocento group, and
his subsequent choice of conceits in Petrarch's Sonnets, and
Serafino's strambotti, his play upon words, and the occa
sional doubling of words at the end of a line show him to be
an imitator of the Quattrocento poets.

Wyatt chose Petrarch for his first exercises because he was
the recognized master of Italian lyrical forms, but his travels
in Italy and his own personal bias resulted in the imitation
of contemporary Italian writers and in the adoption of the
Quattrocento methods.

Wyatt introduced the sonnet form and the conceited

82 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

style into England at the same time. The conceit was
destined to permeate literature for over a century. Sidney,
in his Arte of Poesie, deplored it, but could not keep free from
it. Shakespeare's early style is saturated with it, and it
continued its course among the metaphysical writers (whom
Johnson describes as " pursuing an idea to the last rami
fications of thought "), and finally culminated in Cowley.
It is important to remember that this mannerism, with
consequences so lasting, was first employed by Wyatt in his
Italian translations.

Wyatt's first exercises in tne sonnet form were under
taken during his four years' absence at Calais 1528-32,
and were certainly prior to Marot's and St. Gelais' attempts.
(See preceding chapter.) The sonnet needs perfection of
form and a flow of thought rising in volume throughout
the octave and sinking to rest in the sestet. It is, conse
quently, the least successful of all Wyatt's attempts, since
it glaringly exhibits his early lack of skill in the five-foot
line, and his want of stability in language. His merit,
however, lies in his introduction of the form. It was left
to others, to Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, to
make of it that powerful instrument of sweet or stately
music to which it attained in their hands.

It has been said l that the Troilus measure no doubt
helped towards Wyatt's use of the sonnet, for a natural
break has been observed after the seventh line in the sonnets
" Ther was never ffile," " Some fowles there be," and " How
oft have I." As a matter of fact, Wyatt did not appear
to write in Troilus measure in his early work; judging
from the MSS., he employed the rondeau and sonnet forms
before using the Chaucerian stanza, and his earliest work
is in the light lyrical metres of the fifteenth -century songs.
It will, moreover, be seen that of the three sonnets quoted
above the octave and sestet in two of them is clearly divided.
1 Saintsbury's Prosody, vol. i. Child. Camb. Hist, of Lit., vol. iii.

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 83

Wyatt, like the majority of English sonneteers, found a
difficulty in adapting the Italian form of the sestet in
English; according to Italian rules the sestet must consist
of two triplets, and a concluding couplet consequently
destroys the metrical scheme. The English sonnet tended
from the beginning to end with a couplet, and was firmly
established by its employment in Shakespeare's sonnet
sequence. Wyatt's sestet in the earlier sonnets takes the
form c d d c e e, and shows an endeavour to keep the triplet
form in the metrical scheme. Later, a variation of the two
tercets is made by employing a quatrain and a concluding
couplet.

One fact may help to explain Wyatt's method of arranging
the sestet : the first Italian poem translated by him was the
madrigale " Or vedi Amor." It is the opening poem in
the E MS., and occurs first in the large group of poems in
the D MS. The madrigal consists of three tercets abb,
a c c, c d d. Wyatt no doubt studied this, and saw that the
first four lines a b b a is the scheme of the double quatrain
comprising the octave in the sonnet; he also probably
made out that when this madrigal is divided, as it should
be, into tercets, the second and third line of every tercet
is a couplet, and thus in his first study of the madrigal he
found the skeleton of his rhyming scheme for the sonnet.
He therefore employed the double quatrain a b b a for the
octave; he proceeded to form the sestet after the model of
the tercet found in the madrigal, by introducing a new line
with a new rhyme for the first line of the sestet, making it
rhyme with the fourth line of the sestet, and altered the
original madrigal form to the sonnet form, thus —

Madrigal abb, ace, cdd became sonnet form abba,
c d d, c e e.

It is clear that Wyatt studied form l very carefully, and

1 It is not unlikely that he studied the Poetica of Trissino, which
was published together with Trissino' s translation of Dante's De Vulgari
Q 2

84 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

set about in a scholarly fashion to understand the intricacies
of the metrical system of the new forms which he sought
to introduce into English verse. He doubtless compared
the form of this madrigal with that of the sonnet, and
made the discovery that the sestet in English was easier of
achievement after the style of tercets in the madrigal.

In the two last sonnets in E MS., "Ye that in love " and
" If waker care," and in the sonnet " The pillar perisht is "
(written in 1540), a quatrain and couplet is employed for
the sestet; one other sonnet, " Such is the course," evidently
written after 1540, and found only in Tottel, is in the form
of three quatrains with a concluding couplet, known as the
Shakespearean,

" Ye that in love " and " If waker care " were written in
Spain 1537-9. Surrey certainly did not write before 1536,
and it is improbable that Wyatt saw any of Surrey's poems
before his departure for Spain. Wyatt's variation in the
sestet may therefore have given Surrey the idea of writing
three quatrains for the first twelve lines.1 It is not possible
to give facts, but it is highly probable that the established
form of ottava rima in Wyatt's epigrams should have given
rise to another idea for the sonnet form ; 2 the rhyming
scheme of Wyatt's ottava rima isabababc c — a sestet
in alternate rhymes with a concluding couplet. One more
step, two sestets, and the concluding couplet, gives us
Surrey's sonnet in alternate rhymes. It is certain, how-

Eloquentia, in 1529. This most interesting volume contains a variety
of schemes of verse. It is divided into four parts : (1) speech ; (2) feet
and kinds of metre ; (3) schemes of metre ; (4) sonnet, canzone, ballata,
and other lyrical forms.

1 A study of Wyatt's methods and metres leads to the conclusion that
Surrey did not show greater initiative in the sonnet form, as Mr. Bowyer
Nichols believes. See A Little Book of English Sonnets, Introduction, xiii.

2 See Surrey's two -rhymed sonnet, " The soote season that bud and
blome ofte bringes.n But Trissino gives the form abababab as one
of the octave varieties. See Poetica, Part III, ed. 1529.

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 85

ever, that Wyatt wrote the two sonnets with the quatrain
and concluding couplet for the sestet when he had become
I very skilful in the ottavarima form, employing it frequently,
while in later years he rarely used the sonnet form.

The " Or vedi Amor " madrigal not only appears to form
a solution of Wyatt 's dealings with the sestet, it also exem
plifies his method of dealing with Petrarch's version. The
Italian poem introduces three personages : Love, always
a distinct entity in Petrarch, the lady, and the lover; the
lady is the central figure; she is described and encircled
within a flowering landscape. Wyatt introduces the three
personages, but makes Love the central figure; he dispenses
with the landscape, omits personal description of the lady
and lengthens Petrarch's nine lines to the thirteen lines of
the rondeau with the refrain " Behold Love " (Or vedi
Amor). The two beautiful lines in the Italian —

Tu se armato et ella in trecchie e'n gonna
S i siede e scalza i fiori e 1'erba.

are rendered by Wyatt —

Weponed thou art and she unarmed sitteth.

All Wyatt's earlier sonnets denote his preference for con
ceits. The best-known sonnets are probably " The long
love " and " My galley." The first has generally been
taken to exemplify Wyatt's faulty versification,1 but the
sonnet in Tottel differs considerably from Wyatt's own
version in the E MS., which affords a good example of
certain characteristic rules according to his method of
dealing with the decasyllabic line.

The " My galy " 2 sonnet is the expression of one of the
most popular conceits among the Italians in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. In our own day Giosue Carducci has

1 Prof. Saintsbury's criticism applies only to Tottel's erroneous version
of Wyatt. It does not work at all with Wyatt's own version, E MS.
(See specimen poems, Appendix B, No. 3.)

2 For the earliest rendering of this metaphor in English, see O.E. poem
" Christ,"- 1. 850, et seq.

86 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

made use of the same conceit in his sonnet, " Passa la nave
mia sola, tra il pianto " (Juvenilia, p. 85; Poesie 1901-2);
and also in his translation of Heine's Verschiedene, " Mit
schwarzen Segeln," beginning " Passa la nave mia con
vele neve " (nuova rima, p. 604).

Wyatt seems to have realized his want of success in the
sonnet form, and after 1533 he preferred ottava rima,
poulter's measure, or terza rima for his translations.
Occasionally in later years he wrote a sonnet for a special
occasion, as for instance, " A May Song," " Ye that in Love,"
and the lament over Cromwell's fall, " The Pillar perishd
is." These later sonnets show a mastery over form and
development in power of thought, with vigorous language,
and an absence of Romance endings in the rhyming scheme.

Wyatt turned from the early sonnets to ottava rima and
imitated Serafino, whose strambotti were published in 1516.
Serafino (d. 1500) was the leader of the quattrocento poets,
and during the earlier years of the sixteenth century he
had many followers. He exhibited the faults of the
Petrarchists in a marked degree, and a fondness for con
ceits led him into a bombastic style; his love of repeti
tion degenerated into exercises of mere ingenuity until he
perpetrated such lines as these —

Vien vieni, accorri accorri, o morte morte
Hor grido grido, alto alto, hor muto muto
Acqua acqua, al foco al foco, aiuto, aiuto.

He employed ottava rima for the strambotto; it consisted
of six lines in alternating rhyme and a concluding couplet.
Wyatt was particularly successful with this form, employ
ing it for the so-called epigrams, which are poems on con
ceits rather than pithy verses. Wyatt sometimes expresses
real feeling in original pieces such as " A face that shuld
content me," and " Luckes my faire falcon," and " Tagus
Farewell." The form is far less difficult to manage than
the sonnet. The argument may be given in the first four
or the first six lines, and the conclusion is consequently

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 87

set forth in a quatrain or a couplet. An examination of
Wyatt's epigrams shows variety in his use of ottava rima,
but he generally makes the first six lines rhyme alternately,
and concludes with the couplet. This form doubtless
gave him the idea of varying the Italian form of the sestet
by employing a quatrain rhyming alternately and a con
cluding couplet. Surrey carried the step further and made
the first twelve lines of the sonnet consist of three quatrains
rhyming alternately. His first sonnet adheres to the strict
ottava rima form where the first twelve lines rhyme alter
nately with two rhymes only, with a concluding couplet,
thus : a b a b . . . a a.

In 1532 Wyatt returned to England. He had overcome
the initial difficulties of the five-foot line, and had written
the greater number of the sonnets ; he had, moreover,
attained to a certain dexterity in the epigram. One of his
earlier poems was the translation of the canzone, " Quel
antique mio dolce empio signore," into Troilus stanzas j1
this is perhaps the weakest of Wyatt's metrical exercises.
The Troilus stanza seems to have presented difficulties to
Wyatt, for two other faulty poems (both peculiar to the D
MS.) are in this measure. He wrote chiefly lyrical poems
during the second Court period, 1533-6.

After the fall of the Boleyns in 1536, he once more turned
to a more serious style, and wrote satires. The first was a
translation of Luigi Alamanni's Tenth Satire, from whom
also he took the form of terza rima, the common vehicle
in Italian for moral and didactic poems. The Satires possess
great merit ; the metre was more suited to Wyatt's style
than the sonnet and rondeau forms, which require smooth
ness and regularity. Writers of moral satires have always
indulged in a certain ruggedness in form and freedom in
versification. The subject, too, was eminently suitable, for
Wyatt's recent experiences in connection with the downfall

1 The Troilus stanza is preceded by Wyatt's early poems in rondeau
and sonnet form.

88 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

of the Boleyns and his own imprisonment had made him
in sympathy with Alamanni's reflections on Court life.

The other two satires are freer translations from Horace,
and express sincerity and a lofty moral, with occasional
flashes of humour. With regard to the metre, Alamanni
uses terza rima strictly, confining the sense of each period
within the tercet, and very occasionally allowing an overflow
of one tercet into another.

Wyatt's terza rima presents more freedom, not only
allowing overflow from one tercet to another, but often
making the pause in the middle of a line, for example —

Amid this joy ther fell a sory chaunce
that welaway the straunger bowght ful dere
the fare she had ; for as she lookyd askaunce
Under a stole she spyd two stemyng eyes
In a round hed with sharpe eryes ; in Fraunce

Overflow is a characteristic feature in the Satires and
Psalms. Reading this later work of Wyatt's we realize
how near he was to blank verse. He had become less
dependent upon rhyme, while he was more and more occu
pied with the rhythm and the strength of the thought. In
employing terza rima in this free manner he again shows
his characteristic style of selection with reservation. He
adapted it to his purpose as he had adapted the sestet
to an English style, and in these instances, as in many
others in the history of English literature, Wyatt's handling
of metre proves to us how impossible it is to plant a foreign
metrical scheme exactly, without the necessary readjustment
to suit the native genius of the English language.

He employed terza rima, in imitation of Alamanni, for an
epistolary style; but in doing so, modified the rigour of the
form, adapting it to an easy style of verse paragraphs of
various lengths, instead of confining the meaning within
the bounds of the tercets, while the slight pauses occasioned
by the rhyme helped him to keep the balance of the line.

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 89

Prof. Saintsbury does not approve of Wyatt's use of
terza rima, and withholds the name, preferring to call
his verse " intertwisted decasyllabics " (Hist, of Prosody, I,
p. 311). But one may remember how Victor Hugo/ in the
nineteenth century, rebelled against that eminently respect
able but short-sighted body of the Academie Frangaise
when he revolutionized the old classical French couplet,
insisting upon freedom with the caesura and overflow, where
for centuries the sense had been strictly confined within the
couplet, and the caesura placed after the fourth syllable.
Prof. Saintsbury, referring to Wyatt's Satires, says, " the
best name for the metre of the remarkable poems ... is
probably interlaced heroic couplets. It is usual to print
them continuously," and in a footnote he says, " or they
may be classed as simply terza rima unskilfully written,
but Wyatt has not got the terza rima movement at all,
indeed quatrains suggest themselves and quintets and
almost everything."

However, we have Wyatt's own authority, plainly seen
in the E MS., for calling the metre terza rima, for he writes
continuously, using capitals for every third line after the
style of the Italian (see Alamanni, opere 1532-3); but the
Italian form, while allowing overflow of one tercet into
another, strictly avoids overflow of the sestet. Dante, in
both the Divina Commedia and the Psalms, allows overflow
of the tercet, for example —

Io gli risposi : " Ciacco, il tuo affano
Mi pesa si, che a lagrimar m' in vita :
Ma dimmi, se tu sai, a che verrano
Li cittadin della citta partita ?
S'alcun v'e guisto : e dimmi la cagione
Perche 1'ha tanta discordia assalita."

Inferno, vi, 158, et seq.

1 Victor Hugo dislocated " Ce grande niais Alexandrin." See Les Con
templations : " Le vers Rompt desormais la regie . . ."

90 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

And

Io sono afflitto e molto umiliato,
Sol per la grande mia iniquitate :
E tanto e lo mio cor disconsolate,
Ch'io gemo e ruggio,

Ps. xxxvii. 8.

Wyatt not only employs enjambement at the tercet, but
at the sestet also, contrary to the Italian method. The
Psalms represent Wyatt's best work, and though highly
praised after his death, they are little known. The fact is,
metrical Psalms have never found much favour in England
owing to the beauty of language and the lyrical passion
displayed in the Authorized Version ; so that while Marot,
Luther, Buchanan, are honoured in France, Germany, and
Scotland, respectively, for their metrical versions of the
Psalms, Wyatt's efforts in this direction have received scant
attention and little admiration. Viewed in the light of
their intrinsic worth it will be seen that Wyatt rises to a
nobility of utterance in the Psalms that is scarcely found
elsewhere in his work. Freedom is employed with ease;
thought is allied with the imagination, and sincerity and
moral power assume real religious fervour. His merit is
realized when his version is compared with the source.
Pietro Aretino's prose version has recently been discovered by
Mr. Esdaile (Brit. Mus.) to be the source of Wyatt's version.

Pietro Aretino is the most extraordinary figure of Italian
Literature and, indeed, of the Italian Renaissance ; he
stands as the type of its decadence, when art became closely
connected with immorality.1 He wrote poems, tragedies,
comedies, dialogues, and religious pieces, including Lives
of Saints and the Penitential Psalms. He never read, and
boasted that his only equipment for his writing was a bottle

1 " Private depravity and political debasement went with one of the
most brilliant awakenings in the history of the Western world, and the
association of craft and guilt with sacred things." . . . " Only a giant like
M. Angelo escaped this deadly climate." — Lord Morley on Macchiavelli.

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 91

of ink and paper. His letters fill six volumes, and are ad
dressed to all the leading personages of his day; he earned
his living by a process of blackmailing. Those who refused
to bestow gifts upon him were made notorious by his abusive
writings ; those in his pay received fulsome flattery. Per
sonal advertisement was a custom of the later Renaissance,
and men of note were anxious to be on good terms with
Aretino to escape his calumnies.

In 1539-40 he wrote to Cromwell in order to obtain the
patronage of Henry VIII.1 Henry sent him 300 crowns;
thereupon Aretino dedicated his second volume of Letters
to the " Magnanimo Henrico Ottimo " in 1542.2 One of
the latest entries in Cromwell's " remembrances " was " to
remember Aretino for some gift."3 Princes and great men
from all parts thronged his palace at Venice and brought
him gifts, either through a wish for self-advertisement or
through fear of coming within the range of his malignant
tongue. He settled at Venice in 1527 and was then notori
ous for maldicentia ; there he remained until his death in
1556. While in Spain Wyatt had much converse with the
Venetian Ambassador, and through him he may have
become acquainted with Aretino's Psalms ; but Aretino's
notoriety made it impossible that he should have been
unknown.4 Pietro Aretino's Penitential Psalms were pub
lished in 1536; they were reprinted in 1539, and in 1540.
Wyatt in all probability received a copy of the second
edition through his friend the Venetian Ambassador at the
Spanish court ; it will be remembered, too, that Aretino
wrote to Cromwell in 1539. It was the fashion at that time
to paraphrase the Psalms.

1 See Libri delta Letter e, ed. 1609. Pietro Aretino. 2 Ibid.

3 State Papers, 1540. Cromwell's " remembrances."

4 Years after he was a proverbial example of a lashing tongue. Nash,
in 1592, writes, " We want an Are tine amongst us that might strip these
golden asses n (Piers Peniles). See also The Literary Profession in the
Elizabethan Age (P. Sheavyn).

92 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

In December 1539, Wyatt acted as Ambassador Extra
ordinary to Charles V on his journey to Flanders through
France. Marot celebrated the occasion of the Emperor's
visit to the French Court by presenting him with his version
of the Psalms. When Wyatt returned to England in May
1540 he retired to Allington, and the Psalms were written
some time between that date and his imprisonment in
January 1541.

The Satires and Psalms are generally grouped together
as written at the same time. A closer acquaintance with
Wyatt's life makes this improbable. The temper of the
Satires is totally different from that of the Psalms. The
Satires express the attitude of one who has passed through a
phase of discomfort and possible danger, who sets himself
to write, when his spirits are at the rebound, his reflections
upon his experiences with a certain amount of geniality and
flashes of humour. In the Fable of the Town and Country
Mouse ("My Mothers Maydes "), for instance, we recognize
Wyatt " come to Court," and involved in the luxuries and
gaieties of Court life, when suddenly the cat appears, i. e.
the King's wrath suddenly descends upon the Boleyns, and
Wyatt is caught " by the hip." But the Satires express
neither fear nor sorrow.

On the other hand, the Psalms were undertaken at the
time when he was grieving over Cromwell's fall, blaming
himself for his want of success in Spain, and looking forward
to his own fall as imminent and inevitable. Moreover, his
Lutheran tendencies had become more pronounced during
his residence in Spain. Wyatt translates closely six of the
seven introductory Prologues. In the earlier stages of the
Psalms he translates Aretino, omitting his passages on
doctrine; later, when Aretino's paraphrase becomes almost
entirely a recapitulation of doctrine, Wyatt follows his own
lines and keeps to the simple thoughts of the Psalms.

The following opening sentences from the Prologues of

ITALIAN INFLUENCE

the Seven Psalms will prove
model for the general scheme.

Prologue i.

Standosi Am ore a dar legge alle
persone gentile ne gli occhi di Bersabe
si transform© in uno sguardo crudel-
mente pietoso, e trapassato al re
David prima gli abba glio la vista,
poi gli spiro in bocca dal suo
veleno .

First Penitential Psalm (Ps. vi).

Signore, poi che il tuo nome si
lascia proferire dalla mia lingua e da
che tu le concedi che ella possa anchor
chiamare il Signer suo, il core, che
prende f elice angusso percio, favorisce
la speranza. . . .

(This psalm of ten verses is ex
panded into ten pages in Aretino's
paraphrase.)

Prologue ii.

Chi mai ha visto uno infermo
subito che egli ha fatto tregua co'l
caldo o co'l gelo de gli accidenti
suoi. . . .

Second Penitential Psalm (Ps. xxxii).
O beati coloro le cui iniquita per
donna Iddio, lasciando le impunite
non per le opere de la contritione in
della penitentia. . . .

that Aretino l was Wyatt's

Love to give law unto his sub-

jectes hertes
Stode in the lyes of Bersabe the

bright
And in a loke anon himself con-

vertes
Cruelly pleasaunt before King

Davids syght
With venemd breth as softly as

he myght.

O Lord sins in thy mowth thy
myghty name

Sufferth it self my lord to name
and call

Here hath my hert hope taken
by the same.

(Wyatt condenses Aretino's ver
sion into 112 lines.)

Who so hath seen the sikk in

his fever
After the treux taken with the

hot and cold.

Oh happy are they that have for-

gyfness got
Of their offence (not by their

penitence)."'

1 That Wyatt's Psalms should ever have been considered to be due
to Beze is inexplicable. Born in 1519, " Libertin " and writer of " Petits
vers galants " (says M. Faguet), it was not until six years after Wyatt's
death in 1548 that he turned to Calvin's doctrine, after a serious illness.
His Psalms were not the voluble outpourings of a shallow picturesque
brain like Aretino's, but were written with a stern and serious purpose.
Nott suggested Beze as the author of Wyatt's method, and other writers
merely followed him.

SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Prologue Hi.

Tacquesi David tosto ch' egli
hebbe cantato le sopradette parole e
in quel santo tacere pareva che il suo
silentio ragionasse con la spelunca
dove era rinchiuso della pace che
havea fatta con Dio. . . .

Third Psalm (Ps. xxxviii).

Deh Signore, si come io ti ho pre-
gato e si come ti riprego non mi
reprendere nel tuo furore nel quale e
posta la eterne damnatione de i rei
nella guisa che gli dimostrera lo in-
fermo, ne consentive che la tua
misericordia volga le spalle al mio
pianto con quello sdegno che alia la
volgera al riso di coloro. . . .

Prologue iv.

[Tosto che David si spedi della
terza Canzone] parve un peregrino
che misurando con le mente la lun-
ghezza del camino et havendone gia
buone parte formito, si arresta alia
ombra al cui frisco lo hanno invitato
1'aure riprendendo alquanto di quella
lena che gli ha tolto la fatica dello
an dare.

Fourth Psalm (Ps. li).

Habbi misericordia di me Iddio
non secondo il picciolo mento del mio
digiuno del mio orare . . . del mio
pianto ma secondo quella tua gran
misericordia con la quale avanzi di
grandezza il volto del cielo, il petto de i
monti, il seno di mari il grembo della
terra i piedi dello abisso, et la mesura
de lo immenso.

This song endid David did stint

his voyce
And in that while abowte he with

his lye
Did seke the cave w* which w*

oute noyse
This silence served to argew

and replye.

O Lord as I the(e) have boeth

prayd and pray
Altho in the be no alteration
But that we men like as ourselves

we say
Mesuring the justice by our

mutation
Chastise me not O Lord in thy

furor
Nor me correct in wrathful casti-

gation.
Like as the pilgrim that in a long

way
Faynting for hete provokyd by

some wind
In some fresh shade lyeth down

at mydes of day,
So doth David. .

Rew on me Lord for thy goodnes
and grace

Y( off thy nature art so bountiful

For that goodnes that in the
world doeth brace

Repugnant natures.

NOTE. — Here Wyatt follows the
idea of the Psalm in touching upon
the attributes of God, which Aretino
interprets as glory revealed in
nature. Wyatt omits all passages
of Aretino's nature descriptions.

ITALIAN INFLUENCE

Prologue v.

Poscia che David hebbe scongiu
rata la grande misericordia di Dio ad
havere misericordia delle colpo suo.
Si rimase inginocchioni et temando
di non rivedere la imagine del suo
peccato . . .

Fifth Psalm (Ps. cii).

Esaudisci Signore la mia oratione
da che tu vedi la contritione del core
somma mente contristato del suo
haver peccato fa che il mio grido
giunga a te . . .

Prologue vi.

Cantato e hebbe David . . . il
pentito Re recevette nelP anima una
disusata consolatione per cui egli
conobbe che Iddio haveva aperta le
orecchie al pregar suo . . .

Sixth Psalm (Ps. cxxx).

Dai profondi io ho esclamato a te
Signore, Signore esaudisci la oratione

The diepe secrets that David here

did sing
Of mercy of faythe of frailte of

grace,

Of gods goodnes . . .

Lord here my prayer and let my
crye passe

Unto the Lord withowte impedi
ment . .

When David had perceyvid in

his hert

The Spirit of God returned that
was exild.

From depths of sin and from a
diepe despayre.

Prologue vii.

NOTE. — Wyatt does not follow the
Italian in this Prologue, but substi
tutes four very fine original stanzas.

Se mai a Dio furore grate le
oratione de i suoi Servi gli fu grata
questa di David, per che egli la
suelse dal profondo core . . .

Seventh Psalm (Ps. cxliii).

Signore esaudisci la mia oratione
moriti a pieta e riguardo con Tocchio
della tuo misericordia il penitentia
del cor mio.

This word Redemee that in his

mowth did sownd
Did put David it semith unto me
As in a trance to starre upon the

grownd
And with his thought the height

of hevyn did se.

Here my prayer O Lord here my
request.

The foregoing examples show that Wyatt closely follows

96 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Aretino's method of linking the seven Psalms together by
connecting Prologues, the whole forming a dramatic episode.
But nothing could be more opposite than Wyatt's manner.
As the task proceeds Wyatt follows his original less closely,
preferring a simple paraphase which keeps to the spirit of
the Psalms rather than the more florid style of Aretino.
The Italian continually flies off into the region of Roman
Catholic doctrine, which Wyatt, with strong Lutheran
tendencies, naturally refused to follow. Aretino, too, gives
long descriptions of nature, for example, " Thy hands the
heaven did make," in Wyatt's version corresponds to a long
dissertation in the Italian of the heavens, sun, moon, and
stars, and also the inhabitants of heaven, angels and arch
angels. On the other hand, Wyatt emphasizes Aretino's
method of connecting the Psalms by means of the Prologues,
by linking on the Prologue itself to the idea of the preceding
Psalm, for example, Ps. cxxx ends as follows —

And shall redeeme all owre iniquite,
The following Prologue begins —

This word ' redeeme ? y* in his mowth did sownde

Did put David as it semeth unto me

As in a trance to starre upon the grownde.

In this trance David prophesies of the " Word " that shall
dwell among men. The whole Prologue is original and
takes the place of a dissertation on doctrine in the Italian,
and is a most striking example of the dignity and beauty
of Wyatt's mature style.

Wyatt condenses the Italian version considerably by
keeping to the ideas of the Psalms and avoiding Aretino's
side tracks. For example, Ps. cii. 11. 13-15, are as follow —

1. 13. My hert my mynde is witherd up like hay
1. 14. Becawse I have forgott to take my brede
1. 15. My brede of lyff the word of truth I say.

At this point Aretino enters upon a long dissertation on the

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 97

" brede of lyff." Wyatt, following the idea of the Psalms,
continues —

1. 16. And for my playnful sighes and my drede

My bonis my strength my very force of mynde
Clevd to the flesh.

Aretino follows up this idea by a detailed account of the
ills of the flesh, but Wyatt proceeds —

1. 20. So made I me the solaine Pelycaine
1. 21. And like the owl . . ^A

Aretino introduces chatty details on the habits of the
pelican ; Wyatt keeps close to v. 6 of our Authorized Version.
" I am like a pelican of the wilderness, I am like an owl of
the desert." Aretino continues : " ma si come un nottola
(i.e. bat); "owl" in the Italian is " civetta." Dante
uses the word " vespertiglio " (which also means bat) in his
version.

It seems, then, that Wyatt not only had Aretino's Italian
paraphrase as a picturesque model, but he was also working
with an English version of the Psalms at his hand. A little
later in the same Psalm Wyatt writes —

1. 79. Thou wroughst the erth thy hands thevyns did make

Thei shall perish and thow shalt last alway.

Cf. A.V., v. 25. " Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth :
and the heavens are the works of thy hands."

Aretino again inserts a description of the heavens and the
inhabitants thereof.

The first Psalm of the series (Ps. vi) follows Aretino
more closely than the others. The Italian version is respon
sible for the temptations described as " mermaydes."

To these mermaydes and their A 1'esche de i loro inganni co'l

baits of error fiume di questi occhi

I stop my eryes. Chiudendo le orecchie a le sirene.

In many passages, Wyatt rises to dignity of utterance and
nobility of thought. The passage on Sion (Ps. cii) is very

98 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

fine, and especially to be appreciated, because there is an
absence of sincerity in the Italian. Single lines can be taken
from the Psalms which are full of harmony, for example —

Let him the hath parfaict intelligens,
Joy and rejoyce I say ye that be just.

Aretino concludes with an epilogue telling how David went
back to rule his people, and further dwells upon the sin of
breaking the sixth and seventh commandments. Wyatt,
with a finer artistic sense, concludes with the idea of the
Psalm (cxliii), dwelling upon forgiveness.

Thou hast fordone the gret iniquite

That vexd my sowle thou also shalt confownd

My foos O Lord for thy benignite

For thine ame I thy servaunt ay most bownd.

There is a certain quaintness in the last lines. At the
time of writing Wyatt was harassed by enemies on all sides,
and each day was expecting to be arrested. The con
cluding line is the usual epistolary ending of the day. A
letter of Wyatt's (Cott. MS. F xiii. f. 160) in the British
Museum ends —

Yr Lordshyppes alway
Most bownden
Thos Wiat.

The Psalms deserve more recognition. The Satires have
been justly praised, but they are fine translations from a
worthy model. The Psalms show more originality ; the
finer passages, the sincerity and moral fervour are sought
for in vain in the Italian version, and for this reason Wyatt's
Psalms claim a higher, or at least as high a place, as the
Satires. The metre is certainly more harsh in the Psalms;
they show signs of haste, whereas the Satires appear in the
E MS. as fair copies, revised and corrected by Wyatt. His
imprisonment followed closely upon the writing of the
Psalms (1541), and immediately upon his liberation he was
called to arduous public service and suddenly died when

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 99

on a diplomatic mission (1542), so that his last and his best
work was left unre vised.

Two other sources have been traced. Serafino is
responsible for another of the poems. The " Canzone de
la Patientia," l beginning —

Patientia alia malora
Poi che vol cosi fortune.

Collezione di operi inedite^ Bologna, 1896.

evidently gave Wyatt an opening for the poem —

Patience of all my smart
for Fortune is turnd aside.

Ludovici Ariosto supplied the source of two epigrams; he
is also, I think, responsible for a striking expression in the
poem " Sins you will nedes."

Such hammers work within my hed
That sound nought els unto my eris.

Surrey repeated the metaphor in his Elegy on Wyatt
(stanza ii) —

A head where wisdom's mysteries did frame
Whose hammers still beat in that lively brain
As on a stithy. . .

Now Ariosto's comedy, Gli suppositi, was written in
prose in 1509. Ten years later he was persuaded to put
it into verse form, and it was acted before Leo X with great
magnificence at Rome in the presence of 10,000 people.
In this version, but absent in the prose editions,2 occurs the
following sentence —

Tutto e tornato bizarro e f antastico
Tanto martello ha che creppo.

Gascoigne translated (ed. 1566) " He hath so many hammers
in his head that his brains are ready to burst." When
Wyatt was in Italy he must have seen the verse form of

1 New source.

52 See Gli suppositi, ed. by Cunliffe, 1904, where parallel versions of
the prose and verse editions are given.
H 2

100 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

the comedy acted, and this expression impressed itself on
his memory.

In conclusion, Italian influence may be traced in Wyatt's
poems from the time of his visit to Italy (1527) until the
beginning of 1541. There are distinct periods of activity.

(1) Translations of Petrarch into rondeau and sonnet
form, followed by study of Serafino and translation in the
form of ottava rima. This occupied his leisure moments
at Calais, 1528-32. It is highly probable that during
these years he had Trissino's Poetica as a text-book of
prosody, as well as Pynson's Changer for a guide.

The second Court period, 1533-6, is marked by a con
siderable number of lyrics, with scarcely any work in foreign
models, but after his imprisonment, May 1536, he took

(2) Alamanni for his model and wrote satires in terza
rima. (3) In Spain 1537-9, his pieces include an occa
sional translation such as "So Feble is the threde," written
"owte of Spain." (4) In 1540 Aretino's " Sette Salmi
della Penitentia " provided him with a model for the
framework of tha Psalms.

During these years, 1527-40, Wyatt's translations show
a considerable range of reading in Italian poets. Besides
his principal model, Petrarch, whom he had doubtless
studied from his boyhood, he read Trissino, Tibaldeo,
Filosseno, Romanello, and perhaps Giusto di Conti, San-
nazaro, Ariosto, and Alamanni. These writers, with the
exception of Sannazaro and Ariosto, belong to the Quattro
cento. Wyatt's only imitation of Sannazaro is the trans
lation of the most conceited sonnet in his work, a sonnet
that, were we unacquainted with the rest of his writings,
would degrade him to the level of the Quattrocento writers.
As a matter of fact, it was the publication of his works in
1533 (after his death) that set forth new aims in Italian
poetry. Wyatt's poetical instincts were opposed to nature
in poetry, and for this reason, perhaps, the pastoral was

ITALIAN INFLUENCE 101

distasteful to him. It is a very striking characteristic in
him that he invariably passes over all nature descriptions,
from the first translation of the madrigal " Or Vedi Amor "
to Aretino's long descriptions in the Psalms.

In one respect he kept in touch with contemporary Italian
poets — in his use of ottava rima.1 His most regular metrical
achievements and some of his finest thoughts are found
in his epigrams written in ottava rima, at the time when
Poliziano burnished and Ariosto finally perfected this form
in Italian, and he used this measure for some of his last
original pieces.

It is well to turn from Wyatt's earlier translations of
Petrarch, where the English versions miss all the subtle
beauty of the Italian harmonies, to his Satires and Psalms.
Comparing these with the originals, it will be seen how he
has gained in vigour, in originality, and in grip of language.
Here he displays a reserve force of poetic energy, in terse,
strong, incisive language, and a power of thought which
augured well for future work.

Wyatt's great work arising from Italian influence was the x
introduction of the three Italian forms, the sonnet, ottava
rima, and terza rima, forms which J. A. Symonds regards
as originating amongst Italian writers, while the more
elaborate canzone, ballata, sestina, hailed from Provence.
It is rash, however, to describe the sonnet as Italian in
origin; the question has not yet been decided; the name
" sonnet," moreover, was applied to poems whose length
was by no means confined to fourteen lines.2 With the
Elizabethans the sonnet started upon a career which has
scarcely been interrupted up to the present day.

Ottava rima had a considerable vogue during the sixteenth

1 Cf. the work of his Spanish contemporary Mendoza, Obras poeticas,
ed. W. J. Knapp, 1877.

2 A poem in the E MS. f. 8, entitled " To hiz bedde," is marked " sonet,"
and consists of eight lines, ababbacc.

102 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

and seventeenth centuries. Spenser's " Muiopotmos " and
" Virgil's Gnat " are composed in ottava rima. Daniel
employed it for the Civil Wars, Dray ton for the Barons'
War; Stirling, Crashaw, and Gay used it. Drummond and
Jonson were not partial to the form, but used an octave
stanza ababccdd, and the eighteenth century occasionally
produced an octave stanza in couplets. Terza rima never
took root in English soil, but with the dawn of the Romantic
period and the attention to lyrical forms in the nineteenth
century, terza rima has been employed with extraordinary
success. If nothing else in this measure had been written,
Shelley's " Ode to the West Wind " would have secured for
it imperishable fame, while his magnificent fragment of the
" Triumph of Life " shows not only a complete mastery of
terza rima but a conception of its power unequalled by
any Italian since Dante.1 William Morris's " Defence of
Guinevere," Swinburne's " Century of Roundels," and
Browning's short-metred terza rima in the " Statue and
the Bust," all show in different ways what beauty may be
got out of this form in English verse.

There is hardly anything more suggestive in literary
history than Wyatt's progress seen in his imitation of
Italian authors. When studying Petrarch he is like a cripple
leaning heavily on crutches, but he gradually and surely
progresses, becoming more original as he grows more con
fident, until arriving at the Psalms we see that he can stand
alone. In the Psalms Wyatt attained to maturity in style
and thought; his early death prevented the culmination
of his power, of which the Psalms is an earnest. Had he
lived one might have expected from him powerful, fervent,
serious utterances such as Donne's sermons. His last few
poems reveal

Great thoughts grave thoughts thoughts lasting to the end.

1 A discussion of the possibilities of terza rima is impossible here; the
comparison of Dante with succeeding writers is a fruitful subject of interest.

CHAPTER X

THE COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS

THE Court poems include the greater number of Wyatt's
songs, and are chiefly found in the D MS. They were
written in hours of ease for the purpose of providing amuse
ment for Henry VIII, and sung to music. Corny sshe and
Fairfax were constantly at Court,1 and the " Royal Appen
dix " and " King Henry VIII's Song Book " in the British
Museum give copious examples of the musical compositions
for court songs by these and other musicians. Cornysshe
set " Hey Joly Robyn " 2 to music. This song is an example
of the nature of some of these lyrics. They were evidently
derived from songs or Court carols of a much earlier date ;
snatches of such songs had been handed down, and Wyatt
and the other versifiers of the early sixteenth century
crystallized them into the forms in which they have survived.

It is important to remember that in the early stage of
Wyatt's career music and verse is indissolubly connected;
snatches of verse were handed down in snatches of song and
often formed the refrain or the opening words of a new song.3
Examples of such introductory stanzas may be seen in the
two songs : " How shuld I " and " In Most Mischeffe."

1 Calendar of State Papers.

2 The setting by Cornysshe is now in the British Museum. See the
accompanying facsimile produced for this chapter. That " Hey Joly
Robyn " was popular and widely known is seen by the fact that it is
included in Percy's Reliques, and is sung by the clown in Twelfth Night,
IV. ii. 70 el seq. Another poem in the Percy collection has the refrain
" Hey Joly Jenkins,"' and is interesting as surviving in our day in the
Drinking Song in Sullivan's opera, Ivarihoe.

3 See Gaston Paris and Jeanroy on this question.

103

104 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

They form the opening lines to a chanson-d-personages.
Such songs are survivals of a certain class of French mediaeval
lyrics, where a " complaynte " is made by a young wife, or (a
later development) a love plaint is uttered by a man. Both
kinds are found in the early sixteenth century song books.

(1) In King Henry's Song Book —

The other day

I herd a may

Right grevously complayne.

(2) In the Royal Appendix —

This yonder nyght

I herd a wyght

Most grevously complayne.

Wyatt's song " How shuld I " continues —

Not long agoo

it chauncyd soo
As I did walk alone

I herd a man

that now and than
Himself thus did bemone.

The origin of these songs may be seen in the French
thirteenth and fourteenth century lyrics 1 beginning —

I/autrier (or L'autre Jor) Chevauchai.

They were introduced into England and were adapted to
sacred and secular subjects. In the Percy Collection, No.
10, a hymn to the Virgin begins —

Thys endris nygth

I saw a sygth
A starre as bryght as day

And ever among

A mayden sung
Lully by by lullay.

Another poem in the D MS., " I love lovyd and so doeth

1 Les Origines de la Poesie Lyrique en France. Jeanroy. ibid. Lais du
xiiie a. Esquisse Historique du Moyen Age. Gaston Paris.

bdtf} «nbtU,Oll?/^rtC Audi*

botff aito ttfotu /^flh: fitnmiof mpirt

4U.

fabi

dfia

r ,*

.1 -l J i .1 -l l

U0t

v "y rti
--

one

• — f-^-f —

-..

ramcription from the Song Boo( of Henry VIII. Add 31922. British Museum.

COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS 105

she," has a parallel in the Fairfax MS., "I love lovyd and
lovyd wold I be." Thus Wyatt made use of a common
stock of materials and certain forms dating from the thir
teenth and fourteenth century. Several songs in Wyatt's
collection seem to be derived from the songs of chivalry;
these were of later date than the chansons-d-personages.
Fortune is personified as " my lady "; two examples in

Wyatt are —

Ons methought Fortune me kyssed.
and

They flee from me that sometyme did me seke. l

Refrains.

A large proportion of Wyatt's songs have refrains. His
musical ear and his skill on the lute account for this partiality.
It will be remembered that Wyatt's first exercise in trans
lating Petrarch was in the form of a rondeau,2 and although
he was the first to use it in English verse, it was not unknown
at Court.3 The first rondeau, " What no perdy " (1526),
in octosyllables, was written before Wyatt went to France.
It is original and one of the first songs expressing genuine

feeling. It is addressed "To my "; the_jaame is

carefully omitted, but events_t]ialLhappened about the time
that the poem was written justify the msertum of " wife "
in the blank space. The last rondeau is probably-Original.4
It is the most realist. in pram-in f.hp pnlW.t.inr^ and is generally
supposed to be addresse<L_tg__Anne Boleyn. There are

1 See Padelford. Introduction Sixteenth Century Lyrics.

2 Gaston Paris describes the rondeau as follows : " Le Rondeau est
courte piece dont certains vers se repetent et que tire son origine des
chansons de danse plus anciennes." The long vogue of the rondeau in
France, and the connection between the French and English Courts
preclude the possibility that the Rondeau form was unknown.

3 Charles d' Orleans (d. 1466) is said to have written rondels in English
during his captivity in England. " Go forth my hert,n quoted in Ballads
and Rondeaus, Introduction xxxv, has a sixteenth- century air about it
and recalls Wyatt's verses.

4 " Ye olde Mule." E. MS., f. 43.

106 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

indications (in poems written about 1532-3) of relief on
account of the severance of a former intimacy, which in all
probability refers to Anne Boleyn, whose character greatly
deteriorated between the years 1526-33. There is conse
quently a certain point in the refrain of another song —

Spyte of my hap, hap hath well happed.
And in the following —

And now I folow the coles that be quent
From Dover to Calesse agaynst my mynde.

The earlier Court poems were written in eights or in fours.
There is an early example of six-syllable line stanzas, but
all the more complex forms are found amongst the late
Court poems, 1533-6.

Wyatt had matured in thought, and become skilled in
metrical forms; in this period he shows much ingenuity in
combining verses of different lengths, and in the reproduction
of fourteenth and fifteenth century lyrical forms.

Three poems in the D MS. have introductory couplets
which serve sometimes as refrains —

(a) Payne of all paynes and most grevous payne
Is to love and cannot be lovyd agayne —

The poem is in Troilus measure; a parallel to this is to be
seen in the Percy Collection, No. 58.1
A second poem beginning —

(6) Grudge on who lyst this is my lott
Never to want if itt want nott.

is followed by quatrains with refrain, " if itt want nott," after
every stanza; the couplet is repeated after every second
stanza.

A third example (c) is in quatrains, with the last half line
of the introductory couplet repeated after every stanza.

1 No. 58, A Christmas court carol.

COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS 107

Examples of (6) and (c) are to be seen in Nos. 18,1 23, 24, and
32 in the Percy Collection.

Nott attributed Wyatt's poems with introductory couplets
to a Spanish form of verse ; but it is evident, from the
examples in the Percy Collection, that they were well-known
English forms. Had they been new forms on a foreign model,
Wyatt would certainly have included them in the E MS.

Wyatt occasionally writes in monorhymed triplets and
quatrains ; both kinds are found in the Percy Collection.
The first poem in the D MS., " Take hede betyme," is in
triplets monorhymed, with refrain " Therefore take hede."

The basis for the Court poems is the common measure 8, 6.
When he became more skilful he employed a variety of
combinations. He made a stanza 4 4 6, 4 4 6 out of the
common measure by employing internal rhyme. Again,
by combining the 446 into one line, he arrived at the
fourteener. This line was not unknown. It is found in a
tentative fashion in Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, and
in the " Tale of Gamelyn." The famous E.I. poem assigned
to Richard Rolle, and found in a MS. which is not later
than 1440, is the best example of a regular fourteener.
Wyatt combined the fourteener with a line of double sixes,
and thus originated the Poulter's measure, which became
the staple form of verse from Wyatt's death until the
Shakespearean Age.2

For the name " Poulter's Measure " we have Gascoigne's
authority in the " Notes of Instructions." A noticeable
feature of Wyatt's use of this measure is that regularity is
observed. Being built up from a divided eight and a six
for the longer line, and a double six for the shorter line, it

1 Examples from Percy Collection, No. 18 : "I hold him wise and
well y taught Can bar a horn and blow it naught." (Repeating last
line after every stanza.)

2 Chapman divested the fourteener of its dulness and monotony in
the Iliad. Examples of fourteeners occur in the early comedies of
Shakespeare. See History of Prosody. Saintsbury. Vol. ii, pp. 15-16.

108 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

scarcely ever swerves from the correct number of syllables,1
and the pause in the middle of the eight and at the end
of the six, for example —

So feble is the thred || that doeth the burden stay

Of my powre lyff | in hevy plyght | that falleth in dekay —

and so throughout this poem. The " Song of lopas "
presents a few examples of Wyatt's characteristic freedom
(see chapter iv, p. 24), but is on the whole regular.

Poulter's measure is probably Wyatt's last innovation in
metre, and was written in Spain about 1537.

Written also in Spain, and about the same time as " So
feble is the thred," is the interesting trilogy of poems, which
occur only in the E MS. It is written in the short lines that,
compounded, form the Poulter's measure, and is in stanza
form, with the fourteener twice repeated, thus —

66 446 446

a a, b b a, b b a

Each part of the trilogy contains five stanzas ; every stanza
in each of the three parts discusses a certain point. The
whole poem is a debate,2 and each part takes up and dis
cusses a certain view. That the three parts form one poem
will be seen by a glance at the first lines.

Part I. Part II. Part III.

St. i. Lo what it is to Leve thus to slaunder Who most doeth

love love slaunder love

St. ii. Fie alwayes from Fie not so much the Ye graunt it is a snare

the snare snare

St. iii. To love and to be To love and not to be To love and to be wyse

wyse wyse

St. iv. Such ar the Such be the plesaunt Of all such pleasaunt

dyvers throes dayes dayes

St. v. Love is a fervent Love is a pleasaunt Such fyre and such

tyre fyre hete

1 Poulter's measure undoubtedly set the fashion for regular lines with
alternate weak and strong stresses which was extended to the ten-syllable
line.

* Another poem of the debat class is " Most wretched hert most miser
able.'1 It might be termed the " Two Voices." (See chap, vii.)

COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS 109

The dtbat turns on the question whether love be true or
false. The first part abuses love and says that it is impossible
to be wise and love ; the second part defends it on the ground
that it is not love but base desire that is evil; part three
sums up the matter ; he who abuses love has acted unworthily
and therefore has not experienced love at all, but he who
really loves is true of heart, and will therefore never slander
love.1 The saying " To be wise in love is impossible " seems
to have been a popular adage; it is found in the Ashmolean
MS., a collection of poems written in Mary's reign. It is
also found as Wylly's " Emblem " in the Shepherd's Calendar

for March —

To be wise and eke to love

Is grauntyd scarce to Gods above.

It is quite possible that Spenser was indebted to Wyatt's
poem for this remark. Certain it is that the first part
travelled far afield and finally made its way into the Ballan-
tyne MS. as one of Alexander Scott's pieces.2 Now the
Ballantyne MS. is a collection made by a certain George
Ballantyne in 1568, and is the only source of Alexander
Scott's poems. The earliest date assigned to Scott's birth
is 1525, and the earliest known date of his poems is 1547,
five years after Wyatt's death. Wyatt wrote the trilogy
some time between 1537-9, when Scott was but fourteen
years of age. The fact that the poem occurs only in Wyatt's
autograph MS. and that the poem assigned to Alexander
Scott is part of the trilogy duly signed and corrected by
Wyatt is sufficient proof that it was Wyatt's production.3

1 The idea comes out later in Raleigh's lovely little stanza —

But true love is a durable fyre

In the mind ever burning
Never sick never old never dead

From itself never turning. — Courtly Poets. J. Hannah.

2 Alexander Scott's Poem, S. T. S. See also Oxford Book of English
verse.

3 Another of Wyatt's poems, " My lute awake," was erroneously assigned
to G. Boleyn, by T. Park.

110 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Scott is supposed to have visited England (vide Memoirs
in the Scott. Text. Soc. ed. of his poems), and there he may
have heard the first part, or seen a copy of it, which he
transcribed into his own dialect. Later it was inserted in the
Ballantyne MS. with other poems known to be his, with
the result that part of Wyatt's trilogy has been erroneously
attributed to Scott in the Scott. Text. Society's edition, and
in the Oxford Book of Verse.

Two poems may be quoted as examples of skilful com
binations of lines, " Ys yt possyble " and " If with complaynte
the payne myght be expressed." " Ys yt possyble " forms
the opening and closing refrain to a stanza consisting of a
monorhymed triplet containing three, four and five feet
respectively thus —

Ys yt possyble *
That so hygh debate
So sharp so sore and of such rate
Shuld end so soon that was begun so late

Ys yt possyble.

" If with complaynte " has a similar metrical scheme but
in reverse order, and the first and last line of every stanza
is decasyllabic, thus 101088610.

The most complicated form of metre used by Wyatt is
the treizaine; there are two examples : "If in the world "
and " Ye know my hert my lady dere." The scheme of
the latter is a b a b b, c a, d e d e, c c. The first five lines
follow Troilus measure, the sixth line introduces a new
rhyme, but is connected with the foregoing lines by the
seventh, which rhymes with the first and third; then follows
a quatrain with two new rhymes d e d e, and the concluding
couplet rhymes with the sixth line; in this manner the
treizaine is carefully welded into one stanza. For develop
ment of skill in form this treizaine should be compared with
the douzaine, " Madame withowten many wordes," which

1 Here Wyatt seems to be following Dante's treatise, II. § 5, trans, by
Trissino (pub. 1529).

COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS 111

is merely three quatrains run together. (See chap, viii,
p. 67.)

Two epigrams, classed among Wyatt's original pieces,
show, I think, a certain indebtedness to Skelton, — " She
sat and sowed " and " Who hath herd." The idea is found
in Philip Sparow, written in the " jagged " metre and con
taining a delicious element of graceful humour rarely seen
in his other poems, which are generally of a somewhat
saturnine nature. Skelton's lines are as follow —

" I toke my sampler ones
Of purpose for the nones
To sow in stiches of silke
My sparow white as milke
But when I was sowing his beke
Me thought my sparow did speke
And open his pretty bill
Saying maid ye are in will
Again me for to kill
Ye prick me in the hed
With that my nedle were red
Methought of Philip's blode
Mine here right upstode.n

It must be confessed that all the dainty charm has
disappeared in Wyatt's stiff little courtly poem. Skelton's
lines are brimming over with life and sparkle with humour;
Wyatt's merely express a conceit, but show his mastery
over the decasyllabic in metre, language, and end rhyme.

She sat and sowed that hath done me the wrong
Whereof I playne : and have done many a day,
And whilst she herd my plaint in piteous song
Wished my hert the sampler as it lay.
The blynd maister whom I have served so long
Grudging to here that he did here her say,
Made her owne wepon do her fynger blede
To fele if pricking were so good indede.

Wyatt's humour, in fact, rarely enters into his poetry,
although he was regarded as a great wit by his contem-

112 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

poraries. " Wiat " and " A Wit " are synonymous.1 There
are. however, occasional gleams; for example in the merry
little poem, " Take hede betyme lest ye be spyde," and
"Ther was never nothing more me payned "; but the best
example is seen in the satire, " My motheres maydes." The
reason, perhaps, lies in the fact that Wyatt was a Court poet,
and the fashion for Court songs was " complayntes " and
love-lorn dirges, or quaint little poems dealing with conceits.
His more important work was undertaken in a very serious
frame of mind, with the aim of giving to English verse the
metre and the form of Italian masters of letters.

But at times Wyatt shakes off the stiffness, ceases from
his toil in foreign writers, and " looks into his own heart "
and writes. The result is a handful of lyrics 2 which will
for ever hold their own in any anthology, and may success
fully compete with the best productions of the Elizabethans.
Such, for example, as —

" What shuld I say."

" Forget not yet the tryde intent."

" My lute awake perfourm the last."

" To seke eche where where man doeth lyve."

" Ye know my hert my lady dere."

" And if an lye may save or sleye."

" Ys yt possyble."

Certain of the lyrics written on the way to Spain or in
Spain were never inserted in the D MS. Such are " Though
this (the) port," " And if an lye," " Lo what it is to love,"
and " Tagus Farewell."

Original Poems written 15$9-J$.

Certain poems connected with incidents of Wyatt's last
years are absent from the E and D MSS., but are found
in the P or the Harl. MSS., as well as in Tottel. " Luckes

1 See Fuller's Worthies. " Thomas Wyatt."

2 Courthope (History of English Poetry, vol. ii, p. 51) has said the last
word of appreciation of Wyatt in his brilliant summing up of this author's
work, especially in connection with the lyrics.

COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS 113

my faire falcon," written before his imprisonment ; " Sighes
ar my fode," written in prison, and others written 1541-2.
The best of these poems, in epigram form, is " A face that
shuld content me." x

A face that shuld content me wondrous well

Should not be fayre but lovelye to behold,

With gladsome chere all greffe for to dispel;

With sober lokes so wold I that it shuld

Speke without wordes, such wordes as non can tell.

The tress also shuld be of crispid gold

With wit; and thus myght chaunce I myght be tyed

And knytt agayne the knott that shuld not slyde.

It has been noticed that Wyatt never wrote descriptions of
the lady ; this is one of the reasons for refuting the argument
that the love poems express Wyatt's love affairs. It is all
the more interesting that Wyatt writes his ideal of a woman
at the end of his life, but keeps to his plan of avoiding
description of the externals. The only exception is the
colour of the hair, which must be " crispid gold." Wyatt
was fond of the epithet; it occurs in " So feble is the threde "
(1. 69)-

The crispid gold that doth surmount Apollo's pryde,

and in the Song of lopas (1. 4) —

With crispid locks on golden harp
lopas sang in his song.

It is possible that Wyatt was mentally comparing this
ideal lady with the former friend, Anne Boleyn, for whom
later he had experienced a revulsion of feeling. Her hair
was dark and luxuriant. In another place he alludes to
this dark lady as having been replaced in his affections by
a fair lady —

Sure sins I did refrain

Brunet that set my country in a rore 2

1 Wyatt's spelling is used here.

2 " That set my country in a rore." These words were crossed out in
the E MS. for " my welth in such a rore.'1 There is no doubt that they
referred to Anne Boleyn,

114 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

The unfayned cher of Phyllis hath the place
That Brunet had.

These later poems suggesting a new love express a genuine
sentiment, and it is possible that " Phyllis," the object of
his affection, was the friend of his later years, Mary, Duchess
of Richmond, the owner of the D MS. (See Appendix A.)

One more poem needs mention. It is found only in Tottel,
" Speke thou and spede." It is too closely packed with
thought for Tottel's usual emendations of small padding
words, and may be taken as Wyatt's version. It is a six-
lined stanza in decasyllabic couplets, and the dignity of
language and its epigrammatic style mark it as one of the
last poems.

Speke thou and spede || where will or powre ought helpeth,
Where powre doeth want || will must be won by welth ;
For nede will spede || where will works not his kynde,
And gayne, || thy foos thy frendes || shall cause thee fynde.
For sute and gold || what do they not obtayne ?
Of good and bad || the tryers are these twayne.

The most striking thing about it is the epigrammatic force
and the finish of the couplet. The form is rare until the
end of the sixteenth century; in the seventeenth century
it hovers between the stopped couplet (cf. Sir John
Beaumont's couplets " To the Late King ") and the
enjambed couplet (cf. Chamberlayne's " Pharronida "J.1
The force and finish of " Speke thou and spede " that
would have earned the praise of Boileau, seems an anomaly
in Wyatt ; but his metrical style is discernible in the strong
initial stress of the first line, the stress following the caesura
in the second line, and the freedom of the caesura in the
fourth line, freedoms that would not have been tolerated
in the strict " classical " couplet.

Poulter's measure, the later epigrams, and the couplets
quoted above, prove that Wyatt could be perfectly regular
1 See Chambers* Potts, sixteenth century.

COURT POEMS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS 115

when he chose. In certain styles, the Satires and Psalms,
and much of his other decasyllabic verse, he is irregular
through preference, and after his first efforts with the glar
ing faults due to want of skill, he settles down consciously
to a line of five feet with certain freedoms — trisyllabic
feet, inverted stresses, absence of weak stresses, and slurred
syllables. It is quite clear that in his rugged style, the style
of his more important poems, he was taking a certain
path, a path trodden in certain respects by Milton (slurred
syllables and inverted stresses) and Shakespeare (absence of
weak stresses). Wyatt was groping towards that mighty
period which comes out in Milton's and Shakespeare's verse
by means of enjambement. On the other hand, the lyrics
of the D MS., the late epigrams, and Poulter's measure
are proofs that Wyatt had an ear for harmony, and an eye
for correct form. He did not, like the Pleiade in France,
a few years later, scorn the older forms of poetry and drive
them out to make way for the new. Between the periods
of work at new forms, he deliberately revived old forms
that had circulated during the fifteenth century, and the
lyrics of the D MS. connect the fifteenth-century lyrics
with the sixteenth century, while one or two poems, notably
" Hey Joly Robyn," have all the freshness and simplicity
of the popular lyric.

Wyatt 's tendency throughout seems to have been the
study of English and foreign forms of verse side by side. It
is highly probable that while he was studying the various
English lyrical forms, he had a strong incentive in Trissino's
translation of Dante's treatise on poetry, and Trissino's
Poetica, published together in 1529. The Poetica is fully
illustrated with signs and symbols to express different
metrical forms and stanzas. Sixteenth-century pcfets owe
far more to these publications than has been hitherto
thought. The various lyrical forms used by the Pleiade
make one strongly suspect that the Poetica was their text-
i 2

116 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

book of prosody. Dante's remarks on the combinations of
three, five, and seven-syllable lines bore fruit in the
famous "Avril" chanson; but we must ascribe to Wyatt
the honour of the first English imitation of the great Italian1
in the combination of fives and tens in the poem —
" Is yt possyble."

1 Dante, De vulg. eloq. II. xii, and canzone xix, Poscia ch'Amor.

CHAPTER XI

CLASSICAL INFLUENCE

WE have Leland's authority that Wyatt was a good
Latin scholar. He also knew some Greek. Richard Croke
became the first Greek official 1 professor at Cambridge,
1518-19, at the time that Wyatt was at St. John's. In
later years he studied Plato, for he writes —

Senec and Plato call me from thy lore. (Sonnets.)

Croke edited Ausonius; Wyatt translated one of the epi
grams in the poem " For shamefast harm." The Latin
of Ausonius is derived from Plato, so that it is an open
question whether Wyatt's model was Latin or Greek.

Very little classical influence can be traced in his poems,
for the obvious reason that when he was not translating
from the Italian, or influenced by French writers, he was
writing light Court songs. After 1536 he turned to the
study of moral philosophy. Two of the Satires are founded
on Horace, and the ending of the second Satire, " But to
the great God," is modelled on the lines of Perseus.

Wyatt mentions Epictetus and Seneca in the letters to
his son : " It is no small help . . . the study of moral philo
sophers among whom I would that Seneca be your study,
and Epictetus, because it is so little to be ever in your
bosom." His last translations were Seneca's Thyestes,
" Stond whoso lyst upon the slipper top," and a passage

1 Erasmus had lectured unofficially as early as 1511. (See Hist, of
Camb. Univ. Bass Mullinger.) Every student at that time was obliged
to pay a small fee for learning Greek, " for," says Erasmus in one of his
letters, " if they do not attend they ought to do so,'1

117

118 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

of the Boethius, " If thow wilt myghty be," written
1541-2.

The latter part of ^Vyatt's career was saddened by many
troubles and anxieties; matured and aged before his time,
as his portrait shows us, it is natural that he should turn
from the restless spirits of the Renaissance to a more con
templative view of life. Having experienced the varying
fortunes of a public career, he emerged without bitterness
of spirit, and the calm and dignified utterances of his last
poems show that he had at length reached a plane from
whence he surveyed the exigencies of life with equable
demeanour, without fear, and without irritation.

CHAPTER XII

CONCLUSION

AN attempt has been made to set forth the importance
of Wyatt's text in the E MS., the special interest of the
D MS., and the influences affecting his poetry.

There are no indications in the E MS. to justify the
metrical alterations made in the A MS. and in Tottel, and
there are certain textual weaknesses in A and T.

Wyatt's system of versification suggested a model. One
has been found in Pynson's 1526 edition of Chaucer. The
first few lines of the Prologue offered examples of Wyatt's
style. A careful comparison of Wyatt's text with that of
the 1526 Chaucer brought to light the fact that every rule
followed and every freedom allowed by him was traced
to this edition.

Irregular lines in the 1526 edition by the omission of
a weak syllable are supported by the MSS. ; for example, the

line —

hath in the Ram | half his cours yrdnne. (See p. 47.)

occurs in the Corpus, Hengwrt, and Landsdowne MSS. It
may be inferred that Chaucer allowed the suppression of
the weak syllable after the caesura, as well as initially; such

lines as —

Al|bismotered with his habergeon,
and

Twenjty bokes clad in black and red —

are considered Chaucerian, although Ten Brink 1 urged

1 Ten Brink's Chaucer, iii. § 309 et seq. He considers that Chaucer's
irregularities were confined to the octosyllabic verse, and that the poet

119

120 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

that such omissions were not intended by Chaucer. The
MSS., however, force us to believe that many lines " faile
in a siUable," as Chaucer himself tells us. (H. of F. iii. 9.)

Another marked characteristic in Wyatt's verse is the
slurring of certain weak syllables, of vowels in juxta
position, and the regarding of " h " as no letter. Bridges
enunciated this rule for Milton's verse. Now, though
Wyatt cannot be named with Chaucer and Milton for his
poetic ability, he shares with them Italian scholarship, and
this fact accounts for certain points in common in their
versification.

Wyatt deliberately connected himself with Chaucer in
order to re-establish the decasyllabic line; he took the 1526
edition as his guide, and his own natural bias led him to
construct his system of versification on the irregularities
he discovered. He evolved, instead of the smooth regular
line which is normal even in Pynson's edition, a character
istic five-stressed line with trisyllabic feet. This deliberate
study of an English model side by side with Petrarch and
other Italian authors gives Wyatt a different place in
literature. He cannot be said to have struggled on without
a guide, for he consciously set before him as a standard the
greatest poet England had produced up to that time. Thus
he forms a connecting link between Chaucer and the Eliza
bethan age. Wyatt was long declared to be no follower of
Chaucer because superficial likenesses were not obvious.
He did not, like Surrey, describe the " sote season"; he
was averse to nature descriptions, and had not the grace of
language that is Surrey's chief attribute as a poet. But there
are touches throughout Wyatt's poems of his appreciation
of Chaucer's inherent worth. He shows how thoroughly he
knew the Canterbury Tales, and the Troilus, and indirectly

should not be held responsible for irregularities in heroic verse. A careful
study of the new parallel text will prove, I think, that Chaucer " Englished "
the decasyllabic, and allowed certain freedoms.

CONCLUSION 121

he tells us that Chaucer's genius is centred in his power of
narrative, in the satirical lines —

Praise Sir Topas for a noble tale

And scorn the story that the Knight told.

(Sat. I.)

The second satire, " My Mothers Maydes," is a deliberate
imitation of Chaucer's narrative style.

French influence is not far-reaching but is definite.
Several rondeaus, a douzaine and an etrenne were the result
of Wyatt's acquaintance with Marot and St. Gelais.

Italian influence pervades his work and extends from
1527-40. Wyatt began with Petrarch and ended with
Aretino. Three elements may be seen struggling for life
in the earlier poems, the Chaucerian line of Pynson's edition,
the Italian hendecasyllabic line, and the Romance accent.
Wyatt's natural bias led to his adherence of the rules found
in Chaucer, and in his later poems Romance accents are
rare, as well as the extra final syllable. Italian influence
became crystallized in the slurring of vowels, and certain
weak syllables.

A large portion of Wyatt's poems do not attain to the level
of good poetry, but his work as a pioneer is of inestimable
value. He possessed the necessary equipment — scholarship,
perseverance, a strong personality and keen interest in forms
of verse — and he accomplished his task more successfully
than a poet might have done, gifted with more genius
and consequently with less patience. Skelton was far
more brilliant but his verse was retrograde rather than
progressive.

Wyatt is the builder, not the beautifier. A careful study
of the E MS. shows very clearly that his autograph volume
is not merely the receptacle for his work in foreign metres,
but it is the history in progressive order of his struggles with,
and his subsequent victory over, the five-stressed line.

122 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

There is both external and internal evidence for this
statement.

The Satires and Psalms deserve a wider popularity for
their noble thought and their vigorous language, but he
vindicates his claim to merit in the few lyrics which will
always hold their own amongst the most beautiful of the
Elizabethan lyrics. Wyatt, though in a lesser degree, has
the same elements that compose the muse of Donne and
Browning. Like them he wrote tender, graceful, whimsical
lyrics; like them, too, he has been censured for his hard and
irregular metre. But all three poets wrote in this manner
not from incapacity but from choice, and Wyatt possesses
with them the_powerjof^expre«Bng himself in close-packed
thought when he is moved.

Wyatt may be compared with Browning, again, in his
cheery outlook of life. Even when in prison, with death
staring him in the face (in 1541) he writes to Sir Francis
Brian —

Sure ame I Brian this wound will hele againe.

Among Wyatt's contemporaries, Boscan more nearly
resembles him in his work and aims ; but Boscan was
supported and encouraged by Garcilasso de Vega, the
" Philip Sidney " of Spain, by reason of his poetic genius,
his grace of character, and his military glory.

Boscan worked at the hendecasy liable l while Garcilasso,
in the intervals of a short and brilliant public career, wrote
eclogues and pastorals after Sannazaro, and sonnets after
Petrarch. Wyatt, on the other hand, seems to have had no
help from English contemporaries, though he doubtless had
friends amongst foreign men of letters, among whom were
Ghiberti the Pope's datary, and the Venetian ambassador.

1 He began to write in 1526 on the advice of Navagiero to replace the
old short Castilian metres by the Italian hendecasyllable. Wyatt started
his work on the Sonnets and Rondeaus in 1527-8,

CONCLUSION 123

His achievement was amazing, particularly when we consider
that his literary work was accomplished in hours snatched
from his duties at the English Court or in the diplomatic
service.

Wyatt was known to the Elizabethan writers in Tottel's
Miscellany ; its popularity is evident from the number of
editions, and it was for that day what The Golden Treasury
of Songs and Lyrics is to ours.

Shakespeare's earliest introduction to poetry was probably
by means of the " Songs and Sonnets," and in Wyatt 's
Satires he must have found ideas which many years later
appeared in his plays reanimated by his own genius. Such

lines as these —

All tho thy head were howpt with gold;
Sergaunt with mace, hawbert sword or knyff
Cannot repulse the care that folow shuld;
Eche kynde of lyff hath with him his disese —

must have sown seeds which bore fruit, in the speech on
ceremony in Henry F, iv. 1, and the passage in Richard II,
III. ii. 160, beginning —

within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a King.

Shakespeare's characters are so essentially individual
that it is difficult and unsafe to suggest that any passage
reflects the man Shakespeare. But there is one sentence
that we may safely claim as not only expressing a popular
sentiment, but as giving voice to his own appreciation, when
he places in Slender's mouth the exclamation —

" I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of Songs and Sonnets
here."— (M. W. W., I. 1. 179.)

To-day, with all the glories of our literature before us, the
" Songs and Sonnets " presents the rather dull and lifeless
aspect of poetry immediately preceding the Elizabethan Age.
Wyatt's poems lie between Surrey's and " Uncertaine
Authors," writers who were not only his disciples, but of a

124 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

later generation ; moreover, Wyatt's methods of versification
are obliterated by the editor. Since the Elizabethan Age
was made possible by his labours, and the whole burden of
establishing the five-foot line fell upon his shoulders, it is
but just that we should read Wyatt in the E MS. as he left
it, where his metrical scheme is clearly indicated.

APPENDIX A

THE D MS

DR. NOTT first described the D MS. as a curious document
of the time of Henry VIII. It was lent him by the Duke
of Devonshire and was found in his library after his death.
It was eventually bought by the British Museum authorities
in 1848. The MS. contains numerous signatures besides
Wyatt's poems, and the ownership of the volume has been
the subject of much inquiry. Dr. Nott conjectured that it
belonged to Margaret Wyatt, the poet's sister, or to Mary
Howard, who married the King's son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke
of Richmond, because the names " Margaret " and " Madame
de Richemont " occur on f. 68a, and the name Margaret is
found on a portion of the fly-leaf.

Mr. E. A. Bond (Athenwum, May 27, 1871) amplified Dr.
Nott's remarks. He showed (i) that the name " Margaret "
had three letters " j?ow " after it; (ii) that the handwriting
agreed with that of Margaret Howard; (iii) that the owner
of the volume was therefore Margaret Douglas, who married
Sir Thomas Howard in 1536, and became the wife of the
Earl of Lennox in 1544; (iv) that there are poems by
Margaret and Thomas Howard, and the name of Mary
Shelton occurs several times.

Mr. Bond conjectured that Mary Shelton was first owner
of the MS., and that it passed into the possession of Margaret
Howard.

Now the cover of the D MS. testifies to other owners, for
the central panel of the front cover has the initials M F, and

125

126 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

the back has the letters S E ; these are placed side by side,
while the initials on the front cover are one above the other.
The discovery of the owner of the volume ought to throw
light upon these initials.

There are fragments of other signatures on the scrap of
vellum preserved as a portion of the original fly-leaf.
Besides the names " Margaret How ..." and " Mary
Shelton," which are written carelessly across the vellum,
there are portions of distinct signatures at the top of the
scrap of vellum. A word " marayge " l has immediately
below it the letters " H. Ho," below this is another partial
signature, " Henr," and a portion of a downward stroke.
These two vestiges of signatures are enclosed in the usual
form of flourish common at that time. Now these partial
signatures ought to reveal the owners of the MS., and give
some clue to the letters on the cover, while a conclusive
chain of evidence must necessarily include Margaret Howard
and Mary Shelton.

Mr. Bond suggested Mary Shelton as the first owner; it
will be advisable to deal with her first.

The State Papers give the following facts : Sir John and
Lady Shelton were partisans of Anne Boleyn.2 Sir John
was Steward of Princess Elizabeth's household.3 Lady
Shelton, Anne Boleyn's aunt, was " gouvernante " to the
" Lady Mary," Catherine of Arragon's child.4 In 1536 " the
daughters " of Lady Shelton 5 are mentioned, but not by
name. Margaret Shelton,6 famous for her beauty, is sent
to Court in the same year to attract the King's attention
and to divert him from Anne Boleyn's enemies.7 This
Margaret Shelton is described as " marvellous like " 8 Chris
tina, Duchess of Milan, whose portrait of late has attracted
so much attention. Mary Shelton is not mentioned ; she

1 Mr. D. T. B. Wood, MS. Dept. Brit. Mus., kindly interpreted this word
for me as marriage.

2 State Papers. 3 Ibid, 4 /w& 6 /6^
6 Ibid- 7 Ibid. s Venetian Archives. 1539.

THE D MS 127

was probably a younger daughter, but if she were the first
owner it must have been before 1536, for in that year Sir
Thomas Howard was imprisoned in the Tower, and using
the D MS. as a solace to his grief by writing poems to his lady.
Now Mary Shelton's name appears in connection with the
Howards, and is coupled with Henry Howard's friend Sir
John Clere. But Henry Howard was occupied with Henry
Fitzroy, the King's son, until after his death in 1536. From
1540-5 Sir John Clere was Henry Howard's companion.
They were imprisoned in the Fleet together, and in 1545,
when Sir John Clere died from the effects of wounds received
while protecting Henry Howard, his friend wrote verses to
his memory in which the following line occurs —

Shelton for love, Surrey for Lord thou chase.

Internal evidence from the D MS. furnishes two facts. Mary
Shelton's handwriting and that of Sir E. Knyvet (another
friend of Clere) occur on the same page, and the only poem
in the D MS. by Henry Howard is copied by Mary Shelton.
Available evidence, then, gives the following results.
Mary Shelton is not mentioned before 1536. Between
1540-5 she is connected with the Howards and their friends
E. Knyvet and Sir J. Clere. Knyvet and Clere are first
mentioned in the State Papers, 1541. Sir J. Clere was the
friend and companion of H. Howard, 1540-5. Surrey wrote
the sonnet, mentioning Shelton, in memory of Clere, 1545.
The only poem in the MS. by Lord Howard, and certainly
written after 1536, was inserted by Mary Shelton. It is
clear then that Mary's part in the MS. is 1540-4, and she
is therefore not the first owner. The partial signatures on
the upper part of the scrap of fly-leaf ought to reveal some
clue to the ownership. Let us take the first name, H. Ho.
In 1526 Henry Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, was
eight years of age. He had received a careful education l
1 Deux Genlilshommes poetes. Bapst.

128 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

under the tutelage of John Cheke. Henry was early cele
brated for his accomplishments; he wrote elegant transla
tions and took pleasure in versification while still a child.
His fondness for verse was partly inherited from his relations,
Bourchier, Lord Berners; Parker, Lord Morley; Strafford,
and George Boleyn. The Duke of Norfolk, who held a high
position at Court when Wyatt was the leader of the courtly
makers, may have presented his son with the D MS. for copy
ing the poems that he brought from court. " !). f)0." evi
dently stands for the first owner, Henry Howard ; the name
is enclosed in the usual form of flourish common to signa
tures.

In 1529 Henry was chosen to be the companion of Henry
Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond (son of Henry VIII and Elizabeth
Blount), then eleven years of age. They lived at Windsor
and shared everything in common. The young prince was
studious and thoughtful, delighted in poetry, and played
perfectly on the lute.1 He evidently became joint owner
of the D MS., and his name was written below Howard's.
" $Jen;t) " therefore stands for " Henry Fitzroy." A com
parison of their signatures in Doyle's Baronage corroborates
this theory. Henry Howard's signature has the rounded
" Jj " as here, and that of the prince has an upright letter
"&" somewhat after the style of his father's signature. A
series of entries was made during the years 1529-32. Such
poems as " Hey Joly Robyn " and " And wylt thou leve me
thus " were probably copied into the MS. at this time. It
is probably due to Fitzroy 's love of music and the King's love
for his son that some of Wyatt's finest lyrics were inserted
at this time and handed down to posterity; for although
Wyatt was then absent in Calais, his lyrics circulated in MS.
and were sung for the amusement of the Court.

In 1532 Howard and Fitzroy went to France, were re
ceived at the Court of Francis I and treated like the King's
1 Deux Oentilshommes poetes. Bapst.

THE D MS 129

own sons. They returned to England and came to Court
in 1533. Anne Boleyn had become Queen. She was
anxious to bring about a marriage between Mary Howard,
Henry's sister, and Fitzroy, the young Duke of Richmond.1
The King favoured her wishes, and Mary became Duchess
of Richmond, and took precedence with her husband before
" all England," 2 and he received all the honours due to the
heir-apparent. At this point the clue appears to the mys
terious word marayge, and the signatures. Among Mary's
wedding gifts was the little volume of verses presented
jointly by her husband and brother; and it is tempting to
read the inscription as —

[To Mary
on her]

Before presenting the volume the Duke of Richmond added

his wife's initials to the front panel of the cover ; thus —

for Mary Fitzroy. Much is known about Mary from her
earliest youth, when the family sat in conclave to decide
whether the child (aged two !) should be placed under her
brother's tutor for Latin, and decided that " she was yet of
tender age and might wait awhile," to the time that she
undertook the education of Henry's children after his execu
tion. She was clever and high-spirited, and took the same
interest in music and poetry as her brother; in later years
she was described as a woman of calm judgment. She
became a friend of Wyatt and an admirer of his verse, and
under her supervision the large group of poems, f. 69b, was
begun. The Court circle included Anne Boleyn, Margaret

1 Deux Gentilshommes po&tes. Bapst.

2 See State Papers, Henry VIII, 1533.

130 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

Douglas, the King's niece, Thomas Howard (Henry's uncle),
Margaret Shelton, Henry Howard and the Duke of Rich
mond. Anne Boleyn's connection with the MS. is to be seen
in f . 67b in the inscription —

" $ an goto tea

a*w

At the foot of the page f . 69a is a hand badly drawn and the
signature " &n."

There is a curious connection between the inscription
" I am yowres," and the poem " That tyme that mirth
did stere my shy pp." The last three lines of the first
stanza run —

Then in my bok wrote my mistress

I am yowres you may well be sure

And shall be while my life doeth dure.

D MS. f. 17b, st. i, 11. 5-7.

The poem is early and was probably written before 1526,
when Wyatt was paying attention to Anne. If the in
scription were written by Anne Boleyn, as seems most
probable, it was in her " maid of honour " days. Wyatt
had quite got over his former penchant for Anne in 1533,
but the presence of her writing and this poem in the D MS.,
suggest the possibility that the volume belonged to Wyatt
in the first place.1 When he went to France in 1526, rather
disgusted with life in general, he may have left behind him
the volume containing his early poems, which the Duke of
Norfolk presented to his son.

Margaret Douglas' handwriting is found on many of the
pages containing the large group of poems copied under
Mary Fitzroy's supervision. A running commentary is

1 It is impossible to prove this without further evidence. The MS. was
clearly intended for Court poems, in which Wyatt' s had a conspicuous
place. When it became the property of Mary, Duchess of Richmond, one part
was devoted entirely to Wyatt's poems, hence the large group of poems
copied consecutively in the same hand, ff. 69-87.

THE D MS 131

made, denoting her favourite pieces; such comments occur
as " Lerne but to syng this," " and thys," " and thys
chefly "; but remarks cease after f. 81b, and a break occurs
in the MS. The pages preceding are much worn by constant
perusal; Lady Margaret's comments are on these pages.
When the poems are continued in the same hand, the ink
is much fresher and the pages quite clean.

Events occurred in 1536 1 which explain this. The
Court had hardly recovered from the sudden execution of
Anne and George Boleyn and their associates, when it was
startled by the news that Sir Thomas Howard had secretly
married Margaret Douglas.2 The King was furious, and
vowed heavy punishment on the offenders. Inquiry 3
proved that Sir Thomas Howard had loved the Lady
Margaret for a year, that the Duchess of Richmond had
lent her support 4 and chaperonage in order that they might
meet without suspicion; 5 the lovers had met many times
in the presence of the Duchess, but always in the absence
of the Lady Boleyn.0 Margaret had received a champring,
while Sir Thomas was in possession of a diamond and a
" phisnamye " 7 given to him by Margaret; they were
otherwise innocent. Both culprits were sentenced to im
prisonment. Cromwell, possibly to abate the King's anger t
declared that he had obtained a statement from the lady
that " she ceseth to have feelings for that gentleman." 8
Margaret, meanwhile, found means to communicate with Sir
Thomas Howard. She engaged the help and sympathy of
her friend Mary, Duchess of Richmond, now a widow.
Mary must have lent her the D MS. The volume, with
Margaret's comments scattered over the pages, and a few
verses written by her in pencil, was surreptitiously conveyed
to Sir Thomas in the Tower. This explains the worn pages,
especially f . 81, which contains the song " Now all of change,"

1 State Papers, 1536. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.

6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. * State Papers.

K 2

132 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

with Margaret's comment " Lerne but to syng yt." The
D MS. itself continues the story.

A series of poems by Sir Thomas Howard occurs in another
part of the book. Stanzas of intense hopefulness and assur
ance that all will be well are followed by verses expressing
firmness and unaltered resolve to remain true to Margaret.
He speaks of means taken to undermine his resolution by
cajolery or cruelty, but the poems always end with loving
words to " my none swete wyf." At length privation told
upon a frame that was never robust, and his last verses are
a cry for death that " his soul may go forth to his ladye."

A brief statement announced Thomas Howard's death
in the Tower from ague. Sir J. Wallop wrote to Lord Lisle :
" My Lord Thomas died in the Tower 4 days ago of an ague." 1
The event is notified in Wriothesley's Chronicle. " This
year, on All Hallowes Eve, the Lord Thomas Howard,
brother to the Duke of Norfolk, died in prison in the Tower
and his body was carried to Thetford and there buried.
Also the Lady Margaret Douglas that had lyen in prison
in the Tower of London for love between him and her was
pardoned by the King and set agayne at her libertie, how-
beit she took his death very hevelie" Broken-hearted and
desperate verses in the D MS. bear witness to Margaret's
grief, and to the truth of Wriothesley's statement.

Henry Howard alludes to the event in the poem, " Each
beast may chuse his fere."

It is not long agoo

Sith that for love one of the race did end his lyff in woo
In tower strong and high for his assured troth
Whereas in teres he spent his breth alas the wo the ruthe.

This outburst of sympathy and indignation from Henry
Howard was one of the first links in the chain of events
which led him finally to the scaffold ten years later.

Such is the little tragedy which in the purity of its senti-
1 State Papers, Nov. 3, 1537.

THE D MS 133

ment sheds a gleam of light upon a time otherwise dark
with the ugliness of passion and cruelty, of crime and self-
seeking ambition. Margaret resumed her place in Court
life, and a few months later was chief mourner at Jane
Seymour's funeral.

The following year (1538) the Duchess of Richmond
refused to marry one of the Seymours and returned to her
father's estate at Kenninghall, Norfolk. She never married
again. She had never lived with her young husband, so
history calls her the maiden-wife-and-widow in one. It
is quite possible that the Duchess of Richmond was the
friend of Wyatt's later years, the " Phyllis " that took
" the place that Brunet had "; and perhaps the object of
Wyatt's lines " A face that shuld content me." Mary was
good-looking, clever and accomplished, a sympathetic
friend, and high-spirited. She possessed, moreover, a cer
tain dignity and pride due to her birth and her place at
Court, though it never degenerated into that insolent
haughtiness that caused her brother's ruin.1 She seems to
have settled down to a sincere friendship with Wyatt — the
outcome of a warm admiration of his poetic ability which
she shared with her brother, Henry Howard, and Wyatt's
attractive personality no doubt cemented the friendship.
His release in 1541 was due to the efforts of Henry Howard
and his sister, the Duchess of Richmond, who besought their
aunt, Catherine Howard, then newly crowned, to use her
influence for Wyatt's pardon. The King was no doubt glad
of the opportunity and pardoned him unconditionally.2

In 1541 Margaret Howard obtained permission to live
with her friend Mary at Kenninghall. Mary Shelton's

1 See Bapst for this side of Henry Howard's character.

2 Reading between the lines it is clear that Henry's reliance upon
Wyatt was extraordinary. The machinations of the Council, among
whom were his deadly enemies, had procured his imprisonment, but the
King caught at the opportunity of pardoning him, and from that time to
his death loaded him with honour, and trusted him implicitly.

134 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

verses, Sir E. Kny vet's, and other miscellaneous poems
were inserted within the next three years. Mary continued
the entries of Wyatt's poems which included " So feble is
the threde," and parts of the Satires.

In 1544 Lady Margaret was affianced to the Earl of
Lennox, and returned to Scotland. Mary must have given
the volume of verses to her friend in reminiscence of her
life at the English Court, for the next event to notice in the
D MS. is the presence of Lord Darnley's verses in his own
handwriting. Now Lord Darnley was the son of Margaret
Lennox (nte Douglas); she, moreover, was instrumental in
bringing about the marriage of her son with Mary Queen
of Scots. Lord Darnley was violently in love with Mary,
and therefore the verses in the D MS. must have been
written for, and given to her, with his mother's approval.
Mary Queen of Scots not only delighted in music and poetry,
but her ambitions concerning England must have inclined
her to look with special favour upon a volume containing
the English Court poems. When Mary fled to England
after the battle of Langside, she evidently included this
volume in her baggage. In connection with this theory
her baggage was a constant source of trouble to those who
had the charge of her; they grumbled about the several
carts of books l that she insisted upon taking with her
whenever her place of residence was changed.

For many years she was placed under the Earl of Shrews
bury's charge. His wife, Elizabeth,2 was one of the charac
ters of that day; her son, Henry Cavendish, by a former
husband, also proved a friend to Mary Queen of Scots,
and as a token of gratitude she probably gave them the
volume of poems. This theory is corroborated by the Letters
S. E. on the back of the book; they stand, I believe, for
Shrewsbury and his wife Elizabeth. It is by no means un
common for books to bear the names or initials of husband
1 See Froude. 2 Popularly known as " Bess^'of Hardwioke."

THE D MS 135

and wife. A handsomely bound volume l in the British
Museum, bears the initials H. A. surmounted by a crown
and standing for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. A further
proof of the final ownership of the D MS. by Shrewsbury
and his wife Elizabeth is the fact that this lady was the
founder of the Devonshire Estates in Derbyshire. She
outlived three successive husbands, who all left her huge
possessions which she employed in building up the fortunes
of the Cavendish family. The Devonshire MS. was probably
one of the first books to be placed in the Cavendish Library,
originally at Hardwicke Hall. Chatsworth, built through
her endeavours, became the final resting-place of the
treasures that were collected by this family; thus the
Devonshire MS. remained after Elizabeth's death appar
ently untouched until it was unearthed in the early days
of the nineteenth century and used by Nott for his edition
of Wyatt. It now has a fitting resting-place in the British
Museum, after its stirring history.

Internal evidence has thus enabled us to piece together
the story of the D MS. by means of external evidence
drawn chiefly from the State Papers, Wriothesley 's Chronicle,
Doyle's Baronage, and Froude's History of England. The
historical facts corroborate the internal evidence and give
clues to the first owners, and to the later owners whose
initials are to be found on the covers of the book. In this
way Wyatt's life and times open out before us. As we turn
over the pages of the D MS. we not only read Wyatt's
Court poems, but we are admitted into the very life and
atmosphere in which he breathed; the mist of years is dis
pelled, and we are carried into the presence of gay nobles
and Court ladies, and into the most intimate relations of
his life and the most thrilling incidents of his day.

1 Show case, King's Library.

APPENDIX B

SPECIMEN SHEETS OF POEMS

1. Rondeau. Beholde love. The earliest c. 1527-8

example.

2. Sonet. The long love. Earliest ex- c. 1527-8

ample.
S.Sonet. Ye that in love. Probably writ- 1537-9

ten in Spain.
4. Epigram. Alas Madame. Middle period. 1533-6

1. RONDEAU

Beholde Love thy power how shee despiseth
My great payne how litle shee regardeth
the holy oth, whereof shee taketh no cure
broken she hathe : and yet shee bideth sure
right at her ese : and litle she dredeth
Wepend thou art : and she unarmed sitteth
Too thee disdaynfull : her lyf she ledeth
Too me spitefull : w* owte cawse or mesure

Beholde Love.

I am in holde : if pitie thee moveth
goo bend thy bowe : that stony hert breketh
and with some stroke avenge the displeasure
of thee and him : that sorrow doeth endure
and as his Lorde thee lowely entreateth
Beholde Love.

E MS., f. la. Signed " Tho."
For variants see Appendix C.

This rondeau is probably the first of Wyatt's translations,
and attempt at a five-stressed line following the Italian
example in the use of the hendecasyllable. It is placed
first in his Autograph Volume (E MS.). It is the first of the
large group of poems in the D MS. where the refrain is

136

SPECIMEN SHEETS OF POEMS 137

repeated after the fifth, as well as the eighth and thirteenth
lines. This rondeau has been corrected in the E MS. by
another, later hand. There are about half-a-dozen instances
in this MS. of corrections not Wyatt's, all in the same hand,
probably G. F. Nott's.

For example : 1. 7, " all " is interpolated before her, but Wyatt
regards the word disdaynful as four syllables. (Cf. No. 2,
where " ain " is syllabic; a sign is placed under it, thus : —
rayned.) It will be observed that the use of the hendeca-
syllable in the first part gives a slow, mournful effect to the
complaint. The second part expresses an indignant com
mand, the movement is consequently hurried, and deca
syllabics are substituted.

f , 2. SON^T ( I

\J ""•* V/ — - \J -^. \Jt -m-* ^ ~

The long love that, in my thought doeth harbor : j «>
and in my hert doeth keep his residence : \ a
intoo my face preaseth with bolde pretence : \§
and therein campeth spreding his baner. I Q
She that me lernes to love and suffer, \t»
and wills : that my trust and lustes negligence : \^i
be rayned by reason : shame : and reverence ^

with his hardinesse takes displeasure. \O

Wherwith all into the herte forest he fleith. y^.
levyng his entreprise with payne and cry : y o
and there him hideth : and not appereth y^
What may I doo : when my maister fereth ? ^
but in the f elde, with him to live and dy. » Q
for goode is the lyffe, ending faithfully.

r EMS., f. *.

1. 5. First reading lerneth. See also 1. 8. First reading taketh.
1. 6. A trisyllable in the second foot.

1. 7. rayned, the mark underneath denotes that it is regarded as one
syllable ; contrast " disdaynfull," No. 1.

Other examples : "his cruell despite for to disgorge and quite ; "
" disdaynful doublenes have I for my hire ; "
" I have wailed thus."

138 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

But (without the slurring sign)—

1. " by crueltie and doublets (eight syllables).

2. " 0 cruel causer of undeserved chaunge."

In 2, cruel is two syllables, the sign under causer, denoting
slurring, prevents the strong stress falling on the weak
syllable " of."

Indications such as these are of inestimable value in
deciding accentuation of doubtful lines, and shows that
Wyatt's scheme was well thought out.

1. 14. Trisyllable for the second foot.

Note that the quatrains of the octave, and the tercets of
the sestet are marked by Capitals.

3. SONET

You that in love finde lucke and habundance
and live in lust and Joyfull Jolitie,
arise for shame do away yor sluggardie !
arise I say do may some observaunce !
Let me in bed lye dreaming in mischaunce,
let me remembr the hap most unhappy
that me betide in May most comonly,
as oon whome love list litill to advaunce.
Sephanes saide true that my nativite
mischaunced was w* the ruler of the may :
he gest, I prove of that the veritie.
in May my welth and eke my liff I say
have stond so oft in such prplexitie.
rejoyce : let me dreme of yor felicitie.

E MS., f. 64h. Signed " TV."

This sonnet is a late one, probably written in Spain in
1538, and is original, with signs of Chaucerian influence
in 11. 3-4. There is a marked difference in the fluency and
style of the later sonnets ; Wyatt has broken away from
the hendecasyllable which gives an awkward effect in
English verse. This sonnet stands first for its felicity of
expression and tuneful modulation of its vowel sounds.

SPECIMEN SHEETS OF POEMS 139

1. 14. Note the characteristic trisyllable for the second foot.
In this later sonnet the sestet is not divided into tercets.

4. OTTAVA RIMA

Alas madame for stelyng of a kysse
have I so much yor mynd then offended ?
have I then done so grevously amisse
that by no meanes it may be amended ?
Then revenge you and the next way is this
an othr kysse shall have my lyff ended
for to my mowth the first my hert did suck
the next shall clene oute of my brest it pluck.

EMS., f. 3R Signed "Tho." >

Corrections in Wyatt's hand —

1. 1. " robbing n altered to " stelyng."

1. 5. First reading " revenge you then and sure you shall not misse.is

1. 7. " first " altered from " ton.n

1. 8. " the next shall clene " altered from " the tothr shall."

Corrections by a later hand than Wyatt's —

1. 2. " therin offended."

1. 4. " the matter may be mended."

1. 6. " My lyff through ended."

This epigram is included here to show how Wyatt's MS.
was sometimes altered ; possibly by Harrington, but more
probably by Nott. Where the correction is Wyatt's, the
second reading is given in the text ; when the correction is
not Wyatt's, it is given as a footnote.

The poem is an instance of a very popular conceit ; Wyatt's
version is a translation of Serafino's. Cf. Marot's rondeau,
" En le baisant," 1529.

140

SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

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All hevy myndes

POEMS IN THE EGERTON MS.

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SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

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GLOSSARY

Ambes-as. The double ace in dice, regarded as the unlucky throw ; five
was the lucky number. See " Zins."

" Your bagges ben nat filled with amber -as
But with sis cink then renneth for your chaunce."

Chaucer B. 24.

ascart. A variant of astert, to start up, to escape ; ^/ aet-sterten;

" ascart n appears to be peculiar to Wyatt. For interchange of

guttural c and t, see " toward " and " daskard " for coward and

dastard.

ataced. Not found except in Wyatt. See " taced."
avysing. Gazing intently at. */ Italian, avissare. Found in Chaucer.

See also dispatch to King Henry VIII, " I avysed him.n
chave.* This spelling seems peculiar to Wyatt = chaff, hence provender,

and used in the sense of livelihood.

" Of him who hath no chave, and nowhere doeth dwell."

" Chaif," " caf,'? " chaff," found in Chaucer.
cant.* Kentish word for (1) a corner of a field; (2) a portion. *J Latin,

quantum,
daskard. Peculiar spelling for " dastard." A cowardly person. *J Icel.

dasaZr = exhausted + Romance suffix -ard.
clanged. Distant from. >/ Latin, elongare.
for -done. Utterly destroyed ; " for- n is an intensitive prefix.
groins. Grunts ; ^/ O.F. grogner = to grunt or grumble.
gruging. M.E. gricchen, with various meanings : (1) to murmur ; (2) feel

compunction ; (3) feel pangs of hunger ; (4) prophetic intuition.

Found in Wyatt in the sense of remorse —

" A gruging of the worm within." (Ps. cxxxviii. 27.)

heins.* Peculiar to Wyatt. Dialectal word found in the North, especially
Yorkshire, as hains ^ Icel. haegur, a hedge ; used in the sense of
surrounding a field with a hedge for the growth of grass, and called
haining. It can be used figuratively as a "refuge" — it has this force
in Wyatt; the "e" spelling is no doubt due to Wyatt's preference
for " e n rather than " a.n

" for that in heins to fle his wrath so ryff
he hath me forced as ded to hyd my hed."
153

154 SIR THOMAS WYATT'S POEMS

heins.* The reading with " heins ?? was corrected in Harington's edition
of the Psalms, because the word was unknown in the south, and the
corrected line has appeared in every edition of Wyatt. Wyatt's
text is here restored, The first reading in the E MS. makes the
meaning, " heins " as refuge, even more clear —

" for that in heins as man in mortal stryff
he hath constraynd me for to hyd my hed."

The second reading E MS. is—

" For that in heins to fle his wrath so ryff
he hath me forced as ded to hyd my hed."

(Correction by Wyatt.)

kappur.* Peculiar to Wyatt ; it is traced to a dialectal word (York
shire and northern counties), as a term applied to a young colt ; it
has a secondary meaning, "wanton" in the form "kipper,"
J Danish kippe, a low ale-house (W. D. D.). It is used satirically
by Wyattr-

" Savoureth somewhat of a kappur's stable,'1

in the sense of a wanton, wild, or unrestrained person.
koward. The spelling in the E MS. appears " Toward."

" And if thou spake Toward " (koward ?)

Changed in printed editions to a word. O.F. coward, »J cauda
+ German suffix -ard. Wyatt's preference for " k )? rather than
" c " spelling cannot be set down to northern influence. It is found
frequently in the south. Cf. Lekebusch.
nappy. Foaming, having a head, applied to ale. Cf. Skelton —

" Ale ... so nappy for the nonce."

quakyud. Archaic form of pres. participle term., -inde, -ende. True pres.

participle forms were replaced by the verbal noun ending -unge,

> ing.
rabate. Abate, diminish (Nares Glossary). Cf. Puttenham, " and this

alteration . . . sometimes by rabbating a syllable or line.'5
shright. Shriek, used as a noun by Wyatt. Only found elsewhere as a

preterite or past participle. Cf. Chaucer —

" Shrighte Emelye and howleth Palamon." (Kt.T. A. 2817.)

V Sc. skrika (still preserved in Yorkshire dialect as skrike), M.E.

Bchrichen. ,

staulk. To go warily or noiselessly; probably connected with A.S. stealc.
sitleth. Impersonal verb, it is becoming, or " fits." " It sitteth me to

nere," ». e. it fits me too closely.

GLOSSARY OF ARCHAIC WORDS 155

taced. Borrowed by Wyatt from Italian taceto " silenced," " quieted,"
" stilled."

" And where I had my thought and mynd a^taced
From al erthely frailnes and vayne pleasur,'5

traced. Borrowed by Wyatt from Italian attrassi, " attracted."
" With the amorous dance have made me traced."

Translated from " La qual m' attrasse all ' amorosa schiera."
It is curious that we find ataced for the translation of tacito, and
traced instead of atraced for the translation of attrasse. The addition
of the prefix " a " to the second word instead of the first, prevents
double slurring. It occurs in Wyatt's most faulty poem, and, which
ever way it is read, refuses to become regular.
The form as it is found is certainly preferable to

" With the amorous dance have made me a traced
And when I had my thought and mynde taced."

to-torn. Torn in shreds, with intensitive prefix " to.'-*
zins. zin, ^ cing, the name for five in a throw of dice. Two fives, or a
five and a six, was the lucky number. See " Ambes-as."

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CAVENDISH. Life of Wolsey

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156

BIBLIOGRAPHY 157

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158 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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History of English Poetry, vol. iii. . . . -,<"

Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell . . 1833

Early English Poetry (Percy Society) . . . 1842
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Songs and Carols of Fifteenth Century (Warton

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WYATT, SIR THOMAS THE ELDER. Aldine Edition . . . 1830

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BAPST, E. Deux Gentilshommes poetes a la cour de Henry VIII . 1891

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BLANCHEMAIN, P. Oeuvres completes de Mellin de St. Gelays . 1873

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CELLINI, B. a Paris .... ;'(T;f'. . . . 1908

CHASLES, V. E. P. Pietro 1'Aretin, Sa vie et ses ecrits . . 1873

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LEKEBUSCH. Londoner Urkundersprache von 1430-1500 . . 1905
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PERIODICALS

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and others.

DOCUMENTS

State Papers. Reign of Henry VIII.
Venetian Archives.

MSS. of Wyatt's Poems. British Museum.
Cotton MS. f. xiii.

MSS., Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Wyatt's Poems).
Wriothesley's Chronicle.
Machyn's Diary.

University Register (Grace Book) Cambridge. (Through the courtesy
of the Master of St. John's and the Registrar of the University.)

Printed for the UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, Ltd., by
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, Ltd., London and Bungay.

•Mi-

DEPT, NOV 5 1958

2404

1911

Foxwell, Agnes Kate

A study of Sir Thomas Wyatt's
poems

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