Wyatt was styled by Camden "splendide doctus," but his learning, however honorable to him, was not of much benefit to the world; for his works are few, and most of them amatory—"songs and sonnets"—full of love and lovers: as a makeweight, in foro conscientiæ, he paraphrased the penitential Psalms. An excellent comment this on the age of Henry VIII., when the monarch possessed with lust attempted the reformation of the Church. That Wyatt looked with favor upon the Reformation is indicated by one of his remarks to the king: "Heavens! that a man cannot repent him of his sins without the Pope's leave!" Imprisoned several times during the reign of Henry, after that monarch's death he favored the accession of Lady Jane Grey, and, with other of her adherents, was executed for high treason on the 11th of April, 1554. We have spoken of the spirit of the age. Its criticism was no better than its literature; for Wyatt, whom few read but the literary historian, was then considered
A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme,
That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
The glory of Chaucer's wit remains, while Wyatt is chiefly known because he was executed.
Surrey.—A twin star, but with a brighter lustre, was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, a writer whose works are remarkable for purity of thought and refinement of language. Surrey was a gay and wild young fellow—distinguished in the tournament which celebrated Henry's marriage with Anne of Cleves; now in prison for eating meat in Lent, and breaking windows at night; again we find him the English marshal when Henry invaded France in 1544. He led a restless life, was imperious and hot-tempered to the king, and at length quartered the king's arms with his own, thus assuming royal rights and imperilling the king's dignity. On this charge, which was, however, only a pretext, he was arrested and executed for high treason in 1547, before he was thirty years old.
Surrey is the greatest poetical name of Henry the Eighth's reign, not so much for the substance of his poems as for their peculiar handling. He is claimed as the introducer of blank verse—the iambic pentameter without rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of the cæsural pause. His translation of the Fourth Book of the Æneid, imitated perhaps from the Italian version of the Cardinal de Medici, is said to be the first specimen of blank verse in English. How slow its progress was is proved by Johnson's remarks upon the versification of Milton.[23] Thus in his blank verse Surrey was the forerunner of Milton, and in his rhymed pentameter couplet one of the heralds of Dryden and Pope.
Sir Thomas More.—In a bird's-eye view of literature, the division into poetry and prose is really a distinction without a difference. They are the same body in different clothing, at labor and at festivity—in the working suit and in the court costume. With this remark we usher upon the literary scene Thomas More, in many respects one of the most remarkable men of his age—scholar, jurist, statesman, gentleman, and Christian; and, withal, a martyr to his principles of justice and faith. In a better age, he would have retained the highest honors: it is not to his discredit that in that reign he was brought to the block.
He was born in 1480. A very precocious youth, a distinguished career was predicted for him. He was greatly favored by Henry VIII., who constantly visited him at Chelsea, hanging upon his neck, and professing an intensity of friendship which, it is said, More always distrusted. He was the friend and companion of Erasmus during the residence of that distinguished man in England. More was gifted as an orator, and rose to the distinction of speaker of the House of Commons; was presented with the great seal upon the dismissal of Wolsey, and by his learning, his affability, and his kindness, became the most popular, as he seemed to be the most prosperous man in England. But, the test of Henry's friendship and of More's principles came when the king desired his concurrence in the divorce of Catherine of Arragon. He resigned the great seal rather than sign the marriage articles of Anne Boleyn, and would not take the oath as to the lawfulness of that marriage. Henry's kindness turned to fury, and More was a doomed man. A devout Romanist, he would not violate his conscience by submitting to the act of supremacy which made Henry the head of the Church, and so he was tried for high treason, and executed on the 6th of July, 1535. There are few scenes more pathetic than his last interview with his daughter Margaret, in the Tower, and no death more calmly and beautifully grand than his. He kissed the executioner and forgave him. "Thou art," said he, "to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive: pluck up thy spirit man, and be not afraid to do thine office."
Utopia.—His great work, and that which best illustrates the history of the age, is his Utopia, (ου τοπος, not a place.) Upon an island discovered by a companion of Vespuccius, he established an imaginary commonwealth, in which everybody was good and everybody happy. Purely fanciful as is his Utopia, and impossible of realization as he knew it to be while men are what they are, and not what they ought to be, it is manifestly a satire on that age, for his republic shunned English errors, and practised social virtues which were not the rule in England.
Although More wrote against Luther, and opposed Henry's Church innovations, we are struck with his Utopian claim for great freedom of inquiry on all subjects, even religion; and the bold assertion that no man should be punished for his religion, because "a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases," as Henry's six bloody articles so fearfully asserted he must. The Utopia was written in Latin, but soon translated into English. We use the adjective utopian as meaning wildly fanciful and impossible: its true meaning is of high excellence, to be striven for—in a word, human perfection.
Other Works.—More also wrote, in most excellent English prose, a history of the princes, Edward V. and his brother Richard of York, who were murdered in the Tower; and a history of their murderer and uncle, Richard III. This Richard—and we need not doubt his accuracy of statement, for he was born five years before Richard fell at Bosworth—is the short, deformed youth, with his left shoulder higher than the right; crafty, stony-hearted, and cruel, so strikingly presented by Shakspeare, who takes More as his authority. "Not letting (sparing) to kiss whom he thought to kill ... friend and foe was indifferent where his advantage grew; he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. He slew, with his own hands, King Henry VI., being a prisoner in the Tower."