[786] Wyatt’s best poem, in this style, the Epistle to John Poins, is a very close imitation of the tenth satire of Alamanni; it is abridged, but every thought and every verse in the English is taken from the Italian. Dr. Nott has been aware of this; but it certainly detracts a leaf from the laurel of Wyatt, though he has translated well.
The lighter poems of Wyatt are more unequal than those of Surrey; but his ode to his lute does not seem inferior to any production of his noble competitor. The sonnet in which he intimates his secret passion for Anne Boleyn, whom he describes under the allegory of a doe, bearing on her collar—
Noli me tangere: I Cæsar’s am,
is remarkable for more than the poetry, though that is pleasing. It may be doubtful whether Anne were yet queen: but in one of Wyatt’s latest poems, he seems to allude penitentially to his passion for her.
22. “In point of taste and perception of propriety in composition, Surrey is more accurate and just than Wyatt; he therefore seldom either offends with conceits, or wearies with repetition, and when he imitates other poets, he is original as well as pleasing. In his numerous translations from Petrarch, he is seldom inferior to his master; and he seldom improves upon him. Wyatt is almost always below the Italian, and frequently degrades a good thought by expressing it so that it is hardly recognizable. Had Wyatt attempted a translation of Virgil, as Surrey did, he would have exposed himself to unavoidable failure.”[787]
[787] Nott’s edition of Wyatt and Surrey, ii. 156.
Perhaps rather exaggerated. 23. To remarks so delicate in taste and so founded in knowledge, I should not venture to add much of my own. Something, however, may generally be admitted to modify the ardent panegyrics of an editor. Those who, after reading this brilliant passage, should turn for the first time to the poems either of Wyatt or of Surrey, might think the praise too unbounded, and, in some respects perhaps, not appropriate. It seems to be now ascertained, after sweeping away a host of foolish legends and traditionary prejudices, that the Geraldine of Surrey, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was a child of thirteen, for whom his passion, if such it is to be called, began several years after his own marriage.[788] But in fact there is more of the conventional tone of amorous song, than of real emotion, in Surrey’s poetry. The
“Easy sighs, such as men draw in love,”
are not like the deep sorrows of Petrarch, or the fiery transports of the Castilians.
[788] Surrey was born about 1518, married Lady Frances Vere 1535, fell in love, if so it was, in 1541, with Geraldine, who was born in 1528.