burnt in Nichols's printing office (February 1808). A like fate destroyed another edition of Surrey's and Wyatt's poems prepared by Dr. G. F. Nott and printed by Bensley at Bristol in 1812, but in 1815-16 Nott issued his elaborate edition of Surrey's and Wyatt's works, which contained some hitherto imprinted additions, chiefly from the Harington MSS., and much new information in the preface and notes. Nicholas edited the poems in 1831, and Robert Bell in 1854. Of the later editions the best is that edited by J. Yeowell in the Aldine edition (1866).
Surrey, who although the disciple of Wyatt was at all points his master's superior, was the earliest Englishman to imitate with any success Italian poetry in English verse. ‘Wyatt and Surrey,’ writes Puttenham, ‘were novices newly crept out of the schooles of Dante, Arioste, and Petrarch, and greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie’ (p.74). Their favourite model was redoubtably Petrarch, and two of Surrey's sonnets, 'Complaint of a lover rebuked' (Arber, p. 8), and ‘Vow to love faithfully’ (ib. p. 11), are direct translations from Petrarch. Two lost works, attributed to Surrey by Bale, a translation of Boccaccio's consolatory epistle to Pinus on his exile, and a book of elegant epistles, prove him to have been also acquainted with Boccaccio, and he imitates in one poem the banded three-lined staves of Dante. His verses entitled ‘The Means to attain happy life’ (ib. p. 27) are a successful translation from Martial, and the poem that follows, ‘Praise of meane and constant estates,’ is apparently a rendering of Horace's odes, bk. ii. No. xi. His rendering of Virgil, especially of the second book, owes much to Gawin Douglas's earlier efforts. Despite the traces to be found in his verse of a genuinely poetic temperament, Surrey's taste in the choice of his masters and his endeavours to adapt new metres to English poetry are his most interesting characteristics. The sonnet and the ‘ottava rima’ were first employed by him and Wyatt. The high distinction of introducing into England blank verse in five iambics belongs to Surrey alone. His translations from Virgil are (as the title-page of the second edition of the fourth book puts it) drawn into this ‘straunge meter.’ Surrey's experiment may have been suggested by Cardinal Hippolyto de Medici's rendering into Italian blank verse (‘sciolti versi’) of the second book of Virgil's ‘Æneid’ which was published at Castello in 1539, and was reissued with the first six books by various authors, translated into the Italian in the same metre (Venice, 1540). Webbe, in his ‘Treatise of English Poetrie’ (1579), asserts that Surrey attempted to translate Virgil into English hexameters, but the statement is probably erroneous. ‘The structure of [Surrey's] blank verse is not very harmonious, and the sense is rarely carried beyond the line’ (Hallam). His sonnets are alternately rhymed, with a concluding couplet. In his religious verse he employed the older metre of alexandrines, alternating with lines of fourteen syllables.
Dr. Nott describes eleven portraits of Surrey. The best, by Holbein, with scarlet cap and feather, is at Windsor (engraved in Nott's edition); another painting by the same artist, dated 1534, belongs to Charles Butler, esq.; and drawings both of Surrey and his wire, by Holbein, are at Buckingham Palace (cf. Chamberlaine, Heads). Two original portraits belong to the Duke of Norfolk; one by Guillim Stretes, which is assigned to the date of his arrest, is inscribed ‘Sat Superest Æt. 29,’ and has been often copied. A second portrait by Stretes, which is often attributed to Holbein, seems to have been purchased by Edward VI of the artist. It is now at Hampton Court. There are engravings by Hollar, Vertue, Houbraken, and Bartolozzi.
{{smaller block}[The exhaustive life of Surrey, based on researches in the State Papers, in Deux Gentils-hommes-Poètes de la cour de Henry VIII. [i.e. George Boleyn, viscount Rochford, and of Surrey], par Edmond Bapst, Paris, 1891, supersedes the chief earlier authority, viz. Nott's memoir in his edition of the poems of Surrey and Wyatt, 1815. See also Wood's Athenæ Oxon, ed. Bliss, i. 154-161; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Lingard's Hist.; Hallam's Const. Hist.; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry; Hallam's Hist. of Literature; Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ed. Park, i. 255 sq.; Howard's Anecdotes of the Howard Family, 1769; Collier's Bibl. Cat.; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn). For Howard's metrical experiments, see Dr. J. Schipper's Englische Metrik, Bonn, 1888, vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 256-70 (on Surrey's blank verse); J. B. Mayor's Chapters on English Metres, pp. 135-45; Guest's Hist. of English Rhythms, ed. Skeat,pp. 521 sq. 652 sq.]}}
HOWARD, HENRY, Earl of Northampton (1540–1614), born at Shottesham, Norfolk, on 25 Feb. 1539-40, was second son of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey [q. v.]; was younger brother of Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk [q. v.], and was uncle of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel [q. v.] On the death of his father in 1547 he and his brother and sisters were entrusted to the care of his aunt, the Duchess of Richmond, who employed Foxe the martyrologist as their tutor. With Foxe Howard remained at Reigate, a manor belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, throughout Edward VI's reign.
