UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. Among the uncertain authors, whose works are subjoined to Lord Surrey's Poems, are to be classed (says Mr. Warton) Sir Francis Bryan, and Lord Rochford. Sir Francis Bryan, (nephew to Bourchier lord Berners, the translator of Froissart) was the friend of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and knighted by Thomas earl of Surrey, during the expedi tion to Brittany. His wit and accomplishments procured him the post of gentleman of the privy chamber to Henry VIII. and he was afterwards promoted to more important employments, and died chief-justiciary of Ireland, 1548. George Boleyn, viscount Rochford, brother to queen Anne Boleyn, with whom he was most unjustly accused of a criminal intimacy, was beheaded on this suspicion in May, 1536. He was the idol of the ladies at Henry's court, and wrote several songs and sonnets. The following, which, by the editor of lord Surrey's Poems, is placed among the works of Sir Thomas Wyatt, is, in the Nuga Antiquæ, ascribed to Lord Rochford. My lute awake, perform the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, The rocks do not so cruelly Proud of the spoil which thou hast got Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain Unquit to cause thy lover's plaine, May chance thee lie withered and old And then may chance thee to repent To cause thy lover's sigh and swoon; Now cease my lute: this is the last and past, Now is this song both sung That each thing is hurt of itself. WHY fearest thou thy outward foe, Of grief or hurt, of pain or woe, So fine was never yet the cloth, No smith so hard his iron did beat, But the one consumed was with moth, Th' other with canker all to-fret. The knotty oak, and wainscot old, VOL. II. Thus every thing that nature wrought No outward harm need to be sought The Lover in liberty smileth at them in thraldom, that sometimes scorned his bondage. [Abridged from 24 lines.] AT liberty I sit, and see Them that have erst laugh'd me to scorn, Whip'd with the whip that scourged me; And now they ban that they were born! I see them sit full soberly, And think their earnest looks to hide; Now in themselves they cannot spy, That they, ere this, in me have spied! I see them sitting all alone, Marking the steps, each word, and look, And now they tread where I have gone! The painful path that I forsook.-— 1 Curse. I see them wander all alone, And tread full fast, in dreadful doubt, The self-same path that I have gone! Blessed be hap that brought me out! At liberty all this I see; And say no word but erst among The Lover in despair, lamenteth his case. ADIEU desert, how art thou spent! Ah dropping tears how do ye waste, Ah scalding sighs how be ye spent, To prick them forth that will not haste! Ah pained heart thou gap'st for grace Even there where pity hath no place! As easy 'tis the stony rock From place to place for to remove, As by thy plaint for to provoke A frozen heart from hate to love: What should I say! such is thy lot To fawn on them that force thee not. ■ I do not understand this expression. |