English Literature" that Wyat 'was a pioneer and perfection was not to be
expected of him. He has been described as a man stumbling over obstacles,
continually falling but always pressing forward.' I know not to what
wiseacre we owe that pronouncement: but what do you think of it, after
the lyric I have just quoted? I observe, further, on p. 23 of the same
volume of the same work, that the Rev. T. M. Lindsay, D.D., Principal of
the Glasgow College of the United Free Church of Scotland, informs us of
Wilson's "Arte of Rhetorique" that

there is little or no originality in the volume, save, perhaps, the
author's condemnation of the use of French and Italian phrases and
idioms, which he complains are 'counterfeiting the kinges Englishe.'
The warnings of Wilson will not seem untimely if to be remembered that
the earlier English poets of the period--Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder,
and the Earl of Surrey--drew their inspiration from Petrarch and
Ariosto, that their earlier attempts at poetry were translations from
Italian sonnets, and that their maturer efforts were imitations of the
sweet and stately measures and style of Italian poesie. The polish
which men like Wyatt and Surrey were praised for giving to our 'rude
and homely manner of vulgar poesie' might have led to some
degeneration.

Might it, indeed? As another Dominie would have said, 'Pro-digious.'

(Thought for to take
Is not my mind;
But to forsake

This Principal of the Glasgow College of the United Free Church of
Scotland--