WYATT.--The next writer who claims our attention is Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
son of Sir Henry Wyatt. He was born in 1503, and educated at Cambridge.
Early a courtier, he was imperilled by his attachment to Anne Boleyn,
conceded, if not quite Platonic, yet to have never led him to criminality.
Several of his poems were inspired by her charms. The one best known
begins--
What word is that that changeth not,
Though it be turned and made in twain?
It is mine ANNA, God it wot, etc.
That unfortunate queen--to possess whose charms Henry VIII. had repudiated
Catherine of Arragon, and who was soon to be brought to the block after
trial on the gravest charges--which we do not think substantiated--was,
however, frivolous and imprudent, and liked such impassioned
attentions--indeed, may be said to have suffered for them.
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 conscientiae_, he paraphrased the
penitential Psalms.
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