a diversified past. This age, then, will not produce great litera-
ture. With the exception of More and Skelton, the personality
of the writer seems subordinated to the form in which he writes,
and even Skelton cannot control his medium. The reader does
not feel near to the author; the latter's voice seems faint and far
away. He cannot make his form express himself. This is be-
cause the age was one of beginnings. Chaucer, at the culmi-
nation of the previous period, can say what he wishes; Spenser, at
the culmination of this period, can say what he wishes; but these
men in the rude beginnings of art necessarily stammer. It is the
inevitable penalty of youth. The age does not reach its intellec-
tual maturity until the writers of the second half of the reign, writ-
ers represented for us by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.

The uncertainty so characteristic of all our knowledge of this
period finds another illustration in the poems of Surrey. Of these,
not counting the translations of Vergil, the publication of which
was separate, there are fifty-nine pieces. These are preserved to
us by Tottel and by seven manuscripts. ¹ Only two of the manu-
scripts are pre-Elizabethan and those two have but one poem each.
All told, there are thirty-four poems in the manuscripts. Unhap-
pily the manuscripts do not completely agree with one another for
the text, nor does any one completely agree with Tottel. In them
there are found poems not in Tottel, and one in Tottel that is
assigned to "Uncertain Authors." It is to be remembered that
as Tottel in 1557 printed the contents of a commonplace book,
probably like that in the British Museum Add. 36529, the author-
ity of his text depends upon the accuracy of an entirely unknown
compiler. On the other hand, as the manuscripts that furnish the
majority of the poems are late, they equally depend upon unknown
compilers. By comparison with the autograph manuscript of
Wyatt we know that Tottel's text is far from being accurate.
Therefore the presumption is that the same is the case with his
text of Surrey. The manuscripts which contain poems of Wyatt
and may therefore be tested are only slightly more accurate than
Tottel. The result is that in Surrey's text we have only an ap-
proximation. Each poem, consequently, requires careful dis-
cussion. But however faulty may be the text of Tottel, it will

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