may be added
that, while his, Surrey's, and Wyatt's contributions are substantive and
known--the numbers of separate poems contributed being respectively forty
for Surrey, the same for Grimald, and ninety-six for Wyatt--no less than
one hundred and thirty-four poems, reckoning the contents of the first and
second editions together, are attributed to "other" or "uncertain" authors.
And of these, though it is pretty positively known that certain writers did
contribute to the book, only four poems have been even conjecturally traced
to particular authors. The most interesting of these by far is the poem
attributed, with that which immediately precedes it, to Lord Vaux, and
containing the verses "For age with stealing steps," known to every one
from the gravedigger in _Hamlet_. Nor is this the only connection of
Tottel's _Miscellany_ with Shakespere, for there is no reasonable doubt
that the "Book of Songs and Sonnets," to the absence of which Slender so
pathetically refers in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, is Tottel's, which, as
the first to use the title, long retained it by right of precedence.
Indeed, one of its authors, Churchyard, who, though not in his first youth
at its appearance, survived into the reign of James, quotes it as such, and
so does Drayton even later. No sonnets had been seen in England before, nor
was the whole style of the verse which it contained less novel than this
particular form.

As is the case with many if not most of the authors of our period, a rather
unnecessary amount of ink has been spilt on questions very distantly
connected with the question of the absolute and relative merit of Surrey
and Wyatt in English poetry. In particular, the influence of the one poet
on the other, and the consequent degree of originality to be assigned to
each, have been much discussed. A very few dates and facts will supply most
of the information necessary to enable the reader to decide this and other
questions for himself. Sir Thomas Wyatt, son of Sir Henry Wyatt of
Allington, Kent, was born in 1503, entered St. John's College, Cambridge,
in 1515, became a favourite of Henry VIII., received important diplomatic
appointments, and died in 1542. Lord Henry Howard was born (as is supposed)
in 1517, and became Earl of Surrey by courtesy (he was not, the account of
his judicial murder says, a lord of Parliament) at eight years old. Very
little is really known of his life, and his love for "Geraldine" was made
the bas