835 



SURREY, EARL OP. 



SUSRUTA. 



project obtained his majesty's concurrence, but was defeated by the 

 firmness and intrepidity of Walpole. " The Pretender and the 

 Jacobites certainly at this time," Coxe adds, " entertained the most 

 sanguine hopes. Sunderland became a great favourite with them and 

 the Tories, his health was constantly drunk by them, and they affected 

 to be secure of attaining, by his means, the accomplishment of their 

 wishes." There are sotne strong assertions by Pope as to Sunder- 

 land's dealings with the Pretender, both at this and at an earlier 

 period, in Spence's 'Anecdotes,' p. 313; but it is certain that the 

 Pretender himself did not place any hope in Sunderland, and it seems 

 probable that his negociations with the Jacobites were carried on as 

 far as they went with the full knowledge and approval of the king. 

 (Million's ' England,' vol. ii. c. 11.) Another assertion is, that he had 

 contrived a plot for the political annihilation of Walpole by persuading 

 the king to offer to make him postmaster-general for life, with a view 

 that if Walpole accepted the office, it would take him out of parlia- 

 ment, or, if he refused it, that he would give offence to his majesty. 

 The king however, when he found that Walpole had never expressed 

 any desire for the place, nor was even acquainted with Sunderland's 

 proposal, refused to allow the offer to be made to him. Sunderland 

 nevertheless, by persevering, or shifting his mode of attack, might 

 possibly have succeeded ere long in effecting the downfall of his rival ; 

 but in the midst of his intrigues he was suddenly arrested by death, 

 on the 19th of April 1722, being as yet only in the forty-seventh year 

 of his age. He had been thrice married : first, in 1695, to the Lady 

 Arabella Cavendish, daughter of Henry, duke of Newcastle, by whom 

 he had a daughter ; secondly, in or before 1702, to the Lady Anne 

 Churcliill, second daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, by whom he 

 had three sons, and who died 15th April 1716; thirdly, to Judith, 

 daughter of Benjamin Tichbourne, Esq. (a younger brother of Viscount 

 Tichbourne, in Ireland), by whom according to some of the peerages, 

 he had no issue, but who is stated in other works of the kind to have 

 borne him a son, who died three days after himself, a daughter who 

 died in infancy, and a second son which came into the world five 

 months after his death, and died at six months old. Of his three sons 

 by his second wife, Robert, the eldest, succeeded to the earldom, and 

 died unmarried, 27th of November 1729 ; Charles, the second, became 

 Earl of Suuderland on the death of his elder brother, and on the 

 death of his aunt, in 1733, became Duke of Marlborough; and John, 

 the- youngest, who then succeeded to the family estates, was the 

 father of the first Earl Spencer. 



Lord Sunderland, who associated much with the wits and literary 

 men of his day, was one of the members of the famous Kit-Kat Club, 

 and was also one of the set of noblemen who, about the beginning of 

 the last century, used to make a weekly perambulation among the old 

 book-shops in the metropolis in search of early-printed books, scarce 

 pamphlets, manuscripts, and other rarities and curiosities of literature. 

 To this fashion of collecting early literature, which then prevailed, we 

 are undoubtedly indebted for the preservation of many things of more 

 or less interest or value ; and the great libraries of Althorpe, Devon- 

 shire House, Blenheim, and the Harleiau collection of manuscripts, 

 probably acquired in this way many of what are now accounted their 

 most precious articles. 



SURREY, HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF, son of Thomas 

 Howard, third duke of Norfolk, by his second duchess Elizabeth 

 Stafford, daughter of Edward duke of Buckingham, was born about 

 the year 1516, but the exact time and place of his birth are uncertain. 

 Nothing particular is known of his life until his marriage in 1532, at 

 which time he could not have been more than sixteen. In that year 

 he visited France in company with the Duke of Richmond, Henry 

 VIll's natural son, and was present at the interview between Henry 

 and the king of France. At Anne Boleyn's coronation (1533) he bore 

 one of the swords in the procession, and soon after paid that visit to 

 Windsor which he notices in one of his sweetest poems ; this at least 

 is the opinion of the author of his life prefixed to Pickering's edition 

 of his poems, while Dr. Nott, his more learned but less judicious 

 biographer, supposes the visit to have been made in his childhood. 

 In 1536 his eldest son was born. We find him soon after assisting at 

 Anni- Boleyn's trial, and in the same year he lost by death his friend 

 the Duke of Richmond. In 1540 he served his first campaign in 

 France, and two years afterwards was elected a knight of the garter. 

 The short remainder of his life appears to have been clouded by mis- 

 fortunes, the first of which was bis quarrel with John a Leigh, and 

 consequent imprisonment in the Fleet This was soon followed by a 

 summons from the Privy Council for eating flesh in Lent, and for 

 walking about the streets at night in a " lewd and unseemly manner," 

 and breaking windows with a cross-bow. On the first charge he 

 excused himself; the second he confessed, and on it he was again con- 

 fined. Dr. Nott, with singular obtuseness, appears utterly to mis- 

 understand a poem in which Surrey defends himself in a half jocose 

 manner, and assumes the whole proceeding to have been one of sober 

 purpose, not a mere freak of youthful folly. In the next October he 

 made another campaign in France, and after his return took Hadrian 

 Junius into his family as physician. In July 1546 he was again im- 

 prisoned for using bitter language against the Earl of Hertford, after 

 which nothing further is worth note until his last imprisonment, the 

 real grounds of which are doubtful ; the king's suspicious temper and 

 Surrey's haughty spirit would however supply ample means of accusa- 



tion to an unprincipled enemy. He was arrested on the 12th of 

 December. The charge was that of having quartered the royal arms 

 with his own, which it appears he had a right to do, although the 

 point is not quite clear. This however was taken as a proof of trea- 

 sonable intentions, and by the joint testimony of his sister the duchess 

 of Richmond and of his father's mistress he was condemned and 

 executed January 21, 1547. His father, who was involved in the same 

 charge, had the better fortune of a reprieve, which, by the king's 

 death in the same week with Surrey's execution, was converted into a 

 release. 



Surrey seems to have been on bad terms with his mother, and as he 

 was betrayed by his sister, he could not have been fortunate in family 

 matters. The controversy respecting the existence of Geraldine, his 

 supposed mistress, can hardly be said to be determined ; it appears 

 however that there was an Irish lady of that name, the daughter of 

 Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildarc, to whom the famous sonnet no 

 doubt refers ; but it is evident that Dr. Nott has understood other of 

 Surrey's poems to refer to Geraldine, when they do not ; and all the 

 romantic incidents connected with his 'passion' for the lady, related 

 by the earlier biographers, may be regarded as utterly exploded. 



Surrey's works are principally remarkable as forming an important 

 era in English literature. He was the first whose ear taught him to 

 substitute the present method of poetical accent for that which we 

 find in the writings of Chaucer and his followers. He is also the 

 earliest writer of English blank verse, of which his translation of 

 some parts of the ' ^Eneid ' is a beautiful example. In addition to 

 both these characteristics he is the leader of the second school of 

 English poets who admired and followed the Italian models. As such, 

 Spencer directly, and Milton indirectly, are indebted to Surrey, who, 

 if for no other reason, for this at least deserves remembrance. His 

 works went through four editions in two months, and through seven 

 more in the thirty years after their appearance in 1557, besides 

 appearing in garlands, broad-sheets, and miscellanies. Many people 

 who could not afford to buy printed copies multiplied them in manu- 

 script, wjnich sufficiently proves their popularity. It is a curious fact 

 however that the literary tyranny of Pope was so absolute, and 

 the national taste so much altered, in the beginning of the 18th 

 century, that the booksellers, who reprinted Surrey's poems about the 

 year 1714, apologised for their audacity in thus restoring to notice 

 a forgotten and antiquated poet by a reference to the authority of 

 Mr. Pope. 



SUSA'RION, son of Philinus, was a native of the ancient village of 

 Tripodiscus, in the territory of Megara. He lived about the time of 

 Solon (about 01. 50), and the Parian Marbles (' Ep.' 39) call him the 

 inventor of comedy, and seem also to indicate that he gained the prize 

 of comedy then instituted, which consisted of a basket of figs and a 

 jar of wine. But as regards Susarion's invention of comedy the 

 matter is not quite clear. We know indeed that the Megarians w<-ro 

 very fond of farcical entertainments, but it is also certain that the 

 invention of real and written comedies belongs to a later time ; and 

 there is indeed, as Bentley ('A Dissert, on the Epist. of Phalari*,' 

 p. 144) has shown , no evidence that the four iambic verses of Susarion 

 still extant formed part of a play. It is further probable that he 

 performed his extempore farces upon a waggon, as was customary at 

 the country Dionysia in Attica. The place where he acted his farces 

 was Icarius, a hamlet of Attica, whence some writers call him an 

 Icarian. What is called his invention of comedy must therefore have 

 consisted in introducing into Attica the Doric form of comedy, or he 

 introduced some innovation into these farces, and constructed them 

 on better dramatic principles, which seems to be implied in the state- 

 ment that he employed a chorus, which had not been the case before. 

 But whatever we may think of his improvements, a considerable time 

 passed from the period in which he acted at Icarius, until comedy ex- 

 perienced real improvement, and was composed on artistic principles. 



(Bentley, A Diasertat. on the Epist. of Phalaris, p. 144-152; Miiller, 

 Dor., iv. 7, 2; Hist, of the Lit. of Ant. Greece, chap, xxvii. 3.) 



SU'SRUTA, one of the earliest and most celebrated of the Hindoo 

 writers on medicine, was the son of Viswamitra, and the pupil of 

 Dhanwantari. Nothing is known of the events of his life, and his 

 date is rather uncertain. His medical work is still extant, and was 

 published in 2 vols. 8vo, Calcutta, 1835-36. It is unquestionably of 

 some antiquity, but it is not easy to form any conjecture as to its real 

 date, except that it cannot have the prodigious age which Hindoo 

 fable assigns it ; it is sufficient to know that it is perhaps the oldest 

 work on the subject which the Hindoos possess, excepting that of 

 Charaka. The only direct testimony that we have with respect to the 

 dates of Cbaraka and of Susruta is that of Professor Wilson, who 

 states that, from their being mentioned in the Purauas. the 9th or 10th 

 century is the most modern limit of our conjecture; while the style 

 of the authors, as well as their having become the heroes of fable, 

 indicate a long anterior date. One commentary on the text of Sus- 

 ruta, made by Ubhatta, a Cashmirian, is probably as old as the 12th 

 or 13th century, and his comment, it is believed, was preceded by 

 others. The work is divided into six portions : the 'Sutra St'hana,' or 

 Chirurgical Definitions; the 'Nidana St'hana,' or Section on Symptoms, 

 or Diagnosis; 'Sarira St'hana,' Anatomy ; 'Chikitsa St'hana,' the inter- 

 nal administration of Medicines ; ' Kalpa St'hana,' Antidotes ; ' Uttara 

 St'hana,' or a supplementary section on various local diseases, or 



