He used it in translating the second and
fourth books of Virgil's "Aeneid." This translation he probably wrote
not long before his execution, which took place in 1547, seventeen years
before the birth of Shakspere. There are passages of excellence in the
work, and very rarely does a verse quite fail. But, as might be
expected, it is somewhat stiff, and, as it were, stunted in sound;
partly from the fact that the lines are too much divided, where
_distinction_ would have been sufficient. It would have been strange,
indeed, if he had at once made a free use of a rhythm which every
boy-poet now thinks he can do what he pleases with, but of which only a
few ever learn the real scope and capabilities. Besides, the difficulty
was increased by the fact that the nearest approach to it in measure was
the heroic couplet, so well known in our language, although scarce one
who has used it has come up to the variousness of its modelling in the
hands of Chaucer, with whose writings Surrey was of course familiar. But
various as is its melody in Chaucer, the fact of there being always an
anticipation of the perfecting of a rhyme at the end of the couplet
would make one accustomed to heroic verse ready to introduce a
rhythmical fall and kind of close at the end of every blank verse in
trying to write that measure for the first time.
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