s unto hym: and if he
so be, than shall that anger be to hym displeasant, and stere hym more to
be angrye."--SIR THOMAS ELLIOTT: _Castel of Helthe_.

33. _Example of the earliest English Blank Verse; written about 1540_.

The supposed author died in 1541, aged 38. The piece from which these lines
are taken describes the death of _Zoroas_, an Egyptian astronomer, slain in
Alexander's first battle with the Persians.

"The Persians waild such sapience to foregoe;
And very sone the Macedonians wisht
He would have lived; king Alexander selfe
Demde him a man unmete to dye at all;
Who wonne like praise for conquest of his yre,
As for stoute men in field that day subdued,
Who princes taught how to discerne a man,
That in his head so rare a jewel beares;
But over all those same Camenes,[49] those same
Divine Camenes, whose honour he procurde,
As tender parent doth his daughters weale,
Lamented, and for thankes, all that they can,
Do cherish hym deceast, and sett hym free,
From dark oblivion of devouring death."
_Probably written by SIR THOMAS WYAT._

34. _A Letter written from prison, with a coal._ The writer, _Sir Thomas
More_, whose works, both in prose and verse, were considered models of pure
and elegant style, had been Chancellor of England, and the familiar
confidant of Henry VIII, by whose order he was beheaded in 1535.

"Myne own good doughter, our Lorde be thanked I am in good helthe of bodye,
and in good quiet of minde: and of worldly thynges I no more desyer then I
haue. I beseche hym make you all mery in the hope of heauen. And such
thynges as I somewhat longed to talke with you all, concerning the worlde
to come, our Lorde put theim into your myndes, as I truste he doth and
better to by hys holy spirite: who blesse you and preserue you all. Written
wyth a cole by your tender louing father, who in hys pore prayers
forgetteth none of you all, nor your babes, nor your nources, nor your good
husbandes, nor your good husbandes shrewde wyues, nor your fathers shrewde
wyfe neither, nor our other frendes. And thus fare ye hartely well for
lacke of paper. THOMAS MORE, knight."--_Johnson's Hist. E. Lang._, p. 42.

35. _From More's Description of Richard III.--Probably written about 1520._

"Richarde the third sonne, of whom we nowe entreate, was in witte and
courage egall with either of them, in bodye and prowesse farre vnder them
bothe, l