WYATT, Sra Thomas, English poet: b. Kent, about 1503, d. Sherborne, 1)orcetshire, 11 Oct l.42 He was graduated from Cambridge in 1518, may have studied at Oxford, and sub sr.lurmtiv went on his travels to thr Continent. After his return to England he appeared at court, where the rrputation he had alrcarlv ar mired as a wit anrt a poCt introduced him to the notice of Henry VIiI, who retained him about his person and knighted him in 1537. He was employed on several diplomatic misaiom to different powers, and was a friend of Thomas Cromwell (q.v.), in whose fall he ran some risk of being involved. In 1542 be was re turned to Parliament as knight of the shirr for Kent. A dose student of foreign literature, Wyatt introduced the sonnet into Enghnd from Italy. In this he is commonly associated with Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, but is more correctly to be regarded as the pioneer. None of Wyatt's verse, sacred or secular, appeared in his lifetime. Some of the secular poems
were printed (96 are assigned to Wyatt) in the 'Songes and Sonnettes' (1557) of Richard Tottel, commonly known as 'Toad's Miserl lany.' There are among the extant wort 31 sonnets and satires in heroic couplets. imitated from i'ersius and Horace. Wyatt's poems evince more elegance of thought than imagim tion, while his mode of expression is far more artificial and labored than that of Surrey. Con sult Nott's edition of Wyatt and Surrey with the elaborate memoir prefixed thereto (1816) : also the article by Churton Collins in T. H Ward's 'English Poets' (1883), and Simond's 'Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Poems' (18B9). Consult also Foxwell, A. K., 'Study of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poems' (New York 1912) and Padelford F. M., 'Early XVIth Century Lyrics' (London 1907).