Note 1. See Essay. The first part of this sonnet is supposed to have been suggested to Wyatt by the sonnet of Petrarca beginning,
“S’ una fede amorosa, un cor non finto,”—
of which he had elsewhere given an entire version. If so, the latter part may be equally supposed to have been suggested by some French song. I think I have a recollection of some such contrastment of a Phyllis and a Brunette in old French poetry. Yet these propositions and contrapositions are so common in love-poets, that the feeling may have originated with Sir Thomas himself; though he was a Petrarcist professed. In a court like that of Henry VIII. Wyatt may well enough have met with a Brunette of his own, who revolted him with her ostentation and her love of wealth,—setting his mercer’s and jeweller’s bills “in a roar.” The names of Brunet (Brunetta) and Phyllis in conjunction are to be found nowhere else, I believe, in English literature, except in Steele’s amusing story of the two rival beauties in the Spectator, No. 80. Did he get them from Wyatt? It is pleasant to think so, and not at all unlikely. Wyatt was just the sort of man to be loved and admired by Steele. [back]
