SOURCE: Tottel, Richard. “The Printer to the Reader.” 1557. Reprinted in Wyatt: The Critical Heritage, edited by Patricia Thomson, p. 32. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974.

In the following excerpt, which was originally published in Tottel's Songs and Sonettes, written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other, the printer credits Wyatt with helping improve the beauty and power of the English language.

That to haue wel written in verse, yea & in small parcelles, deserueth great praise, the workes of diuers Latines, Italians, and other, doe proue sufficiently. That our tong is able in that kynde to do as praiseworthely as the rest, the honorable stile of the noble earle of Surrey, and the weightinesse of the depewitted sir Thomas Wyat the elders verse, with seuerall graces in sondry good Englishe writers, doe show abundantly. It resteth nowe (gentle reder) that thou thinke it not euill...