Sir: Mr Malim mentions the influence of Oxford's uncle, Arthur
Golding, who trans- lated Ovid; another uncle (by marriage) was my ancestor Sir Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), who, as well as his other accomplishments, was a gifted poet and translator of Virgil. He married Frances de Vere, daughter of the 15th Earl of Oxford, in 1535. Surrey is widely credit- ed for having introduced blank verse as a poetic form into English; my family has long maintained that without Surrey, Shakespeare would have had difficulty get- ting off the ground.
Oxford, sadly, would not have known Surrey as the latter was executed before Oxford was born; but his widowed aunt Frances, although she remarried after Sur- rey's death, would surely have introduced him to Surrey's poetry and translations as models to be emulated.
The Victorians were well aware of Shakespeare's debt to Surrey: for example I have in front of me a single volume, Poeti- cal Works of Shakspeare [sic] and Surrey, by the Rev George Gilfillan (James Nichol, Edinburgh, 1856).
Nicholas Howard
Johnby Penrith, Cumbria
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