WYAT (Sir Thomas), an accomplished writer in the reign of Henry VIII. was the son of Sir Henry Wyat of Allington castle in Kent. He was born in the year 1503, and educated at St John's college, Cambridge. He then visited foreign countries, and probably spent some years abroad; for, at his return to England, he was exceedingly accomplished, and perfectly acquainted with the languages, and polite literature of those times. King Henry VIII. charmed with his abilities, and delighted with his vivacity and wit, immediately took him into favour, honoured him with knighthood, gave him lands, and employed him in several embassies. Nevertheless Wyat fell into disgrace, and was twice imprisoned. It is evident, however, that he regained the favour and confidence of the king; for he was afterwards sent ambassador to the emperor, and died in the execution of his majesty's commission. The nature of this commission is differently related. Be it what it might, it proved fatal. Riding post in the heat of summer, he was attacked by a violent fever, and died at Shirebourn, in Dorsetshire, in 1541. Sir Thomas Wyat was contemporary with Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, and his intimate friend, with whom he shares the honour of polishing our language, and of introducing the numbers used by the Italian poets. Camden calls him splendide doctus; and Alchem says, he was one of the best translators of the Latin poets. His oration on his trial (lately published in Miscellaneous Antiquities) shows him to have been a man of considerable ability, and an orator. Leland published a collection of elegies on his death, under the title Nenia; which Cibber, in his Lives of the Poets, mistakes for a collection of his works. To this book there is prefixed a portrait of Sir Thomas, with a long beard, from a painting of Holbein. His Songs and Poems, among the sonnets of the earl of Surrey, were printed in 1565, 1587, 8vo.