there exists not in any contemporary writer one scandalous anecdote of his private life, nor the name of any woman to whom he was attached, except that of his poetical love, Lucretia Donati.

Lorenzo de' Medici was not handsome in face, nor graceful in form; but he was captivating in his manners, and excelled in all manly exercises. The engraving prefixed to Roscoe's life of him, does not do justice to his countenance. I remember the original picture in the gallery of Florence, on which I have looked day after day for many minutes together, with an interest that can only be felt on the very spot where the memory of Lorenzo is "wherever we look, wherever we move." In spite of the stoop in the shoulders, the unbecoming dress, and the harsh features, I was struck by the grand simplicity of the head, and the mingled expression of acuteness, benevolence, and earnest thought in the countenance; the imagination filled with the splendid character of the man, might possibly have perceived more than the eye, but such was my impression.

Lorenzo died in his forty-fourth year, in 1492. He is not interred in that celebrated chapel of his family, rich with the sublimest productions of Michael Angelo's chisel: he lies at the opposite side of the church, in a magnificent sarcophagus of bronze, which contains also the ashes of his murdered brother, Giuliano.-Among the recollections, sweet and bitter, which I brought from Florence, is the remembrance of a day when retiring, from the glare of an Italian noontide, I stood in the church of San Lorenzo, sketching the tomb of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. The spot whence I viewed it was so obscure, that I could scarce see the lines traced by my pencil; but immediately behind the sarcophagus, there flowed from above a stream of strong light, relieving with added effect the dark outline of the sculptured ornaments. Through the grating which formed the background, I could see the figures of shaven monks and stoled priests gliding to and fro, like apparitions; and while I thought more,

O much more,-of the still and cold repose which wrapped the dead, than of their high deeds and far-spread fame, the plaintive music of a distant choir, chanting the Via crucis, floated through the pillared aisles, receding or approaching as the singers changed their station; swelling, sinking, and at length dying away on the ear.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FAIR GERALDINE.

IN the reign of the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, of Lorenzo's family, (Cosmo I.) Florence, it is said, beheld a novel and extraordinary spectacle: a young traveller, from a court and a country which the Italians of that day seemed to regard much as we now do the Esquimaux,* combining the learning of the scholar and the amiable bearing of the courtier, with all the rash bravery of youthful romance, astonished the inhabitants of that queenly city, first, by rivalling her polished nobles in the splendour of his state, and gallantry of his manners, and

*"Those bears of English-those barbarous islanders," are common phrases in the Italian writers of that age.

next, by boldly proclaiming that his "lady love" was superior to all that Italy could vaunt of beauty, that she was "oltre le belle, bella," fair beyond the fairest,—and maintaining his boast in a solemn tourney held in her honour, to the overthrow of all his opponents.

This was our English Surrey; one of the earliest and most elegant of our amatory poets, and the lover of the Fair Geraldine.

It must be admitted that the fame of the Earl of Surrey does not rest merely on title, and that if the fair Geraldine had never existed, he would still have lived in history as an accomplished scholar, soldier, courtier, and been lamented as the noble victim of a suspicious tyrant. But if some fair object of romantic gallantry had not given the impulse to his genius, and excited him to try his powers in a style of which no models yet existed in his native language,*—it may be doubted whether his name would have descended to us with all those poeti

Surrey introduced the sonnet, and the use of blank verse into our literature. It is a curious fact, that the earliest blank verse extant was written by Saint Francis.