husband, Lord Lincoln; and with him lies buried under a sumptuous tomb at Windsor: she left no descendants. Her youngest brother, Edward Fitzgerald, was the lineal ancestor of the present Duke of Leinster.

The only original portrait of the fair Geraldine, now extant, is in the gallery of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn; and I am told that it is sufficiently beautiful to justify Surrey's admiration.*

* Those who are curious about historic proofs, may consult Anecdotes of the family of Howard, Memoirs and works of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, edited by Dr. Nott, Park's Royal and Noble Authors, and Collins' Peerage, by Brydges.

CHAPTER XIII.

GINEVRA, AND ALESSANDRA STROZZI.

WHILE the sagacity of Horace Walpole was tracking the identity of the fair Geraldine, through the mazes of poetry and probability,-through parchments, through peerages, through papers, and through patents, he must now and then have been annoyed by the provoking discretion of her chivalrous adorer, which had led him such a chase. But of all the discreet lovers that ever baffled commentators or biographers, commend me to Ariosto! though one of the last from whom discretion might have been expected on such a subject. He is known to have been particularly susceptible to the power

of beauty; passionate in his attachments; and though pensive and abstracted in his general habits, almost irresistibly captivating in his intercourse with women. Yet such was his fine chivalrous feeling for the honour of those who, won by his rare qualities, yielded it to his keeping“such his marvellous secrecy and modesty," say his Italian biographers, that although the public gaze was fixed upon him in his lifetime, and although, since his death, the minutest circumstances relative to him have been subjects of as much curiosity and research in Italy, as Shakspeare among us; yet a few scattered notices are all that can be brought together to illustrate his charming lyrics.

This mystery was not in Ariosto the effect of chance or affectation; it arose from a principle of conduct faithfully adhered to from youth to age; in behalf of which, and the many beautiful passages expressive of devotion and reverential tenderness towards our sex, scattered through his great poem, we will endeavour, (though at some little sacrifice of the pride and

delicacy of women,) to pardon him, for having treated us most wickedly, on sundry other occasions. As an emblem of the reserve he had imposed on himself, a little bronze Cupid, with his finger on his lip, in token of silence, ornamented his inkstand, which is still preserved at Fer

rara.

Of Ariosto's amatory poems, so full of spirit, grace, and a sort of earnest triumphant tenderness, it is impossible to doubt that the objects were real. The earliest of his serious attachments, was to a young girl of the Florentine family of the Lapi, but residing at Mantua, or in its vicinity. Her name was Ginevra,—a name he has tenderly commemorated in the Orlando Furioso, by giving it to one of his most charming and interesting heroines,―Ginevra di Scozia. He has also, after Petrarch's fashion, played upon this name in one or two of his sonnets; Ginevro signifying a juniper-tree:

Non voglio (e Febo e Bacco mi perdoni)

Che lor frondi mi mostrino poeta,

Ma che un Ginevro sia che mi coroni!

"I wish not, (may Bacchus and Phoebus pardon me !) either the laurel or the ivy to crown my brows; let my wreath be rather of the thorny juniper!"

His love for Ginevra (which was fondly returned,) began in very early youth; their first interview occurred at a Festa di Ballo,-a fête-champêtre, where Ginevra excelled all her young companions in the dance, as much as she surpassed them in her blooming beauty. He alludes to stolen interviews, in a grove of laurels, and on the banks of the Mincio: and on the whole, confesses that he had no reason to complain of cruelty from the fair Ginevra.* This attachment lasted long; for, four years after their first meeting, Ariosto addresses her in a most impassioned strain, and vows that she was then "dearer to him than his own soul, and fairer than ever in his eyes." She seems to have left that permanent impression on his memory and fancy, that shade

*

Non ebbe unqua pastore

Di me più lieto, o più felice amore!

See the canzone to Ginevra, quoted by Baruffaldi. Vita, p. 148.