Chaucer's wife was still more remarkable,—she was destined to be the mother of a line of kings.

She had been domicella, or maid of honour, to the Duchess Blanche, after whose death, the infant children of the Princess were committed to her care.* In this situation she won the heart of their father, the Duke of Lancaster, who on the death of his second wife, Constance of Castile, married Catherine, and his children by her were solemnly legitimatized. The conduct of Catherine, except in one instance, had been irreproachable: her humility, her prudence, and her various accomplishments, not only reconciled the royal family and the people to her marriage, but added lustre to her rank: and when Richard the Second married Isabella of France, the young Queen, then only nine years old, was placed under the especial care and tuition of the Duchess of Lancaster.

One of the grand-daughters of Catherine, Lady Jane Beaufort, had the singular fortune of becoming at once the inspiration and the love of a great poet, the queen of an accomplished monarch, and the common ancestress of all the sovereigns of England since the days of Elizabeth.†

Never, perhaps, was the influence of woman on a poetic temperament more beautifully illustrated, than in the story of James the First of Scotland, and Lady Jane Beaufort. It has been so elegantly told by Washington Irving in the Sketch-Book, that it is only necessary to refer to it.James, while a prisoner, was confined in Windsor Castle, and immediately under his window there was a fair garden, in which the Lady Jane was accustomed to walk with her attendants, distinguished above them all by her beauty and dignity, even more than her state and the richness of her attire. The young monarch beheld her accidentally, his imagination was fired, his heart captivated, and from that moment his prison was no longer a dun

* These were Henry of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV. Philippa, Queen of Portugal, and Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter.

+ Catherine, Duchess of Lancaster had three sons: the second was the famous Cardinal Beaufort; the eldest (created Earl of Somerset,) was grandfather to Henry the Seventh, and consequently ancestor to the whole race of Tudor: thus from the sister of Chaucer's wife are descended all the English sovereigns, from the fifteenth century; and likewise the present family of Somerset, Dukes of Beaufort.

geon, but a palace of light and love. As he was the best poet and musician of his time, he composed songs in her praise, set them to music, and sang them to his lute. He also wrote the history of his love, with all its circumstances, in a long poem* still extant; and though the language be now obsolete, it is described by those who have studied it, as not only full of beauties both of sentiment and expression, but unpolluted by a single thought or allusion which the most refined age, or the most fastidious delicacy, could reject;-a singular distinction, when we consider that James's only models must have been Gower and Chaucer, to whom no such praise is due: we must rather suppose that he was no imitator, but that he owed his inspiration to modest and queenly beauty, and to the genuine tenderness of his own heart. His description of the fair apparition who came to bless his solitary hours, is so minute and peculiar, that it must have been drawn from the life;-the net of pearls, in which her light tresses were gathered up; the chain of fine-wrought gold about her neck; the heart-shaped ruby suspended from it, which glowed on her snowy bosom like a spark of fire; her white vest looped up to facilitate her movements; ber graceful damsels who followed at a respectful distance; and her little dog gambolling round with her with its collar of silver bells,-these, and other picturesque circumstances, were all noted in the lover's memory, and have been recorded by the poet's verse. And he sums up her perfections thus:

In her was youth, beauty, and numble port,
Bountee, richesse, and womanly feature.
God better knows than my pen can report,
Wisdom, largesse,† estate,t and cunning§ sure:

In every point so guided her measure,

In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,
That nature could no more her child advance.

The account of his own feelings as she disappears from his charmed gaze,-his lingering at the window of his tower, till Phoebus

Had bid farewell to every leaf and flower,—

"The King's Quhair," (i. e. cahier or book.) + Dignity.

+ Liberality.

§ Knowledge and discretion.

then resting his head pensively on the cold stone, and the vision which steals upon his half-waking, half-dreaming fancy, and shadows forth the happy issue of his love,are all conceived in the most lively manner. It is judged from internal evidence, that this poem must have been finished after his marriage, since he intimates that he is blessed in the possession of her he loved, and that the fair vision of his solitary dungeon is realized.

When the King of Scots was released, he wooed and won openly, and as a monarch, the woman he had adored in secret. The marriage was solemnized in 1423, and he carried Lady Jane to Scotland where she was crowned soon after his bride and queen.

How well she merited, and how deeply she repaid the love of her devoted and all-accomplished husband, is told in history. When James was suprised and murdered by some of his factious barons, his queen threw herself between him and the daggers of the assassins, received many of the wounds aimed at his heart, nor could they complete their purpose till they had dragged her by force from his arms. She deserved to be a poet's queen and love! These are the souls, the deeds which inspire poetry, or rather which are themselves poetry, its principle and its essence. It was on this occasion that Catharine Douglas, one of the queen's attendants, thrust her arm into the stanchion of the door to serve the purpose of a bolt, and held it there till the savage assailants forced their way by shattering the frail defence. What times were those!-alas! the love of women, and the barbarity of men!

CHAPTER XI.

LORENZO DE' MEDICI AND

LUCRETIA DONATI.

To Lorenzo de' Medici,-or rather to the pre-eminence his personal qualities, his family possessions, and his unequalled talents, gave him over his countrymen,—some late travellers and politicians have attributed the downfall of the liberties of Florence, and attacked his memory as the precursor of tyrants and the preparer of slaves. It may be so:-yet was it the fault of Lorenzo, if his collateral posterity afterwards became the oppressors of that State of which he was the father and the saviour? And since in this world some must command and some obey, what power is so legitimate as that derived from the influence of superior virtue and talent? from the employ of riches obtained by honourable industry, and expended with princely munificence, and subscribed to by the will and the affections of the people?

But I forget:-these are questions foreign to our subject. Politics I never could understand in my life, and history I have forgotten, or would wish to forget,-perplexed by its conflicting evidence, and shocked by its interminable tissue of horrors. Let others then scale the height while we gather flowers at the foot; let others explore the mazes of the forest; ours be rather

The gay parterre, the checkered shade,

The morning bower, the evening colonnade,
Those soft recesses of uneasy minds,

whence the din of doleful war, the rumour of cruelty and suffering, and all the "fitful stir unprofitable" of the world are shut out, and only the beautiful and good, or the graceful and the gay, are admitted. There have been pens enough, Heaven knows, to chronicle the wrongs, the

crimes, the sorrows of our sex: why should I add an echo to that voice, which from the beginning has cried aloud in the wilderness of this world, upon women betrayed, and betraying in self-defence? A nobler and more grateful task be mine, to show them how much of what is most fair, most excellent, most sublime among the productions of human genius, has been owing to their influence, direct or indirect; and call up the spirits of the dead,—those who from their silent urns still rule the pulses of our hearts -to bear witness to this truth.

It is not, then, Lorenzo the MAGNIFICENT, the statesman, and the chief of a great republic, who finds a place in these pages, but Lorenzo the lover and the poet, round whose memory hover a thousand bright recollections connected with the revival of arts and literature, and the golden age of Italy. Let politicians say what they will, there is a spell of harmony, there is music in his very name! how softly the vowelled syllables drop from the lips-LORENZO DE' MEDICI!-it even looks elegant when written. Yes, there is something in the mere sound of a name. I remember once taking up a book, and a very celebrated book, in which, after turning over some of the pages with pleasure, I came to Peter and Laurence Medecis,-I shut it hastily, as I would have covered my ears to protect them from a sudden discord in music.

Between Petrarch and Lorenzo de' Medici, there occurs not a single great name in Italian poetry. The century seemed to lie fallow, as if preparing for the great birth of various genius which distinguished the succeeding age. The sciences and the classics were chiefly studied, and philosophy and Greek seemed to have banished love and poetry.

In such a state of things, it is rather surprising to find in Lorenzo de' Medici the common case reversed; for by his own confession, it appears that it was not love which made him a poet, but poetry which made him a lover.

Giuliano, the brother of Lorenzo,-he who was afterwards assassinated by the Pazzi, and was so beloved at Florence for his amiable character and personal accomplishments, had been seized with a passion for a lady