Volume I Part 12 (1/2)
She was born and nurtured in Ireland--
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast.
Her father was the Earl of Kildare, her mother allied to the blood royal.
Her sire an Earl, her dame of Prince's blood.
She was brought up (through motives of compa.s.sion, after the misfortunes of her family,) at Hunsdon, with the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, where Surrey, who frequently visited them in company with the young Duke of Richmond,[65] first beheld her.
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyes.
She was then extremely young, not above fourteen or fifteen, as it appears from comparative dates; and Surrey says very clearly,
She wanted years to understand The grief that he did feel.
But even then her budding charms made him confess as he beautifully expresses it--
How soon a look can print a thought That never may remove!
It was during the festivals held at Hampton Court, whither she accompanied the Princesses, that her conquest was completed; and Surrey being afterwards confined at Windsor,[66] was deprived of her society.
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight; Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine, Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight.
Hampton Court was the scene of their frequent interviews. Surrey mentions a certain recessed or bow window, in which, retired apart from the gay throng around them, they held ”converse sweet.” Here she gave him, as it seems, some encouragement; too proud of such a distinguished suitor to let him escape. He in the same moment confesses himself a very slave, and betrays an indignant consciousness of the arts by which she keeps him entangled in her chain.
In silence tho' I keep to such secrets myself, Yet do I see how she sometime, doth yield a look by stealth; As tho' it seemed, I wis,--”I will not lose thee so!”
When in her heart so sweet a thought did never truly grow.
He accuses her expressly of a love of general admiration, and of giving her countenance and favour to unworthy rivals. In ”The Warning to a Lover how he is abused by his Love,” he thus addresses himself as the deceived lover:--
Where thou hast loved so long, with heart and all thy power, I see thee fed with feigned words, &c.
I see her pleasant cheer in chiefest of thy suit: When thou art gone, I see him come who gathers up the fruit; And eke in thy respect, I see the base degree Of him to whom she gives the heart, that promised was to thee![67]
The fair Geraldine must have been a practised coquette to have sat for a picture so finished and so strongly marked: yet before we blame her for this disdainful trifling, it should be remembered that Lord Surrey, at the time he was wooing her with ”musicke vows,” was either married or contracted to another,[68]--a circ.u.mstance quite in keeping with the fas.h.i.+onable system of Platonic gallantry introduced from Italy--
O Plato! Plato! you have been the cause, &c.
and so forth. I forbear to continue the apostrophe.
According to the old tradition, repeated by all Surrey's biographers, he visited on his travels the famous necromancer Cornelius Agrippa, who in a magic mirror revealed to him the fair figure of his Geraldine, lying dishevelled on a couch, and, by the light of a taper, reading one of his tenderest sonnets.
Fair all the pageant, but how pa.s.sing fair The slender form that lay on couch of Ind!
O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair, Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined.
All in her night-robe loose, she lay reclined, And pensive read from tablet eburnine, Some strain that seemed her inmost soul to find;-- That favoured strain was Surrey's raptured line, That fair and lovely form, the Lady Geraldine![69]
This beautiful incident is too celebrated, too touching, not to be one of the articles of our poetical faith. It was believed by Surrey's contemporaries, and in the age immediately following was gravely related by a grave historian. It shows at least the celebrity which his poetry, unequalled at that time, had given to his love, and the object of it. In fact, when divested of the antique spelling, which, at the first glance, revolts by the impression it gives of difficulty and obscurity, some of the lyrics of Surrey have not since been surpa.s.sed either in elegance of sentiment, or flowing grace of expression:--for example--
A Praise of his Love, wherein he reproveth them that compare their Ladies with his.
Give place ye lovers here before, That spent your boastes and braggs in vain, My ladye's beauty pa.s.seth more The best of yours, I dare well sayne, Then doth the sun the candle light, Or brightest day the darkest night.