dow 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 by 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 dungeon, 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

*

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

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; her graceful damsels who followed at a respectful distance; and her little dog gambolling round 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,† and cunning + sure:

*

Liberality.

+ Dignity.

Knowledge and discretion.

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,

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 realised.

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 surprised 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 Catherine 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 preeminence 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