The Earl of Surrey was beheaded in 1547. The fair Geraldine was living forty years afterwards: she survived for a short time her second 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.[74] FOOTNOTES: [63] "Those bears of English--those barbarous islanders," are common phrases in the Italian writers of that age. [64] 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. [65] Natural brother of the princesses: he was the son of Henry VIII. by Lady Talbot. [66] He was imprisoned for eating meat in Lent. [67] Lady Frances Vere. [68] Surrey's Works: Nott's Edit. 4to. [69] Lay of the Last Minstrel. [70] Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, vol. i. [71] Holinshed. [72] See Nott's edition of Surrey's Works. [73] She was the second wife of Sir Anthony Browne, and the third wife of the Earl of Lincoln, ancestor to the Duke of Newcastle. [74] 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.