ramatist who marks a period and exalts a people. To pass down in
history as an exceptional beauty is to inspire art ideals and to
furnish a theme for the lyricist. Frailty is often found united with
such exceptional beauty, so is it with exceptional genius; alas! that
predominating gifts should be so often inimical to balance. To find
such beauty in the way of virtue is as grateful as to find an orchid
exhaling perfume.

In the tales of fair women, the Fair Geraldine, who was born in the
first half of the sixteenth century, must always be celebrated, not
only as a typical Irish beauty, but as a woman whose virtues were of
a similar order to her physical charms. She was the second daughter
of the Earl of Kildare by his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Grey, and
inherited from both sides of this union, which was most auspicious,
the high breeding and gentle graces which fitted well her gracious
carriage and great beauty and served, by enhancing her physical
charms, to attract to her a wide circle of friends and to secure for
her the knightly attendance of a band of distinguished suitors. She
was taken to England to be educated, and at court received the polish
which perfected the jewel of her beauty. She made her home with a
second cousin of her mother, Lady Mary, who was afterward England's
queen. While quite young she was appointed maid of honor to her
kinswoman. Already her charms had ripened to the point of eliciting
from the poet, soldier, and politician, Henry, Earl of Surrey, the
high praise of the following sonnet:

"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race,
Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat.
The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Cambor's cliffs, did give her lively heat.
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast;
Her sire an Earl, her dame of Princes' blood,
From tender years in Britain doth she rest,
With King's child; where she tasteth costly food.
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyes;
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.
Hampton me taught to wish her first as mine,
And Windsor, alas! doth chase her from my sight.
Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above,
Happy is he that can attain her love."

The noble earl who lamented that Windsor chased her from his sight
was suffering incarceration in Windsor Castle for eating meat in Lent.
That the Fair Geraldine had made full conquest of his heart is shown
by his conduct at a tournament a