In wandering through the magnificent saloons and long
echoing galleries of the castle, I passed with indifference by whole
rows of portraits of warriors and statesmen, but lingered in the
chamber, where hang the likenesses of the beauties which graced the
gay court of Charles the Second; and as I gazed upon them, depicted
with amorous, half-dishevelled tresses, and the sleepy eye of love,
I blessed the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, which had thus enabled me to
bask in the reflected rays of beauty. In traversing also the "large
green courts," with sunshine beaming on the gray walls, and glancing
along the velvet turf, my mind was engrossed with the image of the
tender, the gallant, but hapless Surrey, and his account of his
loiterings about them in his stripling days, when enamored of the Lady
Geraldine-
"With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower,
With easie sighs, such as men draw in love."
In this mood of mere poetical susceptibility, I visited the ancient
Keep of the Castle, where James the First of Scotland, the pride and
theme of Scottish poets and historians, was for many years of his
youth detained a prisoner of state.
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