had departed, his body was taken back to Ayr. The coffin was arranged between two bearing horses, placed one after the other, and followed by relatives and neighbors on horseback, it was carried to Alloway kirkyard. Mrs. Burness outlived her husband thirty-six years, dying in 1820, at the age of eighty-eight.

Three years after the death of his honored father, Burns was a great celebrity in Edinburgh, where he carried everything before him, as we all remember. He was at the house of Dr. Adam Ferguson on one occasion when his attention was attracted by a picture. It was a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side, on the other his widow with a child in her arms. Under this print were six lines of verse, which probably suggested it, and which, with the print itself, affected Burns so that he shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and as none of the elders seemed to know, a lame boy, who was present among the youngsters, whispered the name of the author-Langhorne, to a friend, who mentioned it to the poet. He rewarded the lad with a look and a word of civility which were remembered for years. The name of the lad, who was barely sixteen, and not particularly noticeable, except, perhaps, for the height of his brow, was Walter Scott. He was the son of Mr. Walter Scott, Writer to the Signet, and was apprenticed to his father, though his his mind was devoted to pursuits that did not come within the dry and barren wilderness of forms and conveyances. Of course he had a pedigree. "Every Scottishman has a pedigree. It is a national prerogative, as unalienable as his pride and his poverty." The ancestry of Scott was good. His father was a Writer to the Signet, it is true, but he had only to go back three or four generations, on both sides, when he reached gentle blood, lairds, knights, and the like.

One of his ancestors, Walter Scott, of Harden, commonly called "Auld Watt," was a renowned Border free-booter. His castle was situated on the brink of a dark and precipitous dell, in the recesses of which he kept his spoil. They feasted while it held out, this grim old chieftain and his retainers, and when it was gone were notified of the fact by the production of a pair of clean spurs in an empty dish. Then it was

The wife of this gentleman, who also was a Scott, Mary Scott of Dryhope,-is immortalized in song as the "Flower of Yarrow." Another and later ancestor of Scott bore the surname of Beardie, from his venerable beard, which was kept sacred from the touch of razor or scissors, as a signal of his regret for the banished dynasty of Stuart. There was a poet among those early Scotts, a Captain Walter Scott, of Satchels, who called himself "an old soldier and no scholar," and who, towards the close of the seventeenth century, wrote a book of doggerel verse, wherein he traced the true history of several honorable families of the Right Honorable Name of Scot in the shires of Roxburgh and Selkirk. The object of the worthy gentleman, who had "no estate except his designation," was eleemosynary; he wanted his wealthy relatives to bestow upon him, out of their abundance, and in return for his compliments, some of their broad pieces, and it is to be hoped that they did so. Scott's father was the first of his family who adopted a civil profession. If he had any taste outside of Law it was for Church history, of which he was a voluminous reader. For imaginative writing he cared nothing. He was a well-meaning, kind-hearted, but rather antiquated old Scotch gentleman.

Scott's mother, Anne, was a daughter of Dr. John Rutherford, Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, and it was through her, or rather her mother, who was a Swinton, that he was connected with the Earl of Stirling, the Scottish poet. She had more imagination than her husband, and was fond of poetry and fiction. She encouraged a taste for Literature in Walter, who used to read Shakespeare and the "Arabian Nights" in the family circle in the evening, and charmingly, too, if we may trust the recollection of one who heard him in his sixth year. When he began to write verse, which he did early, she preserved his childish attempts, one of which, written in a weak scrawl, within penciled lines, was found folded up in a cover, and inscribed by her, "My Walter's first lines, 1782."

While young Mr. Walter Scott was limping vigorously along the streets of Edinburgh, there was living at Aberdeen a little lame boy, whose fiery spirit was the greatest elemental force since Shakespeare. He, too, had a pedigree, and when he grew to man's estate was prouder of it than of his genius. His ancestors, the Byrons of

turned to England, where the little lame boy was born. When he was in his second year his mother took him to Aberdeen, whither, at his leisure, his father followed her. They lived together for a short time in Queen Street, and separated amicably, she occupying a lodging at one end of the street, and he occupying a lodging at the other end. They continued to visit each other, and take tea together, like the odd pair they were. When they no longer met they heard from each other, for Captain Byron often used to meet his boy and the nurse in the street. Once he expressed a wish to have the child stay with him a day or two, but Mrs. Byron demurred, until the nurse suggested that if he kept him one night, he would not want him another, when she consented. The woman was right. The tender father had quite enough of his darling, and she was told that she might take him home again. Captain Byron soon returned to England. He made one more visit to Aberdeen, but his wife refused to see him, though she still expressed great affection for him. She inquired about his health and his looks, he no doubt waylaying her servant with this object in view. He had another object, however, and he accomplished it; and that was-more money. He must escape his creditors. She gave him enough to fly to France, where, in Valenciennes, at the age of forty, he was considerate enough to die. When the news of his death reached his widow the poor woman shrieked so that she was heard in the next street.

If Captain Byron had outlived his uncle, he would have been the possessor of Newstead, and the sixth Lord Byron. He died seven years before him, however, leaving the lame little man at Aberdeen to inherit in his stead. Wicked Lord Byron was less considerate than his nephew, for he continued to live, and amuse himself with his crickets. He never communicated with Mrs. Byron, though he knew that her son was his heir, and when he spoke of the latter, which was seldom, it was, as the little boy who lives at Aberdeen." He reached his seventy-sixth year before Death flung wide the doors of Newstead Abbey, and passed out with his burdened soul. A terror fell upon the place; the crickets deserted it the day he died, and in such numbers that the hall could not be crossed without crushing them!

George Gordon Byron, who was then in his eleventh year, was now Lord Byron.

Mrs. Byron sold her furniture, and with the proceeds of the sale, which were less than eighty pounds, started for Newstead, with the young lord and his nurse. When she drew near the Abbey she pretended not to know what it was, and asked a woman at the toll-house to whom it be

longed. She was told that its owner, Lord Byron, had been some months dead. "And who is the next heir?" "They say it is a little boy who lives at Aberdeen." "And this is he, bless him!" cried the nurse, kissing the youngster in her lap.

If Byron's ancestry was a dark one on his father's side, it was an evil one on his mother's, who was an incarnation of all unreason. She was ignorant, she was silly, she was passionate; in her rages she was uncontrollable. She would indulge him to excess one day, and the next he was "a lame brat." When they were on good terms he would call her "Kitty Gordon," and when they were in their theatrical rages he would throw open the door of the drawing-room, and say: "Enter the Honorable Kitty." She was fond of him, in her wild, foolish way, and was generally at war with his guardian and his teacher. He was allowed, while at school, to spend Sunday with her; but that did not satisfy her, for she frequently kept him a week, and would not send him back. When his teacher refused to let him visit her she went to the school, and abused him so loudly that the scholars and the servants could not help hearing her. "Byron, your mother is a fool," said one of his schoolmates. "I know it," he answered, gloomily.

Whether Byron loved his mother may be doubted, but it is certain that he treated her with respect and deference. He repaired Newstead Abbey and placed her in it when he went abroad, and he frequently wrote to her, addressing her as the Honorable Mrs. Byron, a title to which she had no claim. She was proud of his genius, and read with eagerness all that she saw about him in print. When he returned to England after his two years' travel she was anxious to see him. He wrote from his hotel in London that he would soon see her, and in the postscript of his note said: "You will consider Newstead as your house, and not mine, and me only as a visitor." Superstitious at all times, she remarked to her waiting-woman when she read the note: "If I should be dead before Byron comes down what a strange

thing it would be." The strange thing came to pass, and was brought about by a fit of rage into which she was thrown by reading over her upholsterer's bills. Byron received notice of her illness, and started instantly to her, but arrived too late. She had breathed her last. My poor mother died yesterday!" he wrote to his friend Pigot, "and I am on my way from town to attend her to the family vault. I heard one day of her illness, the next of her death. Thank God, her last moments were most tranquil. I am told she was in little pain, and not aware of her situation. I now feel the truth of Mr. Gray's observation, that 'we can only have one mother.'

Byron was deeply touched by his mother's death, and the night after he reached Newstead, was heard by her waiting-woman sighing heavily in the room where her body lay. She entered, and found him sitting in the dark beside the bed. When she expostulated with him on the weak. ness of giving way to grief, he burst into tears, and exclaimed: "Oh! Mrs. By, I

had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!" On the morning of the funeral he would not follow the body to the grave, but stood looking from the Abbey door until the procession had moved off. Then he turned to his man, Rushton, who was the only person remaining, and, asking him to fetch the sparring-gloves, he proceeded to take his usual exercise with him. and abstracted, he threw more violence into his blows than was his habit, as if to get the better of his feelings. At last the struggle was too much for him: he flung away the gloves, and retired to his own room.

Silent

The ancestry of the British authors whom I have been considering was substantially as I have related. They were all men of talents, some were men of genius; this genius, these talents-were they inherited? My readers must judge for themselves; my own opinion is that it was not. I feel sure that the genius was not an inheritance, but, on the contrary, was a divine gift to its possessor, who was the first, and, generally, the last of his race.

OF MARCUS VALERIUS MARTIALIS, the | most prolific, if not the most excellent of epigrammatists, not much is known, save that he was born, of knightly rank, in the ancient kingdom of Aragon in Spain, anno Domini 43; that, on coming of age, he went to Rome; that he was one of the Tribunes under the empire of Titus and Domitian, who held the character and genius of the poet in high esteem; and that, displeased with the government of Trajan and offended by his neglect of literature, he returned to Bibilis, his native town, in his fifty-sixth year; where he soon after married and resided to the time of his death, the date of which is not recorded, though it was certainly not till many years after his marriage.

Like nearly all the eminent satirists, he appears to have been a man of remarkable amiability of character and gentleness of disposition. His wedded life was singularly happy; and, while satirizing women, after the vicious custom of all the Roman bards, was himself the most uxorious of husbands. To the sneering question of Byron,

66

Think you if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?"

Martial (but for the anachronism) would have answered, with perfect simplicity, Why not?" for he devotes many an epigram, some of which are rather tediously eulogistic, to the praise of his "Marcella," who seems, indeed, to have been well worthy of panegyric. We learn from one of his couplets, that the wife was equally opulent in love and money; since Martial praised her, in grateful terms, for having given him a magnificent house and garden, of which he declares Marcella has made him "monarch!" Her good qualities as a companion he extols, with singular terseness and felicity, in the words, Romam tu mihi sola facis!" When his wife was tendering him her condolence on the loss of the elegant and admiring society of the metropolis, the poet answers, “You are my Rome, Marcella!" and hastens to tell the world so in a graceful epigram.

The writings of Martial, now extant, are wholly comprised in fourteen Books of Epigrams-an immense number indeedof which, on account of the obscurity of

some, the indecency of others, and the dullness of many more, only a few of the fifteen hundred are worthy of translation. No criticism can be better than his own in the oft-quoted line in which he says of his epigrams, with equal candor and correctness, that "some are good; many indifferent, and the most worthless."

Of those which are admired for their wit, humor or striking sentiment, and for the terseness and elegance of their expression (a considerable number, altogether), there have been various translations, paraphrases and "imitations" in English verse, by several hands,-May, Wright, Fletcher, Hughes and others, the best, perhaps, being the small number translated by Cowley and Addison.

Of those which appear in this article (now first collected), it is proper to say that they attempt to give the spirit of the original, and generally to preserve the author's point and conciseness of expression, with no pretense to verbal fidelity. The Latin caption of each epigram is retained for the convenience of scholars who may care to make comparison of the English with the Latin text-the omission of which the general and non-classical reader will not regret. wit of Martial, that in reading the epigrams of the Roman poet, those who are versed in humorous and satirical literature, will be reminded, in turn, of nearly all the later epigrammatists: Voltaire, Piron, Lessing, Rogers, Moore, Sidney Smith and many others. Here is a sparkling epigram on maiden manners which might well have been written by Burns or Tom Moore:

So universal was the