musical dramas and masques which "so did take Eliza and our James.' Between the years 1568 and 1666 ten Laniers flourished in England, enjoying the favor of four consecutive English monarchs.

Nicholas Lanier, son of Jerome, received, as painter, engraver, "master of the king's music," and diplomatist, the encouragement of James I. and the friendship of Charles I. During the reign of James I. he set to music two of Ben Jonson's masques, "The Vision of Delight," and the "Masque of Lethe;" and in the time of Charles I. his name is associated with that of Henry Lawes, the composer of the songs for Milton's "Comus." This Nicholas was a friend of Van Dyck, who painted his portrait. His son, also named Nicholas, was much in favor with Charles II. He too was a lover of pictures, as was his father and an Uncle Jerome, who had a fine collection at Greenwich, the home of

the Laniers for several generations. But he was still more interested in music, and, uniting with a number of other persons, including four additional Laniers, he obtained the renewal of a charter for the Society of Musicians, in which he was appointed First Marshal or President for life, with the determination to "exert their authority for the improvement of the science and the interest of its professors." One of the other four was John Lanier, very likely father of the Sir John Lanier who fought as major general at the battle of the Boyne, and fell gloriously at Steinkirk, along with the brave Douglas.

The first Lanier to come to America was Thomas, in 1716, who settled with other colonists on a grant of land ten miles square, which included the site of the present city of Richmond, Va. A descendant of his by the same name married an aunt of George Washington, and

the family furnished many honored citizens to the colony and the state. "Again and again the strain of artist's blood has shown itself among them." At present the name is very common in the South.

It is not stated when Sidney's grandfather moved to Georgia, but his father, Mr. Robert S. Lanier, was born there, and after receiving a fair education at a manual labor school, and later at Randolph-Macon College, in Virginia, he became a lawyer, married Miss Mary J. Anderson, of Virginia, whose family supplied members of the House of Burgesses in more than one generation and was gifted in poetry, music, and oratory, and returned to his native state to begin the practice of his profession. He possessed a taste for reading, and accumulated miscellaneous books faster than clients. But his wife's Scotch thrift and his own industry enabled them to live comfortably, if narrowly.

Their first child was born February 3, 1842, on High Street, in Macon, Ga., and named Sidney. Another son, Clifford, and a daughter completed the number. The house stands now nearly as then, on a commanding ridge from which the ground falls rapidly away in three directions, affording many picturesque views from its windows. Near by were happy hunting grounds where the two brothersloving and inseparable companions from childhood-sought hickory nuts, scaly barks, and haw apples, or hunted doves, blackbirds, robins, plover, snipe, squirrels, and rabbits, according to season and inclination. In such excursions, though Sidney's tastes often pronounced in favor of quiet angling for fish in the placid Ocmulgee, he doubtless imbibed the Wordsworthian love of natural things which has found intense expression in many of his latest poems.

His fondness for reading showed itself early, and much of his playtime was spent in the office of his father, adjoining the house, where the family library was kept. But, even at this early age, his passion was music. When he was only a few years old Santa Claus brought him a small, yellow, one-keyed, flageoletlike flute, on which simple instrument he would practice with the passion of a virtuoso. Still earlier he had displayed aptitude for music by beating on the bones (such as negro minstrels use) jigs, strathspeys, and dance tunes in accompaniment to the piano playing of his mother. He never received any musical instruction beyond the teaching of the notes to him by his mother, yet at an early age he could play on almost any instrumentflute, piano, guitar, banjo, violin, He says in organ, etc. a letter:

"I could play passably well on several instruments before I could write