when Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement, and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and, that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church service, has promised, upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit.

DEATH OF SIR ROGER

[From "The Spectator," No. 517, Thursday, Oct. 23, 1712]

WE last night received a piece of ill news at our club, which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. Το keep them no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. He departed this life, at his house in the country, after a few weeks' sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his correspondents in those parts, that informs him the old man caught a cold at the county sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an address of his own penning, in which he succeeded according to his wishes. But this particular comes from a Whig justice of peace, who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antagonist. I have letters both from the chaplain and Captain Sentry, which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honor of the good old man. I have likewise a letter from the butler, who took so much care of me last summer, when I was at the knight's house. As my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity of his heart, several circumstances the others have passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy of this letter, without any alteration or diminution :

HONORED SIR, -Knowing that you was my old master's good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news of his death, which has afflicted the whole country as well as his poor servants, who loved him, I

may say better than we did our lives. I am afraid he caught his death at the last county sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighboring gentleman; for you know, my good master was always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made was that he had lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin, which was served up according to custom; and you know he used to take great delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart till the last. Indeed, we were once in great hope of his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his life; but this only proved a lightning before his death. He has bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady his mother. He has bequeathed the fine white gelding, that he used to ride a-hunting upon, to his chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him; and has left you all his books. He has moreover bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement, with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman a black riding hood.

It was a moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, while we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we, most of us, are grown gray-headed in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge; and it is peremptorily said in the parish that he has left money to build a steeple to the church; for he was heard to say, some time ago, that if he lived two years longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells everybody he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without

tears.

He was buried, according to his own directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his father, Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum. The whole parish followed the corpse, with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits; the men in frieze, and the women in riding hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the Hall house and the whole estate. When my old master saw him a little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies and

the gifts of charity, which he told him he had left as quitrents upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and shows great kindness to the old house dog that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire.

This is all from, honored sir, your most sorrowful servant.

EDWARD BISCUIT.

P.S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book, which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name.

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found it to be a collection of Acts of Parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's writing, burst into tears, and put the book in his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club.

CHAPTER XIX

LORD BYRON, 1788-1824

"Byron's poetry is great-great, it makes him truly great; he has not so much greatness in himself."-CAMPBELL.

"The popularity of Byron, take it for all in all, was probably the most splendid that ever poet was applauded and flattered with. His song had larger audience over the earth; and on that audience it exerted an unwonted fascination, swaying the feelings of multitudes, and making its words and music familiar on their lips." - HENRY REED.

LORD BYRON was born in London in 1788, and was the son of John Byron-a disreputable captain in the Guards - and Catherine Gordon, an Aberdeenshire heiress. The reckless captain soon spent his wife's fortune, and then left her and her son, the future poet, to get on as best they might. After some years of genteel poverty spent in Aberdeen, Byron, by the death of his granduncle, became a lord, and heir to Newstead Abbey. He was now sent to Harrow, and afterward to Cambridge, where he broke the rules of the university and neglected his proper studies.

In 1807, and while he was still at Cambridge, he issued a volume of poems entitled "Hours of Idleness," which was very severely dealt with by the "Edinburgh Review." This roused his wrath; and in revenge he wrote "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," a satire, in which he not only lashed his reviewer, but also most of the notable

authors of the day men who had never harmed him. After a short time, he felt ashamed of himself, and tried, though in vain, to suppress the poem. At the age of twenty-one he visited Spain, Greece, and Turkey, and produced the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," which took the public by storm; and Byron was at once declared to be a prince among the poets. On his return to London

LORD BYRON

he was rapturously received, and almost worshiped by his enthusiastic admirers. This was in 1812; and during the following three years he wrote "The Giaour," "Bride of Abydos," "Corsair," and "Lara," narrative poems, describing the scenery of modern Greece, and the manners and passions of the people.

In 1815 he married Miss Milbanke, from whom he parted a year afterward, the real cause of the separation being even now a mystery. The public of that day took it for granted that he had been cruel to her, and condemned him as heartily as once they had applauded him. Abandoned by his wife, and detested by his countrymen, he left England, never more to return. He spent his time in traveling about from place to place, living a dissolute life, and occasionally sending home for publication the remaining cantos of "Childe Harold," and other poems. "Childe Harold" is comparatively free from the grave faults that belong to Byron's poems in general. In many respects