[Footnote 15:  In many instances the mothers of illustrious poets have had reason to be proud no less of the affection than of the glory of their sons; and Tasso, Pope, Gray, and Cowper, are among these memorable examples of filial tenderness.  In the lesser poems of Tasso, there are few things so beautiful as his description, in the Canzone to the Metauro, of his first parting with his mother:—­

    “Me dal sen della madre empia fortuna
    Pargoletto divelse,” &c.
]

[Footnote 16:  Napoleon.]

[Footnote 17:  In a letter, written between two and three months after his mother’s death, he states no less a number than six persons, all friends or relatives, who had been snatched away from him by death between May and the end of August.]

[Footnote 18:  In continuation of the note quoted in the text, he says of Matthews—­“His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired.”  One of the candidates, thus described, was Mr. Thomas Barnes, a gentleman whose career since has kept fully the promise of his youth, though, from the nature of the channels through which his literary labours have been directed, his great talents are far more extensively known than his name.]

[Footnote 19:  It had been the intention of Mr. Matthews to offer himself, at the ensuing election, for the university.  In reference to this purpose, a manuscript Memoir of him, now lying before me, says—­“If acknowledged and successful talents—­if principles of the strictest honour—­if the devotion of many friends could have secured the success of an ‘independent pauper’ (as he jocularly called himself in a letter on the subject), the vision would have been realised.”]

* * * * *

Of this remarkable young man, Charles Skinner Matthews[20], I have already had occasion to speak; but the high station which he held in Lord Byron’s affection and admiration may justify a somewhat ampler tribute to his memory.

There have seldom, perhaps, started together in life so many youths of high promise and hope as were to be found among the society of which Lord Byron formed a part at Cambridge.  Of some of these, the names have since eminently distinguished themselves in the world, as the mere mention of Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. William Bankes is sufficient to testify; while in the instance of another of this lively circle, Mr. Scrope Davies[21], the only regret of his friends is, that the social wit of which he is such a master should in the memories of his hearers alone be like to leave any record of its brilliancy.  Among all these young men of learning and talent, (including Byron himself, whose genius was, however, as yet, “an undiscovered world,”) the superiority, in almost every department of intellect, seems to