ins_
bears (in her handwriting) the date 1820, with her name as Meta Scott; a
form of her own Christian name which she probably adopted in honour of
Margaretta--or Meta--Klopstock, and by which she was well known to
friends of her youth.

She often told us, too, of the origin of another of her accomplishments.
She was an exquisite caligraphist. Not only did she write the most
beautiful and legible of handwritings, but, long before illuminating was
"fashionable," she illuminated on vellum; not by filling up printed
texts or copying ornamental letters from handbooks of the art, but in
valiant emulation of ancient MSS.; designing her own initial letters,
with all varieties of characters, with "strawberry" borders, and gold
raised and burnished as in the old models. I do not know when she first
saw specimens of the old illuminations, for which she had always the
deepest admiration, but it was in a Dante fever that she had resolved to
write beautifully, because fine penmanship had been among the
accomplishments of the great Italian poet. How well she succeeded her
friends and her printers knew to their comfort! To Dante she dedicated
some of her best efforts in this art. In 1826, when she was seventeen,
she began to translate the _Inferno_ into English verse. She made fair
copies of each canto in exquisite writing, and dedicated them to various
friends on covers which she illuminated. The most highly-finished was
that dedicated to an old friend, Lord Tyrconnel, and the only plain one
was the one dedicated to another friend, Sir Thomas Lawrence. The
dedication was written in fine long characters, but there was no
painting on the cover of the canto dedicated to the painter.

I do not know at what date my mother began to etch on copper. It was a
very favourite pursuit through many years of her life, both before and
after her marriage. She never sketched much in colour, but her
pencil-drawings are amongst the most valuable legacies she has left us.
Trees were her favourite subjects. One of her most beautiful drawings in
my possession is of a tree, marked to fall, beneath which she wrote:

"Das ist das Loos des Schoenen auf der Erde."[2]

Of another talent nothing now remains to us but her old music-books and
memories of long evenings when she played Weber and Mozart.

But to a large circle of friends, most of whom have gone before her, she
was best known as a naturalist in the special department of phycology.
She has le