[The subsequent history of this unfortunate lady, her marriage with Henry after the divorce of Catharine, the false charges brought against her, her unhappy death under the axe, the reader will remember, along with the legend yet preserved in Epping Forest.] On the morning of the day which was to be her last, Henry went to hunt in that district, and as he breakfasted surrounded by his train and his hounds under a spreading oak which is yet shown, he listened from time to time with a look of intense anxiety; at length the sound of a distant gun boomed through the wood. It was a preconcerted signal, and marked the moment when the execution was completed. "Ah ha, it is done!" said he, starting up; "the business is done; uncouple the dogs, and let us follow the sport." On the succeeding morning he was married to Jane Seymour. MARGARET ROPER. [DIED 1544.] BALLARD. The learned, ingenious, and virtuous daughter of the famous Sir Thomas More, who intended his daughters to be such invaluable wives as he has described: "May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent, nor always prattling nonsense; may she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so. A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best maxims of antiquity. She will be herself in all changes of fortune, neither blown up in prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an ever-cheerful, good-humoured friend, and an agreeable companion for life. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and, from their infancy, train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you may be engaged in, you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own compositions, her voice will soothe you in your solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale. You will spend with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful."