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 SIR GEORGE WEBBE DASENT, D.C.L.

presenting to the world a new edition of Sir George Webbe Dasent's Norse Tales a brief memoir of its author will not be deemed out of place.

The Dasent family is believed to have been originally of French extraction, the name having been traced to an ancient Norman source. It has owned property in the West Indies since the Restoration, and is represented in the island of St. Vincent at the present day. Some of its members were amongst the earliest colonists in St. Christopher's at a time when that island and Martinique were held jointly by the French and the English; and the highest judicial and administrative offices in St. Christopher's, in Nevis, in Antigua, and, more recently, in St. Vincent itself were filled by Sir George Dasent's ancestors.

His grandfather was Chief Justice of Nevis when Nelson first served on the West Indian station—so long the battle-ground of England and France for the supremacy of the sea, and the cradle, so to speak, of our naval empire.

His father, John Roche Dasent, son of the Chief