BLAKE. Mrs. Mary Elizabeth, poet, born in Dungarven, county Waterford, Ireland, 1st September, 1840. Her father's name was McGrath, a man of wide reading and much originality of thought. When Mary was six years old, the family came to America, settling in Quincy, Mass. Her education was acquired in the public and private schools of Boston and the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Manhattanville, N. Y. In June, 1865, she was married to Dr. John G. Blake, who has long held a prominent position among Massachusetts medical men. Up to the present time she has published the following works: "Poems" (Boston, 1881), which has passed to a second edition; "On the Wing" (Boston, 1883), a volume of letters of western travel, in its fifth edition; "Mexico" (Boston, 188S), a volume of travel, written in collaboration with Mrs. Margaret Sullivan; "A Summer Holiday" (Boston, 1890), an account of her European impressions; and "Verses Along the Way" (Boston and Dublin, 1890). Mrs. Blake has for many years contributed at frequent intervals to the Boston "Journal," the "Rambling Talks " by " M. E. B." being one of its most valued features. Much of her work in essays and poems has appeared in the "Catholic World," " Lippincott's Magazine," the "Independent," "St. Nicholas" and "Wide Awake." On the invitation of the Boston city government she wrote the poem read on the occasion of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Service in that city, and also the poem read on the occasion of similar honors paid to the memory of Admiral Porter Mrs. Blake's verse is lyrical rather than epic or dramatic, and its quality deepens and strengthens as time goes on.