ABSTRACT
Balzani died at Rome on July 3, after a long illness. The only and motherless daughter of Dr. Simon, a philosophical student all his life, she early shared her father's wanderings through the university towns of Europe, thus widening the circle of her knowledge and interests, and increasing the number of her friends. In the winter of 1869 she was in Edinburgh with her father, during the second bi.:lssion of the Women's University Classes, and then attended the class of Prof. Fraser on Mental Philosophy. She started in her own rooms, the afternoon teas to the professor and working students, which did so much tostimlliate thought and friendship in these early days, when Elizabeth HamiltoIl', daughter of Sir William Hamilton, of logical fame, was a student, and the daughter
of Ferrier of St. Andrew's, was the wife of the principal of Edinburgh University. Dr. Simon had offered a prize of £100 for any undergraduate of any university who could give a reasoned answer to Berkeley's" Theory of Matter," and at one of these afternoons it was agreed that the Edinburgh womenstudents could be eligible, and she laughingly said she hoped to keep the prize in the family. Augusta Simon, besides a mind prepared to look on the philosophical aspects of life, which made her old beyond her years, had a keen sense of humour. She carefully treasured the bons mots from the examination papers of plucked candidates in her various places of residence, for the richness of which she gave the palm to Cambridge. Her early poems were full of great promise, but her devotion to her. father prevented her developing her own powers to the full. When she married Count U go Balzani, the well known historian, she went to live in Rome, and she became 8: centre of attraction in Italian as well as English circles there. She travelled much meantime with her husband in search of historical MSS., and translated her husband's history of "The Popes and the Hohenstaufen" into English, 1889. She helped forward many movements of -social and philanthrophic interest, and she is greatly mourned, not only by her husband and daughters, but by a wide circle of friends attracted by the subtle charm of her ~efined nature and inspiring personality.
