thoughts less noble than the martial conqueror and hero? I do not know that we could have wished for anything better than that plain sombre cortége; yet it was strange. The hearse came down slowly followed by two or three carriages, and the mourners, bidden and unbidden, straggled after it by different paths in saddened and dejected groups. Conspicuous among those who came side by side with the hearse marched Thackeray's literary compeer, Dickens, erect and grave, and in his aspect defiant-the defiance of the deep thought that had fathomed all, and was ready to meet the end, come when it might; Cruikshank, bearing his age bravely but calmly, and seared to Death's inexorable routine; Millais, like a young Evangel, with placid all-believing eyes; the gentle Louis Blanc; the members of the 'Punch' staff with Mark Lemon at their head, renewing his literary youth while the last scene of all is closing upon his veteran associate-Leech and Tenniel, whose magic skill Thackeray admired and envied more than the highest art in all the wide field of letters-many more of the young and rising, with name and fame yet to come; and with all these a great crowd of strangers who had never known him save in spirit, and who saw him now for the first time and the last-coffined and cold.' When the coffin was brought forth, borne on the shoulders of eight strong men who staggered under its weight, the strangers knew that he had been a giant in body as well as in mind. Little more than a week before many here had seen that massive form in the London streets, towering above the common crowd, and challenging the admiring eyes of all who knew the fine grey head. And the whisper would pass from one to another, 'There goes Thackeray?' And now again that whisper passes among us, but in other phrase; for Thackeray is going from our sight for ever. To the last solemn words of the burial service the great coffin is lowered into the vault, and ashes are cast upon ashes, dust upon dust. The cere mony is cruelly short and summary, as if the grave were impatient and hungry for its prey. There remains nothing for us now but to take a last look into the vault. One by one the mourners come forward, elbowing their way through the crowd. Among the first to approach are two fair young ladies in the deepest mourning. They stand side by side, pale and motionless as statues, and look down with a grief in their sad calm eyes which is past tears. No one asks who they are, for all instinctively know that they are those whom he loved best. Then come other relatives and friends, and among them Alboni, the great singer, grown so old, and so sad and sorrowful now. And one by one we pass along the side of the grave, reverently uncovering our heads, and taking a last look through eyes dim with tears. I could have been angry with that prosaic policeman who stood at the grave's head and marshalled us, as if we had been crushing to a show; but I thought of him who lay there, and how at my funeral or yours he would have marked that policeman for his own, and made him immortal. Now, don't be in a hurry,' said this intelligent officer; 'follow each other to the right, and you will all see comfortably.' How Thackeray would have laughed if he could have known that policeman who would make a show of him! The policeman, therefore, did not vex me, as he might have vexed others who did not think of this. And so Thackeray was buried on a bright December day; and as I passed by the side of his grave and looked down, the sunbeams were playing upon the coffin-plate, making a halo of glory round his name. And by-and-by on returning to the spot when the crowd had dispersed, I found the vault covered with a great grey slab, and methought I saw upon it the epitaph which he himself wrote Heu! nunc sub fossa sunt tanti militis ossa.' Now he is buried and gone, |