NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE burial of Tennyson in Westminster Abbey on Wednes- day was the occasion for an unexampled exhibition of public regard,—the feeling shown being like that usually re- served for some great statesman or man of action. All classes were represented in the Abbey, and it is only necessary to name the pall-bearers to show how every section of his countrymen desired to do honour to the memory of Tennyson. They were Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, and the Duke of Argyll, repre- senting the statesmen ; Lord Dufferin, the governing English- man beyond the sea (he has held all the great Vice-Regal posts except the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland); Lord Selborne, the legal world ; Lord Kelvin, science ; Sir James Paget, medicine; the Master of Trinity, Cambridge, and the Master of Balliol, the Universities ; Mr. Lecky and Mr. Froude, literature ; and, most striking of all, since he represented a whole people, and not any one section, Mr. White, United States charge d'affaires, who occupied the place of his chief, Mr. Lincoln, now on his way to America. The place chosen for the grave was next that of Browning, and immediately under Chaucer's tomb, and near the bust of Longfellow and the monument of Dryden. The arrangements for the funeral, undertaken by Messrs. Macmillan, were admirably carried out ; but it seems hardly fair that the terrible strain of organising a ceremony so elabo- rate should fall upon private persons. There should be attached to the Abbey an official whose duty it would be to make all the arrangements necessary for the public funerals of great men.
