NEWS OF THE WEEK.
-E NGLAND is the poorer this week by a great poet. On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Matthew Arnold was in Liver- pool, walking with his wife towards the landing-stage, where he expected his daughter to disembark from the Aurania.' He was in full health and spirits, and on the previous two days had been unusually buoyant, even, perhaps, a little "fey,"—too full of boyish energy for his years. Suddenly he fell forward, and in a few minutes, while being carried to a doctor's house, he died. He had long known that his heart was unsound; but his per- manent danger affected his energy as little as his genial temper, and he died with unclouded brain and undiminished powers. Best so for him, though not for those who survive, or for those who mourn him, which includes every man of cultivation who speaks English. We have said enough of his genius elsewhere, and have only to add here that there has scarcely lived a man better loved by his own, or more tenderly regarded by his friends. He ought to have lain in Westminster Abbey ; but it was his own wish to rest, like his father, in Laleham Church- yard, and there on Thursday he was buried. The Times com- plains that he was not honoured by the nation, and if it means that his work was ill-rewarded, it has reason ; but for us he was the poet ; and as poet it is enough to have been Matthew Arnold, and so be secure of earthly immortality.
