the first great grief at the loss of thee, have been kept; bit by bit the good resolutions have been abandoned, and yet! - and yet! On these Christmas Days, especially, has memory peculiar powers of revocation, and the dead live again in recollection more vividly than at other seasons. I see that the Cemetery has had many visitants this day: many of the tombs bear immortelles, or branches of evergreen, or little bouquets of flowers; and on one, the grave-stone of a child, I see a very beautiful little holly cross.

There are fewer gapers than usual: most of those persons I meet are either dressed in mourning or have an earnest decent expression, showing that their visit there was not without an object. How I hate your cemetery visitors on a Sunday afternoon; your gaping, lolling, mooning boys and girls; your drivelling, open mouthed, middle-aged drearies, who 'jist walk up to the Simmintry afore tea!' and who may be heard bawling to each other, 'Look 'ere, J'mima; ere's a byewtiful one!' or 'Ain't this a hugly toom, Jane?' and who are always mysteriously inquisitive about the 'Cattykooms.' Very lovely the Cemetery looks as I leave it, with its thousands of gravestones like a flock of sheep on the side of the green hill-leave it with the strange thought that one day I shall visit it-to leave it no more.

My companions await me at the far gate, and together we trudge through Highgate-a dull, dreary, little hamlet, too big for a village, too small for a town-a place which the march of intellect has left behind, and which has not strength of mind enough to take up the running. Grass grows between the paving-flags, and commerce is at a standstill. There is a sufficiency of taverns, but they are small and of the beerhouse order, and, like all other houses, are now tightly closed. I, who have known Highgate any time this quarter of a century, having been birched and bred' there, don't see any difference in the place, which appeared to me to be in its normal state of solemn stupidity; but my companions are highly

disgusted with Highgate, and want to know If there's nothing to do, or nothing to see?' Do? well, they can be sworn on the horns, if they like, all the rubbish about not drinking small beer when you can get strong; or not kissing the maid when you can get the mistress-always unless you like the small beer and the maid best; but that would involve standing unlimited beer to numerous pot-wallopers, and would be a dull proceeding after all. See? well, I don't know-yes! by Jove!-THE ARCHWAY! Up this lane to the left, past these half-buried houses standing in their trim gardens, shaded by big trees, and looking almost ancestral, though doubtless let on a term of seven, fourteen, &c., to London tradespeople, and now we are at the Archway itself.

A big stone viaduct, with broad balustrades and coping stones, stretching across the great North Road. Looking north we see the broad white turnpike road stretching away towards Barnet and St. Albans, a road traversed thirty years ago by upwards of eighty four-horse coaches coaches which employed ostlers, and stablemen, and helpers, which set down thirsty and hungry travellers at hundreds of wayside inns between London and York, and which have long since been broken up in coachmakers' yards, and had their wheels rent from their bodies and patched on to other vehicles, while the bodies have formed hidingplaces for the village children, and have had imaginary horses attached to them by the cocks of many village schools. Ay, the glory of the North Road is gone for ever. Droves of parched cattle and smoking sheep, a few carriers' waggons, and the lumbering carts of the brick-field bordering the road are all that it sees now, save when some of the stockbrokering gents and Mincing Lane princes, resident at Muswell Hill, come dashing down it in their dogcarts and mail-phaetons, as a near cut to town. Now turn we the other way, and look at the dim, great giant London, sleeping in the distance. Now close below us lies Holloway, with Dick Whittington's stone, where the runaway 'prentice

WIT

ITH many more-some his personal friends, some his literary associates, and others who knew him only through his works

I was an unbidden mourner at Thackeray's funeral. The day and hour appointed for the burial were announced in all the papers; and this seemed to me to be a general invitation to all who loved him and held him in respect. I was glad to think that there would be no impertinence in my going to pay a last tribute of respect to a great man, who, unknown to all the world but myself, had been to me in bygone days a kind friend-those trying days before I had made my mark on the World of London.' It seems but yesterday that I stood hesitating at Thackeray's door with a longkept letter of introduction in my hand. I had possessed that letter for years, but had never presented it. And even now that I was at the door my courage failed me. What pretence had 1 for intruding myself upon his notice? I was but a poor scribbler, and no doubt there were scores of them pestering him. The audacity of my conduct appeared all the greater when I remembered that I had come with a manuscript in my pocket, and that it was my intention to ask him to read it and give his opinion upon it. If the door-bell had not rung readily when I gently pulled the handle, I am sure I should have turned and run away, as Rogers did, frightened by his own knock at the door of Doctor Johnson, or at least wheeled round like De Quincey when on his first pilgrimage to the home of Wordsworth. But now the bell was rung, and there was no retreating. A man-servant speedily answered the summons, and took away my last chance by owning that Mr. Thackeray was at home. The servant took my letter and went upstairs, leaving me to wait in the hall. Two objects that I saw there remain to this hour indelibly impressed upon my mind's eye. I can see them before me now, and if I were an artist I could draw them

accurately. They were a hat and a pair of cloth gloves-Thackeray's hat and gloves. It was just such a hat, and they were just such gloves as I should have expected Thackeray to wear; not dandified things, but the hat and gloves of a man who bestowed little thought upon such matters, and who probably would not find out that they were old and worn until some one told him it was time to get new ones. I remember that the hat, which seemed a very large one, had a deep band of black cloth upon it, and the gloves were also black. I dare say the smart young porter who had just gone upstairs with my letter thought that hat and those gloves common, shabby things enough: but to me they were more than mere hat and gloves, for I had never seen their owner, and I was picturing the man from what he

wore.

The servant came down presently and asked me to step upstairs. I followed him nervously, and was introduced into a large, comfortably furnished study. Thackeray was seated at one of the windows with his back towards me, absorbed in work. He did not notice my entrance for a minute or so, and seemed to be finishing a sentencea sentence perhaps of the next number of the Virginians,' to which I looked forward with so much interest. At last he turned round in his chair, and with a pleasant smile said

'Good morning, Mr. -; but I must tell you candidly that I can't make out the signature attached to this letter.'

I mentioned the name, and he recognized it at once, and held out his hand to me, but still apparently going on with his work.

I am very busy this morning, making up for lost time; but come to the fire, and I'll talk to you. Take a seat.'

I went up beside him, and saw him at his work. The table was covered, not with books and papers as I had imagined, but with pencils and compasses, and bits of chalk

and India ink, and little square blocks of box-wood. He was drawing, not writing, and he was engaged at this moment upon an initial letter, which I recognized next month in print. I noticed now that there were no signs of the author about the room-no blotting-pads, inkstands, or pens-only the appliances of the draughtsman. Going on with his work, he asked me many questions, and chatted about books and drawings more about drawings than books; and I was agreeably surprised and considerably set at my ease by his mentioning a little book of my own writing-a trifling thing which it did not seem probable he should have seen or heard of. He asked me if I had done the drawings for it. I said 'No,' and mentioned the name of the artist. After some more pleasant chat of the same kind, still going on with his drawing, he suddenly put down his pencil, and turning round in his chair, said

'Well; and how can I be of any service to you?'

I was now quite at my ease with him, and freely explained what particular views I had, and produced the manuscript. He took it from me, glanced at the title, read a few lines apparently with attention, and then said hurriedly

'I like your subject, and I like your first sentence. I will read the paper, and if I can forward your views I will.'

I thanked him, and bade him good morning, and he rose and offered me his hand, as if I had been an old friend. Within a month from that day the object at which I aimed was accomplished through his recommendation and kind offices; and the good news was conveyed to me in a hearty, generous letter written with his own hand. Through that kindly lift I speedily found myself several steps higher on the hill of Parnassus. But I had then no more claim to that helping hand than any unknown aspirant who may be at this moment walking up to London to find a market for a book or a play.

With the remembrance of this generous act, and the pleasant cir

cumstances attending it deeply impressed upon my heart, I felt that I had some claim to mourn for Thackeray as for a friend. So on that December morning when he was borne to his last home, I wended my way towards Kensal Green.

I took the train at a suburban station to reach Harlesden, and was much struck to find nearly every person on the platform-and there were many of both sexes-dressed in mourning. I could not, of course, conceive that they were all going upon the same mournful errand as myself. But on the arrival of the train at Harlesden this proved to be the case. Nearly all the passengers got out and struck across the fields towards the cemetery. It was known even in those quiet rural lanes that a great man was going to his rest that day; and a labourer whom we met going to his work, told us that the funeral had arrived at the gates, and that they were taking the body up to the chapel.

'You must make haste,' he said, 'if you want to see him buried.'

There was no difficulty in finding the grave. A dense black crowd disposed round about it waiting for the procession to return from the chapel, unmistakably marked the spot. Otherwise we could not have expected to find it in that obscure corner where thickly-laid slabs and head-stones recorded common names. By-and-by there was a movement about the portico of the chapel, and the hearse was seen slowly to emerge from under it. It was a common hearse-one of those plain, dull, black-painted boxes upon wheels that we see every day in the streets --without feathers or ornament of any kind, and drawn by only two horses. Perhaps this was as Thackeray would have wished it. Still, it struck those whose minds were dwelling upon his world-wide fame as strange. Some of us had stood a few months gone in Westminster Abbey, when the body of the veteran Clyde was carried past amid the boom of cannon, the solemn pealing of the organ, and the swelling voices of the choristers. Was the apostle of pleasant fancies and civilizing

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, renowing 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 cach 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,
Lying beneath the grey stone:"
Where shall you find such a one ?

X.