The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the

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WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 431
his old friend Mr. Charles Villiers and Earl Gran-
ville. His native town sent its Mayor and a depu-
tation of citizens, while his county was represented
by its Lord-Lieutenant. The presence of the venerable
Astronomer- Royal, for whom the dead man had
long entertained a feeling of high regard, reminded
those who had known him how he had always spoken
of astronomy as " my favourite science."
There came into my mind the words in which
Edmund Burke told of the funeral of our great
English painter :
" Everything, I think, was just as
our deceased friend would, if living,
have wished it
to be ; for he was, as you know, not altogether in-
different to this kind of observances." The solemn,
glorious, and beautiful scene does not easily lend itself
to the poor words of mine. Yet I would willingly let
those who are to come after us know something of
that which was felt by more than one on this day that
was so great in our house. One who was present among
"
the mourners writes to me : It was not a state ceremonial,
it was a people's payment of honour. There
was not grief; but there was a solemn sense of recognition
of a great deed. As I saw from the window of
the Jerusalem Chamber the approach of the hearse, and
'
heard,' if one may say so, the sudden hush, the one
feeling was not grief, or that the country had sustained
a loss, as when Macaulay was buried with his work
half done, but that the crown was being put on a
noble career. Sir Rowland, in his be making a triumphal progress.
coffin, seemed to
What struck me
most was, if you will put a kind construction on the
first part of the antithesis, this absence of sorrow, this
presence
of reverence." From another account that
was written down at the time I take the following :
" There were few touches of solemnity or mortality