CHARLES DICKENS, BORN FEBRUARY THE SEVENTH, 1812. DIED JUNE THE NINTH, 1870. We recall with profoundly sympathetic interest that quietly impressive ceremony as recorded by Forster in the final pages of his able biography. "Before mid-day on Tuesday, the 14th June, 1870, with knowledge of those only who took part in the burial, all was done. The solemnity had not lost by the simplicity. Nothing so grand or so touching could have accompanied it, as the stillness and the silence of the vast Cathedral." And he further describes the wonderful gathering subsequently:--"Then later in the day, and all the following day, came unbidden mourners in such crowds that the Dean had to request permission to keep open the grave until Thursday; but after it was closed they did not cease to come, and all day long." Dean Stanley wrote:--"On the 17th there was a constant pressure to the spot, and many flowers were strewn upon it by unknown hands, many tears shed from unknown eyes." What poet, what philosopher, what monarch even, might not envy this loving tribute to the influence of the great writer, to the personal respect for the man, and to the affection for the friend who, by the sterling nature of his work for nearly thirty-five years, had the power to create and sustain such sympathy? Forster thus admiringly concludes the memoir of his hero: "The highest associations of both the arts he loved surround him where he lies. Next to him is Richard Cumberland. Mrs. Pritchard's monument looks down upon him, and immediately behind is David Garrick's. Nor is the actor's delightful art more worthily represented than the nobler genius of the author. Facing the grave, and on its left and right, are the monuments of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dryden, the three immortals who did most to create and settle the language to which Charles Dickens has given another undying name."