Longfellow was the first American to be commemorated, on the mere ground of public service and distant kinship of blood, in Westminster Abbey. The impressions made by that circumstance in America were very various, but might be classed under two leading attitudes. There were those to whom the English-speaking race seemed one, and Westminster Abbey its undoubted central shrine, an opinion of which Lowell was a high representative, as his speech on the occasion showed. There were those, on the other hand, to whom the American republic seemed a wholly new fact in the universe, and one which should have its own shrines. To this last class the "Hall of Fame," upon the banks of the Hudson, would appeal more strongly than Westminster Abbey; and it is probable that the interest inspired by that enterprise was partly due, at the outset, to the acceptance of Longfellow in England's greatest shrine. It may be fairly said, however, on reflection, that there is no absolute inconsistency between these two opinions. No one, surely, but must recognize the dignity of the proceeding when an American writer, born and bred, is, as it were, invited after death to stand as a permanent representative of his race in the storied abbey. On the other hand, it may easily be conceded that the dignitaries of Westminster are not, of themselves, necessarily so well versed in American claims as to make their verdict infallible or even approximate. The true solution would appear to be that in monuments, as in all other forms of recognition, each nation should have its own right of selection, and that it should be recognized as a gratifying circumstance when these independent judgments happen to coincide. The following is the best London report of the services on this occasion:-- "On Saturday, March 2, 1884, at midday, the ceremony of unveiling a bust of Longfellow took place in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. It is the work of Mr. Thomas Brock, A. R. A., and was executed by desire of some five hundred admirers of the American poet. It stands on a bracket near the tomb of Chaucer, and between the memorials to Cowley and Dryden. Before the ceremony took place, a meeting of the subscribers was held in the Jerusalem Chamber. In the absence of Dean Bradley, owing to a death in his family, the Sub-Dean, Canon Prothero, was called to the chair. "Mr. Bennoch having formally announced the order of proceeding, Dr. Bennett made a brief statement, and called upon Earl Granville to ask the Dean's acceptance of the bust.