Shall some memorial of Herbert Spencer be erected in the Abbey, or rather in what journalists love to call the 'National Valhalla,' the 'English Pantheon,' or the 'venerable edifice,' where, as Macaulay says, the dust of the illustrious accusers, _et cetera_----? The question was once agitated in a daily paper. It seems that the Dean, when approached on the subject, acted like one of his predecessors in the case of Byron. The Dean is in a very difficult position, because any decision of his must be severely criticised from one quarter or another. The Abbey retains, I understand, some of its pre-Reformation privileges, and is not under the jurisdiction of Bishop or Archbishop. Yet no one who has ever visited the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor on October 13th, the festival of his translation, can accuse the Abbey authorities of bigotry or narrow- mindedness. Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he _was_, until superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of regard for our feelings. Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted towards us an attitude of respectful curiosity (not altogether unpleasant), which was in striking contrast to the methods of the continental _Suisse_ routing out worshippers from a side chapel of a Catholic church in order to show Baedeker-ridden sightseers an altar-piece by Rotto Rotinelli.