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The Public Funeral took place on Friday, 20th October. It would be impossible in a book of this size to give details of it, even if such belonged to the scope of my work. Suffice it that all the honours which can be paid to the illustrious dead were observed. The King had sent to represent him, according to the custom of such ceremonies, Irving’s old and dear friend, General the Right Hon. Sir Dighton Probyn, V.C. The Queen’s formal representative was Earl Howe; but her personal tribute was the beautiful cross of flowers which lay on the actor’s coffin. The Prince and Princess of Wales were also represented. Others were there also whom men call “great”—chiefs of all great endeavours. Ministers and soldiers, ambassadors and judges, peers and great merchants, and many sorrowing exponents of all the Arts. To name them would be impossible; to try to describe the ceremony unavailing. But the place for all this is not here; it belongs now to the history of the Age and Nation.

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