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 silence on the part of the great daily journals:—"The news received within the last few days of the death of Dr. Hearn, in Melbourne, has by no means created the amount of attention in England which such an event should arouse. It does not tend to the much talked-of Imperial Federation when we see that the death of incomparably the greatest thinker and most profoundly learned man who has ever made his home in a British colony, calls forth so little comment in the centre of the Empire."

Had the death announced been that of some "tenth transmitter of a foolish face," on his Antipodean tour of vacant-mindedness, or that of an itinerant member of the House of Commons, of whom the most skilful flatterer would find it difficult to record any distinguishing moral or intellectual achievement, there would have been "biographies" in plenty. Nay—had Professor Hearn, instead of being a "mere colonial" who had written so admirable a work as The Aryan Household, been an Oxford or Cambridge Professor, his deeds would have been fully set forth at his death. Furthermore—and this is the rub—had Victoria