_Passage in Tennyson_ (Vol. ii., p. 479.)--The following extract from Sir
James Mackintosh's _History of England_ vol. ii. p. 185., will explain this
passage:
"The love of Margaret Roper continued to display itself in those
outwardly unavailing tokens of tenderness to his (her father, Sir
Thomas More's) remains, by which affection seeks to perpetuate itself;
ineffectually, indeed, for the object, but very effectually for {11}
softening the heart and exalting the soul. She procured his head be
taken down from London Bridge, where more odious passions had struggled
in pursuit of a species of infernal immortality by placing it. She kept
it during her life as a sacred relic, and was buried with that object
of fondness in her arms, nine years after she was separated from her
father."