The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-22 00:00:00

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THE SUN,

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FUNERAL OF THE LATE DUKE
OF WELLINGTON.

(From the Morning Herald.)
This morning Mr. Secretary Walpole has received
the following letter from the Earl of Derby, dated
Balmoral on Monday last, from which it will be seen
by our readers that her Majesty has determined that
a public funeral shall be accorded to the late illus-
trious Commander-in-Chief; that the funeral will not
take place until the new Parliament shall assemble,
in order that that Parliament may declare their
wishes upon the subject ; and that the members of
both Houses may have the opportunity of personally
attending the solemn procession. It is her Majesty's
wish that the mortal remains of the late Military
Hero shall be deposited in St. Paul's'Cathedral, and
be placed by the side of the late Admiral Lord
Nelson, the greatest naval chief who ever reflected
honour upon this country.

Mr. Secretary Walpole, we understand, this
morning, sent down an express telegraph message to
Wahner Castle, that a guard of honour should im-
mediately be placed near the body of the illustrious
Duke, which of course was immediately done, and
where it will remain as guardians of the public trust
until her Meljesty's further commands shall be made
known upon the sulject.
Through the obliging courtesy of Mr. Secretary
Walpole we are enabled to publish to our readers a
copy of the, deeply interesting letter, which the Earl
of Derby, in obedience to the commands of her Ma-
jesty, has written relative to the funeral of the Duke
of Wellington, expressive of the Queen's wishes upon
the melancholy subject :

" TO THE RIGHT HON. SPENCER IL WALPOLE, SECRE

TART OF THE HOME DEPARTMENT.

" BALMORAL, SEPT. 20, 1852.

" Sir,—Her Majesty received with grief, on Thurs-
day last, the afflicting intelligence of the sudden death
of the late Duke of Wellington.

" Although the Queen could not for a moment
doubt that the voice of the country would be unani-
mous upon the subject of the honours to be paid to
the memory of the greatest man of the age, her Ma-
jesty considered it due to the feelings of his Grace's
surviving relatives that no steps should be taken, even
in his honour, without their approving concurrence;
and, accordingly, in the same feelings, in obedience to
her Majesty's commands, I wrote to Lord Charles
Wellesley (the present Duke not having returned to
England), to ascertain whether the late Duke had
left any directions, or whether his family desired to
express any wish on the subject ; and suggesting
the course which appeared to her Majesty best cal-
culated to give expression to those feelings, in
which the nation, as one man, will sympathise with
her Majesty.
"Having this day received letters from the present
Duke and his brother, to the effect that the late Duke
had left no directions on the subject, and placing
themselves wholly in her Majesty's bands, I hasten to
relieve the public anxiety by signifying to you, for
general information, the commands which I have re-
ceived from her Majesty.
" The great space which the name of the Duke of
Wellington has filled in the history of the last fifty
years—his brilliant achievements in the field—his
high mental qualities—his long and faithful services
to the Crown—his untiring devotion to the interests
of his country—constitute claims upon the gratitude
of the nation, which a public funeral, though it can-
not satisfy, at least may serve to recognise.
" Her Majesty is well aware that, as in the case of
Lord Nelson, she might, of her own authority, have
given immediate orders for this public mark of vene-
ration for the memory of the illustrious Duke, and
has no doubt but that Parliament and the country,
would cordially have approved the step ; but her Ma-
jesty, anxious that this tribute of regard and sorrow
should be deprived of nothing which could invest it
will a thoroughly national character—anxious that
the greatest possible number of her subjects should
have an opportunity of joining it—and anxious, above
all, that such honours should appear to emanate from
the general will, and that the two Houses of Parlia-
ment should have an opportunity, by their approving
sanction, of stamping the proposed ceremony with in-
creased solemnity, and of associating themselves with
her Majesty in paying honour to the memory of one
whom no Englishman can name without pride and

sorrow.
" The body of the Duke of Wellington will re-
main, therefore, with the concurrence of the family,
under proper guardianship, at Weimer Castle, until
the Qaeen shall have received the formal approval of
Parliament to the course which it will be the duty of
her Majesty's servants to submit to both Houses
upon their re-assembling. As soon as possible after
that approval shall have been obtained, it is her Ma-
jesty's wish, should no unforeseen impediment arise,
that the mortal remains of the late illustrious and
venerated Commander-in-Chief should, at the public
expense, and with all the solemnity due to the
mournfulness of the occasion, be deposited at the
Cathedral Church of St. Paul's, there to rest by the
side of Nelson—the greatest Military by the side of
the greatest Naval Chief who ever reflected lustre
upon the annals of England.
"I have the honour to be, Sir,
" Your most obedient humble servant,
"DERBY."

LAST OFFICIAL ACT OF THE LATE DUKE OF
WELLINGTON.—Iiis Urace's last official act of any
importance, as Commander-in-Chief, at the War-
office, was the regulation of the uniform to be worn
by the officers of the militia now in the course of en-
rolment. So anxious was the Duke for the early
issue of these regulations, that on the Saturday pre-
vious to his lamented death a special messenger at-
tended at the Government printing-office to convey
the proof for his Grace's revision and signature, so
that the document might be at once forwarded to the
lord-lieutenants of counties and acted on.
PRINCE ALBERT'S LAST VI,IT TO THE DUKE.—
On the occasion of her Majesty's recent visit to Bel.
giuw, her squadron having anchored for one night in
the Downs, his Royal Highness the Prince Consort
proceeded from the royal yacht in a small boat to
Weimer Castle, where the Noble Duke was then stay-
ing. The illustrious veteran appeared highly pleased
with this mark of attention, and received Prince
Albert with much cordiality. They had a lengthened
conversation together, after which the Prince left the
Castl© to join her Majesty in the Victoria and Albert.
This meeting between those two distinguished per-
sonages, which was on the 17th of August, has
proved to be the last.

-
COURT CIRCU LAR.
BAL MOR AL , SEPT. 20.
Her Mejesty and his Royal Highness Prince Albert
attended Divine service yesterday in the parish church
of Crathie.
The service was performed by the Rev. Dr. Paul,
one of her Majesty's chaplains in Scotland.
The Viscountess Jocelyn, the Hon. Mary Seymour,
the Earl of Derby, Colonel Hon. C. B. Phipps, and
Lieut.-Colonel Hon. A. Gordon, were in attendance.

Earl Fitzhardinge had an interview with Mr.
Secretary Walpole yesterday, at the Home•office.
The American Minister, Mrs. Abbott Lawrence,
Colonel Lawrence, and Miss Lawrence, left town on
Monday, on a visit to the Earl of Carlisle, at Castle
Howard.

HER MAJESTY'S SOJOURN IN THE

NORTH.

CRATIIIE, MONDAY.—On Saturday her Majesty
made short excursions around the castle and by
Crathie-bridge to the north side of the river. His
Royal Highness Prince Albert went into Balmoral
Forest, and was very successful, having killed three
fine stags. The Royal Family rode out on ponies
through the grounds and in the neighbourhood of the
castle.
Yesterday her Majesty, accompanied by Lord
Derby and other members of the suite, again at-
tended Divine service in the parish church of Crathie.
The Very Rev. Dr. Paul, of Tullynessie, one of her
Majesty's chaplains for Scotland, officiated, and
preached an eloquent discourse from Mark viii. 38.
The audience (which, as usual, included several
groups of strangers) was a large one. Yesterday
afternoon her 3343esty and Prince Albert drove down
by Abergeldie so far as " Craigousie," end at Corhie-
hail, where the royal vegetable garden is located, both
alighted from the carriage, and conversed familiarly
with the old gardener and his wife, two p
relics of the lastatriachal
century, respected over the whole
country side.
Her Majesty and his Royal Highness
returned to the castle e in the evening.

?
WAS THE DUKE OF W EVER W OUNDED
`WELLINGTON
—ln Rush's Residence at the Court of London," the fol-
lowing anecdote is recorded : was
" Until this occasion I
under an impression that the Duke of Wellington never was
wounded ; but Sir Ge3rge Walker said that not long after
the storming of Badajos, he was struck' by a random musket
ball in the side, in an affair with the French, on the bor-
ders of France..- It was merely a slight wound and was
dressed on the spot. The Duke on receiving it exclaimed,
6 Sit at last !' and seemed muck pleased."

LON '5(-)N,

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
(From the Weekly Dispatch)
The death of the Duke of Wellington has proved to
all the greatness of his life. Nothing could be more
quiet—let us not be misunderstood in using the word
—more common-place than his closing scene ; there
was no climax, no catastrophe, no heroic sacrifice in
battle, like the fall of Nelson; no exhaustion by stern
mental strife, as in the fates of Pitt and Canning, no
sudden stroke of unforeseen accident, as we misterm
it, as in the loss of Peel. The Duke died at an age
when death must, in ordinary cases, have been long
expected—of a disease that often strikes old age
fatally—epilepsy; and this was caused probably by a
paroxysm of the morbid appetite for food, which it is
especially necessary guard against at that period of
life. His danger, if we may believe the accounts,
was apparent to himself, and much underrated by
the apothecary who was summoned, Mr. Hulke,
although that person had attended him on the occa-
sion of a previous similar attack. However, the Duke
bas quitted life, as far as we may pronounce for
another, happily ; in the fulness of years, and without
the painful and humiliating decline of faculties. Ho
has died a natural death, and, we hope, a very
easy one. The time of his ceasing to breathe could
not be exactly determined. And so passing away,
with as little to startle in the event as death
can bring, the event itself causes one deep,
strong, unanimous sensation. What may be the effect
in other lands we know not—we almost care not; the
great country which he served is enough to estimate
his memory and to treasure it. He has, as much as
one man can embody a common cause, saved Europe;
but we do not expect Europe to repay its debt, or
even to understand it. It was the single misfortune
of the Duke's life that he served those who were every
way less worthy than himself. In this we do not
speak of the nations he so mainly helped to redeem
from intolerable and disgraceful bondage, but of those
who led and represented them. In England he has
long been looked upon as a piece of living history.
The past had more of him in men's minds than the
present, but, had a present arisen that needed bis help,
the old faith in him would have been shown, as of
old. Indeed, in the two latest crises of our policy,
both within the period of the shortest memory, he
was looked to as the arbiter of all differences. The
Russell Ministry could scarcely rule, and none were
ready to succeed them ; the Duke's moral authority
composed the difficulty, and on the weight of his
decision the effete continued in power. The nation
was in possible peril from the freaks of irregular and
unscrupulous authority in France ; all sane men
asked, what insurance against the danger will the
Duke think sufficient ? He had not outlived his
service or his fame; and he dies when neither could
have been much increased. Moreover, he passes from
us at a time when all enmity and all envy are disarmed
—when he is understood as he would desire to be.
This is great fortune. The earlier part of his Euro-
pean career was subject to all the spleen of party.
The somewhat shallow, and the not too honest persons
who then represented the people's cause, never divided
or classed the progress of the French revolution and
its consequences. In the origin of the great war,
which was only stayed, till 1814, by a hollow truce,
the French, maddened and brutalized as they were by
the education of serfs, fought for the inherent rights
of mankind against the paltriest and most presump-
tucus usurpers of them. They claimed national exist-
ence against the miserable conspirators of Pilnitz.
Disgraced as their cause might be, it was, in its main
essentials, holy. The disgusting egotism of many in-
dividuals polluted it ; the horrible selfishness of one
engulfed it. Men who are striving against the charla-
tan tyrannies of Napoleon the Little should begin by
rightly estimating him whom, for antithesis' sake,
they call Napoleon the Great. That Napoleon sub-
stituted bloodglory for the defence of patriots and free-
men ; he substituted aggression, lust of conquest,
brigandage, for republican virtue; he derided equality,
and threw baubles to dupes as badges of slavery; he,
the ancient enemy of France by blood and feeling,
the avenger of Paoli—he, the Corsican, the son of a
conquered land, whose schoolboy dreams were hatred
to his island's oppressors—crushed France and stood
upon its ruins, its possessor, its tyrant, governing
the estate and the human cattle upon it with
skill indeed, but with skill exerted only for his own
personal purposes. France was his, and that was the
sum of his regard for it. But half-minded men never
analyse causes; when party spirit works they wilfully
confuse them. When Napoleon reigned, it was
England fighting for existence against a tyranny as
frightful as that which France had discomfited.
France bad taken the place of aggression. Our Li-
berals could not see this. To them, as to someFrenche
men of the present day, who, as children, are unable
to give up the bauble glories of the Empire, Napolean
was the vindicator of freedom against tyrants, the
child of the Republic. He hated and despised both.
When Wellington entered the field of European con-
test, it was in opposition to the idol of these twaddling
dramatic romancers, these would-be politicians, who
preferred a story book in weekly or daily parts, in
which their favourite might triumph, to the serious
justice and the hard practical facts they had no skill
to appreciate. They felt for Napoleon as they would
feel for Madame Laffarge or Ainsworth's Jack
Sheppard. We are tracing Wellington's career in
tracing these contrasts. He and Napoleon wore
indeed impelled on different courses in widely
different spheres of action, but the moral
distinction was as great as the material. Wellington
was no hero for slipslop sentimentality. The Li-
berals of England thought that they were doing
service to mankind when they were mocking at
his plain, patient genius, and thwarting his efforts to
arrest a plague that dazzled them by flashing its in-
fluence in lightning meteors. But the English sym.
pathy, the heart ofthe people, as we remember well,
was with the English general. They did more than
illuminate for his victories—they rejoiced in the ap-
portionment of the rewards which they were well
aware they had to pay. Even after the retreat from
Moscow they could hardly believe Napoleon Bona.-
parte to be anything, less than personally invincible ;
but they honoured IA ellington as the man that could
beat all his generals. The cynical Opposition carped
and hindered—the paltry Government was afraid of
supporting to its utmost, and with full avowal, the
soldier who did its choice unwonted honour. Welling-
ton had to win success, that he might have the power
to compel from his employers the means of success
afterwards—and he did it. He conquered reluctance
at home as enemies abroad, and forced enthusiasm as
well as victory. He has been compared to Napoleon
he should be contrasted with him. For ourselves, we
decidedly say that he was the greater man. He un-
dertook his task under all the obligations of morality
and honour, and he beat the man who would own
none of them. This ought never to be forgotten
in the estimation of noted men. It is the
first interest of mankind to give the prize to those
who deliberately choose to serve their fellows in com-
pliance with the laws of right, and not to those who
make mankind serve them in utter defiance of these
laws. If merely to produce a given quantity of
change, regardless of the means which bring it about,
or the ends for which it is accomplished, be the mea-
sure of greatness, the conscienceless must transcend
those who have conscience. Good is heavily weighted
while evil is free. We are not comparing abilities,
but deeds ; the men as they stand in history self-
sculptured. The use of all qualities is the glory of
the possessors. 'Wellington and Bonaparte acted
upon opposite principles; they never could have un-
derstood one another. Wellington's unselfish devo-
tion was to his country, personified to him, as a soldier,
in that country's Sovereign. If we could imagine
him at a conference in another world, it would be
carrying out the Queen's interests to the utmost of
his power. Bonaparte so completely mistook him,
that one of his calculations was that the 'Wellesley
family, after what they had achieved for England, must
be expecting to reign in it. He could not understand
the dignified humility of true glory, the fame that
is won by working for a great cause without a second
thought, that imperishable and ever honoured
fame that comes as an unsought accident to the per-
formance of duty. Again, as a soldier, we cannot
allow Wellington to be less than Napoleon's superior.
The successes of Austerlitz and Jena were in a great
degree Napoleon's own ; but even there he had no
worthy competitors. At Marengo he was beaten.
Desaix released him from defeat. At Wagram he
would have perished with all his army, had the Arch-
duke Charles trusted in his own victory. What
Wellington achieved he owed to himself, even to the
formation of his armies out of the most unpromising
materials. Lamartine has thoroughly estimated him
when, in his narrative of the battle of Waterloo, he
treats him as the most perfect and illustrious imper-
sonation of the English character. Wellington des-
paired of nothing. He might ,be slain with his last
follower, as he made up his mind to be at Waterloo,
but he would not be beaten. When but one of his
staff was left beside him, and he was asked what was
to be done in case of anything happening. to himself,
he had but one order to give, "to die to the last
man." Napoleon had won many a battle by out-
daring his enemies; there was no such thing as out-
daring Wellington. As he bad been obliged to
cover with his fame the sins of his patrons. at the
opening of his career, so be suffered in the dis-
grace of others when he had helped to win Europe
for them. The tyrants of the Holy Alliance made
him appear an accomplice in their iniquity, though he
was in nowise responsible for the abuse of the power
which he had so mainly contributed to recover for
them. This is admitted and comprehended now.
When we turn to him as a statesman, we have the
same character, but employed on a subject respecting
which his mind was not specially instructed. There
were the same sense of right, the same simple single-
mindedness, the same disdain of hollow convention,
the same disregard of personal consequences; but there
the pride of birth and the habit of aristo-
craticvvere aplrsellection,. and the absence of philosophical
which might countervail them. W
training hat he