The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-15 00:00:00

THE FUNERAL.

The correspondent of the Telegraph, writing from
Cannes, thus describes the funeral, which took place there
on Sunday :—" The number of English now at Cannes is
comparatively small. The season' has been over for
some weeks ; but enough were left to form a full congre-
gation for the little church. Every seat was occupied
when, about half-past five o'clock, through the open doors,
the voice of the clergy without was heard pronouncing the
solemn sentences with which our funeral services begins :
' I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord ; and
then, drawing nearer, ' I know that my Redeemer
liveth ;' and so, as the body was borne slowly up the
church, ' The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ;
blessed be the name of the Lord.' The solitary chief
mourner for the great man, who has left no children to
inherit his name and honour, was 'William Brougham, his
brother. Carefully, and so quietly that no harsh noise
jarred upon the ear, the coffin, covered with a plain black
pall, and adorned only with two simple wreaths of immor-
telles, was set down within the church. The officiating
clergyman, the Rev. E. F. Neville Rolfe, a gentleman
who has long lived and laboured at Cannes, was
assisted by the Rev. P. L. D. Acland ; and the
noble service lost none of its simple grandeur in
their hands. Solemn and impressive as it always is, it
seems to come home to the heart with even greater power
and meaning when it is heard away from England. To
that sense of human brotherhood which even the most
thoughtless can hardly help feeling beside an open grave,
there seems to be added a still closer and more intimate
sympathy when a little company of English, many of
whom have themselves been driven to the south bysickness,
meet together to bury their dead ; and none of us
could well forget that we were burying one whose name
will be honourably remembered for many generations
in the history of our land. No voices could be graver or
more earnest than those which joined in the responses,
the prayers, and the hymn. To that hymn a peculiar
interest attaches. It was a special favourite with Lord
Brougham whilst his faculties were still unclouded ; and
it was at his particular request that it was added by Mr.
Rolfe to the Christ Church 113 mn Book :

",`Let not your hearts with anxious thoughts
Be troubled or dismayed ;
But trust in Providence divine,
A nd trust My gracious aid.
‘" I to my Father's house return ;
There numerous mansions stand,
And glory manifold abounds
Through all the happy land.'

It was in simple strains like this that he had learnt of late
years to find much comfort. When the homely melody
had died away Mr. Rolfe entered the pulpit. If any of
our French friends had expected an oraison f unebre, after
the French fashion, they must have been disappointed.
The voice faltered, the speaker was moved, and it would
have been strange indeed if he could have spoken without
visible and audible emotion of a seat now vacant,' and of
'a familiar face which we shall never see again.' Ile was
not there, he said, to deliver a panegyrid ; and so, with a
few earnest words concerning the great man whom he and
many of his hearers knew also as most kindly and
courteous neighbour,' he passed on to speak of the old
sacred themes—of the uncertainty of life, of its real
brevity even when prolonged to four score years and ten,
of the paramount duty binding us to consecrate it all to
God. If those words needed a commentary, was there not
one close at hand in that plain coffin ? Until its final
destination shall be made known, the coffin will be placed
in the crypt of Christ Church ; so that there was no
lowering into the grave, no casting earth upon it. With
the tvelr, the v
'o-cftbei i)harotlice of the passage referring to
those acts, the burial service was
performed."

An inquest has been held at Monk Bretton, near
Barnsley on the body of Thomas Henry Muckle, son of
Air. J. Mucklc, of Monk Bretton House, engineer and
manager of the Mount Osborne Collieries. The deceased,
who wcs only 5 years of age, had escaped from the care of
his nurse and got into the street. A man in the employ of
Mr. John Stocks, farmer, was passing at the time with a
large roller drawn by horses. lie did not observe the
child, who was knocked down, and the roller passed over
his body and crushed it to death. The jury returned a
veratet p# gceldelital Beat t.