The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-11-23 00:00:00

THE FUNERAL.

The imposing ceremony of conveying the body of the
illustrious ARTHUR, DUKE OF WELLINGTON, from the
Horse Guards to St. Paul's Cathedral, for interment,
took place on Thursday, with a pomp of pageantry for
which we know no parallel. So intense was the public
excitement to see the procession, that many thousands
came from all parts of the kingdom, and during the whole
of Wednesday there were continuous arrivals. So early as
mid-day St. Paul's, Fleet-street, the Strand, and, in fact,
every street along the whole route by which the funeral
cortege was intended to pass, was crowded with persons
anxious to examine and select for themselves the spot
where they thought they could best obtain a view of the
solemn procession ; and although the rain began to fall at
nine, still many persons perambulated the streets, engag-
ing seats and marking favourable sites. The rain conti-
nued to fall during the whole night, and from midnight
until about four in the morning there was almost a hurri-
cane of rain and wind. Notwithstanding this repelling
state of the weather, many persons remained in the
streets all night; and from two o'clock in the morning
there were fresh arrivals from all points, taking up their
places for the day. Throughout the whole route every
available space was fitted up from basement to top with
seats and galleries, for the accommodation of spectators;
and as early as four o'clock in the morning the greater
number of them were occupied. At that hour vehicles of
every description began to arrive loaded with visitors, and
the leading streets in the metropolis and the main roads
in the suburbs were all covered with omnibuses, cabs,
broughams, and carriages of all sorts, and in each lane and
alley, in every road and street in and about the metropo-
lis there was a continuous stream of human beings to be
seen wending their way to one orother of the great points
of attraction. Even at that early hour St. Paul's Church-
yard was crowded, and on each side of Ludgate-hill,
Fleet-street, and the Strand, there were rows of persons,
two deep, closely pressed together.
Before daybreak on Thursday, the troops appointed to
take part in the fnneral began to muster in St. James's-
park, in the Mall, and on the parade ground behind the
Horse Guards. The coaches also, which were to join in
the procession, were assembled there, and within a spa-
cious tent workmen of all kinds, who had toiled inces-
santly the whole night through, were busily engaged in
completing the decorations of the funeral car. Day broke
heavily, the mind being loaded with moisture, the sky
threatening-looking, and the streets giving the most une-
quivocal tokens of a night of heavy rain. As the clock in
the turret chimed half-yast six, the gates were dune open,
and, ie. an instant afterwards, the whole of the spacious
area between the Horse Guards and the Park was peopled,
as by enchantment, with soldiers in every variety of regi-
mental costume. The troops employed upon this solemn
occasion were under the command of M.-General His
Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, K.G. ; Colonel
the Earl of Cardigan and Colonel Lord de Ros performed
the duties of the Adjutant and Quarter Master General's
departments, under his Royal Highness; and Lieut.-Col.
Lord W. Paulet, unattached, Lieut.-Col. Lord G. Paget,
4th Light Dragoons, Lieut.-Col. Tyrwhitt, Scots Fusileer
Guards, and Captain his Serene Highness Prince Edward
of Saxe Weimar, acted as his Royal Higness's aides-de-
camp. The military force consisted of 17 pieces of Artil-
lery, eight squadrons of Cavalry, and six battalions of
Infantry. The Brigade of Guards was under the command
of M.-General Shaw, and consisted of the Ist Battalions
of the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, and Scots
Fusileer Guards, respectively. M.-General Fane com-
manded the 33d Regiment, the Ist Battalion Royal Ma-
rines, and the 2d Battalion Rifle Brigade. Nine guns of
the Field Batteries and eight guns of the Horse Artillery,
under the command of Colonel Whinyates, R.A., were
drawn up between the Duke of York's monument and the
Carlton stables. On each side of the centre mall were
drawn up the three squadrons of Household Cavalry, un-
der the command of M.-General Hon. H. F. Cavendish ;
and in the same order and locality were stationed the Ca-
valry, consisting of one squadron each from the 6th Dra-
goon Guards, 2d Dragoons, Bth Hussars, 13th Light Dra-
goons, and 17th Lancers, all under the command of M.
General Jackson. At a quarter before eight o'clock 17
minute guns were fired from the park batteries. In ten
minutes afterwards the curtains of the tent were drawn
aside by some invisible agency, revealing to the mournful
gaze of the assembied soldiers, the coffin and funeral-car
of their great commander. Then followed a scene which
was all that the imagination can picture of tender, im-
pressive, and sublime. The troops drawn up in columns
in front of the coffin instantly presented arms and reversed
arms—the guns boomed their farewell shot—the bells
pealed their funeral dirge, and the bands defiled, one after
the other, playing alternately " The Dead March in Saul,"
and that yet more exquisite composition, " Before Jeho-
vah's awful throne.' It was a sight never to be forgot-
ten. Had it not been that the occasion suggested more
solemn thoughts, one might have taken pleasure in notic-
ing the picturesque effect of the combination of colours,
sounds, and objects—the churches and other public edifices
towering, with a shadowy grandeur, which the melancholy
tintings of a November sky rendered still more impressive,
over a sea of human heads—the very roofs of the houses
black with a lugubrious mass of mourning dresses and
craped hats—the glaring gold uniforms of the heralds and
trumpeters—the variegated costumes of the foreign offi-
cers—the scarlet liveries of Her Majesty's household—
the glittering of steel, the nodding of crests, the waving of
feathers—the measured tramp of war-horses—the roll of
muffled drums, and the dismal clangour of a thousand
bells. But who, with a heart to feel and a mind to think,
could for one moment contemplate the end of all that was
once powerful, affluent, and ereat, aid refuse to bestow a
thought upon that mysterious ordinance of Providence
whereby it. is decreed that there shall be one common re-
ceptacle for the children of Adam, where the monarch's
sceptre lies side by side with the shepherd's crook, and
peers and peasants meet on terms of equality. Who was
he who on Thursday exchanged the society of countless
multitudes for the silent solitude of the grave ? Who was
he who, while living myriads thronged around his hearse,
lay in his gorgeous coffin cold and unconscious as a statue,
and with no more faculty of speech or thought than if in
his lifetime he bad been some base-born peasant—some
hewer of wood or drawer of water ? Was it not he who,
during an almost immemorial existence, lived " in the
front of good opinion ?"—he on whom, to quote the me-
lodious language of Tennyson—

" from both her open hands
Lavish Honor showered all her stars,
And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn
the same whose victorious sword swept like a meteor from
Assaye to Waterloo—the same whose indomitable will
subjugated every difficulty, and dashed through every oh-
stacle, "as fierce Penobscot dashes through the pines ?"
—that iron warrior who closed in a deadly grapple with
the world's conqueror, and hushed into ignoble silence
that voice which rang like thunder through the world,
adjudging with a word the fate of empires and the fall of
kings ! And there he lay, throbless and inanimate, with
" honour's voice" resounding in the air, yet powerless to
" provoke his silent clay ;" with the syren notes of flat
tery floating around him, yet with no magic to soothe " the
dull cold ear of death." Such is human glory—such the
doom of man—even in his best estate !