25 SEPTEMBER 1852, Page 13

THE FUNFR.A T.

Ir needs all the genuine respect for the memory of Wellington to prevent the mass of -writing, about the past, present, and even the future, which floods the journals, in respect to his career, his de- parture, and his funeral, from degenerating into a nuisance ; and there can be no doubt that it has already had an inevitable ten- dency in that direction. Every conceivable phase of his character, all the traits which marked and which did not mark it, are reviewed, not as chance suggests, but systematically, from day to day. A. "leading article" about Wellington blocks up one column in each morning journal, as a funereal shutter remains in the window of some West-end shopkeeper every day. Society itselfjoins in the endless talk; seeming to feel that it is bound to show that it appreciates its loss, and forgetting that genuine feelings usu- ally find their own utterance. No subject of which the action has ceased can sustain this mechanical pertinacity of sermonizing. The last form has been to carry on a controversy about the funeral, its course, and its termination ; but this has been opportunely and satisfactorily settled by a letter from the Earl of Derby, an- nouncing that the Queen will consult with Parliament in ordering a national ceremony, and that her Majesty will recommend St. Paul's as the mausoleum for the last repose of "the greatest mili- tary by the side of the greatest naval chief who ever reflected lustre on the annals of England." Public expectation had antici- pated the choice of the site, and controversy has now nothing left except the course of the funeral procession. One point alone seems, to be essential in that regard—that the course should be such as to give the largest publicity. This is evidently requisite, if it were only for two of the many reasons which may be advanced. In the first place, the concourse will be immense. If the Duke had died in the full glow of his military fame, the noise and enthusiasm displayed at his funeral might have been more striking ; but neither the amount of metropolitan population in those days, nor the division of public opinion, would have permitted the assembly of that enormous and unanimous crowd which will now collect from every part of London and the surrounding country. In order to prevent the overpowering rush of that crowd to any one point, it is desirable that its feeling should be so far consulted as to enable it to find the ceremony tangible and visible at many points successively. If some satisfac- tion be not given to the mighty multitudes by extension of the line, a much larger proportion must be expected to concentrate itself upon a comparatively smaller space. In the police arrange- ments of so memorable a day, these considerations must have no slight weight. A still larger reason is to be found in the moral lesson which the ceremony ought to convey to its beholders. On that day will be carried to the tomb the latest representative of the immense struggle by which the rule of a military tyrant was suppressed ; by which, although the fact was not seen by the Liberals of those days, the Holy Alliance, or the organized Legitimacy which had its will for generations before, was brought to terms, and was made to reduce its pretensions to the public statutes of 1815. The victory which Wellington earned at Waterloo was not only one over the Usurper who had organized revolution into military empire, but it was also one which placed under the predominant influence of Constitutionalism the hitherto irresponsible Absolu- tism of Europe. The long peace which has followed was the hard- earned gain of labours which Wellington crowned. Such earnings are the result of such labours. The Constitutional kingdoms which have grown up in the interval, however imperfect they may be in reducing to practice the principles newly recognized at the peace of 1815, are still the fruits of the public law then establish- ed. It is so long since we have seen the necessity of defending peace by armed strength, that we have almost learned to regard it as an abstract right or a spontaneous "growth of the age.' But when we see the great conqueror of peace conveyed to his tomb amid the clangour of distant trumpets proclaiming the advent of the same empire which he suppressed, in the midst of a world un- dergoing vast movements and marches of races, we may read at the end of this long peaceful period its beginning and its cause. On such grounds the procession might have a more than metro- politan course. Much discussion has arisen as to the place at which the body should lie in state,—whether in Apsley House, in Westminster Hall, or in Chelsea Hospital; but perhaps the grand- est way of all would be to let it lie where the man last lay—at Walmer Castle. The funeral procession might then take its de- parture from that his last living home, by land, through the county in which he last served and lived; resting perchance for the night or for a whole day in Canterbury Cathedral, and again at some convenient place nearer London ; entering the Metro- polis over Westminster Bridge, passing the Houses of Parlia- ment, the Palace of the Queen, to join the Metropolitan part of the military procession at Hyde Park; and so by the great approaches of Piccadilly, St. James's Street, past St. James's Palace, by Charing Cross and through the Western portal of the City, to the Metropolitan Cathedral. This course would enable province as well as metropolis to share in the tribute, would afford suitable places for all the great constituents of the procession to fall in, and would be in the eyes of the world a fit- ting path for the national march of so great a soldier, and more than soldier, to the grave.