her own burial, and dressed up the waxen figure
of herself for Westminster Abbey, but had shown
the same insensible pride on the death of her only
son, dressing his figure, and sending messages
to her friends, that if they had a mind to see him
lie in state, she would carry them in conveniently
by a back door."

(This was in the early days of newspapers. On
the day of writing this, was advertised in our
leading journal the place where tickets were to
be had for the Black Show, and whither faithful
retainers of a deceased nobleman were to repair
and find their " fittings.")

"Princess Buckingham sent," to resume
Walpole's narrative, "to the old Duchess of
Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had
carried the Duke's body. Old Sarah, as mad
and as proud as herself, sent her word that 'it
had carried my Lord Marlborough, and should
never be profaned by any other corpse.' The
Buckingham returned, that ' she had spoken to
the undertaker, and he had engaged to make a
finer for twenty pounds.'"

It might have been hoped that our world was
becoming wiser; and that the simple and
touching mortuary dispositions of the last deceased
Queen of England might not have been without
avail as an example. " I die," said the will of
that sovereign lady, "in all humility,"—and the
one state request left by herself, in regard to
her funeral, was, that, being the widow of our
Sailor- King, she should be borne to her grave by
man-of-war's men. Surely a simple loving nature
spoke in this provision, which sets such a
direction above and apart from those in which the
coffin lined with amber and white satin cuts a
figure for a paragraph, or for which mourners
are directed by advertisement where to apply
for "fittings," and cards to enter the Black
Chamber.

Let us go back for a homelier illustration. I
was born into a world, in a quiet corner of England,
where usages little less preposterous universally
obtained, and a certain festival was held
over Death, even among those who embraced
Dissent under presence of a rigour which has no
longer any existence anywhere in this country;
among persons who considered Music and
Painting as the devices of the Evil One; and who
took up their parable against colour in nature.
I remember a preacher whose mind was made
uneasy by the sight of a field of red clover, and
another who assumed it sinful to wear any
garments that had been dyed. But even these
narrow and sincere fanatics permitted the
junketing of savoury meats and strong drinks in
the House of Mourning on the day of interment.
I am free to tell (the time is so far away, and
the departure of every one whom the tale could
wound is so complete) of a woman, admirable
in acting up to her conscience—the brave head
of a large and attached family—who laid herself
down to die at an advanced age; having made
every just and conceivable provision for the
comfort of every one that was to follow her. She
had a few minutes to spare ere the extreme
moment came; and those she turned to account
by ordering the dinner which was to be given at
her own house on the day of her own funeral.
"And see," she said, "that the knives are
sharp—for when my husband died, and Cousin
Somebody sat at the bottom of the table, the
goose was mangled, and nobody got a proper
helping."

The fancy for " funeral baked meats,"
however, has been exploded in this country, save,
perhaps, in the wake of the poorer Irish." Why
then cling to the barbarisms of making the bed
of Death a show? Why this ghastly funereal
magnificence, so terrible to real grief, as
distinguished from gaping curiosity? No one that has
ever taken part or place in any spectacle of the
kind, can have failed, be he kinsman, or friend, or
stranger, to have been repulsively struck with the
incongruities it must present.—I was in Victor
Hugo's cathedral, Notre-Dame de Paris, to see
there the lying in state of M. de Quélen, the
predecessor of that archbishop who, on his
Christian mission to make peace, was shot down,
on the Barricades of 1848. Nothing could be
well more impressive than the appearance of
the cathedral, hung as it was with black, dimly
lighted, and up one of the side-aisles of which
the spectators crept in silence,—their approach
being regulated by those police restrictions,
which, as regards the management of crowds,
our neighbours understand so well. Droning
psalms, accompanied by the nasal serpent,
enhanced the gloom of the scene. But the
suppressed talk of the men (perfectly audible to
the women) with which they beguiled the step
by step pilgrimage, was of a cynical uncleanness,
that made the cheek redden with shame.
—And when we got to the chapel, where the
dignitary laid in his splendour, with the face
uncovered,—and where each was allowed two
minutes of genuflexion at the rails of the
illuminated chapel, to gaze on the sight, and (by
courtesy) to say a Pater or Ave for the parted
soul:—"Stop, Anatole," said my neighbour
to his companion, with an oath which shall
not pollute this paragraph, " only look! They
have painted the old cove's cheeks, and his lips
too!" The other swore they had done no such
thing; and by disputing and betting on the
fact, the two beguiled the slow exit from the
holy place; made more solemn (one might have
thought) by the presence of the cold clay of
him who had been in some sort a king and a
ruler there.

There is not one reader of the above desultory
paragraphs, that has reached man's estate, and
used his faculties of observation, who could not
add to them similar recollections derived from
history or similar experiences of his own, in
which every feeling of what is just and becoming
and affectionate to the dead, has revolted against
shows which belong to feast and festival, to
pleasure and triumph,—to the hours when the
heart expands with success, and the open hand
showers its gifts—but which are cruel, disproportionate,
repulsive, barbarous, in short, as belonging to
the awful moment of severance between this
life and that which is to come.—-How