THE FUNERAL OF MR. THACKERAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 705, 22 March 1864, Page 6

THE FUNERAL OF MR. THACKERAY.

Kensal-Green Cemetery, henceforth to be a shrine for pilgrims from all parts of the world, received its last and most illustrious tenant on Wednesday, December 30, 1863. The day was beautifully fine, with a clear blue sky, and a warm sun shining brightly down on the white monuments with which the burial-ground is so plentifully studded. Soon after 11 o'clock, groups of friends and strangers, clad in mourning, came up to the gate, and passing in, formed, as they increased in numbers, a long, dark, moving thread down the centre of the pathway that leads to the chapel. As the morning advanced, the crowd increased, and swelled to many thousands of every rank and class, before the melancholy train of the funeral appeared. Among the great throng of mourners were noticeable nearly all the foremost men of letters and artists of the day, some of them having travelled far to be present on the sad occasion; and it is with feelings of deep emotion that we mention the name of one of them—that of Mr. Charles Dickens. We do so because he is the author most frequently remembered in connection with Mr Thackeray, and bscause he has sometimes been regarded as a rival. In psint of fact, there can be no rivalry between these two great novelists, and any special comparision between them must proceed on superficial grounds. No one had a greater admiration for Mr Dickens than Mr Thackeray himself, or more unaffectedly rejoiced in his exceeding popularity. On the other hand, to no one could all thought of rivalry with Mr Thackeray be more distasteful than to Mr Dickens, who always recognised Thackeray's genius, and who on this occasion came a long journey to testify to the love and the honour which he felt for his great literary brother.

A hearse, conveying the body, and one monrning coach, in which were the Rev. F. St. John Thackeray, a cousin; Captain Shaw, a brother-in-law; and Mr. James Rodd, another cousin of the deceased, left the family residence in Kensington Palace-green, shortly after 11 o'clock. There were also a few private carriages, but the number would have been far larger had not an express wish on the part of the family checked this customary method of paying respect to the dead. Mr Thackeray's own carriage immediately followed that containing the mourners mentioned, and the ethers belonged to Mr Martin Thackeray, General Low, Lord Gardner, Sir W. Fraser, the hon. E. Curzon, Earl Granviile, Mr Macaulay, Q.C., Sir J. Colville, and Mr Bradbury. There was, stricly speaking, no procession, no ceremonial in carrying the coffin, two ladies closely veiled, and reverently escorted by Mr Henry Cole, followed it closely into the chapel. Every one knew who they were, and why they were there, but their sorrow was too sacred even for the prying curiosity, of a London crowd. As they passed along, their dense crape veils rising and falling in response to their halfstifled sobs, every one made way, and no one dreamt of setting up a stale conventionality, as an objection against this last sorrowful indulgence of the purest and holiest of human feelings. The coffin was a long one, and eight men tottered under the weight of what, a week before, was the stalwart living form of Wiliiam Makepeace Thackeray. The chapel is the plainest of ecclesiastical erections, and one of the smallest—four bare walls, and at the upper end a reading-desk for the chaplain, a few oak seats at each side, and in the centre the melancholy tressel upon which the coffin is placed. The Rev. Charles Stuart, of King's College, read the prayers with becoming solemnity whilst the congregation stood reverently around, and wondered whether they could be really assisting at the obsequies of one of the ibremost men of the century. The grave is not far from the southern wall of the burial-ground, and the crowd harrying to it from the chapel soon overflowed the narrow pathway and hastened to the point which all were anxious 'to reach. Room was, however, again made for the two mourners in chief, and in a very few minutes the coffin had been lowered, the earth had betn shovelled in, and the solemn words, " Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." told the outer world that "Vanity Fair was over for the great artist who had given its imperishable picture to the world.

Amongst the mourners were the Venerable the Master of the Charter-house, Mr Robert Bell, Mr Robert Browning,

Mr O'Niell, R.A., Mr J. TennieJ, TV. Russell, L.L.D., Mr C. Dickens, Mr J. Leech, Mr Creswick, R.A., Sir James Carmichael, L. Louis Blanc, Mr Thodore. Martin, Mr C. L. Gruneisen, Mr Isaac Butt, Q.C., Mr F. Mathews, Mr J. W. Davidson, Mr G. Cruikshank, Mr Bradbury, Mr Shirley Brooks, Mr Horace, Mayhevv, Mr Mark Lemon, Mr J. E. Millais, R.A., Dr. Currie, Mr G-. H. Lewes, the Eev. Mr Ellwyn, Mr Samuel Lucas, Mr Dallas, Mr Anthony Trollope, Mr J. Lawrence, Mr J. Hollingshead, Mr G. Turner, Mr Henry Cole, Mr W. Brough, Mr Eyre Crowe, Miss M. E. Braddon, Mr Herman Merival, Rev. W. Brookfeeld, Baron Marochetti, A.R.A., Rev. William Mitcheil, Mr Russell Sturgis, Mr Charles Collins, Mr Palgrave Simpson, Mr Henry Thompson, Mr Seymour Haden, Mr F. Fladgate, Mr Reeves Traer, Mr Henry Reeve, Mr W. Richmond, A.RA., Mr Richard Doyle, Mr Valentine Princep, Sir William Alexander, Mr Richard Redgrave, R.A., &c. Art and Literature were largely represented ; everybody was present, connected with "Punch," to which Mr Thackeray was once the most brilliant contributor; and the Garrick Club, of which he was a leading and constant frequenter, sent a host of members. The numbers present amounted to some thousands. The scene at tke grave, both during and after the ceremony of interment, was extremely affecting. The silence was profound, and every countenance bespoke a deep sense of grief. The coffin, which was exceedingly plain, bore upon it the following inscription :— William Makepeace Thackeray, Ksq., Died 24ih December, 1863, Aged 52 Ybaks.

No man ever went down into the grave with such a universal expression of love and respect. The heart of the nation wept for him as one man. In middle life he anticipated " the sear, the yellow leaf," and had already won that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends. The Christmas was, indeed, clouded over with a great grief in England. A space was empty. A voice was hushed. A pen was dead. The bereavement of literature is hardly, as yet, completely realised. How his Cambridge contemporaries will miss him! And most of all, perhaps, the Laureate. Many of them were destined to run in various directions a successful race—Tennyson as a poet, Remble as an antiquary, Monckton Milnes as a bland gentleman wanting to be a peer, Alexander Kinglake as author of " Eothen," and Eliot Warburton, whose sad death was the very one he had assigned to the hero of his last novel, before he embarked for Darien. And there are many, too, at Weimar, the intellectual capital of Germany, by whom he will not have been forgotten. They will think of him as Clive Newcome still. They have his clever caricatures in their aibums. They talk of his conversations with Goethe, which Thackeray himself so exulting described, ending with vidi tuntum. As a man and as an author—in all the relations of life, and in almost every walk of literature —Thackeray won the regard and esteem of his contemporaries, and laid the foundation of a fame which will pass on to posterity with the language in which it is inscribed. His was a heart of pure gold ; and, beloved as he was by all who knew him, few, perhaps, comprehended his full worth till he was lost to them. The reading public, too, who knew him only in books, have since his death eagerly renewed their acquaintance, and " Vanity Fair" and "The Newcomes" are called for at the circulating libraries as if they were the last new novels. People hardly understand how large a place he filled in their affections. The anguish of "the hearth where Mr Thackeray was best known and best loved is sacred. There the loss that has been sustained is irreparable, and we can only offer sincere and? respectful sympathy. Still, it must be some consolation to daughters who are weeping for a father to know that others share in their sorrow, and that a nation which admires his works renders homage to his virtues. Thackeray has built his own monument; his memory needs no " siary-pointiug pyramid" ; and, though he was sepulchred without pomp^ Even kings for such a tomb would wish to die.