"The land service for the burial of the dead contains the following words: 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope,' &c. Every one I am sure, who has attended the funeral of a friend—and whom will this not include?—must recollect the solemnity of that stage of the ceremony, where, as the above words are pronounced, there are cast into the grave three successive portions of earth, which, falling on the coffin, send up a hollow, mournful sound, resembling no other that I know. In the burial service at sea, the part quoted above is varied in the following very striking and solemn manner:—'Forasmuch,' &c.—'we therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead, and the life of the world to come,' &c. At the commencement of this part of the service, one of the seamen stoops down, and disengages the flag from the remains of his late shipmate, while the others, at the words 'we commit his body to the deep,' project the grating right into the sea. The body being loaded with shot at one end, glances off the grating, plunges at once into the ocean, and—

"'In a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into its depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.'

"This part of the ceremony is rather less impressive than the correspondent part on land; but still there is something solemn, as well as startling, in the sudden splash, followed by the sound of the grating, as it is towed along under the main-chains.

"In a fine day at sea, in smooth water, and when all the ship's company and officers are assembled, the ceremony just described, although a melancholy one, as it must always be, is often so pleasing, all things considered, that it is calculated to leave even cheerful impressions on the mind."

(Even Captain Hall, however, admits that a sea-funeral may sometimes be a scene of unmixed sadness; and he records the following as the most impressive of all the hundreds he has witnessed. It occurred in the Leander, off the coast of North America.)

"There was a poor little middy on board, so delicate and fragile, that the sea was clearly no fit profession for him; but he or his friends thought otherwise; and as he had a spirit for which his frame was no match, he soon gave token of decay. This boy was a great favourite with every body—the sailors smiled whenever he passed, as they would have done to a child—the officers petted him, and coddled him up with all sorts of good things—and his messmates, in a style which did not altogether please him, but which he could not well resist, as it was meant most kindly, nicknamed him Dolly. Poor fellow!—he was long remembered afterwards. I forget what his particular complaint was, but he gradually sunk; and at last went out just as a taper might have done, exposed to such gusts of wind as blew in that tempestuous region. He died in the morning; but it was not until the evening that he was prepared for a seaman's grave.

"I remember, in the course of the day, going to the side of the boy's hammock, and on laying my hand upon his breast, was astonished to find it still warm—so much so, that I almost imagined I could feel the heart beat. This, of course, was a vain fancy; but I was much attached to my little companion, being then not much taller myself—and I was soothed and gratified, in a childish way, by discovering that my friend, though many hours dead, had not yet acquired the usual revolting chillness.

"In after years I have sometimes thought of this incident, when reflecting on the pleasing doctrine of the Spaniards—that as soon as children die, they are translated into angels, without any of those cold obstructions, which, they pretend, intercept and retard the souls of other mortals. The peculiar circumstances connected with the funeral which I am about to describe, and the fanciful superstitions of the sailors upon the occasion, have combined to fix the whole scene in my memory.

"Something occurred during the day to prevent the funeral taking place at the usual hour, and the ceremony was deferred till long after sunset. The evening was extremely dark, and it was blowing a treble-reefed topsail breeze. We had just sent down the top-gallant yards, and made all snug for a boisterous winter's night. As it became necessary to have lights to see what was done, several signal lanterns were placed on the break of the quarter-deck, and others along the hammock railings on the lee-gangway. The whole ship's company and officers were assembled, some on the booms, others in the boats; while the main-rigging was crowded half way up to the cat-harpings. Over-head, the mainsail, illuminated as high as the yard by the lamps, was bulging forwards under the gale, which was rising every minute, and straining so violently at the main-sheet, that there was some doubt whether it might not be necessary to interrupt the funeral in order to take sail off the ship. The lower deck ports lay completely under water, and several times the muzzles of the main-deck guns were plunged into the sea; so that the end of the grating on which the remains of poor Dolly were laid, once or twice nearly touched the tops of the waves, as they foamed and hissed past. The rain fell fast on the bare heads of the crew, dropping also on the officers, during all the ceremony, from the foot of the mainsail, and wetting the leaves of the prayer-book. The wind sighed over us amongst the wet shrouds, with a note so mournful, that there could not have been a more appropriate dirge.

"The ship—pitching violently—strained and creaked from end to end: so that, what with the noise of the sea, the rattling of the ropes, and the whistling of the wind, hardly one word of the service could be distinguished. The men, however, understood, by a motion of the captain's hand, when the time came—and the body of our dear little brother was committed to the deep.

"So violent a squall was sweeping past the ship at this moment, that no sound was heard of the usual splash, which made the sailors allege that their young favourite never touched the water at all, but was at once carried off in the gale to his final resting-place!"

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 488, May 7, 1831

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