In the Transcript of August 14, I notice an editorial criticism, upon the recent employment of the word catafalque. In primitive strictness, I believe that criticism to be perfectly correct; and that, in its original signification, catafalque cannot be understood to mean a funeral car.

In the grand Dictionaire, by Fleming & Tibbins, catafalque is thus defined—“decoration funebre qu’on eleve au milieu d’une Église pour y placer le cercueil ou le representation d’un mort a qui l’on veut rendre les plus grands honneurs.”

Herse is defined, by the same lexicographers, “un cercueil, une biere, voiture pour porter un mort au tombeau, un char funebre, corbillard, pierre tumulaire provisoire.”

Thus, while catafalque seems to signify an ornamental structure, erected in the middle of a church, to support the coffin or the effigy of the dead, whom it is intended to honor—herse, at the present day, is understood to mean a coffin, a bier, a carriage to bear the dead to the tomb, a funeral car, a van, a temporary mausoleum or gravestone.

Herse, whose etymology, according to Johnson, is unknown, imported, three hundred years ago, a temporary structure, in honor of the dead; such also is the meaning of the word catafalque; of this, there cannot be the slightest doubt. In this sense, herse was employed by Shakspeare, in his Henry IV.:

“To add to your laments
Wherewith you now bedew King Henry’s herse,” &c.

Johnson furnishes two definitions of the word, herse—1. A carriage, in which the dead are conveyed to the grave. 2. A temporary monument, set over a grave. It is quite certain, however, that the herse, whether justly styled a monument, or not, was not usually “set over the grave,” but more frequently, like the catafalque, agreeably to the definition given above—au milieu d’une eglise.

No writer, probably, refers to the herse, so frequently, as old John Strype, in his Memorials; and, in no instance, I believe, in the sense of a car or vehicle, or as a structure, “set over the grave.”

Strype’s Memorials are the records of a Roman Catholic age, or of a period, during which, the usages of the Romish Church, in England, had not entirely worn out their welcome with the people—the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Bloody Mary, and Elizabeth. For, even during the reigns of Edward VI., and of Elizabeth, not a few of those pompous practices, which grew up, in the times of their respective predecessors, still clung upon the imaginations of the populace, and were reluctantly surrendered.

The church is the theatre of the Romish ecclesiastic. The service is an attractive spectacle. If the world were struck blind, who does not perceive, that the principal supports of Romanism would be instantly taken away! It has been the practice of all churches, that deal somewhat extensively, in forms and ceremonies, to demand of their members, with a greater or less degree of peremptoriness, that certain acts shall be publicly performed—au milieu d’une eglise. Thus the ceremony of marriage—the baptism of infants—the churching of women—and the burial of the dead furnish occasion, for throwing open the temple, and exhibiting its showy furniture to the multitude; and of verifying a pleasing saying of the late eminent, and excellent Archbishop of Bordeaux, while Bishop of Boston—“If we cannot catch them, in one way, we catch them in another.”

Nothing has ever been a more prolific source of capital to the Romish church, in former ages, than funereal parade, au milieu d’une eglise. Strype, with very few exceptions, speaks of the herse as a “herse of wax.” To this I have alluded in an earlier number. It may require a brief explanation here. Wax candles, of divers colors and forms, were attached to the herse, and the wax chandler of those days was in great request, and often rose to wealth and distinction.

The reader will readily perceive, that the herse, of those early times, was identical with the catafalque, if he will give his attention to the following statements—“1554, on the 5th of October were the obsequies of the said Duke of Norfolk celebrated at St. Mary Overy’s: an herse being made with timber, and hanged with black, with his arms, and four goodly candlesticks gilded, and as many great tapers standing about it, all the choir hung in black,” &c. Mem. vol. iii., part 1, ch. 25. Here is no car, but a temporary structure, au milieu d’une eglise—not “set over the grave”—the choir hung in black, &.

To show how Strype distinguished between the herse and a car for conveyance, the reader may turn to the Memorials, vol. iii., part 1, page 471, where, after describing the ceremonies, in the church, at the funeral of the Bishop of Winchester, Strype adds—“at the gate, the corpse was put into a wagon with four horses, all covered with black,” &c. This is our modern herse, but was not so called by Strype.

“1557.—On the 5th of May was the Lady Chamberlin buried, with a fair hearse of wax.” The following is sufficiently explicit—“1557, the same day (July 29) began the hearse, at Westminster, for the Lady Anne of Cleves, consisting of carpenters’ work of seven principals; being as goodly a hearse, as had been seen.” Vol iii. p. 11.

“1557.—On the 3d of August, the body of the Lady Anne of Cleves was brought from Chelsy, where her house was, unto Westminster, to be buried; with all the children of Westminster, and many priests and clerks.” Father Strype did not probably intend to say they were all to be buried together.

“Then the gray Amis of Paul’s, and three crosses, and the monks of Westminster, and my Lord Bishop of London, and Lord Abbot of Westminster, rode together next the monks. Then the two secretaries, Sir Edmund Peckham and Sir Robert Freston, cofferer to the Queen of England, my Lord Admiral and Mr. Darcy, of Essex, and many knights and gentlemen. And before her corpse, her servants, her banner of arms. Then her gentlemen and her head officers; and then her chariot, with eight banners of arms, consisting of divers arms, and four banners of images of white taffeta, wrought with gold, and her arms. And so they passed by St. James’s, and thence to Charing Cross, with an hundred torches burning, her servants bearing them. And the twelve beadmen of Westminster had new black gowns, bearing twelve torches burning. There were four white branches with arms; then ladies and gentlewomen, all in black with their horses; eight heralds of arms, in black, with their horses, &c., &c. At the church door all did alight; and there the Lord Bishop of London and the Lord Abbot, in their copes, did receive the good lady, censing her. Men bore her under a canopy of black velvet, with four black staves and so brought her into the hearse, and there tarried dirge, remaining there all night, with lights burning.” Ibid. “On the 22d was the hearse of the Lady Anne of Cleves, lately set up in Westminster Abbey, taken down, which the monks, by night, had spoiled of all the velvet cloth, arms, banners, pensils, majesty, and valance and all,—the which was never seen afore so done.” Ibid. page 15.

Hence it is manifest, that the herse, in the time of Strype, was identical with the catafalque of the present day. Nevertheless, herse and catafalque are as clearly not convertible terms, since the latter word can never be correctly applied to a funeral car.

Two and twenty pages of original record are devoted, by Strype, to an account of the “ceremonies and funeral solemnities, paid to the corpse of King Henry VIII.” These pages are extremely interesting, and full of curious detail. They also furnish additional evidence, that the herse was then understood to mean all, that is now meant by the catafalque. The works of Strype are not in the hands of very many; and the reader will not be displeased to know, in what manner they dealt with the dead body of an English King, some three hundred years ago. A few extracts are all, that my limits will allow:—

“After the corps was cold, and seen by the Lords of the Privy Council and others of the nobility of the realm, as appertained, commandment was given to the apothecaries, chirurgeons, wax-chandlers, and others, to do their duties in spurging, cleansing, bowelling, cering, embalming, furnishing, and dressing with spices the said corpse; and also for wrapping the same in cerecloth of many folds over the fine cloth of rains and velvet, surely bound and trammel’d with cords of silk: which was done and executed of them accordingly, as to the dignity of such a mighty prince it appertaineth; and a writing in great and small letters annexed against the breast, containing his name and style, the day and year of his death, in like manner. And after this don, then was the plumber and carpenter appointed to case him in lead, and to chest him. Which being don, the said chest was covered about with blew velvet, and a cross set upon the same.”

“And the corps being thus ordained, the entrails and bowels were honorably buried in the chappel,” &c. Mem., vol. 2, p. 289.

“Then was the corps in the chest had into the midds of the privy chamber, and set upon tressels, with a rich pall of cloth of gold, and a cross thereon, with all manner of lights thereto requisite.” Ibid.

“In the said chappel was ordained a goodly, formal herse, with four-score square tapers; every light containing two foot in length, poising in the whole eighteen hundred weight of wax, garnished about with pensils and escutcheons, banners and bannerols of descents. And, at the four corners, four banners of saints, beaten in fine gold upon damask, with a majesty thereover,” &c., &c. Ibid. 290.

“The second day of the month of February, being Wednesday and Candlemas day, betwixt eight and nine of the clock at night, the herse being lighted, and all other things appointed and prepared, the said most royal corps was reverendly taken and removed from the chambers, &c., and so brought to the chappel, &c., and there it was honorably set and placed within the said herse under a pall of rich cloth of tissue, garnished with escutheons, and a rich cloth of gold, set with precious stones.” Ibid. 292.

“And the herse, standing in the midst of said choir, was of a wonderful state and proportion; that is to say formed in the compass of eight panes and thirteen principals, double storied, of thirty-five foot high, curiously wrot, painted and gilded, having in it a wonderful sort of lights, amounting, in price, of wax, to the sum of four thousand pound weight, and garnished underneath with a rich majesty, and a doome double vallanced: on the which, on either side, was written the King’s word, in beaten gold, upon silk, and his arms of descents. And the whole herse was richly fringed with double fringes of black silk and gold on either side, both within and without very gorgeous and valiant to behold.” Ibid. 295.

It does not appear, that, in those days any single English word was employed, to express the vehicle, which we call a hearse, at the present day, unless the word bier may suffice: and this, like the Roman feretrum, which I take to be much like our common graveyard article with legs, will scarcely answer the description of a four-wheeled car. I infer, that the feretrum was a thing, which might be taken up, and set down, from the word posito in Ovid’s Fasti, iv., 851—

Osculaque applicuit posito suprema feretro.

The feretrum and the capulus, among the Romans, were designed mainly, for the poor. Citizens of any note were borne, as was our own practice, not very many years ago, on the shoulders of their friends.

The funeral car of Henry VIII. was a noble affair:—

“There was ordained for the corps a sumptuous and valuable chariot of four wheels, very long and large, with four pillars, overlaid with cloth of gold at the four corners, bearing a pillow of rich cloth of gold and tissue, fringed with a goodly deep fringe of blew silk and gold; and underneath that, turned towards the chariot, was a marvellous excellent cloth of majesty, having in it a doom artificially wrought, in fine gold upon oyl: and at the nether part of the said Chariot was hanged with blew velvet down to the ground, between the wheels, and at other parts of the chariot, enclosed in like manner with blew velvet.” Ibid. 295.

“The next day early, the 14 February, the chariot was brought to the court hall door; and the corps with great reverence brought from the herse to the same, by mitred prelats and others, temporal lords.” Ibid. 598.

Then, over the area of thirteen remaining pages, the record contains the minute particulars of the monarch’s obsequies, which, though full of interest, are no farther to our present purpose.