An extract from a Contemporary Notice from Diaries, 31st October, 1852 - Friday, 12th November. — This day, appointed for the private view of the lying in state of the great Duke at Chelsea Hospital, seemed impressed with the Earl Marshal's commands for a general mourning, by the gratuitous addition of plenteous weeping ! for such an amount of rain was seldom seen as to-day; we, however, set out at half-past nine, finding a file of carriages already formed, and after we had been set down in the covered entrance, slow was our advance to the octagonal vestibule, where hung the flags and banners, lighted up by a single large candelabrum, with a file of the Guards standing against the dark hangings. From thence we entered the hall, at the extremity of which stood the bier, lighted by gigantic tapers, and gorgeously covered and hung round with cloth of gold and silver velvet, and surmounted by the orders and insignia of the deceased. A close row of troops between the wall and rows of lights had a striking effect against the finely-draped hangings. The whole scene of death was so full of vigorous life. The spectators slowly and silently defiled past the catafalque, and welcome would have been some solemn swell of sacred music to fill the dead silence, which seemed to choke the effusion of feeling too strong for individual utterance. My parents' recollection reverted to the lying in state of the remains of Cardinal Consalvi, nearly thirty years before, when they felt relief from the unadorned but full-voiced chant of the ' Dies Irae.' << less