Hydriotaphia.
Urn-Burial; or, a
Discourse of the
Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk.
Sir Thomas
Browne
Introduction | Religio
Medici | Urn-Burial | Letter to a
Friend | Notes
Chapter
I. | Chapter II. | Chapter III.
| Chapter IV. | Chapter V.
Note on the e-text: this Renascence
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1998 The University of Oregon. For nonprofit and educational uses
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HYDRIOTAPHIA.
URN BURIAL;
OR, A DISCOURSE OF THE SEPULCHRAL
URNS
LATELY FOUND IN NORFOLK.
TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND,
THOMAS LE GROS, OF
CROSTWICK, ESQUIRE.
HEN the general pyre was out, and the last
valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred
friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should
comment upon their ashes; and, having no old experience of the
duration of their relicks, held no opinion of such
after-considerations.
But who knows the fate of
his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle
of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered? The relicks of
many lie like the ruins of Pompey's,* in all parts of the earth;
and when they arrive at your hands these may seem to
* " Pompeios juvenes Asia
atque Europa, sed ipsum terra tegit Libyos."
+ Little
directly but sea, between your house and Greenland.
* Brought back by Cimon Plutarch.
+ The great urns at the
Hippodrome at Rome, conceived to resound the voices of people at
their shows.
# " Abiit ad plures."
§ Which
makes the world so many years old.
|
have wandered far, who, in a direct
and meridian travel,+ have but few miles of known earth
between yourself and the pole.
That the bones
of Theseus should be seen again in Athens* was not beyond
conjecture and hopeful expectation: but that these should arise so
opportunely to serve
yourself was an hit of fate, and honour beyond prediction.
We cannot but wish these urns might have the
effect of theatrical vessels and great Hippodrome urns+ in Rome,
to resound the acclamations and honour due unto you. But these
are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyful voices;
silently expressing old mortality, the ruins of forgotten times,
and can only speak with life, how long in this corruptible frame
some parts may be uncorrupted; yet able to outlast bones long
unborn, and noblest pile among us.
We present
not these as any strange sight or spectacle unknown to your eyes,
who have beheld the best of urns and noblest variety of ashes;
who are yourself no slender master of antiquities, and can daily
command the view of so many imperial faces; which raiseth your
thoughts unto old things and consideration of times before you,
when even living men were antiquities; when the living might
exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly
said to go unto the greater number.# And so run up your thoughts
upon the ancient of days, the antiquary's truest object, unto
whom the eldest parcels are young, and earth itself an infant,
and without Egyptian§ account makes but small noise in
thousands.
We were hinted by the
occasion, not catched the opportunity to write of old things, or
intrude upon the antiquary. We are coldly drawn unto discourses
of antiquities, who have scarce time before us to comprehend new
things, or make out learned novelties. But seeing they arose, as
they lay almost in silence among us, at least in short account
suddenly passed over, we were very unwilling they should die
again, and be buried twice among us.
Beside, to
preserve the living, and make the dead to live, to keep men out
of their urns, and discourse of human fragments in them, is not
impertinent unto our profession; whose study is life and death,
who daily behold examples of mortality, and of all men least need
artificial mementos , or coffins by our bedside, to mind
us of our graves.
'Tis time to observe
occurrences, and let nothing remarkable escape us: the supinity
of elder days hath left so much in silence, or time hath so
martyred the records, that the most industrious heads do find no
easy work to erect a new Britannia.
'Tis
opportune to look back upon old times, and contemplate our
forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be fetched from
the passed world. Simplicity flies away, and iniquity comes at
long strides upon us. We have enough to do to make up ourselves
from present and passed times, and the whole stage of things
scarce serveth for our instruction. A complete piece of virtue
must be made from the Centos of all ages, as all the beauties of
Greece could make but one handsome
*
In the time of Henry the Second. |
Venus.
When the bones of
King Arthur were digged up,* the old race might think they beheld
therein some originals of themselves; unto these of our
urns none here can pretend relation, and can only behold the
relicks of those persons who, in their life giving the laws unto
their predecessors, after long obscurity, now lie at their
mercies. But, remembering the early civility they brought upon
these countries, and forgetting long-passed mischiefs, we
mercifully preserve their bones, and piss not upon their ashes.
In the offer of these antiquities we drive not
at ancient families, so long outlasted by them. We are far from
erecting your worth upon the pillars of your forefathers, whose
merits you illustrate. We honour your old virtues, conformable
unto times before you, which are the noblest armoury. And,
having long experience of your friendly conversation, void of
empty
* " Adamas de rupe veteri
præstantissimus." |
formality, full of freedom, constant and
generous honesty, I look upon you as a gem of the old rock,* and
must profess myself even to urn and ashes.--Your ever faithful
Friend and Servant,
THOMAS
BROWNE. NORWICH, May 1st.
HYDRIOTAPHIA.
CHAPTER I.
N the deep discovery of the subterranean
world a shallow part would satisfy some inquirers; who, if two or
three yards were open about
the surface, would not care to rake the
bowels of Potosi,* and regions toward the centre. Nature hath
furnished one part of the earth, and man another. The treasures
of time lie high, in urns, coins, and monuments, scarce below the
roots of some vegetables. Time hath endless rarities, and shows
of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new
discoveries in earth, and even earth itself a discovery. That
great antiquity America lay buried for thousands of years, and a
large part of the earth is still in the urn unto us.
Though if Adam were made out of an extract of the earth,
all parts might challenge a restitution, yet few have returned
their bones far lower than they might receive them; not affecting
the graves of giants, under hilly and heavy coverings,
but content with less than their own depth, have wished their
bones might lie soft, and the earth be light upon them. Even
such as hope to rise again, would not be content with central
interment, or so desperately to place their relicks as to lie
beyond discovery; and in no way to be seen again; which happy
contrivance hath made communication with our forefathers, and
left unto our view some parts, which they never beheld
themselves.
Though earth hath engrossed the
name, yet water hath proved the smartest grave; which in forty
days swallowed almost mankind, and the living creation; fishes
not wholly escaping, except the salt ocean were handsomely
contempered by a mixture of the fresh element.
Many have taken voluminous pains to determine the state of the
soul upon disunion; but men have been most phantastical in the
singular contrivances of their corporal dissolution: whilst the
soberest nations have rested in two ways, of simple inhumation
and burning.
That carnal interment or burying
was of the elder date, the old examples of Abraham and the
patriarchs are sufficient to illustrate; and were without
competition, if it could be made out that Adam was buried near
Damascus, or Mount Calvary, according to some tradition. God
himself, that buried but one, was pleased to make choice of this
way, collectible from Scripture expression, and the hot contest
between Satan and the archangel about discovering the body of
Moses. But the practice of burning was also of great antiquity,
and of no slender extent. For (not to derive the same from
Hercules) noble descriptions there are hereof in the Grecian
funerals of Homer, in the formal obsequies of Patroclus and
Achilles; and somewhat elder in the Theban war, and
solemn combustion of Meneceus, and Archemorus, contemporary unto
Jair the eighth judge of Israel. Confirmable also among the
Trojans, from the funeral pyre of Hector, burnt before the gates
of Troy: and the burning of Penthesilea the Amazonian queen: and
long continuance of that practice, in the inward countries of
Asia; while as low as the reign of Julian, we find that the king
of Chionia* burnt the body of his son, and interred the ashes in
a silver urn.
The same practice extended also
far west; and besides Herulians, Getes, and Thracians, was in use
with most of the Celtæ, Sarmatians, Germans, Gauls, Danes,
Swedes, Norwegians; not to omit some use thereof among
Carthaginians and Americans. Of greater antiquity among the
Romans than most opinion, or Pliny seems to allow: for (besides
the old table laws+ of burning or burying within the city, of
making the
*
Gumbrates, king of Chionia, a country near Persia.
+ XII.
Tabulæ, part i., de jure sacro, " Hominem mortuum in
urbe ne sepelito neve urito."
# " Ultima prolata
subdita flamma rogo," &c. Fast. , lib. iv., 856.
|
funeral fire with
planed wood, or quenching the fire with wine), Manlius the consul
burnt the body of his son: Numa, by special clause of his will,
was not burnt but buried; and Remus was solemnly burned,
according to the description of Ovid.#
Cornelius Sylla was not the first whose body was burned in Rome,
but the first of the Cornelian family; which being indifferently,
not frequently used before; from that time spread, and became the
prevalent practice. Not totally pursued in the highest run of
cremation; for when even crows were funerally burnt, Poppæa
the wife of Nero found a peculiar grave interment. Now
as all customs were founded upon some bottom of reason, so there
wanted not grounds for this; according to several apprehensions
of the most rational dissolution. Some being of the opinion of
Thales, that water was the original of all things, thought it
most equal1 to submit
unto the principle of putrefaction, and conclude in a moist
relentment.2 Others
conceived it most natural to end in fire, as due unto the master
principle in the composition, according to the doctrine of
Heraclitus; and therefore heaped up large piles, more actively to
waft them toward that element, whereby they also declined a
visible degeneration into worms, and left a lasting parcel of
their composition.
Some apprehended a purifying
virtue in fire, refining the grosser commixture, and firing out
the æthereal particles so deeply immersed in it. And such
as by tradition or rational conjecture held any hint of the final
pyre of all things; or that this element at last must be too hard
for all the rest; might conceive most naturally of the fiery
dissolution. Others pretending no natural grounds, politickly
declined the malice of enemies upon their buried bodies. Which
consideration led Sylla unto this practice; who having thus
served the body of Marius, could not but fear a retaliation upon
his own; entertained after in the civil wars, and revengeful
contentions of Rome.
But as many nations
embraced, and many left it indifferent, so others too much
affected, or strictly declined this practice. The Indian
Brachmans seemed too great friends unto fire, who burnt
themselves alive and thought it the noblest way to end their days
in fire; according to the expression of the Indian, burning
himself at Athens, in his last words upon the pyre
* And therefore the
inscription on his tomb was made accordingly, " Hic
Damase." |
unto the
amazed spectators, " thus I make myself immortal." *
But the Chaldeans, the great idolaters of fire,
abhorred the burning of their carcases, as a pollution of that
deity. The Persian magi declined it upon the like scruples, and
being only solicitous about their bones, exposed their flesh to
the prey of birds and dogs. And the Persees now in India, which
expose their bodies unto vultures, and endure not so much as feretra
or biers of wood, the proper fuel of fire, are
led
on with such niceties. But whether the ancient Germans, who
burned their dead, held any such fear to pollute their deity of
Herthus, or the earth, we have no authentic conjecture.
The Egyptians were afraid of fire, not as a
deity, but a devouring element, mercilessly consuming their
bodies, and leaving too little of them; and therefore by precious
embalmments, depositure in dry earths, or handsome inclosure in
glasses, contrived the notablest ways of integral conservation. And
from such Egyptian scruples, imbibed by Pythagoras, it may be
conjectured that Numa and the Pythagorical sect first waived the
fiery solution.
The Scythians, who swore by
wind and sword, that is, by life and death, were so far from
burning their bodies, that they declined all interment, and made
their graves in the air: and the Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating
nations about Egypt, affected the sea for their grave; thereby
declining visible corruption, and restoring the debt of their
bodies. Whereas the old heroes, in Homer, dreaded nothing more
than water or drowning; probably upon the old opinion of the
fiery substance of the soul, only extinguishable by that element;
and therefore the poet emphatically implieth* the total
destruction in this kind of death, which happened to Ajax Oileus.
The old Balearians had a peculiar mode, for
they used great urns and much wood, but no fire in their burials,
while they bruised the flesh and bones of the dead, crowded them
into urns, and laid heaps of wood upon them. And the Chinese
without cremation or
* Which
Magius reads exapolole.
+ Martialis the Bishop.
|
urnal interment of their
bodies, make use of trees and much burning, while they plant a
pine-tree by their grave, and burn great numbers of printed
draughts of slaves and horses over it, civilly content with their
companies in effigy, which barbarous nations exact unto
reality.
Christians abhorred this way of
obsequies, and though they sticked not to give their bodies to be
burnt in their lives, detested that mode after death: affecting
rather a depositure than absumption, and properly submitting unto
the sentence of God, to return not unto ashes but unto dust
again, and conformable unto the practice of the patriarchs, the
interment of our Saviour, of Peter, Paul, and the ancient
martyrs. And so far at last declining promiscuous interment with
Pagans, that some have suffered ecclesiastical censures,+ for
making no scruple thereof.
The Mussulman
believers will never admit this fiery resolution. For they hold
a present trial from their black and white angels in the grave;
which they must have made so hollow, that they may rise upon
their knees.
The Jewish nation, though they
entertained the old way of inhumation, yet sometimes admitted
this practice. For the men of Jabesh burnt the body of
Saul; and by no prohibited practice, to avoid contagion or
pollution, in time of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their
friends.* And when they burnt not their dead bodies, yet
sometimes used great burnings near and about them, deducible from
the expressions concerning Jehoram, Zedechias, and the sumptuous
pyre of Asa. And were so little averse from Pagan burning, that
the Jews lamenting the death of Cæsar their friend, and
revenger on Pompey, frequented the place where his
* Amos vi. 10.
+ As in
that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by Simon.--1 Macc.
xiii.
# kataskeuasma thaumasios
pepoiemenon
, whereof a Jewish priest had always custody until Josephus'
days.--Jos. Antiq. , lib. x.
|
body was burnt for many nights together. And as they raised noble
monuments and mausoleums for their own
nation,+ so they were not scrupulous in erecting some for others,
according to the practice of Daniel, who left that lasting
sepulchral pile in Ecbatana, for the Median and Persian kings.#
But even in times of subjection and hottest
use, they conformed not unto the Roman practice of burning;
whereby the prophecy was secured concerning the body of Christ,
that it should not see corruption, or a bone should not be
broken; which we believe was also providentially prevented, from
the soldier's spear and nails that passed by the little bones
both in his hands and feet; not of ordinary contrivance, that it
should not corrupt on the cross, according to the laws of Roman
crucifixion, or an hair of his head perish, though observable in
Jewish customs, to cut the hair of malefactors.
Nor in their long cohabitation with Egyptians,
crept into a custom of their exact embalming, wherein deeply
slashing the muscles, and taking out the brains and entrails,
they had broken the subject of so entire a resurrection, nor
fully answered the types of Enoch, Elijah, or Jonah, which yet to
prevent or restore, was of equal facility unto that rising power
able to break the fasciations and bands of death, to get clear
out of the cerecloth, and an hundred pounds of ointment, and out
of the sepulchre before the stone was rolled from it.
But though they embraced not this practice of burning, yet
entertained they many ceremonies agreeable unto Greek and Roman
obsequies. And he that observeth their funeral feasts, their
lamentations at the grave, their music, and weeping mourners; how
they closed the eyes of their friends, how they washed, anointed,
and kissed the dead; may easily conclude these were not mere
Pagan civilities. But whether that mournful burthen, and treble
calling out after Absalom, had any reference unto the last
conclamation, and triple valediction, used by other nations, we
hold but a wavering conjecture.
Civilians make
sepulture but of the law of nations, others do naturally found it
and discover it also in animals. They that are so thick-skinned
as still to credit the story of the Phoenix, may say something
for animal burning. More serious conjectures find some examples
of sepulture in elephants, cranes, the sepulchral cells of
pismires, and practice of bees,--which civil society carrieth out
their dead, and hath exequies, if not interments.
CHAPTER
II.
THE
solemnities, ceremonies, rites of their cremation or interment,
so solemnly delivered by authors, we shall not disparage our
reader to repeat. Only the last and lasting part in their urns,
collected bones and ashes, we cannot wholly omit or decline that
subject, which occasion lately presented, in some discovered
among us.
In a field of Old Walsingham, not
many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns,
deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor far from
one another.--Not all strictly of one figure, but most answering
these described; some containing two pounds of bones, and teeth,
with fresh impressions of their combustion; besides the
extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs
handsomely wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen
nippers, and in one some kind of opal.
Near the
same plot of ground, for about six yards compass, were digged up
coals and incinerated substances, which begat conjecture that
this was the ustrina or place of burning their bodies, or
some sacrificing place unto the Manes , which was properly
below the surface of the ground, as the aræ and
altars unto the gods and heroes above it.
That
these were the urns of Romans from the common custom and place
where they were found, is no obscure conjecture, not far from a
Roman garrison, and but five miles from Brancaster, set down by
ancient record under the name of Branodunum. And where the
adjoining town, containing seven parishes, in no very
different sound, but Saxon termination, still retains the name of
Burnham, which being an early station, it is not improbable the
neighbour parts were filled with habitations, either of Romans
themselves, or Britons Romanized, which observed the Roman
customs.
Nor is it improbable, that the Romans
early possessed this country. For though we meet not with such
strict particulars of these parts before the new institution of
Constantine and military charge of the count of the Saxon shore,
and that about the Saxon invasions, the Dalmatian horsemen were
in the garrison of Brancaster; yet in the time of Claudius,
Vespasian, and Severus, we find no less than three legions
dispersed through the province of Britain. And as high as the
reign of Claudius a great overthrow was given unto the Iceni, by
the Roman lieutenant Ostorius. Not long after, the country was
so molested, that, in hope of a better state, Prastaagus
bequeathed his kingdom unto Nero and his daughters; and Boadicea,
his queen, fought the last decisive battle with Paulinus. After
which time, and conquest of Agricola, the lieutenant of
Vespasian, probable it is, they wholly possessed this country;
ordering it into garrisons or habitations best suitable with
their securities. And so some Roman habitations not improbable
in these parts, as high as the time of Vespasian, where the
Saxons after seated, in whose thin-filled maps we yet find the
name of Walsingham. Now if the Iceni were but Gammadims,
Anconians, or men that lived in an angle, wedge, or elbow of
Britain, according to the original etymology, this country will
challenge the emphatical appellation, as most properly making the
elbow or iken of Icenia.
That Britain
was notably populous is undeniable, from
* " Hominum infinita
multitudo est creberrimaque; ædificia fere Gallicis
consimilia." --Cæsar de Bello. Gal. , lib. v. |
that expression of
Cæsar.* That the Romans themselves were early in no small
numbers--seventy thousand, with their associates, slain, by
Boadicea, affords a sure account. And though not many Roman
habitations are now known, yet some, by old works, rampiers,
coins, and urns, do testify their possessions. Some urns have
been found at Castor, some also about Southcreak, and, not many
years past, no less than ten in a field at Buston, not near any
recorded garrison. Nor is it strange to find Roman coins of
copper and silver among us; of Vespasian, Trajan, Adrian,
Commodus, Antoninus, Severus, &c.; but the greater number of
Dioclesian, Constantine, Constans, Valens, with many of
Victorinus Posthumius, Tetricus, and the thirty tyrants in the
reign of Gallienus; and some as high as Adrianus have been found
about Thetford, or Sitomagus, mentioned in the Itinerary
of Antoninus, as the way from Venta or Castor unto London. But
the most frequent discovery is made at the two Castors by Norwich
and Yarmouth at Burghcastle, and Brancaster.
Besides the Norman, Saxon, and Danish pieces of Cuthred, Canutus,
William, Matilda, and others, some British coins of gold have
been dispersedly found, and no small number of silver pieces near
Norwich, with a rude head upon the obverse, and an ill-formed
horse on the reverse, with inscriptions Ic. Duro. T.;
whether implying Iceni, Durotriges, Tascia, or Trinobantes, we
leave to higher conjecture. Vulgar chronology will have Norwich
Castle as old as Julius Cæsar; but his distance from these
parts, and its Gothick form of structure, abridgeth such
antiquity. The British coins afford conjecture of early
habitation in these parts, though the city of Norwich
arose from the ruins of Venta; and though, perhaps, not without
some habitation before, was enlarged, builded, and nominated by
the Saxons. In what bulk or populosity it stood in the old
East-Angle monarchy tradition and history are silent. Considerable it
was in the Danish eruptions, when Sueno burnt
Thetford and Norwich, and Ulfketel, the governor thereof, was
able to make some resistance, and after endeavoured to burn the
Danish navy.
How the Romans left so many coins
in countries of their conquests seems of hard resolution; except
we consider how they buried them under ground when, upon
barbarous invasions, they were fain to desert their habitations
in most part of their empire, and the strictness of their laws
forbidding to transfer them to any other uses: wherein the
Spartans were singular, who, to make their copper money useless,
contempered it with vinegar. That the Britons left any, some
wonder, since their money was iron and iron rings before
Cæsar; and those of after-stamp by permission, and but
small in bulk and bigness. That so few of the Saxons remain,
because, overcome by succeeding conquerors upon the place, their
coins, by degrees, passed into other stamps and the marks of
after-ages.
Than the time of these urns
deposited, or precise antiquity of these relicks, nothing of more
uncertainty; for since the lieutenant of Claudius seems to have
made the first progress into these parts, since Boadicea was
overthrown by the forces of Nero, and Agricola put a full end to
these conquests, it is not probable the country was fully
garrisoned or planted before; and, therefore, however these urns
might be of later date, not likely of higher antiquity.
And the succeeding emperors desisted not from
their conquests in these and other parts, as testified
by history and medal-inscription yet extant: the province of
Britain, in so divided a distance from Rome, beholding the faces
of many imperial persons, and in large account; no fewer than
Cæsar, Claudius, Britannicus, Vespasian, Titus, Adrian,
Severus, Commodus, Geta, and Caracalla.
A great
obscurity herein, because no medal or emperor's coin enclosed,
which might denote the date of their interments; observable in
many urns, and found in those of Spitalfields, by London, which
contained the coins of Claudius, Vespasian, Commodus, Antoninus,
attended with lacrymatories, lamps, bottles of liquor, and other
appurtenances of affectionate superstition, which in these rural
interments were wanting.
Some uncertainty there
is from the period or term of burning, or the cessation of that
practice. Macrobius affirmeth it was disused in his days; but
most agree, though without authentic record, that it ceased with
the Antonini,--most safely to be understood after the reign of
those emperors which assumed the name of Antoninus, extending
unto Heliogabalus. Not strictly after Marcus; for about fifty
years later, we find the magnificent burning and consecration of
Servus; and, if we so fix this period or cessation, these urns
will challenge above thirteen hundred years.
But whether this practice was only then left by emperors and
great persons, or generally about Rome, and not in other
provinces, we hold no authentic account; for after Tertullian, in
the days of Minucius, it was obviously objected upon Christians,
that they condemned the practice of
* " Execrantur rogos, et damnant
ignium
sepulturam." --Min. in Oct. |
burning.* And we find a passage in
Sidonius, which asserteth that practice in France unto a lower
account. And, perhaps, not fully disused till Christianity fully
established, which gave the final extinction to these sepulchral
bonfires.
Whether they were the bones of men,
or women, or children, no authentic decision from ancient custom
in distinct places of burial. Although not improbably
conjectured, that the double sepulture, or burying-place of
Abraham, had in it such intention. But from exility of bones,
thinness of skulls, smallness of teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones,
not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor age, or
woman. Confirmable also from things contained in them. In most
were found substances resembling combs, plates like boxes,
fastened with iron pins, and handsomely overwrought like the
necks or bridges of musical instruments; long brass plates
overwrought like the handles of neat implements; brazen nippers,
to pull away hair; and in one a kind of opal, yet maintaining a
bluish colour.
Now that they accustomed to burn
or bury with them, things wherein they excelled, delighted, or
which were dear unto them, either as farewells unto all pleasure,
or vain apprehension that they might use them in the other world,
is testified by all antiquity, observable from the gem or beryl
ring upon the finger of Cynthia, the mistress of Propertius, when
after her funeral pyre her ghost appeared unto him; and notably
illustrated from the contents of that Roman urn preserved by
Cardinal Farnese, wherein besides great number of gems with heads
of gods and goddesses, were found an ape of agath, a grasshopper,
an elephant of amber, a crystal ball, three glasses, two spoons,
and six nuts of crystal; and beyond the content of urns, in the
monument of Childerek the first, and fourth king from
Pharamond, casually discovered three years past at Tournay,
restoring unto the world much gold richly adorning his sword, two
hundred rubies, many hundred imperial coins, three hundred golden
bees, the bones and horse-shoes of his horse interred with him,
according to the barbarous magnificence of those days in their
sepulchral obsequies. Although, if we steer by the conjecture of
many a Septuagint expression, some trace thereof may be found
even with the ancient Hebrews, not only from the sepulchral
treasure of David, but the circumcision knives which Joshua also
buried.
Some men, considering the contents of
these urns, lasting pieces and toys included in them, and the
custom of burning with many other nations, might somewhat doubt
whether all urns found among us, were properly Roman relicks, or
some not belonging unto our British, Saxon, or Danish
forefathers.
In the form of burial among the
ancient Britons, the large discourses of Cæsar, Tacitus,
and Strabo are silent. For the discovery whereof, with other
particulars, we much deplore the loss of that letter which Cicero
expected or received from his brother Quintus, as a resolution of
British customs; or the account which might have been made by
Scribonius Largus, the physician, accompanying the Emperor
Claudius, who might have also discovered that frugal bit of the
old Britons, which in the bigness of a bean could satisfy their
thirst and hunger.
But that the Druids and
ruling priests used to burn and bury, is expressed by Pomponius;
that Bellinus, the brother of Brennus, and King of the Britons,
was burnt, is acknowledged by Polydorus, as also by Amandus
Zierexensis in Historia and Pineda in his Universa
Historia (Spanish). That they held that practice in
Gallia, Cæsar expressly delivereth. Whether the Britons
(probably descended from them, of like religion, language, and
manners) did not sometimes make use of burning, or whether at
least such as were after civilized unto the Roman life and
manners, conformed not unto this practice, we have no historical
assertion or denial. But since, from the account of Tacitus, the
Romans early wrought so much civility upon the British stock,
that they brought them to build temples, to wear the gown, and
study the Roman laws and language, that they conformed also unto
their religious rites and customs in burials, seems no improbable
conjecture.
That burning the dead was used in
Sarmatia is affirmed by Gaguinus; that the Sueons and Gathlanders
used to burn their princes and great persons, is delivered by
Saxo and Olaus; that this was the old German practice, is also
asserted by Tacitus. And though we are bare in historical
particulars of such obsequies in this island, or that the Saxons,
Jutes, and Angles burnt their dead, yet came they from parts
where 'twas of ancient practice; the Germans using it, from whom
they were descended. And even in Jutland and Sleswick in Anglia
Cymbrica, urns with bones were found not many years before us.
But the Danish and northern nations have raised
an era or point of compute from their custom of burning their
dead: some deriving it from Unguinus, some from Frotho the great,
who ordained by law, that princes and chief commanders should be
committed unto the fire, though the common sort had the common
grave interment. So Starkatterus, that old hero, was burnt, and
Ringo royally burnt the body of Harold the king slain by him.
What time this custom generally expired in that
nation, we discern no assured period; whether it ceased
before Christianity, or upon their conversion, by Ausgurius the
Gaul, in the time of Ludovicus Pius, the son of Charles the
Great, according to good computes; or whether it might not be
used by some persons, while for an hundred and eighty years
Paganism and Christianity were promiscuously embraced among them,
there is no assured conclusion. About which times the Danes were
busy in England, and particularly infested this country; where
many castles and strongholds were built by them, or against them,
and great number of names and families still derived from them.
But since this custom was probably disused before their invasion
or conquest, and the Romans confessedly practised the same since
their possession of this island, the most assured account will
fall upon the Romans, or Britons Romanized.
However, certain it is, that urns conceived of no Roman original,
are often digged up both in Norway and Denmark, handsomely
described, and graphically represented by the learned physician
Wormius. And in some parts of Denmark in no ordinary number, as
stands delivered by authors exactly describing those countries.
And they contained not only bones, but many other substances in
them, as knives, pieces of iron, brass, and wood, and one of
Norway a brass gilded jew's-harp.
Nor were they
confused or careless in disposing the noblest sort, while they
placed large stones in circle about the urns or bodies which they
interred: somewhat answerable unto the monument of Rollrich
stones in England, or sepulchral monument probably erected by
Rollo, who after conquered Normandy; where 'tis not improbable
somewhat might be discovered. Meanwhile to what nation or person
belonged that large urn found
* In Cheshire.
+ In Norfolk. |
at Ashbury,* containing mighty bones, and a buckler; what those
large urns found at Little Massingham;+ or why the Anglesea urns
are placed with their mouths downward, remains yet undiscovered.
CHAPTER
III.
PLAISTERED
and whited sepulchres were anciently affected in cadaverous and
corrupted burials; and the rigid Jews were wont to garnish the
sepulchres of the righteous.# Ulysses, in Hecuba, cared not how
meanly he lived, so he might find a noble tomb after death.§
Great princes affected great monuments; and the fair and larger
urns contained no vulgar ashes, which makes that disparity in
those which time discovereth among us. The present urns were not
of one capacity, the largest containing above a gallon, some not
much above half that measure; nor all of one figure, wherein
there is no strict conformity in the same or different countries;
observable from those represented by Casalius, Bosio, and others,
though all found in Italy; while many have handles, ears, and
long necks, but most imitate a circular figure, in a spherical
and round composure; whether from any mystery, best duration or
capacity, were but a conjecture. But the common form with necks
was a proper figure, making our last bed like our first; nor much
unlike the urns of our nativity while
# St Matt. xxiii.
§Euripides.
|| Psal. lxiii.
|
we lay in the nether part of the earth,|| and inward vault of our
microcosm. Many urns are red, these but of a black colour
somewhat smooth, and dully sounding, which begat some
doubt, whether they were burnt, or only baked in oven or sun,
according to the ancient way, in many bricks, tiles, pots, and
testaceous works; and, as the word testa is properly to be
taken, when occurring without addition and chiefly intended by
Pliny, when he commendeth bricks and tiles of two years old, and
to make them in the spring. Nor only these concealed pieces, but
the open magnificence of antiquity, ran much in the artifice of
clay. Hereof the house of Mausolus was built, thus old Jupiter
stood in the Capitol, and the statua of Hercules, made in the
reign of Tarquinius Priscus, was extant in Pliny's days. And
such as declined burning or funeral urns, affected coffins of
clay, according to the mode of Pythagoras, a way preferred by
Varro. But the spirit of great ones was above these
circumscriptions, affecting copper, silver, gold, and porphyry
urns, wherein Severus lay, after a serious view and sentence on
that which should contain
* " choreseis ton anthropon on e
oikoumene ouk
echoresen." -- Dion. |
him.* Some of these urns were thought to
have been silvered over, from sparklings in several pots, with
small tinsel parcels; uncertain whether from the earth, or the
first mixture in them.
Among these urns we
could obtain no good account of their coverings; only one seemed
arched over with some kind of brickwork. Of those found at
Buxton, some were covered with flints, some, in other parts, with
tiles; those at Yarmouth Caster were closed with Roman bricks,
and some have proper earthen covers adapted and fitted to them.
But in the Homerical urn of Patroclus, whatever was the solid
tegument, we find the immediate covering to be a purple piece of
silk: and such as had no covers might have the earth closely
pressed into them, after which disposure were probably some
of these, wherein we found the bones and ashes half mortared unto
the sand and sides of the urn, and some long roots of quich, or
dog's-grass, wreathed about the bones.
No
Lamps, included liquors, lacrymatories, or tear bottles, attended
these rural urns, either as sacred unto the manes , or
passionate expressions of their surviving friends. While with
rich flames, and hired tears, they solemnized their obsequies,
and in the most lamented monuments made one part of their
inscriptions.* Some find sepulchral vessels containing liquors,
which time hath incrassated into jellies. For, besides these
lacrymatories, notable lamps, with vessels of oils, and
aromatical liquors, attended noble ossuaries; and some yet
retaining a vinosity and spirit in them, which, if any have
tasted, they have far exceeded the palates of antiquity. Liquors
not to be computed by years of annual magistrates, but by great
conjunctions and the
* "
Cum lacrymis posuere."
+ About five hundred years.
#
" Vinum Opimianum annorum centum." --Petron.
|
fatal periods of
kingdoms.+ The draughts of consulary date were but crude unto
these, and Opimian wine but in the must unto them.#
In sundry graves and sepulchres we meet with rings, coins,
and chalices. Ancient frugality was so severe, that they allowed
no gold to attend the corpse, but only that they allowed no gold
to attend the corpse, but only that which served to fasten their
teeth. Whether the Opaline stone in this were burnt upon the
finger of the dead, or cast into the fire by some affectionate
friend, it will consist with either custom. But other
incinerable substances were found so fresh, that they could feel
no singe from fire. These, upon view, were judged to be
wood; but, sinking in water, and tried by the fire, we found them
to be bone or ivory. In their hardness and yellow colour they
most resembled box, which, in old expressions, found the epithet
of eternal, and perhaps in such conservatories might have passed
uncorrupted.
That bay leaves were found green
in the tomb of S. Humbert, after an hundred and fifty years, was
looked upon as miraculous. Remarkable it was unto old spectators,
that the cypress of the temple of Diana lasted so many hundred
years. The wood of the ark, and olive-rod of Aaron, were older at
the captivity; but the cypress of the ark of Noah was the
greatest vegetable of antiquity, if Josephus were not deceived by
some fragments of it in his days: to omit the moor logs and fir
trees found underground in many parts of England; the undated
ruins of winds, floods, or earthquakes, and which in Flanders
still show from what quarter they fell, as generally lying in a
north-east position.
But though we found not
these pieces to be wood, according to first apprehensions, yet we
missed not altogether of some woody substance; for the bones were
not so clearly picked but some coals were found amongst them; a
way to make wood perpetual, and a fit associate for metal,
whereon was laid the foundation of the great Ephesian temple, and
which were made the lasting tests of old boundaries and
landmarks. Whilst we look on these, we admire not observations
of coals found fresh after four hundred years. In a
long-deserted habitation even egg-shells have been found fresh,
not tending to corruption.
In the monument of
King Childerick the iron relicks were found all rusty and
crumbling into pieces; but our little iron pins, which
fastened the ivory works, held well together, and lost not their
magnetical quality, though wanting a tenacious moisture for the
firmer union of parts; although it be hardly drawn into fusion,
yet that metal soon submitteth unto rust and dissolution. In the
brazen pieces we admired not the duration, but the freedom from
rust, and ill savour, upon the hardest attrition; but now exposed
unto the piercing atoms of air, in the space of a few months,
they begin to spot and betray their green entrails. We conceive
not these urns to have descended thus naked as they appear, or to
have entered their graves without the old habit of flowers. The
urn of Philopoemen was so laden with flowers and ribbons, that it
afforded no sight of itself. The rigid Lycurgus allowed olive
and myrtle. The Athenians might fairly except against the
practice of Democritus, to be buried up in honey, as fearing to
embezzle a great commodity of their country, and the best of that
kind in Europe. But Plato seemed too frugally politick, who
allowed no larger monument than would contain four heroick
verses, and designed the most barren ground for sepulture: though
we cannot commend the goodness of that sepulchral ground which
was set at no higher rate than the mean salary of Judas. Though
the earth had confounded the ashes of these ossuaries, yet the
bones were so smartly burnt, that some thin plates of brass were
found half melted among them. Whereby we apprehend they were not
of the meanest caresses, perfunctorily fired, as sometimes in
military, and commonly in pestilence, burnings; or after the
manner of abject corpses, huddled forth and carelessly burnt,
without the Esquiline Port at Rome; which was an affront
continued upon Tiberius, while they but half burnt his body, and
in the amphitheatre, according to the custom in notable
malefactors;* whereas Nero seemed not so much to fear his death
as that his head should be cut off and his body not burnt entire.
Some, finding many fragments of skulls in these
urns, suspected a mixture of bones; in none we searched was there
cause of such conjecture, though sometimes they declined not that
practice.--The ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of
Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus. All urns contained
not single ashes;
* "
In amphitheatro semiustulandum." --Suetonius Vit.
Tib.
+ " Sic erimus cuncti, ... ergo dum
vivimus
vivamus."
# Agonon paizein. A barbarous
pastime
at feasts, when men stood upon a rolling globe, with their necks
in a rope and a knife in their hands, ready to cut it when the
stone was rolled away, wherein, if they failed, they lost their
lives, to the laughter of their spectators.
* Diis Manibus.
|
without confused burnings they
affectionately compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring
to continue their living unions. And when distance of death
denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affections conceived some
satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lie urn by urn,
and touch but in their manes. And many were so curious to
continue their living relations, that they contrived large and
family urns, wherein the ashes of their nearest friends and
kindred might successively be received, at least some parcels
thereof, while their collateral memorials lay in minor vessels
about them.
Antiquity held too light thoughts
from objects of mortality, while some drew provocatives of mirth
from anatomies,+ and jugglers showed tricks with skeletons. When
fiddlers made not so pleasant mirth as fencers, and men could sit
with quiet stomachs, while hanging was played before them.# Old
considerations made few mementos by skulls and bones
upon their monuments. In the Egyptian obelisks and hieroglyphical
figures it is not easy to meet with bones. The sepulchral lamps
speak nothing less than sepulture, and in their literal draughts
prove often obscene and antick pieces. Where we find D.
M.* it is obvious to meet with sacrificing pateras and
vessels of libation upon old sepulchral monuments. In the Jewish
hypogæum and subterranean cell at Rome, was little
observable beside the variety of lamps and frequent draughts of
Anthony and Jerome we meet with thigh-bones and death's-heads;
but the cemeterial cells of ancient Christians and martyrs were
filled with draughts of Scripture stories; not declining the
flourishes of cypress, palms, and olive, and the mystical figures
of peacocks, doves, and cocks; but iterately affecting the
portraits of Enoch, Lazarus, Jonas, and the vision of Ezekiel, as
hopeful draughts, and hinting imagery of the resurrection, which
is the life of the grave, and sweetens our habitations in the
land of moles and pismires.
Gentle inscriptions
precisely delivered the extent of men's lives, seldom the manner
of their deaths, which history itself so often leaves obscure in
the records of memorable persons. There is scarce any
philosopher but dies twice or thrice in Lærtius; nor almost
any life without two or three deaths in Plutarch; which makes the
tragical ends of noble persons more favourably resented by
compassionate readers who find some relief in the election of
such differences.
The certainty of death is
attended with uncertainties, in time, manner, places. The
variety of monuments hath often obscured true graves; and
cenotaphs confounded sepulchres. For beside their real tombs,
many have found honorary and empty sepulchres. The variety of
Homer's monuments made him of various countries. Euripides had
his tomb in Africa, but his sepulture in Macedonia. And Severus
found his real sepulchre in Rome, but his empty grave in Gallia.
He that lay in a golden urn eminently above the
earth, was not like to find the quiet of his bones. Many of
these urns were broke by a vulgar discoverer in hope of enclosed
treasure. The ashes of Marcellus were lost above ground, upon
the like account. Where profit hath prompted, no age hath wanted
such miners. For which the most barbarous expilators found the
most civil rhetorick. Gold once out of the earth is no more due
unto it; what was unreasonably committed to the ground, is
reasonably resumed from it; let monuments and rich fabricks, not
riches, adorn men's ashes. The commerce of the living is not to
be transferred unto the dead; it is not injustice to take that
which none complains to lose, and no man is wronged where no man
is possessor.
What virtue yet sleeps in this terra damnata and
aged cinders, were petty magic to
experiment. These crumbling relicks and long fired particles
superannuate such expectations; bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of
the dead, were the treasures of old sorcerers. In vain we revive
such practices; present superstition too visibly perpetuates the
folly of our forefathers, wherein unto old observation this
island was so complete, that it might have instructed Persia.
Plato's historian of the other world lies
twelve days incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the large
stations of the dead. How to keep the corpse seven days
from corruption by anointing and washing, without extenteration,
were an hazardable piece of art, in our choicest practice. How
they made distinct separation of bones and ashes from fiery
admixture, hath found no historical solution; though they seemed
to make a distinct collection and overlooked not Pyrrhus his toe. Some
provision they might make by fictile vessels, coverings,
tiles, or flat stones, upon and about the body (and in the same
field, not far from these urns, many stones were found
underground), as also by careful separation of extraneous matter
composing and raking up the burnt bones with forks, observable in
that notable lamp of Galvanus Martianus, who had the sight of the vas
ustrinum or vessel wherein they burnt the dead,
found
in the Esquiline field at Rome, might have afforded clearer
solution. But their insatisfaction herein begat that remarkable
invention in the funeral pyres of some princes, by incombustible
sheets made with a texture of asbestos, incremable flax, or
salamander's wool, which preserved their bones and ashes
incommixed.
How the bulk of a man should sink
into so few pounds of bones and ashes, may seem strange unto any
who considers not its constitution, and how slender a mass will
remain upon an open and urging fire of the carnal composition.
Even bones themselves, reduced into ashes, do abate a notable
proportion. And consisting much of a volatile salt, when that is
fired out, make a light kind of cinders. Although their bulk be
disproportionable to their weight, when the heavy principle of
salt is fired out, and the earth almost only remaineth;
observable in sallow, which makes more ashes than oak, and
discovers the common fraud of selling ashes by measure, and not
by ponderation.
Some bones make best
skeletons, some bodies quick and speediest ashes. Who would
expect a quick flame from hydropical Heraclitus? The poisoned
soldier when his belly brake, put out two pyres in Plutarch. But
in the plague of Athens, one private pyre served two or three
intruders; and the Saracens burnt in large heaps, by the king of
Castile, showed how little fuel sufficeth. Though the funeral
pyre of Patroclus took up an hundred foot,* a piece of an old
boat burnt Pompey; and if the burthen of Isaac were sufficient
for an holocaust, a man may carry his own pyre.
From animals are drawn good burning lights, and good medicines
against burning. Though the seminal humour seems of a contrary
nature to fire, yet the body completed proves a combustible lump,
wherein fire finds flame even from bones, and some fuel almost
from
* " Ekatompedon
entha e entha."
+ The Brain. Hippocrates.
# Amos ii. 1.
As Artemisia of her husband Mausolus.
|
all parts; though the
metropolis of humidity+ seems least disposed unto it, which might
render the skulls of these urns less burned than other bones. But all
flies or sinks before fire almost in all bodies: when the
common ligament is dissolved, the attenuable parts ascend, the
rest subside in coal, calx, or ashes.
To burn
the bones of the king of Edom for lime,# seems no irrational
ferity; but to drink of the ashes of dead relations,§ a
passionate prodigality. He that hath the ashes of his friend,
hath an everlasting treasure; where fire taketh leave, corruption
slowly enters. In bones well burnt, fire makes a wall against
itself; experimented in Copels,3
and tests of metals, which consist
of such ingredients. What the sun compoundeth, fire analyzeth,
not transmuteth. That devouring agent leaves almost
always a morsel for the earth, whereof all things are but a
colony; and which, if time permits, the mother element will have
in their primitive mass again.
He that looks
for urns and old sepulchral relicks, must not seek them in the
ruins of temples, where no religion anciently placed them. These
were found in a field, according to ancient custom, in noble or
private burial; the old practice of the Canaanites, the family of
Abraham, and the burying-place of Joshua, in the borders of his
possessions; and also agreeable unto Roman practice to bury by
highways, whereby their monuments were under eye:--memorials of
themselves, and mementoes of mortality unto living passengers;
whom the epitaphs of great ones were fain to beg to stay and look
upon them,--a language though sometimes used,
not so proper in church inscriptions.* The
sensible rhetorick of the dead, to exemplarity of good life,
first admitted to the bones of pious men and martyrs within
church walls, which in succeeding ages crept into promiscuous
practice: while Constantine was peculiarly favoured to be
admitted into the church porch, and the first thus buried in
England, was in the days of Cuthred.
Christians
dispute how their bodies should lie in the grave. In urnal
interment they clearly escaped this controversy. Though we
decline the religious consideration, yet in cemeterial and
narrower burying-places, to avoid confusion and cross-position, a
certain posture were to be admitted: which even Pagan civility
observed. The Persians lay north and south; the Megarians and
Phoenicians placed their heads to the east; the Athenians, some
think, towards the west, which Christians still retain. And Beda
will have it to be the posture of our Saviour. That he
was crucified with his face toward the west, we will not contend
with tradition and probable account; but we applaud not the hand
of the painter, in exalting his cross so high above those on
either side: since hereof we find no authentic account in
history, and even the crosses found by Helena, pretend no such
distinction from longitude or dimension.
To be
knav'd out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking-bowls,
and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport our
enemies, are tragical abominations escaped in burning burials.
Urnal interments and burnt relicks lie not in
fear of worms, or to be an heritage for serpents. In carnal
sepulture, corruptions seem peculiar unto parts; and some speak
of snakes out of the spinal marrow. But while we suppose common
worms in graves, 'tis not easy to find any there; few in
churchyards above a foot deep, fewer or none in churches though
in fresh-decayed bodies. Teeth, bones, and hair, give the most
lasting defiance to corruption. In an hydropical body, ten years
buried in the churchyard, we met with a fat concretion, where the
nitre of the earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the
body, had coagulated large lumps of fat into the consistence of
the hardest Castile soap, whereof part remaineth with us.4 After a battle with the
Persians, the Roman corpses decayed in few days, while the
Persian bodies remained dry and uncorrupted. Bodies in the same
ground do not uniformly dissolve, nor bones equally moulder;
whereof in the opprobrious
* Who was buried in 1530, and dug up
in 1608, and found
perfect like an ordinary corpse newly interred. |
disease, we expect no long duration. The body of the Marquis of Dorset*
seemed sound and handsomely
cereclothed, that after seventy-eight years was found
uncorrupted. Common tombs preserve not beyond powder: a
firmer consistence and compage of parts might be expected from
arefaction, deep burial, or charcoal. The greatest antiquities
of mortal bodies may remain in putrefied bones, whereof, though
we take not in the pillar of Lot's wife, or metamorphosis of
Ortelius, some may be older than pyramids, in the putrefied
relicks of the general inundation. When Alexander opened the tomb
of Cyrus, the remaining bones discovered his proportion, whereof
urnal fragments afford but a bad conjecture, and have this
disadvantage of grave interments, that they leave us ignorant of
most personal discoveries. For since bones afford not only
rectitude and stability but figure unto the body, it is no
impossible physiognomy to conjecture at fleshy appendencies, and
after what shape the muscles and carnous parts might hang in
their full consistencies. A full-spread cariola shows a
well-shaped horse behind; handsome formed skulls give some
analogy of fleshy resemblance. A critical view of bones makes a
good distinction of sexes. Even colour is not beyond conjecture,
since it is hard to be deceived in the distinction of the
Negroes'
skulls.5 Dante's* characters are
to be found
in skulls as well as faces. Hercules is not only known by his
foot. Other parts make out their comproportions and inferences
upon whole or parts. And since the dimensions of the head
measure the whole body, and the figure thereof gives conjecture
of the principal faculties: physiognomy outlives ourselves, and
ends not in our graves.
Severe contemplators,
observing these lasting relicks, may think them good monuments of
persons past, little advantage to future beings; and, considering
that power which subdueth all things unto itself, that
can resume the scattered atoms, or identify out of anything,
conceive it superfluous to expect a resurrection out of relicks:
but the soul subsisting, other matter, clothed with due
accidents, may salve the individuality. Yet the saints, we
observe, arose from graves and monuments about the holy city.
Some think the ancient patriarchs so earnestly desired to lay
their bones in Canaan, as hoping to make a part of that
resurrection; and, though thirty miles from Mount Calvary, at
least to lie in that region which should produce the first-fruits
of the dead. And if, according to learned conjecture, the bodies
of men shall rise where their greatest relicks remain, many are
not like to err in the topography of their resurrection, though
their bones or bodies be after translated by angels into the
field of Ezekiel's vision, or as some will order it, into the
valley of judgment, or Jehosaphat.
CHAPTER
IV.
CHRISTIANS have handsomely glossed the deformity of death
by careful consideration of the body, and civil rites which take
off brutal terminations: and though they conceived all reparable
by a resurrection, cast not off all care of interment. And since
the ashes of sacrifices burnt upon the altar of God were
carefully carried out by the priests, and deposed in a clean
field; since they acknowledged their bodies to be the lodging of
Christ, and temples of the Holy Ghost, they devolved not all upon
the sufficiency of soul-existence; and therefore with long
services and full solemnities, concluded their last
exequies, wherein to all distinctions the Greek devotion seems
most pathetically ceremonious.
Christian
invention hath chiefly driven at rites, which speak hopes of
another life, and hints of a resurrection. And if the ancient
Gentiles held not the immortality of their better part, and some
subsistence after death, in several rites, customs, actions, and
expressions, they contradicted their own opinions: wherein
Democritus went high, even to the thought of a resurrection, as
scoffingly recorded by Pliny.* What can be more
* " Similis****reviviscendi
promissa Democrito vanitas,
qui non
revixit ipse. Quæ (malum) ista dementia est iterari vitam
morte?" --Plin. I. vii. c. 55.
+ " Kai tacha
d ek gaies elpizomen es phaos elthein leipsan."
#
" Cedit item retro de terra quod fuit ante in terras."
-- Luc. , lib. ii. 998.
|
express than the expression of Phocylides?+
Or who would expect from Lucretius# a sentence of Ecclesiastes?
Before Plato could speak, the soul had wings in Homer, which fell
not, but flew out of the body into the mansions of the dead; who
also observed that handsome distinction of Demas and Soma, for
the body conjoined to the soul, and body separated from it.
Lucian spoke much truth in jest, when he said that part of
Hercules which proceeded from Alcmena perished, that from Jupiter
remained immortal. Thus Socrates was content that his friends
should bury his body, so they would not think they buried
Socrates; and, regarding only his immortal part, was indifferent
to be burnt or buried. From such considerations, Diogenes might
contemn sepulture, and, being satisfied that the soul could not
perish, grow careless of corporal interment. The Stoicks, who
thought the souls of wise men had their habitation about
the moon, might make slight account of subterraneous deposition;
whereas the Pythagoreans and transcorporating philosophers, who
were to be often buried, held great care of their interment. And
the Platonicks rejected not a due care of the grave, though they
put their ashes to unreasonable expectations, in their tedious
term of return and long set revolution.
Men
have lost their reason in nothing so much as their religion,
wherein stones and clouts make martyrs; and, since the religion
of one seems madness unto another, to afford an account or
rational of old rites requires no rigid reader. That they
kindled the pyre aversely, or turning their face from it, was an
handsome symbol of unwilling ministration. That they washed
their bones with wine and milk; that the mother wrapped them in
linen, and dried them in her bosom, the first fostering part and
place of their nourishment; that they opened their eyes toward
heaven before they kindled the fire, as the place of their hopes
or original, were no improper ceremonies. Their last
* " Vale, vale, nos
to ordine quo natura permittet sequamur." |
valediction,* thrice uttered by the
attendants, was also very solemn, and somewhat answered by
Christians, who thought it too little, if they threw not the
earth thrice upon the interred body. That, in strewing their
tombs, the Romans affected the rose; the Greeks amaranthus and
myrtle: that the funeral pyre consisted of sweet fuel, cypress,
fir, larix, yew, and trees perpetually verdant, lay silent
expressions of their surviving hopes. Wherein Christians, who
deck their coffins with bays, have found a more elegant emblem;
for that it, seeming dead, will restore itself from the root, and
its dry and exsuccous leaves resume their verdure again;
which, if we mistake not, we have also observed in furze. Whether
the planting of yew in churchyards hold not its original from
ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of resurrection, from its
perpetual verdure, may also admit conjecture.
They made use of musick to excite or quiet the affections of
their friends, according to different harmonies. But the secret
and symbolical hint was the harmonical nature of the soul; which,
delivered from the body, went again to enjoy the primitive
harmony of heaven, from whence it first descended; which,
according to its progress traced by antiquity, came down by
Cancer, and ascended by Capricornus.
They burnt
not children before their teeth appeared, as apprehending their
bodies too tender a morsel for fire, and that their gristly bones
would scarce leave separable relicks after the pyral combustion.
That they kindled not fire in their houses for some days after
was a strict memorial of the late afflicting fire. And mourning
without hope, they had an happy fraud against excessive
lamentation, by a common opinion that deep sorrows disturb their
ghosts.*
That they buried their dead on their
backs, or in a supine position, seems agreeable unto profound
sleep,
* " Tu manes ne
loede meos."
+ The Russians. &c.
|
and common posture of dying; contrary to the
most natural way of birth; nor unlike our pendulous posture, in
the doubtful state of the womb. Diogenes was singular, who
preferred a prone situation in the grave; and some Christians+
like neither, who decline the figure of rest, and make choice of
an erect posture.
That they carried them out of
the world with their feet forward, not inconsonant unto
reason, as contrary unto the native posture of man, and his
production first into it; and also agreeable unto their opinions,
while they bid adieu unto the world, not to look again upon it;
whereas Mahometans who think to return to a delightful life
again, are carried forth with their heads forward, and looking
toward their houses.
They closed their eyes, as
parts which first die, or first discover the sad effects of
death. But their iterated clamations to excitate their dying or
dead friends, or revoke them unto life again, was a vanity of
affection; as not presumably ignorant of the critical tests of
death, by apposition of feathers, glasses, and reflection of
figures, which dead eyes represent not: which, however not
strictly verifiable in fresh and warm cadavers , could
hardly elude the test, in corpses of four or five days.
That they sucked in the last breath of their
expiring friends, was surely a practice of no medical
institution, but a loose opinion that the soul passed out that
way, and a fondness of affection, from some Pythagorical
foundation, that the spirit of one body passed into another,
which they wished might be their own.
That they
poured oil upon the pyre, was a tolerable practice, while the
intention rested in facilitating the ascension. But to place
good omens in the quick and speedy burning, to sacrifice unto the
winds for a despatch in this office, was a low form of
superstition.
The archimime, or jester,
attending the funeral train, and imitating the speeches, gesture,
and manners of the deceased, was too light for such solemnities,
contradicting their funeral orations and doleful rites of the
grave.
That they buried a piece of
money with them as a fee of the Elysian ferryman, was a practice
full of folly. But the ancient custom of placing coins in
considerable urns, and the present practice of burying medals in
the noble foundations of Europe, are laudable ways of historical
discoveries, in actions, persons, chronologies; and posterity
will applaud them.
We examine not the old laws
of sepulture, exempting certain persons from burial or burning.
But hereby we apprehend that these were not the bones of persons
planet-struck or burnt with fire from heaven; no relicks of
traitors to their country, self-killers, or sacrilegious
malefactors; persons in old apprehension unworthy of the earth;
condemned unto the Tartarus of hell, and bottomless pit of Pluto,
from whence there was no redemption.
Nor were
only many customs questionable in order to their obsequies, but
also sundry practices, fictions, and conceptions, discordant or
obscure, of their state and future beings. Whether unto eight or
ten bodies of men to add one of a woman, as being more
inflammable and unctuously constituted for the better pyral
combustion, were any rational practice; or whether the complaint
of Periander's wife be tolerable, that wanting her funeral
burning, she suffered intolerable cold in hell, according to the
constitution of the infernal house of Pluto, wherein cold makes a
great part of their tortures; it cannot pass without some
question.
Why the female ghosts appear unto
Ulysses, before the heroes and masculine spirits,--why the Psyche
or soul of Tiresias is of the masculine gender, who, being blind
on earth, sees more than all the rest in hell; why the funeral
suppers consisted of eggs, beans, smallage, and lettuce,
since the dead are made to eat asphodels about the Elysian
meadows:--why, since there is no sacrifice acceptable, nor any
propitiation for the covenant of the grave, men set up the deity
of Morta, and fruitlessly adored divinities without ears, it
cannot escape some doubt.
The dead seem all
alive in the human Hades of Homer, yet cannot well speak,
prophecy, or know the living, except they drink blood, wherein is
the life of man. And therefore the souls of Penelope's
paramours, conducted by Mercury, chirped like bats, and those
which followed Hercules, made a noise but like a flock of birds.
The departed spirits know things past and to
come; yet are ignorant of things present. Agamemnon foretells
what should happen unto Ulysses; yet ignorantly inquires what is
become of his own son. The ghosts are afraid of swords in Homer;
yet Sibylla tells Æneas in Virgil, the thin habit of
spirits was beyond the force of weapons. The spirits put off
their malice with their bodies, and Cæsar and Pompey accord
in Latin hell; yet Ajax, in Homer, endures not a conference with
Ulysses; and Deiphobus appears all mangled in Virgil's ghosts,
yet we meet with perfect shadows among the wounded ghosts of
Homer.
Since Charon in Lucian applauds his
condition among the dead, whether it be handsomely said of
Achilles, that living contemner of death, that he had rather be a
ploughman's servant, than emperor of the dead? How Hercules his
soul is in hell, and yet in heaven; and Julius his soul in a
star, yet seen by Æneas in hell?-- except the ghosts were
but images and shadows of the soul, received in higher mansions,
according to the ancient division of body, soul, and image, or simulachrum
of them both. The particulars of
future beings must needs be dark unto ancient theories, which
Christian philosophy yet determines but in a cloud of opinions. A
dialogue between two infants in the womb concerning the state of
this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the
next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Pluto's den, and are
but embryo philosophers.
Pythagoras escapes in
the fabulous hell of
Dante,* among that swarm of philosophers, wherein, whilst we meet
with Plato and Socrates, Cato is to be found in no lower place
than purgatory. Among all the set, Epicurus is most
considerable, whom men make honest without an Elysium, who
contemned life without encouragement of immortality, and making
nothing after death, yet made nothing of the king of terrors.
Were the happiness of the next world as closely
apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to
live; and unto such as consider none hereafter, it must be more
than death to die, which makes us amazed at those audacities that
durst be nothing and return into their chaos again. Certainly
such spirits as could contemn death, when they expected no better
being after, would have scorned to live, had they known any. And
therefore we applaud not the judgment of Machiavel, that
Christianity makes men cowards, or that with the confidence of
but half-dying, the despised virtues of patience and humility
have abased the spirits of men, which Pagan principles exalted;
but rather regulated the wildness of audacities in the attempts,
grounds, and eternal sequels of death; wherein men of the boldest
spirits are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor can we extenuate
the valour of ancient martyrs, who contemned death in
the uncomfortable scene of their lives, and in their decrepit
martyrdoms did probably lose not many months of their days, or
parted with life when it was scarce worth the living. For
(beside that long time past holds no consideration unto a slender
time to come) they had no small disadvantage from the
constitution of old age, which naturally makes men fearful, and
complexionally superannuated from the bold and courageous
thoughts of youth and fervent years. But the contempt of death
from corporal animosity, promoteth not our felicity. They may
sit in the orchestra, and noblest seats of heaven, who have held
up shaking hands in the fire, and humanly contended for glory.
Meanwhile Epicurus lies deep in Dante's hell,
wherein we meet with tombs enclosing souls which denied their
immortalities. But whether the virtuous heathen, who lived
better than he spake, or erring in the principles of himself, yet
lived above philosophers of more specious maxims, lie so deep as
he is placed, at least so low as not to rise against Christians,
who believing or knowing that truth, have lastingly denied it in
their practice and conversation--were a query too sad to insist
on.
But all or most apprehensions rested in
opinions of some future being, which, ignorantly or coldly
believed, begat those perverted conceptions, ceremonies, sayings,
which Christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they which live not
in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for
futurity, but from reason: whereby the noblest minds fell often
upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions. With these
hopes, Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against that cold
potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent
part of the night in reading the Immortality of Plato,
thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that
attempt.
It is the heaviest stone that
melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of
his nature; or that there is no further state to come, unto which
this seems progressional, and otherwise made in vain. Without
this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire of such a
state, were but a fallacy in nature; unsatisfied considerators
would quarrel the justice of their constitutions, and rest
content that Adam had fallen lower; whereby, by knowing no other
original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have
enjoyed the happiness of inferior creatures, who in tranquillity
possess their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to
deplore their own natures, and, being framed below the
circumference of these hopes, or cognition of better being, the
wisdom of God hath necessitated their contentment: but the
superior ingredient and obscured part of ourselves, whereto all
present felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able at
last to tell us, we are more than our present selves, and
evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own accomplishments.
CHAPTER
V.
Now since
these dead bones have already outlasted the living ones of
Methuselah, and in a yard underground, and thin walls of clay,
outworn all the strong and specious buildings above it; and
quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests:
what prince can promise such diuturnity unto his
relicks, or might not gladly say,
* Tibullus , lib.
iii. el. 2, 26. |
Sic
ego componi versus in ossa velim?*
Time, which
antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all
things, hath yet spared these minor monuments.
In vain we hope to be known by open and visible conservatories,
when to be unknown was the means of their continuation, and
obscurity their protection. If they died by violent hands, and
were thrust into their urns, these bones become considerable, and
some old philosophers would honour them, whose souls they
conceived most pure, which were thus snatched from their bodies,
and to retain a stronger propension unto them; whereas they
weariedly left a languishing corpse and with faint desires of
re-union. If they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrapt up in
the bundle of time, they fall into indistinction, and make but
one blot with infants. If we begin to die when we live, and long
life be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad
composition; we live with death, and die not in a moment. How
many pulses made up the life of Methuselah, were work for
Archimedes: common counters sum up the life of Moses his man. Our days
become considerable, like petty sums, by minute
accumulations: where numerous fractions make up but
+ According to the
ancient arithmetick of the hand, wherein the little finger of the
right hand contracted, signified an hundred.--Pierius in
Hieroglyph. |
small
round numbers; and our days of a span long, make not one little
finger.+
If the nearness of our last necessity
brought a nearer conformity into it, there were a happiness in
hoary hairs, and no calamity in half-senses. But the
long habit of living indisposeth us for dying; when avarice makes
us the sport of death, when even David grew politickly cruel, and
Solomon could hardly be said to be the wisest of men. But many
are too early old, and before the date of age. Adversity
stretcheth our days, misery makes Alcmena's nights,* and time
hath no wings unto it. But the most tedious being is that which
can unwish itself, content to be nothing, or never to have been,
which was beyond the malcontent of Job,
* One night as long as three.
+ The puzzling
questions of Tiberius unto grammarians.-- Marcel. Donatus in
Suet.
|
who cursed not
the day of his life, but his nativity; content to have so far
been, as to have a title to future being, although he had lived
here but in an hidden state of life, and as it were an abortion.
What song the Syrens sang, or what name
Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling
questions,+ are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons
of these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and
slept with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But
who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies
these ashes made up, were a question above antiquarism; not to be
resolved by man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we consult
the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made
as good provision for their names, as they have done for their
relicks, they had not so grossly erred in the art of
perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally
extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain ashes which in the
oblivion of names, persons, times, and sexes, have found unto
themselves a fruitless continuation, and only arise unto
late posterity, as emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against
pride, vain-glory, and madding vices. Pagan vain-glories which
thought the world might last for ever, had encouragement for
ambition; and, finding no atropos unto the immortality of
their names, were never dampt with the necessity of oblivion.
Even old ambitions had the advantage of ours, in the attempts of
their vain-glories, who acting early, and before the probable
meridian of time, have by this time found great accomplishment of
their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already outlasted
their monuments and mechanical preservations. But in this latter
scene of time, we cannot expect such mummies unto our memories,
when ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias,* and Charles the
* That the world may last
but six thousand years.
+ Hector's fame outlasting above two
lives of Methuselah before that famous prince was extant.
|
Fifth can never hope to
live within two Methuselahs of Hector.+
And
therefore, restless inquietude for the diuturnity of our memories
unto the present considerations seems a vanity almost out of
date, and superannuated piece of folly. We cannot hope to live so
long in our names, as some have done in their persons. One face
of Janus holds no proportion unto the other. 'Tis too late to be
ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time
may be too short for our designs. To extend our memories by
monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we
cannot hope, without injury to our expectations in the advent of
the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We whose
generations are ordained in this setting part of time, are
providentially taken off from such imaginations; and, being
necessitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity,
are naturally constituted unto thoughts of the next world, and
cannot excusably decline the consideration of that duration,
which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a
moment.
Circles and right lines limit and close
all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle* must conclude and
shut up all. There is no antidote against the opium of time,
which temporally considereth all things: our fathers find their
graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be
buried in our survivors. Gravestones tell truth scarce forty
years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families
last not three oaks. To be read by bare inscriptions like many
in Gruter, to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or first
letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries,
* The character of death.
+ " Cuperem notum esse quod sim non
opto ut sciatur
qualis sim."
|
who we
were, and have new names given us like many of the mummies, are
cold consolations unto the students of perpetuity, even by
everlasting languages.
To be content that times
to come should only know there was such a man, not caring whether
they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan;+
disparaging his horoscopal inclination and judgment of himself.
Who cares to subsist like Hippocrates's patients, or Achilles's
horses in Homer, under naked nominations, without deserts and
noble acts, which are the balsam of our memories, the entelechia
and soul of our subsistences? To be nameless
in worthy deeds, exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish
woman lives more happily without a name, than Herodias with one. And
who had not rather have been the good thief, than Pilate?
But the iniquity of oblivion blindly
scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without
distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder
of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of
Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the
epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain
we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names,
since bad have equal durations, and Thersites is like to live as
long as Agamemnon without the favour of the everlasting register. Who
knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be
not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand
remembered in the known account of time? The first man had been
as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his
only chronicle.
Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be
content to be as though they had not
been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of
man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story and the recorded
names ever since contain not one living century. The number of
the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time
far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour
adds unto that current arithmetick, which scarce
stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of
life, and even Pagans6
could doubt, whether thus to live were to die; since our longest
sun sets at right descensions, and makes but winter arches, and
therefore it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, and
have our light in ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts
us with dying mementoes, and time that grows old in itself, bids
us hope no long duration;--diuturnity is a dream and
folly of expectation.
Darkness and light divide
the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part
even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities,
and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon
us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or
themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce
callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us,
which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of
evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful
provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and
evil days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting
remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of
repetitions. A great part of antiquity contented their hopes of
subsistency with a transmigration of their souls,--a good way to
continue their memories, while having the advantage of plural
successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such
variety of beings, and enjoying the fame of their passed selves,
make accumulation of glory unto their last durations. Others,
rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were
content to recede into the common being, and make one particle of
the public soul of all things, which was no more than to return
into their unknown and divine original again. Egyptian ingenuity
was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet
consistences, to attend the return of their souls. But all is
vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. Egyptian mummies, which
Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummy is
become merchandise, Mizraim, cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold
for balsams.
In vain do individuals
hope for immortality, or any patent from oblivion, in
preservations below the moon; men have been deceived even in
their flatteries, above the sun, and studied conceits to
perpetuate their names in heaven. The various cosmography of
that part hath already varied the names of contrived
constellations; Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the
Dog-star. While we look for incorruption in the heavens, we find
that they are but like the earth;--durable in their main bodies,
alterable in their parts; whereof, beside comets and new stars,
perspectives begin to tell tales, and the spots that wander about
the sun, with Phæton's favour, would make clear conviction.
There is nothing strictly immortal, but
immortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may be confident of no
end;--all others have a dependent being and within the reach of
destruction;--which is the peculiar of that necessary essence
that cannot destroy itself;--and the highest strain of
omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer
even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian
immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of
either state after death, makes a folly of posthumous memory. God
who can only destroy our souls, and hath assured our
resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly
promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance, that
the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustration; and to
hold long subsistence, seems but a scape in oblivion. But man is
a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave,
solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting
ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun
within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames
seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious
pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus; but the wisdom of funeral
laws found the folly of prodigal blazes and reduced undoing fires
unto the rule of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as
not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, and an urn.
Five languages7
secured not the epitaph of Gordianus. The man of God lives longer
without a tomb than any by one, invisibly interred by angels, and
adjudged to obscurity, though not without some marks directing
human discovery. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb or burial,
in an anomalous state of being, are the great examples of
perpetuity, in their long and living memory, in strict account
being still on this side death, and having a late part yet to act
upon this stage of earth. If in the decretory term of the world
we shall not all die but be changed, according to received
translation, the last day will make but few graves; at least
quick resurrections will anticipate lasting sepultures. Some
graves will be opened before they be quite closed, and Lazarus be
no wonder. When many that feared to die, shall groan that they
can die but once, the dismal state is the second and living
death, when life puts despair on the damned; when men shall wish
the coverings of mountains, not of monuments, and annihilations
shall be courted.
While some have studied
monuments, others have studiously declined them, and some have
been so vainly boisterous, that they durst not acknowledge their
graves; wherein Alaricus seems most subtle, who had a river
turned to hide his bones at the bottom. Even Sylla, that thought
himself safe in his urn, could not prevent revenging tongues, and
stones thrown at his monument. Happy are they whom
privacy makes innocent, who deal so with men in this world, that
they are not afraid to meet them in the next; who, when they die,
make no commotion among the dead, and are not touched with that
poetical taunt of Isaiah.*
Pyramids, arches,
obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain-glory, and wild
enormities of ancient magnanimity. But the most
* Isa. xiv. 16.
+ The
least of angels.
|
magnanimous resolution rests in the Christian religion, which
trampleth upon pride and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly
pursuing that infallible perpetuity, unto which all others must
diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in angles of
contingency.+
Pious spirits who passed their
days in raptures of futurity, made little more of this world,
than the world that was before it, while they lay obscure in the
chaos of pre-ordination, and night of their fore-beings. And if
any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian
annihilation, ecstasies, exolution, liquefaction, transformation,
the kiss of the spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the
divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of
heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in
ashes unto them.
To subsist in lasting
monuments, to live in their productions, to exist in their names
and predicament of chimeras, was large satisfaction unto old
expectations, and made one part of their Elysiums. But all this
is nothing in the metaphysicks of true belief. To live
# In Paris, where bodies
soon consume.
* A stately mausoleum or sepulchral
pile,
built by
Adrianus in Rome, where now standeth the castle of St Angelo.
|
indeed, is
to be again ourselves, which being not only an hope, but an
evidence in noble believers, 'tis all one to lie in St
Innocent's# church-yard as in the sands of Egypt. Ready
to be anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with
six foot as the moles of Adrianus.*
--" Tabesne
cadavera solvat, An rogus, haud refert." --LUCAN. viii. 809.
Introduction | Religio
Medici | Urn-Burial | Letter to a
Friend | Notes
|