thoughts entirely from painful subjects which it is in vain to think of. The power to do this completely, when we will, would be a great increase of happiness; and this power, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose, the blest will possess in the world to come, and will be able, by no effort of the will, completely to banish and exclude every idea that might alloy their happiness."-Scripture Revelations. It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would almost seem as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we dearly loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may those patient angels hover above us, watching for the spell that is so seldom uttered, and so soon forgotten! It has even been observed that immoderate grief, if it does not exhaust itself by indulgence, easily assumes the character of superstition or weakness, or takes a type of insanity. There is, in many minds, a fearful presentiment that great happiness cannot be of long duration; but if the prosperous periods of life are those which seem to form the natural climax and terminating point of life, they are those in which we can least bear the loss of others. The sudden removal of one who is in the very midst of his usefulness, in whose success we had "garnered up our hearts," creates a revulsion of feeling which poor humanity can ill support. It is the anticipation of re-union hereafter which throws the only light that can penetrate the gloom of the mourner's mind. He is yet to have a meeting beyond the grave; and whilst this idea mitigates grief, it renders the prospect of death itself less terrible. It was in this way that Mrs. Garrick endeavoured to remove the terrors of death, after her loss, of the great actor. Boswell tells us that in 1781, when Mrs. Garrick received company for the first time since her husband's death, she talked of him with complacency; and while she cast her eyes on his portrait which hung over the chimney-piece, said that "death was now the most agreeable object to her." INTERFERENCES OF THE DEAD WITH THE LIVING. Isaac Taylor has a remarkable passage on this question, which, he considers, "ought not to be summarily dismissed as a mere folly of the vulgar." He says: "In considering questions of this sort, we ought not to listen, for a moment, to those frequent but impertinent questions that are brought forward with the view of superseding the inquiry: such, for example, Antiquity of Burial Clubs. 165 as these: 'What good is answered by the alleged extra-natural occurrences?' or 'Is it worthy of the Supreme Wisdom to permit them?' and so forth. The question is a question, first, of testimony, to be judged on the established principles of evidence, and then of physiology; but neither of theology, or of morals. Some few human beings are wont to walk in their sleep; and during the continuance of profound slumber, they perform, with precision and safety, the offices of common life, and return to their beds, and yet are totally unconscious when they awake, of what they have done. Now, in considering this or any such extraordinary class of facts, our business is, in the first place, to obtain a number of instances, supported by the distinct and unimpeachable testimony of intelligent witnesses; and then, being thus in possession of the facts, to adjust them, as well as we can, to other parts of our philosophy of human nature. Shall we allow an objector to put a check to our scientific curiosity on the subject, for instance, of Somnambulism, by saying, 'Some of these accounts have turned out to be exaggerated or totally untrue!' or 'this walking in the sleep ought not to be thought possible, or as likely to be permitted by the Benevolent Guardian of human welfare?""-Physical Theory of Another Life. DEATH CUSTOMS. In many parts of Britain is prevalent a superstition, preserved to us in an aphoristic form in the following distich: Happy is the wedding that the sun shines on; Otherwise thus: Sad is the burying in the sunshine; But blessed is the corpse that goeth home in rain. In Brittany it is commonly believed that if any one draws a likeness of another, and carries it away with him, he holds, at any distance of time or place, an unlimited power over the original, whose death he may cause, at any time, by the destruction of the portrait ! In the Diary of the Rev. John Ward, 1662-1681, we find this curious entry: "Dr. Conyers dissected a person not long ago, that died for love in London; and they found (at least, as they fancied,) the impression of a face upon his heart." ANTIQUITY OF BURIAL CLUBS. Mr. Kenrick, in his ingenious work on Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions, adduces the following evidence of the existence of burial clubs among the Romans from a monument found at Lanuvium, a town of ancient fame for the worship of Juno Sospita, about nineteen miles from Rome, on the Via Appia. The inhabitants of this town appear, out of flattery towards the Emperor Hadrian, in whose reign the marble was erected, to have formed themselves into a college for paying divine honours to Diana and Antinous, with which they strangely combined that of a burial club, not forgetting the festivities which formed so important a part of all acts of religion among the Romans. To prevent disputes, the laws of the association were inscribed on marble, and probably set up in the temple of the two deities. An amphora of good wine was to be presented to the club by a new member, the sum of 100 sesterces (about 15s.) was to be paid as entry money, and five asses (little more than 2d.) per month as subscription. Their meetings were not to take place oftener than once a month. If any one omitted payment for (so many) months (the marble is here mutilated), no claim could be made, even though he had directed it by will. In case of the death of one who had paid his subscription regularly, 300 sesterces (21. 5s.) were allotted for his funeral expenses, out of which, however, 50 were to be set apart for distribution at the cremation of the body. The funeral was to be a walking one. If any one died more than twenty miles from Lanuvium, and his death was announced, three delegates from the college were to repair to the place where he had died, to perform his funeral, and render an account of it to the people. Fraud was to be punished by a fourfold fine. Twenty sesterces each were to be allowed to the delegates for travelling expenses, going and returning. If the death had taken place more than twenty miles from Lanuvium, and no notice had been sent, the person who had performed the funeral rites was to send a sealed certificate attested by seven Roman citizens, on the production of which the usual sum for the expenses was to be granted. No funeral of a suicide was to take place. There are many other rules tending to preserve order and promote good fellowship, but these are all which relate to the burial club. This curious document is an additional proof how much ancient life resembled modern life, when we obtain a view of it, as it were, intus domique, through the medium of its monuments. "GOD'S ACRE. "* This is a phrase applied to the churchyard, or burial-place, to denote its sanctity. It is, of course, well known that in the ancient days of the Church, these burial-places were formed round the resting-places of famous saints. The same feeling may be traced in later days. The burial ground appertaining to St. George the Martyr, Queen-square, Bloomsbury, is a long and narrow slip of ground behind the Foundling Hospital. A strong prejudice appears to have existed against this burial-place, and no person was interred here till the ground was broken for the pious Robert Nelson, author of Fasts and Festivals, whose character for piety reconciled others to the place, and other interments followed quickly. * See an interesting work with this title, by Mrs. Stone. Antiseptic Burial Soils. 167 There is a similar instance of this veneration in the history of Bunhill Fields, where, in the vault of his friend, Mr. Stradwick, the grocer, on Snow-hill, in whose house he died, is buried, John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress. Modern curiosity has marked the place of his interment with a brief inscription, but his name is not recorded in the Register. So numerous have been, and still are, the dying requests of his admirers to be buried as near as possible to the place of his interment, that it is not possible to obtain a grave near him, the whole surrounding earth being occupied by dead bodies to a very considerable distance. "People like to be buried in company, and in good company. The Dissenters regarded Bunhill Fields" burial-ground as their Campo Santo, and especially for Bunyan's sake. It is said that many have made it their desire to be interred as near as possible to the spot where his remains are deposited."-Southey. EMBLEMS ON TOMBS. The devices which we see on old tombs distinguish, by their emblematic differences, the dead which they inclose. The legs of crusaders were crossed; the right hand of prelates was raised as if in benediction; bishops bore the crozier in the left hand, abbots in their right; less dignified priests bore a chalice; kings and bishops had gloves on both hands. Officers of State and other noblemen are represented with a glove on the right hand, for the purpose of supporting a hawk, while the other glove is off and is held in the left hand. Lions at the feet typify vigilance and courage; and human heads may be seen under the feet of one of the figures in the Temple Church, denoting infidels slain in the Crusades. Dragons under the feet pierced, as for example by the staves of the abbots of Peterborough, express triumph over the devil; and sometimes an escalopshell would be engraven under the cross, to denote that the occupant of the tomb had in lifetime performed a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James at Compostella. There are recorded many instances of bad taste in tombs. It was, for example, a fashion at one time to represent on them a body in a state of corruption. There is one of a Duc de Croye in a church near Louvain, where a skeleton is represented with the worms preying on it. ANTISEPTIC BURIAL SOILS. In certain burial-places, human bodies are preserved for a century and more, which is attributed to the antiseptic properties of the soil. St. Michan's Vaults, Church-street, Dublin, possess this property. The soil and walls of this crypt are a compound of argillaceous earth and carbonate of lime. This admixture exercises a chemically absorbent influence on all ordinary earthy and atmospheric moisture. Every one knows that moisture is, perhaps, the greatest aid to decomposition. Amid the rains of winter or the heats of summer the vaults of St. Michan, with the exception of one small chamber, are uniformly free from damp; and the consequence is the phenomenon referred to. The portion which appears damp is destitute of any animal remains but bones. In some of the dry compartments which are rarely opened, the ornamental appendages of certain coffins shine as brilliantly as when originally deposited there a circumstance which strikingly attests the uncommon aridity of the walls and soil. The floor is covered with dust as dry as that overlying a country road in summer. Beneath the foundation is a bed of silicious sand. A nun, fully robed, was for half a century shown here, in high preservation. A vault possessing antiseptic properties is also shown beneath the monastic chapel of the Kreutzberg, about two miles from Bonn. Here are the corpses of several poor monks, in open coffins, the bodies dressed in cowl and cassock, as on the day of their dissolution. Here they were deposited between the years 1400 and 1713, and the extraordinary state of preservation in which they have remained during that extensive lapse of time has been attributed mainly to the dryness of the sandy soil which surrounds them. The worsted stockings and grey leather shoes of some are undecayed; and the nails upon their bony fingers, and grey hair on their craniums are perfect. Notwithstanding the bodies seem to be the size and weight of ordinary thin men, they are so light, that one can be raised with a single finger.* the Sand is an agent for correcting putridity: hence, probably, the practice of strewing floors with sand. A correspondent of Notes and Queries relates (2nd S. vi. 156): "When I was a boy I was told, and I heard it with a strange sensation of dread, that if an individual took up a handful of dust thrown from a newly opened grave, he might know whether a good or wicked person had been formerly buried there; for, said the informant, if the dust stirs in your hand, you may be sure that it had once formed a portion of the body of a wicked man or woman; for "the wicked cannot rest anywhere," not even in the grave! DECAY OF THE HUMAN BODY. When putrefaction commences, there can, of course, be no longer any doubt of the departure of life-premising that the putrefaction is general, and not of a local kind. There is nothing * See the description, by Mr. Leslie, at page 162. |