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Jerome K. Jerome - "Tommy and Co."

Lew Wallace - "A Tale of the Christ"

Gregory Walker, Austin, Texas, - "American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype by Samuel D. Humphrey"

Kate Wiggin - "Rose O' the River by Kate Douglas Wiggin"

Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend, by Sir

G >> Gertrude Atherton >> Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend, by Sir




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 Egyp-
tian scruples, imbibed by Pythagoras, it may be con-
jectured 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


* And therefore the inscription on his tomb was made ac-
cordingly, "Hic Damase."

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
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 de-
clining 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

* Which Magius reads [Greek omitted].
+ Martialis the Bishop.

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 Caesar their friend, and
revenger on Pompey, frequented the place where his
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 pro-
videntially 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 observ-
able in Jewish customs, to cut the hair of male-
factors.

* Amos vi. 10.
+ As in that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by
Simon.--1 Macc. xiii.
# [Greek omitted], whereof a Jewish
priest had always custody until Josephus' days.--Jos. Antiq.,
lib. x.

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 en-
trails, they had broken the subject of so entire a resur-
rection, 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 fascia-
tions 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 burn-
ing, yet entertained they many ceremonies agreeable
unto Greek and Roman obsequies. And he that ob-
serveth 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 sepul-
chral 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 com-
bustion; 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 sub-
stances, 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 arae 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 im-
probable 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, pro-
bable it is, they wholly possessed this country; ordering
it into garrisons or habitations best suitable with their
securities. And so some Roman habitations not im-
probable 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
that expression of Caesar.* 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, Anto-
ninus, Severus, &c.; but the greater number of Dio-
clesian, 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 Caesar; 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,

* "Hominum infinita multitudo est creberrimaque; aedi-

ficia fere Gallicis consimilia."--Caesar de Bello. Gal., lib. v.
though the city of Norwich arose from the ruins of
Venta; and though, perhaps, not without some habi-
tation 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 strict-
ness 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 Caesar; 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 Caesar, Claudius, Britannicus, Vespasian,
Titus, Adrian, Severus, Commodus, Geta, and Cara-
calla.

A great obscurity herein, because no medal or em-
peror'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 burn-
ing 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 em-
perors 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 con-
demned the practice of burning.* And we find a pass-

* "Execrantur rogos, et damnant ignium sepulturam."--Min.
in Oct.

age 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 sub-
stances 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 monu-
ment 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, accord-
ing 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 Caesar, Tacitus, and Strabo are silent.
For the discovery whereof, with other particulars, we
much deplore the loss of that letter which Cicero ex-
pected or received from his brother Quintus, as a resolu-
tion 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 Am-
andus Zierexensis in Historia and Pineda in his Universa
Historia (Spanish). That they held that practice in
Gallia, Caesar expressly delivereth. Whether the Britons
(probably descended from them, of like religion, lan-
guage, 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 cus-
toms 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 inter-
ment. 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 na-
tion, we discern no assured period; whether it ceased
before Christianity, or upon their conversion, by Aus-
gurius 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 Christi-
anity 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
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
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,

* In Cheshire. + In Norfolk. # St Matt. xxiii.
$ Euripides. || Psal. lxiii.

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 occur-
ring 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 con-
cealed 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 Tar-
quinius 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 pre-
ferred 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 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

* [Greek omitted]--
Dion.

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