and, alas, within less than three years lent Thus are farce and tragedy mixed up

his shoulder to carry his dear friend to the grave;' and it was often a matter of friendly rivalry who should be allowed to carry a good man deceased to his last home. Even in our own day, we read in the life of Sir Walter Scott, that 'His old domestics and foresters made it their petition that no hireling hand might assist in carrying his remains. They themselves bore the coffin to the grave.' If modern effeminacy or refinement can only lay a hand to a tassel, where our fathers put their shoulders to the coffin,

in the drama of life, and remind us of the schoolboy puzzle, which, by a slight harlequinade of the letters, turned 'funeral' into 'real fun.'

In olden times, when charity implied an act and not only a feeling, almsgiving accompanied the performance of every Christian service. Men were not afraid of doing good works, lest they should be said to rest upon them. And the funeral Dole,* though it undoubtedly led at times to great excesses, was one of the occasions which helped

at least some poor dependents might be se- to equalize wealth, and make the poor parlected for underbearers, on whom the fu- takers of our substance and hospitality. neral dole would be better bestowed than on The Fathers, indeed, are full of condemnahired strangers. Now the men who share tion of the abuses of the anniversary festiin the funeral baked meats are thus de-vals of the dead, which savored more of the scribed by one of their masters; - 'They Parentalia of the Gentiles than of the doles

are frequently unfit to perform their duty, and have reeled in carrying the coffin. The men who stand as mutes at the door, as they stand out in the cold, are supposed to require more drink, and receive it liberally. I have seen these men reel about the road, and after the burial we have been obliged account 'that whilst other husbands throw

of Churchmen; our own Puritans also, not without reason, attacked the carousing and junketing of the Month's Myndes; but the same objections hardly hold good against the dole and almsgiving at the time of the funeral. St. Jerome commends a widower upon this to put these mutes and their staves into the violets, and roses, and lilies, and purple interior of the hearse, and drive them home, flowers upon the graves of their wives, our as they were incapable of walking. After Psammachius waters the holy ashes and the return from the funeral, the mourners bones of his wife with the balsam of alms." commonly have drink again at the house.' Old English wills are full of such instruc(Sup. Rep. $56.) No one who has read tions as that of William de Montacute, Earl Inheritance' and who has not?-can fail of Salisbury, 1397-that 'twenty-five shilto be reminded here of Miss Pratt's arrival lings should be daily distributed among

at the Earl's.

three hundred poor people from the time of

'It was drawing towards the close of a day, his death to the arrival of his body at Buswhen the snow had fallen without intermis- tlesham.' And Strutt gives among the artision, but was now beginning to abate. A cles of expense at the funeral of Sir John huge black object was dimly discernible entering the avenue, and dragging its ponderous length towards the castle; but what was its

precise nature the still falling snow prevented their ascertaining. But suddenly ceased, the clouds rolled away, and a red brassy glare of the setting sun fell abruptly on the moving phenomenon, and disclosed to view a stately full-plumed hearse. There was something so terrific, yet so picturesque, in its appearance, as it ploughed its way through waves of snow-its sable plumes and gilded skulls nodding and grinning in the now lurid glimmering of the fast-sinking sun-that all stood transfixed with alarm and amazement. At length the prodigy drew near, followed by two attendants on horseback; it drew up at the grand entrance, the servants gathered round, one of the men began to remove the end-board

-that threshold of death-and there was lifted

out, not "a slovenly unhandsome corpse betwixt the wind and his nobility," but the warm, sentient, though somewhat discomfited, figure

Rudstone, mayor of London, 1531-Το poor folke in almys, 11. 5s.' &c.; and the list might be easily lengthened. If respect for the dead necessarily involve unusual expenditure, surely such objects as the above are more reasonable items than those which occur in a modern undertaker's bill of

*

The origin and signification of the word are well explained by these lines from Percy :"Deal on, deal on, my merry men all, deal on your cake and wine;

For whatever is dealt at her funeral to-day, shall be dealt to-morrow at mine..""

† The day month after the funeral, as year'smind was the anniversary. Sir Robert Chichely, grocer, and twice Lord Mayor of London, who died in 1439, 'wylled in his testament, that upon his Mynde Day a good and competent dinner should be ordayned to xxiiii C. pore men. And 'ostrich feathers, 11. 1s.; man carrying courage to undergo this ordeal. But let a ditto, 8s.; eighteen pages, silk bands and distribution be made or announced on the

largess of the surviving, is too often omitted, produced by it is purely evil. We thank and the mural tablet now generally records Mr. Chadwick for reminding us of these

Affection, where it exists, suggests it and ed. Let it not be said that it is vain to arits absence, where it exists not, is scarcely gue thus-that the money if not spent on a less stimulant, lest the niggard hand the funeral would not have been spent at should betray the cold heart. The world, all, or at least in no better way; because always leaning to the uncharitable side, nature will demand a sacrifice in the last while it gives little credit to a costly outlay, gift of love, and of old it did flow in a noyet sees in a cheap funeral the measure of bler channel. It is not cheap, so much as the love of the survivors; and few have the plain, funerals that we advocate. We

،

"grudge not the waste of ointment,' how-that Ephrem Cyrus lest it upon his will, that ever costly, so it be poured out in the honor nothing should be expended on his funeral, of God, and not for the pride of man; and but whatever should be appointed for that the very want of our Lord's visible presence should be given to the poor. Paula, to suggests that we have the poor in His room. whom we referred before, left not money so

And yet, after all, in the case of our much as to buy a winding-sheet. St. Basil dearest friends deceasing, it may be feared asks the rich- What need have you of a that the world and its fashions will have sumptuous monument, or a costly entombtheir way. We cannot bear, perhaps, the ing? Prepare your own funeral whilst you thought of withholding, in the case of oth- live. Works of charity and mercy are the ers, even the lacquered cherubs and French funeral obsequies you can bestow upon yourpolished mahogany of the undertaker's bill. self.' Sir Thomas Wyndham, 1521, diBut there is one case which comes nearest rects his 'body to be buried without dam

nable pomp, or superfluities;'* and the old wills abound in similar injunctions. The Roman sumptuary laws expressly forbade expensive funerals; might not taxation, which in modern times supersedes the necessity of direct restrictive enactments, help to diminish the increasing folly?

It would be unjust to the Gallican Church not to notice especially her continual efforts against the repeated inroads of intramural burial. These she has persevered in, even in spite of the Pope's decretals giving hereditary rights of burial within the church to wealthy and noble families. Mr. Walker reprints a most valuable document, taken from a New York publication, in the form of an ordinance of Stephen Charles de Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, who was made a cardinal by Pius VI. Making allowance for some doctrinal points, to which we might not agree, the archbishop's letter gives the best history of, and the most conclusive arguments against, intra

home to us, on which we may decide, for 'once it shall come to pass, that concerning every one of us it shall be told in the neighborhood that we are dead;' and then there may be found that strict written injunction with regard to our own funeral, that even the extreme officiousness of love dares not disobey. Mere general directions, however, will not suffice. Few fail even now to give instructions, verbal or written, that no unnecessary sum shall be expended on their burial. But each one must name the definite amount beyond which the expenditure shall not go, and name also the rescued sum which shall be devoted to charitable purposes. Details must not alarm us; we must name the elm coffin, and the coarse linen, and dispense explicitly with mutes, and hat-bands, and kid gloves. The carpenter must be the undertaker, and six poor men to carry us in place of the four-horsed hearse. If we thus took the ordering of our own funerals upon ourselves, our friends would be reliev- mural burial, which we have yet seen. ed, and the world satisfied; and though ter referring to thirteen ordinances publisheccentricities might sometimes peep out of ed in France alone, between the years 1600 the instructions, there would be little fear and 1721, against the practice, he thus apof often encountering the orange-colored peals to the feelings of those who might be pall and cloaks of the late Dr. Somebody, or the 4000l. for an equestrian statue of - himself, left a short time since by one Mr. Hobart.

Af

disposed to persist in their privilege of interment in or near the church :

'If inhumation around churches is to be allowed, can cities be perfectly salubrious? If priests and laymen, distinguished for piety, are to be buried within, who shall judge of this piety, or who presume to refuse their testimony?

Many of the best and greatest men have left strict injunctions on this head, which have mostly been evaded for want of more definite expressions. A few only occur to If the quality of founder or benefactor is a title, us at this moment, as Pope and Burke, Sir what rate shall fix the privilege? If the right -M. Hale, and we think Bishop Hall. All is hereditary, must not time multiply the evil to and will not our churches at length strongly deprecated funeral extravagance. be crowded beyond endurance? If distinctions Evelyn records of his mother that on her of rank are to exist after death, can vanity death-bed she importuned his father 'that what he designed to bestow upon her funeral, he would rather dispose among the poor. We learn from Gregory Nyssen,

know any limitation or judge? If these distinctions are to be procured for money, will not vanity lavish riches to procure them? And would it be proper for the Church to prostitute

* Bingham, Antiq. xxiii. 2.

*Nicolas, Test. Vet. p. 581.

to wealth and honor only due to such as have been rendered worthy by the grace of God?"

Such is the unanswerable appeal. Now for the manner of enforcing it :

We are disposed, dearly beloved brethren, to show all possible moderation in this necessary reformation; though charged to be strict in the fulfilment of our pastoral duties, we are allowed a discretionary power, and can consult your habits, your opinions, and even your prejudices, and all that may conciliate your interests with the glory of God; but woe to us if; blinded by weakness, we lose sight of the experience of past ages, and suffer things still to continue that have till now served, and can only serve, to perpetuate disorder.'-Gatherings, p. 72.

The reasonableness of the injunction, and the moderation in effecting it, we earnestly recommend to our spiritual rulers. On the

There can be few cases

gusting to us in the public exhibition of coffins, such as takes place in the catacombs of the cemeteries, and in some nobleman's vaults, on payment of a fee. Like making a spectacle of an execution, or thronging to the funeral of a suicide or a murderer, this is hardly the healthy Christian contemplation of death, but rather springs from the same morbid feeling that led the Egyptians to introduce a skeleton in their feasts, and Lord Byron to have his drinking-cup made of a skull-not a repose, but an excitement -the substitution, in either case, for the wholesome fear of death, of a braving of

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon.'

A great deal has been said of late of the unchristian 'respect of persons' shown by the ambitious and monopolizing pews of too many of our churches; and certain it is that such distinction of rank in God's

other hand, we will not think so ill of our House is very hurtful in many ways, and aristocracy as to believe that family pride that if there is to be an inequality at all, will stand out for the pitiably Pharisaical the tables should be turned, and the best distinction of burying within the church- places allotted to those who have, as is supof all privileges the most unprofitable to the posed, most to learn, and who are the possessors, and unedifying to the people. Church's peculiar care. But surely it is where they far more shocking to right feeling to carry have the shadow of a legal right; and an this inequality into the grave: we mean episcopal injunction might, we suppose, in not in monuments, which may result mereevery case, avail to suppress it. Belial and ly from affection using its proportionate Mammon are the presiding deities of pri- means, but in the place of burial, so that vate vaults; for Christianity, reason, and the poor man shall have the northern and decency, must, on an unprejudiced view, unsunned corner of the churchyard, while equally abhor them. The material appearance of a charnel-house is positively more nauseous than that of an earthen grave, and the process of corruption there perhaps the more loathsome of the two. When Allan Cunningham was offered by Chantrey a care is bestowed upon the fabric, it seems place in his own new elaborate mausoleum, rather to be viewed as a family mausoleum Allan answered like a man and a poet, than as a place of common worship; and 'No, no, I'll not be built over when I'm the high principle that is contended for will dead; I'll lie where the wind shall blow be little advanced if the green-baized pew

and the daisy grow upon my grave.' His
wish was granted; he was laid in the lap
of his mother earth, under a simple sod;
and, according to a brother poet's prayer; -

The evening sun
Shines sweetly on his grave.'

The fact that the tombs most conspicuous
in the Cemetery at Kensal Green, where
'Honest Allan' thus reposes, are those of
St. John Long, the quack, Ducrow, the
equestrian, and Morison, the hygeist, will
not perhaps tend to raise the value of gran-

Even the

the chancel shall hardly be deemed good
enough for the deceased rector.
growing spirit of church decoration may be
perverted, if the foundation be not rightly
laid; for in many cases where the greatest

only gives place to the emblazoned monu-
ment. Let the high clergy and laity follow
Allan Cunningham's example, and give
such directions about their burial that the
poor man may see some little sincerity of
action, as well as warmth of profession,
and have no more repetition of the old but
eloquent epitaph-

Here I lie beside the door,
Here I lie because I'm poor;
Further in the more they pay,
Here I lie as well as they.'

ite, and marble, and bronze, in the public For our own part, when we think over the mind. There is something, too, very dis- lives of those who claim chancel-vaults, and of those who rest in the churchyard but with increasing ratio; our burialwithout a stone to mark the spot of their grounds are ineanwhile almost stationary; interment-like Crabb's old Dibble we and the mind shudders to think of the acсwould content ourselves with the humbler allotment, and

Join the party that repose without.'

To subsist in lasting monuments,' says Sir Thomas Browne, 'to live in their productions, was large satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their Elysiums. But all this is nothing in the metaphysicks of of true belief. To live, 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. In

nocent's churchyard as in the sands of Egypt. Ready to be any thing in the ecstasy of being for ever, and as content with six feet as with

the moles of Adrianus.'

Though, as we have already said, we differ from Mr. Chadwick as to the hands into which the providing and maintenance of cemeteries should fall, we can have no dif. ficulty, and we think the nation will go along with us, in coming to the same main

conclusion with him :

That on the several special grounds, moral, religious, and physical, and in conformity to the best usages and authorities of primitive Chris

tianity and the general practice of the inost civ

There

cumulating horrors which must ensue from
a continuance of things as they are.
is no doubt whose prerogative it is to con-
duct the rites of Christian burial, and whose
duty, therefore, it is to come forward at the
present moment, and rescue them from their
increasing desecration. One year more,
and a new concession may be wrested from
the Church, and another tie may be brok-
en; and while Churchmen are busied in

fine-drawing the Articles in their studies,
and carving rood-screens in their work-
shops, the opportunity of a great practical
restoration, at once primitive and catholic,
pious, edifying, and popular, may be allowed
to slip away, to fall into the hands of spec-
ulators and Dissenters. Never-if we may,
without irreverence, apply to a minor want
of the Church that expression which was

more solemnly appropriated of old to her

as the bane is before us.

greatest need-never was the Fulness of time for a specific object more signally come. The necessity of the case is not more urgent, than are the means to meet it prompt and ample. The antidote as well ilized, modern nations, the practice of interThe very existments in towns in burial places amidst the habit- ence of the Ecclesiastical Commission, unations of the living, and the practice of inter- welcome as it may be to many even in its ment in churches, ought for the future, and improved constitution, offers the fortunate without any exception of places, or acceptation - may we not say, providential-accident of persons, to be entirely prohibited.'-Sup. Rep. § 249.

of a motive power and machinery made to hand to carry out the material framework; while the spirit to give life and energy to a

We also fully agree with him 'That the necessities of no class of the population movement in the direction of primitive in respect to burial, ought to be abandoned usage, is only not boiling over for want of a as sources of private emolument to commer-vent at which to expend itself. It is not in cial associations;'-that 'institutions of this only, but in greater matters, that we houses for the immediate reception, and re- want good practical men to guide the presspectful and appropriate care of the dead, ent high-running tide of Church principles

under superior and responsible officers, should be provided in every town for the use of all classes of the community;'-that 'an abatement of oppressive charges for funeral materials, decorations, and services,' should be made; and we are sure that he would meet us with his concurrence in the suggestions we have tendered for the general diminution of all funeral parade. We cannot take leave of the Report without thanking its able author for the very great public service he has achieved by it.

And now, something must be done in this matter, and that without delay. This day the sun will set in Britain upon a thousand corpses of those who saw the light of yesterday. It will be the same to-morrow,

-a change for which, on the whole, we cannot be too grateful. No great change of mind, for good or for evil, was ever the unassisted work of man. Despite the cries of old women and the fears of philosophers - nay, despite the serious offences of the masters, and the laughable flounderings of the disciples, no unprejudiced observer can fail to recognize in the present signs of the times, a more than common reading of 'vox populi, vox Dei.' Let the leaders only, instead of shrinking into irresponsible privacy from the immediate duties to which they have been called, or provoking friends into enemies by one-sided histories and extreme theories, or frittering away their learning on copes and candlesticks, take a