REMARKS ON THE SEPULCHRAL MEMORIALS OF PAST AND PRESENT TIMES, WITH SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF OUR CHURCHES, THE IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO REVEREND THE PRESIDENT, AND THE MEMBERS OF THE FOR ARCHITECTURE. BY J. H. MARKLAND, F.R.S. S.A. "Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre."-Sir T. Brown, Hydriotaphia, chap. v. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER: J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON. MDCCCXL. 971 BIBL A LETTER, &c. GENTLEMEN, As the Oxford Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture, devotes so large a portion of its attention to the existing state of our Ecclesiastical buildings, and may, by its influence, diffuse not only a pure taste in the erection of new Churches, but a strong desire for the restoration of our ancient and more beautiful fabrics; I beg leave to address the following remarks to you, in the hope that my suggestions may receive your sanction, and that a degree of weight and authority may thus, eventually, be given to them, which the recommendation of an individual cannot impart. I am certainly not among the number of those, who would banish sepulchral monuments altogether from our Churches, deeply reverencing, as I do, the antiquity of the custom, and the feeling of love and respect for the dead, which, in many instances, prompts their erection; and also |