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tians like neither, who decline the figure of rest, and make choice of an erect posture. (140)

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 Mahomedans, who think to return to a delightful life again, are carried forth with their heads forward, and looking toward their houses. (111)

They closed their eyes as parts which first die or first discover the sad effects of death. But their iterated clamations to excite 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.(14)

That they poured oil upon the pyre was a toler(140) Russians, &c.

(141) Though this may very possibly be true, I neither observed the custom myself while in the country, nor do I know on what authority he makes the statement.-ED.

(142) Francesco Perucei. Pompe funebri.

rable 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 dispatch 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. (143)

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,(144) and the present practice of burying medals in the noble foundations of Europe are laudable ways of historical discoveries in actions,

(143) The practice alluded to in the text was no less extraordinary than ludicrous. Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, Antiq. Rom. 1. ix. observes that, in the funeral of illustrious men, in addition to the other pomp and circumstance, he had observed the performances of satyric choruses, which, preceding the bier, danced the sikinnis on the way to the grave. On the nature of this dance see Jungermann's note on Pollux. IV. 99. p. 750. Of the jesters and mummers we find an account in Suetonius's description of the funeral of Vespasian, X. 19. In the exequial procession, he says, the arch-mummer Favo (al. Favor,) acted the character of the emperor, mimicking, as is customary, the action and language of the deceased. Having demanded of those who managed the affair how much the expenses would amount to, and learning that they would exceed £80,000 sterling, replied, that if they would give him £800 he would cast himself into the Tiber. See the same writer in Vit. Tiber. c. 57.-ED.

(144) Vide Næn. The coins found in these graves may indicate the attachment of the departed to the Roman institution.DOUGLAS.

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 relics of traitors to their country, self-killers, (145) 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 that 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

(145) Hence Menelaus and Agamemnon, in Sophocles, oppose the burial of Ajax, who, in a fit of frenzy, had slain himself. Ajax. v. 104 ff.—Ed.

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. (146) 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 Sybilla 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

(146) Vide Næn. The crystal ball found in a grave, in which a chaste youth saw things to come, or spirits that divulged them.— DOUGLAS.

Achilles, that living contemner of death, that he had rather be a ploughman's servant than emperor of the dead? How Hercules's soul is in hell, and yet in heaven, (7) and Julius's 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 Plato's den, and are but embryo philosophers.

Pythagoras escapes in the fabulous hell of Dante, (148) 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 mar

(147) The ancients supposed man to consist of three parts; body, soul (ɛidúλov,) and spirit. It was the eidolon of Hercules that was in Hades; his spirit was with Jupiter in Olympus.ED.

(148) Del Inferno. cant. 4.

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