scarves. and the rest of the maids, who had been at the funeral service over a young bookseller in the Hall, and who all wore their white This was in January, 1659-60. Laying out the corpse is an office always performed by women, who claim the linen, &c., about the person of the deceased at the time of performing the ceremony. It would be thought very unlucky to the friends of the person departed, were they to keep back any portion of what is thus found. These women give this away in their turn by small divisions; and they who can obtain any part of it, think it an omen or presage of future good fortune to them or theirs. 66 The following is an extract from the old Register-book of Christ Church, Hants: April 14, 1604. Christian Steevens, the wife of Thomas Steevens, was buried in child-birth, and buried by women, for she was a Papishe." Warner, ii., 130. Pennant states: "The people kneel, and say the Lord's Prayer on the graves of their dead friends for some Sundays after their interment: and this is done generally upon their first coming to Church, and, after that, they dress the grave with flowers. Llanvechan." Gough adds that in Flintshire they say the prayer as the body leaves the house. Sep. Mon., ii., cciv. In the time of Durandus coals, holy water, and frankincense were, in some places, put into the grave. The holy water was to drive away the devils; the frankincense to counteract the ill smells of the body.' Rationale, vii., 35, 38. Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Urne-burial" observes, that "the custom of carrying the corpse as it were out of the world with its feet forward, is not inconsonant to reason, as contrary to the native posture of man, and his production first into it." Macaulay observes: "At the funeral of a yeoman, or farmer, the clergyman generally leads the van in the procession, in his canonical habiliments; and the relations follow the corpse, two and two, of each sex, in the order of proximity, linked in each other's arms. At the funeral of a young man it is customary to have six young women, clad in white, as pall-bearers; and the same number of young men, with white gloves and hatbands, at the funeral of a young woman. But these usages are not so universally prevalent as they were in the days of our fathers." Hist. of Claybrook, 1791, 131. Judging from an illustration in an early Breviary in the British Museum, the body was at first consigned to the ground in the funeral cerements, but without any coffin, and the latter was not introduced down to a comparatively late period. Archaol. Album, 1845, p. 90. A similar practice is followed by the Mohammedans, and ap pears to have prevailed on the European continent, which doubtless derived it from the East, as England may have done from her immediate neighbours across the Channel. There is a story laid in Picardy, in fact, where a woman taken to be dead, but only in a lethargy, was followed to the grave, wrapped in a sheet, and the bearers, going too near a hedge, the thorns penetrated the covering, and restored vitality. Hazlitt's Studies in Jocular Literature, 1890, p. 120. It is this tale, to which Tallemant des Reaux seems to refer; but he gives it a various reading. Historiettes, ed. 1854, i., 437. Speaking of the peculiarities in Atkinson says (1868): "Till lately, when the conduct of a Cleveland funeral, Mr. the corpse of an unmarried female was carried to the churchyard, the bearers were all single, and usually young women dressed in a kind of uniform, in some places all in white, in other in black dresses with white shawls and white straw bonnets trimmed with white. The servers (the young women who wait at the arvalsupper) also always preceded the coffin, as it approached the churchyard, sometimes in white, more usually in black with a broad white ribbon worn scarf-wise over one shoulder, and crossing over the black shawl; or else with knots or rosettes of white on the breast." In Cornwall, the manner among the lower orders is to bear the coffin almost level with the ground, slung on trestle boards, the members of the procession taking turns; and the dead body occupies the centre of the group. There is no hearse or vehicle of any kind (1875). In the Cotswolds there appears to be a pretty and appropriate custom at the burials of little children, by which the coffin is borne in the case of a boy by four children of that sex in black dresses and white hats, and in that of a girl by as many young females of the village simiiarly attired. This probably ancient usage will doubtless grow obsolete, as the neighbourhood becomes more cenventional. Graphic, Oct. 25, 1902. At the recent interment of a bailiff, belonging to a farmhouse among the hills on the borders of Devonshire and West Dorsetshire, the body was borne to the churchyard in a waggon decorated with heather, the coffin being hidden under bunches of oats. Three cart-horses, whose manes were embellished with black rosettes, drew the vehicle; the lord of the manor headed the procession on a black hunter, and a hundred labourers from the farm and the neighbourhood followed the remains. Daily Mail, Sept. 5, 1903. In the heart of London, in the neighbourhood of the Seven Dials, among the costermongers who are of superior standing and means, the last tribute to the defunct often costs a considerable sum, and involves a good deal of ceremony. The body is duly prepared, and laid upon a truck-the one used by the departed-with a pall over it, and the friends having assembled, a procession threads all the adjoining thoroughfares, preparatory to the departure for the place of interment. Where the deceased person was popular, as many as 400 or 500 will attend the committal to the earth, and the funeral cortége will consist of a dozen well-appointed carriages. (1903) remains a characteristic trait of the English poorer class to expend a disproportionate amount on burials. his youthful years, the poet says, that he Of Julian Herrick gave to me my birth." It is observed that in sandy, wet soils twenty years suffice to obliterate every vestige of a coffin and its contents except perhaps the brass plate and a few nails, where no artificial precautions have been taken. This point may be collated with a familiar passage in Hamlet. In some excavations undertaken in 1576, according to Stow, in Spitalfields, certain Roman cinerary urns were brought to light, which in company with the ashes, contained a small coin of the contemporary emperor, and in the tomb of Canute, opened at Winchester in modern times, one of the hands held a silver penny of that ruler. The precise object of this practice has not been determined, although it has been suggested that it might have been a tradition from later Hellenic folklore and the ferryman Charon who, however, only accepted fares in the shape of persons canonically buried. A different class of association between coins and the dead was the deposit of money in tombs commemorative of the reign of a sovereign, as in the case of Napoleon at St. Helena in 1821. Funerals, same Ceremonial Usages at. When the tomb of King John in Worcester Cathedral was opened in 1797, the remains were found to have been deposited in the earth, habited in the manner as the monumental effigy outside. The King wore a supertunic of crimson embroidered with gold, with red hose and black shoes; his gilt spurs were fastened to his feet by straps of light blue, striped with green and yellow. The beard was closely trimmed. But the most remarkable variation was that on the head was a monk's cowl, corroborating the stateIt yet ment of the chroniclers, that John had assumed that article of dress in his last moments as a protection from the Devil. Fairholt's Costume in England, 1860, p. 83-4. The identical notion recurs elsewhere, as the subjoined extract shews:"On the 13th May, 1220, (4 Hen. iii.) died Robert the second Lord Berkelye, ætis. 55 or thereabouts, and was buried in the North Isle of the Church of the Monastery of St. Augustines (Bristol) over against the high altar, in a monck's cowle, an usual fashion for great peeres in those tymes, esteemed as an amulet or defensative to the soule, and as a Scala Coeli, a ladder of life eternal." Smyth's Berkeley MSS., i., 117. This was Robert de Ber Grose says: "If you meet a funeral procession, or one passes by you, always take off your hat: this keeps all evil spirits attending the 'body in good humour, but this, though very usual abroad, is very rarely practised here, at least in large towns." In relation to the stage of the burial service where the minister says, Earth to Earth, and casts a handful over the coffin after deposition, there is the passage in Herrick's Hesperides, 1648, where, in speaking of chief mourner. was. their keley, second baron by tenure under a char- | Mansfield, in 1558, Lady Petre During two centuries and a half times. In the first funeral which he seems to have witnessed after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and the return to Protestantism, Machyn is rather minute in his description. He says: "Ther was a gret compene of pepull, ij and ij together, and nodur (neither) prest nor clarke, the nuw (new) prychers in ther gowne lyke leymen, nodur nor sayhyng tyll they cam to the grave, and a-for she was put into the grayff a collect in Englys, and then put in-to the grayff, and after took some heythe (earth) and caste yt on the corse, and red a thynge . . . for the same, and contenent (incontinently) cast the heth in-to the grave, and contenent red the pystyll of sant Poll to the Stesselonians (Thessalonians) the . . chapter, and after that they song paternoster in Englys, boyth prychers and odur, and (...) of a nuw fassyon, and after on of them whent in-to the pulpytt and mad a sermon.' ." This narrative, in spite of its uncouth phraseology and orthography, seemed worth transcribing, as being the earliest account we have of a funeral rite subsequently to the re-establishment of the reformed faith. At the funeral of Lady Cicily &c. It is to be remarked that during his oration, there stood come at 253 March, 1629-30, was carried to the burial- | The meaning of this was to prevent that place in his father's private carriage. carnivorous animal from coming near the Funeral Customs in Scot- body of the deceased, lest, when the land. In the Minute Book of the watchers were asleep, it should endeavour Society of Antiquaries of London, July 21, to prey upon it" &c. These notions appear 1725, we read: "Mr. Anderson gave the to have been called in Scotland "frets." Society an account of the manner of a Stat. Acc., xxi., 147. "In Scotland," obHighland lord's funeral. The body is serves the Rev. John Black, "it is the put into a litter between two horses, and, custom of the relations of the deceased attended by the whole clan, is brought to themselves to let down the corpse into the the place of burial in the churchyard. The grave, by mourning cords, fastened to the nearest relations dig the grave, the neigh- handles of the coffin: the chief mourner bours having set out the ground, so that standing at the head, and the rest of the it may not encroach on the graves of relations arranged according to their proothers. While this is performing, some pinquity. When the coffin is let down and hired women, for that purpose, lament adjusted in the grave, the mourners first, the dead, setting forth his genealogy and and then all the surrounding multitude, noble exploits. After the body is interred, uncover their heads: there is no funeral a hundred black cattle, and two or three service read: no oration delivered: but hundred sheep, are killed for the enterthat solemn pause, for about the space of tainment of the company.' "" The minister ten minutes, when every one is supposed of Borrowstones, Linlithgow, reported in to be meditating on death and immortal1796: At the burials of the poor people, ity, always struck my heart in the most a custom, almost obsolete in other parts awful manner: never more than on the of Scotland, is continued here. The beadle occasion here alluded to. The sound of perambulates the streets with a bell, and the cord, when it fell on the coffin, still intimates the death of the individual in seems to vibrate on my ear." the following language: ‘All brethren and 1799, p. 10. Speaking of Scotish manPoems, sisters, I let ye to wit, there is a brother ners in the 18th century, it is said: The (or sister) departed at the pleasure of the desire of what is called a decent funeral, Almighty, (here he lifts his hat), called i.e., one to which all the inhabitants of All those that come to the burial, the district are invited, and at which of clock. The corpse is at every part of the usual entertainment is He also walks before the corpse to given, is one of the strongest in the poor. the church-yard, ringing his bell." PenThe expence of it amounts to nearly two nant, in his "Tour in Scotland," tells us, pounds. This sum, therefore, every person that on the death of a highlander, the in mean circumstances is anxious to lay corpse being stretched on a board, and up, and he will not spare it, unless recovered with a coarse linen wrapper, the duced to the greatest extremity." Again: friends lay on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing a small quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed. The earth an emblem of the corruptible body; the salt an emblem of the immortal spirit. All fire is extinguished where a corpse is kept: and it is reckoned so ominous for a dog or cat to pass over it, that the poor animal is killed without mercy. A common funeral at Avoch, in Rosshire, in the 18th century, is thus described: "The corpse is preceded by the parish officer tolling a hand-bell. The pall or mort cloth is of plain black velvet, without any decoration, except a fringe. An immense crowd of both sexes attend; and the lamentations of the women, in some cases, on seeing a beloved relative put into the grave, would almost pierce a heart of stone." Stat. Acc. of Scotland, xv., 636. The Scots used to believe that "It disturbed the ghost of the dead, and was fatal to the living, if a tear was allowed to fall on a winding sheet. What was the intention of this, but to prevent the effects of a wild or frantic sorrow? If a cat was permitted to leap over a corpse, it portended misfortune. Complaints occur against the expensive mode of conducting burials in the parish of Dunlop, in Ayrshire. It is pointed out as an object of taxation." In the same publication, parish of Lochbroom, co. Ross, "At their burials and marriages," we are told, the inhabitants "too much adhere to the folly of their ancestors. On these occasions they have a custom of feasting a great number of their friends and neighbours, and this often at an expence which proves greatly to the prejudice of poor orphans and young people: although these feasts are seldom productive of any quarrels or irregularities among them." And, under parish of Campsie, co. Stirling, we read: 'It was customary, till within these few years, when any head of a family died, to invité the whole parish: they were served on boards in the barn, where a prayer was pronounced before and after the service, which duty was most religiously observed. The entertainment consisted of the following parts: first, there was a drink of ale, then a dram, then a piece of short-bread, then another dram of some other species of liquor, then a piece of currant-bread, keley, second baron by tenure under a char- | Mansfield, in 1558, Lady Petre times. In the first funeral which he seems to have witnessed after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and the return to Protestantism, Machyn is rather minute in his description. He says: "Ther was a gret compene of pepull, ij and ij together, and nodur (neither) prest nor clarke, the nuw (new) prychers in ther gowne lyke leymen, nodur nor sayhyng tyll they cam to the grave, and a-for she was put into the grayff a collect in Englys, and then put in-to the grayff, and after took some heythe (earth) and caste yt on the corse, and red a thynge. for the same, and contenent (incontinently) cast the heth in-to the grave, and contenent red the pystyll of sant Poll to the Stesselonians (Thessalonians) the.. chapter, and after that they song paternoster in Englys, boyth prychers and odur, and (...) of a nuw fassyon, and after on of them whent in-to the pulpytt and mad a sermon." This narrative, in spite of its uncouth phraseology and orthography, seemed worth transcribing, as being the earliest account we have of a funeral rite subsequently to the re-establishment of the reformed -faith. At the funeral of Lady Cicily 66 was. During two centuries and a half the Dyotts of Lichfield buried their dead in the family vault in the north aisle of St. Mary's in the - Market by torchlight; and the usage survived down to recent times. In the Antiquary for 1891, there is an account of the disorderly scenes on two of these occasions; and in his monograph, The Curiosities of the Church, Mr. Andrews, without citing this case, has a section on torchlight burial, which, as I have noted, was habitual among the ancients. An interesting paper on Traditions and Customs Relating to Death and Burial in Lincolnshire, from the pen of Miss Florence Peacock of Bottesford Manor, appeared in the Antiquary for November, 1895. Monsieur Jorevin, in his Travels in England, 1672,describing a lord's burial near Shrewbury, tells us: The relations and friends being assembled in the house of the defunct, the minister advanced into the middle of the chamber, where, before the company, he made a funeral oration, representing the great actions of the deceased, his virtues, his qualities, his titles of nobility, and those of the whole It is to be remarked family, &c. that during his oration, there stood upon the coffin a large pot of wine, out of which every one drank to This being the health of the deceased. finished, six men took up the corps, and carried it on their shoulders to the church." "The coffin," he adds, covered with a large cloth, which the four nearest relations held each by a corner with one hand, and in the other carried a bough"; (this must have been a branch of rosemary :) "the other relations and friends had in one hand a flambeau, and in the other a bough, marching thus through the street, without singing or saying any prayer, till they came to the church." After the burial service, he adds, the clergyman, having his bough in his hand like the rest of the congregation, threw it on the dead body when it was put into the grave, as did all the relations, extinguishing their flambeaux in the earth with which the corps was to be covered. This finished, every one retired to his home without farther ceremony." Antiq. Repert. iv., 549, 585. Braithwaite mentions that it was the function of the gentleman of the horse to lead the earl's charger caparisoned in black velvet after the body, and that these trappings remained the official's perquisites. Rules for the Government of the House of an Earle, (about 1640), apud Miscellanea Antiq. Anglicana, 1821, p. 16. The infant son of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, who died in "was |