bute of respect to the deceased, turns had been decorated in the same and resumes his journey. The rich vein of melancholy which runs through the English character, and gives it some of its most touching and ennobling graces, is finely evidenced in these pathetic customs, and in the solicitude shown by the common people for an honoured and a peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, whatever may be his lowly lot while living, is anxious that some little respect may be paid to his remains. Sir Thomas Overbury, describing the "faire and happy milkmaid," observes, "Thus lives she, and all her care is, that she may die in the Spring-time, to have store of flowers stucke upon her winding sheet." The poets, too, who always breathe the feeling of a nation, continually advert to this fond solicitude about the grave. The custom of decorating graves was once universally prevalent: osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the turf uninjured, and about them were planted evergreens and flowers. "We adorn their grave," says Evelyn, in his Sylva, "with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots, being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory." This usage has now become extremely rare in England, but it may still be met with in the churchyards of retired villages among the Welsh mountains; and I recollect an instance of it at the small town of Ruthen, which lies at the head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd. I have been told also by a friend, who was present at the funeral of a young girl in Glamorganshire, that the female attendants had their aprons full of flowers, which, as soon as the body was interred, they stuck about the grave. He noticed several graves which manner. As the flowers had been merely stuck in the ground, and not planted, they had soon withered, and might be seen in various states of decay; some drooping, others quite perished. They were afterwards to be supplanted by holly, rosemary, and other evergreens; which, on some graves, had grown to great luxuriance, and overshadowed the tombstones. There was formerly a melancholy fancifulness in the arrangement of these rustic offerings, that had something in it truly poetical. The rose was sometimes blended with the lily, to form a general emblem of frail mortality. "This sweet flower," said Evelyn, "borne on a branch set with thorns, and accompanied with the lily, are natural hieroglyphics of our fugitive, umbratile, anxious, and transitory life, which, making so fair a show for a time, is not yet without its thorns and crosses.' The nature and colour of the flowers, and of the ribands with which they were tied, had often a particular reference to the qualities or story of the deceased, or were expressive of the feelings of the mourner. In an old poem, entitled "Corydon's Doleful Knell," a lover specifies the decorations he intends to use :-- A garland shall be framed, By Art and Nature's skill, With her to grave shall go. The rarest ever seen; I'll keep them fresh and green. The white rose, we are told, was planted at the grave of a virgin; her chaplet was tied with white ribands, in token of her spotless innocence; though sometimes black ribands were intermingled, to bespeak the grief of the survivors. The red rose was occasionally used in remembrance of such as had been remarkable for benevolence; but roses in general were appropriated to the graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us that the custom was not altogether extinct in his time, near his dwelling in the county of Surrey, "where the maidens yearly planted and decked the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes." And Camden likewise remarks, in his Britannia,-"Here is also a certain custom, observed time out of mind of planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maids who have lost their loves, so that this churchyard is now full of them." When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, emblems of a more gloomy character were used, such as the yew and cypress; and if flowers were strewn, they were of the most melancholy colours. Thus, in poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq., (published in 1651,) is the following stanza: Yet strew Forsaken cypresse and sad yewe; For kinder flowers can take no birth Or growth from such unhappy earth. The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind and we have a proof of it in the purity of sentiment, and the unaffected elegance of thought, which pervaded the whole of these funeral observances. Thus, it was an especial precaution, that none but sweet-scented evergreens and flowers should be employed. The intention seems to have been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind from brooding over the disgraces of perishing mortality, and to associate the memory of the deceased with the most delicate and beautiful objects in nature. There A SAILOR'S FUNERAL VERY shortly after poor Jack dies he is prepared for his deep sea grave by his messmates, who, with the assistance of the sail-maker, and in the presence of the master-at-arms, sew him up in his hammock, and having placed a couple of cannonshot at his feet, they rest the body (which now not a little resembles an Egyptian mummy) on a spare grating. Some portion of the bedding and clothes are always made up in the package-apparently to seen. It is then carried aft, and being placed across the after-hatchway, the union jack is thrown over all. Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns, under the half-deck, bat generally, I think, it is laid where I have mentioned, just abaft the mainmast. prevent the form being too much | the quarter-deck and commences the beautiful service, which, though but too familiar to most ears, I have observed, never fails to rivet the attention even of the rudest and least reflecting. The land service for the burial of the dead contains the following words: "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope," &c. Every one, I am sure, who has attended the funeral of a friend-and whom will this not include ?-must recollect the solemnity of that stage of the ceremony, where, as the above words are pronounced, there are cast into the grave three successive portions of earth, which, falling on the coffin, send up a hollow, mournful sound, resembling no other that I know. I should have mentioned before, that as soon as the surgeon's ineffectual professional offices are at an end, he walks to the quarter-deck, and reports to the officer of the watch that one of his patients has just expired. At whatever hour of the day or night this occurs, the captain is immediately made acquainted with the circumstance.Next day, generally about eleven o'clock, the bell on which the halfhours are struck, is tolled for the funeral, and all who choose to be present assemble on the gang-ways, booms, and round the mainmast, while the fore part of the quarterdeck is occupied by the officers. * * While the people are repairing to the quarter-deck, in obedience to the summons of the bell, the grating on which the body is placed, being lifted from the main-deck by the messmates of the man who has died, is made to rest on the lee-gangway. The stanchions for the man-ropes of the sides are unshipped, and an opening made at the after-end of the hammock-netting, sufficiently large to allow a free passage. The body is still covered by the flag already mentioned, with the feet projecting a little over the gunwale, while the messmates of the deceased arrange themselves on each side. A rope, which is kept out of sight in these arrangements, is then made fast to the grating, for a purpose which will be seen presently. When all is ready, the chaplain, if there be one on board, or, if not, the captain, or any of the officers he may direct to officiate, appears on In the burial service at sea, the part quoted above is varied in the following very striking and solemn manner: "Forasmuch," &c.-" we therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead, and the life of the world to come," &c. At the commencement of this part of the service, one of the seamen stoops down, and disengages the flag from the remains of his late shipmate, while the others, at the words "we commit his body to the deep," project the grating right into the sea. The body being loaded with shot at one end, glances off the grating, plunges at once into the ocean, and In a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into its depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. HALL'S Fragments of Voyages and Travels. THE BURNING OF AN IN- to be seen that her efforts to obtain the mastery over her wavering resolution were those of no common mind, and of no common energy. She divided among her friends the different ornaments of her dress, with the look and bearing of ore who, from the distraction of her thoughts, scarcely knew what she was doing; but, suddenly, hearing the cry of her infant, the feelings of the mother returned; she sprang forward, tore it from the arms of an attendant, and clasped it passionately to her bosom. It was now clear to all the bystanders, that she was inwardly shrinking from the last act of this most horrible sacrifice; she stood before us an image of mute but agonized despair. The officiating Bramins, seeing that it was time to urge the consummation of this detestable oblation, and fearing lest she should relent, commanded all her relatives, friends, and attendants, to retire. In a few moments a large area was left around the pile, within which stood no one, save the unhappy victim and her executioners. Before the area was cleared, one of these monsters had forcibly taken the child from the mother's arms, and given it to an atten dant, unheedful of the cries of the one, or the agonies of the other. The widow-knowing what was to succeed, gave way to the struggles of nature, fell on her knees, raised her eyes towards heaven, and clasped her hands in a transport of speechless anguish. One of the Bramins ap A considerable interval elapsed before all things were ready for the great act of immolation, and by this time some change had clearly taken place in her sensations. There was now a manifest confusion and nervous anxiety in her clear dark eye, which gradually became less expressive, but more wild. Her senses had been evidently "steeped in forgetfulness," or, at all events, paralyzed by the too free use of that drug (opium), which is so often employed, and with such fatal efficacy, upon these and similar melancholy occasions, in order to disarm the terrors, and confirm the fortitude of those miserable victims who are doomed, by the ferocious sanctity of Hindoo superstition, to a premature death, and that too the most horrible. She was rapidly recovering from the partial stupor in which her mental faculties had been involved, and in proportion as her perception cleared, her terrors visibly multi-proached her with an air of calm but plied. Her actions, which had at first appeared merely mechanical, now seemed directed by her returning impulses, which every moment grew stronger and more distressing. Still, though there was manifestly a fierce struggle within, it was plain *The suttee is an Indian widow who burns herself upon the body of her dead husband. stern authority, raised her from her recumbent position, then, with the assistance of a companion equally stern and unfeeling, violently urged her towards the pile. She struggled, and the energy with which despair had armed her, enabled her successfully to resist the united efforts of those high-priests of the altar of a most infernal superstition. Upon men rushed forward and dragged her towards the faggots, which were well smeared with ghee,* in order to accelerate their combustion—a contingent mercy arising out of the policy of securing a speedy termination to the suttee's sufferings, as, the quicker the process, the less the chance of rescue or esсаре. seeing this, several of these cruel | rect and incidental mention of them by the old historians and other writers, had bells for both sacred and profane purposes. By Strabo we are told that market-time was announced by their sound; and by Pliny, that the tomb of an ancient king of Tuscany was hung round with bells. The hour of bathing was made known in ancient Rome by the sound of a bell; the night watchman carried one, and it served to call up the servants in great houses. Sheep had them tied about their necks to frighten away wolves, or rather by way of amulet. In our own day this custom, like many others, serves to remind us of former times. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, is generally considered as the first person who introduced bells into ecclesiastical service, about the year 400. And we are told by ancient historians, that in the year 610, the Bishop of Orleans, being at Sens, then in a state of siege, frightened away the besieging army by ringing the bells of St. Stephen's church; which is a clear proof that they were not at that time generally known in France. The moment her voice was raised, it was drowned in the mingled clamour of tom-toms, pipes, and the shouts of hundreds of halfmad fanatics, who had assembled to see the horrid issue of a devoted fanaticism. Her struggles were now unavailing; she was soon dragged to the pile and forced upon it; at this time she appeared exhausted by her continued exertions. When seated on the faggots, her husband's head was placed upon her lap, the straw, which had been plentifully strewed underneath the wood, was fired, when the flames instantly ascending, enwrapt the beautiful Hindoo, at once shutting her out for ever from human sight and from human sympathy. Lest in her agonies she should leap from the pile, she was kept down upon it by long bamboos, placed upon her body by the officiating Bramins, who leaned their whole weight upon the pole with which each was furnished, so that she could not rise. Her sufferings were soon Hand-bells probably first appeared terminated, as the wood burned with at religious processions, and were extreme rapidity and fury. Thus afterwards used by the secular muended this infernal holocaust!-sicians. The small bells were not Abridged from the ORIENTAL AN- always held in the hand; they were sometimes suspended upon a stand, and struck with hammers. NUAL. The first large bells are mentioned by Bede in the year 680. Before that period, the early British Christians made use of wooden rattles to call the congregation of the faithful together. The arrival of kings and great personages was anciently greeted by ringing the church bells. Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland, who died about 1109, speaks of them as being well known in his time, and says that "the first Abbot of Croyland gave six bells to that mo |