corpse lies is covered with flowers, à custom alluded to in one of the wild and plaintive ditties of Ophelia : White his shroud as the mountain snow, Larded all with sweet flowers; With true love showers. There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed in some of the remote villages of the south, at the funeral of a female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl nearest in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterwards hung up in the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased. The chaplets are sometimes made of white paper, in imitation of flowers, and inside of them is generally a pair of white gloves. They are intended as emblems of the purity of the deceased, and the crown of glory which she has received in heaven. In some parts of the country, also, the dead are carried to the grave with the singing of psalms and hymns: a kind of triumph, «to shew, »says Bourne, « that they have finished their course with joy, and are become conquerors. >> This, I am informed, is observed in some of the northern counties, particularly in Northumberland, and it has a pleasing though melancholy effect, to hear, of a still evening, in some lonely country scene, the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swelling from a distance, and to see the train slowly moving along the landscape. Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round And as we sing thy dirge, we will The daffodill And other flowers lay upon The altar of our love, thy stone. Herrick. There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to the passing funeral in these sequestered places; for such spectacles, occurring among the quiet abodes of nature, sink deep into the soul. As the mourning train approaches, he pauses, uncovered, to let it go by; he then follows silently in the rear; sometimes quite to the grave, at other times for a few hundred yards, and, having paid this tribute of respect to the deceased, turns and resumes his journey. The 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. 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 windingsheet. The poets, too, who always breathe the feeling of a nation, continually advert to this fond solicitude about the grave. In << The Maid's Tragedy,» by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind, describing the capricious melancholy of a broken-hearted girl : When she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell » 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 graves,» 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 Welch 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 had been decorated in the same 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. an old poem, entitled «< Corydon's Doleful Knell,» a lover specifies the decorations he intends to use : A garland shall be framed In But chiefly blacke and yellowe I'll deck her tomb with flowers, And with my tears as showers, 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 Cambden 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 1655) is the following stanza : Yet strew Upon my dismal grave Such offerings as you have, yewe; For kinder flowers can take no birth Or growth from such unhappy earth. In << The Maid's Tragedy,» a pathetic little air is intro duced, illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females who had been disappointed in love : Lay a garland on my hearse Maidens, willow branches wear, My love was false, but I was firm, 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 is a dismal process going on in the grave, ere dust can return to its kindred dust, which the imagination shrinks from contemplating; and we seek still to think of the form we have loved, with those refined associations which it awakened when blooming before us in youth and beauty. << Lay her in And from her fair and unpolluted flesh Herrick, also, in his « Dirge of Jephtha,» pours forth a fragrant flow of poetical thought and image, which in a manner embalms the dead in the recollections of the living. Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice, |