(1) See Collier's "Ecclesiastical History," vol. i. p. 487: Mortuaries were called by our Saxon ancestors Saul rceat [Soul shot, or payment]. See a curious account of them in Dugdale's "Hist. of Warwickshire," 1st edit. p. 679. See also Cowel's "Law Interpreter," in voce; and Selden's "History of Tithes," p. 287.

"Offeringes at Burialles" are condemned in a list of "Grosse Poyntes of Poperie, evident to all Men," in a most rare book in 4to.

p. 63, entitled "A Parte of a Register, contayninge sundrie memorable matters, written by divers godly and learned in our time, whiche stande for and desire the Reformation of our Church in Discipline and Ceremonies, accordinge to the pure Worde of God and the Lawe of our Lande." This work is said by Dr. Bancroft to have been printed at Edinburgh by Robert Waldegrave, who printed most of the puritan books and libels in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

BOURNE tells us (b) that the heathens followed the corpse to the grave, because it presented to them what would shortly follow,

See

(a) Graves were anciently called PYTTES. Strutt's" Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. 172. (b)" Antiquitates Vulgares," chap. iii.

how they themselves should be so carried out to be deposited in the grave. (1)

Christians, he adds, observe the custom for the very same reason. And he further remarks, that as this form of procession is an emblem of our dying shortly after our friend,

so the carrying in our hands of ivy, sprigs of laurel, rosemary, (2) or other evergreens, is an emblem of the soul's immortality.

The Romans and other heathens, upon this occasion, made use of cypress, which being once cut, will never flourish nor grow again, as an emblem of their dying for ever: (3) but instead of that, the ancient Christians used the things before mentioned, and deposited them under the corpse in the grave, to signify that they who die in Christ, do not cease to live; for though, as to the body, they die to the world, yet, as to their souls, they live and revive to God.

And as the carrying of these evergreens is an emblem of the soul's immortality, so it is also of the resurrection of the body: for as these herbs are not entirely plucked up, but only cut down, and will at the returning season revive and spring up again; so the body, like them, is but cut down for a while, and will rise and shoot up again at the resurrection. For, in the language of the evangelical prophet, our bones shall flourish like an herb.

Bourne cites Gregory, c. 26, as observing, that it was customary among the ancient Jews, as they returned from the grave, to pluck up the grass two or three times and then throw it behind them, saying these words of the psalmist, "They shall flourish out of the city, like grass upon the earth," which they did to show that the body, though dead, should spring up again as the grass. (*)

Various are the proofs of the ancient custom of carrying out the dead with psalmody in the primitive church; (3) in imitation of which it is still customary in many parts of this nation to carry out the dead with singing of psalms and hymns of triumph, to show that they have ended their spiritual warfare, that they have finished their course with joy, and are become conquerors.

This exultation, as it were, for the conquest of their deceased friend over hell, sin, and death, was the great ceremony used in all funeral processions among the ancient Christians.

The author of the "Survey of the South of Ireland," pp. 206, 209, tells us:

"It is the custom of this country to conduct their dead to the grave in all the parade

"Ut qui conducti plorant in Funere, dicunt Et faciunt prope plura dolentibus ex animo."

That this custom was Phoenician we may learn from Virgil, who was very correct in the costume of his characters. The conclamatio over the Phoenician Dido, as described by him, is similar to the Irish cry: "Lamentis, gemituque, et fœmineo ululatu Tecta fremunt."

The very word "ululatus," or " hulluloo," and the Greek word of the same import, have all a strong affinity to each other.

The ancient Christians, to testify their abhorrence of Heathen rites, rejected the Pagan custom of burning the dead, depositing the inanimate body entire in the ground. Thus I found at Rutchester, one of the stations upon the Roman wall in Northumberland, a sepulchre hewn out of the living rock, wherein, Leland says, Paulinus, who converted the Northumbrians to Christianity, was interred.

I found in a collection of Old Epigrams of the time of James the First, the following quaint one on the subject of carrying the body to the grave with the feet foremost.

"517. Man's Ingress and Egress. "Nature, which headlong into life did throng

us,

With our feet forward to our grave doth bring us:

What is less ours than this our borrow'd

breath?

We stumble into life, we goe to death.”

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." (7)

In Poems by the Rev. John Black, Minister of Butley in Suffolk, 8vo. Ipsw. 1799, p. 10, in "An Elegy on the Author's Mother, who was buried in the Churchyard of Dunichen in Scotland," is the following stanza:

"Oh, how my soul was griev'd, when I let fall The String that dropt her silent in the Grave! Yet thought I then, I heard her Spirit call: "Safe I have pass'd through Death's o'erwhelming wave.'”

On the second line the author has this note: "In Scotland, it is the custom of the relations of the deceased themselves to let down the corpse into the grave, by mourning cords, fastened to the handles of the coffin: the chief mourner standing at the head, and the rest of the relations arranged according to their propinquity. When the coffin is let down and adjusted in the grave, the mourners first, and then all the surrounding multitude, uncover their heads: there is no funeral service read, no oration delivered: but that solemn pause, for about the space of ten minutes, when every one is supposed to be meditating on death and immortality, always struck my heart in the most awful manner: never more than on the occasion here alluded to. The sound of the cord, when it fell on the coffin, still seems to vibrate on my ear."

The belief in Yorkshire was, amongst the vulgar, says Mr. Aubrey's Manuscript, and perhaps is, in part, still, that after a person's death, the soul went over Whinny Moor; and till about 1624, at the funeral, a woman came (like a Præfica) and sung the following song: "This ean night, this ean night,

Every night and awle,

Fire and Fleet (a) and Candle-light, And Christ receive thy sawle. (a) Fleot, water.

When thou from hence doest pass away,

Every night and awle,

To Whinny-Moor (b) thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy sawle.

If ever thou gave either hosen or shun,(©)
Every night and awle,

Sitt thee down and put them on,

And Christ receive thy sawle.

But if hosen nor shoon thou never gave nean, Every night and awle,

The Whinnes shall prick thee to the bare beane,

And Christ receive thy sawle.

From Whinny-Moor that thou mayst pass,
Every night and awle,

To Brig o' Dread thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy sawle.

From Brig of Dread that thou mayst pass,
Every night and awle,

To Purgatory Fire thou com'st at last,
And Christ receive thy sawle.

If ever thou gave either Milke or Drink,
Every night and awle,

The Fire shall never make thee shrink,
And Christ receive thy sawle.

But if Milk nor Drink thou never gave nean,
Every night and awle,

The Fire shall burn thee to the bare beane, And Christ receive thy sawle."

This Song, with one or two trifling variations, is printed under the title of "A LykeWake Dirge," in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," vol. ii. p. 363.

(1) "Præcedenti Pompa funebri, vivi sequuntur, tanquam haud multo post morituri." Alex. ab Alexand. lib. iii. p. 67. Polyd. Verg. lib. vi. c. 10, p. 405.

So, in Langley's "Translation of Polydore Vergil," fol. 128, we read: "In burials the

old rite was that the ded corpse was borne afore, and the people folowed after, as one should saie we shall dye and folowe after hym, as their laste woordes to the coarse did pretende. For thei used to saie, when it was buried, on this wise, Farewell, wee come after

thee, and of the folowyng of the multitude thei were called exequies."

In " Articles to be enquired of within the Archdeaconry of Yorke, by the Churchwardens and Sworne Men," A.D. 163-, (any year till 1640,) 4to. Lond. b. l. I find the following: "Whether at the death of any there be praying for the dead at crosses, or places where crosses have been, in the way to the church."

Misson, in his "Travels in England," translated by Ozell, p. 90, speaking of funerals, says: "They let the body lye three or four days, as well to give the dead person an opportunity of coming to life again, if his soul has not quite left his body, as to prepare mourning, and the ceremonies of the funeral." "They send the beadle with a list of such friends and relations as they have a mind to invite; and sometimes they have printed tickets, which they leave at their houses." "A little before the company is set in order for the march," he continues, "they lay the body into the coffin, upon two stools, in a room, where all that please may go and see it; then they take off the top of the coffin, and remove from off the face a little square piece of flannel, made on purpose to cover it, and not fastened to anything. Being ready to move, one or more beadles march first, each carrying a long staff, at the end of which is a great apple, or knob of silver. The body comes just after the minister or ministers, attended by the clerk. The relations in close mourning, and all the guests, two and two, make up the rest of the procession."

Macaulay, in his "History and Antiquities of Claybrook in Leicestershire," 8vo. Lond. 1791, p. 131, 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 hat-bands, at the funeral of a young woman. But these usages are not so universally prevalent as they were in the days of our fathers."

Mr. Gough, in the Introduction to his

second volume of "Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain," p. cciv. says: "In Flintshire it is customary to say the Lord's Prayer on bringing the corpse out of the house."

At South Shields, in the county of Durham, the bidders, i. e. the inviters to a funeral, never use the rapper of the door when they go about, but always knock with a key, which they carry with them for that purpose. I know not whether this custom be retained any where else.

The following form of inviting to burials by the public bellman of the town is still, or was very lately, in use at Hexham, in the county of Northumberland:

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Joseph Dixon is departed, son of Christopher Dixon was. Their company is

desired to-morrow at five o'clock, and at six he is to be bu-ri-ed. For him and all faithful people give God most hearty thanks."

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."

In Dunbar (the Scottish poet's) Will of Maister Andro Kennedy, a profligate student, preserved in Andrews's " History of Great Britain," &c. vol. i. p. 314, are some curious, if not profane parodies on the then funeral

rites:

"In die meæ sepulturæ,

I will have nane but our awn gang,(a) Et duos rusticos de rure

Bearand ane barrel on a stang, Drinkand and playand, cap out even,

Sicut egomet solebam,

Singand and greitand, with the stevin,

Potum meum cum fletu miscebam.
I will no preistis for to sing,
Dies illæ dies iræ, (b)
Nor yet no bellis for to ring,
Sicut semper solet fieri;
But a bagpype to play a spring,

Et unum alewisp ante me,
Instead of torches for to bring
Quatuor lagenas cervisiæ.