bloom; this evening her charms are withered. Has not the flower drooped after having been touched by the ploughshare? has not the poppy bent its head under the peltings of the rain?"

When the mother in tears presents herself at the church with the corpse of her infant child, what funeral oration does the pastor pronounce over it? He simply entones the hymn which was sung by the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace :— Benedicite, omnia opera Domini! . . . . "All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all forever!" Religion blesses God for having crowned the infant by death, and delivered this little innocent creature from all the miseries of life. It invites nature to rejoice around the tomb of angelic innocence: it expresses not cries of grief, but of joy. In the same spirit of exultation does it recite Laudate, pueri, Dominum! .. "Praise the Lord, ye children!" . . . . and finishes with this verse, Qui facit habitare sterilem in domo: matrem filiorum lætantem:-"Who maketh a barren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of children." What a sublime canticle of consolation for afflicted parents! The Church represents their departed child living eternally in heaven, and promises them more children on earth!

Finally, not satisfied with having fulfilled these duties in behalf of each individual, Religion crowns her pious work in honor of the dead by a general ceremonial, which recalls the memory of the innumerable inhabitants of the grave,-that vast community of departed mortals where rich and poor lie together,—that republic of perfect equality where no one can enter without first doffing his helmet or crown to pass under the low door of the tomb. On this solemn occasion, when the obsequies of the entire family of Adam are celebrated, the Christian soul mingles her grief caused by the loss of former friends with the sorrows excited by more recent bereavements; and this union imparts something supremely beautiful to affliction, as a modern grief would acquire an antique character by being expressed in the vein of the old Homeric tragedy. Religion alone can give to the heart of man that expansion, which will render its sighs and its loves commensurate with the multitude of the dead whom it designs to honor.1

1 See note NN.

BOOK II.

TOMBS.

CHAPTER I.

ANCIENT TOMBS-THE EGYPTIANS.

THE last duties that we pay to our fellow-creatures would be melancholy indeed, if they were not impressed with the stamp of religion. Religion received birth at the tomb, and the tomb cannot dispense with religion. It is beautiful to hear the voice of hope issuing from the grave, and to see the priest of the living God following the remains of man to their last abode. We behold here, as it were, immortality leading the way before death.

From funerals we proceed to the consideration of tombs, which occupy so large a space in our history. That we may the better appreciate the ceremonies with which they are honored by Christians, let us see what was their state among the idolatrous nations.

Egypt owes part of its celebrity to its tombs, and has been twice visited by the French, who were drawn thither by the beauty of its ruins and monuments. The French nation have a certain innate greatness which compels them to interest themselves in every corner of the globe with objects great like themselves. Is it, however, absolutely certain, that mummies are objects truly worthy of our curiosity? It might be supposed that the ancient Egyptians were apprehensive lest posterity should some day be ignorant what death was, and were therefore desirous of transmitting to distant ages some specimens of corpses. In Egypt you can scarcely move a step without meeting with emblems of mortality. Do you behold an obelisk, a broken column, a subterraneous cavern? they are so

many monuments of death: and when the moon, rising behind the great pyramid, appears above the summit of that immense sepulchre, you fancy that you behold the very pharos of death, and are actually wandering on the shore to which of old the ferryman of hell transported the shades.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

AMONG the Greeks and Romans, the lower classes of the people were interred at the entrance of cities, along the public road, apparently because tombs are the real monuments of the traveller. The distinguished dead were often buried on the seacoast. These funeral signals, which from afar indicated the shore and the rocks to the mariner, must have suggested to him very serious reflections. How much more secure did he feel on the ocean than on that land which had ruined such vast fortunes and swallowed up so many illustrious lives! Near the city of Alexandria was seen the hillock of sand, erected by the piety of a freedman and an old soldier to the manes of Pompey. far from the ruins of Carthage was descried Cato's statue on a rock. On the Italian coast the mausoleum of Scipio indicated the spot where this great man expired in exile, and the tomb of Cicero marked the place where the father of his country had been basely assassinated.

Not

While Rome erected on the sea-coast these memorials of her injustice, Greece offered some consolation to humanity by perpetuating, on a neighboring shore, more pleasing recollections. The disciples of Plato and Pythagoras, in their voyage to Egypt, whither they repaired to acquire knowledge respecting the gods, passed within sight of Homer's tomb, on the island of Io. It was a happy idea that placed the monument of the bard who

1 Homer was buried at Chios.

celebrated the exploits of Achilles under the protection of Thetis. Ingenious antiquity could imagine that the shade of the poet still recited the misfortunes of Ilium to the assembled Nereids, as in the soft and genial nights of Ionia he had disputed with the syrens the prize of song.

CHAPTER III.

MODERN TOMBS CHINA AND TURKEY.

THE Chinese have an affecting custom: they inter their relatives in their gardens. It is soothing to hear in every grove the voices of the shades of our forefathers, and to have always some memorials of the friends who are gone, in the midst of the desert.

At the opposite extremity of Asia, the Turks have nearly the same custom. The strait of the Dardanelles affords a highly philosophical spectacle. On the one hand rise the promontories of Europe with all its ruins; on the other wind the coasts of Asia bordered with Mohammedan cemeteries. What different manners have animated these shores! How many nations have there been buried, from the days when the lyre of Orpheus first assembled the savages who inhabited them till the period which again consigned these celebrated regions to barbarism! Pelasgi, Helenes, Greeks, Mæonians; people of Ilus, of Sarpedon, of Eneas; inhabitants of Ida, of Tmolus, of the Meander and Pactolus; subjects of Mithridates, slaves of the Cæsars, Vandals, hordes of Goths, of Huns, of Franks, of Arabs,-ye have all performed on these shores the ceremonies of the tomb, and in this alone have your manners had any resemblance. Death, sporting with human things and human destinies, has lent the mausoleum of a Roman emperor to the ignoble remains of a Tartar, and has deposited the ashes of a Mollah in the sepulchre of a Plato.

2 H

CHAPTER IV.

CALEDONIA, OR ANCIENT SCOTLAND.

FOUR moss-covered stones on the moors of Caledonia mark the burial-place of the warriors of Fingal. Oscar and Malvina are gone; but nothing is changed in their solitary country. The Highlander still delights to repeat the song of his ancestors; he is still brave, tender, and generous; his modern habits are like the pleasing recollection of his ancient manners. 'Tis no longer, (if we may be allowed the image,)-'tis no longer the hand of the bard himself that sweeps the harp; the tones we hear are the slight trembling of the strings produced by the touch of a spirit, when announcing at night, in a lonely chamber, the death of a hero.

"Carril accompanied his voice. The music was like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul. The ghosts of departed bards heard it from Slimora's side; soft sounds spread along the woods, and the valleys of night rejoice. So, when he sits in the silence of noon in the valley of his breezes, is the murmur of the mountain to Ossian's ear. The gale drowns it often in its course; but the pleasant sound returns again."

CHAPTER V.

OTAHEITE.

MAN here below is like the blind Ossian seated on the tomos of the kings of Morven; wherever he stretches out his hand into the shades that surround him he touches the ashes of his fathers. When intrepid mariners first ploughed the vast Pacific, they beheld waves eternally caressed by balmy breezes rolling at