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HYDRIOTAPHIA.

URN BURIAL; OR, A DISCOURSE OF THE SEPULCHRAL URNS LATELY FOUND IN NORFOLK.

NINTH EDITION.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN

1658.

VOL. III.

A

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THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND,

THOMAS LE GROS, OF CROSTWICK, ESQUIRE.1

WHEN the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment upon their ashes; and, having no old experience of the duration of their relicks, held no opinion of such afterconsiderations.

But who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered? The relicks of many lie like the ruins of Pompey's,* in all parts of the earth; and when they arrive at your hands these may seem to have wandered far, who, in a direct and meridian travel,† have but few miles of known earth between yourself and the pole.

That the bones of Theseus should be seen again in Athens‡ was not beyond conjecture and hopeful expectation: but that these should arise so opportunely to serve yourself was an hit of fate, and honour beyond prediction.

* Pompeios juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum terrâ tegit Libyos. Little directly but sea, between your house and Greenland.2 Brought back by Cimon Plutarch.

1 Le Gros, &c.] Descended from an ancient family of the name (Le Gross, or Groos), settled at Sloly, near Crostwick, so early as the reign of Stephen, and who became possessed of the manor and hall of Crostwick in the 38th of Henry VIII. His grandfather, Sir Thomas, was knighted by James I. at the Charter-house, in 1603. The property descended to his nephew, Charles Harman, who took the name of Le Gros, but sold the estate to the Walpole family in 1720.

2 Little directly, &c.] Crostwick-hall is not twenty miles distant from the north coast of Norfolk.

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HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

MDCCCLII.

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