Arms, to direct and marshal the said funeral, they were ready to consent thereto; but the manner in which the body was set forth, and also a led horse, trumpets, guidons, and six pennons, with a coach of state, being insisted upon by some of the persons concerned in the said funeral to be used thereat, (all which far exceeded the quality of the deceased, he being only a private gentleman,) the said officers refused to give their attendance at the said funeral, although of right they ought to have borne the trophies proper to the degree of the defunct; notwithstanding which, the same were carried by improper persons, in so very irregular and unjustifiable a manner, that not any one of the said trophies was carried in its right place; which licentious liberty taken of late years by ignorant pretenders, to marshal and set forth the funerals of the nobility, gentry, and others, (too often above their estate and quality) is not only an open violation of the several established rules and orders heretofore made for the interment of all degrees, but highly tends to the lessening of the rights and honour of the nobility and gentry in general, and more especially when the funerals of ignoble persons are set forth by them with such trophies of honour as belong only to the peers and gentry of this realm." u

During the last century, and at the present day, it has become a usual practice, and is esteemed a mark of respect paid to the memory of the deceased, if of rank, for the friends and acquaintance to send their empty carriages to follow the hearse, which is sometimes covered with escutcheons; and in the funerals of the nobility, the coronet pertaining to their rank is carried; but beyond this, except in a few particular cases, very little of the funeral magni

u Lyson's Environs of London, Vol. II. p. 504.

ficence of former times can be traced; neither are the heralds employed now, as they were wont formerly to be, in marshalling funeral processions. And the bodies of the rich and poor are now consigned to the tomb-the former indeed to their vaulted sepulchres, the latter more immediately to the earth without any distinction being made, as in former times, in respect of the burial service, which, since the Reformation, has been alike performed over all, without regard of person.

Funeral of a Nun.

Monumental Stone, found at Ludgate, London, in 1663.
Arundelian Collection at Oxford.

From the Marmora Oxoniensia.

CHAPTER VI.

Now in the

OF THE SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS OF BRITAIN; From the eariiest period to the Norman Invasion.

THE generality of mankind have ever passed away unnoticed and forgotten; yet each succeeding age has produced individuals distinguished above others, whose names have been rescued from oblivion. Hence the origin of sepulchral memorials; for, from a desire to perpetuate the memory of those of old, eminent for their prowess or wisdom, and sometimes from motives of friendship or regard, attempts were early made to secure their remembrance, by bestowing over their remains some visible sign or symbol.

Thus Jacob set a monument or pillar over the grave of Rachel, and Absalom reared for himself a pillar to transmit his name to posterity.

In Egypt, the nursery of the arts, the feeling of ancient reverence for the dead is still apparent in the Pyramids, the most stupendous monuments of man, and the vast subterraneous chambers of the dead, which, hewn out of the rocks with immense labour, present to the traveller walls covered with hieroglyphics, paintings, and sculptured representations in relief, and sometimes contain entire statues of gigantic dimensions. These sculptures are of varied degrees of merit, exhibiting the infancy and progress, to a certain extent, of art, in design and execution; and some of them we may assume to be amongst the most ancient imitations, by the hand of man, of the human formi.

Amongst the Grecians, through whom we next trace the progress of the arts, and who borrowed from, and improved on, the Egyptians, the earliest sepulchral memorials were mere mounds or tumuli, raised up over the bodies of the dead; and such are mentioned by Homer. But whilst endeavouring to attain to that high degree of perfection both in sculpture and architecture, which for grand simplicity of conception and excellence of composition and execution has never since been equalled, they seem to have paid no slight attention to their funeral monuments, which by impressing on the mind the recollection of past events, contributed in no small degree to inspire them with that devotion towards their country, which enabled them, during a series of ages, to overcome every attempt of their foreign aggressors. And thus it was that, animated with this feeling, they were reminded at Salamis that they fought "for the sepulchres of their fathers."

Most of the inscribed monuments of Greece were placed without their cities, and near their public roads; they consisted principally of stelæ, cippi, or stone columns, of a round or cubical form, sculptured tablets, and sarcophagi, and were frequently decreed by the government to be erected as memorials of the public gratitude to the memory of deserving citizens.

Ο δημος ανεθηκεν
Τεροντίδην θεοδωρου.

was an inscription of this kind. v

Sepulchral stelæ, or columns of a private nature, were commonly inscribed with the name of the person to whom erected, of whom he was the son, and the name of the place of his birth.

It was from their intercourse with Greece that the Romans acquired their taste for the arts; and on the subjugation of that country, in the second century before Christ, were enabled to gratify their passion by the study of the grandest architectural works and finest statues, many of the latter of which were removed to Rome; but they failed in their attempts to surpass the noble simplicity and severe grandeur of Grecian sculpture and architecture, and evinced in their study of the one a want of that chasteness of design, for which their prototypes were pre-eminently distinguished; and in the other, by a difference of arrangement in many of the external details, and the introduction of a profusion of ornament, broke through the bounds of Grecian art, and begat a meretriciousness of style, from which the monuments of Greece were free.

The taste thus imbibed by the Romans for architecture and sculpture was not confined to their public buildings and

v Preserved in the Marmora Oxoniensia.