\^T'he Frontispiece is reproduced from the first volume 
 
 of the " Posthumous Works of the learned Sir Thomas 
 
 Browne^ Kt., Al.D., late of N'onvich,'''' 17 12, the 
 
 poi'trait in xvhich ivas engraved by M. V, der Gucht. 
 
 Ihis artist^ whose name was Michael., was of Flemish 
 
 or Dutch extraction, and ivorkcd as an engraver in 
 
 Etigland, as did two other Van der Gnchts. The coat- 
 
 of-arms below the portrait, *^ Atgeiit, two bendlets 
 
 sable betiuecn as many pellets, ^^ is not given in Burke's 
 
 '^General Armory.''^ The coat there assigned to 
 
 Browne {Ncther-Legh, Co. Chester) is ^''Argent, two 
 
 bendlets bettveen as many mullets, sable ^ The family 
 
 from which Sir Thomas Brozvne descended was of 
 
 Upton, Cheshire.'] 
 
WALKtK 8.BOUTAUL.PM 3C 
 
|HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 |URN BURIAL; WITH AN ACCOUNT 
 loF SOME URNS FOUND AT BRAMP- 
 TON IN NORFOLK, BY SIR THOMAS 
 IBROWNE: WITH INTRODUCTION 
 AND NOTES BY SIR JOHN EVANS, 
 K.C.B., F.R.S., F.S.A. 
 
 LONDON PRINTED AND ISSUED BY 
 CHARLES WHITTINGHAM & CO AT 
 THE CHISWICK PRESS MDCCCXCIH 
 
i 
 
^3 6- 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 Hydriotaphia I 
 
 Brampton Urns 87 
 
 Illustrative Notes . . . . loi 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Portrait of Sir Thomas Browne 
 
 Frontispiece 
 Set of Four Saxon Urns . to face page () 
 A Roman Urn ... » » 87 
 
 B 
 
 i^3467^ 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Life of Sir Thomas Browne has been 
 already so often traced by other hands, 
 including those of Dr. Johnson, in the 
 various editions of his works, that it 
 would be superfluous here to attempt to 
 give more than an extremely succinct 
 account of it, though such a brief summary 
 seems desirable. 
 
 Descended from a good Cheshire family, 
 he was born in London on the 19th of 
 
 « 
 
 October, 1605, and, losing his father 
 at an early age, was sent to school at 
 Winchester, and subsequently to Broad - 
 gates Hall or Pembroke College, Oxford, 
 vv^here he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 
 1626, and took his Master's degree in 
 1629. He afterwards adopted medicine 
 as a profession, and practised for some 
 little time in Oxfordshire, but on the 
 
viii editor's introduction. 
 
 invitation of his step-father, Sir Thomas 
 Button, he accompanied him on a tour 
 of inspection of the various castles and 
 forts in Ireland. Being thus as it were 
 uprooted from home, he travelled for a 
 few years on the Continent, studying 
 medicine in the famous schools of Mont- 
 pellier and of " Padua beyond the sea," 
 and finally taking his degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine in the University of Leyden, 
 probably in the year 1633. On his 
 ^ return to England, about 1634, he seems 
 to have settled as a physician at Shipden 
 Hall, in the neighbourhood of Halifax, 
 whence, after a residence of about three 
 years, he was induced by the importu- 
 nities of friends to migrate to Norwich, 
 in which city he took up his abode in 
 1637. In that same year he was incor- 
 porated a Doctor of Medicine at Oxford. 
 At Norwich he took root, and for a 
 period of forty-six years " practised 
 physick " in that city, dying there on his 
 birthday, the 19th of October, 1682, at 
 the complete age of seventy-seven. In 
 1 64 1 he had married a congenial wife, 
 
EDITORS INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 Dorothy Mileham, by whom he left a 
 son and three daughters. She it was 
 who erected a memorial to her husband 
 on the north side of the church of St. 
 Peter's Mancroft. A tablet to her own 
 memory has been placed on the opposite 
 side. She died within little more than 
 two years after her husband, in the sixty- 
 third year of her age. 
 
 As has already been remarked by Dr. 
 D. Lloyd Roberts in his excellent edition 
 of the "Religio Medici and other Essays," ^ 
 the remains of Sir Thomas Browne 
 were not destined to rest in peace. "In 
 1840 the lid of his coffin was accidentally 
 broken open by a blow from a workman's 
 pickaxe, and, to quote his own words, his 
 bones were ' knav'd out of his grave,' his 
 skull being deposited on show in the 
 museum of Norwich Hospital." 
 
 In connexion with the death of Sir 
 Thomas taking place on the exact anni- 
 versary of his birth, I am tempted to 
 quote some speculations of his own upon 
 another case of the same kind. In his 
 ^ David Stott, 1892, p. xxxii. 
 
X editor's introduction. 
 
 " Letter to a Friend upon occasion of the 
 death of his intimate friend " is the 
 \ following passage " : ^ — " Nothing is more 
 '; common with Infants than to die on the 
 ' day of their Nativity, to behold the 
 worldly Hours, and but the Fractions 
 thereof; and even to perish before their 
 Nativity in the hidden World of the 
 Womb, and before their good Angel is 
 conceived to undertake them. But in 
 Persons who out-live many Years and 
 when there are no less than three hun- 
 dred sixty five days to determine their 
 Lives in every Year ; that the first day 
 should make the last, that the Tail of the 
 Snake should return into its Mouth pre- 
 cisely at that time, and they should wind 
 up upon the Day of their Nativity^ is 
 indeed a remarkable Coincidence ; which, 
 tho' Astrology hath taken witty Pains 
 to salve, yet hath it been very wary in 
 making Predictions of it." 
 
 It was not until 1671 that Dr. Thomas 
 Browne received the honour of knicrht- 
 
 ^ "Posthumous Works," 17 12, part vii., p. 32. 
 ^ According to the Eg)>ptian Hieroglyphick. 
 
editor's introduction. xL 
 
 hood from Charles II. on the occasion of 
 a royal visit to Nonvich. He had already 
 attained to great eminence not only as a 
 physician but as an author, his two well- 
 known works, the " Religio Medici " and 
 the *' Pseudodoxia Epidemica," the titles 
 of which are recorded in his epitaph, 
 having at that time long been published. 
 The history of the first of these two 
 works is singular. It was, according to the 
 author's own statement, composed " at 
 his leisurable hours for his private exer- 
 cise and satisfaction," and the MS. being 
 lent from hand to hand, an anonymous 
 and surreptitious copy of it was published 
 in 1642, and led to no small amount of 
 comment. A second edition of this 
 spurious volume having appeared, Dr. 
 Browne in 1643 published "a true and 
 full copy of that which was most im- 
 perfectly and surreptitiously printed be- 
 fore, under the name of ' Religio Medici.' " 
 In all respects this was a remarkable 
 book. Written by one who at the time 
 was under thirty years of age, it might 
 well have been composed by a man who 
 
xii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 had already attained to the span of three 
 score years and ten. With the exception 
 perhaps of an overfondness for paradox, 
 and of a sHght tinge of personal vanity, 
 all the usual attributes of youth seem to 
 be absent, and yet the insight that it 
 gives into the author's character is com- 
 plete. " I am," he says, " I confess, natu- 
 rally inclined to that which misguided 
 zeal terms superstition, my common con- 
 versation I do acknowledge austere, my 
 behaviour full of rigour, sometimes not 
 without morosity." Throughout the book 
 we find the same curious admixture of 
 scepticism and credulity, the same evi- 
 dences of extensive and miscellaneous 
 reading, the same starting of unexpected 
 questions, whether in natural history or 
 divinity, which are characteristic of his 
 later works. 
 
 The " Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or En- 
 quiries into very many received tenents 
 and commonly presumed truths which 
 examined prove but vulgar and common 
 Errors," was originally published in 1646, 
 and went through six editions during the 
 
editor's introduction. xiii 
 
 lifetime of the author, the last appearing 
 in 1672. In writing the " Religio Medici," 
 Sir Thomas Browne protests that he was 
 under such disadvantage, that from the 
 first setting of pen unto paper he had 
 not the assistance of any good book 
 whereby to promote his invention or 
 relieve his memory, but in the " Pseudo- 
 Goxia" he reminds one of the instance 
 that he himself gives of Pineda, who " in 
 one work quotes more authors than 
 are necessary in a whole world." While 
 inquiring into and exposing many of 
 the vulgar errors of his time, the author 
 is not in all cases free from error him- 
 self, as might in all probability be ex- 
 pected from one whose belief in witch- \ 
 craft was firmly fixed, who preferred the 
 Ptolemaic to the Copernican system of 
 astronomy, who still retained some faith 
 in judicial astrology, and whose Spagyric 
 chemistry was that of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 Browne's next work of importance 
 was that which is here reprinted, his 
 " Hydriotaphia," the first edition of which 
 
xiv editor's introduction. 
 
 was published in 1658, and "printed for 
 Hen. Broine at the Signe of the Gun in 
 Ivy-lanel' together with his '' Garden 
 of Cyrus, or the Quincunciall, Lozenge, 
 or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, 
 Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Consi- 
 dered," a thoroughly characteristic trea- 
 tise, full of odd botanical learning and of 
 quaint conceits. Both works appeared 
 at the end of a quarto edition of the 
 " Pseudodoxia Epidemica," published in 
 the same year. 
 
 None of the other works of Sir Thomas 
 Browne were published in his lifetime, 
 but a small volume of" Certain Miscellany 
 Tracts, written by Thomas Brown, K*. 
 and Doctour of Physick, late of Norwich, 
 and edited by Archbishop Tenison," 
 appeared in 1684. This contains a tract 
 on Artificial Hills, Mounts or Burrows in 
 many parts of England. 
 
 Another posthumous volume was pub- 
 lished in 17 1 2, containing among other 
 treatises an account of some urns found 
 in Brampton Field in February, \66'j-'$), 
 here reprinted. His " Christian Morals " 
 
editor's introduction. XV 
 
 was first printed ini 7 1 6. Several Natural 
 History papers, extracts from his Com- 
 monplace Books and Correspondence, are 
 given in Wilkin's edition of the " Works 
 of Sir Thomas Browne," 1836, reprinted 
 by Bohn and George Bell and Sons, 
 
 The " Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or, 
 A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes 
 lately found in Norfolk^' originated with 
 the discovery, probably during the winter 
 of 1657, of some forty or fifty urns con- 
 taining burnt bones in a field at Old 
 Walsingham, Norfolk. Although, as 
 Browne says in his " Religio Medici," he 
 always held a slender and doubtful respect 
 unto antiquities, he seized this occasion 
 for writing the most attractive, to most 
 readers, of all his w^orks ; and this with- 
 out inconsistency, as the whole treatise 
 is as much of a moral as an antiquarian 
 character, and that indeed which he 
 admires is " far beyond antiquity, that 
 is Eternity : and that is God himself" 
 
 To use the words of a writer in the 
 " Retrospective Review" :^ — "Sir Thomas 
 
 ^ Vol. i. (1820), p. 85. 
 
xvi editor's introduction. 
 
 ^V*''^ Browne in the work before us hath dared 
 , to take the grave itself for his theme. He 
 I deals not with death as a shadow, but as 
 / a substantial reality. He dwells not on 
 it as the mere cessation of life — he treats 
 it not as a terrible negation — but enters 
 on its discussion as a state with its own 
 solemnities and pomps. Others who 
 1 have professed to write on death have 
 treated merely of dying. They have 
 fearfully described the rending asunder 
 of soul and body — the last farewell to 
 existence — and the state of the spirit in 
 its range through new and untried scenes 
 of rapture or of woe. Some have in- 
 dividualized the theme, and written of 
 death in relation only to particular per- 
 sons or classes who become its victims. 
 Those who regard it more universally 
 and intensely — as Blair and Young — yet 
 look but on its surface. They are con- 
 versant only with cypresses, yew-trees, 
 and gravestones, or hint at superstitions 
 which endow the dead with life, and 
 endue the tomb with something of vitality. 
 Sir Thomas Browne alone treats of death 
 
editor's introduction, xvii 
 
 as one subdued to its very essence. He 
 encounters the tyrant, and * plucks out 
 the heart of his mystery.' He speaks not 
 of the agonies of dissolution ; but regards 
 the destroyer only when he is laden with 
 his spoils, and the subjects of his victory 
 are at rest The region of his imagination 
 is that space beneath the surface of the 
 world, where the bones of all generations 
 repose. His fancy works beneath the 
 ground its way from tomb to tomb, rests 
 on each variety of burial, ennobles the 
 naked clay of the peasant, expands in 
 the sepulchres of kings, and, skimming 
 beneath the deepest caverns of the sea, 
 detects the unvalued jewels 'in those 
 holes which eyes did once inhabit.' The 
 language of his essay is weighty yet' 
 tender, such as his theme should inspire. 
 We can imagine nothing graver. His 
 words are sepulchral — his ornaments are 
 flowers of mortality." 
 
 The treatise is divided into five chapters, 
 the first of which takes into consideration 
 the various methods adopted by different 
 nations for the disposal of their dead, 
 
xviii editor's introduction. 
 
 whether by inhumation and " a moist 
 Relentment " or by " fiery Resolution." 
 Of carnal interment or burying, he says 
 that " God himself that buried but one 
 was pleased to make choice of this way," 
 and though the Jewish nation admitted 
 the practice of cremation (for the men 
 of Jabesh burnt the body of Saul), yet 
 " Christians abhorred this way of obse- 
 quies, and though they stickt not to give 
 their bodies to be burnt in their lives, 
 detested that mode after death ; affecting 
 rather a depositure than absumption." 
 
 In Chapter 11. we come to the facts of 
 the discovery at Walsingham, and the 
 account given is supplemented by various 
 notices of other antiquities and coins 
 found in Norfolk and elsewhere. Besides 
 numerous Roman coins and Norman, 
 Saxon, and Danish pieces of Cuthred, 
 Canutus, William, Matilda, and others, 
 our author cites some " British coyns 
 of Gold which have been dispersedly 
 found," and no small number of silver 
 pieces with a rude head upon the obverse, 
 and with an ill -formed horse on the 
 
editor's introduction. xix 
 
 reverse, with inscriptions, Ic. Duro. T. 
 That Sir Thomas Browne was a collector 
 of coins, as well as of all natural curio- 
 sities, we may gather from the Diary of 
 John Evelyn, who visited him at Norwich 
 in October, 1671, and who records that 
 his whole house and garden was " a para- 
 dise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the 
 best collection, especially medals, books, 
 plants, and natural things." Browne's 
 account of the silver coins probably struck 
 by the Iceni or Eceni is both interesting 
 and correct. The coins reading DVRO 
 are extremely rare, and in modern times 
 hardly any instances of their discovery 
 are known, except that of a single speci- 
 men at Weston, in Norfolk, in 1852,^ 
 then described as unique by the late 
 Mr. C. Roach Smith. In the Hunter* 
 collection at Glasgow is, however, an- 
 other example. What may have been 
 the coin attributed to the Empress Maud, 
 no one has hitherto been able to deter- 
 mine. " As to the time of these Urns 
 
 ^ " Numismatic Chronicle," vol. xv,, p. 98. 
 ^ Evans' " Ancient British Coins," p. 390. 
 
XX editor's introduction. 
 
 deposited, or precise antiquity of these 
 Reliques, nothing of more uncertainty." 
 A doubt appears to have arisen in Sir 
 Thomas Browne's mind whether they 
 were properly Roman, or might not have 
 belonged to our British, Saxon, or Danish 
 forefathers. For the modern antiquary, 
 a glance at the Plate on which figures 
 of some of the urns are given, suffices to 
 show that they were of Saxon origin, 
 and of the same general character as the 
 numerous urns which have been found in 
 the Eastern counties within the present 
 century. The combs, and what would 
 appear to have been the remains of 
 brooches, and the other objects described 
 are also of Saxon character. 
 
 It is, however, well that Sir Thomas 
 took the view that these were the urns 
 of Romans, as, " from the common custom 
 and place where they were found, is no 
 obscure conjecture." Much of what 
 follows in Chapter III. relates to the 
 practice of burning the dead among the 
 Romans, and the treatment and disposal 
 of their ashes. But here also is much 
 
editor's introduction. xxi 
 
 miscellaneous learning displayed, and 
 not a little pious but quaint morality. 
 The analogies between Christian rites 
 and those of the Greeks and Romans, 
 accompanied by many speculations as to 
 the behaviour of ghosts mentioned by 
 Homer, Virgil, and other ancient authors, 
 and some hints as to the Christian hopes 
 of future immortality, help to enrich the 
 fourth chapter. 
 
 All the rest of the work is, however, 
 excelled by the fifth and last chapter, 
 in which the pathetic and poetical imagi- 
 nation of the author, his varied reading, 
 his quaint conceits, and his pious trust, 
 are every v/here conspicuous. It would, 
 indeed, be difficult to find in any equal 
 number of pages of any writer so 
 many real gems of literature. There is 
 hardly a paragraph in the whole but 
 what will bear reading again and again, 
 and each time with fresh admiration. 
 What can more neatly and tersely convey 
 the ideas of an author than such sen- 
 tences as these : " Time which antiquates 
 Antiquities, and hath an art to make dust 
 
xxii editor's introduction. 
 
 of all things, hath yet spared these minor 
 Monuments." " To subsist in bones, and 
 be but Pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in 
 duration." " To be namelesse in worthy 
 deeds exceeds an infamous history. The 
 Canaanitish woman lives more happily 
 without a name, than Herodias with one. 
 And who had not rather have been the 
 good theef than Pilate^ There is, indeed, 
 a peculiar charm running through the 
 whole chapter, not only in the thoughts 
 there embodied, but in the language in 
 which they are clothed. 
 
 And yet, as a rule, the language in 
 which most of Browne's writings are 
 composed is very peculiar, and in some 
 respects un-English. The intense La- 
 tinity of his style is almost everywhere 
 apparent, and, indeed, anyone comparing 
 the Latin version of the "Religio Medici" 
 with the English, would feel inclined to 
 pronounce the former the original, and 
 the latter a too literal translation. Dr. 
 Johnson says with regard to Sir Thomas 
 Browne's style, that it is "a tissue of 
 many languages ; a mixture of hetero- 
 
editor's introduction. xxif! 
 
 geneous words brought together from 
 distant regions, with terms originally 
 appropriated to one art and drawn by 
 violence into the service of another. But 
 his innovations are sometimes pleasing, 
 and his temerities happy." Sir Thomas 
 Browne says of himself in the " Religio 
 Medici," " For my own part, besides the 
 jargon and patois of several provinces, I 
 understand no less than six languages," 
 but his ordinary written language seems 
 more completely based on Latin itself 
 than on any of its Romance successors. 
 Notwithstanding his acquaintance with 
 French or Italian, it is probable that 
 much of his writing and discourse at 
 Montpellier and Padua may have been 
 in Latin, and that it was thus that his 
 style was formed. 
 
 The title of the present essay, "Hy- 
 driotaphia," would appear to be of 
 Browne's own composition. The word 
 is formed from t/J^/^, an urn, or water- 
 vessel, and Tcx.(piay a modification of rct(py]y 
 burial. 
 
 It would be superfluous to cite any of 
 
xxiv editor's introduction. 
 
 the unusual Latinized words with which 
 the text abounds, but attention may 
 briefly be called to one or two passages 
 in which the author's observations in 
 natural history, and the cautious scep- 
 ticism mixed with credulity of the author 
 of the " Vulgar Errors," spontaneously 
 crop out : "They that are so thick skinned 
 as still to credit the story of the PhoeniXy 
 may say something for animall burning : 
 More serious conjectures finde some ex- 
 amples of sepulture in Elephants, Cranes, 
 the Sepulchrall Cells of Pismires and 
 practice of Bees ; which civill society 
 carrieth out their dead, and hath exe- 
 quies, if not interrments." " Sallow makes 
 more Ashes than Oake, and discovers the 
 common fraud of selling Ashes by mea- 
 sure, and not by ponderation." The bay 
 " seeming dead, will restore it self from the 
 root, and its dry and exuccous leaves re- 
 sume their verdure again; which, if we mis- 
 take not, we have also observed in fures " 
 (furze). These are some instances of the 
 former characteristic ; for the latter may 
 be cited his speculations whether fishes 
 
editor's introduction. XXV 
 
 wholly escaped the effects of the Deluge ; 
 his remarks on the Crucifixion, and the 
 relative height of the three crosses, and 
 his doubts as to the burthen of Isaac 
 being " sufficient for an holocaust." But 
 it is time to leave Sir Thomas to speak 
 for himself, and though possibly those 
 are to be envied who now read the 
 " Hydriotaphia " for the first time, those 
 who have already read it are certain to 
 find fresh charms both in manner and 
 matter in reading it again and yet again. 
 The first edition of the " Hydriotaphia" 
 was, as already stated, published in octavo 
 in 1658. The text of this edition is that 
 which has been adopted in the following 
 pages. A second edition in small quarto, 
 but by the same printer, appeared in the 
 same year, and formed a sequel to the 
 fourth edition of the " Pseudodoxia Epi- 
 demica." In this, rather more than a 
 page is devoted to Marginal Illustra- 
 tions omitted, or to be added to the 
 Discourses of " Urn Burial " and of the 
 " Garden of Cyrus," as well as numerous 
 errata. These have been incorporated, 
 
xxvi editor's introduction. 
 
 and the necessary corrections made, so 
 far as applicable to the first edition. 
 
 Some few evident misprints have also 
 been corrected. 
 
 The whole title-page of the first edition 
 is here reproduced, although the text of 
 the " Garden of Cyrus " is omitted. 
 
 The treatise on " Brampton Urns," 
 first published in 17 12 among the " Post- 
 humous Works of Sir Thomas Browne," 
 relates to a subject so closely cognate to 
 the " Hydriotaphia," that it has been 
 thought advisable to include it in the 
 present volume, though the urns at 
 Brampton seem to have been of Roman, 
 and not of Saxon date. This little essay jj 
 
 is far more purely descriptive and matter- 
 of-fact than the imaginative " Hydrio- 
 taphia," but apart from any archaeological 
 interest will be found well worthy of 
 attentive perusal. | 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 VimE-BVI^IALL, 
 
 OR, 
 
 A Difcourfe of the Sepulchrall 
 
 Urnes lately found in 
 
 ^(^O 7(^F O L ^ 
 
 Together with 
 
 The Garden of ^^^^^^ 
 
 OR THE 
 
 Quincunciall, Lozenge, or 
 
 Net-work Plantations of the An- 
 cients, Artificially, Naturally, 
 
 Myftically Confidered. 
 
 With Sundry Obfervations. 
 By 'Thomas Browne D.of Phyfick. 
 
 L o 0^T> ON, 
 
 Printed for Hen. Brome at the Signe of the 
 Gun in Ivy-lane. 1658. 
 
TO MY WORTHY AND 
 
 HONOURED FRIEND THOMx'\S 
 
 LE GROS^ OF CROSTWICK 
 
 ESQUIRE. 
 
 When the Funerall 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 Reliques,heldno opinion 
 of such after-considerations. 
 
 But who knows the fate of his bones, a pompeios 
 or how often he is to be buried? who J'^^^^'^^es A- 
 
 sta, atque 
 
 hath the Oracle of his ashes, or whether Europa, 
 they are to be scattered? The Reliques f^^>f^''/ 
 
 •^ , _ ^ terra tegit 
 
 of many lie like the ruines of ^Po?npeys, Lybies. 
 in all parts of the earth ; And when j-g^t^^^^b^t 
 they arrive at your hands, these may Sea be- 
 seem to have wandred far, who in a house and"^ 
 direct ^ and Meridian Travell, have but Greenland. 
 
THE EPISTLE 
 
 c Brought 
 back by 
 Cinion. 
 Plutarch. 
 
 <i The great 
 Urnes in 
 the Hippo- 
 drome at 
 Rome con- 
 ceived to 
 resound 
 tlie voices 
 of people 
 at their 
 shows. 
 
 e Worthily 
 possessed 
 by that 
 true Gen- 
 tleman Sir 
 Horatio 
 Town- 
 shend my 
 honored 
 Friend. 
 
 few miles of known Earth between your 
 self 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 your self, was an hit of fate and 
 honour beyond prediction. 
 
 We cannot but wish these Urnes might 
 have the effect of Theatrical vessels, and 
 great ^ Hippodrome Urnes in Rovte ; to 
 resound the acclamations and honour 
 due unto you. But these are sad and 
 sepulchral Pitchers, which have no joy- 
 ful voices ; silently expressing old mor- 
 tality, the ruines of forgotten times, and 
 can only speak with life, how long in 
 this corruptible frame, some parts may 
 be uncorrupted ; yet able to out-last 
 bones long unborn, and noblest pyle^ 
 among us. 
 
 We present not these as any strange 
 sight or spectacle unknown to your eyes, 
 who have beheld the best of Urnes, and 
 noblest variety of Ashes ; Who are your 
 self no slender master of Antiquities, 
 and can daily command the view of so 
 many Impcriall faces'"; Which raiseth 
 your thoughts unto old things, and con- 
 
DEDICATORY. 5 
 
 sideration of times before you, when 
 even living men were Antiquities ; when 
 the Hvins^ mis[ht exceed the dead, and to 
 depart this world, could not be properly 
 said, to go unto the ^greater number. ^ Abut ad 
 And so run up your thoughts upon the P^^'''^^^- 
 ancient of dayes, the Antiquaries truest 
 object, unto whom the eldest parcels are 
 young, and earth it self an Infant ; and 
 without ^ ^Egyptian account makes but g Which 
 small noise in thousands. makes the 
 
 world so 
 
 We were hinted by the occasion, not manyyears 
 catched the opportunity to write of old ° ' 
 things, or intrude upon the Antiquary. 
 We are coldly drawn unto discourses of 
 Antiquities, who have scarce time before 
 us to comprehend new things, or make 
 out learned Novelties. But seeing they 
 arose as they lay, almost in silence among 
 us, at least in short account suddenly 
 passed over ; we were very unwilling 
 they should die again, and be buried 
 twice among us. 
 
 Beside, to preserve the living, and 
 make the dead to live, to keep men out 
 of their Urnes, and discourse of humane 
 fragments in them, is not impertinent 
 unto our profession ; whose study is life 
 and death, who daily behold examples 
 
6 THE EPISTLE 
 
 of mortality, and of all men least need 
 artificial memento's^ or coffins by our bed 
 side, to minde us of our graves. 
 
 'Tis time to observe Occurrences, and 
 
 let nothing remarkable escape us ; The 
 
 Supinity of elder dayes hath left so much 
 
 in silence, or time hath so martyred the 
 
 1' Wherein Records, that the most •" industrious 
 
 ^ai^afh heads do finde no easie work to erect a 
 
 excellently new Britannia. 
 
 ckaloured '^is opportune to look back upon old 
 andwortliy times, and contemplate our Forefathers, 
 tenanced^" Great examples grow thin, and to be 
 by ingenu- fetched from the passed world. Simpli- 
 
 ous and •. n- i • • -^^ ^ 
 
 noble per- ^ity flies away, and miquity comes at 
 
 sons. long strides upon us. We have enough 
 
 to do to make up our selves from present 
 
 and passed times, and the whole stage of 
 
 things scarce serveth for our instruction. 
 
 A compleat peece of vertue must be 
 
 made up from the Centos of all ages, as 
 
 all the beauties of Greece could make 
 
 but one handsome Ventcs. 
 
 (^ When the bones of King Arthur were 
 
 ' In the digged up ', the old race might think, 
 
 ^H^^ °Mh they beheld therein some Originals of 
 
 second. themselves ; Unto these of our Urnes 
 
 tambden. j-,Qj-jg here Can pretend relation, and can 
 
 only behold the Reliques of those persons, 
 
DEDICATORY. 7 
 
 who in their life giving the Laws unto 
 their predecessors, after long obscurity, 
 now lye at their mercies. But remem- 
 bring the early civility they brought 
 upon these Countreys, and forgetting 
 long passed mischiefs ; We mercifully 
 preserve their bones, and pisse not upon 
 their ashes. .^^ 
 
 In the offer of these Antiquities we 
 drive not at ancient Families, so long 
 out-lasted by them ; We are farre from 
 erecting your worth upon the pillars of 
 your Fore-fathers, whose merits you 
 illustrate. We honour your old Virtues, 
 conformable unto times before you, which 
 are the Noblest Armoury. And having 
 long experience of your friendly con- 
 versation, void of empty Formality, full 
 of freedome, constant and Generous 
 Honesty. I look upon you as a Gemme 
 of the ^ Old Rock, and must professe my a Adatnas 
 self even to Urne and Ashes, ^^ ^'^^P^ 
 
 Your ever faithfull Friend, stantis- 
 
 and Servant, simus. 
 
 Thomas Browne, 
 
 Norwich, May i. 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
(5 a Sum mio/ dlaitis ^inmic J^dXux orws ^voperf 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA 
 
 URNE-BURIALL. 
 
 OR, 
 
 A BRIEF DISCOURSE OF THE 
 
 SEPULCHRALL URNES LATELY FOUND 
 
 IN NORFOLK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In the deep discovery of the Subter- 
 ranean world, a shallow part would 
 satisfie some enquirers ; who, if two or 
 three yards were open about the surface, 
 would not care to rake the bowels of 
 Potosi^^ and regions towards the Centre, a The rich 
 Nature hath furnished one part of the Mountain 
 Earth, and man another. 1 he treasures 
 of time lie high, in Urnes, Coynes, and 
 Monuments, scarce below the roots of 
 some vegetables. Time hath endlesse 
 rarities, and shows of all varieties ; which 
 reveals old things in heaven, makes new 
 discoveries in earth, and even earth it 
 self a discovery. That great Antiquity 
 America lay buried for thousands of 
 
10 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 years ; and a large part of the earth is 
 still in the Urne unto us. 
 
 Though if Adam were made out of an 
 extract of the Earth, all parts might 
 challenge a restitution, yet few have 
 returned their bones farre lower then 
 they might receive them ; not affecting 
 the graves of Giants, under hilly and 
 heavy coverings, but content with lesse 
 then their owne depth, have wished their 
 bones might lie soft, and the earth be 
 light upon them ; Even such as hope 
 to rise again, would not be content with 
 centrall interrment, or so desperately to 
 place their reliques as to lie beyond dis- 
 covery, and in no way to be seen again ; 
 which happy contrivance hath made com- 
 munication with our forefathers, and left 
 unto our view some parts, which they 
 never beheld themselves. 
 
 Though earth hath engrossed the 
 name yet water hath proved the smartest 
 grave ; which in forty dayes swallowed 
 almost mankinde, and the living crea- 
 tion ; Fishes not wholly escaping, except 
 the Salt Ocean were handsomely con- 
 tempered by a mixture of the fresh 
 Element. 
 
 Many have taken voluminous pains to 
 
URNE-BURIALL. II 
 
 determine the state of the soul upon dis- 
 union ; but men have been most phan- 
 tasticall in the singular contrivances of 
 their corporall dissolution : whilest the 
 sobrest Nations have rested in two 
 wayes, of simple inhumation and burning. 
 That carnall interment or burying, 
 was of the elder date, the old examples 
 oi Abraham and the Patriarchs are suffi- 
 cient to illustrate ; And were without 
 competition, if it could be made out, 
 that Adam ^ was buried near Damascus ^ 
 or Mount Calvary^ according to some 
 Tradition. God himself, that buried but 
 one, was pleased to make choice of this 
 way, collectible from Scripture-expres- 
 sion, and the hot contest between Satan 
 and the Arch-Angel, about discovering 
 the body of Moses. But the practice of 
 Burning was also of great Antiquity, and 
 of no slender extent. For (not to derive 
 the same from Hercules') noble descrip- 
 tions there are hereof in the Grecian 
 Funerals of Homer, In the formall Obse- 
 quies of PatrochiSy and Achilles ; and 
 somewhat elder in the Theban warre, 
 and solemn combustion of Meneceics, and 
 ArchemoruSy contemporary unto fair the 
 Eighth Judge oi Israel. Confirmable also 
 
 D 
 
12 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 b o. Gala- among the TroJa?ts, from the Fune- 
 
 ber. lib. I. rail Pyrc of Hector, burnt before the 
 
 nuslMarel- gates of Tvoy, And the ^burning oi Pen- 
 
 linus, t/nsileai\\Q Aniazonean Queen: and long 
 
 (lUmbrates . - , .... 
 
 contmuance of that practice, m the m- 
 ward Countries of Asia ; while as low as 
 the Reign of Julian, we finde that the 
 King of Chionia ^ burnt the body of his 
 Son, and interred the ashes in a silver 
 Urne. 
 
 The same practice extended also farre 
 West *, and besides Herulians, Getes, and 
 Thracians, was in use with most of the 
 CeltcE, Sannatians, Gennatis, Gauls, Danes, 
 Swedes, Norwegians] not to omit some 
 use thereof among Carthaginians and 
 Americans'. Of greater Antiquity among 
 the Romans then most opinion, or Pliny 
 seems to allow. For (beside the old 
 Table Laws of burning"^ or burying 
 within the City, of making the Funerall 
 To. ^r'ltem fi^^ with plained wood, or quenching the 
 vigeneri fire with wine.) Manlius the Consul 
 in Livium. burnt the body of his Son : Numa by 
 & Alex, ab speciall clause of his Will, was not burnt 
 
 Alex, cum , , . i a i 7^ 11 
 
 Tiraqueilo. but buried ; And Kemus was solemnly 
 Roscinus buried, according to the description of 
 
 cumdemp- ^ . ^e 
 stero. Ovid . 
 
 ® Ultima prolato subdita flamma rogo. De Fast. Lib. 4. cum Car. 
 
 Neapol. anaptyxi. 
 
 King of 
 Chionia 
 a Countrcy 
 near Per- 
 sia. 
 
 * Arnoldis 
 Montanis 
 not.inCses. 
 Conmien- 
 tar. L. L. 
 C-yraldus. 
 Kirkman- 
 nus. 
 
 •i 12. Ta- 
 bul. part. 
 I. de jure 
 sacro. Ho- 
 niinem 
 mortuum 
 in urbe ne 
 sepelito, 
 neve urito. 
 torn. 2. 
 Rogum 
 ascia ne 
 polito. 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 1 3 
 
 Cornelius Sylla was not the first whose 
 body was burned in Rome, but of the 
 Cornelian Family, which being indif- 
 ferently, not frequently used before ; 
 from that time spread, and became the 
 prevalent practice. Not totally pursued 
 in the highest runne of Cremation ; For 
 when even Crows * were funerally burnt, 
 Poppcea the Wife of Nero found a pecu- 
 liar grave enterment. Now as all cus- 
 tomes were founded upon some bottome 
 of Reason, so there wanted not grounds 
 for this ; according to severall apprehen- 
 sions of the most rationall dissolution. 
 Some being of the opinion of Thales, 
 that water was the originall of all things, 
 thought it most equall to submit unto 
 the principle of putrefaction, and con- 
 clude in a moist relentment. Others 
 conceived it most natural to end in fire, 
 as due unto the master principle in the 
 composition, according to the doctrine of 
 Heraclitus. And therefore heaped up 
 large piles, more actively to waft them 
 toward that Element, whereby they also 
 declined a visible degeneration into 
 worms, and left a lasting parcell of their 
 composition. 
 
 Some apprehended a purifying virtue 
 
14 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 f And 
 therefore 
 the In- 
 scription ot 
 his Tomb 
 was made 
 according- 
 ly. Nic. 
 Damasc. 
 
 in fire, refining the grosser commixture, 
 and firing out the yEthereall particles so 
 deeply immersed in it. And such as by- 
 tradition or rationall conjecture held any 
 hint of the finall pyre of all things ; or 
 that this Element at last must be too 
 hard for all the rest ; might conceive 
 most naturally of the fiery dissolution. 
 Others pretending no natural grounds, 
 politickly declined the malice of enemies 
 upon their buried bodies. Which consi- 
 deration led Sylla unto this practise ; who 
 having thus served the body of Marius, 
 could not but fear a retaliation upon his 
 own ; entertained after in the Civill wars, 
 and revengeful contentions of Rome, 
 
 But as many Nations embraced, and 
 many left it indifferent, so others too 
 much affected, or strictly declined this 
 practice. The Indian BracJunans seemed 
 too great friends unto fire, who burnt 
 themselves alive, and thought it the 
 noblest way to end their dayes in fire ; 
 according to the expression of the Indian, 
 burning himself at Athens\ in his last 
 words upon the pyre unto the amazed 
 spectators, Tims I make viy selfe Im- 
 mortall. 
 
 But the Chaldeans the great Idolaters 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 1 5 
 
 of fire, abhorred the burnhig of their 
 carcasses, as a pollution of that Deity. 
 The Persian Magi declined it upon the 
 like scruple, and being only sollicitous 
 about their bones, exposed their flesh to 
 the prey of Birds and Dogges. And the 
 Persees now in India^ which expose their 
 bodies unto Vultures, and endure not so 
 much as feretra or Beers of Wood, the 
 proper Fuell of fire, are led on with such 
 niceties. But whether the ancient Ger- 
 vians who burned their dead, held any 
 such fear to pollute their Deity of //Vr/Z/^/j, 
 or the earth, we have no Authentick con- 
 jecture. 
 
 The Egyptians were afraid of fire, not 
 as a Deity, but a devouring Element, 
 mercilesly consuming their bodies, and 
 leaving too little of them ; and therefore 
 by precious Embalments, depositure in 
 dry earths, or handsome inclosure in 
 glasses, contrived the notablest wayes of 
 integral! conservation. And from such 
 Egyptian scruples imbibed by Pytha- 
 goras^ it may be conjectured that Nurna 
 and the Pythagoricall Sect first waved the 
 fiery solution. 
 
 The Scythians who swore by winde 
 and sword, that is, by life and death, 
 
i6 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 g Which 
 
 Jlfa^ius 
 
 reades 
 
 * Diodorits 
 Sic id us. 
 
 * Ramu- 
 sins in 
 Navigat. 
 
 were so farre from burning their bodies, 
 that they dechned all interrment, and 
 made their graves in the ayr ' : And the 
 IchtJiyophagi or fish-eating Nations about 
 ^gypt, affected the Sea for their grave : 
 Thereby decHning visible corruption, 
 and restoring the debt of their bodies. 
 Whereas the old Heroes in Horner^ 
 dreaded nothing more than water or 
 drowning ; probably upon the old opinion 
 of the fiery substance of the soul, only 
 extinguishable by that Element ; And 
 therefore the Poet emphatically implieth 
 the totall destruction in this kinde of 
 death, which happened to Ajax Oileus ^. 
 The old '^Balearians had a peculiar 
 mode, for they used great Urnes and 
 much wood, but no fire in their burials, 
 while they bruised the flesh and bones 
 of the dead, crowded them into Urnes, 
 and laid heapes of wood upon them. 
 And the * Chinois "^ without cremation or 
 urnall interrment of their bodies, make 
 of trees and much burninef, while 
 
 use 
 
 'l3» 
 
 they plant a Pine-tree by their grave, and 
 burn great numbers of printed draughts 
 of slaves and horses over it, civilly con- 
 tent with their companies in effigie, which 
 barbarous Nations exact unto reality. 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 1/ 
 
 Christians abhorred this way of obse- 
 quies, and though they stickt not to 
 give their bodies to be burnt in their 
 lives, detested that mode after death ; 
 affecting rather a depositure than ab- 
 sumption, and properly submitting unto 
 the sentence of God, to return not unto 
 ashes but unto dust againe, conformable 
 unto the practice of the Patriarchs, the 
 interrment of our SdMiour^oi Peter, Paul, 
 and the ancient Martyrs. And so farre 
 at last declining promiscuous enterrment 
 with Pagans, that some have suffered 
 Ecclesiastical censures, for making no Martiaiis 
 
 1 .1 r the Bishop. 
 
 scruple thereof. _ Cyprian. 
 
 The Mussehnan beleevers will never 
 admit this fiery resolution. For they 
 hold a present trial from their black and 
 white Angels in the grave ; which they 
 must have made so hollow, that they 
 may rise upon their knees. 
 
 The Jewish Nation, though they enter- 
 tained the old way of inhumation, yet 
 sometimes admitted this practice. For 
 the men oi Jabesh burnt the body of Saul. 
 And by no prohibited practice to avoid 
 contagion or pollution, in time of pesti- 
 lence, burnt the bodies of their friends ^. ^ Amos 6. 
 And when they burnt not their dead ^°' 
 
i8 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 i Sueton. 
 in vita. 
 Jul. C(cs. 
 
 t As that 
 magnifi- 
 cent sepul- 
 chral Mo- 
 nument 
 erected by 
 Simon. 
 Mach. I. 
 
 13- 
 
 ^ KaTatTKev- 
 
 acFfxa ^av- 
 Hacxiatg tte- 
 7roirijj.h'oi>, 
 whereof a 
 Jewish 
 Priest had 
 alwayes 
 the custody 
 unto yfi'^- 
 f/ius his 
 dayes. Jos. 
 Lib. lo. 
 Antiq. 
 
 bodies, yet sometimes used great burn- 
 ings neare and about them, deducible 
 from the expressions concerningy^^/^^r^w, 
 Sedechias, and the sumptuous pyre of 
 Asa : And were so Httle averse from 
 ' Pagan burning, that the Jews lamenting 
 the death of Ccesar their friend, and 
 revenger on Ponipey^ frequented the place 
 where his body was burnt for many 
 nights together. And as they raised 
 noble Monuments and Mausolceunis for 
 their own Nation •", so they were not 
 scrupulous in erecting some for others, 
 according to the practice of Daniel^ who 
 left that lasting sepulchrall pyle in 
 Echbatana, for the Medean and Persian 
 Kings '. 
 
 But even in times of subjection and 
 hottest use, they conformed not unto the 
 Rornane practice of burning ; whereby 
 the Prophecy was secured concerning 
 the body of Christ, that it should not see 
 corruption, or a bone should not be 
 broken ; which we beleeve was also provi- 
 dentially prevented, from the Souldiers 
 spear and nails that past by the little 
 bones both in his hands and feet : Not 
 of ordinary contrivance, that it should 
 not corrupt on the Crosse, according to 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 19 
 
 the Laws of Roinane Crucifixion, or an 
 hair of his head perish, though observ- 
 able in Jewish customes, to cut the hairs 
 of Malefactors. 
 
 Nor in their long co-habitation with 
 ^Egyptians, crept into a custome of their 
 exact embalming, wherein deeply slash- 
 ing the muscles, and taking out the 
 brains and entrails, they had broken 
 the subject of so entire a Resurrection, 
 nor fully answered the types of Enoch, 
 EliaJi, or Jonah, which yet to prevent or 
 restore, was of equall facility unto that 
 rising power, able to break the fascia- 
 tions and bands of death, to get clear 
 out of the Cere-cloth, and an hundred 
 pounds of oyntment, and out of the 
 Sepulchre before the stone was rolled 
 from it. 
 
 But though they embraced not this 
 practice of burning, yet entertained they 
 many ceremonies agreeable unto Greeke 
 and Rommie obsequies. And he that 
 observeth their funerall Feasts, their 
 Lamentations at the grave, their musick, 
 and weeping mourners ; how they closed 
 the eyes of their friends, how they washed, 
 anointed, and kissed the dead ; may 
 easily conclude these were not meere 
 
20 IIYDRIOTAPHIA, URNE-BURIALL. 
 
 Pagan - Civilities. But whether that 
 
 mournfull burthen, and treble calling out 
 
 * after Absalom ^^ had any reference unto 
 
 Absolom |-|^^ |^g|. conclamation, and triple valedic- 
 
 Absoloni XT • 1111 
 
 Absolom tion, used by other Nations, we hold but 
 
 2. Sam. i8. ^ wavering conjecture. 
 
 Civilians make sepulture but of the 
 Law of Nations, others doe naturally 
 found it and discover it also in animals. 
 They that are so thick skinned as still to 
 credit the story of the PJioeniXy may say 
 something for animall burning : More 
 serious conjectures finde some examples 
 of sepulture in Elephants, Cranes, the 
 Sepulchrall Cells of Pismires and prac- 
 tice of Bees ; which civili society carrieth 
 out their dead, and hath exequies, if not 
 interrments. 
 
CHAP. II. 
 
 The Solemnities, Ceremonies, Rites of 
 their Cremation or enterrment, so 
 solemnly delivered by Authours, we 
 shall not disparage our Reader to repeat. 
 Only the last and lasting part in their 
 Urns, collected bones and Ashes, we 
 cannot wholly omit, or decline that Sub- 
 ject, which occasion lately presented, in 
 some discovered among us. 
 
 In a Field of old WalsingJiam, not 
 many moneths past, were digged up 
 between fourty and fifty Vrnes, de- 
 posited in a dry and sandy soile, not a 
 yard deep, nor farre from one another : 
 Not all strictly of one figure, but most 
 answering these described : Some con- 
 taining two pounds of bones, distinguish- 
 able in skulls, ribs, jawes, thigh-bones, 
 and teeth , with fresh impressions of their 
 combustion. Besides the extraneous sub- 
 stances, like peeces of small boxes, or 
 
22 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 combes handsomely wrought, handles of 
 small brasse instruments, brazen nippers, 
 * In one and in one some kinde of Opale *.^ 
 sent me by Near the same plot of ground, for 
 
 my worthy ^ ^ i • j 
 
 friend Dr about SIX yards compasse were digged 
 
 'witherk ^P ^^^^^ ^"^ incinerated substances, 
 
 of iVal- which begat conjecture that this was the 
 
 swgham. jj^trifia or place of burning their bodies, 
 
 or some sacrificing place unto the Manes, 
 
 which was properly below the surface of 
 
 the ground, as the Arcs and Altars unto 
 
 the gods and Heroes above it. 
 
 That these were the Vrnes of Romanes 
 from the common custome and place 
 where they were found, is no obscure 
 conjecture, not farre from a Romane 
 Garrison, and but five Miles from Bra7i- 
 caster, set down by ancient Record under 
 the name of Brannodiiniirn. And where 
 the adjoyning Towne, containing seven 
 Parishes, in no very different sound, but 
 Saxon Termination, still retainsthe Name 
 oi BurnJiani, which being an early station, 
 it is not improbable the neighbour parts 
 were filled with habitations, either of 
 Romanes themselves, or Brittams Ro- 
 manised, which observed the Romane 
 customes. 
 
 Nor is it improbable that the Romanes 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 23 
 
 early possessed this Countrey ; for though 
 we meet not with such strict particulars 
 of these parts, before the new Institution 
 of Constantine, and military charge of 
 the Count of the Saxon shore, and that 
 about the Saxon Invasions, the Dalma- 
 tian Horsemen were in the Garrison of 
 Brancaster \ Yet in the time of Claudius^ 
 Vespasian^ and Severus, we finde no lesse 
 then three Legions dispersed through 
 the Province oi Brittain. And as high 
 as the Reign of Claudius a great over- 
 throw was given unto the Iceni, by the 
 Romane Lieutenant Ostorius. Not long 
 after the Countrey was so molested, that 
 in hope of a better state, Prasutagus 
 bequeathed his Kingdome unto Nero 
 and his Daughters ; and Boadicea his 
 Queen fought the last decisive Battle 
 with Paulinus, After which time and 
 Conquest of Agricola the Lieutenant of 
 Vespasian, probable it is they wholly 
 possessed this Countrey, ordering it into 
 Garrisons or Habitations, best suitable 
 with their securities. And so some Ro- 
 mane Habitations, not improbable in 
 these parts, as high as the time of Ves- 
 pasian, where the Saxons after seated, 
 in whose thin-fiU'd Mappes we yet finde 
 
24 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 »^ Homi- 
 niiin inji- 
 nita mul- 
 titndo est, 
 creberri- 
 maque 
 icdfficia 
 fere Galli- 
 CIS consi' 
 milia. 
 Ciss. de 
 hello Gal. 
 1.5. 
 
 o In the 
 
 ground of 
 
 my worthy 
 
 Friend 
 
 Rob.Jcgon 
 
 Esq. 
 
 wherein 
 
 some 
 
 things con- 
 
 tainedwere 
 
 preserved 
 
 by the most 
 
 worthy Sir 
 
 William 
 
 Faston BK 
 
 the Name of Walsingham. Now if the 
 Iceni were but Ganimadinis, Anconians, 
 or men that lived in an Angle wedge or 
 Elbow of Brittain^ according to the 
 Originall Etymologie, this countrey will 
 challenge the Emphaticall appellation, 
 as most properly making the Elbow or 
 I ken oi Icenia. 
 
 That Britain was notably populous is 
 undeniable, from that expression of Ccb- 
 sar ™. That the Romans themselves were 
 early in no small Numbers, Seventy 
 Thousand with their associats slain by 
 Boadicea^ affords a sure account. And 
 though many Roman habitations are 
 now unknowne, yet sorne by old works, 
 Rampiers, Coynes, and Urnes doe testifie 
 their Possessions. Some Urnes have 
 been found at Castor^ some also about 
 Southcreake^ and not many years past, 
 no lesse then ten in a Field at Buxton ", 
 not near any recorded Garison. Nor is 
 it strange to finde Romane Coynes of 
 Copper and Silver among us ; of Vespa- 
 sian^ Trajan, Adrian, Commodiis, Anto- 
 ninus, Severus, &c. But the greater 
 number of Dioclcsian, Constantine, Con- 
 stats, Valens, with many of Victorinus 
 PostJmmius, Tetricus, and the thirty Ty- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 2$ 
 
 rants in the Reigne of Gallieiius ; and 
 some as high as Adrianus have been 
 found about Thetford^ or SitomaguSy 
 mentioned in the itinerary oi Anto7tmus, 
 as the way from Venta or Castor unto 
 London °. But the most frequent dis- ° From 
 covery is made at the two Casters by Thetford 
 Norwich and Yarmouth p, at BurgJicastle ^^^ ^o- 
 
 , ^ „ manes ac- 
 
 and Brancaster ^. counted 
 
 thirty two 
 miles, and from thence observed not our common road to London,, 
 but passed by Cofnbretonium ad Ansam, Canomwfi, CcBsaj-omagus,^ 
 &c. by Bretenham, Coggeshall, Chelmeford, Biirntwood, &c. 
 P Most at Caster by Yarmouth, found in a place called East- 
 bloudy-burgh furlong,, belonging to M"" Thomas Wood,, a person of 
 civility, industry and knowledge in this way, who hath made 
 observation of remarkable things about him, and from whom we 
 have received divers Silver and Copper Coynes. i Belonging to 
 that Noble Gentleman, and true example of worth Sir Ralph Hare 
 Baronet, my honoured PMend. 
 
 Besides, the Norman, Saxon and Dan- 
 ish peeces of Ctithred, Canutus, William^ 
 yJ/<2///<^<^V and others, somBrittish Coynes ^ A peece 
 of gold have been dispersedly found ; ^-^^ ^^^^ 
 And no small number of silver peeces presse said 
 near ^ Norwich ; with a rude head upon -^ Biicken- 
 the obverse, and an ill formed horse on /^^//^ Castle 
 the reverse, with Inscriptions /<f. Z^^^r^. T. inscrip-^ 
 whether implying Iceni, Durotriges, Tas- tion. Elk 
 
 ■ m n^ a ellc 
 
 cia, or TrinobanteSy we leave to higher b At 
 conjecture. Vulgar Chronology will Thorpe. 
 have Norwich Castle as old as Jiilitis 
 
26 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 ^ Bramp- 
 ton Abbas 
 Jourtial- 
 lensis. 
 
 ^ Plut. in 
 vita Ly- 
 citrg. 
 
 Ccesar ; but his distance from these parts, 
 and its GotJiick form of structure, abridg- 
 eth such Antiquity. The British Coyns 
 afford conjecture of early habitation in 
 these parts, though the City of Norwich 
 arose from the ruines of Venta, and 
 though perhaps not without some habi- 
 tation before, was enlarged, builded, and 
 nominated by the Saxons. In what bulk 
 or populosity it stood in the old East- 
 angle Monarchy, tradition and history 
 are silent. Considerable it was in the 
 Danish Eruptions, when Sueno burnt 
 Thetford and Norwich ^^ and Ulfketel the 
 Governour thereof, was able to make 
 some resistance, and after endeavoured 
 to burn the Danish Navy. 
 
 How the Romanes left so many Coynes 
 in Countreys of their Conquests, seems 
 of hard resolution, except we consider 
 how they buried them under ground, 
 when upon barbarous invasions they were 
 fain to desert their habitations in most 
 part of their Empire, and the strictnesse 
 of their laws forbidding to transfer them 
 to any other uses ; Wherein the '-^ Spartans 
 were singular, who to make their Copper 
 money uselesse, contempered it with 
 vinegar. That the Brit tains left any, 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 2/ 
 
 some wonder ; since their money was 
 iron, and Iron rings before C(Esar\ and 
 those of after stamp by permission, and 
 but small in bulk and bignesse ; that so 
 few of the Saxons remain, because over- 
 come by succeeding Conquerours upon 
 the place, their Coynes by degrees passed 
 into other stamps, and the marks of 
 after ages. 
 
 Thqn the time of these Urnes depo- 
 sited, or precise Antiquity of these Re- 
 liques, nothing of more uncertainty. For 
 since the Lieutenant of Claudius seems 
 to have made the first progresse into these 
 parts, since Boadicea was overthrown by 
 the Forces of Nero, and Agricola put a 
 full end to these Conquests ; it is not 
 probable the Countrey was fully gar- 
 rison'd or planted before ; and therefore 
 however these Urnes might be of later 
 date, not likely of higher Antiquity. 
 
 And the succeeding Emperours de- 
 sisted not from their Conquests in these 
 and other parts ; as testified by history 
 and medall inscription yet extant. The 
 Province of Brittain in so divided a 
 distance from Rome, beholding the faces 
 of many Imperiall persons, and in large 
 account no fewer then Ccesar, Claudius, 
 
 E 
 
28 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 Britannicus, Vespasian^ Titus, Adrian, 
 Sever us, Covivwdus, Geta, and Ca^-acalla. 
 A great obscurity herein, because no 
 medall or Emperours Coyne enclosed, 
 which might denote the date of their en- 
 terrments. Observable in n^any Urnes, 
 stoives and found in those of Spittle Fields by 
 Survey of London, which contained the Coynes of 
 Claudius, Vespasian, Lonimodus, Anto- 
 ninus, attended with Lacrymatories, 
 Lamps, Bottles of Liquor, and other 
 appurtenances of affectionate superstition, 
 which in these rurall interrements were 
 wanting. 
 
 Some uncertainty there is from the 
 period or term of burning, or the cessa- 
 tion of that practise. Macrobius afifirmeth 
 it was disused in his dayes. But most 
 agree, though without authentick record, 
 that it ceased with the Afitoni?ii. Most 
 safely to be understood after the Reigne 
 of those Emperours, which assumed the 
 name of Antonijtus, extending unto 
 Heliogabalus. Not strictly after Marcus; 
 For about fifty years later we finde the 
 magnificent burning, and consecration 
 of Severus ; and if we so fix this period 
 or cessation, these Urnes will challenge 
 above thirteen hundred years. 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 29 
 
 But whether this practise was onely 
 then left by Emperours and great persons, 
 or generally about Rome, and not in 
 other Provinces, we hold no authentick 
 account. For after Tej^tullian, in the 
 dayes of Miimcius it was obviously ob- 
 jected upon Christians, that they con- 
 demned the practise of burning ^ And ^ Exaran- 
 we finde a passage in Sidonius\ which jT^j^f^''"^' 
 asserteth that practise in France unto a nant igni- 
 lower account. And perhaps not fully "f/.,J7^"^" 
 disused till Christianity fully established, Min. in 
 which gave the finall extinction to these f ^^-^^^^ ^. 
 sepulchrall Bonefires. poliinaris. 
 
 Whether they were the bones of men 
 or women or children, no authentick 
 decision from ancient custome in distinct 
 places of buriall. Although not impro- 
 bably conjectured, that the double Se- 
 pulture or burying place of Abraham*^ * Det mlhi 
 had in it such intension. But from exility •y^^"«^'^^* 
 
 ^ anplice??i. 
 
 of bones, thinnesse of skulls, smallnesse Gen. 23. 
 of teeth, ribbes, and thigh-bones ; not 
 improbable that many thereof were 
 persons of minor age, or women. Con- 
 firmable also from things contained in 
 them : In most were found substances 
 resembling Combes, Plates like Boxes, 
 fastened with Iron pins, and handsomely 
 
30 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 overwrought like the necks or Bridges of 
 Musicall Instruments, long brasse plates 
 overwrought like the handles of neat 
 implements, brazen nippers to pull away 
 hair, and in one a kinde of Opale yet 
 maintaining a blewish colour. 
 
 Now that they accustomed to burn or 
 bury with them, things wherein they ex- 
 celled, delighted, or which were dear unto 
 them, either as farewells unto all pleasure, 
 or vain apprehension that they might 
 use them in the other world, is testified 
 by all Antiquity. Observable from the 
 Gemme or Berill Ring upon the finger 
 of Cynthia, the Mistresse of Propertius, 
 when after her Funerall Pyre her Ghost 
 appeared unto him. And notably illus- 
 trated from the Contents of that Romane 
 g Vigeneri Urne preserved by Cardinall Farnese^, 
 4 "Tiv. ^" wherein besides great number of Gemmes 
 with heads of Gods and Goddesses, v/ere 
 found an Ape of Agath, a Grashopper, 
 an Elephant of Ambre, a Crystall Ball, 
 three glasses, two Spoones, and six Nuts 
 of Crystall. And beyond the content of 
 Urnes, in the Monument of Childerick 
 h Chifilet the first ^ and fourth Kinq- from PJiara- 
 ^Chihicr' ''^lond, casually discovered three years 
 past at Tournay^ restoring unto the world 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 3 1 
 
 much gold richly adorning his Sword, 
 two hundred Rubies/° many hundred 
 Imperial Coyns, three hundred golden 
 Bees, the bones and horseshoe of his 
 horse enterred with him, according to 
 the barbarous magnificence of those dayes 
 in their sepulchral Obsequies. Although 
 if we steer by the conjecture of many 
 and Septuagint expression ; some trace 
 thereof may be found even with the 
 ancient Hebrews, not only from the 
 Sepulcrall treasure of David^ but the 
 circumcision knives which Josuah also 
 buried. 
 
 Some men considering the contents of 
 these Vrnes, lasting peeces and toyes 
 included in them, and the custome of 
 burning with many other Nations, might 
 somewhat doubt whether all Vrnes found 
 among us, were properly i?^7//<2;2^Reliques, 
 or some not belonging unto our Brittish^ 
 Saxon, or DanisJi Forefathers. 
 
 In the form of Buriall among the 
 ancient Brittains, the large Discourses 
 of CcBsar, Tacitus^ and Strabo are silent : 
 For the discovery whereof, wdth other 
 particulars, we much deplore the losse of 
 that Letter which Cicero^^ expected or 
 received from his Brother Qiiintus^ as a 
 
32 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 resolution of BrittisJi customes ; or the 
 account which might have been made by 
 Scribonius Largus the Physician, accom- 
 panying the Emperour Claudius, who 
 might have also discovered that frugal 1 
 i Dionis Bit' of the Old Brittains, which in the 
 excerpta bimiesse of a Bean could satisfie their 
 
 per Xiphi f 
 
 Hn. in thirst and hunger. 
 
 Sn'ero. -g^^ ^j^^^ ^^^q Druids and ruling Priests 
 
 used to burn and bury, is expressed by 
 PoDiponius ; That Bellinus the Brother 
 of Brennus, and King of Brittains was 
 burnt, is acknowledged by Polydorus, as 
 also by Amandus Zierexensis in Historia, 
 and Pineda in his Universa historia. 
 Spanish. That they held that practise 
 in Gallia, CcEsar expresly delivereth. 
 Whether the Brittains (probably de- 
 scended from them, of like Religion, 
 Language and Manners) did not some- 
 times make use of burning ; or whether 
 at least such as were after civilized unto 
 the Roniane life and manners, conformed 
 not unto this practise, we have no his- 
 toricall assertion or deniall. But since 
 from the account of Tacitus the Romanes 
 early wrought so much civility upon the 
 Brittish stock, that they brought them to 
 build Temples, to wear the Gowne, and 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 33 
 
 study the Romane Laws and language, 
 that they conformed also unto their reli- 
 gious rites and customes in burials, 
 seems no improbable conjecture. 
 
 That burning the dead was used in 
 Sarmatia, is affirmed by Gaguinus, that 
 the Sueons and GotJilanders used to burne 
 their Princes and great persons, is delivered 
 by Saxo and Olaus ; that this was the 
 old Germane practise, is also asserted by 
 Tacitus. And though we are bare in 
 historicall particulars of such obsequies 
 in this Island, or that the Saxons^ Jutes, 
 and Angles burnt their dead, yet came 
 they from parts where 'twas of ancient 
 practise ; the Gernianes using it, from 
 whom they were descended. And even 
 in Jutland and Sleswick in Anglia Cyni- 
 brica^ Vrnes with bones were found not Roisold, 
 
 1 r Brende- 
 
 many years before us. ^ ^..^,^ j^^ 
 
 But the Danish and Northern Nations tyde. 
 have raised an ^i^a or point of compute 
 from their Custome of burning their 
 dead : Some deriving it from Unguimis, 
 some from FrotJio the great ; who or- 
 dained by Law, that Princes and Chief 
 Commanders should be committed unto 
 the fire, though the common sort had 
 the common grave enterrment. So 
 
34 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 Starkatterus that old Heroe was burnt, 
 and Ringo royally burnt the body of 
 Harald the King slain by him. 
 
 What time this custome generally ex- 
 pired in that Nation, we discern no 
 assured period ; whether it ceased before 
 Christianity, or upon their Conversion, 
 by Ansgariiis the Gaul in the time of 
 Ltidoviciis Pius the Sonne of CJiarlcs the 
 great, according to good computes ; or 
 whether it might not be used by some 
 persons, while for a hundred and eighty 
 years Paganisme and Christianity were 
 promiscuously embraced among them, 
 there is no assured conclusion. About 
 which times the Danes were busie in 
 England, and particularly infested this 
 Countrey : Where many Castles and 
 strong holds, were built by them, or 
 against them, and great number of names 
 and Families still derived from them. 
 But since this custome w^as probably 
 disused before their Invasion or Con- 
 quest, and the Romanes confessedly 
 practised the same, since their possession 
 of this Island, the most assured account 
 will fall upon the Romanes, or Brittains 
 Romanized. 
 
 However certain it is, that Vrnes con- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 35 
 
 ceived of no Romane Orlginall, are often 
 digged up both in Norway, and Denmark^ 
 handsomely described, and graphically- 
 represented by the Learned Physician 
 Wor7ums\ And in some parts of Den- WlailVor- 
 mm^k in no ordinary number, as stands ^1]^^,^'!^°^^' 
 delivered by Authours exactly describing Antiqui- 
 those Countreys "". And they contained m^Ji^ioiphHs 
 not only bones, but many other sub- Cyprius in 
 stances in them, as Knives, peeces of sklTufc. 
 Iron, Brasse and Wood, and one of Noj^- ^^''«" adeo 
 
 1 -1 1 1 T 1 ahundabat 
 
 waye a brasse guilded J ewes-harp. coliis-^c. 
 
 Nor were they confused or carelesse 
 in disposing the noblest sort, while they 
 placed large stones in circle about the 
 Vrnes, or bodies which they interred : 
 Somewhat answerable unto the Monu- 
 ment of RollricJi stones in England^\ or « In Ox- 
 sepulcrall Monument probably erected r Ij^ ' 
 by Rollo, who after conquered Normandy. 
 Where 'tis not improbable somewhat 
 might be discovered. Mean while to what 
 Nation or person belonged that large 
 Vrne found at AsJiburie "", containing » in che- 
 mighty bones, and a Buckler ; What 'Jjjf .vf^j! 
 those large Vrnes found at little Massing- inis _ Albio- 
 Jiain"^, or why the Anglesea Urnes are p i" * Nor- 
 placed with their mouths downward, foik> ^oi- 
 remams yet undiscovered. 
 
CHAP. III. 
 
 Playstered and whited Sepulchres, 
 were anciently affected in cadaverous, 
 and corruptive Burials ; And the rigid 
 Jews were wont to garnish the Sepul- 
 ^ Mat. 23. "chres of the "" righteous ; Ulysses in 
 b Eiiripi- Hecuba cared not how meanly he lived, 
 "' so he might finde a noble Tomb after 
 
 death. Great Persons affected great 
 Monuments, And the fair and larger 
 Urnes contained no vulgar ashes, which 
 makes that disparity in those which 
 time discovereth among us. The present 
 Urnes were not ofone capacity, the largest 
 containing above a gallon, Some not 
 much above half that measure ; nor all 
 of one figure, wherein there is no strict 
 conformity, in the same or different 
 Countreys ; Observable from those re- 
 presented by CasalhiSy Bosio, and others, 
 though all found in Italy : While many 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA, URNE-BURIALL. $/ 
 
 have handles, ears, and long necks, but 
 most imitate a circular figure, in a sphe- 
 ricall and round composure; whether from 
 any mystery, best duration or capa- 
 city, were but a conjecture. But the 
 common form with necks was a proper 
 figure, making our last bed like our first ; 
 nor much unlike the Urnes of our Nati- 
 vity, while we lay in the nether part of 
 the Earth ", and inward vault of our ^ Psa. 63. 
 Microcosme. Many Urnes are red, these 
 but of a black colour, somewhat smooth, 
 and dully sounding, which begat some 
 doubt, whether they were burnt, or only 
 baked in Oven or Sunne : According to 
 the ancient way, in many bricks, tiles, pots, 
 and testaceous works ; and as the word ' 
 Us^a is properly to be taken, when occur- 
 ring without addition : And chiefly in- 
 tended by Pliny, when he commendeth 
 bricks and tiles of two years old, and to 
 make them in the spring. Nor only 
 these concealed peeces, but the open 
 magnificence of Antiquity, ran much in 
 the Artifice of Clay. Hereof the house 
 of Mausoliis was built, thus old Jupiter 
 stood in the CapitoU, and the Statiia of 
 Hercules made in the Reign of Tarquinius 
 Priscus, was extant in Plinies dayes. 
 
38 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 TTOV, 0}> y 
 
 OIKOVjliVT] 
 
 OVK 
 
 r)xcopij(J6r, 
 Dion. 
 
 And such as declined burning or Funerall 
 Urnes, affected Coffins of Clay, accord- 
 ing to the mode of Pythagoras^ and pre- 
 ferred by Varro. But the spirit of great 
 ones was above these circumscriptions, 
 affecting copper, silver, gold, and For- 
 pJiyrie Urnes, wherein Severiis lay, after a 
 serious view and sentence on that which 
 d XwpijfTf.lg should contain him ''. Some of these 
 '^-^'.."^^ff^iL Urnes were thought to have been silvered 
 over, from sparklings in several pots, 
 with small Tinsell parcels ; uncertain 
 whether from the earth, or the first mix- 
 ture in them. 
 
 Among these Urnes we could obtain 
 no good account of their coverings ; Only 
 one seemed arched over with some kinde 
 of brickwork. Of those found at Buxton 
 some were covered with flints, some in 
 other parts with tiles, those at Yaj'inotcth 
 Caster, were closed with Roniane bricks. 
 And some have proper earthen covers 
 adapted and fitted to them. But in the 
 HomericalL Urne of Patroclus, whatever 
 was the solid Tegument, we finde the 
 immediate covering to be a purple peece 
 of silk : And such as had no covers 
 might have the earth closely pressed 
 into them, after which disposure were 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 39 
 
 probably some of these, wherein we 
 found the bones and ashes half mor- 
 tered unto the sand and sides of the 
 Urne ; and some long roots of Quich, or 
 Dogs-grass wreathed about the bones. 
 
 No Lamps, included Liquors, Lachry- 
 matories, or Tear-bottles attended these 
 rurall Urnes, either as sacred unto the 
 Manes^ or passionate expressions of their 
 surviving friends. While with rich flames, 
 and hired tears they solemnized their 
 Obsequies, and in the most lamented 
 Monuments made one part of their In- 
 scriptions ^ Some finde sepulchrall Ves- ® Ctim la- 
 sels containing liquors, which time hath "'^Irll ^^' 
 incrassated into gellies. For beside these 
 Lachrymatories, notable Lamps, with 
 Vessels of Oyles and Aromaticall Liquors 
 attended noble Ossuaries. And some yet 
 retaining a * Vinosity and spirit in them, * Lazius. 
 which if any have tasted they have farre 
 exceeded the Palats of Antiquity.'^ Li- 
 quors not to be computed by years of f About 
 annuall Magistrates, but by great con- five hun- 
 junctions^^ and the fatall periods of King- //^/^. 
 domes ^. The drauc^hts of Consulary date, \ Vuium 
 were but crude unto these, and Optiman^ numanno- 
 Wine but in the must unto them. ^J"*^ '^^'' 
 
 turn. 
 
 In sundry Graves and Sepulchres, we Petron. 
 
40 HYDRIOTAPPIIA, 
 
 meet with Rings, Coynes, and Chalices ; 
 Ancient frugality was so severe, that they 
 allowed no gold to attend the Corps, but 
 onlv that which served to fasten their 
 h 12. Ta- teeth '\ Whether the Opaline stone in 
 bui.\. XI. ^j^jg Urne were burnt upon the fing-er of 
 
 ae Jure ^ ^ ^ 
 
 iacro. the dead, or cast into the fire by some 
 
 jVez'eau- affectionate friend, it will consist with 
 to.ast qtwi either custome. But other incinerable 
 ^vimtr^^^^ substances were found so fresh, that they 
 £runt, could feel no sindge from fire. These 
 
 im cum illo • • ^ \ . ^ i i , 
 
 sepeiire i^ upon view were judged to be wood, but 
 urere, se sinking in water and tried by the fire, we 
 found them to be bone or Ivory. In 
 their hardnesse and yellow colour they 
 most resembled Box, which in old ex- 
 ^ Plin. /. pressions found the Epithete ' of Eternall, 
 ^Xalaa^h ^^^*^ perhaps in such conservatories might 
 numerat have passed uncorrupted. 
 ^i,^^ i hat Bay-leaves were found green m 
 
 ^ Surius. the Tomb of S. Humbert ^, after an hun- 
 dred and fifty years, was looked upon as 
 miraculous. Remarkable it was unto old 
 Spectators, that the Cypresse of the 
 Temple of Diana, lasted so many hun- 
 dred years : The wood of the Ark and 
 Olive Rod of Aaron were older at the 
 Captivity. But the Cypresse of the Ark 
 of Noah, was the greatest vegetable 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 4 1 
 
 Antiquity, \i JosepJms were not deceived, 
 by some fragments of it in his dayes. 
 To omit the Moore-logs, and Firre-trees 
 found under-ground in many parts of 
 England ; the undated ruines of windes, 
 flouds or earthquakes ; and which in 
 Flanders still shew from what quarter 
 they fell, as generally lying in a North- 
 East position ^ ^ Gorop. 
 
 But though we found not these peeces miolcop]o. 
 to be Wood, according to first apprehen- 
 sion, yet we missed not altogether of 
 some woody substance ; For the bones 
 were not so clearly pickt, but some coals 
 were found amongst them ; A way to 
 make wood perpetuall, and a fit associat 
 for metall, whereon was laid the founda- 
 tion of the great Ephesian Temple, and 
 which were made the lasting tests of old 
 boundaries and Landmarks ; Whilest 
 we look on these, we admire not Obser- 
 vations of Coals found fresh, after four 
 hundred years '". In a long deserted "^ Of Be- 
 habitation ", even Egge-shels have been Ji"//^^^'^^. 
 found fresh, not tending to corruption. teckma. 
 
 In the Monument of King Childerick, ^^^^ 
 the Iron Reliques were found all rusty 
 and crumbling into peeces. But our 
 little Iron pins which fastened the Ivory 
 
42 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 works, held well together, and lost not 
 their Magneticall quality, though wanting 
 a tenacious moisture for the firmer union 
 of parts, although it be hardly drawn into 
 fusion, yet that metall soon submitteth 
 unto rust and dissolution. In the brazen 
 peeces we admired not the duration but 
 the freedome from rust, and ill savour ; 
 upon the hardest attrition, but now ex- 
 posed unto the piercing Atomes of ayre ; 
 in the space of a few moneths, they begin 
 to spot and betray their green entrals. We 
 conceive not these Urnes to have de- 
 scended thus naked as they appear, or to 
 have entred their graves without the old 
 habit of flowers. The Urne of PJiilo- 
 pcEinen was so laden with flowers and 
 ribbons, that it afforded no sight of it 
 self The rigid Lycurgus allo\\^ed Olive 
 and Myrtle. The Athenians might fairly 
 except against the practise of Democritus 
 to be buried up in honey ; as fearing to 
 embezzle a great commodity of their 
 Countrey, and the best of that kinde in 
 Europe. But Plato seemed too frugally 
 politick, who allowed no larger Monu- 
 ment then would contain for Heroick 
 Verses, and designed the most barren 
 ground for sepulture : Though we cannot 
 
_ URNE-BURIALL. 43 
 
 commend the goodnesse of that sepul- 
 chrall ground, which was set at no higher 
 rate then the mean salary of Judas, 
 Though the earth had confounded the 
 ashes of these Ossuaries, yet the bones 
 were so smartly burnt, that some thin 
 plates of brasse were found half melted 
 among them : whereby we apprehend 
 they were not of the meanest carcasses, 
 perfunctorily fired as sometimes in mili- 
 tary, and commonly in pestilence, burn- 
 ings ; or after the manner of abject corps, 
 hudled forth and carelesly burnt, with- 
 out the Esquiline Port at Rome ; which 
 was an affront continued upon Tiberius, 
 while they but half burnt his body *, and * Sueton. 
 in the Amphitheatre, according- to the ^l^^^!^^/^- 
 custome m notable Malefactors ; where- phitheatro 
 as Nero seemed not so much to feare his ^f'^^l'^^^'- 
 
 landuvi, 
 
 death, as that his head should be cut off, not. Cas- 
 and his body not burnt entire. ^'' '* 
 
 Some finding many fragments of sculs 
 in these Urnes, suspected a mixture of 
 bones ; In none we searched was there 
 cause of such conjecture, though some- 
 times they declined not that practise ; 
 The ashes oi ^ Domitian were mingled ^Sueton. 
 with those oi Julia, of Achilles with those '""T'^^ ^'- 
 of Patroclus : All Urnes contained not 
 
 F 
 
44 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 Ergo 
 vivi- 
 
 c S. the 
 most learn- 
 ed and 
 worthy M'" 
 M. Casau- 
 bon upon 
 Antoninus. 
 ^ Sic eri- 
 muscuncti, 
 &c. 
 dum 
 mus viva- 
 mus. 
 
 ® 'Avx^vrjv 
 7rai!^HV. A 
 barbarous 
 pastime at 
 Feasts, 
 when men 
 stood upon 
 a rolling 
 Globe, 
 with their 
 necks in a 
 Rope, and 
 a knife in 
 their 
 hands, 
 ready to 
 cut it when 
 the stone 
 was rolled 
 away, 
 wherein if 
 they failed, 
 they lost 
 their lives 
 to the 
 laughter of 
 their spec- 
 tators. 
 Athenaus. 
 
 single ashes ; Without confused burn- 
 ings they affectionately compounded 
 their bones ; passionately endeavouring 
 to continue their living Unions. And 
 when distance of death denied such con- 
 junctions, unsatisfied affections conceived 
 some satisfaction to be neighbours in the 
 grave, to lye Urne by Urne, and touch 
 but in their names. And many were so 
 curious to continue their living relations, 
 that they contrived large, and family 
 Urnes, wherein the Ashes of their nearest 
 friends and kindred might successively 
 be received "", at least some parcels there- 
 of, while their collaterall memorials lay 
 in minor vessels about them. 
 
 Antiquity held too light thoughts from 
 Objects of mortality, while some drew 
 provocatives of mirth from Anatomies *^, 
 and Juglers shewed tricks with Skeletons. 
 When Fidlers made not so pleasant mirth 
 as Fencers, and men could sit with quiet 
 stomacks while hanging was plaied * 
 before them. Old considerations made 
 few memento's by sculs and bones upon 
 their monuments. In the Egyptian 
 Obelisks and Hieroglyphicall figures, it 
 is not easie to meet with bones. The 
 sepulchrall Lamps speak nothing lesse 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 45 
 
 then sepulture ; and in their literall 
 draughts prove often obscene and antick 
 peeces : Where we finde D.M} it is ob- ^Diisma- 
 vious to meet with sacrificing patera'?>, "^^"■^• 
 and vessels of libation, upon old sepul- 
 chrall Monuments. In the Jewish Hy- 
 pogceum^ 2^\di subterranean Cell dit Rome ^ ^Bosio. 
 was little observable beside the variety 
 of Lamps, and frequent draughts of the 
 holy Candlestick. In authentick draughts 
 of Anthony and Jerome^ we meet with 
 thigh-bones and deaths heads ; but the 
 cemiteriall Cels of ancient Christians and 
 Martyrs, were filled with draughts of 
 Scripture Stories ; not declining the 
 flourishes of Cypresse, Palmes, and Olive; 
 and the mysticall Figures of Peacocks, 
 Doves and Cocks. But iterately affect- 
 ing the pourtraits of Enoch, Lazarzis, 
 Jonas, and the Vision of Ezechiel, as 
 hopefull draughts, and hinting imagery 
 of the Resurrection ; which is the life of 
 the grave, and sweetens our habitations 
 in the Land of Moles and Pismires. 
 
 Gentile inscriptions precisely delivered 
 the extent of mens lives, seldome the 
 manner of their deaths, which history it 
 self so often leaves obscure in the records 
 of memorable persons. There is scarce 
 
46 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 'i Pausan. 
 in Atticis. 
 
 i Lamp rid. 
 
 in- vit. 
 
 Alexand. 
 
 Seneri. 
 
 •^Trajanus. 
 
 Dion. 
 
 riut. in 
 vit. Alar- 
 celli. 
 
 any Philosopher but dies twice or thrice 
 in Laertius ; Nor almost any life with- 
 out two or three deaths in Plutarch \ 
 which makes the tragicall ends of noble 
 persons more favourably resented by 
 compassionate Readers, who finde some 
 relief in the Election of such differences. 
 
 The certainty of death is attended with 
 uncertainties, in time, manner, places. 
 The variety of Monuments hath often 
 obscured true graves : and Cenotaphs 
 confounded Sepulchres. For beside their 
 reall Tombs, many have found honorary 
 and empty Sepulchres. The variety of 
 Homers Monuments made him of various 
 Countreys. Euripides ^ had his Tomb 
 in Africa, but his sepulture in Macedonia. 
 And Severus^ found his real Sepulchre 
 in Rome, but his empty grave in Gallia. 
 
 He that lay in a golden Urne"" emi- 
 nently above the Earth, was not like to 
 finde the quiet of these bones. Many of 
 these Urnes were broke by a vulgar dis- 
 coverer in hope of inclosed treasure. 
 The ashes of Marcellus ' were lost above 
 ground, upon the like account. Where 
 profit hath prompted, no age hath wanted 
 such miners. For which the most bar- 
 barous Expilators found the most civill 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 47 
 
 Rhetorick. Gold once out of the earth The Com- 
 
 is no more due unto it ; What was un- JJJe^^J/,^^/^ 
 
 reasonably committed to the ground is KmgTheo' 
 
 reasonably resumed from it : Let Monu- findin °out 
 
 ments and rich Fabricks, not Riches sepuichrall 
 
 1 1 T^i r treasure. 
 
 adorn mens ashes, ihe commerce 01 cassiodor, 
 the living is not to be transferred unto Var. 1. 4. 
 the dead : It is not injustice to take 
 that which none complains to lose, and 
 no man is wronged where no man is 
 possessor. 
 
 What virtue yet sleeps in this terra 
 daninata and aged cinders, were petty 
 magick to experiment ; These crumbling 
 reliques and long-fired particles super- 
 annate such expectations : Bones, hairs, \ Britan- 
 
 nails, and teeth of the dead, were the 
 
 ' earn atto- 
 
 nia hodie 
 earn attO' 
 
 treasures of old Sorcerers. In vam we nite cek- 
 revive such practices ; Present super- ^^^^ ^^^^'}.^ 
 stition too visibly perpetuates the folly ut dedisse 
 of our Fore-fathers, wherein unto old -^"^^f"^^: 
 
 ' den possif. 
 
 Observation this Island was so compleat, Piin. l. 29. 
 that it might have instructed Persia. 
 
 Plato's historian of the other world, 
 lies twelve dayes incorrupted, while his 
 soul was viewing the large stations of 
 the dead. How to keep the corps seven 
 dayes from corruption by anointing and 
 washing, without exenteration, were an 
 
48 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 hazardable peece of art, in our choisest 
 practise. How they made distinct sepa- 
 ration of bones and ashes from fiery ad- 
 mixture, hath found no historical! solu- 
 tion. Though they seemed to make a 
 distinct collection, and overlooked not 
 c To be Pyr7'hus his toe "". Some provision they 
 ^Ucet^de flight make by fictile Vessels, Coverings, 
 recoiiditis Tilcs, or flat stones, upon and about the 
 ^hicerivis. body. And in the same Field, not farre 
 from these Urnes, many stones were 
 found under ground, as also by carefull 
 separation of extraneous matter, com- 
 posing and raking up the burnt bones 
 with forks, observable in that notable 
 ^ Topygra- \a.mp of Ga/ua^ius. Jkfarfianus^, who'hdid 
 
 ^xlfarlta- ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^-^ Ustvinuin, OX vessell 
 
 no. Erat wherein they burnt the dead, found in 
 
 usfr^num ^^^ Esquiline Field at Rome, might have 
 
 appciiattt7n afforded clearer solution. But their in- 
 
 l^avera satisfaction herein begat that remarkable 
 
 cotnbure- invention in the Funerall Pyres of some 
 
 Cap. de Princes, by incombustible sheets made 
 
 Campo with a texture of Asbestos, incremable 
 
 Esauilino. n 01 j 1 1 • 1 
 
 flax, or balamanders wool, which pre- 
 served their bones and ashes incommixed. 
 How the bulk of a man should sink 
 into so few pounds of bones and ashes, 
 may seem strange unto any who con- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 49 
 
 siders not its constitution, and how slen- 
 der a masse will remain upon an open 
 and urging fire of the carnall composi- 
 tion. Even bones themselves reduced 
 into ashes, do abate a notable propor- ' 
 tion. And consisting much of a volatile 
 salt, when that is fired out, make a light 
 kind of cinders. Although their bulk be 
 disproportionable to their weight, when 
 the heavy principle of Salt is fired out, 
 and the Earth almost only remaineth ; 
 Observable in sallow, which makes more 
 Ashes then Oake ; and discovers the 
 common fraud of selling Ashes by mea- 
 sure, and not by ponderation. 
 
 Some bones make best Skeletons^, » Old bones 
 some bodies quick and speediest ashes : f^^ording 
 
 ^ ^ to LyscTus. 
 
 Who would expect a quick flame from Those of 
 Hydropicall Heraclitus ? The poysoned ^^^\ ?^'^" 
 Souldier when his Belly brake, put out tail nor fat 
 two pyres in Pto^r^/^^ But in the plague ^^^""coium- 
 of Athens''^ one private pyre served two bus. 
 or three Intruders ; and the Saracens Grac^ ^* 
 burnt in large heaps, by the King of *^ Thucy- 
 Castile^, shewed how little Fuell sufificeth. d Laurent. 
 Though the Funeral 1 pyre of Patroclus Valla. 
 took up an hundred foot^, a peece of an e'E^aro//- 
 old boat burnt Pompey\ And \i the I'^^^JqI'' 
 burthen of Isaac were sufficient for an 
 
50 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 f Spcran. 
 Alb. Ovor. 
 
 sThe 
 brain. 
 Hippo- 
 crates. 
 
 ^ Amos 
 2. I. 
 
 e As Arte- 
 misia of 
 her Hus- 
 band Mau- 
 solus. 
 
 holocaust, a man may carry his owne 
 pyre. 
 
 From animals are drawn good burning 
 lights, and good medicines ^ against burn- 
 ing ; Though the seminall humour seems 
 of a contrary nature to fire, yet the body 
 compleated proves a combustible lump, 
 wherein fire findes flame even fi-om bones, 
 and some fiaell almost from all parts. 
 Though the § Metropolis of humidity 
 seems least disposed unto it, which might 
 render the sculls of these Urnes lesse 
 burned then other bones. But all flies 
 or sinks before fire almost in all bodies : 
 When the common ligament is dissolved, 
 the attenuable parts ascend, the rest sub- 
 side in coal, calx or ashes. 
 
 To burn the bones of the King of 
 '^ Edom for Lyme, seems no irrationall 
 ferity ; But to drink of the ashes of dead 
 relations ^, a passionate prodigality. He 
 that hath the ashes of his friend, hath an 
 everlasting treasure : where fire taketh 
 leave, corruption slowly enters ; In bones 
 well burnt, fire makes a wall against it 
 self; experimented in copels, and tests 
 of metals, which consist of such ingre- 
 dients. What the Sun compoundeth, fire 
 analyseth, not transmuteth. That de- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 5 1 
 
 vouring agent leaves almost allwayes a 
 morsell for the Earth, whereof all things 
 are but a colonie ; and which, if time 
 permits, the mother Element will have in 
 their primitive masse again. 
 
 He that looks for Urnes and old 
 sepulchrall reliques, must not seek them 
 in the ruines of Temples : where no 
 Religion anciently placed them. These 
 were found in a Field, according to an- 
 cient custome, in noble or private buriall ; 
 the old practise of the Canaanites^ the 
 Family of Abraham, and the burying 
 place oi Josua, in the borders of his pos- 
 sessions ; and also agreeable unto Roman 
 practice to bury by high-wayes, where- 
 by their Monuments were under eye : 
 Memorials of themselves, and memento's 
 of mortality into living passengers ; 
 whom the Epitaphs of great ones were 
 fain to beg to stay and look upon them. 
 A language though sometimes used, not 
 so proper in Church-Inscriptions ^ The ^Sistevia- 
 sensible Rhetorick of the dead, to exem- ^°^' 
 plarity of good life, first admitted the 
 bones of pious men, and Martyrs within 
 Church-wals ; which in succeeding ages 
 crept into promiscuous practise. While 
 Constantine was peculiarly favoured to 
 
manttus dc 
 fiiner. 
 
 52 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 be admitted unto the Church Porch ; 
 and the first thus buried in England was 
 Kirck' in the dayes of Cuthred}^ 
 
 Christians dispute how their bodies 
 should lye in the grave. In urnall en- 
 terrment they clearly escaped this Con- 
 troversie : Though we decline the Reli- 
 gious consideration, yet in cemiteriall 
 and narrower burying places, to avoid 
 confusion and crosse position, a certain 
 posture were to be admitted ; Which 
 even Pagan civility observed, The Per- 
 siatis lay North and South, The Mega- 
 rians and PJioenicians placed their heads 
 to the East : The Athenians, some think, 
 towards the West, which Christians still 
 retain. And Beda will have it to be the 
 posture of our Saviour. That he was 
 crucified with his face towards the W^est, 
 we will not contend with tradition and 
 probable account ; But we applaud not 
 the hand of the Painter, in exalting his 
 Crosse so high above those on either 
 side ; since hereof we finde no authentick 
 account in history, and even the crosses 
 found by Helena pretend no such dis- 
 tinction from longitude or dimension. 
 
 To be knav'd ^^ out of our graves, to 
 have our sculs made drinking-bowls, and 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 53 
 
 our bones turned into Pipes, to delight 
 and sport our Enemies, are Tragicall 
 abominations, escaped in burning Burials. 
 Urnall enterrments, and burnt Reliques 
 lye not in fear of worms, or to be an 
 heritage for Serpents ; In carnal sepul- 
 ture, corruptions seem peculiar unto 
 parts, and some speak of snakes out of 
 the spinall marrow. But while we sup- 
 pose common wormes in graves, 'tis not 
 easie to finde any there ; few in Church- 
 yards above a foot deep, fewer or none 
 in Churches, though in fresh decayed 
 bodies. Teeth, bones, and hair, give the 
 most lasting defiance to corruption. In 
 an Hydropicall body ten years buried in 
 a Church-yard, we met with a fat concre- 
 tion, where the nitre of the Earth, and 
 the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, 
 had coagulated large lumps of fat, into 
 the consistence of the hardest castle- 
 soap " ; whereof part remaineth with us. 
 After a battle with the Persians the 
 Roman Corps decayed in few dayes, 
 while the Persian bodies remained dry 
 and uncorrupted. Bodies in the same 
 ground do not uniformly dissolve, nor 
 bones equally moulder ; whereof in the 
 opprobrious disease we expect no long 
 
54 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 ""OiT/io- duration. The body of the Marquesse 
 quesse of of Doj'sct Seemed sound and handsomely 
 Dorset, cereclothed, that after seventy eight 
 
 whose /- 1 \ A 
 
 body being years was found uncorrupted ^ Common 
 buried Tombs preserve not beyond powder : A 
 
 1530, was ^ 1 r 
 
 1608 upon firmer consistence and compage of parts 
 the cutting jy^jcri^t \^q expected from Arefaction, 
 
 open of the ^ ^ ' 
 
 Cerecloth deep buriall or charcoal. The greatest 
 
 fect^and^^" Antiquities of mortall bodies may remain 
 
 nothing in putrified bones, whereof, though w^e 
 
 the'flesf ' take not in the pillar of Lots wife or 
 
 not har- Metamorphosis of Oi'teliiis "^^ some may 
 
 in coiour^^ be older then Pyramids, in the putrified 
 
 propor- Reliques of the generall inundation. 
 
 softne'sse When Alexander opened the Tomb of 
 
 like an Cyrus, the remaining bones discovered 
 
 corps^ his proportion, whereof urnall fragments 
 
 newiytobe afford but a bad conjecture, and have 
 
 Burton's this disadvantage of grave enterrments, 
 
 descript. of ^j^^t they leave us ignorant of most per- 
 
 shire. sonall discoveries. For since bones afford 
 
 d In his not only rectitude and stability, but figure 
 Map of ,11 T • • -ui 
 
 Russia. unto the body ; It is no impossible 
 
 ''That Physiognomy to conjecture at fleshy 
 
 skeleton of appendencies ; and after what shape the 
 
 ^" ^°^!^ muscles and carnous parts might hang 
 
 made by in their full consistences. A full spread 
 
 Jj^^ Cariola * ^' shews a well-shaped horse be- 
 
 bones. hinde, handsome formed sculls, give some 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 55 
 
 analogic of fleshy resemblance. A cri- « For their 
 ticall view of bones makes a good dis- ^^^^^^ 
 tinction of sexes. Even colour is not thickness. 
 beyond conjecture ; since it is hard to be ^^,^5^ [^ 
 deceived in the distinction of Negrd^ ° his view of 
 sculls. ^ D antes Characters are to be fou^nd°^^' 
 found in sculls as well as faces. Heixules gluttons so 
 is not onely known by his foot. Other "iid Ix^-' 
 parts make out their comproportions, tenuated, 
 and inferences upon whole or parts. And conceited 
 since the dimensions of the head measure them to 
 the whole body, and the figure thereof in the 
 gives conjecture of the principall facul- ^i^s^ ^^ 
 
 „, . , 1 . , Jerusalem, 
 
 ties ; rhysiognomy outlives our selves, and that it 
 
 and ends not in our graves. '^^^s easie 
 
 Severe contemplators observing these discovered 
 
 lastinc^ reliques, may think them p;ood ^'^"^°, or 
 
 ^ r 1.1 1 Onto in 
 
 monuments 01 persons past, little advan- their 
 tacre to future being's. And considerino: f^^.^^ * ^ 
 
 1 1-111 being made 
 
 that power which subdueth all things by the two 
 unto it self, that can resume the scattered ^!"^.^ °^ 
 Atomes, or identifie out of any thing, cheeks, 
 conceive it superfluous to expect a re- ^^'^^^"S 
 
 ^ ^ over the 
 
 surrection out of Reliques. But the soul Eye brows 
 subsisting^, other matter clothed with due ^° ^^^ , 
 
 ^' nose, and 
 
 accidents, may salve the individuality : their sunk 
 Yet the Saints we observe arose from ^^^^0^0 
 
 which 
 makes up Onto. Parean Pocchiaie anella senza gem??ie che nel viso 
 dc gll hiiomini Icgge huoino BaC hauria qtiiui conosciuto rcnimc. 
 
56 HYDRIOTAPHIA, URNE-BURIALL. 
 
 graves and monuments, about the holy 
 City. Some think the ancient Patriarchs 
 so earnestly desired to lay their bones in 
 Canaan^ as hoping to make a part of 
 that Resurrection, and though thirty 
 miles from Mount Calvary, at least to 
 lie in that Region, which should produce 
 the first-fruits of the dead. And if ac- 
 cording to learned conjecture, the bodies 
 of men shall rise where their greatest 
 Reliques remain, many are not like to 
 erre in the Topography of their Resur- 
 Tirin. in rection, though their bones or bodies be 
 after translated by Angels into the field 
 oi Ezechiels vision, or as some will order 
 it, into the Valley of Judgement, or 
 Jehosaphat}^ 
 
 Ezek. 
 
CHAP. IV. 
 
 Christians have handsomely glossed 
 the deformity of death, by careful consi- 
 deration of the body, and civil rites which 
 take of brutall terminations. And though 
 they conceived all reparable by a resur- 
 rection, cast not off all care of enterrment. 
 And since the ashes of Sacrifices burnt 
 upon the Altar of God, were carefully 
 carried out by the Priests, and deposed 
 in a clean field ; since they acknowledged 
 their bodies to be the lodging of Christ, 
 and temples of the holy Ghost, they de- 
 volved not all upon the sufficiency of 
 soul existence ; and therefore with long 
 services and full solemnities concluded 
 their last Exequies, wherein^ to all dis- ^Rituak 
 tinctions the Greek devotion seems most S%"r 
 pathetically ceremonious. Gear in 
 
 Christian invention hath chiefly driven ^f^^^^^^ 
 at Rites, which speak hopes of another' 
 life, and hints of a Resurrection. And 
 
58 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 b Siniilis 
 revivi- 
 sceiidi 
 proTiiissa 
 Democrito 
 vanitas, 
 qui non 
 revixit 
 ipse. Qua, 
 inaliiiu, 
 ista de- 
 mentia est ; 
 iterari z'i- 
 tam inorte. 
 Plin. 1. 7. 
 
 c. 55- , 
 ^ Kai Tciya 
 
 dlK ya'iriQ 
 
 tXTciCoiiO' 
 
 ic (paoQ kk- 
 
 flelv Xeixp- 
 
 av ttTTOl- 
 
 <^ a'cin- 
 ceps. 
 ^ Cedit 
 enim retro 
 de terrd 
 qiiodfuit 
 ante In 
 terrain^ 
 &c. 
 
 Lucret. 
 e Plato in 
 Phced. 
 
 if the ancient Gentiles held not the im- 
 mortality of their better part, and some 
 subsistence after death ; in severall rites, 
 customes, actions and expressions, they 
 contradicted their own opinions : wherein 
 Democrittis went high, even to the thought 
 of a resurrection ^ as scoffingly recorded 
 by Pliny. What can be more expresse 
 than the expression of PJiocy Hides ""? Or 
 who would expect from Lucretius'^ a 
 sentence of Ecclesiastes} Before Plato 
 could speak, the soul had wings in Homer, 
 which fell not, but flew out of the body 
 into the mansions of the dead ; who also 
 observed that handsome distinction of 
 Demas and Soma, for the body conjoyned 
 to the soul and body separated from it. 
 Lucia7t spoke much truth in jest, when 
 he said, that part of Hercules which pro- 
 ceeded from AlcJimena perished, that 
 from Jupiter remained immortall. Thus 
 * Socrates was content that his friends 
 should bury his body, so they would 
 not think they buried Socrates, and re- 
 garding only his immortall part, was in- 
 different to be burnt or buried. From 
 such Considerations Diogenes might con- 
 temn Sepulture. And being satisfied 
 that the soul could not perish, grow 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 59 
 
 carelesse of corporall enterrment. The 
 Stoicks who thought the souls of wise 
 men had their habitation about the moon, 
 might make sHght account of subterra- 
 neous deposition ; whereas the Pythago- 
 rians and transcorporating Philosophers, 
 who were to be often buried, held great 
 care of their enterrment. And the Pla- 
 tonicks rejected not a due care of the 
 grave, though they put their ashes to un- 
 reasonable expectations, in their tedious 
 term of return and long set revolution. 
 
 Men have lost their reason in nothing 
 so much as their religion, wherein stones 
 and clouts make Martyrs ; and since the 
 religion of one seems madnesse unto an- 
 other, to afford an account or rationall 
 of old Rites, requires no rigid Reader ; 
 That they kindled the pyre aversly, 
 or turning their face from it, was an 
 handsome Symbole of unwilling mini- 
 stration ; That they washed their bones 
 with wine and milk, that the mother 
 wrapt them in Linnen, and dryed them 
 in her bosome, the first fostering part, 
 and place of their nourishment ; That 
 they opened their eyes towards heaven, 
 before they kindled the fire, as the place 
 of their hopes or originall, were no im- 
 
 G 
 
6o 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 ' Ka/t', vale, 
 nos ie or di- 
 ne quo 
 vatura 
 permittet 
 sequemur. 
 
 proper Ceremonies. Their last valedic- 
 tion ^ thrice uttered by the attendants 
 was also very solemn, and somewhat 
 answered by Christians, who thought it 
 too little, if they threw not the earth thrice 
 upon the enterred body. That in strew- 
 ing their Tombs the Romans affected 
 the Rose, the Greeks Ainaranthus and 
 myrtle ; that the Funerall pyre consisted 
 of sweet fuell, Cypresse, Firre, Larix, 
 Yewe, and Trees perpetually verdant, 
 lay silent expressions of their surviving 
 hopes : Wherein Christians which deck 
 their Coffins with Bays have found a 
 more elegant Embleme. For that he 
 seeming dead, will restore it self from 
 the root, and its dry and exuccous leaves 
 resume their verdure again ; which if we 
 mistake not, we have also observed in 
 fures. Whether the planting of yewe in 
 Churchyards, hold not its originall from 
 ' ancient Funerall rites, or as an Embleme 
 of Resurrection from its perpetual ver- 
 dure, may also admit conjecture. 
 
 They made use of Musick to excite or 
 quiet the affections of their friends, ac- 
 cording to different harmonies. But the 
 secret and symbolicall hint was the har- 
 monicall nature of the soul ; which de- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 6 1 
 
 livered from the body, went again to 
 enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, 
 from whence it first descended ; which 
 according to its progresse traced by 
 antiquity, came down by Cancer^ and 
 ascended by Capricornus. 
 
 They burnt not children before their 
 teeth appeared,^^ as apprehending their 
 bodies too tender a morsell for fire, and 
 that their gristly bones would scarce 
 leave separable reliques after the pyrail 
 combustion. That they kindled not fire 
 in their houses for some dayes after, was 
 a strict memoriall of the late afflictinp; 
 fire. And mourning without hope, they 
 had an happy fraud against excessive 
 lamentation, by a common opinion that 
 deep sorrows disturbed their ghosts ^ ^Tn manes 
 
 That they buried their dead on their 
 backs, or in a supine position, seem.s 
 agreeable unto profound sleep, and com- 
 mon posture of dying ; contrary to the 
 most naturall way of birth ; Nor unlike 
 our pendulous posture, in the doubtfull 
 state of the womb. Diogenes was sin- 
 gular, who preferred a prone situation in 
 the grave, and some Christians ^ like "o Russians, 
 neither, who decline the figure of rest, '^^"^' 
 and make choice of an erect posture. 
 
 ne Uede 
 meos. 
 
62 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 That they carried them out of the 
 world with their feet forward, not in- 
 consonant unto reason : As contrary 
 unto the native posture of man, and his 
 production first into it. And also agree- 
 able unto their opinions, while they bid 
 adieu unto the world, not to look again 
 upon it ; whereas Mahometans who think 
 to return to a delightfull life again, are 
 carried forth with their heads forward, 
 and looking toward their houses. 
 
 They closed their eyes as parts which 
 first die or first discover the sad effects 
 of death. But their iterated clamations 
 to excitate their dying or dead friends, 
 or revoke them unto life again, was a 
 vanity of affection ; as not presumably 
 ignorant of the criticall tests of death, 
 by apposition of feathers, glasses, and 
 reflexion of figures, which dead eyes re- 
 present not ; which however not strictly 
 verifiable in fresh and warm cadavers^ 
 could hardly elude the test, in corps of 
 four or five dayes : at least by some 
 difference from living eyes. 
 
 That they suck'd in the last breath of 
 their expiring friends, was surely a prac- 
 tice of no medicall institution, but a loose 
 opinion that the soul passed out that 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 6^^ 
 
 way, and a fondnesse of affection from 
 some * Pythagoricall foundation, that the * Francesco 
 spirit of one body passed into another ; ^^^^^^''f 
 which they wished might be their own. mbn. 
 
 That they powred oyle upon the pyre, 
 was a tolerable practise, while the inten- 
 tion rested in facilitating the accension ; 
 But to place good Omens in the quick 
 and speedy burning, to sacrifice unto the 
 windes for a dispatch in this office, was a 
 low form of superstition. 
 
 The Archimime or Jester attending 
 the Funerall train, and imitating the 
 speeches, gesture, and manners of the 
 deceased, was too light for such solem- 
 nities, contradicting their Funerall Ora- 
 tions, and dolefuU rites of the grave. 
 
 That they buried a peece of money with 
 them as a Fee of the Elysian Ferriman, 
 was a practise full of folly. But the an- 
 cient custome of placing coynes in consi- 
 derable Urnes, and the present practise of 
 burying medals in the Noble Foundations 
 o{ Europe, diYQ laudable wayes of historical! 
 discoveries, in actions, persons, Chrono- 
 logies ; and posterity will applaud them. 
 
 We examine not the old Laws of 
 Sepulture, exempting certain persons 
 from buriall or burning. But hereby we 
 
64 HYDRIOTArHIA, 
 
 apprehend that these were not the bones 
 of persons Planet-struck or burnt with 
 fire from Heaven : No Rehques of 
 Traitors to their Countrey, Self-killers, 
 or Sacrilegious Malefactors ; Persons in 
 old apprehension unworthy of the eai^th ; 
 condemned unto the Tartards of Hell, 
 and bottomlesse pit of Plato, from whence 
 there was no redemption. 
 
 Nor were only many customes ques- 
 tionable in order to their Obsequies, but 
 also sundry practises, fictions, and con- 
 ceptions, discordant or obscure, of their 
 state and future beings ; whether unto 
 eight or ten bodies of men to adde one 
 of a woman, as being more inflammable, 
 and unctuously constituted for the better 
 pyrall combustion, were any rationall 
 practise : Or whether the complaint of 
 Perianders Wife be tolerable, that want- 
 ing her Funerall burning she suffered 
 intolerable cold in Hell, according to the 
 constitution of the infernall house of 
 Plato, wherein cold makes a great part 
 of their tortures ; it cannot passe without 
 some question. 
 
 Why the Female Ghosts appear unto 
 Ulysses, before the Heroes and masculine 
 spirits ? Why the Psyche or soul of Tire- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 65 
 
 sias is of the masculine gender*; who *\r\ Homer 
 being bhnde on earth sees more then all J^jf^lj^^, 
 the rest in hell ; Why the Funerall rfiptaUii^ 
 Suppers consisted of Egges, Beans, ^^^'^^J^^*^^' 
 Smallage, and Lettuce, since the dead 
 are made to eat AspJwdels ° about the » In 
 Elyzian medows? Why since there is ^^^''^'^* 
 no Sacrifice acceptable, nor any propitia- 
 tion for the Covenant of the grave ; men 
 set up the Deity of Morta, and fruitlesly 
 adored Divinities without ears ? it cannot 
 escape some doubt. 
 
 The dead seem all alive in the humane 
 Hades of Homer, yet cannot well speak, 
 prophesie, or know the living, except 
 they drink bloud, wherein is the life of 
 man. And therefore the souls of Pene- 
 lope's Paramours conducted by Mercuiy 
 chirped like bats, and those which fol- 
 lowed Hercules made a noise but like a 
 flock of birds. 
 
 The departed spirits know things past 
 and to come,yetare ignorantof things pre- 
 sent. Agamemnon foretels what should 
 happen unto Ulysses, yet ignorantly en- 
 quires what is become of his own Son. 
 The Ghosts are afraid of swords in 
 Homer, yet Sybilla tels ^neas in Virgil, 
 the thin habit of spirits was beyond the 
 
66 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 force of weapons. The spirits put off 
 their malice with their bodies, and Ccesar 
 and Pompey accord in Latine Hell, yet 
 Ajax in Homer endures not a conference 
 with Ulysses : And Deiphobus appears 
 all mangled in Virgils Ghosts, yet we 
 meet with perfect shadows among the 
 wounded ghosts of Homer. 
 
 Since Charon in Lucian applauds his 
 condition among the dead, whether it 
 be handsomely said of Achilles^ that 
 living contemner of death, that he had 
 rather be a Plowmans servant then Em- 
 perour of the dead ? How Hercules his 
 soul is in hell, and yet in heaven, and 
 Julius his soul in a Starre, yet seen by 
 ^neas in hell, except the Ghosts were 
 but Images and shadows of the soul, 
 received in higher mansions, according 
 to the ancient division of body, soul, and 
 image or siinulacJnnim of them both. 
 The particulars of future beings must 
 needs be dark unto ancient Theories, 
 which Christian Philosophy yet deter- 
 mines but in a Cloud of opinions. A 
 ' Dialogue between two Infants in the womb 
 concerning the state of this world, might 
 handsomely illustrate our ignorance of 
 the next, whereof methinks we yet dis- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 6^ 
 
 course in Platoes denne, and are but 
 Embryon Philosophers. 
 
 Pythag07'as escapes in the fabulous hell 
 of Dante ^, among that swarm of Philo- ^ -^^/ ?«- 
 sophers, wherein whilest we meet with caTt^. 
 P/ato and Socrates, Cato is to be found in 
 no lower place then Purgatory. Among 
 all the set, Epicunis is most considerable, 
 whom men make honest without an 
 Elysium, who contemned life without en- 
 couragement of immortality, and making 
 nothing after death, yet made nothing of 
 the King of terrours. 
 
 Were the happinesse of the next world 
 as closely apprehended as the felicities 
 of this, it were a martyrdome to live ; 
 and unto such as consider none here- 
 after, it must be more then death to dye, 
 which makes us amazed at those audaci- 
 ties, that durst be nothing, and return into 
 their Chaos again. Certainly such spirits 
 as could contemn death, when they ex- 
 pected no better being after, would have 
 scorned to live had they known any. 
 And therefore we applaud not the judg- 
 ment of Machiavel, that Christianity 
 makes men cowards, or that with the 
 confidence of but half dying, the despised 
 virtues of patience and humility, have 
 
68 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 abased the spirits of men, which Pagan 
 principles exalted, but rather regulated 
 the wildenesse of audacities, in the at- 
 tempts, grounds, and eternall sequels of 
 death ; wherein men of the boldest spirits 
 are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor 
 can we extenuate the valour of ancient 
 Martyrs, who contemned death in the 
 uncomfortable scene of their lives, and in 
 their decrepit Martyrdomes did probably 
 lose not many moneths of their dayes, 
 or parted with life when it was scarce 
 worth the living. For (beside that long 
 time past holds no consideration unto a 
 slender time to come) they had no small 
 disadvantage from the constitution of 
 old age, which naturally makes men 
 fearfull ; complexionally superannuated 
 from the bold and couragious thoughts 
 of youth and fervent years. But the 
 contempt of death from corporall ani- 
 mosity, promoteth not our felicity. They 
 may set in the Orchestra, and noblest 
 Seats of Heaven, who have held up 
 shaking hands in the fire, and humanely 
 contended for glory. 
 
 Mean while Epicurus lyes deep in 
 Dante s hell, wherein we meet with Tombs 
 enclosing souls which denied their im- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 69 
 
 mortalities. But whether the virtuous 
 heathen, who lived better then he spake, 
 or erring in the principles of himself, yet 
 lived above Philosophers of more spe- 
 cious Maximes, lye so deep as he is 
 placed ; at least so low as not to rise 
 against Christians, who beleeving or 
 knowing that truth, have lastingly denied 
 it in their practise and conversation, 
 were a qusery too sad to insist on. 
 
 But all or most apprehensions rested 
 in Opinions of some future being, which 
 ignorantly or coldly beleeved, begat those 
 perverted conceptions. Ceremonies, Say- 
 ings, which Christians pity or laugh at. 
 Happy are they, which live not in that 
 disadvantage of time, when men could 
 say little for futurity, but from reason. 
 Whereby the noblest mindes fell often 
 upon doubtfuU deaths, and melancholly 
 Dissolutions ; With these hopes Socrates 
 warmed his doubtfull spirits, against that 
 cold potion, and Cato before he durst 
 give the fatall stroak spent part of the 
 night in reading the immortality of Plato^ 
 thereby confirming his wavering hand 
 unto the animosity of that attempt. 
 
 It is the heaviest stone that melan- 
 choly can throw at a man, to tell him he 
 
70 IIYDRIOTAPHIA, URNE-BURIALL. 
 
 « is at the end of his nature ; or that there 
 is no further state to come, unto which 
 this seemes progressionall, and otherwise 
 made in vaine ; Without this accom- 
 ph'shment the naturall expectation and 
 desire of such a state, were but a fallacy 
 in nature, unsatisfied Considerators ; 
 would quarrell the justice of their con- 
 stitutions, and rest content that Adam 
 had fallen lower, whereby by knowing 
 no other Originall, and deeper ignorance 
 of themselves, they might have enjoyed 
 the happinesse of inferiour Creatures ; 
 who in tranquility possesse their Consti- 
 tutions, as having not the apprehension 
 to deplore their own natures. And being 
 framed below the circumference of these 
 hopes, or cognition of better being, the 
 wisedom of God hath necessitated their 
 Contentment : But the superiour ingre- 
 dient and obscured part of our selves, 
 whereto all present felicities afford no 
 resting contentment, will be able at last 
 to tell us we are more then our present 
 selves ; and evacuate such hopes in the 
 fruition of their own accomplishments. 
 
CHAP. V, 
 
 Now since these dead bones have already 
 out-lasted the living ones of Methuselah^ 
 and in a yard under ground, and thin walls 
 of clay, out-worn all the strong and 
 specious buildings above it ; and quietly 
 rested under the drums and tramplings • 
 of three conquests ; What Prince can 
 promise such diuturnity unto his Reliques, 
 or might not gladly say, 
 
 * Sic ego componi versus in ossa veliin. * Tibtdlns. 
 Time which antiquates Antiquities, and 
 hath an art to make dust of all things, ""c^afdata 
 hath yet spared these 7m'nor Monuments, cum 
 In vain we hope to be known by open ^Lf/^^i^ 
 and visible conservatories, when to be Phethonis. 
 unknown was the means of their con- '\, ^^^^' 
 
 Tiov criofia 
 
 tinuation and obscurity their protection : ^pvxai Ka- 
 li they dyed by violent hands, and were yi^lZ,us 
 thrust into their Urnes, these bones relinquen- 
 become considerable, and some old Phi- J^^^v'^^ 
 losophers would honour* them, whose purissima. 
 
72 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 bin the 
 Psalme of 
 Moses. 
 '^Accord- 
 ing to the 
 ancient 
 Arith- 
 metick of 
 the hand 
 wherein 
 the little 
 finger of 
 the right 
 hand con- 
 tracted, 
 signified an 
 hundred. 
 Pieriiis in 
 Hiero- 
 glyph. 
 
 souls they conceived most pure, which 
 were thus snatched from their bodies ; 
 and to retain a stronger propension unto 
 them : whereas they weariedly left a 
 languishing corps, and with faint desires 
 of re-union. If they fell by long and 
 aged decay, yet wrapt up in the bundle 
 of time, they fall into indistinction, and 
 make but one blot with Infants. If we 
 begin to die when we live, and long life 
 be but a prolongation of death ; our life 
 is a sad composition ; We live with 
 death, and die not in a moment. How 
 many pulses made up the life of MetJiu- 
 j^/<2//, were work for Archimedes'. Com- 
 mon Counters summe up the life oi Moses 
 his man^ Our dayes become consi- 
 derable like petty sums by minute accu- 
 mulations ; where numerous fractions 
 make up but small round numbers ; and 
 our dayes of a span long make not one 
 little finger ^ 
 
 If the nearnesse of our last necessity, 
 brought a nearer conformity unto it, 
 there were a happinesse in hoary hairs, 
 and no calamity in half senses. But the 
 long habit of living indisposeth us for 
 dying ; When Avarice makes us the 
 sport of death ; When even David grew 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 73 
 
 politlckly cruell ; and Solomon could 
 hardly be said to be the wisest of men. 
 But many are too early old, and before 
 the date of age. Adversity stretcheth 
 our dayes, misery makes * Alcrnenas * One 
 nights, and time hath no wins^s unto it. f^^^^ ^^ 
 
 ^ ' ^ long as 
 
 But the most tedious being is that which three. 
 can unwish it self, content to be nothing, 
 or never to have been, which was beyond 
 the 7?^«/(^-content of /od, who cursed not 
 the day of his life, but his Nativity : 
 Content to have so farre been, as to have 
 a Title to future being ; Although he 
 had lived here but in an hidden state of 
 life, and as it were an abortion. 
 
 What Song the Syrens sang, or what The puz- 
 name Achilles assumed when he hid Jions^o^^' 
 himself among women, though puzling Tiberius 
 Questions are not beyond all conjecture. ^Gramma- 
 What time the persons of these Ossuaries rians. 
 entred the famous Nations of the dead, Dotiatus 
 and slept with Princes and Counsellours, ^^ *^"f^; 
 might admit a wide solution. But who vmviKpSiv. 
 were the proprietaries of these bones, or Horn, Job. 
 what bodies these ashes made up, were 
 a question above Antiquarism. Not to 
 be resolved by man, nor easily perhaps 
 by spirits, except we consult the Provin- 
 ciall Guardians, or tutellary Observators. 
 
74 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 Had they made as good provision for 
 their names, as they have done for their 
 Reliques, they had not so grosly erred 
 in the art of perpetuation. But to sub- 
 sist in bones, and be but Pyramidally 
 extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain 
 ashes, which in the oblivion of names, 
 persons, times, and sexes, have found 
 unto themselves, a fruitlesse continuation, 
 and only arise unto late posterity, as 
 Emblemes of mortall vanities ; Anti- 
 dotes against pride, vain-glory, and mad- 
 ding vices. Pagan vain-glories which 
 thought the world might last for ever, 
 had encouragement for ambition, and 
 finding no Atropos unto the immortality 
 of their Names, were never dampt with 
 the necessity of oblivion. Even old 
 ambitions had the advantage of ours, in 
 the attempts of their vain-glories, who 
 acting early, and before the probable 
 Meridian of time, have by this time found 
 great accomplishment of their designes, 
 whereby the ancient Heroes have already 
 out-lasted their Monuments, and Mechani- 
 call preservations. But in this latter Scene 
 
 ^That the - .^ , 4. u T\/r 
 
 world may of time we cannot expect such Mummies 
 last but six unto our memories, when ambition may 
 years.^" fear the Prophecy of Elias ^, and Charles 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 75 
 
 the fifth can never hope to live within 
 two Methuselds of Hector K f Hectors 
 
 And therefore restlesse inquietude for f^'^^elast- 
 
 ^ ing above 
 
 the diuturnity of our memories unto pre- two lives 
 sent considerations, seems a vanity almost ^^/^f^^e" 
 out. of date, and superannuated peece of fore that 
 folly. We cannot hope to live so long prTiJ'ce'wos 
 in our names, as some have done in their extant, 
 persons, one face of Janus holds no pro- 
 portion unto the other. 'Tis too late to 
 be ambitious. The great mutations of 
 the world are acted, or time may be too 
 short for our designes. To extend our 
 memories by Monuments, whose death 
 we dayly pray for, and whose duration 
 we cannot hope, without injury to our 
 expectations, in the advent of the last 
 day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. 
 We whose generations are ordained in 
 this setting part of time, are providentially 
 taken off from such imaginations. And 
 being necessitated to eye the remaining 
 particle of futurity, are naturally consti- 
 tuted unto thoughts of the next world, 
 and cannot excusably decline the consi- 
 deration of that duration, which maketh 
 Pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's 
 past a moment. 
 
 Circles and right lines limit and close 
 
 H 
 
76 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 g e The 
 character 
 of death. 
 
 ^ Old ones 
 being 
 taken up, 
 and other 
 bodies laid 
 under 
 them. 
 ^ Gruteri 
 Inscrip- 
 tiones An- 
 tiqjice. 
 
 ^ Cuperem 
 notum esse 
 quod sh?i, 
 non opto ut 
 sciatur 
 qualis sirn. 
 Card, in 
 vita pro- 
 pria. 
 
 all bodies, and the mortall right-lined 
 circle^, must conclude and shut up all. 
 There is no antidote against the Opium 
 of time, which temporally considereth 
 all things ; Our Fathers finde their 
 graves in our short memories, and sadly 
 tell us how we may be buried in our Sur- 
 vivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce 
 fourty years ^ : Generations passe while 
 some trees stand, and old Families last 
 not three Oaks. To be read by bare 
 Inscriptions like many in Gruter\ to 
 hope for Eternity by ^nigmaticall Epi- 
 thetes, or first letters of our names, to be 
 studied by Antiquaries, who we were, and 
 have new Names given us like many of the 
 Mummies, which men show in several 
 countries, giving them what names they 
 please : and unto some the names of the 
 old Egyptian Kings out oi Herodotus, are 
 cold consolations unto the Students of per- 
 petuity, even by everlasting Languages. 
 To be content that times to come 
 should only know there was such a man, 
 not caring whether they knew more of 
 him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan ^ : 
 disparaging his horoscopal inclination 
 and judgement of himself, who cares 
 to subsist like Hippocrates Patients, or 
 
URNE-BURIALL. yj 
 
 Achilles horses in Homer, under naked 
 nominations, without deserts and noble 
 acts, which are the balsame of our me- 
 mories, the Entelechia and soul of our 
 subsistences. To be namelesse in worthy- 
 deeds exceeds an infamous history. The 
 Canaanitish woman lives more happily 
 without a name, then Herodias with one. 
 And who had not rather have been the 
 good theef, then Pilate ? 
 
 But the iniquity of oblivion blindely 
 scattereth her poppy, and deals with the 
 memory of men without distinction to 
 merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity 
 the founder of the Pyramids ? Hero- 
 stratus lives that burnt the Temple of 
 Diana, he is almost lost that built it ; 
 Time hath spared the Epitaph oi Adrians 
 horse, confounded that of himself In 
 vain we compute our felicities by the 
 advantage of our good names, since bad 
 have equall durations ; and Thersites is 
 like to live as long as Agamemnon : Who 
 knows whether the best of men be known ? 
 or whether there be not more remark- 
 able persons forgot, then any that stand 
 remembred in the known account of 
 time, without the favour of the ever- 
 lasting Register? the first man had 
 
78 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 been as unknown as the last, and 
 Methuselahs long life had been his only- 
 Chronicle. 
 
 Oblivion is not to be hired : The 
 
 greater part must be content to be as 
 
 though they had not been, to be found 
 
 in the Register of God, not in the record 
 
 of man. Twenty seven Names make up 
 
 the first story before the flood, and the 
 
 recorded names ever since contain not 
 
 one living Century. The number of the 
 
 dead long exceedeth all that shall live. 
 
 The night of time far surpasseth the day, 
 
 and who knows when was the Equinox ? 
 
 Euery houre addes unto that current 
 
 Arithmetique, which scarce stands one 
 
 moment. And since death must be the 
 
 Liicina of life, and even Pagans could 
 
 * Emi- doubt * whether thus to live, were to dye. 
 
 ^"'''•^* Since our longest Sunne sets at right 
 
 descensions, and makes but winter arches, 
 
 o Accord- ^^^ therefore it cannot be long before we 
 
 ing to the lie down in darknesse, and have our light 
 
 ?hf jewef i" ^shes \ Since the brother of death 
 
 who place daily haunts us with dying vienientd'Sy 
 
 walcandle ^"^ ^^"^^ ^^^^ grows old it Self, bids us 
 in a pot of hope no long duration : Diuturnity is a 
 the^corps. ^^^^"^ ^md folly of expectation. 
 Leo. Darknesse and light divide the course 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 79 
 
 of time, and oblivion shares with memory, 
 a great part even of our Hving beings ; 
 we sHghtly remember our felicities, and 
 the smartest stroaks of affliction leave 
 but short smart upon us. Sense endureth 
 no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or 
 themselves. To weep into stones are 
 fables. Afflictions induce callosities, 
 miseries are slippery, or fall like snow 
 upon us, which notwithstanding is no 
 unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of 
 evils to come, and forgetfull of evils past, 
 is a mercifuU provision in nature, where- 
 by we digest the mixture of our few and 
 evil dayes, and our delivered senses not 
 relapsing into cutting remembrances, our 
 sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of 
 repetitions. A great part of Antiquity 
 contented their hopes of subsistency with 
 a transmigration of their souls. A good 
 way to continue their memories, while 
 having the advantage of plurall succes- 
 sions, they could not but act something 
 remarkable in such variety of beings, and 
 enjoying the fame of their passed selves, 
 make accumulation of glory unto their 
 last durations. Others rather then be 
 lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, 
 were content to recede into the common 
 
8o HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 being, and make one particle of the 
 publick soul of all things, which was no 
 more then to return into their unknown 
 and divine Originall again. Egyptian 
 ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriv- 
 ing their bodies in sweet consistences, to 
 attend the return of their souls. But all 
 * Omnia was vanity, feeding * the winde, and 
 vamtas ^ f^jiy^ jj^^ ^Egyptian Mummies, which 
 
 ventiyvofiy) Caifibyses or time hath spared, avarice 
 
 Vy^^'^^' J^ow consumeth. Mummie is become 
 
 olim Aqui- Merchandise, Mizraiin cures wounds, 
 
 marhur'^' ^^^ Pharaoh is sold for balsoms. 
 
 V. Drus. In vain do individuals hope for Im- 
 
 mortality, or any patent from oblivion, 
 
 in preservations below the Moon : Men 
 
 have been deceived even in their flatteries 
 
 above the Sun, and studied conceits to 
 
 perpetuate their names in heaven. The 
 
 various Cosmography of that part hath 
 
 already varied the names of contrived 
 
 constellations ; Ninirod is lost in Orion, 
 
 and Osyris in the Dogge-starre. While 
 
 we look for incorruption in the heavens, 
 
 we finde they are but like the Earth ; 
 
 Durable in their main bodies, alterable 
 
 in their parts : whereof beside Comets 
 
 and new Stars, perspectives begin to tell 
 
 tales. And the spots that wander about 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 8 1 
 
 the Sun, with Phaetons favour, would 
 make clear conviction. 
 
 There is nothing strictly immortall, 
 but immortality ; whatever hath no be- 
 ginning may be confident of no end. 
 All others have a dependent being, and 
 w^ithin the reach of destruction, which is 
 the peculiar of that necessary essence 
 that cannot destroy it self; And the 
 highest strain of omnipotency to be so 
 powerfully constituted, as not to suffer 
 even from the power of it self But the 
 sufficiency of Christian Immortality frus- 
 trates all earthly glory, and the quality 
 of either state after death, makes a folly 
 of posthumous memory. God who can 
 only destroy our souls, and hath assured 
 our resurrection, either of our bodies or 
 names hath directly promised no dura- 
 tion. Wherein there is so much of 
 chance that the boldest Expectants have 
 found unhappy frustration ; and to hold 
 long subsistence, seems but a scape in 
 oblivion. But man is a Noble Animal, 
 splendid in ashes, and pompous in the 
 grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths 
 with equall lustre, nor omitting Cere- 
 monies of bravery, in the infamy of his 
 nature. 
 
82 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 Life is a pure flame, and we live by 
 
 an invisible Sun within us. A small fire 
 
 sufficeth for life, great flames seemed 
 
 too little after death, while men vainly 
 
 affected precious pyres, and to burn like 
 
 Sardanapalus, but the wisedom of fune- 
 
 rall Laws found the folly of prodigall 
 
 blazes, and reduced undoing fires, unto 
 
 * Accord- ^^ ^^^ ^^ sober obsequies, wherein few 
 
 ing to the could be SO mean as not to provide wood, 
 
 i^«/kfand pi^ch, a mourner, and an Urne*. 
 
 Beronicam Five Languages secured not the Epi- 
 
 Necex^Eo- taph of Gordia7tus^ \'^° The man of God 
 
 rum bonis Hves longer without a Tomb then any 
 
 plusinven- , ...,,. ^ 11 \ ^ 
 
 turn est t)y one, mvisibly mterred by Angels, 
 quamQuod and adjudged to obscurity, though not 
 
 sufRceretad • , 1 . 1 1 • , • 1 
 
 emendam Without some marks directmg humane 
 pyram Et discovery. Enoch and Elias without 
 
 pice77t qui- , - , 1 • 11 • 1 
 
 bus corpora either tomb or buriall, in an anomalous 
 cremaren- state of being- are the great Examples 
 
 tiir Et ^ 
 
 prifica of perpetuity, in their long and living 
 
 (onducta memory, in strict account being still on 
 
 empta. this side death, and having a late part 
 
 a In Greek, y^^ ^^ ^^^ upon this Stage of earth. If 
 
 Hebrew, in the decretory term of the world wfe 
 
 ArfbFckr' ^^^^^ "°^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ changed, accord- 
 defaced by ing to received translation ; the last day 
 
 the^Em- ^^^^ make but few graves ; at least quick 
 perour. Resurrections will anticipate lasting Se- 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 83 
 
 pultures ; Some Graves will be opened 
 before they be quite closed, and Lazarus 
 be no wonder. When many that feared 
 to dye shall groane that they can dye 
 but once, the dismall state is the second 
 and living death, when life puts despair 
 on the damned ; when men shall wish 
 the coverings of Mountaines, not of . 
 Monuments, and annihilation shall be 
 courted. 
 
 While some have studied Monuments, 
 others have studiously declined them : 
 and some have been so vainly boisterous, 
 that they durst not acknowledge their 
 Graves; wherein ^ Alaricus seems most ^Jomandes 
 subtle, who had a River turned to hide Geticis. 
 his bones at the bottome. Even Sylla 
 that thought himself safe in his Urne, 
 could not prevent revenging tongues^ 
 and stones thrown at his Monument. 
 Happy are they whom privacy makes 
 innocent, who deal so with men in this 
 world, that they are not afraid to meet 
 them in the next, who when they dye, 
 make no commotion among the dead, 
 and are not toucht with that poeticall 
 taunt of Isaiah ^ '^ Isa. 14. 
 
 Pyramids, Arches, Obelisks, were but 
 the irregularities of vain-glory, and wilde 
 
84 HYDRIOTAPHIA, 
 
 enormities of ancient magnanimity. But 
 
 the most magnanimous resolution rests 
 
 in the Christian Religion, which tram- 
 
 pleth upon pride, and sets on the neck of 
 
 ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible 
 
 perpetuity, unto which all others must 
 
 diminish their diameters, and be poorly 
 
 d Angulus seen in Angles of contingency '^. 
 
 J'^^^^fjf^'^' Pious spirits who passed their dayes 
 
 least of in raptures of futurity, made little more 
 
 Angles. q|- ^j^-g ^yQj-i^j^ \kiQr\ the world that was 
 
 before it, while they lay obscure in the 
 Chaos of pre-ordination, and night of 
 their fore-beings. And if any have been 
 so happy as truly to understand Christian 
 annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefac- 
 tion, transformation, the kisse of the 
 Spouse,^^ gustation of God, and ingres- 
 sion into the divine shadow, they have 
 already had an handsome anticipation of 
 heaven ; the glory of the world is surely 
 over, and the earth in ashes unto them. 
 
 To subsist in lasting Monuments, to 
 live in their productions, to exist in their 
 names, and praedicament of Chymera's, 
 was large satisfaction unto old expecta- 
 tions, and made one part of their Ely- 
 ziums. But all this is nothing in the 
 Metaphysicks of true belief To live 
 
URNE-BURIALL. 
 
 85 
 
 indeed is to be again our selves, which 
 being not only an hope but an evidence 
 in noble beleevers ; 'Tis all one to lye 
 in S* Innocents * " Church-yard, as in the 
 Sands of ^gypt: Ready to be any 
 thing, in the extasie of being ever, and 
 as content with six foot as the Moles of 
 Adrianus^. 
 
 Lucan 
 Tabesne cadaver a solvat 
 
 An rogus hand refert,- 
 
 ® In Paris 
 where 
 bodies 
 soon con- 
 sume. 
 ^ A stately 
 Mauso- 
 leum or se- 
 pulchral 
 pyle built 
 by Adria- 
 11 us in 
 Rovie, 
 where now 
 standeth 
 the Castle 
 of S*' An- 
 gela. 
 
Tlcxir Irt '^^oftploTh af\^: Jt>'dMS %yura/riO 
 Jo <urkavi y T^lat^ if nii^ir numlrly yn/cril^'d — ^;_J) 
 
BRAMPTON URNS. 
 
CONCERNING SOME URNES 
 
 FOUND IN BRAMPTON- 
 
 FIELD, IN NORFOLK, 
 
 Ann. 1667. 
 
 I THOUGHT I had taken Leave of Urnes, 
 when I had some Years past given a 
 short Account of those found at Wa/- 
 singham* but a New Discovery being 
 made, I readily obey your Commands in 
 a brief Description thereof 
 
 In a large Arable Field, lying between 
 Buxton and Brampton^ but belonging to 
 Brampton^ and not much more than a 
 Furlong from Oxnead Park, divers Urnes 
 were found. A Part of the Field being 
 designed to be inclosed, while the Work- 
 men made several Ditches, they fell upon 
 divers Urnes, but earnestly, and carelesly 
 digging, they broke all they met with, 
 
 * See, Hydriotaphia, Urne- Burial : Or, a 
 Discourse of the Sepulchral Urnes lately foutid 
 in Norfolk, Zvo, 'Lon^. printed 1658. 
 
90 URNES FOUND IN 
 
 and finding nothing but Ashes, or burnt 
 Cinders, they scattered what they found. 
 Upon Notice given unto me, I went unto 
 the Place, and though I used all Care 
 with the Workmen, yet they were broken 
 in the taking out, but many, without 
 doubt, are still remaining in that Ground. 
 Of these Pots none were found above 
 Three Quarters of a Yard in the Ground, 
 whereby it appeareth, that in all this 
 Time the Earth hath little varied its 
 Surface, though this Ground hath been 
 Plowed to the utmost Memory of Man. 
 Whereby it may be also conjectured, 
 that this hath not been a Wood-Land, 
 as some conceive all this Part to have 
 been ; for in such Lands they usually 
 made no common Burying-places, except 
 for some special Persons in Graves, and 
 likewise that there hath been an Ancient 
 Habitation about these Parts ; for at 
 Buxton also, not a Mile off, Urnes have 
 been found in my Memory, but in their 
 Magnitude, Figure, Colour, Posture, &c. 
 there was no small Variety, some were 
 large and capacious, able to contain above 
 Two Gallons, some of a middle, others 
 of a smaller Size ; the great ones pro- 
 bably belonging to greater Persons, or 
 
BRAMPTON-FIELD. 9I 
 
 might be Family Urnes, fit to receive 
 the Ashes successively of their Kindred 
 and Relations, and therefore of these, 
 some had Coverings of the same Matter, 
 either fitted to them, or a thin flat Stone, 
 like a Grave Slate, laid over them ; and 
 therefore also great Ones were but thinly 
 found, but others in good Number ; some 
 were of large wide Mouths, and Bellies 
 proportionable, with short Necks, and 
 bottoms of Three Inches Diameter, and 
 near an Inch thick ; some small, with 
 Necks like Juggs, and about that Big- 
 ness ; the Mouths of some few were not 
 round, but after the Figure of a Circle 
 compressed ; though some had small, 
 yet none had pointed Bottoms, accord- 
 ing to the Figures of those which are to 
 be seen in Roma Soteranea, Viginerus, 
 or Mascardus. 
 
 In the Colours also there was great 
 Variety, some were Whitish, some 
 Blackish, and inclining to a Blue, others 
 Yellowish, or dark Red, arguing the 
 Variety of their Materials. Some Frag- 
 ments, and especially Bottoms of Vessels, 
 which seem'd to be handsome neat Pans, 
 were also found of a fine Coral-XiV.^ Red, 
 somewhat like Portugal Vessels, as tho' 
 
 I 
 
92 URNES FOUND IN 
 
 they had been made out of some fine 
 Bolary Earth, and very smooth ; but the 
 like had been found in divers Places, as 
 Dr. Casaubon hath observed about the 
 Pots found at Newington in Kent, and 
 as other Pieces do yet testifie, which are 
 to be found at Burrow Castle, an Old 
 Roman Station, not far from Yarmouth. 
 
 Of the Urnes, those of the larger Sort, 
 such as had Coverings, were found with 
 their Mouths placed upwards, but great 
 Numbers of the others were, as they 
 informed me, (and One I saw my self,) 
 placed with their Mouths downward, 
 which were probably such as were not 
 to be opened again, or receive the Ashes 
 of any other Person ; though some 
 wonder'd at this Position, yet I saw no 
 Inconveniency in it ; for the Earth being 
 closely pressed, and especially in Minor 
 Mouth'd Pots, they stand in a Posture as 
 like to continue as the other, as being 
 less subject to have the Earth fall in, or 
 the Rain to soak into them ; and the 
 same Posture has been observed in some 
 found in other Places, as HolingsJiead 
 delivers, of divers found in Anglesea. 
 
 Some had Inscriptions, the greatest 
 Part none ; those with Inscriptions were 
 
BRAMPTON-FIELD. 93 
 
 of the largest Sort, which were upon the 
 reverted Verges thereof; the greatest 
 part of those which I could obtain were 
 somewhat obliterated ; yet some of the 
 Letters to be made out : The Letters 
 were between Lines, either Single or 
 Double, and the Letters of some few 
 after a fair Roman Stroke, others more 
 rudely and illegibly drawn, wherein there 
 seemed no great Variety. NUONh€\r\^ 
 upon very many of them ; only upon the 
 inside of the bottom of a small Red Pan- 
 like Vessel, were legibly set down in 
 embossed \^ei\.^x->,CRACUNA i^.^^vhich 
 might imply Cracuna figuli^ or the Name 
 of the Manufactor, for Inscriptions com- 
 monly signified the Name of the Person 
 interr'd, the Names of Servants Official 
 to such Provisions, or the Name of the 
 Artificer, or Manufactor of such Vessels ; 
 all which are particularly exemplified by 
 the Learned Licetus^^ where the same 
 Inscription is often found, it is probably, 
 of the Artificer, or where the Name also is 
 in the Genitive Case, as he also observeth. 
 Out of one was brought unto me a 
 Silver Denarius^ with the Head of Diva 
 Faustina on the Obverse side, on the 
 
 * Vid. Licet, de Lucernis. 
 
94 URNES FOUND IN 
 
 Reverse the Figures of the Emperor and 
 Empress joining their Right Hands, with 
 this Inscription, Concordia ; the same is 
 to be seen in Augustmo ; I also received 
 from some Men and Women then present 
 Coins of Post/minus, and Tetricus, Two 
 of the Thirty Tyrants in the Reign of 
 Gallzenus, which being of much later 
 Date, begat an Inference, that Urne- 
 Burial lasted longer, at least in this 
 Country, than is commonly supposed. 
 Good Authors conceive, that this Custom 
 ended with the Reigns of the Antonmi, 
 whereof the last was Antoninus Helioga- 
 balus ; yet these Coins extend about 
 Fourscore Years lower ; and since the 
 Head of Tetricus is made with a radiated 
 Crown, it must be conceived to have 
 been made after his Death, and not 
 before his Consecration, which as the 
 Learned Tristan Conjectures, was most 
 probably in the Reign of the Emperor 
 Tacitus^ and the Coin not made, or at 
 least not issued Abroad, before the Time 
 of the Emperor Probus, for Tacitus 
 Reigned but Six Months and an Half, his 
 Brother Florianus but Two Months, unto 
 whom Probus succeeding, Reigned Five 
 Years. 
 
BRAMPTON-FIELD. 95 
 
 There were also found some pieces of 
 Glass, and finer Vessels, which might con- 
 tain such Liquors as they often Buried 
 in, or by, the Urnes ; divers Pieces of 
 Brass, of several Figures ; and in one 
 Urne was found a Nail Two Inches long, 
 whither to declare the Trade or Occupa- 
 tion of the Person, is uncertain. But 
 upon the Monuments of SinitJis in Gruter^ 
 we meet with the Figures of Hajnmers^ 
 Pincers, and the like ; and we find the 
 Figure of a Coblers Awl on the Tomb 
 of one of that Trade, which was in the 
 Custody oi Berini, as Argulus hath set it 
 down in his Notes upon Onuphrius, 
 Of the Antiquities ^/Verona. 
 
 Now, though U^'nes have been often 
 discovered in former Ages, many think it 
 strange there should be many still found, 
 yet assuredly there may be great Numbers 
 still concealed. For tho' we should not 
 reckon upon any Vv^ho were thus buried 
 before the Time of the Romans, [altho' 
 that the Druids were thus buried, it may 
 be probable, and we read of the Urne of 
 CJiindonactes, a Druid, found near Dijon 
 in Burgundy, largely discoursed of by 
 Licetus,'] and tho', I say, we take not in 
 any Infant which was Minor igne rogi, 
 
96 URNES FOUND IN 
 
 before Seven Months, or Appearance of 
 Teeth, nor should account this Practice 
 of burning among the Britains higher 
 than Vespasian, when it is said by Tacitus, 
 that they conformed unto the Manners 
 and Customs of the Romans, and so 
 both Nations might have one Way of 
 Burial ; yet from his Days, to the Dates 
 of these Urnes, were about Two Hundred 
 Years. And therefore it we fall so low, 
 as to conceive there were buried in this 
 Nation but Twenty Thousand Persons, 
 the Account of the buried Persons would 
 amount unto Four Millions, and conse- 
 quently so great a Number of Urnes dis- 
 persed through the Land, as may still 
 satisfy the Curiosity of succeeding Times, 
 and arise unto all Ages. 
 
 The Bodies, whose Reliques these 
 Urnes contained, seemed thoroughly 
 burned ; for beside pieces of Teeth, there 
 were found few Fragments of Bones, but 
 rather Ashes in hard Lumps, and pieces 
 of Coals, which were often so fresh, that 
 one sufficed to make a good Draught of 
 its Urne, which still remaineth with me. 
 
 Some Persons digging at a little Dis- 
 tance from the Urne Places, in hopes to 
 find something of Value, after they had 
 
I 
 
 BRAMPTON-FIELD. 97 
 
 digged about Three Quarters of a Yard 
 deep, fell upon an Observable Piece of 
 Work,^* whose Description this Figure 
 affordeth. The Work was Square, about 
 Two Yards and a Quarter on each Side. 
 The Wall, or outward Part, a Foot thick, 
 in Colour Red, and looked like Brick ; 
 but it was solid, without any Mortar or 
 Cement, or figur'd Brick in it, but of an 
 whole Piece, so that it seemed to be 
 Framed and Burnt in the same Place 
 where it was found. In this kind of 
 Brick-work were Thirty-two Holes, of 
 about Two Inches and an Half Diameter, 
 and Two above a Quarter of a Circle in 
 the East and West Sides. Upon Two 
 of these Holes, on the East Side, were 
 placed Two Pots, with their Mouths 
 downward ; putting in their Arms they 
 found the Work hollow below, and the 
 Earth being clear'd off, much Water was 
 found below them, to the Quantity of a 
 Barrel, which was conceived to have been 
 the Rain-water which soaked in through 
 the Earth above them. 
 
 The upper Part of the Work being 
 broke, and opened, they found a Floor 
 about Two Foot below, and then digging 
 onward. Three Floors successively under 
 
98 URNES FOUND IN 
 
 one another, at the Distance of a Foot and 
 Half, the Stones being of a Slatty, not 
 Bricky, Substance ; in these Partitions 
 some Pots were found, but broke by the 
 Workmen, being necessitated to use hard 
 Blows for the breaking of the Stones ; 
 and in the last Partition but one, a large 
 Pot was found of a very narrow Mouth, 
 short Ears, of the Capacity of Fourteen 
 Pints, which lay in an enclining Posture, 
 close by, and somewhat under a kind of 
 Arch in the solid Wall, and by the great 
 Care of my worthy Friend, Mr. William 
 Mashani^ who employed the Workmen, 
 was taken up whole, almost full of Water, 
 clean, and without Smell, and insipid, 
 which being poured out, there still re- 
 mains in the Pot a great Lump of an 
 heavy crusty Substance. What Work 
 this was we must as yet reserve unto 
 better Conjecture. Mean while we find 
 in G niter that some Monuments of the 
 Dead had divers Holes successively to 
 let in the Ashes of their Relations, but 
 Holes in such a great Number to that 
 Intent, we have not anywhere met with. 
 About Three Months after, my Noble 
 and Honoured Friend, Sir Robert Paston^ 
 had the Curiosity to open a Piece of 
 
BRAMPTON-FIELD. 99 
 
 Ground in his Park at Oxnead, which 
 adjoined unto the former Field, where 
 Fragments of Pots were found, and upon 
 one the Figure of a well-made Face ; but 
 probably this Ground had been opened 
 and digged before, though out of the 
 Memory of Man, for we found divers 
 small Pieces of Pots, Sheeps Bones, some- 
 times an Oj/ster-shel\ a Yard deep in the 
 Earth, an unusual Coin of the Emperor 
 Volusianus, having on the Obverse the 
 Head of the Emperor, with a Radiated 
 Crown, and this Inscription, Imp. Cces. 
 C. Volusiano Aug. that is, Lnperatori 
 Ca^sari Caio Vibio Volusiano Augusto. 
 On the Reverse an Human Figure, with 
 the Arms somewhat extended, and at 
 the Right Foot an Altar, with the In- 
 scription, Pietas, This Emperor was 
 Son unto Cams Vibius Tribonianus 
 Callus, with whom he jointly reigned 
 after the Decii, about the Year 254 ; 
 both he, himself, and his Father, were 
 slain by the Emperor Aiinilianus. By 
 the Radiated Crown this Piece should 
 be Coined after his Death and Consecra- 
 tion,^^ but in whose Time it is not clear in 
 History. 
 
I 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 " It cannot be denyed but he hath pass'd over many 
 hard places untouch'd, that might deserve a Note ; that 
 he hath made Annotations on some where no need was ; 
 and in the explication of others hath gone besides the 
 true sense."— The Annotator upon " Religio Medici" 
 (Thomas Keck of the Temple) to the Reader. 
 
 Page 3, n. i.— The Le Gros, Gross, or Groos 
 family settled at Sloly, near Crostwick, so early 
 as the reign of Stephen, and became possessed 
 of the manor and hall of Crostwick in the 38th 
 year of Henry VIII.— Wilkin. 
 
 Page 4, n. 2. '' Imperial faces P—¥lx. Le Gros 
 must doubtless have been a collector of Roman 
 
 coins. 
 
 Page i i,n. 3.— According to St. Jerome, Adam 
 was buried at Hebron, but other traditions 
 place the site of his sepulchre on Mount Calvary. 
 " Hie hominem primum suscepimus esse sepultum 
 Hie patitur Christus, pia sanguine terra madescit 
 Pulvis Adae ut possit, veteris, cum sanguine Christi 
 Commixtus, stillantis aquae virtute lavari." 
 
 Tertullian, Carm. cofit. Marcion, ii. 4. 
 
 See more in Bayle's Dictionary, s.v. Adam. 
 
I04 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 Page 13, n. 4. — This refers to the raven " who 
 would salute and bid Good-morrow to Tiberius 
 Csesar, and after him to Germanicus and Drusus, 
 the young princes, both Caesars, every one by 
 their names." The bird, having done this regu- 
 larly for many years, was killed by a shoemaker, 
 who in return was murdered by the people. " But 
 contrariwise the carkasse of the dead Raven 
 was solemnly enterred, and the funerals per- 
 formed with all ceremoniall obsequies that could 
 bee devised. For the corps of this bird was 
 bestowed in a coffin, couch, or bed, and the same 
 bedecked with chaplets and guirlands of fresh 
 floures of all sorts, carried upon the shoulders 
 of two blacke Mores, with minstrels before sound- 
 ing the haut boies, and playing on the fife, as 
 farre as to the funerall fire, which was piled and 
 made in the right hand of the Causey Appia 
 two miles without the cittie" (Pliny, "Nat. Hist.," 
 X. c. 43). This took place in a.d. 35. 
 
 Page 16, n. 5. — This calls to mind the "Yle 
 that is clept Cafifolos. Men of that Contree, 
 whan here Frendes ben seke, thei hangen hem 
 upon Trees : and seyn, that it is bettre, that 
 Briddes, that ben Angeles of God, eten hem, 
 than the foule Wormes of the Erthe" (Maunde- 
 ville's " Travels," ed. 1839, p. 194 ; see also p. 308). 
 
 Page 16, n. 6. — "As the men and horses 
 dispatched by fire for the service of the dead 
 are but paper figures, so offerings of clothes and 
 money may be represented likewise. The imi- 
 tations of Spanish pillar-dollars in pasteboard 
 covered with tin-foil, the sheets of tin-foil paper 
 which stand for silver money, and, if coloured 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 10$ 
 
 yellow, for gold, are consumed in such quantities 
 that the sham becomes a serious reality, for the 
 manufacture of mock-money is the trade of 
 thousands of women and children in a Chinese 
 city" (Tylor's "Primitive Culture," 1871, vol. i., 
 p. 445). In ancient tombs in the Crimea pieces of 
 *' ghost-money," or imitations of coins made in 
 thin gold-foil, are often found. 
 
 Page 20, n. 7. — With regard to this bird, 
 " which after many hundred years burneth itself, 
 and from the ashes thereof riseth up another," 
 see " Vulgar Errors," book iii., chap. 12. 
 
 Page 22, n. 8. — The objects described as 
 having been found with the urns at Old Wal- 
 singham are characteristic of Saxon interments. 
 The small boxes may possibly have been cylin- 
 drical thread-boxes of bronze, like those in 
 Neville's " Saxon Obsequies," pi. xv., and the 
 " handles of small brass instruments " were pro- 
 bably either clasps, as in Neville, pi. xii., or 
 fibulas. The " opale " may have been a glass 
 or crystal bead. The urns themselves may be 
 paralleled by some figured by Neville. It has 
 been supposed that some of them are still pre- 
 served in the British Museum, but I have not 
 been able to trace their existence. 
 
 Page 25, n. 9. — As I have observed in 
 the Introduction, the coin here mentioned is 
 hardly susceptible of identification, nor can it 
 easily be imagined that any such inscription as 
 Elle rHa elle should occur upon a coin. The 
 only pieces that can with any show of proba- 
 bility be assigned to Matilda are those which I 
 attributed to her in 185 1 ("Num. Chron.," vol. 
 
I06 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 xiv., p. 66). They seem to bear the legend 
 MATILDA IM.,or her title of IMPERATRIX 
 only. 
 
 Page 31, n. 10. — The reputed rubies were 
 merely garnets, such as are so commonly inlaid 
 in Merovingian and Saxon ornaments. The 
 "many hundred Imperial coyns " must be re- 
 duced to four, if Chifflet speaks truly. These 
 were in silver, ranging from Hadrian (circ. 
 A.D. 120) to Constantius II. (circ. A.D. 360), 
 and all were perforated so as to serve as pendants. 
 
 Page 31, n. 11. — In Sir Thomas Browne's 
 "Museum Clausum, or Bibliotheca Abscondita " 
 ("Certain Miscellany Tracts," London, 1684), 
 under the heading of " Rare and generally un- 
 known Books," appears " The Letter of Quintiis 
 Cicero^ which he wrote in answer to that of his 
 Brother Marcus Tulliiis^ desiring of him an 
 account of Britany^ wherein are described the 
 Country State and Manners of the Bri tains of 
 that Age." 
 
 Page 39, n. 12. — It is hardly possible for this 
 " Vinosity " to have remained unchanged through 
 centuries ; but in a Roman sepulchral urn that 
 I exhumed from a barrow at Youngsbury near 
 Ware, were lumps of a manna-like substance. 
 On being burnt these proved to consist of in- 
 cense, and I have thus smelt the sweet savour 
 of the funeral offerings of probably not less than 
 1600 years ago (" Archasologia," lii., 294). 
 
 Page 39, n. 13. — There does not appear to be 
 any definite statement to this effect in Plato. 
 In his " Republic," book viii., he maintains that 
 the forms of government, five in number, succeed 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 10/ 
 
 each other in a definite order, and at the end of 
 the cycle recommence. In book x. (6i 5) he fixes 
 the duration of human Hfe at a hundred years, 
 and inasmuch as throughout the " Repubhc " he 
 insists on the analogy of the State with the in- 
 dividual, his interpreters seem to have assumed 
 the duration of the cycle to be five hundred years. 
 Page 52, n. 14. — St. Chrysostom more than 
 once reports that Constantine was buried in the 
 atrium of a church ; but that burials took place 
 in English churches before the days of Cuthred, 
 A.D. 796-805, appears from a rule as to consecra- 
 tion of altars laid down by Archbishop Theodore 
 of Canterbury, A.D. 668-692 (see Prof. Cheetham 
 in Smith's " Dictionary of Christian Antiquities,'' 
 s.v. Churchyard). 
 
 Page 52, n. 1 5.— Instead of" knav'd," Wilkin's 
 and some other editions read " gnawed." 
 " Knav'd " seems to me the preferable reading. 
 Can Browne have been thinking of the grave- 
 scene in " Hamlet," " This skull had a tongue in 
 it," " How the knave jowls it to the ground " ? 
 
 Page 53, n. 16. — Here, as in some other cases. 
 Sir Thomas Browne was in advance of his time. 
 The substance like Castile soap into which the 
 muscles and albumenoid portions of the body are 
 converted under certain circumstances is now 
 well known under the name of " adipocere," or 
 " adipocire," a name which appears to have been 
 given to it in 1787 by MM. Fourcroy and 
 Thouret, who are commonly regarded as the 
 first discoverers of this peculiar chemical com- 
 pound. Their discovery originated in the old 
 burial-ground of the Innocents at Paris being 
 
 K 
 
I08 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
 
 laid out for building purposes, when the fosses 
 coinmwies^ each containing from 1200 to 1500 
 bodies, were laid bare. 
 
 Page 54, n. 17. — A note of the author, which, 
 however, does not appear in the first edition of 
 the " Hydriotaphia," explains that the Cariola is 
 that part in the skeleton of a horse which is 
 made by the haunch-bones. The term seems to 
 be Italian. In Florio's " Italian and English 
 Dictionary," 1659, Cariolaor Carriola is defined 
 to mean "a trundle-bed . . . also the root or 
 rumpe of a horse's taile." Cotgrave, in his 
 " French Dictionary," gives Cariol and Cariole 
 as "the root of a horse's tayle, or the bone 
 thereof ; the rumpe bone." 
 
 Page 56, n. 18. — The valley between Jeru- 
 salem and the Mount of Olives is supposed to 
 have received the name of Jehoshaphat from the 
 King of Judah of that name. There is, however, 
 no evidence that the valley which was known as 
 that of Kedron obtained this designation before 
 the fourth century of the Christian era. 
 
 Page 61, n. 19. — "Hominempriusquam genito 
 dente cremari mos gentium non est " (Plin., 
 "Hist. Nat.," vii., 16). 
 
 ' ' terr4 clauditur infans 
 
 Et minor igne rogi " (Juv., Sat., xv., 14b), 
 
 Page 82, n. 20. — This is the epitaph of 
 Gordian III,, recorded by Julius Capitohnus as 
 having been placed on his tomb by the soldiery 
 of Philip, and as having been destroyed by 
 Licinius. 
 
 Page 84, n. 21. — In connexion with this, 
 Mr. Edward Marshall, in " Notes and Queries," 
 August 13th, 1892, p. 123, calls attention to a 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. IO9 
 
 passage in Jeremy Taylor, who writes with regard 
 to the death of Bassus Aufidius, " And therefore 
 his last scene was not so laborious, but God called 
 him away something after the manner of Moses, 
 which the Jews express by * oscuhmi oris Dei,' 
 ' the kiss of God's mouth,' that is, a death indeed 
 foresignified, but gentle and serene, and without 
 temptation." Mr. Marshall also cites some other 
 passages relating to the death of Moses by the 
 kisses of the Lord's mouth. 
 
 Page 85, n. 22.— See Evelyn's "Diary," 
 1st April, 1644, "Here I took a turn in St. 
 Innocents' Churchyard, where the story of the 
 devouring quahty of the ground (consuming 
 bodies in twenty-four hours), the vast chamels 
 of bones, tombs, pyramids and sepulchres took 
 up much of my time." 
 
 Page 93, n. 23. — Red-glazed ware, commonly 
 called " Samian," has been found in London 
 bearing the mark, CRACVNA. F. (Smith's 
 "Collectanea Antiqua," vol. i., p. 151). The F 
 probably stands for FECIT. 
 
 Page 97, n. 24. — It is hard to understand 
 what this " Observable Piece of Work " may 
 have been. Possibly the remains of a hypo- 
 caust were found, and the holes in the wall of 
 burnt clay may have been flues for heated air. 
 
 Page 99, n. 25. — The author was in error in 
 supposing that the radiate crown was always 
 significant of a coin with the head of the emperor 
 thus decorated having been struck after his 
 death. From the days of Nero onwards, em- 
 perors often assumed this crown upon their 
 coins, probably as claiming some of the attri- 
 butes of Apollo or the Sun. Tribonianus is a 
 misprint for Trebonianus. 
 
CHISWICK PRESS :—CHAKI.ES WHITTINGHAM ANU CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 
 (510)642-6753 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to NRLF 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 OCT 2 5 1994 
 
 SEP 1 ^ 1998 
 
 LD21A-10m-8,'73 
 (R1902S10)476 — A-31 
 
 General Library 
 
 Uoiveriity of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
y.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CD3S312t,ST 
 
m