pus in the Shades. He was shown Hyacinthus and Narcissus, and Helen and Leda. We, too, remembering those who once lived with us may be moved here to ask the same question, and when shown the spot not to answer cynically, like him, ὀστᾶ μόνον ὁρῶ, καὶ κρανία, τῶν σαρκῶν γυμνὰ, ὅμοια τὰ πολλά, but to believe that their beauty is now glorified and eternal. It is related of Luca Signorelli, that he had a son killed in Cortona, a youth of singular comeliness in face and person, whom he tenderly loved. In his deep grief, the father caused his child to be stript naked, and with extraordinary constancy of soul, uttering no complaint and shedding no tear, painted his portrait, to the end that he might still have the power of contemplating, by means of the work of his own hands, that which nature had given him, but which an adverse fortune had taken away. Even so would those persons gaze here, painting in their imagination the fair blue eyes, the dark or flaxen curls, the graceful form of those whom they loved dearer than all things else in life. Ah, how many poor lovers would they trace lying side by side perhaps ! "Such thousands of shut eyes in order placed; This visiting of places where some of the departed may be even hovering near, has a natural attraction, and seems justified by the sense of the people still acquiescing in the ancient opinion that the souls of men, on being disengaged from the bodies, passing into a middle state, which implies, perhaps, not a place, but a condition of desiring, longing, asking, and praying, may not be far removed from the earth, which they can revisit, drawn by affection and the memory of the past. Popular and philosophic views seem to agree in favouring the opinion that as even here our spirits are where our thoughts and affections are, so may be our souls after leaving the body, as the old Greek says, though without meriting his ridicule, ἐκείνων μεμνημένοι τῶν ἄνω, since, as he represents them saying of themselves, καὶ ἀποθανόντες ἔτι μέμνηνται καὶ περιέχονται τῶν ἄνω. Who can disprove that the dead may sometimes also break through the boundaries that hem in the ethereal crowds; and, as if by trespass, in single instances infringe upon the ground of common corporeal life? In all ages of the world it has been thought that they retain their personality, their human form, and their interest in those who had been dear to them on earth, that they mourn over duties neglected and errors committed; and that they sometimes seek through the instrumentality of the living to repair injuries. But, as a modern author says, "What is in some countries generally called the religious world, is so engrossed by its struggles for power and money, or by its sectarian disputes and enmities, and so narrowed and circumscribed by what it deems dogmatic orthodoxies, that it has neither inclination nor liberty to turn back or look around, and endeavour to gather up from past records and present observation, such hints as are now and again dropt in our path to give us an intimation of what the truth may be." Central principles, then, have this immense attraction, that they sanction what mankind has always believed, and is still inclined to believe, on this head, and that they keep alive, at least by a yearly commemoration, the recollection of our deceased friends. Catholics have the day of All Souls-to the dead they believe devoutly, and to the living they visibly perceive, affording an immense consolation. Then upon "A dreary morning they take this way Into the breezy clouds, to weep and pray." The path is still as the grave; men can recollect themselves, "The dead are in their silent graves, Over dust that once was love *." * Hood. Mark that youth of fair but melancholy countenance, courteous in manners, yet proud and solitary. He seems lost in thought. If you would speak, he soon turns away and disappears among the tombs. It is some poet, some other Guido Cavalcanti, the bosom friend of Dante, who used to be so much alone among the marble sepulchres about the Church of St. John. Look again at that pale mourner with clasped hands standing by a fresh grave. She seems to be saying, "I weep-my tears revive him not! I sigh-he breathes no more on me ; His mute and uncomplaining lot Caligula's saying, implying a disregard for all memorial of the dead ἐμοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί, argues an unnatural as well as selfish disposition of mind. As we observed already, the desire of a tomb, whatever Diogenes might say, forms even a distinctive attribute of our nature, Catholicism, however, once escaped from the catacombs, taught men to prefer the green earth to any vaulted solitude of Egyptian art; and in fact, to nature's eye also, as Cyrus said, the ground which produces flowers and fruits constitutes the most magnificent of all sepulchres. Neither Cyrus, nor Alexander, nor Cæsar had a tomb-in the sense of heathen or of Jewish antiquity. During the middle ages, it is true, men were frequently entombed in vaults beneath the sacred edifices; Constantine the Great chose to be buried thus in the church of the Twelve Apostles, in order as he said to have part after his death in the prayers of the faithful offered there†; which however he might have had without taking such steps to secure them; but the general practice of the early Church was different. The Jews always buried their dead without the city, except those of the family of David. The Romans placed the sepulchres of the most illustrious houses, as those of the Metelli, Claudii, Scipios, Servilii, and Valerii along the highways, which thence derived their names of the Via Aurelia, Flaminia, Lucilia, Appia, Laviniana, and Julia. In the environs of ancient Rome there were more than forty cemeteries, the names of which ecclesiastical history has preserved. Burial out of cities was an obligation upon the three nations who composed the primitive church, and the early Christians followed that wise practice. It was deemed criminal to allow the dead to be buried under churches ; and • Shelley. + De Vit. Constant. iv. 60. ‡ Marten, de Antiq. Monac. Rit. v. c. 10. St. Chrysostom says cemeteries should be always placed beyond the gates of cities. The Christian emperors censured and prohibited burial within cities *. Theodosius the Great, in his celebrated constitution called the Theodosian Code, renewed preceding edicts, and on sanitary grounds forbade the interment of the dead in the interior of cities. The ancient ecclesiastical constitution and the bulls of the popes all concurred to preserve towns and churches from being invaded by the dead; but in the sixth century, abuses relative to sepulchres being very prevalent, not only synods but even councils endeavoured to abolish them, and to restore the ancient discipline of the Church. The council of Bracar and that of Auxerre published celebrated canons on this head. Charlemagne lent all the force of his influence and of his laws to promote the same end; Theodolphus at that time having complained that the churches of France had almost become cemeteries. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, followed in endeavouring wholly to eradicate the abuse by cutting off all possibility of its being favourable to the material interest of the clergy. The councils of Meaux, of Nantes, and of Tribur, and Erasdus, archbishop of Tours, required the adoption of the same measures. Interment in churches was in fact prohibited by almost every council held in France, and in accordance with the capitularies which declare " Nullus in ecclesia mortuus sepeliatur." The Bishop of Avranches in 1600, of St. Malo in 1620, of Lizieux in 1650, of La Rochelle in 1655, of Chalons in 1661, of Amiens in 1662, of Orleans in 1664, of Aleth in 1670, of Cahors in 1673, of Senez in 1673, of Grenoble in 1690, of Noyon in 1691, of Soissons in 1700, and of Rouen in 1721, promulgated ordinances against burial in churches or towns. The most remarkable, perhaps, of all these statutes was that of De Lomenie de Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, created a cardinal by Pope Pius VI., in which the learned and eloquent prelate, after speaking of the duty of attending to the public health, makes the remark that "such is the harmony always existing between religion and sound policy, that what is acknowledged as decorous and useful by the one, is also commanded and prescribed by the other." In fine, the royal decrees of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. concurring with these ecclesiastical enactments, a total end was put to burials within churches and cities in France; and cemeteries were established beyond the gates of cities, as in primitive times. Catholicism thus evinces its affinity with what social legislation now endeavours to enforce, providing for all cities those public cemeteries which are recommended by the Church, both on grounds of respect for ancient discipline, and of regard for the health of the living, which * Van Epsen, T. N. sect. 4, tit. 7, c. 2. latter motive alone had induced the two celebrated physicians, Simon Pierre, of Paris, and Verbeyen, of Louvain, to order themselves to be interred under the open sky, as was attested on their epitaphs. This custom, too, seems to form an attraction in regard to the natural sentiment of men, which, as we observed above, if left to itself, would recoil from those mediæval crypts, those dreary caverns in which so many of noble races were inurned. That custom, as we have seen, originating, it is true, in a pious though not well-directed mind, was merely an abuse which frequently was maintained in consequence of interests that are entitled to no respect; and Catholicism, in reprobating and abrogating it, presents itself again favourably to the notice of all observers whose attention is called to this point of view. In fact, besides that the plan of a public cemetery is essentially Christian, which it undoubtedly is, since at no Pagan time were there universal burial places for all classes, but each rich family had its own spot, while only the slaves and the poor had their burial ground in common, there is something agreeable to the heart and soothing to the imagination in the thought of being inhumed under the canopy of heaven with the common people, so that those persons whom perhaps in life we could only be friends with secretly, though most entitled to affection as being unlike even in social position, the vain, affected, supercilious rich, who cannot even attain to the native grace and propriety of mien which so often distinguish the lowly, may find our grave, when visiting the resting-place of their own humble relatives. Perhaps, too, even on religious grounds, it is well to be buried near the penitents of the world, as Lacordaire calls them, near the common people, near those who knew what was hardship, and what was practical, cheerful humility; what it was to work for their daily bread, and to take the last place in public, and who were familiar with all the devices to which the lower classes are obliged to have recourse for their recreation, for their decent appearance abroad, and even for their subsistence. But, independent of all such considerations, one may repeat it, rather than choose the grim solitude of those dismal vaults, repulsive, in spite of philosophy and ancestral pride, to every beholder, every poet, at least, we may believe would prefer being buried in a garden like a public cemetery, with "Two grey stones at the head and feet, Lucian represents some one in the shades laughing at Mausolus for boasting of his own great monument, which, however the Halicarnassians might like as a magnificent object to show to strangers, could only affect him as so much dead weight placed over his remains. "I cannot see," he says, "what advantage |