66 this reply, sublime as he wished it to be understood, Plato expresses the folly of erecting an over-costly and pompous monument; for he says, we must credit the legislator above all when he affirms that the soul is wholly distinct from the body, that in this life even it alone makes us what we are; that after death this soul departs to give an account of its actions as the law declares, to the good consoling, to the bad terrible-7 μèv ảyaðýš θαῤῥαλέον, τῷ δὲ κακῷ μάλα φοβερόν. That it is while alive, not after death, friends should have assisted the latter by endeavouring to make him lead a holy life—ὅπως ὅτι δικαιότατος ὢν καὶ doiwtatos ësŋ tε v. This being so, one ought not to impoverish one's house, supposing that this mass of flesh brought to the tomb is the person that was dear to us once; but a moderate expense in regard to this object of a tomb is better." The voice of Catholicism, while it concedes more to the popular idea, is no doubt in accordance with these sentences. Why seek so pompous a sepulchre," says Antonio de Guevara, addressing Princes. "It is a great shame for men noble and of high heart to see the end of your life, and never to see the end of your folly t." He returns to the subject, showing that state is not meet for those who dwell in dust. "I speak to the living," he says, " and I affirm that if those who are dead had leave to return to the world, they would occupy themselves more in correcting their sins and excesses than in adorning or rebuilding their sepulchres ;" and he reminds the great elsewhere that our Lord Himself had no tomb, and that therefore He was buried in a sepulchre which belonged to another. After all, do what you will to show respect and affection to the body, it will proclaim when left to itself its own nothingness. It is buried with the face upwards, as if it could hope or desire aught, but gravediggers declare that in the course of decomposition the face of every individual turns to the earth, and that after long experience they have known of but few instances to the contrary, The soul-the soul, with all the emotions of love which it dif fuses, that is what needs solicitude. Nevertheless, Catholicism comprises that religion of the tombs to which the ancient races have been ever faithful, and to which the austerest religious orders, including that to which Gue vara himself belonged, seem not insensible; as when Bucchius, mentioning the different disciples of St. Francis, begins by relating where each is buried. Thus, at Assissi, he says, lies such a brother, at Rome in the Ara Cœli such another, and so on §. In general, Catholicism, nourishing all kind memories, tends to De Legibus, xii. Liv. iii. 1252. + L'Horloge des Princes. § Lib. Aureus Conform. Vit. P. F. ad Vitam J. C. preserve an out-of-the-way knowledge of this kind in society. Vasari is careful to specify where every artist of whom he makes mention is interred, and it seems quite to distress him when he is unable to ascertain the place where the body of Fra Giocondo lies. Information like this would not have seemed frivolous to the ancients, for Strabo leads us to conclude that the knowledge essential to a geographer extends even to an acquaintance with the sites of the sepulchres of illustrious men*; and in effect, in his succinct description of all the regions of the earth, he finds place for specifying the spots where many tombs are situated, and sometimes he only distinguishes a city as being the place where some eminent man is buried †. But in modern times, if a nation be wholly uninfluenced by Catholicism, or the feelings emanating from it, few persons ever think of asking, unless in the case of some most eminent public man, where any one is buried; though, as if to shame this new form of humanity, there are instances of dogs, and even of tame ravens, evincing a knowledge of the spot where their benefactors have been interred, and repeatedly visiting it. The Benedictins of the congregation of St. Maur, it is true, had certain usages opposed to any distinction of monument for members of their own order; but when Mabillon died, it was no less solemn a voice than that of the sovereign pontiff which remonstrated against leaving his grave without a special tomb. Cardinal Colloredo, writing to Ruinart, describes the grief of Clement XI. on this occasion, and says, that the pope expressed his wish that so great a man might be buried in a distinct place, adding, "since all learned men who came to Paris would ask you-ubi posuistis eum? They would querulously lament," he said, "if they were told that his ashes were confused with others, and that no stone marked the precise spot where they lay." Catholicism, if we may judge from its action in the primitive and middle ages, would cause the erection of tombs to be an ordinary work of friendship. Bartolommeo Barbazzi, a gentleman of Bologna, having lost some friends during the pestilence of 1525, erected, we are told without any expression of surprise by his contemporary, at great expense, a sepulchral monument for them, employing the first artists to execute it. Vasari relates another instance, which draws from him an interesting observation. "Daniello Ricciarelli, the painter and sculptor of Volterra, coming to Florence, had brought with him from Rome," he says, a young pupil called Orazio Pianeti, an amiable and very clever youth; but this Orazio, whatever may have been the reason, no sooner arrived in Florence than he died, which circumstance caused his master, who loved him greatly, very heavy 66 * Lib. ii. + Lib. viii. sorrow. Being able, therefore, to do nothing more for this poor boy, he executed a beautiful bust of him in marble from a cast formed after death, and placed it with an epitaph on his grave; in this action proving himself to be a man of great goodness, and much more the friend of his friend than it is usual to find people now-a-days, seeing that there are but few who value any thing in friendship beyond their own convenience and profit." Such is the reflection of this amiable writer, who lived, we should take notice, at an epoch of transition in manners; but his remark continued long applicable, as subsequently such works were seldom thought to belong to common friendship. Pietro Perugino used to say that when it is fair weather a man must build his house that he may be under shelter when he needs it. So in their lives men were recommended, at a late period of our history, to provide a sepulchre ; as in truth, to cite the words of our Elizabethan play, "If a man did not erect in that age his own tomb ere he died, he would live no longer in monument than the bell rang and the widow weeped. There would be no trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones." Chateaubriand, in the island of St. Christopher at Venice, seeing some mean little tombs, with crosses only of wood, exclaims, “Lo! how the Venetians, whose ancestors repose in the mausoleums of Frari, and of Saints John and Paul, bury now their children. Society in widening has sunk; and democracy has invaded death." But such remarks are not to be too far extended or generalized; for the ancient sentiment respecting the duty of erecting tombs, and the Catholic practise, have so far revived throughout Europe. Every where are now raised sepulchral monuments, which argue that wise moderation and that religious respect which it is an object of Catholicism to inspire. We have, in fact, only to look on any side where we stand to witness proof: "Around me, marble tombs and columns riven So let us wander on, reading the names of those whom the sun by day will no longer burn, neither the moon by night; for here, my poor departed one, thou verifiest what would have been sung at the vespers of thy office, if thou hadst been so commemorated-" Per diem sol non uret te, neque luna per noctem." How wonderful is death! how eloquent the grave! Mabillon, in his Iter Italicum, relates that a certain Dutch missioner, named Albertus, from visiting the catacombs of Rome, was so moved that he renounced his errors, and flew to the Franciscans of strict observance, with whom he was then living as Brother Francis of Holland. "Quis docet hic mundi fastus calcare superbos? Putria humatorum graveolentibus ossa sepulchris.” True, in the catacombs are higher inspirations than can be derived elsewhere. Who is unmoved on reading such an inscription as that which Mabillon found there ? But without beholding the bones of the martyrs, there is still much Catholic instruction yielded by our common tombs! For, in the first place, they teach humility and acquiescence in the only equality which is attainable on earth. "The monuments of kings may show for them What they have been, but look upon their dust, And in our thoughts will equal them with kings." Again, they teach us to look upwards, and to have our ultimate hope elsewhere,-cœmeterii lectio mundi despectio; and so in ancient pictures, a man is shown contemplating a cemetery, and these lines are added, "Eia, sepulchreti ferales adspice campos !" We start false joys, and urge the devious race; Then sinks untimely, and defrauds the chace." The tombs teach us that before we can reach the true happiness we must take the road which leads to them. We have sought joy through every avenue. We feel that we are created for it. ̓Αλλ ̓ ἄλλην χρὴ πρῶτον ὁδὸν τελέσαι, καὶ ἱκέσθαι Iter Italic. vi. 136. +x. 491. Or, as another poet says, we must all wander far "In other regions, past the scanty bar Why it is thus, One knows in heav'n above." The insatiate eyes accordingly to heaven are directed, even there where the central light, that drew to it so many upon earth, has its bright source for ever. But to gain this infinite eternal centre man must imitate those who have struggled, and with resolute will vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains the icy chains of custom, and have shone. How audibly, then, are we taught many Catholic lessons for the conduct of life by looking down upon a grave thus! The grave," cries a London visitor, "buries every error-covers every defect-extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should have warred with the poor handful of dust that lies mouldering before him?" "Alas! no one 66 need fear him now; for all his braves, his contumelious breath; his frowns, though dagger-pointed, his quarrels, and that common fence, his law; see! see! they are all eat out; here's not left one." As with private, so is it in this place with public or national differences. "We lie all alike under the common sod," says Achilles, in the old dialogue of the dead, “and have no more animosities, so that neither do the Trojans fear me, nor the Greeks follow me as their leader." And yet the ancients represented some men as carrying enmity beyond the grave, choosing to be separated from their former antagonists, even in death. Mopsus and Amphilochus, coming from Troy, founded Mallus in Cilicia, and then the latter went to Argos, whence, not succeeding, he returned, and finding himself excluded, fought with Mopsus in a single combat, in which both were slain, and then they were so buried that from the tomb of the one that of the other could not be seen, and Strabo says that their sepulchres are still existing at Magarsa, near Pyramus *. What an ingenious device of hatred was this as expressed by the survivors! But let not the sweet tranquillity of this place be disturbed with such recollections: "Who hath not loiter'd in the verdant yard, * Lib. xiv. |