To be knav'd out of our graves, to have our skulls
made drinking-bowls, and our bones turned into pipes,
to delight and sport our enemies, are tragical abomina-
tions escaped in burning burials.
Urnal interments and burnt relicks lie not in fear of
worms, or to be an heritage for serpents. In carnal
sepulture, corruptions seem peculiar unto parts; and
some speak of snakes out of the spinal marrow. But
while we suppose common worms in graves, 'tis not
easy to find any there; few in churchyards 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 hydropical body, ten
years buried in the churchyard, we met with a fat con-
cretion, 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 Castile soap,
whereof part remaineth with us.<4> After a battle with
the Persians, the Roman corpses decayed in few days,
while the Persian bodies remained dry and uncorrupted.
Pages:
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240