Bodies in the same ground do not uniformly dissolve, nor
bones equally moulder; whereof in the opprobrious
disease, we expect no long duration. The body of the
Marquis of Dorset* seemed sound and handsomely cere-
clothed, that after seventy-eight years was found uncor-
* Who was buried in 1530, and dug up in 1608, and found
perfect like an ordinary corpse newly interred.
rupted. Common tombs preserve not beyond powder:
a firmer consistence and compage of parts might be ex-
pected from arefaction, deep burial, or charcoal. The
greatest antiquities of mortal bodies may remain in
putrefied bones, whereof, though we take not in the
pillar of Lot's wife, or metamorphosis of Ortelius, some
may be older than pyramids, in the putrefied relicks of
the general inundation. When Alexander opened the
tomb of Cyrus, the remaining bones discovered his pro-
portion, whereof urnal fragments afford but a bad
conjecture, and have this disadvantage of grave inter-
ments, that they leave us ignorant of most personal dis-
coveries.
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