They burnt not children before their teeth appeared,
as apprehending their bodies too tender a morsel for
fire, and that their gristly bones would scarce leave
separable relicks after the pyral combustion. That they
kindled not fire in their houses for some days after was
a strict memorial of the late afflicting fire. And mourn-
ing without hope, they had an happy fraud against
excessive lamentation, by a common opinion that deep
sorrows disturb their ghosts.*
That they buried their dead on their backs, or in a
supine position, seems agreeable unto profound sleep,
and common posture of dying; contrary to the most
natural way of birth; nor unlike our pendulous
posture, in the doubtful state of the womb. Diogenes
was singular, who preferred a prone situation in
the grave; and some Christians+ like neither, who
decline the figure of rest, and make choice of an
erect posture.
That they carried them out of the world with their
* "Tu manes ne loede meos." + The Russians.
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