That they poured oil upon the pyre, was a tolerable
practice, while the intention rested in facilitating the
ascension. But to place good omens in the quick and
speedy burning, to sacrifice unto the winds for a
despatch in this office, was a low form of supersti-
tion.
The archimime, or jester, attending the funeral train,
and imitating the speeches, gesture, and manners of the
deceased, was too light for such solemnities, contradict-
ing their funeral orations and doleful rites of the
grave.
That they buried a piece of money with them as a fee
of the Elysian ferryman, was a practice full of folly.
But the ancient custom of placing coins in considerable
urns, and the present practice of burying medals in the
noble foundations of Europe, are laudable ways of his-
torical discoveries, in actions, persons, chronologies;
and posterity will applaud them.
We examine not the old laws of sepulture, exempting
certain persons from burial or burning. But hereby we
apprehend that these were not the bones of persons
planet-struck or burnt with fire from heaven; no relicks
of traitors to their country, self-killers, or sacrilegious
malefactors; persons in old apprehension unworthy of the
earth; condemned unto the Tartarus of hell, and bottom-
less pit of Pluto, from whence there was no redemp-
tion.
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