of luxuries, and they will follow in due time: but grass and gravel
are the foundation of rustic neatness and tidiness.

As for the treatise on Burning the Dead, it is interesting
and eloquent, though I am well convinced that its author has been
putting forih labour in vain. I remember the consternation with
which I read the advertisements announcing its publication. I made
sure that it must be the production of one of those wrong-headed
individuals who are always proposing preposterous things, without
end or meaning. Why on earth should we take to burning the dead?
What is to be gained by recurring to a heathen rite, repudiated by
the early Christians, who, as Sir Thomas Browne tells us, 'stickt
not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives, but detested
that mode after death?' And wherefore do anything so horrible, and
so suggestive of cruelty and sacrilege, as to consign to devouring
flames even the unconscious remains of a departed friend? But after
reading the essay, I feel that the author has a great deal to say
in defence of his views. I am obliged to acknowledge that in many
cases important benefits would follow the adoption of urn-sepulture.
The question to be considered is, what is the best way to dispose
of the mortal part of man when the soul has left it? A first
suggestion might be to endeavour to preserve it in the form and
features of life; and, accordingly, in many countries and ages,
embalming in its various modifications has been resorted to. But
all attempts to prevent the human frame from obeying the Creator's
law of returning to the elements have miserably failed. And surely
it is better a thousand times to 'bury the dead from our sight,'
than to preserve a hideous and revolting mockery of the beloved
form. The Egyptian mummies every one has heard of; but the most
remarkable instance of embalming in recent times is that of the