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    : All bend the knee or remove the hat as a funeral paste * * arid it will be readily confessed that , whether desirable or not , a procession on foot , followed by the officials of the chutch ill their rich and massive robes , lowly repeating the demise fotf the dead * has a more solemn aspect than the snug t ( turn dufc

    of a London undertaker . The bended knee is not only in re * spect to the departed , but also to the prayers of the church / whose functionaries form part of the procession ; but with ufc it is merely the affair of the undertaker , and as the mutes and other attendants trudge briskly along , discussing , perhaps , the profits of " the job , " or wrangling with the coachmen and

    footmen of the attendant carriages about the perquisites of gloves and hatbands , it is certainly not a cavalcade best calculated to command respect or elevate the feelings . I always force myself to these parallels between foreign customs and our own , thttf * 1 may avoid ever exclaiming , "how absurd ! " or , " ridiculoute !*' when witnessing foreign ceremonies ; and not with the mere view of disparaging our own , but to loosen the obstinate roots

    of prejudice sufficiently to enable me to form a fair judgment * In England there are po uncovered heads-or bended knees as the funeral train passes ; under similar circumstances the Englishman would not be more devoid of feeling than the Romans , but there is nothing in our funeral processions tp command the same momentary suspension of the affairs of life to pay a last tribute to the dead .

    When we approach the church the case is different ; none would stand unmoved in a village churchyard during the performance of our last solemn and impressive service , wHofte severe simplicity goes mote directly to the heart than the ? peal * jing organ and the glare of tapers , and all the gauds of tKe Romisn ritual . The following day I visited the Protestant cenietery of Rome , for the Santo Padre has accorded to the heretics a

    burial-place even within the walls of the holy city . There is not to me a more painful reflection than that of dying \ n a . foreign land , and 1 don ' t know a more melancholy occupation than reading upon tombs the names of the young and beautiful , who have travelled forth , full-of health and strength and

    gaiety , in search of pleasure , and found a grave . This brief but sad story is told by many inscriptions in the burial-ground afc Rome . The young artist , full of hope and ambition , and perhaps about to return to his native land , whither his brightening name had travelled back before him , lies beneath that stone . A youthful architect , martyr to his devotion to his art , pushing hia researches among the valuable ruins of an unwholesome district , met his death , which has given his name a pthie in this melancholy spot , the beautiful girl , whose hante Sa

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    BritSk Butying Gffimds . m

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1837, page 107, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1828/page/60/