copy the Roman inscriptions, which
were engraven on stones by the highway, and composed by those who
generally reflected on mortality only to excite in themselves and others
a quicker relish of pleasure, and a more luxurious enjoyment of life,
and whose regard for the dead extended no farther than a wish that "the
earth might be light upon them."

All allusions to the heathen mythology are, therefore, absurd, and all
regard for the senseless remains of a dead man impertinent and
superstitious. One of the first distinctions of the primitive
Christians, was their neglect of bestowing garlands on the dead, in
which they are very rationally defended by their apologist in Manutius
Felix. "We lavish no flowers nor odours on the dead," says he, "because
they have no sense of fragrance or of beauty." We profess to reverence
the dead, not for their sake, but for our own. It is, therefore, always
with indignation or contempt that I read the epitaph on Cowley, a man
whose learning and poetry were his lowest merits.

Aurea dum late volitant tua scripta per orbem,
Et fama eternum vivis, divine poeta,
Hic placida jaceas requie, custodiat urnam
Cana fides, vigilenique perenni lampade muse!
Sit sacer ille locus, nec quis temerarius ausit
Sacrilega turbare manu venerabile bustum.
Intacti maneant, maneant per saecula dulces
COWLEII cineres, serventque immobile saxum.

To pray that the ashes of a friend may lie undisturbed, and that the
divinities that favoured him in his life may watch for ever round him,
to preserve his tomb from violation, and drive sacrilege away, is only
rational in him who believes the soul interested in the repose of the
body, and the powers which he invokes for its protection able to
preserve it. To censure such expressions, as contrary to religion, or as
remains of heathen superstition, would be too great a degree of
severity. I condemn them only as uninstructive and unaffecting, as too
ludicrous for reverence or grief, for Christianity and a temple.

That the designs and decorations of monuments ought, likewise, to be
formed with the same regard to the solemnity of the place, cannot be
denied; it is an established principle, that all ornaments owe their
beauty to their propriety. The same glitter of dress, that adds graces
to gaiety and youth, would make age and dignity contemptible. Charon
with his boat is far from heightening the awful grandeur of the
universal judgment, though drawn by A