In the church I have mentioned there is an inscription importing that a
king James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who came with more than
princely gallantry to escort his bride home--stood there, and heard
divine service.

There is a little recess full of coffins, which contains bodies embalmed
long since--so long, that there is not even a tradition to lead to a
guess at their names.

A desire of preserving the body seems to have prevailed in most countries
of the world, futile as it is to term it a preservation, when the noblest
parts are immediately sacrificed merely to save the muscles, skin, and
bone from rottenness. When I was shown these human petrifactions, I
shrank back with disgust and horror. "Ashes to ashes!" thought I--"Dust
to dust!" If this be not dissolution, it is something worse than natural
decay--it is treason against humanity, thus to lift up the awful veil
which would fain hide its weakness. The grandeur of the active principle
is never more strongly felt than at such a sight, for nothing is so ugly
as the human form when deprived of life, and thus dried into stone,
merely to preserve the most disgusting image of death. The contemplation
of noble ruins produces a melancholy that exalts the mind. We take a
retrospect of the exertions of man, the fate of empires and their rulers,
and marking the grand destruction of ages, it seems the necessary change
of the leading to improvement. Our very soul expands, and we forget our
littleness--how painfully brought to our recollection by such vain
attempts to snatch from decay what is destined so soon to perish. Life,
what art thou? Where goes this breath?--this _I_, so much alive? In
what element will it mix, giving or receiving fresh energy? What will
break the enchantment of animation? For worlds I would not see a form I
loved--embalmed in my heart--thus sacrilegiously handled? Pugh! my
stomach turns. Is this all the distinction of the rich in the grave?
They had better quietly allow the scythe of equality to mow them down
with the common mass, than struggle to become a monument of the
instability of human greatness.

The teeth, nails, and skin were whole, without appearing black like the
Egyptian mummies; and some silk, in which they had been wrapped, still
preserved its colour--pink--with tolerable freshness.

I could not learn how long the bodies had been in this state, in which
they bid fair to remain till the Day of Judgment, if t