Some of the Orinoco tribes were in the practice of tying a rope to the corpse, and sinking it in the river; in twenty-four hours, it was picked clean to the bones, by the fishes, and the skeleton became a very convenient and tidy memorial. This is decidedly preferable to the mode, adopted by the Parsees. Their sacred books enjoin them not to pollute earth, water, or fire, with their dead. They therefore feel authorized to pollute the air. They bury not; but place the corpses at a distance, and leave them to their fate. It was the opinion of Menu, that the body was a tenement, scarcely worth inhabiting; “a mansion,” says he, “with bones for beams and rafters—nerves and tendons for cords; muscles and blood for mortar; skin for its outward covering; a mansion, infested by age and sorrow, the seat of many maladies, harassed with pains, haunted with darkness, and utterly incapable of standing long—such a mansion let the vital soul, its tenant, always quit cheerfully.”
This contempt for the tabernacle—the carcass—the outer man—strangely contrasts with that deep regard for it, evinced by the Egyptians, and such of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, as were in the practice of embalming. When that extraordinary man, Sir Thomas Browne, exclaimed, in his Hydriotaphia, “who knows the fate of his bones or how oft he shall be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?” he, doubtless, was thinking of Egyptian mummies, transported to Europe, forming a part of the materia medica, and being actually swallowed as physic. A writer, in the London Quarterly, vol. 21, p. 363, states, that, when the old traveller, John Sanderson, returned to England, six hundred pounds of mummies were brought home, for the Turkey Company. I am aware, that it has been denied, by some, that the Egyptian mummies were broken up, and sent to Europe, for medicinal uses. By them it is asserted, that what the druggists have been supplied with is the flesh of executed criminals, or such others, as the Jews can obtain, filled with bitumen, aloes and other things, and baked, till the juices are exhaled, and the embalming matter has fitted the body for transportation. The Lord deliver us from such “doctors’ stuff” as this.
No. XXXIX.
Non sumito, nisi vocatus: let no man presume to be an undertaker, unless he have a vocation—unless he be called. If these are not the words of Puddifant, to whom I shall presently refer, I have no other conjecture to offer. Though, when a boy, I had a sort of hankering after dead men’s bones, as I have already related, I never felt myself truly called to be a sexton, until June, 1799. It was in that month and year, that Governor Sumner was buried. The parade was very great, not only because he had been a Governor, but because he had been a very good man. All the sextons were on duty, but Lutton, as we called him—his real name was Lemuel Ludden. He was the sexton of the Old Brick, where my parents had worshipped, under dear parson Clarke, who died, the year before. He had the cleverest way, that man ever had, of winning little boys’ hearts—he really seemed to have the key to their little souls. Lutton was sick—he was not able to officiate, on that memorable day; and no recently appointed ensign ever felt such a privation more keenly, on the very day of battle. He was a whole-souled sexton, that Lutton. He, most obligingly, took me into the Old Brick Church, where Joy’s buildings now stand, to see the show. There was a half-crazy simpleton, whom it was difficult to prevent from capering before the corpse—a perfect Davie Gelatly. An awkward boy, whose name was Reuben Rankin, came from Salem, with a small cart-load of pies, which his mother had baked, and sent to Boston, hoping for a ready sale, upon the occasion of such an assemblage there. Like Grouchy, at Waterloo, he lost his tète; followed the procession, through every street; and returned to Salem, with all his wares.
It was, while contemplating the high satisfaction, beaming forth, upon the features of the chief undertaker, that I first felt my vocation. I ventured, timidly, to ask old Lutton, if he thought I had talents for the office. He said, he thought I might succeed, clapped me on the shoulder, and gave me a smile of encouragement, which I never shall forget, till my poor old arm can wield a spade no more, and the sod, which I have so frequently turned upon others, shall be turned upon me.
Old Grossman said, in my hearing, the following morning, that it had been the proudest day of his life. It is very pardonable, for an undertaker, on such occasions, to imagine himself the observed of all observers. This fancy is, by no means, confined to undertakers. Chief mourners of both sexes are very liable to the same impression. An over-estimate of one’s own importance is pretty universal, especially in a republic. I never did go the length of believing the tale, related, by Peter, in his letter to his kinsfolk, who says he knew a Scotch weaver, who sat upon his stoop, and read the Edinburgh Review, till he actually thought he wrote it. I see nothing to smile at, in any man’s belief, that he is the object of public attention, on occasions of parade and pageantry. It rather indicates the deep interest of the individual—a solemn sense of responsibility. At the late water celebration, I noticed many examples of this species of personal enthusiasm. The drivers of the Oak Hall and Sarsaparilla expresses were no mean illustrations; and when three cheers were given to the elephant, near the Museum, in Tremont Street, I was pleased to see several of the officials, and one, at least, of the water commissioners, touch their hats, and smile most graciously, in return.
Puddifant, to whom I have alluded, officiated as sexton, at the funeral of Charles I. What a broad field, for painful contemplation, lies here! It is a curious fact, that, while preparations were being made, for depositing the body of King Charles in St. George’s Chapel, at Windsor, a common foot soldier is supposed to have stolen a bone from the coffin of Henry VIII., for the purpose of making a knife-handle. This account is so curious, that I give it entire from Wood’s Athenæ Oxonienses, folio edit. vol. ii., p. 703. “Those gentlemen, therefore, Herbert and Mildmay, thinking fit to submit, and leave the choice of the place of burial to those great persons, (the Duke of Richmond, Marquis of Hertford, and Earl of Lindsey) they, in like manner, viewed the tomb house and the choir; and one of the Lords, beating gently upon the pavement with his staff, perceived a hollow sound; and, thereupon ordering the stones to be removed, they discovered a descent into a vault, where two coffins were laid, near one another, the one very large, of an antique form, and the other little. These they supposed to be the bodies of Henry VIII., and his third wife, Queen Jane Seymour, as indeed they were. The velvet palls, that covered their coffins, seemed fresh, though they had lain there, above one hundred years. The Lords agreeing, that the King’s body should be in the same vault interred, being about the middle of the choir, over against the eleventh stall, upon the sovereign’s side, they gave orders to have the King’s name, and year he died, cut in lead; which, whilst the workmen were about, the Lords went out, and gave Puddifant, the sexton, order to lock the chapel door, and not suffer any to stay therein, till further notice.”
“The sexton did his best to clear the chapel; nevertheless, Isaac, the sexton’s man, said that a foot soldier had hid himself so as he was not discovered; and, being greedy of prey, crept into the vault, and cut so much of the velvet pall, that covered the great body, as he judged would hardly be missed, and wimbled a hole through the said coffin that was largest, probably fancying that there was something well worth his adventure. The sexton, at his opening the door, espied the sacrilegious person; who, being searched, a bone was found about him, with which he said he would haft a knife. The girdle or circumscription of capital letters of lead put upon the King’s coffin had only these words—King Charles, 1648.” This statement perfectly agrees with Sir Henry Halford’s account of the examination, April 1, 1813, in presence of the Prince Regent.
Cromwell had a splendid funeral: good old John Evelyn saw it