Religio medici : to which is added, Hydriotaphia; or, Urn-burial; a discourse on sepulchral urns / by Sir Thomas Browne ; with a preliminary discourse and notes, by J.A. St. John. 1841.

Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.

Date:: 1838

Credit: Religio medici : to which is added, Hydriotaphia; or, Urn-burial; a discourse on sepulchral urns / by Sir Thomas Browne ; with a preliminary discourse and notes, by J.A. St. John. 1841. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$was so severe that they allowed no gold to attend the corpse, but only that which served to fasten their teeth. (60) Whether the opaline stone in this urn were burnt upon the finger of the dead, or cast into the fire by some affectionate friend, it will consist with either custom. But other incinerable sub- stances were found so fresh that they could feel no singe from fire. These, upon view, were judged to be wood, but sinking in water, and tried by the fire we found them to be bone, or ivory. In their hardness and yellow colour they most resemble box, which in old expressions found the epithet of eternal, (81) and perhaps in such conservatories might have passed uncorrupted. That bay-leaves were found green in the tomb of St. Humbert, after a hundred and fifty years, was looked upon as miraculous. (8*) Remarkable it was unto old spectators, that the cypress of the it freed children and friends from the painful necessity of pulling out of the heads of their deceased parents such false teeth as they might have made use of during life. For old people among the Romans supplied lost teeth with ivory ones, which were fastened in the head with gold. DeFuner. Rom. III. 14. Conf. Mart. Epig. I. 73. However, the Decemviral laws fell, as I have said, into desuetude, and people buried what they pleased with the dead, rich garments, gold, and money of every kind. Terent. in Prol. Eunuch.—Plaut. in Pseud. Act. I. sc. 4. The practice, as might have been expected, gave rise to a class of resurrection-men, called rvfi(3opvxoi by the Greeks, (Synes. Epist. 143.) who sub- sisted, as many do in England, by plundering the grave.—Ed. (80) ^ Tabul. 1. xi. de Jure sacro. Neve aurum addito. Quoi auro dentes vincti esunt, ast im cum olio sepelire et urere, se fraude esto. xx. et xxi. (81) Plin. 1. xvi. inter %u\a aacnrij numerat Theophrastus. (82) Surius. Q$