securing them from profanation, and themselves from the liability of catching infection from those who had died of contagious disorders.

The Romans prohibited burning or burying in the city, both from a sacred and civil consideration, that the priests might not be contaminated by touching a dead body, and that houses might not be endangered by the frequency of funeral fires.

The custom of burning the dead had its foundation laid deep in nature: an anxious fondness to preserve the great and good, the dear friend and the near relative, was the sole motive that prevailed in the institution of this solemnity. "That seems to me," says Cicero, "to have been the most ancient kind of burial, which, according to Xenophon, was used by Cyrus. For the body is returned to the earth, and so placed as to be covered with the veil of its mother." Pliny also agrees with Cicero upon this point, and says the custom of burial preceded that of burning among the Romans. According to Monfauçon, the custom of burning entirely ceased at Rome about the time of Theodorius the younger. When cremation ceased on the introduction of Christianity, the believing Romans, together with the Romanized and converted Britons, would necessarily, as it is observed by Mr. Grough, "betake themselves to the use of sarcophagi (or coffins,) and probably of various kinds, stone, marble, lead," &c. They would likewise now first place the body in a position due east and west, and thus bestow an unequivocal mark of distinction between the funeral deposit of the earliest Roman inhabitants of this island, and their Christian successors. The usual places of interment were in fields or gardens,⁴ near the highway, to be conspicuous, and to remind the passengers how transient everything is, that wears the garb of mortality. By this means, also, they saved the best part of their land:

The Romans commonly built tombs for themselves during their lifetime. Hence these words frequently occur in ancient inscriptions, V.F. Vivus Facit, V.S.P. Vivus Sibi Posuit. The tombs of the rich were usually constructed of marble, the ground enclosed with walls, and planted round with trees. But common sepulchres were usually built below ground, and called hypogea. There were niches cut out of the walls, in which the urns were placed: these, from their resemblance to the niche of a pigeon-house, were called columbaria.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PREPARATIONS FOR A JOURNEY.

I am fond of travelling: yet I never undertake a journey without experiencing a vague feeling of melancholy. There is to me something strangely oppressive in the preliminaries of departure. The packing of a small valise; the settlement of accounts—justly pronounced by Rabelais a blue-devilish process; the regulation of books and papers;—in short, the whole routine of valedictory arrangements, are to me as a nightmare on the waking spirit. They induce a mood of last wills and testaments—a sense of dislocation, which, next to a vacuum, Nature abhors—and create a species of moral decomposition, not unlike that effected on matter by chemical agency. It is not that I have to lament the disruption of social connexions or domestic ties. This, I am aware, is a trial sometimes borne with exemplary fortitude; and I was lately edified by the magnanimous unconcern with which a married friend of mine sang the last verse of "Home! sweet home!" as the chaise which was to convey him from the burthen of his song drove up to the door. It does not become a bachelor to speculate on the mysteries of matrimonial philosophy; but the feeling of pain with which I enter on the task of migration has no affinity with individual sympathies, or even with domiciliary attachments. My landlady is, without exception, the ugliest woman in London; and the locality of Elbow-lane cannot be supposed absolutely to spellbind the affection of one occupying, as I do, solitary chambers on the third floor.

The case, it may be supposed, is much worse when it is my lot to take leave, after passing a few weeks at the house of a friend in the country;—a house, for instance, such as is to be met with only in England:—with about twenty acres of lawn, but no park; with a shrubbery, but no made-grounds; with well-furnished rooms, but no conservatory; and with a garden, in which dandy tulips and high-bred anemones do not disdain the fellowship of honest artichokes and laughing cauliflowers—no bad illustration of the republican union of comfort with elegance which reigns through the whole establishment. The master of the mansion, perhaps an old and valued schoolfellow:—his wife, a well-bred, accomplished, and still beautiful woman—cordial, without vulgarity—refined, without pretension—and informed, without a shade of blue! Their children!... But my reader will complete the picture, and imagine, better than I can describe, how one of my temperament must suffer at quitting such a scene. At six o'clock on the dreaded morning, the friendly old butler knocks at my room-door, to warn me that the mail will pass in half an hour at the end of the green lane. On descending to the parlour, I find that my old friend has, in spite of our over-night agreement and a slight touch of gout, come down to see me off. His amiable lady is pouring out for me a cup of tea—assuring me that she would be quite unhappy at allowing me to depart without that indispensable prelude to a journey. A gig waits at the door: my affectionate host will not permit me to walk even half a mile. The minutes pass unheeded; till, with a face of busy but cordial concern, the old butler reminds me that the mail is at hand. I bid a hasty and agitated farewell, and turn with loathing to the forced companionship of a public vehicle.

My anti-leave-taking foible is certainly not so much affected when I quit the residence of an hotel—that public home—that wearisome resting-place—that epitome of the world—that compound of gregarious incompatibilities—that bazaar of character—that proper resort of semi-social egotism and unamalgable individualities—that troublous haven, where the vessel may ride and tack, half-sheltered, but finds no anchorage. Yet even the Lilliputian ligatures of such a sojourn imperceptibly twine round my lethargic habits, and bind me, Gulliver-like, a passive fixture. Once, in particular, I remember to have stuck at the Hôtel des Bons Enfants, in Paris—a place with nothing to recommend it to one of ordinary locomotive energies. But there I stuck. Business of importance called me to Bordeaux. I lingered for two months. At length, by one of those nervous efforts peculiar to weak resolutions, I made my arrangements, secured my emancipation, and found myself on the way to the starting-place of the Diligence. I well remember the day: 'twas a rainy afternoon in spring. The aspect of the gayest city in the world was dreary and comfortless. The rain dripped perpendicularly from the eves of the houses, exemplifying the axiom, that lines are composed of a succession of points. At the corners of the streets it shot a curved torrent from the projecting spouts, flooding the channels, and drenching, with a sudden drum-like sound, the passing umbrellas, whose varied tints of pink, blue, and orange, like the draggled finery of feathers and flounces beneath them, only made the scene more glaringly desolate. Then came the rush and splatter of cabriolets, scattering terror and defilement. The well-mounted English dandy shows his sense by hoisting his parapluie; the