130 DR CLARKE ON THK YEW-TREE. 



what they will), that the thought of interment in the choked-up 

 charnel-house of the to^vn, throws an additional hoiTor over death. 

 That this is no idle fancy, let ** the Minstrel" answer, — 



•' Mine be the breezy hill which skirts the down. 

 Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, 

 With here and there a violet bestrewn, 

 Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave, 

 And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave." 



The poet Shelley, too, when attending the remains of his friend 

 Keats to the Protestant cemeteiy at Rome, gave utterance to 

 kindred feelings, when he said, " It is almost enough to make one 

 in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet 

 a place." After his own untimely deatli — the more untimely, as 

 liis genius gave promise that its more ample scope and matured 

 strength would, like the breath of Heaven, have dissipated the 

 doubts and eiTors that clouded its dawn — his ashes, in accordance 

 with the wish thus accidentally expressed, were also there interred. 

 In the olden time, ere the study of natural science had put to 

 flight the marvels of ignorance, it -was a graceful superstition 

 which taught that flowers, emblematical of innocence and purity, 

 sprung naturally, and with a sort of spontaneity, from the body 

 which lay mouldering beneath. Thus, at the obsequies of poor 

 Ophelia, Laertes exclaims, — 



" Lay her i' the earth, 

 And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 

 May violets spring." 



Hence arose the custom, still so universal on the Continent, of 

 planting flowers on graves, and which, though almost gone into 

 desuetude with us, we learn from Cymbeline was formerly prac- 

 tised. 



•* With fairest flowers, 

 Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 

 I'll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack 

 The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose ; uor 

 The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 

 Outsweeten'd not thy breath ; the redbreast would, 

 With charitable bill, bring thee all this- - 

 Yea, and fern moss besides, when flowers are none, 

 To winter-ground thy corse." 



