OR THE BURNING OF THE DEAD. 91 
had a law, that no one should build a house without providing 
a repository for his dead*. The disastrous consequences of 
this unnatural approximation, as they were strangers to the art 
of embalming, might be felt for a considerable time, before in- 
dividuals could find it possible to release themselves from the 
fetters of custom, strengthened by superstition. But as men 
advanced in civilization, this strange practice would become 
matter of cognisance to those whose office obliged them to 
watch over the public weal; and we may naturally enough 
suppose, that the prohibition of domestic sepulture would be 
an intermediate step between the observation of this custom, 
and the enactment of that law which forbade the Romans ei- 
ther to bury, or to burn, the bodies of the dead within the city. 
It may be observed by the way, indeed, that they, with many 
other ancient nations, as well as the Chinese, have manifested 
much more common sense and delicacy in -this respect than 
the nations of modern Europe, notwithstanding their boasted 
refinement. 
2. Those who wished to preserve the remains of the dead as 
long as possible, in token of regard for their memory, might 
prefer this mode to inhumation. Knowing that, in conse- 
quence of interment in the common way, the bones themselves 
gradually moulder into dust, till every vestige of the person be 
lost, they might in some instances adopt the plan of calcina- 
tion, as a means of partially preserving them. There can be no 
doubt that this was the most eligible mode, where embalming 
was not used, when it was meant to transport the remains of the 
dead from one place to another. As the Greeks ascribe the 
- introduction of cremation 'to Hercurss, they in effect assign, as 
the reason of his burning the body of Arerus, that he was un- 
M2 der 
* * V. Porrer’s Archeol. ii. p, 218. Lond. edit. 1751. 
