DEATH. 



b'I5 



where there is no hope, these offices have the addi- 

 tional interest that they are the latest we can pay. 

 We have described how the violent struggle preced- 

 ing death manifests itself, particularly on the human 

 face, that tablet of all expression. After death, 

 however, it not unfrequently happens that the coun- 

 tenance regains its most natural expression, and the 

 saying is common " How natural, how like him- 

 self!" The mind seems for a moment to have 

 regained its influence over what it has so long in- 

 formed, and to shed over the countenance its most 

 beautiful light, to cheer the hearts of the friends who 

 have witnessed the distortion of death, and afford an 

 earnest of its own immortality. 



DEATH, CIVIL, is the entire loss of civil rights. 

 If a person is civilly dead, his marriage is considered 

 dissolved ; he cannot inherit nor oequeath ; his 

 testament is opened, and his property distributed 

 among his heirs ; he cannot bear witness, &c. If 

 he is required to do certain legal acts, he must do 

 them through a guardian. Formerly, when the 

 German empire was still in existence, a person put 

 under the ban of the empire (Achtserklaerung) be- 

 came civilly dead, and was declared out of the pro- 

 tection of the law (corresponding, in a civil point of 

 view, to Catholic excommunication, in regard to a 

 man's religious rights). The ban went so far as to 

 declare the outlaw vogelfrei (free as a bird), which 

 meant that any body might even kill him, without 

 notice being taken of it by law. But civil death 

 was not received into the German law in other re- 

 spects, and therefore has not existed since the aboli- 

 tion of the empire. Most countries allow a person 

 sentenced to death to make a will, except in particu- 

 lar cases, in which confiscation is part of the punish- 

 ment. In France, however, the institution of civil 

 death still exists (Code Napoleon, a. 22 ; Code Penal, 

 a. 18), and takes effect in the case of every one who 

 is sentenced to death, to the galleys for life (travaux 

 forces), or to deportation, even if the person is con- 

 victed ta contumacia, that is, in default of appear- 

 ance on a legal summons. In England, a person 

 outlawed (see Outlawry) on an indictment for treason 

 or felony, is considered to be civilly dead (civiliter 

 mortuus), being, in such case, considered to be guilty 

 of the offence with which he is charged, as much as 

 if a verdict had been found against him. Anciently, 

 an outlawed felon was said to have a wolfs head 

 (caput lupinum), and might be knocked on the head 

 by any one that should meet him. The outlawry 

 was decreed, in case the accused did not appear, on 

 being summoned with certain forms, a certain num- 

 ber of times, and in different counties, to appear and 

 answer to the indictment ; so that the case is the 

 same as the French laws denominate contumacy. 

 In such case, under an indictment for crimes of 

 either of these descriptions, he was considered as 

 having renounced all law, and was to be dealt with 

 is. in a state of nature, when every one who found 

 him might slay him. But, in modern times, it has 

 been held that no man is entitled to kill him wanton- 

 ly and wilfully, but in so doing is guilty of murder, 

 unless it be in endeavouring to apprehend him ; for 

 any one may arrest him, on a criminal prosecution, 

 " either of his own head," or on writ or warrant, in 

 order to bring him to execution. So a person 

 banished the realm or transported for life, as a 

 punishment for crime, forfeits all his civil rights as 

 much as if he were dead. His wife may marry 

 again, and his estate will be administered upon as if 

 he were deceased. A will made by such a person, 

 after incurring this civil disability, is void ; and so 

 are all acts done by him in the exercise of any civil 

 right. 

 DEATH, in mythology. The representation of 



death, among nations in their earlier stages, depends 

 upon the ideas which they form of the st&te of man 

 after this life, and of the disposition of their gods 

 towards mankind. In this respect, the study of 

 these representations is very interesting. Of later 

 ages the same cannot be said, because imitations of 

 representations previously adopted are very often 

 the subjects of the plastic arts in such periods. 

 However, these representations do not altogether 

 depend on the causes above mentioned, as the 

 general disposition of a nation (for instance, that of 

 the Greeks, who beautified every object) has also a 

 great influence upon them; and it is remarkable 

 that the Greeks, whose conceptions of an after-life 

 were so gloomy, represented death as a pleasing, 

 gentle being, a beautiful youth, whilst the Christians, 

 whose religion teaches them to consider death as a 

 release from bondage, a change from misery to hap- 

 piness, give him the most frightful, and even dis- 

 gusting shape. One reason of this may be, that the 

 call to repentance is a prominent feature in the 

 Christian religion; and to arm death with terrors 

 may have been supposed to give weight to the 

 summons. 



The Greeks had many gods of death, the *) 

 and Sa.va.Tos ; the former were the goddesses of fate, 

 like the Valkyrias in the Northern mythology. Un- 

 timely deaths, in particular, were ascribed to them ; 

 tlie latter, Savaros, represented natural death. Ac- 

 cording to Homer, Sleep and Death are twins, and 

 Hesiod calls them the sons of Night. They are often 

 portrayed together on cameos, &c. During the 

 most flourishing period of the arts, Death was repre- 

 sented on tombs as a friendly genius, with an in- 

 verted torch, and holding a wreath in his hand ; or 

 as a sleeping child, winged, with an inverted torch 

 resting on his wreath. Sleep was represented in 

 the same manner, except that the torch and the 

 wreath were omitted. According to an idea origi- 

 nating in the East, death in the bloom of youth was 

 attributed to the attachment of some particular 

 deity, who snatched his favourite to a better world. 

 It was ascribed, for instance, to Jupiter, or to his 

 eagle, if the death was occasioned by lightning, as 

 in the case of Ganymede ; to the nymphs, if the in- 

 dividual was drowned, as in the case of Hylas ; to 

 Aurora, if the death happened in the morning ; to 

 Selene, if at night (Cephalus and Endymion), &c. 

 These representations were more adapted to relieve 

 the minds of surviving friends, than the pictures of 

 horror drawn by later poets and artists. (See the 

 classical treatises of Lessing, Sammtl. Sett/ten, vol. 

 10, and Herder's fFie die Alien den Tod gebildet.) 

 Euripides, in his Alcestis, even introduced Death on 

 the stage, in a black robe, with a steel instrument in 

 his hand, to cut off the hair of his victims, and thus 

 devote them to the infernal gods. The later Roman 

 poets represent Death under more horrible forms 

 gnashing his teeth, and marking his victims with 

 bloody nails, a monster overshadowing whole fields 

 of battle. The Hebrews, likewise, had a fearful 

 angel of death, called Samuel, and prince of the world, 

 and coinciding with the devil ; but he removes with 

 a kiss those who die in early youth. Enoch was 

 taken up to heaven alive. The disgusting represen- 

 tations of Death common among Christians, origi- 

 nated in the fourteenth century ; for the representa- 

 tion of Death as a skeleton merely covered with 

 skin, on the monument at Cumae, was only an ex- 

 :eption to the figure commonly ascribed to him 

 among the ancients. In recent times, Death has 

 again been represented as a beautiful youth certain- 

 y a more Christian image than the skeleton with 

 iie scythe. The monument made by Canova, which 

 eor/je IV. erected in honour of the Stuarts, in St 



