236 S YL V A BOOK iv 



fields, sub dio ; where our beds may be decked and 

 carpeted with verdant and fragrant flowers, trees, and 

 perennial plants, the most natural and instructive 

 hieroglyphics of our expected resurrection and im- 

 mortality ; besides what they might conduce to the 

 meditation of the living, and the taking off our 

 cogitations from dwelling too intently upon more 

 vain and sensual objects ; that custom of burying in 

 churches, and near about them (especially in great 

 and populous cities) being both a novel presumption, 

 undecent, sordid, and very prejudicial to health ; and 

 for which I am sorry 'tis become so customary. 

 Graves and sepulchres were of old made and erected 

 by the sides of the most frequented high- ways, which 

 being many of them magnificent structures and 

 mausoleums, adorn'd with statues and inscriptions, 

 (planted about with cypress and other evergreens, 

 and kept in repair) were not only graceful, but a 

 noble and useful entertainment to the travellers, 

 putting them in mind of the virtues and glorious 

 actions of the persons buried ; of which I think, my 

 Lord Verulam has somewhere spoken : However, 

 there was certainly no permission for any to be buried 

 within the walls of Rome, almost from the very 

 foundation of it ; for so was the sanction, XII. tab. 

 IN URBE NE SEPELITO NEVE URITO, 

 Neither to bury or burn the dead in the city : And 

 when long after they began to violate that law, 

 Antonius Pius, and the Empp. succeeding, did again 

 prohibit it : All we meet of ancient to the contrary, 

 is of Cestius the Epulo's tomb, which is a thick 

 clumsy pyramid, yet standing, nee in urbe^ nee in orbe; 

 as it were, but half in, and half without the wall. 

 If then it were counted a thing so prophane to bury 



