262 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



nuptial chamber. The Romans had, also, 

 bedecked themselves with branches of haw- 

 thorn, when they seized the Sabine women ; 

 and it was, therefore, used by them in the 

 fasces nuptiarum. 



Diodorus, a Sicilian historian, who flourish- 

 ed about forty-four years before the Christian 

 era, tells us, that the Troglodites, when they 

 interred the corpse of their friends or parents, 

 tied branches of hawthorn to their bodies ; 

 and then, laughing, strewed the body first 

 with the branches of this shrub, and after- 

 wards with stones, until it was covered. 

 These simple people considered death as the 

 morning of life, where they should never 

 separate. Happy hope ! which gave the Trog- 

 lodites immortality, and the Grecian youths 

 fond marriages ; may you likewise, ever be the 

 prop of the afflicted, and of those whose friends 



" When they once perceive 



The least rub in your fortune, fall away 

 Like water from ye, never found again 

 But when they mean to sink ye." 



Religion, which was given to bless mankind 

 with cheerfulness and hope, has always been 

 converted by the crafty, in ignorant ages, into 

 rods of terror and torches of superstition ; 

 and they did not fail to seize on the haw- 



13 



