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inviolable obligations which nature has laid 
upon the living to take care of the obsequies 
of the dead. Nor are we to wonder that 
the ancient Greeks and Romans were ex- 
tremely solicitous about the interment of 
their deceased friends, since they were 
strongly persuaded, that their souls could 
not be admitted into the Elysian fields till 
their bodies were committed to tlie earth ; 
and if it happened that they never obtained 
the rites of burial, tliey were excluded from 
the happy mansions for the term of an hun- 
di’ed years. For this reason it was consi- 
dered as a duty incumbent upon all travel- 
lers who should meet with a dead body in 
their way, to cast dust or mould upon it 
three times, and of these three handfuls one 
at least was cast upon the head. Tlie an- 
cients likewise considered it as a great mis- 
fortune if they were not laid in the sepulchres 
of their fathers ; for which reason, such as 
died in foreign countries had usually their 
ashes brought home, and interred with 
those of their ancestors. But notwithstand- 
ing their great care in the burial of the 
dead, there were some persons whom they 
thought unworthy of that last office, and to 
whom therefore they refused it : such were, 
1. Public or private enemies. 2. Such as 
betrayed, or conspired against their coun- 
try. 3. Tyrants, who were always looked 
upon as enemies to their country. 4. Vil- 
lains guilty of sacrilege. 5. Such as died 
in debt, whose bodies belonged to their 
creditors. And, 6. Some particular offen- 
ders, who suffered capital punishment. 
Of those who were allowed the rites of 
burial, some were distingubhed by particu- 
lar circumstances of disgrace attending their 
interment : thus persons killed by lightning 
were buried apart by themselves, being 
thought odious to the gods; those who 
wasted their patrimony forfeited the right 
of being buried in the sepulchres of their 
fathers; and those who were guilty of self- 
murder were privately deposited in the 
ground, without the accustomed solemnities. 
Among the Jews, the privilege of burial was 
denied only to self-murderers, who were 
thrown out to rot upon the ground. In the 
Christian church, though good men always 
desired the privilege of interment, yet they 
were not, like the heathens, so concerned 
for their bodies, as to think it any detriment 
to them, if either the barbarity of an enemy, 
or some other accident, deprived them of 
this privilege. The primitive Christian 
church denied the more solemn rites of 
burial only to unbaptised persons, self-mur- 
BUR 
derers, and excommunicated persons wito 
continued obstinate and impenitent, in a 
manifest contempt of the church’s cen- 
sures. 
The place of burial among the Jews was 
never particularly determined. We find 
they had graves in the town and country, 
upon the highways, in gardens, and upon 
mountains. Among the Greeks, the temples 
were made repositories for the dead in the 
primitive ages, yet the general custom in 
later ages with them, as well as with the 
Romans and other heathen nations, was to 
bury their dead without their cities, and 
chiefly by the highways. Among the pri- 
mitive Christians, burying in cities was not 
allowed for the first three hundred years, 
nor in churches for many ages after, the 
dead bodies being first deposited in the 
atrium or church-yard, and porches and 
porticos of the church : hereditary burymg- 
places were forbidden till the twelfth cen- 
tury. . 
Burials, in law, persons are to be 
buried in woollen, or their representatives 
shall forfeit 51. and affidavit is to be made 
thereof before a justice under a like pe- 
nalty. 
Burials, as practised by the military, 
differ -in some respects according to the 
rank of the deceased. The funeral of a 
field-marshal is saluted with three rounds 
of fifteen pieces of cannon, attended by six 
battalions and eight squadrons: that of a 
general, with three rounds of eleven pieces 
of cannon, four battalions and six squa- 
drons ; and so on, decreasing in honour, 
till that of a private which is attended by 
one Serjeant, and thirteen rank and file, 
with three rounds of small arms. The pall 
is to be supported by officers of fhe same 
rank with that of the deceased. The order 
of march to be observed in military fune- 
rals is reversed with respect to rank. For 
instance, if an officer is buried in a garri- 
son-town, or from a camp, it is customary 
for the officers belonging to the other 
corps to pay his remains the compliment 
of attendance; in which case the youngest 
ensign marches at the head immediately af- 
ter the pall, and the general, if there be 
one, in the rear of the commissioned offi- 
cers, who take their posts in reversed or- 
der, according to seniority. The battalion 
troop or company follow the same rule. 
BURLESQUE, a jocose kind of poetry, 
chiefly used in tlie way of drollery and ri- 
dicule, to deride persons and things. 
BURMANNIA, in botany, so named in 
