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A HISTORY OF MOURNING.

RICHARD DAVEY.

Jay's, Regent Street, W.

The cat was worshipped as a divinity by the Egyptians. Magnificent tombs were erected in its honour, sacrifices and devotions were offered to it; and, as has already been said, it was customary for the people of the house to shave their heads and eyebrows whenever Pussy departed the family circle. Possibly it was their exalted position in Egypt which eventually led to cats being considered the "familiars" of witches in the Middle Ages, and even in our own time, for belief in witchcraft is not extinct. The kindly Egyptians made mummies of their cats and dogs, and it is presumable that, since Egypt is a corn growing, and hence a rat and mouse producing country, both dogs and cats, as killers of these vermin, were regarded with extreme veneration on account of their exterminating qualities. Their mummies are often both curious and comical, for the poor beast's quaint figure and face are frequently preserved with an indescribably grim realism, after the lapse of many ages.

The funeral processions of the Egyptians were magnificent; for with the principal members of the family of the deceased, if he chanced to be of royal or patrician rank, walked in stately file numerous priests, priestesses, and officials wearing mourning robes, and, together with professional mourners, filling the air with horrible howls and cries. Their descendants still produce these strident and dismal lamentations on similar occasions.

THE Egyptian Pyramids, which were included among the seven wonders of the world, are seventy in number, and are masses of stone or brick, with square bases and triangular sides. Although various opinions have prevailed as to their use, as that they were erected for astronomical purposes, for resisting the encroachment of the sand of the desert, for granaries, reservoirs, or sepulchres, the last-mentioned hypothesis has been proved to be correct, in recent times, by the excavations of Vyse, who expended nearly ?10,000 in investigating their object. They were the tombs of monarchs of Egypt who flourished from the Fourth to the Twelfth Dynasty, none having been constructed later than that time; the subsequent kings being buried at Abydos, Thebes, and other places, in tombs of a very different character.

The first, or Great Pyramid, was the sepulchre of the Cheops of Herodotus, the Chembes, or Chemmis, of Diodorus, and the Suphis of Manetho and Eratosthenes. Its height was 480 feet 9 inches, and its base 764 feet square. In other words, it was higher than St. Paul's Cathedral, and built on an area the size of Lincoln's Inn Fields. It has been, however, much spoiled, and stripped of its exterior blocks for the building of Cairo. The original sepulchral chamber, called the Subterranean Apartment, 46 feet by 27 feet, and 11 feet 6 inches high, has been hewn in the solid rock, and was reached by the original passage of 320 feet long, which descended to it by an entrance at the foot of the pyramid. A second chamber, with a triangular roof, 17 feet by 18 feet 9 inches, and 20 feet 3 inches high, was entered by a passage rising to an inclination of 26? 18', terminating in a horizontal passage. It is called the Queen's Chamber, and occupies a position nearly in the centre of the pyramid. The monument--probably owing to the long life attained by the monarch--still progressing, a third chamber, called the King's, was finally constructed, by prolonging the ascending passage of the Queen's Chamber for 150 feet farther into the very centre of the pyramid, and, after a short horizontal passage, making a room 17 feet 1 inch by 34 feet 3 inches, and 19 feet 1 inch high. The changes which took place in this pyramid gave rise to various traditions, even in the days of Herodotus, Cheops being reported to lie buried in a chamber surrounded by the waters of the Nile. It took a long time for its construction--100,000 men being employed on it probably for above half a century, the duration of the reign of Cheops. The operations in this pyramid by General Vyse gave rise to the discovery of marks scrawled in red ochre in a kind of cursive hieroglyph, on the blocks brought from the quarries of Tourah. These contained the name and titles of Khufu ; numerals and directions for the position of materials, etc.

The third Pyramid, built by Menkara, who reigned 63 years, is much smaller than the other two, and has also two sepulchral chambers, both in the solid rock. The lower chamber, which held a sarcophagus of rectangular shape of whinstone, had a pointed roof, cut like an arch inside; but the cedar coffin, in shape of a mummy, had been removed to the upper or large apartment, and its contents there rifled. Amongst the debris of the coffin and in the chambers were found the legs and part of the trunk of a body with linen wrapper, supposed by some to belong to the monarch, but by others to an Arab, on account of the anchylosed right knee. This body and fragments of the coffin were brought to the British Museum; but the stone sarcophagus was unfortunately lost off Carthagena, by the sinking of the vessel in which it was being transported to England.

There are six other Pyramids of inferior size and interest at Gizeh; one at Abou Rouash, which is ruined, but of large dimensions; another at Zowyet El Arrian, still more ruined; another at Reegah, a spot in the vicinity of Abooseer, also much dilapidated, and built for the monarch User-en-Ra, by some supposed to be Busiris. There are five of these monuments at Abooseer, one with a name supposed to be that of a monarch of the Third Dynasty; and another with that of the king Sahura. A group of eleven Pyramids remains at Sakkara, and five other Pyramids are at Dashour, the northernmost of which, built of brick, is supposed to be that of the king Asychis of Herodotus, and has a name of a king apparently about the Twelfth Dynasty. Others are at Meydoon and Illahoon, Biahmo and Medinat El Fyoum, apparently the sepulchres of the last kings of the Twelfth Dynasty.

In Nubia, the ancient AEthiopia, are several Pyramids, the tombs of the monarchs of Mero? and of some of the Ethiopian conquerors of Egypt. They are taller in proportion to their base than the Egyptian Pyramids, and generally have a sepulchral hall, or propylon, with sculptures, which faces the east. The principal groups of these Pyramids are at Bege Rauie, or Begromi, 17? N. lat., in one of which, gold rings and other objects of late art, resembling that of the Ptolemaic period, were found.

The numerous Pyramids of Mexico are of vast size and importance, but their purpose is not yet fully ascertained. Completely covered as they are with dense vegetation, filled with venomous reptiles, they are difficult to investigate, but they were evidently much the same in shape and structure as the Egyptian, and their entrances were richly sculptured.

The Ethiopians used similar means of embalming to preserve the dead, and other less successful means were used by nations of antiquity. The Persians employed wax, the Assyrians, honey; the Jews embalmed their monarchs with spices, with which the body of Our Lord was also anointed; Alexander the Great was preserved in wax and honey, and some Roman bodies have been found thus embalmed. The Guanches, or ancient inhabitants of the Canary Isles, used an elaborate process like the Egyptian; and dessicated bodies, preserved by atmospheric or other circumstances for centuries, have been found in France, Sicily, England, and America, especially in Central America, and Peru. The art of embalming was probably never lost in Europe, and De Bils, Ruysch, Swammerdam, and Clauderus boast of great success in it. During the present century it has been almost entirely discarded, except under very exceptional circumstances.

LEAVING the Oriental and remotely ancient nations aside, we will now consider the history of mourning as it was used by those peoples from whom we immediately derive our funereal customs. In ancient times, even amongst the Greeks and Romans, it was the custom to immolate victims--either slaves or captives--on the tomb of the departed, in order to appease the spirit, or that the soul might be accompanied by spirits of inferior persons to the realms of eternal bliss; and in India we have some difficulty even now in preventing the burning of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband, instances of this barbarous custom occurring almost every year, notwithstanding the vigilance of our Government.

Cemeteries existed in the East at a remote epoch, and were rendered so beautiful with handsome mausoleums, groves of stately cypresses and avenues of lovely rose bushes, that they are now used as public promenades. On certain days of the year multitudes resort to them for purposes of prayer, and the Armenian Christians illuminate theirs with lamps and tapers on the annual feast of the commemoration of the departed. Perhaps India possesses the most elegant tombs in the world, mainly built by the sovereigns of the Mongol dynasty. None among them is so sumptuous as the mausoleum of Taj Mahal, situated about a mile outside the port of Agra. It was built by Shah Jehan for himself and his wife Arjimand Banoo, surnamed Mumtaz Mahal; 20,000 men were employed for 20 years erecting it. It is constructed of the purest white marble, relieved with precious stones. In the interior is the sepulchral apartment, which is chiefly decorated with lapis lazuli. The tombs of the Emperor and Empress, which stand under the dome, are covered with costly Indian shawls of green cashmere, heavily embroidered with gold.

Another most beautiful specimen of Mahometan sepulchral architecture is the tomb of Runjeet Singh, near Lahore, which, though less known, is externally as magnificent as the mausoleum above described.

MOSES prohibited the immolation of human victims on the tombs of the dead, and decreed that relatives should signify their sorrow by the manner in which they tore their garments. They rent them according to the degrees of affinity and parentage. Sometimes the tears were horizontal, and this indicated that a father, mother, wife, brother, or sister had died; but if the tear was longitudinal, it signified that some person had departed who was not a blood relation. An idea can be formed of the appalling destruction of clothing which must have occurred on certain occasions amongst the ancient Jews, when we remember that on the death of a king everybody was expected to tear their garments longitudinally, and to go about with them in tatters for nine days. This curious custom possibly explains Solomon's proverb, "There is a time to rend and a time to mend."

The High Priest among the Jews was exempted from wearing mourning. The French, when they embraced Christianity, added many Jewish customs to their own: up to the time of the Revolution of 1789, their Grand Chancellor, or Chief Magistrate, was not bound to wear mourning even for his own father.

Visitors to Paris will remember how often they have seen a coffin exhibited in the doorway of a house, elaborately covered with flowers, having at its head a crucifix, and many lights surrounding it, everybody as they passed saluting it--the men by taking off their hats, and the women by making the sign of the cross, often using for this purpose holy water offered to them on a brush by an acolyte. Now, the Greeks used blessed water when they exposed their dead in front of their dwellings; possibly the French custom is derived from the Grecian. The funeral in Greece took place three days after the exhibition of the remains, and usually occurred before sunrise, so as to avoid ostentation. Many women surrounded the bier, weeping and howling, and not a few, being professionals, were paid for their trouble. The corpse was placed on a chariot, in a coffin made of cypress wood. The male relatives walked behind, those who were of close kinship having their heads shaved. They usually cast down their eyes, and were invariably dressed in black. A choir of musicians came next, singing doleful tunes. The procession, as a rule, had not far to go, for the body of a wealthy person was usually buried in his garden--if his city house did not possess one, in that of his villa residence.

The Greeks, it will thus be seen, buried their dead, and did not cremate them as did the Romans; but in the latter years of the Republic both forms of disposing of the body were common. After the burial, libations of wine were poured over the grave, and all objects of clothing which had belonged to the deceased were solemnly burnt. The ninth and fourteenth days after the funeral, the parents, dressed in white, visited the grave, and a ceremony was gone through for the repose of the soul. The anniversary of the death was also observed, and the Greeks, moreover, had a general commemoration of the dead in the month of March. And here let us make a digression to see how very closely the Greeks must have influenced the early Christians, and consequently their more immediate descendants, the Roman Catholics, in the matter of religious ceremonies; for it is usual among Catholics to hear a Mass for the Dead a week after the death, and also another on the anniversary. The universal feast of the dead is observed by them, however, not in the month of March, but in that of November. People who have lived in Paris will know how very largely these funereal ceremonies enter into the manners and customs of that gay city, so that it is not unfrequent for foreign residents to observe that their time is passed in perpetually going to funerals; for, if you have a large acquaintance, you are sure to receive at least twenty or thirty invitations to funerals and funereal commemorations in the course of the year. Of course, everybody will remember how on the Continent the first day of November is devoted to visiting the cemeteries and decorating the tombs of relatives and friends.

To return to the Greeks, it should be observed that their respect for the dead was remarkable, even amongst the ancients. If a man accidentally found a body on the high-road, he was obliged to turn aside and bury it. When the people saw a funeral procession pass, they uncovered their heads and murmured a prayer. The laws against the violation of the sepulchres of the dead were most severe, and any one who was caught damaging a tomb was usually flogged for his trouble, but if he overthrew it and disturbed the body, he was burnt alive.

If a person died at sea, all the people on board the ship assembled at sunset, and cried out three times the name of the departed, who was usually thrown overboard. In the morning they repeated these calls, and so forth until the ship entered port. This was done in order to recall the names of the deceased, or at any rate to keep them propitious.

When an illustrious person died in Greece, the ceremonies were on a most elaborate scale, and even accompanied by games, which lasted for many days. Readers of Homer's "Iliad" will remember his magnificent description of the death and funeral of Patroclus.

Among the Romans the men were not obliged to wear mourning, but it was the fashion for women to do so. Very wisely, children under three years of age were not forced to put on black, even for their parents, and after that age, only for as many months as they had lived years.

The Roman ladies only wore mourning for their parents for one year. Men were expected to wear it for the same period in the case of the death of a father, mother, wife, sister, or brother. Numa fixed the period of wearing deep mourning for the nearest of kin as ten months. People, however, were not obliged to wear mourning for any of their relatives who had been in prison, were bankrupt, or in any way outlawed. Numa published a minute series of laws regulating the mourning of his people. A very odd item in these included an order that women should not scratch their faces, or make an exceptional fuss at a public funeral. This was possibly decreed to put some stop to abuses which the hired mourners had occasioned: scratching their faces, for instance, so as to injure themselves, and making an over-dismal wail which was offensive to the genuine mourners.

For freedmen and slaves among the Romans, the greatest mark of respect was the erection of a monument or inscription in the tomb reserved for the family they had served. Thousands of these inscriptions to slaves and faithful servants still exist, and lead us to hope that the hardships of slavery in ancient Rome were often softened by mutual kindness and respect. One of the most touching of these is in a tomb on the Appian Road, which is supposed to have belonged to the attendants of Livia, the illustrious consort of Augustus. It runs:--

"To my beloved Julia, my slave-woman, whose last illness I have watched and attended as if it had been that of my own mother."

Tombs of slaves who were martyrs to the Christian religion are very frequent, and their inscriptions are usually of a most pathetic description.

The ashes of the dead, after the solemn burning of the body, were carefully gathered together and placed in an often very beautifully painted urn, and taken to the family tomb on the Appian Way, where an appropriate inscription was affixed to the wall under the niche containing the vase or urn. Little glass bottles, said to be filled with the tears of the nearest relations, were likewise enclosed in the urn, or else hung up beside it. Thousands of these, brilliant, after ages, with iridescent colours, are still found in the Roman tombs.

It was not imperative for a man in old Rome to wear mourning at all; but it was considered very bad taste for a male not to show some external sign of respect for his dead. With women, on the other hand, it was obligatory.

On great occasions, such as the death of an Emperor or a defeat of the army in foreign parts, the Senate, the Knights, and the whole Roman people assumed mourning; and the same ceremony was observed when any general of the Roman army was slain in battle. When Manlius was precipitated from the Tarpeian rock, half the people put on mourning. The defeat at Cannae, the conspiracy of Catilina, and the death of Julius Caesar were also events celebrated in Rome with public mourning; but during the whole period of the Republic it was not compulsory for people to notice death, either publicly or privately.

The first public mourning recorded as being observed throughout the entire Roman Empire was that for Augustus. It lasted for fifty days for the men, and the whole year for women. The next public event which called forth a decree commanding that the entire people of Rome and the Empire should wear mourning, was the death of Livia, mother of Tiberius. The same thing occurred at the death of Drusus; and Caligula followed the example, and ordered general mourning on the death of Drusilla.

Private mourning, which was among the Romans, as we have already intimated, not at all compulsory, could be broken by events such as the birth of a son or daughter, the marriage of a child, and the return of a prisoner of war. Men wore lighter mourning than women, but were expected to absent themselves from places of public amusement.

~Shakespeare .

TRISTAN AND ISOLDE.

TANNH?USER AND THE MASTERSINGERS OF NUREMBURG.

Ancient Cities

General Editor, SIR B. C. A. WINDLE

BRISTOL. Alfred Harvey.

CANTERBURY. J. C. Cox.

CHESTER. Sir B. C. A. Windle.

DUBLIN. S. A. O. Fitzpatrick.

EDINBURGH. M. G. Williamson.

LINCOLN. E. Mansel Sympson.

SHREWSBURY. T. Auden.

WELLS and GLASTONBURY. T. S. Holmes.

The Antiquary's Books

General Editor, J. CHARLES COX

ARCHAEOLOGY AND FALSE ANTIQUITIES. R. Munro.

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