The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon

in his time, near his dwelling in the county of Surrey, "where the maidens yearly planted and decked the graves of their defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes." And Camden likewise remarks, in his Britannia: "Here is also a certain custom, observed time out of mind, of planting rose-trees upon the graves, especially by the young men and maids who have lost their loves; so that this churchyard is now full of them."
    When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, emblems of a more gloomy character were used, such as the yew and cypress, and if flowers were strewn, they were of the most melancholy colors. Thus, in poems by Thomas Stanley, Esq. (published in 1651), is the following stanza:

                      Yet strew
        Upon my dismall grave
        Such offerings as you have,
            Forsaken cypresse and yewe;
        For kinder flowers can take no birth
        Or growth from such unhappy earth.
    In The Maid's Tragedy, a pathetic little air, is introduced, illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of females who had been disappointed in love:

        Lay a garland on my hearse
            Of the dismall yew,
        Maidens, willow branches wear,
            Say I died true.

        My love was false, but I was firm,
            From my hour of birth;
        Upon my buried body lie
            Lightly, gentle earth.
    The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind; and we have a proof of it in the purity of sentiment and the unaffected elegance of thought which pervaded the whole of these funeral observances. Thus it was an especial precaution that none but sweet-scented evergreens and flowers should be employed. The intention seems to have been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to beguile the mind from brooding over the disgraces of perishing mortality, and to associate the memory of the deceased with the most delicate and beautiful objects in nature. There is a dismal process going on in the grave, ere dust can return to its kindred dust, which the imagination shrinks from contemplating; and we seek still to think of the form we have loved, with those refined associations which it awakened when blooming before us in youth and beauty. "Lay her i' the earth," says Laertes, of his virgin sister,

        And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
        May violets spring.
    Herrick, also, in his "Dirge of Jephtha," pours forth a fragrant flow of poetical thought and image, which in a manner embalms the dead in the recollections of the living.

        Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,
        And make this place all Paradise:
        May sweets grow here! and smoke from hence
                              Fat frankincense.

        Let balme and cassia send their scent
        From out thy maiden monument.
            * * * * *
        May all shie maids at wonted hours
        Come forth to strew thy tombe with flowers!
        May virgins, when they come to mourn
                             Male incense burn
        Upon thine altar! then return
        And leave thee sleeping in thy urn.
    I might crowd my pages with extracts from the older British poets, who wrote when these rites were more prevalent, and delighted frequently to allude to them; but I have already quoted more than is necessary. I cannot, however, refrain from giving a passage from Shakespeare, even though it should appear trite, which illustrates the emblematical meaning often conveyed in these floral tributes, and at the same time possesses that magic of language and appositeness of imagery for which he stands pre-eminent.

                               With fairest flowers,
        Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
        I'll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack
        The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
        The azured harebell like thy veins; no, nor
        The leaf of eglantine; whom not to slander,
        Outsweetened not thy breath.
    There is certainly something more affecting in these prompt and spontaneous offerings of Nature than in the most costly monuments of art; the hand strews the flower while the heart is warm, and the tear falls on the grave as affection is binding the osier round the sod; but pathos expires under the slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold conceits of sculptured marble.
    It is greatly to be regretted that a custom so truly elegant and touching has disappeared from general use,