University of Virginia Library

RURAL FUNERALS.

Among the beautiful and simple-hearted
customs of rural life which still linger
in some parts of England, are those of
strewing flowers before the funerals, and
planting them at the graves, of departed
friends. These, it is said, are the remains
of some of the rites of the primitive
church; but they are of still higher
antiquity, having been observed among
the Greeks and Romans, and frequently
mentioned by their writers, and were, no
doubt, the spontaneous tributes of unlettered
affection, originating long before art
had tasked itself to modulate sorrow into
song, or story it on the monument. They
are now only to be met with in the most
distant and retired places in the kingdom,
where fashion and innovation have not
been able to throng in, and trample out
all the curious and interesting traces of
the olden time.