The Holy State, Book 3 · Chapter 14
CHAP. 14. Of Tombes.
TOmbes are the clothes of the dead: a Grave is but a plain suit, and a rich Monument is one embroyder'd. Most moderate men have been carefull for the decent interment of their corps. Few of the fond mind of Arbogastus an Irish Saint, and Bishop of Spires in Germany, who would be buried near the *Warraeus de Scriptor. Hiber. pag. 26.Gallows in imitation of our Saviour, whose grave was in mount Calvary near the place of execution.
'Tis a provident way to make ones Tombe in ones life-time;Maxime 1 both hereby to prevent the negligence of heirs, and to mind him of his mortality. *Georgi…. lib. 4.Virgil tells us that when bees swarm in the aire, and two armies meeting together fight as it were a set battel with great violence, cast but a little dust upon them and they will be quiet,
Hi motus animorum, atque haec certamina tanta
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt.
These stirrings of their minds and strivings vast,
If but a little dust on them be cast,
Are straitwayes stinted, and quite overpast.
Thus the most ambitious motions and thoughts of mans mind are quickly quell'd when dust is thrown on him, whereof his fore-prepared Sepulchre is an excellent remembrancer.
Yet some seem to have built their Tombes, 2therein to bury their thoughts of dying, never thinking thereof, but embracing the world with greater greedinesse. A Gentleman made choice of a fair stone, and intending the same for his Grave-stone, caused it to be pitched up in a field a pretty distance from his house, and used often to shoot at it for his exercise. Yea but (said a wag that stood by) you would be loath Sir to hit the mark: And so are many unwilling to die who notwithstanding have erected their Monuments.
3Tombes ought in some sort to be proportioned not to the wealth but deserts of the party interred. Yet may we see some rich man of mean worth loaden under a tombe big enough for a Prince to bear. There were Officers appointed in the *Lucian. foreign.Grecian Games, who alwayes by publick authority did pluck down the Statues erected to the Victours, if they exceeded the true symmetrie and proportion of their bodies. We need such nowadayes to order Monuments to mens merits, chiefly to reform such depopulating Tombes as have no good fellowship with them, but engrosse all the room, leaving neither seats for the living, nor graves for the dead. It was a wise and thrifty law which *Hector Boeth in the life of King Reutha.Reutha King of Scotland made, That Noblemen should have so many pillars, or long pointed stones set on their sepulchres, as they had slain enemies in the warres. If this order were also enlarged to those who in peace had excellently deserved of the Church or Commonwealth, it might well be revived.
4Overcostly Tombes are onelyonly baits for Sacriledge. Thus Sacriledge hath beheaded that peerelesse Prince King Henrie the fift, the body of whose Statue on his Tombe in Westminster was covered over with silver plate guilded, and his head of*I. Speed in the end of Henry the 5. massy silver; both which now are stollen away: Yea hungry palats will feed on courser meat. I had rather *In the descript▪ of London, Broadstreet-ward, pag. 184.Mr Stow then I should tell you of a Nobleman who sold the monuments of Noblemen, in S. Augustines Church in Broadstreet, for an hundred pound, which cost many thousands, and in the place thereof made fair stabling for horses; as if Christ who was born in a stable should be brought into it the second time. It was not without cause in the Civill Law that a wife might be divorc'd, from her husband, if she could prove him to be one that had *Si nimirum sepulchrorum dissolutorem esse probaverit, Kirkman. de suner. Roman. lib. 3. c. 26. ex cod. de repudiis.broken the Sepulchres of the dead: For it was presum'd he must needs be a tyrannicall husband to his wife, who had not so much mercy as to spare the ashes of the departed.
The shortest, 5plainest, & truest Epitaphs are best. I say, the Shortest; for when a Passenger sees a Chronicle written on a Tombe, he takes it on trust, some Great man lies there buried, without taking pains to examine who he is. Mr Cambden in his Remains presents us with examples of Great men that had little *as, Fui Caius. Scaligeri quod r…liquum est. Depositum Cardinalis Poli, &c.Epitaphs. And when once I ask'd a witty Gentleman, an honoured friend of mine, what Epitaph was fittest to be written on Mr Cambdens Tombe. Let it be, said he,
CAMBDENS REMAINS.
I say also the Plainest; for except the sense lie above ground, few will trouble themselves to dig for't. Lastly, it must be True: Not as as in some Monuments, where the red veins in the marble may seem to blush at the falshoods written on it. He was a witty man that first taught a stone to speak, but he was a wicked man that taught it first to lie.
To want a Grave is the cruelty of the living, 6not the misery of the dead. An English Gentleman not long since did lie on his death-bed in Spain, and the Jesuites did flock about him to pervert him to their Religion. All was in vain. Their last argument was, If you will not turn Romane Catholick, then your body shall be unburied. Then (answered he) I'le stink, and so turned his head and dyed. Thus love, if not to the dead, to the living will make him, if not a grave, a hole: and it was the Beggers Epitaph,
Nudus eram vivus, mortuus ecce tegor.
Naked I liv'd, but being dead,
Now behold I'm covered.
A good Memory is the best Monument. 7Others are subject to Casualty and Time, and we know that the Pyramids themselves doting with age have forgotten the names of their Founders. To conclude, Let us be carefull to provide rest for our souls, and our bodies will provide rest for themselves. And let us not be herein like unto Gentlewomen, which care not to keep the inside of the orenge, but candy and preserve onelyonly the outside thereof.