SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 73 was out, and the last valediction over, men took a ! lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expect- j ing the curiosity of future ages should comment I upon their ashes, and having no old experience of ij the duration of their reliques, held no opinion of I such after consideration. But who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried ?" He thinks that the practice of burning and bury- ing the body were equally ancient. According to some tradition, Adam was buried near Damascus, I or Mount Calvary ; and Abraham and the pa- triarchs were also buried. Hector was burned before the gates of Troy. Among the Romans, Manlius, the consul, burnt the body of his son ; but Numa, by a special clause in his will, was not burnt, but buried ; and Remus was also solemnly buried. The two ceremonies seem, therefore, to have been coeval and indifferent. The origin of j crematioji, or burning, he thinks, may be attributed to the opinions of those ancient philosophers who conceived that fire was the master principle in the composition of our bodies ; and, therefore, funeral I piles were heaped up, in order to waft them more speedily to their native element. But the Indian Brahmins, he is rather disposed to think, " are too great friends unto fire, for they imagine it the noblest way to end their days in fire, and there- fore burn themselves alive." He mentions the dif- ferent modes of burying as practised by various nations, and remarks that the rites of sepulture do not seem to be confined to man, for there would appear to be some approach to this practice among elephants, cranes, ants, and bees; "the latter
