grave. In "The Maid's Tragedy," by Beaumont and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind, describing the capricious melancholy of a broken hearted girl:

When she sees a bank

Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell

Her servants, what a pretty place it were

To bury lovers in; and make her maids
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse.

The custom of decorating graves was once universally prevalent: osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the turf uninjured, and evergreens and flowers were planted about them. This has now become extremely rare, but it may occasionally be met with in the church yards of the little retired villages among the Welsh mountains; and I recollect an instance of it in the small town of Ruthen, that lies at the head of the beautiful vale of Clewyd.

There was a melancholy fancy in the arrangement of these rustic offerings, that had something in it exquisitely poetical. The na

ture and colour of the flowers, and of the rib-
bands with which they were tied, were em-
blematical of the qualities or story of the de-
ceased, or the feelings of the mourner.
In an
old poem, entitled "Corydon's Doleful Knell,"
a lover specifies the decorations he intends to

use:

A garland shall be framed

By art and nature's skill,
Of sundry-coloured flowers,
In token of good will.

And sundry-coloured ribbands
On it I will bestow;

But chiefly blacke and yellowe
With her to grave shall go.

I'll deck her tomb with flowers

The rarest ever seen;
And with my tears as showers

I'll keepe them fresh and green.

The white rose, we are told, was planted at the grave of a virgin; her chaplet was tied with white ribbands, in token of her spotless innocence, though sometimes black ribbands were intermingled, to bespeak the grief of the survivors. The red rose was occasionally used in remembrance of such as had been remarka

ble for benevolence; but roses in general were appropriated to the graves of lovers. Those who had been unhappy in their loves had emblems of a more gloomy character, such as the yew, the cypress, and flowers of melancholy colour. 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 sad ewe;
For kinder flowers can take no birth
Or growth from such unhappy earth,

In "The Maid's Tragedy," also, is introduced a pathetic little air, illustrative of the 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 that pervades the whole of these funereal observances, though confined to the inferior classes of society. Thus, it was an especial precaution, that none but sweet-scented evergreens and flowers should be used on these occasions. The object 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 what is most delicate and beautiful 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 the associations of refinement which it awakened when blooming before us in youth and beauty. "Lay her ï' the earth," says Laertes of his virgin sister,

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!

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; and yet I cannot refrain from giving a passage from Shakspeare, 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; nør
The azur'd 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