As the
mourning train approaches, he pauses, uncovered, to let it go by; he
then follows silently in the rear; sometimes quite to the grave, at
other times for a few hundred yards, and, having paid this tribute
of respect to the deceased, turns and resumes his journey.
The rich vein of melancholy which runs through the English
character, and gives it some of its most touching and ennobling
graces, is finely evidenced in these pathetic customs, and in the
solicitude shown by the common people for an honored and a peaceful
grave. The humblest peasant, whatever may be his lowly lot while
living, is anxious that some little respect may be paid to his
remains. Sir Thomas Overbury, describing the "faire and happy
milkmaid," observes, "thus lives she, and all her care is, that she
may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stucke upon her
windingsheet." The poets, too, who always breathe the feeling of a
nation, continually advert to this fond solicitude about the 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.
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