Sometimes also it appears that a single n only was used in forming the word. Thus in an inscription found near Seign in Morlachia, Archæol. vol. III. p. 344, the words Provinc, Britan. occur,

But it is perfectly clear, from antient precedents, that there is no foundation whatever for the distinction which the objectors on the present occasion have raised between the abbreviations of names of persons or offices, and those of places. Abbreviations, except of words of very common occurrence, were not so often used as these Gentlemen imagine. But when they were adopted, they were so without discrimination; and are, in proportion to possible occasions, as often to be met with denoting names of places, as titles of office or designations of individuals.

Thus, in an inscription, Gruter, 389. 2. to T. Cl. Candidus, or, as others read, M. Porcius Cato, we find these letters, H. H. P. P. which are an abbreviation for Hispaniarum Provin

In ano

ciarum Prætorii Præfecto. ther, discovered by the Abbé Fortis, in a tour through the Apennines, Archæol. vol. V. p. 177, occurs the very disputed word BRITT. itself, This latter inscription is imperfect, but as far as is material for our present purpose it runs thus: C. Nonio C. F. Au. Capian. Equo. Publ. ex. Quin. Decurls. jvdicv. Præf. Coh. III. BRITT. Num. Veteranor. Equitațæ, &c.

To borrow a sentence from Sir W, Temple: "These passages are sufficient to humble the presumption of modern Sciolists, if their pride were not as great as their iguorance." If, however, they wish for further information, I will refer them not to a School Dictionary, but to Fabrettus, Reinesius, Donius, Maffeius, Murato

rius, Johannes de Vitâ in Antiq. Benevent., Gudius, Gruter, and Grævius. These learned Authors will, I believe, on reference, confirm my observations. For the present, I trust, enough has been said to satisfy the scruples of Doubt, and to silence the cavils of Ignorance. T.

Mr. URBAN, Kent-road, Aug. 1.

A VERY curious discovery has lately been made in one of the Northern Islands of Zetland called Uyca (lying near the Island of Unst).

The following extract of a letter just received from a friend on the spot, conveys all the information which I yet possess on the subject:

"Uyea Sound, Aug. 13, 1816. "For some time past, the proprietor of Uyea, Mr. Thomas Leisk, has had men employed in erecting a dyke in the Island; who, in quarrying stones on the top of a small conical hill called the Wart, found a great quantity of loose stones collected together in a heap; upon removing the uppermost of them, a mound of earth intermixed with small stones appeared, which the men began they discovered a great number of Stone to dig up, when, to their great surprize, Urns, containing the ashes of the dead. They were arranged in regular order, surrounded with large stones to separate them from each other, and of different shapes and sizes; some round, others oval, none larger than a common basin. I had the curiosity to go to the place, and took out one myself, and examined its contents. In the bottom, the small pieces of unconsumed bones were carefully laid; next to them the human dust; above it, a covering of clay, and over curiosity, I have kept one for you." all a large stone. If you esteem it a

I have written to request a full and exact account of the circumstance, which, when I receive it, shall be accompanied with one of the urns, cheerfully communicated to you; with some observations on the remains of Antiquity still extant in the Zetland Islands, and several circumstances connected therewith.

A NORTHERN ISLANDER.

Strictures on the different Methods of

disposing of the Dead, as practised by Antient and Modern Nations. "Pallida Mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas

Regúmque turres.”—HOR. Od. iv. lib. 1. WH HEN we reflect upon the deplorable state to which human nature is reduced, after the soul has deserted the body, we may exclaim with the poet Blair,

"Tell us why this waste? Why this ado in earthing up a carcase That's fall'n into disgrace, and in the Smells horrible?" [nostril

There is no man, however much he may decry the solemnity of a public

funeral, who has not contemplated. with peculiar apprehensions the mournful equipage of Death; or who does not betray some preference

in the choice of a spot in which his bones may be eventually deposited? Individuals, influenced either by vulgar or particular prejudices, often declaim against the pomposity of family vaults, though further reflection may convince them that such edifices are not wholly preposterous. If a father has begotten in lawful wedlock three children, he will probably have the satisfaction before he dies of seeing a numerous offspring of grandchildren surround him, which will gradually and progressively increase as time advances, or matrimonial connexions are contracted. The re-mingling of one generation with another after death, though an unpleasing idea, is to some people a ruelancholy consolation for that event. Putrefaction is the final vicissitude from which no animal or vegetable substance is exempted; and that very truth, which we often deplore as depriving us of all we held dear in this world, is in fact the identical blessing that preserves our persons from infectious vapours, and maintains with an equal hand the equilibrium of Nature. The following quotation is an accurate definition of the progress of putrefaction:

"It was said of old that the Creator weighed the dust, and measured the water, when he made the world. The first quantity is here still; and though man can move, mix, and unmix, yet he can destroy nothing. The putrefaction of one thing is only a preparation for the being, bloom, and beauty of another something gathers up all fragments, and nothing is lost.

Link after link the vital chain extends, And the long line of being never ends." DARWIN.

Among the Egyptians, the most refined and antient people of all antiquity, the art of preserving dead bodies from putrefaction was brought to the highest state of perfection. Their mummies, which have resisted the ravages of time together with those wonderful sepulchral and monumental buildings called the PYRAHIDS, are instances demonstrating at once with what careful solicitude they endeavoured to secure their dead from dissolution and decay.

These edifices, while they confirm, by their scarcely perceptible decay, the incontestable truth that human performances are mutable and sub

jected to the laws of Nature, induce us to venerate a people who, at a period when almost every other nation was involved in ignorance and barbarity, had ingenuity to invent, and perseverance to finish their works whose magnitude not only astonishes the present age, but which have been deemed by some the constructions of a supernatural agency. The method they employed in their funereal mysteries has been well recorded by many writers; it is sufficient here to remark, that bodies thus prepared have remained in a state of preservation from times immemorial.

In the antient churches of this Country, where an old grave has been casually explored, the body is often found entire, and the very features discernible, after a lapse of several centuries. To prove this, many instances might be adduced: the following is a memorable one, in the person of King Edward the First:

"It was imagined from the Royal warrants 'de cerâ renovandâ circa corpus Edwardi primi,' sued during the three succeeding reigns from that Monarch, that more than ordinary care had been taken in embalming his body.. Accordingly, permission was granted by the Dean of Westminster to Sir Joseph Ayloffe to open the tomb and coffin, which appears to have been done with great care and decorum. On lifting the lid, the Royal corpse was found wrapped in a large square mantle of strong, coarse, and thick linen cloth, diapered, of a dull, pale, and yellowish brown colour, and waxed on its under side. When the folds of the external wrapper were thrown back, and the Sudarium removed, the corpse was discovered, richly habited, adorned with the ensigns of Royalty, and almost entire, notwithstanding the length of time it had been entombed."

Wax here appears to have been the principal resister of putrefaction, though there are many other substances of similar properties well known to modern Chemists: acids, tar, &c. but particularly cold, preserve animal substances from putrefaction, maintaining the cohesion of the different members, and consequently preventing an immediate dissolution of the whole body. That cold is an active retarder of putrefaction is confirmed by well-attested examples. In the more Northern

regions,

regions, where cold is much more intense, especially on high lands and lofty mountains*, human bodies continue at these latitudes in their natural state of salubrity for a considerable time, though devoid of artificial applications.

Vaults in England which are subjected to periodical inundations, being proportionably colder than others, are productive of similar effects upon animal substances. The art, however, of preserving the dead has much degenerated of late years: the office of the undertaker consists not in preserving, but in interring the dead.

Mankind in their funereal rites, as well as in all their arts and sciences, have been much influenced by custom; accordingly, History has transmitted to posterity their several etymologies. The Egyptians invariably embalmed their dead. The Romans, and the contemporary nations of antiquity, destroyed them by fire, collecting the bones, and depositing

them in urns.

The present custom of almost every known or civilized nation is to bury them in the earth, supposing that element to have been the principal or original ingredient in our conformation.

To Captain Cook, the celebrated Navigator of the last century, we are indebted for another method, totally different from those we have just enumerated, not only in the dissimilarity but peculiarity of the process, as affecting by putrefying odours the neighbouring residents of the dead-man. When an inhabitant of Otaheite dies, they place him in a shed adjoining his former habitation, with different kinds of provision, weapons, and trees, supposed to be emblematical of his present or future state. The shed has only one covered side, against which the back of the corpse's head is pointed; the remain ing sides are open, and unprotected from the weather: here the body is kept exposed until the flesh is wasted from the bones, when they are washed,

scraped, and buried in the earth. How strange and inexplicable is all this! that these men should, from the influence of custom, or from a sense of religion, submit themselves to the stench of a corrupting body, when they might deposit, with equal respect to the deceased, and greater advantage to themselves, by burying or burning it.

The comparative benefits which one mode of burial possesses over another, can become important only by its effects to the living. To the ill consequences arising from putrefying bodies exhaling noxious and infectious vapours, Physicians have occasionally attributed the remote causes of particular diseases. It remains, however, to be proved whether dead animal bodies, deposited at a certain depth from the surface of the earth, can possibly produce such exhalations; possibilities, I think, which rest on no other authority than the conjectural suppositions of the multitude.

Vaults which are constructed and used as receptacles for the dead in the very heart of the Metropolis, are apparently detrimental to the public health; their abolition would be found a desirable improvement, as it matters little where or how the carcase of a man be deposited, though he be high or low, of rich or poor estate. The Christian religion, with a strict adherence to its tenets, will admit no other mode of disposing of the dead, than that which it has exclusively used during a long succession of years: therefore all suggestions here adduced for a change, must be derogatory and unchristian.

Putrefaction, if not intended for the good of mankind in general, would not have been licensed nor invented by a beneficent Creator: its obvious benefits to the world at large demonstrate at once its necessity in the economy of things; and a little reflection will convince us, that, divested of the aid it affords, the constant companion of man's life would

be

be disease, and the continual horror of death. Having maturely weighed the reasons already assigned, we cannot approve of the Egyptian mode of disposing of their dead: chiefly, because they are trying to prevent the course of Nature, who has never yet erred in her proceedings; and secondly, because, by accumulating an unnecessary collection of the dead, they receive no gratification but the hope that they themselves may be so preserved, when legions of their fellow-creatures have mingled with the dust. The Romans, and others who by the medium of fire destroyed their dead by an instantaneous process, had certainly adopted the most effectual, though perhaps not the most respectful method. Custom, however, conquers every feeling and compunction of human nature; and the present age, who now bury their dead, would deem it indecorous to burn them; while the Romans, who then burnt, would not have licensed burying. What Power cannot effect, Time often accomplishes.

Some Nations, destitute of the arts and comforts of civilization, particularly those who are dependant on the sea for a precarious subsistence, resident mostly on the coast, and seldom in the interior parts of a country, are known to commit their dead to the ocean instead of the earth. Captain Cook informs us, that in the great Southern Ocean instances of this kind were of frequent occurrence. They suspended a stone to the neck of the body to insure its sinking, in the same manner as natives of Great Britain drown a cat or a dog.

Of all customs, however, which either chance has introduced among mankind, or their natural propensities encouraged, none depresses them more in the gradation of existence, than the appropriation of their own species to an article of food. This barbarous custom becomes truly degrading when we reflect that the majority of brute animals will only devour their own kind when pressed by insatiate hunger, or roused by particular incitement. Happy is it for man, that the limitation of a custom so horrid, and so opposite to his natural feelings of humanity, is only partial—that it is known and practised only by the most savage and irrational races.

Civilization is now appreciated by almost every nation in the known world; the inculcation of it also to others has become an object of gene ral interest. By this means, barbarism has gradually declined; it has given birth and name to Literature and Arts, and essentially meliorated the condition of existence. When Civilization, the link of sociality, is wanting, Industry, a never-failing con comitant, will rarely thrive; consequently, the earth will remain uncultivated, provision will be in diminished quantity in proportion to the vicissitudes of climate, and the induce ments to this horrid custom of a more seducing nature.

To every man who regards the dignity of human nature, it is pleasing to be assured that this habit has progressively declined; that even among those nations where it is still in vogue few will devour a human being unless they have taken him by the chance of war, or an unlucky tempest has driven him on their coasts.

Though it is not my object to venture an assertion that any known mode of disposing of the dead should supersede the established one of a Country, by the depression of the one, or the adoption of the other; yet in particular instances the Roman me thod, by fire, will be found both necessary and excusable. The tremeudous engagements which during the last war have desolated Europe of its inhabitants by a carnage the most dreadfu! and destructive, must have exposed the contending armies to the danger of putrid diseases, arising from putrid bodies. The labour, as well as the inconvenience of burying thousands of men rendered obnoxious by their wounds, must have been experienced by the General under circumstances of particular embarrassment. Here, may I ask, is not the utility of fire rendered obvious to the most superficial reflector? Officers as well as soldiers would be intermingled in common confusion, but in a confusion that would take but little space of ground; and while it relieved those who were living from the danger of infection, would present an excellent opportunity of erecting a monument to the memory of those who, having fought in one cause, and honourably fallen in endeavouring to effect it, thus finally enjoy one common death

as