� � you were as flowers now withered � so these lets shall which we upon you among the beautiful and simple hearted customs of rural life which still linger in some parts of england are those of flowers before the and planting them at the graves of departed friends these it is said are the remains of some of the rites of the primitive church � but they are of still higher antiquity having been observed among the and and frequently mentioned by their writers and were no doubt the spontaneous of affection long before art had itself to sorrow into song or story it on the monument they are now only to be met with in the most distant and retired places of the kingdom where q � fashion and hate not been able to in and out all the curious and interesting traces of the time in we are told the bed whereon the corpse lies is covered with flowers a custom alluded to in one of the wild and plaintive white his as the mountain snow all with sweet flowers which be wept to the grave did go with true love showers there is also a most delicate and beautiful observed in some of the remote villages of the south at the funeral of a female who has died young and unmarried a of white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl nearest age resemblance and is afterwards up m the church over the accustomed seat of the deceased these are sometimes made of white paper in imitation of flowers and inside pf them is generally a pair of white gloves they are intended as of the purity of the deceased and the crown of glory which she has received in in some parts of the country also the dead are carried to the grave with the singing of and hymns a kind of triumph to show says that they hate be their h joy and are become this te formed is observed in some of the northern ties particularly in and it has a pleasing though melancholy effect to hear of a still evening in some lonely country scene the mournful melody of a funeral swelling from a distance and to see the train slowly moving along the landscape thus thus and tl us a we compass round thy and ground and as we sing thy we will the and other flowers upon the altar of our love stone there is also a solemn respect paid by the traveller to the passing funeral in these places for such spectacles among the quiet of nature sink deep into the soul 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 mis tribute of respect to the deceased turns and his journey the rich vein of melancholy runs through the english character and gives it of its most touching and graces is finely in these pathetic customs and in the solicitude shown by the common people for an honoured and a peaceful grave the pe whatever may be his lowly lot while living is that some little respect may be paid to his remains sir thomas describing the and happy thus lives she and all her care is that she may die in the spring time to have store of flowers upon her winding sheet the poets too who always breathe the feeling of a nation continually to this fond solicitude about the grave in the maid s tragedy by arid there is a beautiful instance of the kind describing the capricious melancholy of a broken hearted girl when the a bank stuck full of flower s she with a sigh will tell her servants what a pretty place it were to bury lovers in and make her maids em and her over like a the custom of graves was once universally were carefully bent over to keep the turf and about them were planted and flowers we adorn their graves says in his with flowers and plants just of the l life c� man which been compared in holy to those fading beauties whose roots being busied in rise again in glory this usage has now become extremely rare in england but it may still be met with in the church yards of retired villages among the mountains and i recollect an instance of it at the small town of which lies at the head of the beautiful of i have been told also by a friend who was present at the funeral of a young girl in that the female attendants had their full of flowers which as soon as the body was they stuck about the grave he noticed several graves which had been decorated in the same manner as the flowers had been merely stuck in the ground and not planted they had soon withered and might be seen in various states of decay some drooping others quite perished they were afterwards to be by and other which on some graves had grown to great and the tomb stones there was formerly a melancholy in the arrangement of these rustic th t something in it truly poetical the rose was some times blended with the lily to form a general emblem of frail this sweet flower says borne on a branch set with thorns q � rural and accompanied with the lily are natural hi m of our fugitive anxious and life which making so fair a for a time is not yet without its thorns and crosses the nature and colour of the flowers and of the with which they were tied had often a particular reference to the qualities or story of deceased or were expressive of the feelings of the in an old poem entitled f s a lover the he 