None however, except the friends or relatives of | private individuals, did so; but public officers, or the people at large, attended, if the deceased had rendered services to the state. The body, according to a law ascribed to Solon, was carried out by the Greeks before sunrise, which was particularly adhered to in the obsequies of the young, in order that the luminary of day might not throw his light on such a melancholy spectacle as their untimely end. The deceased reposed on a bier, ornamented in proportion to his rank, crowned with a wreath of flowers, and having his face exposed, unless when it had been distorted in death. The custom of crowning with flowers, however, was not peculiar to the Romans. Several nations have been profuse in the use of them, and have also employed many varieties. Among the earlier Christians, it was customary to carry evergreens before the deceased to his grave: and even so late as the 17th century, cypress garlands were in great estimation at the funerals of the higher ranks, and rosemary and bay at those of the lower.

A greater portion of the surface of the globe is probably possessed by those who profess the religion of Mahomet, than by those who entertain any other tenets. Their funerals are conducted with much solemnity by their priests or Imams, and are attended by the friends and relations of the deceased; but, in general, the body of males is accompanied by males only, and those of females by their own sex. The extinction of life is followed by immediate preparations for interment; and this proceeds from an idea, that if the bliss which awaits the true believer is merited by the deceased, not an instant should be lost in conveying him to the cemetery; should it be otherwise, it is incumbent on every good Mussulman to discharge himself as speedily as possible from the service of the wicked. This precipitation, though not common, occurs among other nations: in some, it originates from the necessity of immediate interment in hot climates; in others, it is an established custom, which cannot be traced to any certain source; but it is so great, as to admit of very little doubt, that many persons are committed to the earth before life has fled. A few hours after dissolution, the body, having been previously washed with milk and water, or with water only, is placed on a bier, with the face uncovered, and carried with hasty steps to the grave. As Mahomet has declared that whoever shall carry a dead body forty paces towards the place of sepulture will thereby expiate a deadly sin, it is usual for all ranks to tender their assistance on meeting a funeral procession.

sist in penury, that the funeral pomp at their death may be the greater. When this is conducted with uncommon magnificence, it forms an epoch in the history of a family, of which the remembrance is transmitted to successive generations; and nothing can be a more serious reproach than an heir having omitted this essential means of doing honor to his predecessor. Unlike the customs of the western world, a Chinese or a Tunquinese prepares his coffin a long time before he expects that, in the course of nature, it shall receive his earthly remains. Its splendor is the primary consideration, and the wealthy frequently expend a great portion of their property in obtaining one made of some valuable wood, adorned with sculpture or painting, and decorated with inscriptions. It is not unusual for the children of a family, by contributing among themselves, to get an elegant coffin privately made for their father, or for any other near relation, and endeavor to give him an agreeable surprise, by conveying it unexpectedly into his apartment: this mode of presenting a coffin to a parent is a filial act of piety.

Inhumation is practised universally in Europe, throughout Africa, and in most parts of America; while cremation, though an unusual custom, is a common mode of disposing of the dead in Asia. This has prevailed from remote antiquity, for many years antecedent to the Christian era. The ancient Greeks and Romans burnt their more illustrious dead. No custom has been more widely practised than that of burning the dead; we find it among the most polished nations of antiquity, and among the rudest modern tribes. It was practised in Britain, in Gaul, and many other countries, whose names are transmitted to us by history. At this day, the Tshutchi, a nation inhabiting a rigorous climate at the northeastern extremity of the Asiatic continent, burn their dead, and the spot where it is done is marked by stones laid in such order, as to bear some resemblance to the figure of the human body. A large stone is placed at the head, which is anointed with marrow and fat, and a small pile of deer's horns, heaped up at a little distance, which receives a yearly accession when the place is visited by the relatives of the deceased, who recapitulate his feats and qualities. In the island of Japan, and in the kingdoms of Ava, Siam, Thibet, and throughout many parts of Hindostan, cremation is not uncommon. But in the former countries it is chiefly the bodies of the wealthy which are treated with that distinction. What proves an affliction to other nations of the earth, is the source of rejoicing among the natives of Ava; the dead seem to excite no regret, or, to use the words of a modern author, much ingenuity is shown in the means of abating

An opposite custom is presented in many respects by the Chinese and Tunquinese, whose numbers far exceed the inhabitants of all the European it. states combined, and vie with the numbers which It has been the general practice of most nations are under the sway of the Mussulman doctrines; of the globe, to burn or inter along with persons while they have subsisted under a regular form of deceased those things that were most useful or administration, and preserved the same ceremonies interesting to them in life. The ruder tribes, as for the lapse of thousands of years. With the well as the more civilized, have entertained an inlatter, instead of hasty and precipitate interment, finity of vague and contradictory sentiments rethe body of a person deceased is preserved a long garding the state of the soul after death; some betime, sometimes two years, in order to admit of lieving that it hovers long around the body; that it sufficient preparation for his obsequies. A splendid is immediately transferred to regions of bliss; that funeral is the utmost object of ambition. Individ-it has a long journey to accomplish; or that it uals are content to labor their whole lives, and sub-subsists in an intermediate condition, uncertain of

rican state.

6

reward or punishment, until all mankind shall be son cannot marry during the time of mourning for judged. Ancient nations often buried treasures of a parent, which is two years; and he should all great value in the tomb of royal or opulent per- the while sleep along with the rest on mattrasses, sons. Thirteen hundred years after the decease not in beds, and subsist on very simple fare. of David, we read that a high priest of Jerusalem Wearing particular colors, as white, black, or purtook three thousand talents from his sepulchre, tople, is emblematic of mourning in different counbribe Antiochus to raise the siege of the city. tries; and shaving the hair close is a particular Now there are sometimes found in the tombs of the mode of testifying grief for one deceased. But ancient Tartars, whole sheets and plates of solid gold. sometimes only half the head is shaved; or the In Kodiak, an island on the northwest of Amer- hair, if generally worn long, is simply shortened. ica, when a chief is interred, some of his most A more decided mark of sorrow consists in severe confidential laborers are sacrificed and buried along lacerations of the persons of the survivors; their with him. In the kingdom of Assam, several faces are disfigured, they slash their limbs with wives of a rajah or sovereign, a number of ser-knives, or sharp-pointed bones; and some, to show vants, and a quantity of oil and provisions, were a more indelible testimony of affection, are sucall wont to be enclosed in the pit which received cessively deprived of a joint of one of their fingers his body, and either instantaneously destroyed, or for every relation whom they lose. left to die a lingering death. In the island of Nukahiwa, if a priest dies, three human victims must FUNERAL GAMES. A part of the ceremony immediately be offered up for the repose of his of the ancient funerals. It was customary for soul; and those whose province it is to procure persons of rank, among the ancient Greeks and them, lie in ambush where the unsuspecting natives Romans, to institute games, with all sorts of exerresort in their canoes for food, and are soon enabled cises, to render the death of their friends more reto fulfil their bloody mission. Yet all this is incon-markable. This practice was general, and is often siderable when compared with what are called the Customs, an annual ceremony in Dahomy, an AfThere the king waters the graves of his ancestors,' with the blood of victims in thousands; pyramids are absolutely constructed of human heads. Most of those unhappy beings are prisoners of war, who are mercilessly sacrificed. On the decease of the king himself, his women immediately begin to break and destroy every thing around them, and then to massacre each other, which continues until a successor is named, who takes possession of the palace and interrupts the carnage. On an occasion of this kind in 1774, two hundred and eighty-five women perished, besides six said to have been buried alive with the king; and more recently, in the year 1789, when a king died, the number amounted to no less than five hundred and ninety-five. There is still another waste of human life at the funeral of some of the African and Australasian tribes. If a mother dies while suckling her child, it is buried alive in the same grave along with her. This, however, is not to be viewed in the light of a sacrifice; it originates in a different principle, which seems to be, that among savages the care of their own children is all that they can accomplish; the infant, therefore, is doomed to destruction, from the belief that no female can be found willing to preserve it. Modern example therefore proves, that we may safely credit what is recorded of the immolation of human victims at the tomb or the funeral pile of the ancients.

Mourning is a ceremonial also much diversified by the custom of nations. In general, it is more rigid on the widow of the deceased, than on the rest of his relatives. The Theodosian code adjudged a woman to be infamous who married ten months or a year from the decease of her husband. In Britain, and in this country, it is rather understood that second nuptials should not take place within a year; and the period of mourning extends to two. The women of some North American tribes must live three or even four years in a state of widowhood: and in eastern countries, the eldest

mentioned by ancient writers. The celebration of these games, among the Greeks, mostly consisted of horse races; the prizes were of different sorts and value, according to the quality and magnificence of the person that celebrated them. The garlands given to victors on such occasions were usually of parsley, which was thought to have some particular relation to the dead. Among the Romans these games consisted chiefly of processions; and sometimes of mortal combats of gladiators around the funeral pile. They, as well as the Greeks, had also a custom of slaying a number of captives before the pile, as victims to appease the manes of the deceased. Cæsar relates, that the Gauls had also this custom. The funeral games were abolished by the emperor Claudius.

FUR, or FURR. In Commerce, signifies the skins of wild beasts, dressed in alum with the hair on, and used as a part of dress by princes, magistrates, and others. The kinds most in use are those of the ermine, sable, castor, hare, coney, &c. It was not till the later ages that the furs of beasts became an article of luxury. The refined nations of antiquity never made use of them; those alone who were stigmatised as barbarian were clothed in the skins of animals. Strabo describes the Indians covered with the skins of lions, panthers, and bears; and Seneca the Scythians clothed with the skins of foxes and the smaller quadrupeds. Most parts of Europe was then in similar circumstances. Cæsar was, perhaps, as much amazed with the skin-dressed heroes of Britain, as the celebrated Cook was at those of his new discovered regions. What time has done to us, it may also effect for them; and, it is to be hoped, with much less bloodshed. Civilisation may take place, and those spoils of animals, which are at present essential for their clothing, become merely objects of ornament and luxury. It does not appear that the Greeks or ancient Romans ever made use of furs. It originated in those regions where they most abounded, and where the severity of the climate required that species of clothing.

from the Italian commercial states, whose traffic was at this period boundless.

FURLONG. A long measure, equal to one eighth of a mile, or forty poles. It is also used in some law books, for the eighth part of an acre.

FURLOUGH. In military language, a license granted by an officer to a soldier, to be absent for some time from his duty.

FURNACE. An arrangement for transferring great heat to bodies, consisting of a suitable fireplace, and receptacles to contain the articles to be dome, so as to reverberate the heat and flame. operated upon; and sometimes supplied with a

FUSION. The process in which a body is caused to pass, by means of heat, from a solid to a fluid state.

At first, it consisted of the skins only, almost in the state in which they were torn from the body of the beast; but, as soon as civilisation took place, and manufactures were introduced, furs became the lining of the dress, and often the elegant facing of the robes. It is probable that the northern conquerors introduced the fashion into Europe. We find that, about A. D. 522, when Totila, king of the Visigoths, reigned in Italy, the Suethons, or natives of Sweden, found means, by help of the commerce of numberless intervening people, to transmit, for the use of the Romans, saphilinas pelles, the skins of the sables. As luxury advanced, furs of the most valuable kinds were used by princes as linings for their tents. Marco Polo, in 1252, found those of the cham of Tartary lined with ermines and sables. He calls the last zibelines and zambolines. He says that those and other precious furs were brought from countries far north; from the land of darkness, and regions almost inaccessible by reason of morasses and ice. The Welsh set a high value on furs, as early as the time of Howel Ddha, who reigned about 940. In the next age, furs became the fashionable magnificence of Europe. FUSTICK. A yellow wood, that grows in the When Godfrey of Boulogne, and his followers, ap- Caribbee islands. It is a species of Morus. It is peared before the emperor Alexius Comnenus, on used by dyers, in tinging cloths of a yellow color. their way to the Holy Land, he was struck with the It deserves to be remarked, that a small addition richness of their dresses, tam ex ostro quam auri- of common salt renders the yellow shade darker; frigio et niceo spere harmelino et ex mardrino sal ammoniac precipitates an orange-colored powgrisioque et vario. How different was the advance der; and the supernatant liquid has an aurora yelof luxury in France, from the time of their great low appearance. Cloths dyed with this drug, monarch Charlemagne, who contented himself with without being previously impregnated with neutral the plain fur of the otter! King Henry I. wore salts, or alkalies, acquire a yellow color of a brownfurs; yet, in his dress, was obliged to change them ish shade, which undergoes no change in the air: for warm Welsh flannel. But, in 1337, luxury but M. Berthollet observes, that lustre and vivacity had obtained to such a degree, that Edward III. of color can be obtained only by preparing the enacted that all persons who could not spend one stuffs with the usual solutions. Pörner, a German hundred pounds a year, should be prohibited the chemist of repute, maintains, that alum, and soluuse of this kind of finery. These, from their great tions of tin, produce indeed a more lively tint, but expense, must have been foreign furs, obtained | which easily fades in the open air.

G

stuff, which seems, as it were, waled on one side. FUSTIAN. In Commerce, a kind of cotton The term is sometimes used for a bombastic style of writing.

for his zeal; though he had nothing in view but to procure new honors for Pompey, who had restored the college of tribunes to their former authority.

GABINIAN LAW. In Roman Antiquity, a law, so called from Gabinius, tribune of the people, who, at the instigation of Pompey, proposed it for clearing the seas of the pirates, whose number and In virtue of this law the person to whom the power were daily increasing. These robbers fitted Roman people and senate should commit the manout at first but a small number of light vessels; but agement of this war was to have a power without upon their being protected by Mithridates, who, restriction, his authority was to extend over the during his war with Rome, took them into his ser- seas within the straits, or the pillars of Hercules, vice, they equipped one thousand galleys, and exer- and over the countries for the space of four huncised a kind of sovereignty over all the coasts of dred furlongs from the sea. He was also empow the Mediterranean. They spared not one temple ered by this law to raise as many mariners and that was famous for its riches on the coasts of Italy, soldiers as he should think fit, to take any sums at Greece, and Asia. All the country-seats on the pleasure out of the treasury, and to choose out of seashore fell a prey to them. They took slaves the senate fifteen senators to be his lieutenants. without number; blocked up all the ports of the This arbitrary and unbounded authority was to republics, pillaged the city of Caieta; sunk part continue three years, and of course it occasioned of a consular fleet at Ostior; and having made a much uneasiness to the senate, who saw through descent near Misene, carried away the daughter the tribune's design, and several senators reproachof the old consul Antonius, with several other per-ed Pompey with aiming at the sovereignty of Rome. sons of distinction. They committed a variety of other depredations: and therefore Gabinius, who proposed the above-mentioned law, was applauded

After much opposition, Gabinius's motion was agreed to by a great majority, and Pompey was appointed to make war upon the pirates with the

title of proconsul, B. C. 66, A. U. C. 682. Pompey, in virtue of this law, was furnished with five hundred ships, one hundred and twenty thousand foot and five thousand horse; and he conducted the expedition with so much prudence and vigor, that he cleared the sea in four months, after having taken or sunk thirteen hundred according to some, or, according to others, eight hundred and forty-six of their vessels, destroyed ten thousand of the pirates, and reduced one hundred and twenty towns or, castles on the coasts, which they had seized. In this expedition the proconsul set at liberty an incredible number of captives, and took above twenty thousand prisoners, whom he sent to people the deserted cities of Cilicia, viz. Mallus, Adena, Epiphania, and Soli, which latter he called froin his own name Pompeiopolis.

counting many fields, and computing from a mean of these how many might be contained in a given portion of the milky-way. In the most vacant place to be met with in that neighborhood, he found sixty-three stars; other six fields contained one hundred and ten, sixty, seventy, ninety, seventy, and seventy-four stars; a mean of all which gave seventy-nine for the number of stars to each field; and thus he found, that by allowing fifteen minutes for the diameter of his field of view, a belt of fifteen degrees long and two broad, which he had often seen pass before his telescope in an hour's time, could not contain less than fifty thousand stars, large enough to be distinctly numbered; besides which, he suspected twice as many more, which could be seen only now and then by faint glimpses, for want of sufficient light. The success he had within the milky-way soon induced him to heavens, of which an accurate list had been published in the Connoisance des Temps, for 1783 and 1784.' Most of these yielded to a Newtonian reflector, of twenty feet focal distance, and twelve inches aperture; which plainly discovered them to be composed of stars, or at least to contain stars, and to show every other indication of its consisting of them entirely.

GABLE END. The triangular end of a house, turn his telescope to the nebulous parts of the from the cornice or eaves to the top.

GABRES, GAVRes, Gebres, GueBRES, GEVRES, or GAURS. A name given by the Mohammedans to all who do not profess their religion; in the same sense that Christians use the word infidel, or heathen, and the Jews gentes, or gentiles. In Persia, and in India, the name has a more precise signification; being applied to a religious sect, who are "The nebula (says he) are arranged into strata, said to be the remains of the ancient followers of and run on to a great length, and some of them I Zoroaster. They are commonly immersed in the have been able to pursue, and to guess pretty well lowest condition of society; and are represented at their form and direction. It is probable enough as extremely superstitious, but inoffensive, honest that they may surround the whole starry sphere of in their dealings, and, in every respect, rigorous in the heavens, not unlike the milky-way, which untheir morals. They expect a future life and judg-doubtedly is nothing but a stratum of fixed stars: ment; worship one God; and have even preserved a pure idea of the symbol of fire: for, though zealously attached to their religious rites, among which are the sign of adoration to the rising sun, and the custom of performing all their devotions before fire, they declare, that they venerate these only as expressive images of the Deity himself.

GAGE. In the sea-language. When one ship is to windward of another, she is said to have the weather-gage of her. They likewise call the number of feet that a vessel sinks in the water, the ship's gage: this they find by driving a nail into a pike near the end, and putting it down beside the rudder till the nail catches hold under it; then as many feet as the pike is under water, is the ship's gage.

GALAXY. In Astronomy. A very remarkable appearance in the heavens is that called the galaxy, or milky-way. This is a broad circle, sometimes double, but for the most part single, surrounding the whole celestial concave. We perceive also in different parts of the heavens small white spots, which appear to be of the same nature with the milky-way. These spots are called nebula.

and as this latter immense starry bed is not of equal breadth or lustre in every part, nor runs on in one straight direction, but is curved, and even divided into two streams along a very considerable portion of it; we may likewise expect the greatest variety in the strata of the cluster of stars and nebulæ. One of these nebulous beds is so rich, that, in passing through a section of it in the time of only thirty-six minutes, I have detected no less than thirty-one nebula, all distinctly visible upon a fine blue sky. Their situation and shape, as well as condition, seem to denote the greatest variety imaginable. In another stratum, or perhaps a different branch of the former, I have often seen double and treble nebulæ variously arranged; large ones, with small seeming attendants; narrow, but muchextended lucid nebulæ or bright dashes; some of the shape of a fan, resembling an electric brush issuing from a lucid point; others of the cometic shape, with a seeming nucleus in the centre, or like cloudy stars, surrounded with a nebulous atmosphere: a different sort again, contain a nebulosity of the milky kind, like that wonderful inexplicable phenomenon about Orionis; while others shine with a fainter mottled kind of light, which denotes their being resolvable into stars.

With a powerful telescope, Dr. Herschel first It is very probable that the great stratum called began to survey the via lactea, and found that it the milky-way, is that in which the sun is placed, completely resolved the whitish appearance into though perhaps not in the very centre of its thickstars, which the telescope he formerly used had not ness. We gather this from the appearance of the power enough to do. The portion he first observ-galaxy, which seems to encompass the whole ed, was that about the hand and club of Orion; heavens, as it certainly must do, if the sun is within and found therein an astonishing multitude of stars, the same: for, suppose a number of stars arranged whose number he endeavored to estimate, by between two parallel planes, indefinitely extended

every way, but at a given considerable distance | body is deprived of its proper nourishment and from one another, and calling this a sideral stratum, support, the blood becomes vapid and watery, and an eye placed somewhere within it, will see all the stars in the direction of the planes of the stratum projected into a great circle, which will appear lucid, on account of the accumulation of the stars, while the rest of the heavens, at the sides, will only seem to be scattered over with constellations, more or less crowded, according to the distance of the planes, or number of stars, contained in the thickness or sides of the stratum.'