burials of very eccentric or very pious persons[653]. Interment in an upright position has not, however, been of infrequent occurrence. Ben Jonson was so buried at Westminster. The case of the Hobarts, who are buried in a brickwork vault at Blickling, Norfolk, is also often cited. The vertical position was formerly adopted for the interment of captains in the army[654]. The body of Clement Spelman, Recorder of Nottingham, was immured (A.D. 1679) in a pillar in Narburgh church[655]. Many other curious vagaries of custom might be given; one or two instances must suffice. Surrey folk are familiar with Leith Hill Tower, under which lie the remains of Mr Richard Hull, who died in 1772, and whose peculiar opinions led him to stipulate burial in this elevated region[656]. In another instance, a corpse was buried within a flint pyramid at the top of a fir-clad hill near Great Missenden, in Buckinghamshire. A chapter might easily be filled with such particulars, but enough has been said to show that, amid all these eccentricities of habit, there is often an unwitting reversion to primitive methods. The similarities have been revealed only by the labours of the barrow-digger and the antiquary. Not only has the practice of orientation been found to have a very ancient descent, but many quaint usages, ofttimes deemed abnormal, have proved to be genuine survivals. In the next chapter some of these survivals will be considered. Not a little pathos is associated with our knowledge of these details. Bones which had “quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests,” have been unromantically disturbed by the busy archaeologist, and compelled to yield their secret. One cannot withhold sympathy from the investigator who had obtained permission to open a certain barrow, but who pondered and procrastinated, viewing, with indulgent eye, the even outline of the grassy mound. Day by day his pity for the sleeping warrior increased, and he hesitated to thrust his spade into the wind-swept turf, until the opportunity for work had slipped away. One admires the spirit, yet to widen the limits of knowledge that spirit has to be sadly, though judiciously, corrected. CHAPTER VII SURVIVALS IN BURIAL CUSTOMS A discussion of burial customs might, in the absence of a little careful selection of material, tend to become rather gruesome. This may be conceded at the outset, but, fortunately, an impersonal treatment is possible, and one need not even imitate the mournful example of “Old Mortality.” There is nothing morbid in a dispassionate review of customs which, in all ages and among all peoples, seem to have been general, because born of that vicissitude which is the common lot of man. Perhaps, in some measure, the antiquary may be able to reach the standard of stoicism set up by John Earle: “His grave does not fright him [the antiquary], because he has been used to sepulchers, and he likes Death the better, because it gathers him to his fathers[657].”