To Urn, or not to Urn? that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler for our frames to suffer The shows and follies of outrageous custom, Or to take fire――against a sea of zealots―― And by consuming end them? To Urn――to keep―― No more: and while we keep, to say we end Contagion and the thousand graveyard ills That flesh is heir to――’tis a consume-ation Devoutly to be wished! To burn――to keep―― To keep! Perchance to lose――aye, there’s the rub: For in the course of things what duns may come, Or who may shuffle off our Dresden urn, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes inter-i-ment of so long use. For who would have the pall and plumes of hire, The tradesman’s prize――a proud man’s obsequies, The chaffering for graves, the legal fee, The cemetery beadle and the rest, When he himself might his few ashes make With a mere furnace? Who would tombstones bear, And lie beneath a lying epitaph, But that the dread of simmering after death―― That uncongenial furnace from whose burn No incremate returns――weakens the will, And makes us rather bear the graves we have Than fly to ovens that we know not of? This, Thompson, does make cowards of us all. And thus the wisdom of incineration Is thick-laid o’er with the pale ghost of nought, And incremators of great pith and courage With this regard their faces turn awry, And shudder at cremation. WILLIAM SAWYER. In April, 1884, there was a discussion in the House of Commons on a Bill, brought in by Dr. Cameron, for regulating Cremation. ――――:o:―――― There are numbers of other Parodies of this Soliloquy scattered about. William Hone, when on his trial for publishing a Parody entitled “The Political Litany,” mentioned one which had appeared in the _Morning Herald_ in 1808, commencing thus:―― “To stand, or not to stand――that is the question Whether ’tis nobler for us to lose th’ Election, And all the honours that attend upon it, Or to demand a poll, and risk th’ expense.” Unfortunately the file of the above named journal in the British Museum Library is incomplete, so that the remainder of the parody cannot here be given. One of the best burlesques of Shakespeare ever written was the “Hamlet Travestie, in three Acts, with annotations after the manner of Dr. Johnson and George Steevens, Esq., and other Commentators,” 1810. This was written by John Poole, the author of Paul Pry; the notes at the end are amusing burlesques of the word-splitting, and quibbling over trifles, to be found in the writings of many authors who have done their best to obscure some of the clearest, and noblest utterances of Shakespeare. In this burlesque first appeared the well-known lines, (spoken by Ophelia in the Mad Scene,) Three children sliding on the ice, All on a summer’s day; The ice it broke――they all fell in―― The rest they ran away.