which such excellent persons had left for their security. We find that part of these ceremonies were performed in the funeral honours paid to Joseph in Egypt. I have said that the public recognised the virtues of deceased persons, because that, before they could be admitted into the sacred asylum of the tomb, they underwent a solemn trial. And this circumstance in the Egyptian funerals, is one of the most remarkable to be found in ancient history. It was a consolation among the heathens, to a dying man, to leave a good name behind him; and they imagined that this is the only human blessing of which death cannot deprive us. But the Egyptians would not suffer praises to be bestowed indiscriminately on all deceased persons. This honour was to be obtained only from the public voice. The assembly of the judges met on the other side of a lake, which they crossed in a boat. He who sat at the helm was called Charon, in the Egyptian language; and this first gave the hint to Orpheus, who had been in Egypt, and after him, to the other Greeks, to invent the fiction of Charon’s boat. As soon as a man was dead, he was brought to his trial. The public accuser was heard. If he proved that the deceased had led a bad life, his memory was condemned, and he was deprived of burial. The people admired the power of the laws, which extended even beyond the grave; and every one, struck with the disgrace inflicted on the dead person, was afraid to reflect dishonour on his own memory, and his family. But if the deceased person was not convicted of any crime, he was interred in an honourable manner. A still more astonishing circumstance, in this public inquest upon the dead, was, that the throne itself was no protection from it. Kings were spared during their lives, because the public peace was concerned in this forbearance; but their quality did not exempt them from the judgment passed upon the dead, and even some of them were deprived of sepulture. This custom was imitated by the Israelites. We see, in Scripture, that bad kings were not interred in the monuments of their ancestors. This practice suggested to princes, that if their majesty placed them out of the reach of men’s judgment while they were alive, they would at last be liable to it when death should reduce them to a level with their subjects.