[87] Russians, _etc._ That they carried them out of the world with their feet forward, not inconsonant unto reason: As contrary unto the native posture of man, and his production first into it. And also agreeable unto their opinions, while they bid adieu unto the world, not to look again upon it; whereas _Mahometans_ who think to return to a delightful life again, are carried forth with their heads forward, and looking towards their houses. They closed their eyes as parts which first die or first discover the sad effects of death. But their iterated clamations to excitate their dying or dead friends, or revoke them unto life again, was a vanity of affection; as not presumably ignorant of the critical tests of death, by apposition of feathers, glasses, and reflexion of figures, which dead eyes represent not; which however not strictly verifiable in fresh and warm _cadavers_, could hardly elude the test, in corps of four or five dayes. That they suck'd in the last breath of their expiring friends, was surely a practice of no medicall institution, but a loose opinion that the soul passed out that way, and a fondnesse of affection from some _Pythagoricall_[88] foundation, that the spirit of one body passed into another; which they wished might be their own. [88] Francesco Perucci Pompe funebr. That they powred oyle upon the pyre, was a tolerable practise, while the intention rested in facilitating the accension; But to place good _Omens_ in the quick and speedy burning, to sacrifice unto the winds for a dispatch in this office, was a low form of superstition. The _Archimime_ or _Jester_ attending the Funeral train, and imitating the speeches, gesture, and manners of the deceased, was too light for such solemnities, contradicting their funerall Orations, and dolefull rites of the grave. That they buried a peece of money with them as a Fee of the _Elysian Ferriman_, was a practise full of folly. But the ancient custome of placing coynes in considerable Urnes, and the present practice of burying medals in the Noble Foundations of _Europe_, are laudable wayes of historicall discoveries, in actions, persons, Chronologies; and posterity will applaud them. We examine not the old Laws of Sepulture, exempting certain persons from burial or burning. But hereby we apprehend that these were not the bones of persons Planet-struck or burnt with fire from Heaven: No Reliques of Traitors to their Countrey, Self-killers, or Sacrilegious Malefactors; Persons in old apprehension unworthy of the _earth_; condemned unto the _Tartara's_ of Hell, and bottomlesse pit of _Pluto_, from whence there was no redemption.