Had his talents and his influence been greater than they were, the peculiarities, to which I have alluded, would have been a theme, for deeper deprecation. The eccentricities of eminent men are mischievous, in the ratio of their eminence; for thousands, who cannot rival their excellencies, are often the successful imitators of their peculiarities and follies.
I never sympathized with that worthy, old lady, who became satisfied, that Dr. Beecher was a terrible hypocrite, and without a spark of vital religion, because she saw him, from her window, on the Lord’s day, in his back yard, gymnasticising, on a pole, in the intermission season; and thereby invigorating his powers, for the due performance of the evening services. Yet, as character is power, and as the children of this generation have a devilish pleasure in detecting inconsistencies, between the practice and the profession of the children of light—it is ever to be deplored, that clergymen should hazard one iota of their clerical respectability, for the love of fun; and it speaks marvels, for the moral and religious worth of Mather Byles, and for the forbearance, intelligence, and discrimination of his parishioners, that, for three-and-forty years, he maintained his ministerial position, in their midst, cutting such wild, unpriestly capers, and giving utterance to such amusing fooleries, from morning to night.
No. XCV.
I have already referred to the subject of being buried alive. There is something very terrible in the idea; and I am compelled, by some recent information, to believe, that occurrences of this distressing nature are more common, than I have hitherto supposed them to be.
Not long ago, I fell into the society of a veteran, maiden lady, who, in the course of her evening revelations of the gossip she had gathered in the morning, informed the company, that an entire family, consisting of a husband, wife, and seven children, were buried alive.
You have heard, or read, I doubt not, of that eminent French surgeon, who, while standing by the bedside of his dying friend and patron, utterly forgot all his professional cares and duties, in his exceeding great joy, at beholding, for the first time in his life, the genuine Sardonic grin, exhibited upon the distorted features of his dying benefactor. For a moment, my sincere sorrow, for the terrible fate of this interesting family, was utterly forgotten, in the delight I experienced, at the prospect of receiving such an interesting item, for my dealings with the dead.
My tablets were out, in an instant—and, drawing my chair near that of this communicative lady, I requested a relation of all the particulars. My astonishment was very much increased, when she asserted, that they had actually buried themselves—and my utter disappointment—as an artist—can scarcely be conceived, when she added, that the whole family had gone to reside permanently in the country, giving up plays, concerts, balls, soirees and operas.
Putting up my tablets, with a feeling of displeasure, illy concealed, I ventured to suggest, that opportunities, for intellectual improvement, were not wanting in the country; and that, perhaps, this worthy family preferred the enjoyment of rural quiet, to the miscellaneous cries of fire—oysters—and murder. She replied, that she had rather be murdered outright, than live in the country—listen to the frogs, from morning to night—and watch the progress of cucumbers and squashes.
Seriously, this matter of being buried alive, is very unpleasant. The dead, the half-dead, and the dying, were brutally neglected, in the earlier days of Greece. Diogenes Laertius, lib. 8, de vita et moribus philosophorum, relates, that Empedocles, having restored Ponthia, a woman of Agrigentum, to life, who was on the point of being buried, laws began to be enacted, for the protection of the apparent dead. At Athens, no one could be buried, before the third day; and, commonly, throughout all Greece, burial and cremation were deferred, till the sixth or seventh day. Alexander kept Hephestion’s body, till the tenth day. I have referred, in a former number, to the remarkable cases of Aviola and the Prætor Lamia, who revived, after being placed on the funeral pile. Another Prætor, Tubero, was saved, at the moment, when the torch was about to be applied. I have also alluded to the act of Asclepiades, who, in disregard of the ridicule of the bystanders, stopped a funeral procession, and reanimated the body, about to be burnt.