What more national corruption, for which England hears ill abroad, than household gluttony?—Milton, Areopagitica, p. 431.
The abbot made his mind known to the Lord Keeper, that he would gladly be present in the Abbey of Westminster on our Christmas-day in the morning, to behold and hear how that great feast was solemnized in our congregations, which heard very ill beyond the seas for profaneness.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 210.
Hearse. Now the carriage in which the dead are conveyed to the grave, but this was not the meaning from the first. The origin is the French ‘herse,’ a harrow; this implement in France being made in a triangular form, not square as with us. Hence the name of ‘herce’ or ‘herche’ was given to a triangular framework, generally of iron, used for holding a number of candles at funerals; and which, being elaborately fashioned and framed, was allowed afterwards to remain in the church for a longer or shorter period.
In the quer was a hersse mad of tymbur and covered with blake, and armes upon the blake.—Diary of Henry Machyn, 1550-1563, p. 44.
A cenotaph is an empty funeral monument or tomb, erected for the honour of the dead; in imitation of which our hearses here in England are set up in churches during the continuance of a year or for the space of certain months.—Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments, p. 32.
Hearse, an empty tomb erected for the honour of the dead.—Phillips, New World of Words.
The beating of thy pulse, when thou art well,
Is just the tolling of thy passing bell.
Night is thy hearse, whose sable canopy
Covers alike deceasëd day and thee.