Good-Night
At the supper parties at Abbotsford Scott was fond of telling amusing tales, ancient legends, ghost and witch stories. When it was time to go, all rose, and, standing hand in hand round the table, Scott taking the lead, they sang in full chorus:
Weel may we a’ be;
Ill may we never see;
Health to the King
An’ the gude companie.
FINIS CORONAT OPUS
The Burial Places of Europe
According to the XII Tables (the earliest code of Roman Law), burial within the walls of ancient Rome was strictly prohibited, though the Senate reserved the right, in rare instances, to make exception as a mark of special honor. Many of the Roman families preferred cremation, while others adhered to the custom of unburnt burial. To accommodate the former, large chambers, filled with niches or recesses, called Columbaria, were provided, as receptacles for the vases containing the ashes left after burning. For the latter, the sarcophagus, the mausoleum, the catacomb, the excavation in the tufa rock, furnished the usual sepulture. These burial places lined the roads leading out of Rome, and many of them still remain along the Appian Way. The frontage of the principal roads became so valuable for burial purposes that it was customary to add after the inscription of names and dates on the monuments a record of the number of feet in the front and depth of every lot. The most ancient of the Roman burial places still in existence is the tomb of the Scipios, in the fork between the Via Appia and the Via Latina, and the most magnificent mausoleum was that of Hadrian, which was lined throughout with Parian marble, and surrounded by rows of statues between columns of variegated Oriental marbles. Its chambers were rifled by the Goths under Alaric; it was afterwards converted into a fortress by Belisarius; and for centuries it has been known as the Castle of S. Angelo.
The Campo Santo of Pisa is the prototype of the covered or cloistered cemetery, having been constructed in the thirteenth century. The vast rectangle within this singular structure is surrounded by arcades of white marble, and within their enclosed spaces the walls are covered with historic paintings by famous Tuscan artists. Aside from its strange-looking sarcophagi, its antique devices, and its curious inscriptions, there are two objects of more than passing interest. The earth, to the depth of several feet, was brought from Palestine, not so much from sentimental considerations, as because, of supposed antiseptic and rapidly decomposing properties. The other, hanging on the west wall, is the enormous blockading chain that was used in the harbor of Pisa. It was captured by the Genoese forces in 1362, and restored to Pisa in 1848.