The Query of H.E. (Vol. i., p. 321.) seems to infer that the use of coffins may be only a modern custom. In book xxiii., chapters i. and ii., of Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, H.E. will find ample proof of the very early use of coffins. During the first three centuries of the Church, one great distinction betwixt Heathens and Christians was, that the former burned their dead, and placed the bones and ashes in urns; whilst the latter always buried the corpse, either in a coffin or, embalmed, in a catacomb; so that it might be restored at the last day from its original dust. There have frequently been dug out of the barrows which contain Roman urns, ancient British stone coffins. Bede mentions that the Saxons buried their dead in wood. Coffins both of lead and iron were constructed at a very early period. When the royal vaults at St. Denis were desecrated, during the first French revolution, coffins were exposed that had lain there for ages.
Notwithstanding all this, it appears to be the case that, both in the Norman and English periods, the common people of this country were often wrapped in a sere-cloth after death, and so placed, coffinless, in the earth. The illuminations in the old missals represent this. And it is not impossible that the extract from the "Table of Dutyes," on which H.E. founds his inquiry, may refer to a lingering continuance of this rude custom. Indeed, a statute passed in 1678, ordering that all dead bodies shall be interred in woollen and no other material, is so worded as to give the idea that there might be interments without coffins. The statute forbids that any person be put in, wrapt, or wound up, or buried in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud, unless made of sheep's wool only; or in any coffin lined or faced with any material but sheep's wool; as if the person might be buried either in a garment, or in a coffin, so long as the former was made of, or the latter lined with, wool.
I think the "buryall without a coffin," quoted by H.E., must have referred to the interment of the poorest class. Their friends, being unable to provide a coffin, conformed to an old rude custom, which had not entirely ceased.
Alfred Gatty
SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF THE WORD "DELIGHTED".
If the passage from Measure for Measure, which has been the subject of much controversy in your recent numbers, be read in its natural sense—there is surely nothing unintelligible in the word "delighted" as there used.
The object of the poet was to show how instinctively the mind shudders at the change produced by death—both on body and soul; and how repulsive it must be to an active and sentient being.
He therefore places in frightful contrast the condition of each before and after that awful change. The BODY, now endowed with "sensible warm motion," to become in death "a kneaded clod," to "lie in cold obstruction, and to rot." The SPIRIT, now "delighted" (all full of delight), to become in death utterly powerless, an unconscious—passive thing—"imprisoned in the viewless winds, and blown with restless violence round about the pendant world," how intolerable the thought, and how repulsive the contrast! It is not in its state after death, but during life, that the poet represents the spirit to be a "delighted one." If we fall into the error of supposing him to refer to the former period, we are compelled to alter our text, in order to make the passage intelligible, or invent some new meaning to the word "delighted," and, at the same time, we deprive the passage of the strong antithesis in which all its spirit and force consists. It is this strong antithesis, this painfully marked contrast between the two states of each, body and spirit, which displays the power and skill of the poet in handling the subject. Without it, the passage loses half its meaning.
MR. HICKSON will not, I hope, accuse one who is no critic for presuming to offer this suggestion. I tender it with diffidence, being conscious that, although a passionate admirer of the great bard, I am all unlearned in the art of criticism, "a plain unlettered man," and therefore simply take what is set before me in its natural sense, as well as I may, without searching for recondite interpretations. On this account, I feel doubly the necessity of apologising for interfering with the labours of so learned and able a commentator as MR. HICKSON has shown himself to be.