320 Flowers on Graves;-Discovery of Madeira. this figure they place a pot of incense: then they burn garlands, and the friends sit down to a feast, invoking a blessing on themselves, houses, and lands. In the great Loochoo island Captain Hall' observed vases, containing remains of the dead; and bundles of flowers, hung round them as funeral offerings. Some of these were fresh; others decayed: the vases were of elegant shapes; and the whole gave an air of great cheerfulness to the ceme tery. Repose ye here! Secure from worldly crimes and mishaps! Here lurks no treason; here no envy swells; Here grow no damned grudges; here no storm, VIII. The celebrated Robert-a-Machin and his bride were buried under the shade of a tree, in Madeira, an island first discovered by themselves. As the history of this unfortunate pair combines all the value of truth with the imaginary value of romance, I shall pause from my general subject to relate it from accounts, attested by De Barros, Galvano, Alcaforado, Ovington, and other writers on the subject of maritime discovery. Robert-a-Machin and Anna Dorset (D'Arfet), having become enamoured of each other, had resolved to unite their destinies for life. The young lady's father, however, married her against her consent to a nobleman ; who, upon his marriage, carried his bride to a castle, he possessed near the city of Bristol. Her father, in the 1 Voyage to Corea and Loochoo, 4to. p. 143. mean time, had procured an order from the king (Edward III.) for committing the unfortunate Machin to prison. The lover contrived, however, to escape; and, learning the lady's place of residence, he induced one of his friends to enter the family of his rival, as a groom. By means of this friend, he laid a plan of escaping with his mistress to France. A ship was procured, and the lovers embarked. They had not been long on their voyage, however, before a strong gale drove them out to sea. The pilot, in that day of nautical ignorance, soon lost his reckoning; the vessel became unmanageable; and for twelve days and nights they were at the mercy of the waves, never expecting to recover land. On the thirteenth morning, however, the clouds cleared, and the sound of land was echoed, with rapture, from one end of the vessel to the other. As they approached, the country assumed a beautiful appearance; birds of a white and yellow plumage, till then unknown, flocked round the ship; the waves were tranquil; and every thing seemed to assume an air of enchantment. This unknown land was the island, to which subsequent voyagers have given the name of Madeira; and it seems to have sate for a picture in Spenser's Fairy Queen: It was a chosen spot of fertile land, Emongst wide waves, sett like a little nest; As if it had, by Nature's cunning hand, And laid forth for ensample of the best. No daintie floure, or herbe, that grows on ground, No arboreth with painted blossoms drest, And smelling sweete, but there it might be found, To bud out faire, and her sweete smels throwe all round. VOL. I. Book ii. c. vi. st. 12. Y The boat was soon launched from the ship, and a part of the crew despatched to examine the country. These men soon returned with a favourable description; and Machin accompanied his mistress on shore. The scenery was more than equal to any accounts, that had reached them, even in the language of romance. Flowers bloomed in every shade; trees,-the growth of ages,-reared themselves to a great altitude; canary birds animated every bush; laurels, cedars, oranges, lemons, bananas, and other fruits, were in the amplest profusion; and the honey, which they gathered from the crevices of the rocks, had the odour of violets. Escaped from the horrors of the ocean, the lovers now felt, as if they had entered into Paradise. For three days, they roved about the island in a state of transport. Under a venerable tree they formed a hut of boughs, and prepared to land part of the ship's cargo for immediate use. On the fourth night, however, a violent hurricane destroyed all their hopes and anticipations! The ship broke from her moorings; and, being driven on the coast of Morocco, was wrecked; and the crew seized as slaves. When Machin and his mistress missed the ship in the morning, the latter gave herself up to despair: and, after upbraiding her lover for some time, became speechless, and in a few days died of grief. Machin, overwhelmed with sorrow, gave himself up to his misfortunes; and, refusing all consolation from his companions, died on the fifth day. A few moments before he breathed his last, he directed his friends to bury him in the grave, which, under a large tree, contained his unfortunate mistress. This his companions did not hesitate to perform; and after inscribing over it an exhortation to any Christian, who might thereafter visit the spot, to erect a church, and dedicate it to Christ, they committed themselves to their boat: and, being driven on the coast of Morocco, shared the captivity of their fellow seamen. There are two or three contradictory accounts' of this first discovery of Madeira; but the preceding seems to bear the palm, in point of authenticity. tree. IX. Ninus of Babylon was buried under a white mulberryThe sepulchres and monuments of the Corinthians were among groves of cypresses. In many parts of Turkey large burial-grounds, planted with trees, are the only vestiges, which villages possess to prove, that they were formerly cities. In Madrid one of the churchyards forms a square; through the middle of which a rivulet runs, with roses, violets, and jessamine, growing spontaneously on its banks. 2 The custom of adorning graves with flowers, we have already described; but here we may be permitted to add, that in a village of the Peak in Derbyshire, there is a custom, as Miss Seward informs us, of suspending garlands of white roses, made of paper, over the pews of those unmarried villagers, who die in the flower of their age. At Okely in Surry, rose-trees were once3 accus 1 Galvano. Prog. Maritime Discov. p. 22. John De Barros, &c. Also Locke's Hist. of Navigation, p. 17. 4to. 2 The natives of the great Loochoo island deposit the remains of their relatives in vases, over which are hung, on bamboo poles, bundles of flowers. Each cemetery, says Captain Hall, wears an air of cheerfulness, p. 143, 4to. 3 Gibson's Camden. tomed to be planted on the graves by all those young men and women, who had lost their lovers. The Otaheitans plant trees in their cemeteries, which they call morai: and when one of Captain Cool's sailors plucked a flower from one of them, an Indian went up and struck him; as if he had committed a kind of sacrilege. In Greece the sepulchres were covered with parsley: and the boys, who died during the festival, called diamastigosis, were buried with much solemnity, and a crown of flowers placed upon their heads. The custom of strewing herbs and flowers was, at one time, prevalent in Italy. This is proved by a passage in Ausonius1, an epitaph on Sannazarius, and another on John Baptista Marino. Pontanus alludes to it, in his poem on the death of his wife; and Hessus in his sixth eclogues. Shakespeare describes it, as being prevalent at Verona¤; and were he always accurate in costume, and never guilty of anachronisms, we might be led to suppose, the practice once prevailed in Denmark, and Bohemia'. It ob 1 1 Epist. xxxvi. * Ciceriscus. ? Da sacro cineri flores.-Hic ille Maroni > Fundere ne renuas, flores, et thura, Viator! 5 Guiccardini. Spargite odoratos, tumulo date, spargite flores. Romeo and Juliet, act iv. sc. 4.-v. sc. 4. Misson confirms the prac |