Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/405

Rh church to the square. The body, dressed in a general's uniform, was carried upon a splendid bier, and was so perfectly embalmed, that he seemed not dead, nor even asleep, but lying-in an attitude of repose. The expense of this operation will probably prevent its ever becoming very common; and certainly there are but few cases where it can be advisable to adopt it. An embalmed dynasty might be a curious sight. To trace the features of a royal line, from Charlemagne to Charles the Tenth—from Alfred to William the Fourth, would be a strange study. Mary of Scotland, and Elizabeth, lying in the repose of death, yet looking as they lived and hated centuries back, might be a curious piece of antiquity. A Hernan Cortes—a Washington—a Columbus—a Napoleon; men, whose memory for good or for evil, will survive time and change—it would be a strange and wondrous thing, if we could look on their features as they were in life. But it is to be trusted that this method of successfully wrestling with the earth for what it claims as its due, will not generally prevail; or at the end of a few centuries, the embalmed population would scarce leave room for their living and breathing descendants; nor is it an agreeable idea that one might, in a lapse of ages, grace the study of an antiquary, or be preserved amongst the curiosities of a museum. I would stuff birds and beasts, and preserve them in cabinets, but not the remains of immortal man. Dust unto dust; and the eye of faith turned from the perishing remains, to the spirit which has gone to the God who gave it.

The funcion performed in the General's honor,