Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 7.djvu/129

 of burial, while the other, more conspicuous as a monument, associates the person commemorated with the solemnity of an Eastern sepulchre. The lady's Will, some particulars of which I propose to give presently, directs that her body shall be buried in the chancel of the church of St. Nicholas, Peper Harow, before the high altar, to which altar she bequeaths 20s. The fact that a gravestone in the church so generally marked the place of burial furnishes a very strong reason against the barbarous practice, shamefully common at "restorations," of tearing up the brasses and fixing in the wall those of them that are not lost in the interval; a practice which deserves the severest reprehension, not only of archæologists, but of all who, as Christians, entertain a respect for the Dead. How frequently loss or injury is thus caused we well know; and, as one instance, we may advert to the numerous brasses (one of which, especially, was, as a palimpsest, of peculiar interest) formerly in Cheam Church, and fully illustrated in our Collections. Other instances in which there are two brass memorials to one individual occur. At Southfleet, Kent, is a brass to Joan, daughter of Sir John Reskemer, and wife of Thomas Urban, in which the effigy is represented standing on an elegant bracket: she died in 1414; and