Nay more, since
death cause it straightway to dwindle somewhat from the true semblance
of life, let cunning artificers fashion it anew--fashion it as it was.
Thus, in the earliest days of England, the kings, as they died, were
embalmed, and their bodies were borne aloft upon their biers, to a
sepulture long delayed after death. In later days, an image of every
king that died was forthwith carved in wood, and painted according to
his remembered aspect, and decked in his own robes; and, when they had
sealed his tomb, the mourners, humouring, to the best of their power,
his hatred of extinction, laid this image upon the tomb's slab, and
left it so. In yet later days, the pretence became more realistic. The
hands and the face were modelled in wax; and the figure stood upright,
in some commanding posture, on a valanced platform above the tomb. Nor
were only the kings thus honoured. Every one who was interred in the
Abbey, whether in virtue of lineage or of achievements, was honoured
thus. It was the fashion for every great lady to write in her will
minute instructions as to the posture in which her image was to be
modelled, and which of her gowns it was to be clad in, and with what
of her jewellery it was to glitter. Men, too, used to indulge in such
precautions.
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