FUNERAL GAMES, a part of the ceremony of the ancient funerals. It was customary for persons of rank, among the ancient Greeks and Romans, to institute games, with all sorts of exercises, to render the death of their friends more remarkable. This practice was general, and is often mentioned by ancient writers. The celebration of these games, among the Greeks, mostly consisted of horse races; the prizes were of different sorts and value, according to the quality and magnificence of the person that celebrated them. The garlands given to victors on such occasions were usually of parsley, which was thought to have some particular relation to the dead. Among the Romans these games consisted chiefly of processions; and sometimes of mortal combats of gladiators around the funeral pile. They, as well as the Greeks, had also a custom of slaying a number of captives before the pile, as victims to appease the manes of the deceased. Cæsar relates, that the Gauls had also this custom. The funeral games were abolished by the emperor Claudius. FUNERAL ORATION, a discourse pronounced in praise of a person deceased, at the ceremony of his funeral. This custom is also very ancient. In the annexed account of the Egyptian rites of interment, may be perceived the first rudiments of funeral orations, which were afterwards moulded into a more regular form by other nations, who adopted this practise. Nor can we omit remarking, that those funeral solemnities were attended not only with orations in praise of the deceased, but with prayers for him, made by one who personated the deceased. An entire form of one of these is preserved by Porphyry. When,' says he, they (the Egyptians) embalm their deceased nobles, they privately take out the entrails, and lay them up in an ark or chest; moreover, among other things which they do in favor of the deceased, lifting up the arc or chest to the sun, they invoke him; one of the Libitinarii making a prayer for the deceased, which Euphantus has translated out of the Egyptian Language, and is as follows:-O lord, the sun, and all the gods who give life to man, receive me, and admit me into the society of the immortal ones; for, as long as I lived in this world, I have religiously worshipped the gods whom my parents showed me, and have always honored those who begot my body; nor have I killed any man, nor have I defrauded any of what has been committed to my trust, nor have I done VOL. IX

any thing which is inexpiable. Indeed, whilst I was alive, if I have sinned either by eating or drinking any thing which was not lawful; not through myself have I sinned, but through these, showing the ark and chest where the entrails were. And, having thus spoke, he casts it into the river, but the rest of the body he embalms as pure.' The Grecians received the seeds of superstition and idolatrous worship from the Egyptians, by Cecrops, Cadmus, Danaus, and Erechtheus, coming into Greece; and, among other customs transplanted from Egypt, were the solemnities used at the burial of the dead. Of these an encomium on the deceased always formed a part. From the Egyptians and Grecians, especially the latter, the Romans received many of their laws and customs, as well as much of their polytheism and idolatrous worship. The corpse being brought to their great oratory, called the rostra, the next of the kin laudabat defunctum pro rostris, i. e. made a funeral oration, in the commendation principally of the party deceased, but touching the worthy acts also of those his predecessors whose images were there present. Dr. Kennet says, that In all the funerals of note, especially in the public or indictive, the corpse was first brought with a vast train of followers into the forum; here one of the nearest relations ascended the rostra, and delivered an oration in praise of the deceased. If none of the kindred undertook the office, it was discharged by some of the most eminent persons in the city for learning and eloquence, as Appian reports of the funeral of Sylla. And Pliny, the younger, reckons it as the last addition to the happiness of a very great man, that he had the honor to be praised at his funeral by the most eloquent Tacitus, then consul. The invention of this custom is generally attributed to Valerius Poplicola, soon after the expulsion of the regal family. Plutarch tells us, that honoring his colleague's obsequies with a funeral oration, it so pleased the Romans, that it became customary for the best men to celebrate the funerals of great persons with speeches in their commendation.' Thus Julius Cæsar, according to custom, made an oration in the rostra, in praise of his wife Cornelia, and his aunt Julia, when dead; wherein he showed, that his aunt's descent, by her mother's side, was from kings, and, by her father's, from the gods. Plutarch says, that 'he approved of the law of the Romans, which ordered suitable praises to be given to women as well as to men after death.' Though, by what he says in another place, it seems that the old Roman law was, that funeral orations should be made only for the elder women; and therefore he says, that Cæsar was the first that made one upon his own wife, it not being then usual to take notice of younger women in that way; but by that action he gained much favor from the populace, who afterwards looked upon him, and loved him as a very mild and good man. The reason why such a law was made in favor of the women, Livy tells us, was this, That when there was such a scarcity of money in the public treasury, that the sum agreed upon to give the Gauls to break up the siege of the city and capitol could not be raised, the women collected among themselves and made

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it up; who hereupon had not only thanks given them, but this additional honor, that after death they should be solemnly praised as well as the men whence it appears, that, before this time, the men only had those funeral orations made for them.

FUNERAL RITES, ceremonies accompanying the burial of any person. These rites differed among the ancients according to the different genius and religion of each country.

The first people who seem to have paid any particular respect to their dead, were the Egyptians, the posterity of Ham; as they were the first cultivators of idolatrous worship and superstition, after the flood, they were also the first who asserted the immortality of the soul, in its migration into all kinds of animals in earth, air, and sea, and its return to the human body; which they supposed to be within the term of 3000 years. Hence proceeded their great care in embalming their dead bodies, and their vast expense in building proper repositories for them; for they were more solicitous about their graves than their houses. Whenever a person died among the Egyptians, his parents and friends put on mournful habits, and abstained from all banquets and entertainments. This mourning lasted from forty to seventy days, during which time they embalmed the body. The embalmed body was restored to the friends, who placed it in a kind of open chest, which was preserved either in their houses, or in the sepulchres of their ancestors, But before the dead were deposited in the tomb, they underwent a solemn judgment, which extended even to their kings. Of this remarkable custom we have a particular account in the first book of Diodorus Siculus. Those who prepare to bury a relation, give notice of the day intended for the ceremony to the judges, and to all the friends of the deceased; informing them that the body will pass over the lake of that district to which the dead belonged; when on the judges assembling, to the number of more than forty, and ranging themselves in a semicircle on the further side of the lake, the vessel is set afloat, which those who superintend the funeral have prepared for this purpose. This vessel is managed by a pilot, called, in the Egyptian language, Charon; and hence they say that Orpheus, travelling in old times into Egypt, and seeing this ceremony, formed his fable of the infernal regions, partly from what he saw, and partly from invention. The vessel being launched on the lake, before the coffin, which contains the body, is put on board, the law permits all, who are so inclined, to produce an accusation against it. If any one steps forth, and proves that the deceased has led an evil life, the judges pronounce sentence, and the body is precluded from burial; but if the accuser is convicted of injustice in his charge, he falls himself under a considerable penalty. When no accuser appears, or when the accuser is proved to be an unfair one, the relations who are assembled change their expressions of sorrow into encomiums on the dead; yet do not, like the Greeks, speak in honor of his family, because they consider all Egyptians as equally well born; but they set forth the education and manners of his youth, his piety and justice in

maturer life, his moderation, and every virtue by which he was distinguished; and they supplicate the infernal deities to receive him as an associate among the blest. The multitude jois their acclamations of applause in this celebration of the dead, whom they consider as going to pass an eternity among the just below. Such is the description which Diodorus gives of this funeral judicature, to which even the kings of Egypt were subject. The same author asserts, that many sovereigns had been thus judicially deprived of the honors of burial by the indignation of their people; and that the terrors of such a fate had the most salutary influence on the virtue of their kings.

Among the Greeks it was usual sometimes be fore the interment, to put a piece of money int the mouth of the deceased, which was though! to be Charon's fare for wafting the departed soul over the infernal river. This ceremony was put used in those countries which were supposed to be situated in the neighbourhood of the infernal regions, and to lead thither by a ready and d rect road. The corpse was likewise furnished with a cake composed of flour, honey, &c., which was designed to appease the fury of Cer berus, the door-keeper of hell, and to procure the ghost a safe and quiet entrance. During the time the corpse continued in the house, there stood before the door a vessel of water: the design of which was, that those concerned about the body might purify themselves by washing; it being the opinion of the Greeks, as well as of the Jews, that pollution was contracted by touching a dead body. The ceremonies by which they expressed their sorrow for the death of their friends were various; but it seems to have beca a constant rule to recede as much as possible in habit and behaviour from their ordinary customs. For this reason they abstained from banquets and entertainments; they divested themselves of all ornaments; they tore, cut off, or shaved their hair, which they cast into the funeral pile, to be consumed with the body of their deceased friend. Sometimes they threw themselves on the ground, and rolled in the dust, or covered their bead with ashes; they beat their breasts, and even tore their flesh with their nails, upon the loss of a person they much lamented. When persons of rank, such as public magistrates or great generals, died, the whole city put on a face of mourning; all public meetings were intermitted; the schools, baths, shops, temples, and all places of concourse, were shut up. After interment followed the epulæ or feasts, at which the company used to appear crowned; when they spoke in praise of the dead; and not only at those feasts, but even before the company departed from the se pulchre, they were sometimes entertained with a

panegyric upon the dead person. The Grecian soldiers, who died in war, had not only their tombs adorned with inscriptions, showing their names, parentage, and exploits, but were also honored with an oration in their praise. The custom among the Athenians in the interment of their soldiers was as follows, namely, They used to place the bodies of their dead in tents three days before the funeral, that all persons might have opportunity to find out their rela

tions, and pay their last respects to them. Upon the fourth day a coffin of cypress was sent from every tribe, to convey the bones of their own relations; after which went a covered hearse in memory of those whose bodies could not be found. All these, accompanied with the whole body of the people, were carried to the public burying-place, called Ceramicus, and there interred. One oration was spoken in commendation of them all, and their monuments adorned with pillars, inscriptions, and all other ornaments usual about the tombs of the most honorable persons. The oration was pronounced by the fathers of those deceased persons who behaved themselves most valiantly. Thus, after the famous battle at Marathon, the fathers of Callimachus and Cynægyrus were appointed to make the funeral oration. And, upon the return of the day upon which the solemnity was first held, the same oration was constantly repeated every year.' Interring, or laying the dead in the ground, seems to have been the most ancient practice among the Greeks; though burning came afterwards to be generally used among them. It was customary to throw into the funeral pile those garments the deceased usually wore. The pile was lighted by one of the deceased's nearest relations or friends, who made prayers and vows to the winds to assist the flames, that the body might quickly be reduced to ashes; and, during the time the pile was burning, the dead person's friends stood by it, pouring libations of wine, and calling upon the deceased.

The funeral rites among the ancient Jews were solemn and magnificent. When any person was dead, his relations and friends rent their clothes; which custom is but faintly imitated by the modern Jews, who only cut off a bit of their garment in token of affliction. It was usual to bend the dead person's thumb into the hand, and fasten it in that posture with a string: because the thumb then having the figure of the name of God, they thought the devil would not dare to approach it. When they came to the burying-place, they made a speech to the dead in the following terms: Blessed be God, who has formed thee, fed thee, maintained thee, and taken away thy life. O dead! he knows your numbers, and shall one day restore your life, &c.' Then they spoke the eulogium, or funeral oration, of the deceased; after which they said a prayer, called the righteousness of judgment; then, turning the face of the deceased towards heaven, they called out, Go in peace.'

The funeral rites among the ancient Romans, were very numerous. The deceased was kept seven days; and every day washed with hot water, and sometimes with oil, that, in case he were only in a slumber, he might be thus waked; and every now and then his friends meeting, made a horrible outcry or shout, with the same view; which last action they called conclamatio. The last conclamation was on the seventh day; when, if no signs of life appeared, the defunct was dressed and embalmed by the pollinctores; placed in a bed near the door, with his face and heels towards the street; and the outside of the gate, if the deceased were of condition, was garaished with cypress boughs. In the course of

these seven days, an altar was raised near his bedside, calledacerra; on which his friends every day offered incense; and the libitinarii provided things for the funeral. On the seventh day, a crier was sent about the city, to invite the people to the solemnisation of the funeral in these words: 1 'Exequias L.Tit. L. filii, quibus est commodum ire, jam tempus est. Ollus (i. e. ille) ex ædibus effertur.' The people being assembled, and the last conclamation ended, the bed was covered with purple: a trumpeter marched forth, followed by old women called præficæ, singing songs in praise of the deceased lastly, the bed followed, borne by the next relations; and, if the person were of quality and office, the waxen images of all his predecessors were carried before him on poles. The bed was followed by his children, kindred, &c., atrati, i. e. in mourning: from which act of following the corpse, these funeral rites were called exequiæ. The body thus brought to the rostra, the next of kin laudabat defunctum pro rostris, made a funeral oration in his praise and that of his ancestors. This done, the body was carried to the pyra, or funeral pile, and there burnt; his friends first cutting off a finger, to be buried with a second solemnity. The body consumed, the ashes were gathered; and the priest sprinkling the company thrice with clean water, the eldest of the preficæ crying aloud ilicet, dismissed the people, who took their leave of the deceased in this form :- Vale, vale, vale : nos te ordine quo natura permiserit sequemur:" The ashes, enclosed in an urn, were laid in the sepulchre or tomb.

The ancient Christians testified their abhorrence of the Pagan custom of burning the dead, and always deposited the body entire in the ground; and it was usual to bestow the honor of embalming upon the martyrs at least, if not upon others. They prepared the body for burial by washing it with water, and dressing it in a funeral attire. The carrying forth of the body was performed by near relations, or persons of such dignity as the circumstances of the deceased required. Singing of psalms was the great ceremony used in all funeral processions among the ancient Christians.

The funeral rites of the Greek church are much the same with those of the Latin. It needs only to be added, that after the funeral service, they kiss the crucifix, and salute the mouth and forehead of the deceased: after which each of the company eats a bit of bread and drinks a glass of wine in the church, wishing the soul a good repose, and the afflicted family all consolation.

FUNERAL SERMONS. The custom of the Pagan Romans, in pronouncing funeral orations in praise of their deceased heroes, appears to have been very early adopted by the ancient Christians. Some of their funeral sermons or orations are stil extant, as that of Eusebius on Constantine; those of Nazianzen on Basil and Cæsarius; and of Ambrose on Valentinian, Theodosius, and others. Gregory, the brother of Basil, made εundelov Aoyov, a funeral oration, for Melitius bishop of Antioch; in which orations, they not only praised the dead, but addressed themselves to them, which seems to have introduced the custom of

praying to departed saints. Now these orations were usually made before the bodies of the deceased were committed to the ground; which custom has been more or less continued ever since, to this day. The heathens honored those alone, with this part of the funeral solemnity, who were men of probity and justice, renowned for their wisdom and knowledge, or famous for warlike exploits; this, as Cicero informs us, being part of the law for burials, which directs, that the praises only of honorable persons shall be mentioned in the oration. It would be much more proper, if our funeral discourses were not so common, and if the characters given of the deceased were more just; devoid of that fulsome flattery with which they too often abound.

stalks grow in a moist, and tainted air, in which float multitudes of eggs, so small that the very insects they produce are with difficulty sen by the microscope. Can it be surprising, the, that the corruption of the mushroom shou make the water capable of disclosing certa beings that are really foreign to both? Its more easy to acquiesce in the opinions of the naturalists who place the fungi in the mined kingdom, because they are found growing e porous stones, thence called lapides fung which, however, must be covered with a li earth, and be watered with tepid water, in orde to favor the growth. Such mushrooms are t more the produce of the stone, than the lichens of the rock to which it adheres, or the moss a the tree on which it is found. We have only v observe the growth of mushrooms, to be c vinced, that this happens by development, and not by addition or combination of parts as minerals. The opinion of Boccone, who attr

FUNGI, from apoyyos, fungus. in botany, the fourth order of the twenty-fourth class of vegetables, in the Linnæan system; comprehending all those which are of the mushroom kind. The ancients called fungi children of the earth, to indicate the obscurity of their origin. The moderns have likewise been at a loss in what rank to place them; some referring them to the animal, some to the vegetable, and others to the mineral kingdom. Messrs. Wilck and Münchausen have not scrupled to rank these bodies among animal productions; because, when fragments of them or their seeds were macerated in water, these gentlemen perceived a quantity of animalcules discharged, which they supposed capable of being changed into the same substance. Hedwig has lately shown how ill founded this opinion is with respect to the lichen; and M. Durande has demonstrated its falsity with regard to the corallines. Indeed,' says M. Bonnet, speaking of the animality of fungi,nothing but the rage for paradox could induce any one to publish such a fable; and I regret that posterity will be able to reproach our times with it. Observation and experiment should enable us to overcome the prejudices of modern philosophy; now, that those of the ancient have disappeared and are forgotten.' It cannot be denied that the mushroom is one of the most perishable of all plants, and it is therefore the most favorable for the generation of insects. Considering the quickness of its growth, it must be furnished with the power of copious absorption: the extremity of its vessels must be more dilated than in other plants. Its root seems, in many cases, to be merely intended for its support; for some species grow upon stones or moveable sand, from which it is impossible they can draw much nourishment. We must therefore suppose, that it is chiefly by the stalk that they absorb. These

the function of seed, and acquiring extension ly apposition of similar parts; and that of Morisen. who conceived that they grew spontaneously a of the earth by a certain mixture of salt and sal phur, joined with oils from the dung of qua rupeds, have now no longer any adherers. Fungi are produced, they live, they grow, by development; they are exposed to those viciss tudes natural to the different peiods of life which characterise living substances; they perish and die. They extract, by the extremity of ther vessels, the juices with which they are nourished; they elaborate and assimilate them to their ow substance. They are, therefore, organised and living beings, and consequently belong to the vegetable kingdom. But whether they are real plants, or only the production of plants, is still a matter in dispute with the ablest naturalists. These productions were generally attributed to the superfluous humidity of rotten wood, or other putrid substances. The opinion took its rise from observing that they grew most copiously in rainy weather. Such was the opinion of Tragus, of Bauhin, and even of Columna, who, talking of the peziza, says, that its substance was more solid and harder, because it did not originate from rotten wood, but from the pituita of the earth. It is not surprising that, in times when the want of experiment and observation made people believe that insects could be generated by putrefaction, we should find the opinion general, that fungi owed their origin to the putrescence of bodies, or to a viscous humor analogous to putridity. Malpighi could not satisfy himself as to the existence of seeds which other botanists had pretended to discover. He only says, that these plants must have them, or that they perpetuate themselves and shoot by fragments. Micheli, among the moderns, appears to have employed himself most successfully on this subject. He imagined that he not only saw the seeds, but even the stamina, as well as the little transparent bodies destined to favor the dissemination and the fecundation of these seeds. Be fore this author, Lister thought he perceived seeds in the fungus perosus crassus magnus of John Bauhin: the little round bodies that are

found in the pezizæ and helvella, at that time, passed for seeds; which did not appear at all probable to Marsigli, considering that the eye, when assisted with the very best microscopes, could perceive nothing similar in much larger fungi. Indeed these bodies may be the capsules or covers of the seeds, if they are not the seeds themselves. However this may be, Marsigli, observing that fungi were often without roots or branches, and that they wanted flowers and seeds, the means which nature employs for the production of perfect plants, thought himself warranted in doubting whether these beings could be ranked in the number of vegetables. The doubts of Marsigli prompted him to observe the formation of fungi. Their matrix he called situs: he imagined they grew in places where they met with an unctuous matter, composed of an oil mixed with nitrous salt, which, by fermentation, produced heat and moisture, and insinuated itself between the fibres of wood; that is, he imagined them the production of a viscous and putrescent humor. Lancisi, in like manner, considered fungi as owing their existence to the putrefaction of vegetables, and supposed them a disease in the plant; but he imagined, that the fibres of the trees were necessary to their production,' as is the case in the formation of galls; he compared them to the warts and other excrescences of the human body. He added, that such fungous vegetable tumors must necessarily assume various forms and figures, from the fluids which distend the tubes and vessels relaxed by putrescence, from the ductility of the fibres and their direction, and from the action of the air. This opinion has been refuted by the celebrated naturalist M. de Jussieu, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1728. He maintains, that the fungi have a great analogy with the lichen, which is allowed to be a vegetable; that, like the lichen, they are divested of stalk, branches, and leaves; that, like it, they grow and are nourished upon the trunks of trees; on pieces of rotten wood, and on all sorts of putrid vegetables; that they resemble the lichen too in the rapidity of their growth, and the facility with which many of them may be dried and restored to their former figure, upon being immersed in water; and, lastly, that there is a great similarity in the manner in which their seeds are produced. He affirms, that only the warts and excrescences which grow on animal bodies, and the knots and other tumors that are to be found on trees, can be compared with one another; for they are composed equally of the solid and liquid substance of the plant or animal on which they grow; whereas, the matter of the fungi is not only quite distinct from that of the plants on which they are found, but often entirely similar to the substance of those that spring immediately from the earth. The organisation, says M. de Jussieu, which distinguishes plants and other productions of nature, is visible in the fungi; and the particular organisation of each species is constant at all times and in all places; a circumstance which could not happen, if there were not an animal re-production of species, and consequently a multiplication and propaga

tion by seed. This is not, he says, an imaginary supposition; for the seeds may be felt like meal upon mushrooms with gills, especially when they begin to decay; they may be seen with a magnifying glass, in those that have gills with black margins; and, lastly, says he, botanists can have no doubt that fungi are a distinct class of plants; because, by comparing the observations made in different countries with the figures and descriptions of such as have been engraven, the same genera and the same species are every where found. Notwithstanding this refutation, by M. de Jussieu, another naturalist, M. de Necker, has lately maintained, in his Mycitologia, that the fungi ought to be excluded from the three kingdoms of nature, and be considered as intermediate beings. He has observed, like Marsigli, the matrix of the fungi: and has substituted the word carchte (initium faciens) instead of situs; imagining that the rudiment of the fungus cannot exist beyond that point in which the development of the filaments or fibrous roots is perceived. He allows, that fungi are nourished and grow like vegetables; but he thinks that they differ very much from them in respect of their origin, structure, nutrition, and rapidity of growth. He says, that the various vessels which compose the organisation of vegetables are not to be found in the fungi, and that they seem entirely composed of cellular substance and bark; so that this simple organisation is nothing more than an aggregation of vessels endowed with a common nature, that suck up the moisture in the manner of a sponge; with this difference, that the moisture is assimilated into a part of the fungus. Lastly, that the fructification, the only essential part of a vege table, and which distinguishes it from all other organised bodies, being wanting, fungi cannot be considered as plants. This he thinks confirmed, by the constant observation of those people who gather the morelle and the mushroom, and who never find them in the same spots where they had formerly grown. As the generation of fungi, says M. Necker, is always performed when the parenchymatous or cellular substance has changed its nature, form, and function, we must conclude that it is the degeneration of that part which produces these bodies. But, if fungi were owing merely to the degeneration of plants, they would be still better entitled to constitute a new kingdom. They would then be a decomposition, not a new formation or new bodies. Besides, we cannot deny that, in those bodies which form the limit between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the organisation becomes simple, as the organs destined for nutrition are multiplied: but, as the last in the class of insects belongs to the animal kingdom, fungi ought, notwithstanding the simplicity of their organisation, still to belong to the vegetable kingdom. The parenchymatous or cellular substance, which, as M. Bonnet says, is universally extended, embraces the whole fibrous system, and becomes the principal instrument of growth, must naturally be more abundant in these productions; and this accounts for the rapidity of their enlargement. Besides growth, whether slow or rapid, never was employed to determine the presence or ab