beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my
life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury
to such scenes !
I am. Sir, your faithful servant,
A Londoner.
ON BURIAL SOCIETIES;
AND THE CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER.
To the Editor of the Reflector.
MR. REFLECTOR,
I WAS amused the other day with having the fol-
lowing notice thrust into my hand by a man who
gives out bills at the corner of Fleet-market.
Whether he saw any prognostics about me, that
made him judge such notice seasonable^ I cannot
say ', I might perhaps carry in a countenance (na-
turally not very florid) traces of a fever which
had not long left me. Those fellows have a good
instinctive way of guessing at the sort of people
that are likeliest to pay attention to their papers.
<<
BURIAL SOCIETY.
'' A favourable opportunity now offers to any
person, of either sex, who would wish to be bu'
ried in a genteel manner, by paying one shilling
144 ON BURIAL SOCIETIES } AND THE
entrance, and two-pence per week for the benefit
of the stock. Members to be free in six months.
The money to be paid at Mr. Middleton's, at the
sign of the First and the Last, Stonecutter's-street,
Fleet- market. The deceased to be furnished as
follows : — A strong elm coffin, covered with su-
perfine black, and finished with two rows, all
round, close drove, best japanned nails, and
adorned with ornamental drops, a handsome plate
of inscription. Angel above, and Flower beneath,
and four pair of handsome handles, with w^'ought
gripes; the coffin to be well pitched, lined, and
ruffled with fine crape ; a handsome crape shroud,
cap, and pillow. For use, a handsome velvet
pall, three gentlemen's cloaks, three crape hat-
bands, three hoods and scarfs, and six pair of
gloves 3 two porters equipped to attend the fune-
ral, a man to attend the same with band and
gloves ; also, the burial fees paid, if not exceeding
one guinea."
'' Man," says Sir Thomas Browne, " is a noble
animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the
grave." Whoever drew up this little advertise-
ment, certainly understood this appetite in the
species, and has made abundant provision for it,
It really almost induces a tcedium vitcE upon one
CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER. 145
to read it. Methinks I could be willing to die,
in death to be so attended. The two rows all
round close- drove best black japanned nails, —
how feelingly do they invite and almost irresisti-
bly persuade us to come and be fastened down !
what aching head can resist the temptation to
repose, which the crape shroud, the cap, and the
pillow present ; what sting is there in death,
which the handles with wrought gripes are not
calculated to pluck aw^ay ? what victory in the
grave, which the drops and the velvet pall do not
render at least extremely disputable 3 but above
all, the pretty emblematic plate with the Angel
above and the Flower beneath, takes me mightily.
The notice goes on to inform us, that though
the society has been established but a very few
years, upwards of eleven hundred persons have put
down their names. It is really an affecting con-
sideration to think of so many poor people, of the
industrious and hard working class (for none but
such would be possessed of such a generous fore-
thought) clubbing their twopences to save the re-
proach of a parish funeral. Many a poor fellow,
I dare swear, has that Angel and Flower kept
from the Angel and Punchbowl, while, to provide
himself a bier, he has curtailed himself of heer,
VOL. II. L
146 ON BURIAL SOCIETIES 3 AND THE "^
Many a savory morsel has the living body been
deprived of, that the lifeless one might be served
up in a richer state to the vi'orms. And sure, if
the body could understand the actions of the soul,
and entertain generous notions of things, it would
thank its provident partner, that she had been
more solicitous to defend it from dishonours at
its dissolution, than careful to pamper it with
good things in the time of its union. If Caesar
were chiefly anxious at his death how he might
die most decently, every Burial Society may be
considered as a Club of Caesars.
Nothing tends to keep up, in the imaginations
of the poorer sort of people, a generous horror of
the workhouse more than the manner in which
pauper funerals are conducted in this metropolis.
The coffin nothing but a few naked planks, coarse-
ly put together, — the want of a pall (that decent
and well-imagined veil, which, hiding the coffin
that hides the body, keeps that which would shock
us at two removes from us), the coloured coats
of the men that are hired, at cheap rates, to carry
the body, — altogether, give the notion of the de-
ceased having been some person of an ill- life and
conversation, some one who may not claim the
entire rites of Christian burial, — one by whom
CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER. 147
some parts of the sacred ceremony would be de-
secrated if they should be bestowed upon him.
I meet these meagre processions sometimes in the
street. They are sure to make me out of humour
and melancholy all the day after. They have a
harsh and ominous aspect.
If there is any thing in the prospectus issued
from Mr. Middleton's^, Stonecutter's-street, which
pleases me less than the rest, it is to find, that
the six pair of gloves are to be returned, that they
are only lent, or, as the bill expresses it, for use,
on the occasion. The hood, scarfs, and hatbands,
may properly enough be given up after the so-
lemnity : the cloaks no gentleman would think of
keeping ; but a pair of gloves, once fitted on,
ought not in courtesy to be re-demanded. The
wearer should certainly have the fee-simple of
them. The cost would be but trifling, and they
would be a proper memorial of the day. This
part of the Proposal wants reconsidering. It is
not conceived in the same liberal way of thinking
as the rest. I am also a little doubtful whether
the limit, within which the burial-fee is made
payable, should not be extended to thirty shillings.
Some provision too ought undoubtedly to be
made in favour of those well-intentioned persons
148 ON BURIAL SOCIETIES J AND THE
and well-wishers to the fund, who, having all
along paid their subscriptions regularly, are so
unfortunate as to die before the six months, which
would entitle them to their freedom, are quite
completed. One can hardly imagine a more dis-
tressing case than that of a poor fellow lingering
on in a consumption till the period of his freedom
is almost in sight, and then finding himself going
with a velocity which makes it doubtful whether
he shall be entitled to his funeral honours : his
quota to which he nevertheless squeezes out, to
the diminution of the comforts which sickness de-
mands. I think, in such cases, some of the con-
tribution-money ought to revert. With some
such modifications, which might easily be intro-
duced, I see nothing in these Proposals of Mr.
Middleton which is not strictly fair and genteel -,
and heartily recommend them to all persons of
moderate incomes, in either sex, who are willing
that this perishable part of them should quit the
scene of its mortal activities, with as handsome
circumstances as possible.
Before I quit the subject, I must guard my
readers against a scandal, which they may be apt
to take at the place whence these Proposals pur-
port to be issued. From the sign of the First and
CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER. 149
the Last, they may conclude that Mr. Middleton
is some pubhcan,, who^ in assembling a club of this
description at his house, may have a sinister end
of his own, altogether foreign to the solemn pur-
pose for which the club is pretended to be insti-
tuted. I must set them right by informing them
that the issuer of these Proposals is no publican,
though he hangs out a sign, but an honest super-
intendant of funerals, who, by the device of a
Cradle and a Coffin, connecting both ends of hu-
man existence together, has most ingeniously
contrived to insinuate, that the framers of these
Jirst and last receptacles of mankind divide this
our life betwixt them, and that all that passes
from the midwife to the undertaker may, in strict
propriety, go for nothing : an awful and instructive
lesson to human vanity.
Looking over some papers lately that fell into
my hands by chance, and appear to have been
written about the beginning of the last century,
I stumbled, among the rest, upon the following
short Essay, which the writer calls '' The Charac-
ter of an Undertaker.'' It is written with some
stiffness and peculiarities of style, but some parts
of it, I think, not unaptly characterise the profes-
sion to which Mr. Middleton has the honour to
150 ON BURIAL SOCIETIES J AND THE
belong. The writer doubtless had in his mind
the entertaining character of Sable, in Steele's
excellent comedy of the Funeral.
CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER.
" He is master of the ceremonies at burials and
mourning assemblies, grand marshal at funeral
processions, the only true yeoman of the body, over
which he exercises a dictatorial authority from the
moment that the breath has taken leave to that of
its final commitment to the earth. His ministry
begins where the physician's^ the lawyer's, and
the divine's, end. Or if some part of the functi-
ons of the latter run parallel with his, it is only in
ordine ad spiritualia. His temporalities remain un-
questioned. He is arbitrator of all questions of
honour which may concern the defunct ; and upon
slight inspection will pronounce how long he
may remain in this upper world with credit to
himself, and when it will be prudent for his re-
putation that he should retire. His determina-
tion in these points is peremptory and without
appeal. Yet, with a modesty peculiar to his pro-
fession, he meddles not out of his own sphere.
With the good or bad actions of the deceased in
his life-time he has nothing to do. He leaves
CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER. 151
the friends of the dead man to form their own
conjectures as to the place to which the departed
spirit is gone. His care is only about the exuviae.
He concerns not himself even about the body, as
it is a structure of parts internal, and a wonder-
ful microcosm. He leaves such curious specula-
tions to the anatomy professor. Or, if any thing,
he is averse to such wanton enquiries, as delight-
ing rather that the parts which he has care of
should be returned to their kindred dust in as
handsome and unmutilated condition as possible j
that the grave should have its full and unimpair-
ed tribute, — a complete and just carcass. Nor is
he only careful to provide for the body's entireness,
but for its accommodation and ornament. He
orders the fashion of its clothes, and designs the
symmetry of its dwelling. Its vanity has an in-
nocent survival in him. He is bed-maker to the
dead. The pillows which he lays never rumple.
The day of interment is the theatre in which he
displays the mysteries of his art. It is hard to de-
scribe what he is, or rather to tell what he is not,
on that day : for, being neither kinsman, servant,
nor friend, he is all in turns ; a transcendant,
running through all those relations. His office
is to supply the place of self-agency in the family.
152 ON BURIAL SOCIETIES ', AND THE
who are presumed incapable of it through grief.
He is eyeS:, and ears, and handS;, to the whole
household. A draught of wine cannot go round
to the mourners, but he must minister it. A chair
may hardly be restored to its place by a less so-
lemn hand than his. He takes upon himself all
functions, and is a sort of ephemeral major-domo !
He distributes his attentions among the company
assembled according to the degree of affliction,
which he calculates from the degree of kin to the
deceased ; and marshals them accordingly in the
procession. He himself is of a sad and tristful
countenance ; yet such as (if well examined) is
not without some show of patience and resigna-
tion at bottom : prefiguring, as it were, to the
friends of the deceased, what their grief shall be
when the hand of Time shall have softened and
taken down the bitterness of their first anguish ;
so handsomely can he fore-shape and anticipate
the work of Time, Lastly, with his wand, as
with another divining rod, he calculates the depth
of earth at which the bones of the dead man may
rest, which he ordinarily contrives may be at such
a distance from the surface of this earth, as may
frustrate the profane attempts of such as would
violate his repose, yet sufficiently on this side the
CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER. 153
centre to give his friends hopes of an easy and
practicable resurrection. And here we leave him,
casting in dust to dust^ which is the last friendly
office that he undertakes to do."
Begging your pardon for detaining you so long
among ''^ graves, and worms^, and epitaphs,"
I am. Sir,
Your humble servant,
MORITURUS.
ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING
MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY 3
WITH A HINT TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE FRAMING OF
ADVERTISEMENTS FOR APPREHENDING OFFENDERS.
To the Editor of the Reflector.
MR. REFLECTOR,
There is no science in their pretensions to which
mankind are more apt to commit grievous mis-
takes, than in the supposed very obvious one of
physiognomy, I quarrel not with the principles
of this science, as they are laid down by learned
professors ; much less am I disposed, with some
people, to deny its existence altogether as any in-
let of knowledge that can be depended upon. I
believe that there is, or may be, an art to " read
the mind's construction in the face." But, then,
in every species of reading, so much depends upon
the eyes of the reader ; if they are blear, or apt
to dazzle, or inattentive, or strained with too
much attention, the optic power will infallibly
MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY. 155
bring home false reports of what it reads. How
often do we say, upon a cursory glance at a stran-
ger, what a fine open countenance he has, who,
upon second inspection, prov es to have the exact
features of a knave. Nav, in much more inti-
mate acquaintances, how a delusion of this kind
shall continue for months, years, and then break
up all at once.
Ask the married man, who has been so but for a
short space of time, if those blue eyes where, du-
ring so many years of anxious courtship, truth,
sweetness, serenity, seemed to be written in cha-
racters which could not be misunderstood — ask
him if the characters which they now convey be
exactly the same i* — if for truth he does not read a
dull virtue (the mimic of constancy) which chan-
ges not, only because it wants the judgment to
make a preference ? — if for sweetness he does not
read a stupid habit of looking pleased at every
thing; — if for serenity he does not read animal
tranquillity, the dead pool of the heart, which no
breeze of passion can stir into health ? Alas !
what is this book of the countenance good for,
which when we have read so long, and thought
that we understood its contents, there comes a
countless list of heart-breaking errata at the end !
156 ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING
But these are the pitiable mistakes to which
love alone is subject. I have inadvertently wan-
dered from my purpose^ which was to expose quite
an opposite blunder, into which we are no less apt
to fall, through hate. How ugly a person looks
upon whose reputation some awkward aspersion
hangs, and how suddenly his countenance clears
up with his character. I remember being per-
suaded of a man whom 1 had conceived an ill opi-
nion of, that he had a very bad set of teeth ; which,
since I have had better opportunities of being
acquainted with his face and facts, I find to have
been the very reverse of the truth. That crooked
old woman, I once said, speaking of an ancient
gentlewoman, whose actions did not square alto-
gether with my notions of the rule of right. The
imanimous surprise of the company before whom
I uttered these words, soon convinced me that I
had confounded mental with bodily obliquity, and
that there was nothing tortuous about the old
lady but her deeds.
This humour of mankind to deny personal
comeliness to those with whose moral attributes
they are dissatisfied, is very strongly shewn in
those advertisements, which stare us in the face
from the walls of every street, and, with the tempt-
MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY. 157
ing bait which they hang forth, stimulate at once
cupidity and an abstract love of justice in the
breast of every passing peruser ; I mean, the ad-
vertisements offering rewards for tlie apprehension,
of absconded culprits, strayed apprentices, bank-
rupts who have conveyed away their effects, debtors
that have run away from their bail. I observe,
that in exact proportion to the indignity with
which the prosecutor, who is commonly the fra-
mer of the advertisement, conceives he has been
treated, the personal pretensions of the fugitive
are denied, and his defects exaggerated.
A fellow, whose misdeeds have been directed
against the public in general, and in whose de-
linquency no individual shall feel himself particu-
larly interested, generally meets with fair usage.
A coiner or a smuggler shall get off tolerably well.
His beauty, if he has any, is not much underrated,
his deformities are not much magnified. A run-
away apprentice, who excites perhaps the next
least degree of spleen in his prosecutor, generally
escapes with a pair of bandy legs j if he has taken
any thing with him in his flight, a hitch in his
gait is generally superadded. A bankrupt, who
has been guilty of withdrawing his effects, if his
casfe be not very atrocious, commonly meets with
158 ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING
mild usage. But a debtor who has left his bail
in jeopardy, is sure to be described in charac-
ters of unmingled deformity. Here the personal
feelings of the bail, which may be allowed to be
somewhat poignant, are admitted to interfere j
and, as wrath and revenge commonly strike in
the dark, the colours are laid on with a gross -
ness which I am convinced must often defeat its
own purpose. The fish that casts an inky cloud
about him that his enemies may not find him,
cannot more obscure himself by that device than
the blackening representations of these angry
advertisers must inevitably serve to cloak and
screen the persons of those who have injured
them from detection. I have before me at this
moment one of these bills, which runs thus : —
'' Fifty Pounds Reward.
'^ Run away from his bail, John Tomkins, for-
merly resident in Princes-street, Soho, but lately
of Clerkenwell. Whoever shall apprehend, or
cause to be apprehended and lodged in one of
his Majesty's jails, the said John Tomkins, shall
receive the above reward. He is a thickset,
sturdy man, about five foot six inches high,
halts in his left leg, with a stoop in his gait.
MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY. 159
with coarse red hair, nose short and cocked up,
with little grey eyes, one of them bears the ef-
fect of a blow which he has lately received, with
a pot belly, speaks with a thick and disagreeable
voice, goes shabbily drest, had on when he went
away, a greasy shag great coat with I'usty yellow
buttons."
Now, although it is not out of the compass of
possibility that John Tomkins aforesaid may com-
prehend in his agreeable person all the above-
mentioned aggregate of charms ; yet, from my
observation of the manner in which these adver-
tisements are usually drawn up, though I have
not the pleasure of knowing the gentleman, yet
would 1 lay a wager, that an advertisemeiit to
the following effect would have a much better
chance of apprehending and laying by the heels
this John Tomkins than the above description,
although penned by one who, from the good ser-
vices which he appears to have done for him, has
not improbably been blessed with some years of
previous intercourse with the said John. Taking,
then, the above advertisement to be true, or
nearly so, down to the words " left leg" inclu-
sive (though I have some doubt if the blemish
there implied amount to a positive lameness, or
160 ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING
be perceivable by any but the nearest friends of
John) I would proceed thus : —
— " Leans a little forward in his walk, his
hair thick and inclining to auburn^, his nose of
the middle size, a little turned up at the end,
lively hazel eyes (the contusion, as its effects are
probably gone off by this time, I judge better
omitted) inclines to be corpulent, his voice thick
but pleasing, especially when he sings, had on a
decent shag great coat with yellow buttons."
Now, I would stake a considerable wager
(though by no means a positive man) that some
such mitigated description would lead the bea-
gles of the law into a much surer track for find-
ing this ungracious varlet, than to set them upon
a false scent after fictitious ugliness and fictitious
shabbiness ; though, to do those gentlemen jus-
tice, I have no doubt their experience has taught
them in all such cases to abate a great deal of
the deformity which they are instiiicted to ex-
pect J and has discovered to them, that the De-
vil's agents upon this earth, like their master,
are far less ugly in reality than they are painted.
I am afraid, Mr. Reflector, that I shall be
thought to have gone wide of my subject, which
was to detect the practical errors of physiog-
MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY. IGl
nomy, properly so called 3 whereas I have intro-
duced physical defects, such as lameness, the
effects of accidents upon a man's person, his
wearing apparel, &c. as circumstances on which
the eye of dislike, looking ascance, may report
erroneous conclusions to the understanding. But
if we are liable, through a kind, or an unkind
passion, to mistake so grossly concerning things
so exterior and palpable, how much more are
we likely to err respecting those nicer and less
perceptible hints of character in a face, whose
detection constitutes the triumph of the physiog-
nomist.
To revert to those bestowers of unmerited de-
formity, the framers of advertisements for the
apprehension of delinquents, a sincere desire of
promoting the ends of public justice induces me
to address a word to them on the best means of
attaining those ends. I will endeavour to lay
down a few practical, or rather negative, rules
for their use, for my ambition extends no fur-
ther than to arm them with cautions against the
self-defeating of their own purposes : —
1 . Imprimis, then, Mr. Advertiser ! If the
culprit whom you are willing to recover be one
to whom in times past you have shewn kindness,
VOL. II. M
162 ON THE DANGER OF CONFOUNDING
and been disposed to think kindly of him your-
self^ but he has deceived your trust, and has
run away, and left you with a load of debt to
answer for him, — sit down calmly, and endea-
vour to behold him through the spectacles of
memory rather than of present conceit. Image
to yourself, before you pen a tittle of his de-
scription, the same plausible, good-looking man
who took you in ; and try to put away from your
mind every intrusion of that deceitful spectre
which perpetually obtrudes itself in the room of
your former friend's known visage. It will do
you more credit to have been deceived by such
a one ; and depend upon it, the traitor will con-
vey to the eyes of the world in general much
more of that first idea which you formed (per-
haps in part erroneous) of his physiognomy, than
of that frightful substitute which you have suf-
fered to creep in upon your mind and usurp
upon it ; a creature which has no archetype ex-
cept in your own brain.
2. If you be a master that have to advertise
a runaway apprentice, though the young dog's
faults are known only to you, and no doubt his
conduct has been aggravating enough, do not
presently set him down as having crooked ancles.
MORAL WITH PERSONAL DEFORMITY. 163
He may have a good pair of legs, and run away
notwithstanding. Indeed, the latter does rather
seem to imply the former.
3. If the unhappy person against whom
your laudable vengeance is directed be a thief,
think that a thief may have a good nose, good
eyes, good ears. It is indispensible to his pro-
fession that he be possessed of sagacity, fore-
sight, vigilance ; it is more than probable, then,
that he is endued with the bodily types or in-
struments of these qualities to some tolerable
degree of perfectness.
4. If petty larceny be his offence, I exhort
you, do not confound meanness of crime with
diminutiveness of stature. These things have
no connection. I have known a tall man stoop