Mortuary Requests.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 178, 13 November 1886, Page 8

Mortuary Requests.

There is something very touching in the designation of a place of mortuary rest so often made by those who fool that their departure is near at hand. Liszt, for instance, requested to be buried by the side of Wagner. In the came manner old Lyman Beecher desired to rest by the side of bis life-long friend, Prof. Taylor, of New Haven. Going back to Old Testament times, the patriarch Jacob asked to be buried in the old cave at Macpolah. There are many instances of unity of genius in interment, one of which is found in Goethe and Schiller. They died at Wiemar. and the Grand Duke honoured each of them with a place in his family tomb. Another instance of mortuary hospitality occurred in the his tory of Gibbon He died in London soon after finishing his great work, and having no near kindred he was buried in the tomb of his friend Lord Sheffield. The latter, indeed, felt honoured to pay thi? last tribute to genius. Robert Fulton, of steamboat fame, received the same honour of the Livingstones. He was laid in their vault in Trinity churchyard, and no tablet bears his name. Sometime this mortuary request is unavailing, aa in the case of Byron, who had repeatedly expressed a wish to be buried in the vault at Newstead Abbey, by the side of his beloved dog ; but on the other hand the interment was in th 6 family vault, under an adjacent chuich. Byron loved his dog moro than he did any of his kindred. He mourned its death, and not only buried it in the vault, but added i a beautiful inscription, and afterward penned a poetical tribute, which clo3es thus : To mark a friend's remains these atones arise, I never knew but one— and here he lies. — " Hermit" in "Troy Times."