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Nor are the other rites, as of Marriage, of Extreme Unction, of Visitation of the Sick, of Consecrating Churches, and Church-yards, and the like, exempt from Charms; in as much as there is in them the use of Enchanted Oyle, and Water, with the abuse of the Crosse, and of the holy word of David, "Asperges me Domine Hyssopo," as things of efficacy to drive away Phantasmes, and Imaginery Spirits.
When we left Italy we had delightful sailing among the Archipelago islands, and from thence to Smyrna in Turkey. This is a very ancient city; the houses are built of stone, and most of them have graves adjoining to them; so that they sometimes present the appearance of church-yards. Provisions are very plentiful in this city, and good wine less than a penny a pint.
But that which excited greatest curiosity was a sycamore-tree, which grow in the middle of the burying-ground. It is necessary to inform the reader, that in Ireland many of the church-yards are exclusively appropriated to the interment of Roman Catholics, and, consequently, the corpse of no one who had been a Protestant would be permitted to pollute or desecrate them.
He has left us a picture of his student-life in an autobiography, extracts from which are found in a number of works. It can easily be imagined how several thousand scholars of this roving cast, who all subsisted on alms, should frequently meet together in one town. In summer they all lay together in the church-yards with the grass for a bed.
The effluvia arising from church-yards and other burying grounds is very infectious; and parish churches, in which many corpses are interred, become tainted with an atmosphere so corrupt, especially in the spring, when the ground begins to grow warm, that it is one of the principal sources of putrid fevers, which so often prevail at that season of the year.
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