human blessing of
which death cannot deprive us. But the Egyptians would not suffer praises
to be bestowed indiscriminately on all deceased persons. This honour was
to be obtained only from the public voice. The assembly of the judges met
on the other side of a lake, which they crossed in a boat. He who sat at
the helm was called Charon, in the Egyptian language; and this first gave
the hint to Orpheus, who had been in Egypt, and after him, to the other
Greeks, to invent the fiction of Charon's boat. As soon as a man was dead,
he was brought to his trial. The public accuser was heard. If he proved
that the deceased had led a bad life, his memory was condemned, and he was
deprived of burial. The people admired the power of the laws, which
extended even beyond the grave; and every one, struck with the disgrace
inflicted on the dead person, was afraid to reflect dishonour on his own
memory, and his family. But if the deceased person was not convicted of
any crime, he was interred in an honourable manner.

A still more astonishing circumstance, in this public inquest upon the
dead, was, that the throne itself was no protection from it. Kings were
spared during their lives, because the public peace was concerned in this
forbearance; but their quality did not exempt them from the judgment
passed upon the dead, and even some of them were deprived of sepulture.
This custom was imitated by the Israelites. We see, in Scripture, that bad
kings were not interred in the monuments of their ancestors. This practice
suggested to princes, that if their majesty placed them out of the reach
of men's judgment while they were alive, they would at last be liable to
it when death should reduce them to a level with their subjects.

When therefore a favourable judgment was pronounced on a deceased person,
the next thing was to proceed to the ceremonies of interment. In his
panegyric, no mention was made of his birth, because every Egyptian was
deemed noble. No praises were considered as just or true, but such as
related to the personal merit of the deceased. He was applauded for having
received an excellent education in his younger years; and in his more
advanced age, for having cultivated piety towards the gods, justice
towards men, gentleness, modesty, moderation, and all other virtues which
constitute the good man. Then all the people besought the gods to receive
the deceased into the assembly of the just, and to admit him as a partaker
with