I have seldom heard of so persistent a vanity.
Another, though contrary curiosity (of which singularity, also, I do not want domestic example), seems to be somewhat akin to this, that a man shall cudgel his brains at the last moments of his life to contrive his obsequies to so particular and unusual a parsimony as of one servant with a lantern, I see this humour commended, and the appointment of Marcus.
Emilius Lepidus, who forbade his heirs to bestow upon his hearse even the common ceremonies in use upon such occasions.

Is it yet temperance and frugality to avoid expense and pleasure of which the use and knowledge are imperceptible to us?
See, here, an easy and cheap reformation.

If instruction were at all necessary in this case, I should be of opinion that in this, as in all other actions of life, each person should regulate the matter according to his fortune; and the philosopher Lycon prudently ordered his friends to dispose of his body where they should think most fit, and as to his funeral, to order it neither too superfluous nor too mean.

For my part, I should wholly refer the ordering of this ceremony to custom, and shall, when the time comes, accordingly leave it to their discretion to whose lot it shall fall to do me that last office.

"Totus hic locus est contemnendus in nobis, non negligendus in nostris;"-- ["The place of our sepulture is to be contemned by us, but not to be neglected by our friends."-- Cicero, Tusc.i.