_Emaciated Monumental Effigies_ (Vol. v., pp. 247. 301.
353.).--BURIENSIS has been furnished by several of your correspondents
with many examples of the representation of an emaciated corpse in
connexion with tombs, but no one has yet referred him to that very
remarkable instance at Tewkesbury. The tomb is usually assigned, I
believe, to Abbot Wakeman. If anything were needed to refute the absurd
notion of the forty days' fast, I think the figure on this tomb would
supply the clue to the true conception of the artist; and show that it
was intended, by such figures, to remind the passers-by of their own
mortality by representing the hollow cheek and sunken eyes, and
emaciated form, of a corpse from which life had only recently departed:
for, in the figure on this tomb, the idea of mortality is carried still
further, and the more humbling and revolting thought of corruption and
decay is suggested to the mind by the representation of noxious reptiles
and worms crawling over the lifeless form, and revelling in their
disgusting banquet.