Eighteenth Century Waifs

Milton’s coffin lay open from Wednesday morning, the 4th, at 9 o’clock until 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the following day, when the ground was closed.

With respect to there being no inscriptions on the coffin, Holmes says that inscription-plates were not used, nor invented at the time when Milton was buried; that the practice then was to paint the inscription on the outside wooden coffin, which in this case was entirely perished.

It has never been pretended that any hair was taken except by Mr. Taylor, and by Ellis the player; and all which the latter took would, when cleansed, easily lie in a small locket. Mr. Taylor has divided his share into many small parcels; and the lock which I saw in Mr. Laming’s hands on Saturday morning, the 7th, and which then measured six inches and a half, had been so cut and reduced by divisions among Mr. Laming’s friends, at noon, on Monday, the 9th, that he thus possessed only a small bit, from two to three inches in length.

All the teeth are remarkably short, below the gums. The five which were in the upper jaw, and the middle teeth of the lower, are perfect and white. Mr. Fountain took the five upper jaw teeth; Mr. Laming one from the lower jaw; Mr. Taylor two from it; Hawkesworth one; and another of Mr. Ascough’s men one; besides these, I have not been able to trace any, nor have I heard that any more were taken. It is not probable that more than ten should have been brought away, if the conjecture of the overseers, that some dropped among the other bones, be founded.

In recording a transaction which will strike every liberal mind with horror and disgust, I cannot omit to declare that I have procured those relics which I possess, only in hope of bearing part in a pious and honourable restitution of all that has been taken; the sole atonement which can now be made to the violated rights of the dead; to the insulted parishioners at large; and to the feelings of all good men. During the present repair of the church, the mode is obvious and easy. Unless that be done, in vain will the parish hereafter boast a sumptuous monument to the memory of Milton; it will but display their shame in proportion to its magnificence.

I collected this account from the mouths of those who were immediate actors in this most sacrilegious scene; and before the voice of charity had reproached them with their impiety. By it those are exculpated whose just and liberal sentiments restrained their hands from an act of violation, and the blood of the lamb is dashed against the door-posts of the perpetrators, not to save, but to mark them to posterity.

Philip Neve.

Furnival’s Inn,

14th of August, 1790.

This Mr. Neve, whose pious horror at the sacrilegious desecration of the poet’s tomb seems only to have been awakened at the eleventh hour, and whose restitution of the relics he obtained does not appear, was probably the P.N. who was the author, in 1789, of ‘Cursory Remarks on some of the Ancient English Poets, particularly Milton.’ It is a work of some erudition, but the hero of the book, as its title plainly shows, was Milton. Neve places him in the first rank, and can hardly find words with which to extol his genius and intellect, so that, probably, some hero-worship was interwoven in the foregoing relation of the discovery of Milton’s body; and it may be as well if the other side were heard, although the attempt at refutation is by no means as well authenticated as Neve’s narrative. It is anonymous, and appeared in the St. James’s Chronicle, September 4-7th, 1790, and in the European Magazine, vol. xviii, pp. 206-7, for September, 1790, and is as follows:

MILTON Reasons why it is impossible that the Coffin lately dug up in the Parish Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, should contain the reliques of Milton

First. Because Milton was buried in 1674, and this coffin was found in a situation previously allotted to a wealthy family, unconnected with his own. – See the mural monument of the Smiths, dated 1653, &c., immediately over the place of the supposed Milton’s interment. – In the time that the fragments of several other sarcophagi were found; together with two skulls, many bones, and a leaden coffin, which was left untouched because it lay further to the north, and (for some reason, or no reason at all) was unsuspected of being the Miltonic reservoir.

Secondly. The hair of Milton is uniformly described and represented as of a light hue; but far the greater part of the ornament of his pretended skull is of the darkest brown, without any mixture of gray.18 This difference is irreconcilable to probability. Our hair, after childhood, is rarely found to undergo a total change of colour, and Milton was 66 years old when he died, a period at which human locks, in a greater or less degree, are interspersed with white. Why did the Overseers, &c., bring away only such hair as corresponded with the description of Milton’s? Of the light hair there was little; of the dark a considerable quantity. But this circumstance would have been wholly suppressed, had not a second scrutiny taken place.

Thirdly. Because the skull in question is remarkably flat and small, and with the lowest of all possible foreheads; whereas the head of Milton was large, and his brow conspicuously high. See his portrait so often engraved by the accurate Vertue, who was completely satisfied with the authenticity of his original. We are assured that the surgeon who attended at the second disinterment of the corpse only remarked, ‘that the little forehead there was, was prominent.’

Fourthly. Because the hands of Milton were full of chalk stones. Now it chances that his substitute’s left hand had been undisturbed, and therefore was in a condition to be properly examined. No vestige, however, of cretaceous substances was visible in it, although they are of a lasting nature, and have been found on the fingers of a dead person almost coeval with Milton.

Fifthly. Because there is reason to believe that the aforesaid remains are those of a young female (one of the three Miss Smiths); for the bones are delicate, the teeth small, slightly inserted in the jaw, and perfectly white, even, and sound. From the corroded state of the pelvis, nothing could, with certainty, be inferred; nor would the surgeon already mentioned pronounce absolutely on the sex of the deceased. Admitting, however, that the body was a male one, its very situation points it out to be a male of the Smith family; perhaps the favourite son John, whom Richard Smith, Esq., his father, so feelingly laments. (See Peck’s ‘Desiderata Curiosa,’ p. 536).19 To this darling child a receptacle of lead might have been allotted, though many other relatives of the same house were left to putrefy in wood.

Sixthly. Because Milton was not in affluence20– expired in an emaciated state, in a cold month, and was interred by direction of his widow. An expensive outward coffin of lead, therefore, was needless, and unlikely to have been provided by a rapacious woman who oppressed her husband’s children while he was living, and cheated them after he was dead.

Seventhly. Because it is improbable that the circumstance of Milton’s having been deposited under the desk should, if true, have been so effectually concealed from the whole train of his biographers. It was, nevertheless, produced as an ancient and well-known tradition, as soon as the parishioners of Cripplegate were aware that such an incident was gaped for by antiquarian appetence, and would be swallowed by antiquarian credulity. How happened it that Bishop Newton, who urged similar inquiries concerning Milton above forty years ago in the same parish, could obtain no such information?21

Eighthly. Because Mr. Laming (see Mr. Neve’s pamphlet, second edition, p. 19) observes that the ‘sludge’ at the bottom of the coffin ‘emitted a nauseous smell.’ But, had this corpse been as old as that of Milton, it must have been disarmed of its power to offend, nor would have supplied the least effluvium to disgust the nostrils of our delicate inquirer into the secrets of the grave. The last remark will seem to militate against a foregoing one. The whole difficulty, however, may be solved by a resolution not to believe a single word said on such an occasion by any of those who invaded the presumptive sepulchre of Milton. The man who can handle pawned stays, breeches, and petticoats without disgust may be supposed to have his organs of smelling in no very high state of perfection.

Ninthly. Because we have not been told by Wood, Philips, Richardson, Toland, etc., that Nature, among her other partialities to Milton, had indulged him with an uncommon share of teeth. And yet above a hundred have been sold as the furniture of his mouth by the conscientious worthies who assisted in the plunder of his supposed carcase, and finally submitted it to every insult that brutal vulgarity could devise and express. Thanks to fortune, however, his corpse has hitherto been violated but by proxy! May his genuine reliques (if aught of him remains unmingled with common earth) continue to elude research, at least while the present overseers of the poor of Cripplegate are in office. Hard, indeed, would have been the fate of the author of ‘Paradise Lost’ to have received shelter in a chancel, that a hundred and sixteen years after his interment his domus ultima might be ransacked by two of the lowest human beings, a retailer of spirituous liquors, and a man who lends sixpences to beggars on such despicable securities as tattered bed-gowns, cankered porridge-pots, and rusty gridirons.22 Cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor! But an Ecclesiastical Court may yet have cognisance of this more than savage transaction. It will then be determined whether our tombs are our own, or may be robbed with impunity by the little tyrants of a workhouse.

‘If charnel-houses, and our graves, must sendThose that we bury back, our monumentsShall be the maws of kites.’

It should be added that our Pawnbroker, Gin-seller, and Company, by deranging the contents of their ideal Milton’s coffin, by carrying away his lower jaw, ribs, and right hand – and by employing one bone as an instrument to batter the rest – by tearing the shroud and winding-sheet to pieces, &c., &c., had annihilated all such further evidence as might have been collected from a skilful and complete examination of these nameless fragments of mortality. So far, indeed, were they mutilated that, had they been genuine, we could not have said with Horace,

‘Invenies etiam disjecti membra Poetæ.’

Who, after a perusal of the foregoing remarks (which are founded on circumstantial truth), will congratulate the parishioners of St. Giles, Cripplegate, on their discovery and treatment of the imaginary dust of Milton? His favourite, Shakespeare, most fortunately reposes at a secure distance from the paws of Messieurs Laming and Fountain, who, otherwise, might have provoked the vengeance imprecated by our great dramatic poet on the remover of his bones.

From the preceding censures, however, Mr. Cole (Churchwarden), and Messrs. Strong and Ascough (Vestry and Parish Clerks), should, in the most distinguished manner, be exempted. Throughout the whole of this extraordinary business, they conducted themselves with the strictest decency and propriety. It should also be confessed, by those whom curiosity has since attracted to the place of Milton’s supposed disinterment, that the politeness of the same parish officers could only be exceeded by their respect for our illustrious author’s memory, and their concern at the complicated indignity which his nominal ashes have sustained.’

Now it was hardly likely that Mr. Neve, with the extremely plausible case that he had, would sit still and see his pet theory knocked on the head, so he issued a second edition of his pamphlet with this

POSTSCRIPT

As some reports have been circulated, and some anonymous papers have appeared, since the publication of this pamphlet, with intent to induce a belief that the corpse mentioned in it is that of a woman, and as the curiosity of the public now calls for a second impression of it, an opportunity is offered of relating a few circumstances which have happened since the 14th of August, and which, in some degree, may confirm the opinion that the corpse is that of Milton.

On Monday, the 16th, I called upon the overseer, Mr. Fountain, when he told me that the parish officers had then seen a surgeon who, on Wednesday the 4th, had got through a window into the church, and who had, upon inspection, pronounced the corpse to be that of a woman. I thought it very improbable that a surgeon should creep through a window, who could go through a door for a few half-pence; but I no otherwise expressed my doubts of the truth of the information than by asking for the surgeon’s address. I was answered ‘that the gentleman begged not to have it known, that he might not be interrupted by enquiries.’ A trifling relic was, nevertheless, at the same time withholden, which I had expected to receive through Mr. Fountain’s hands; by which it appeared that those in possession of them were, still tenacious of the spoils of the coffin, although they affected to be convinced they were not those of Milton. These contradictions, however, I reserved for the test of an inquiry elsewhere.

In the course of that week I was informed that some gentlemen had, on Tuesday, the 17th, prevailed on the churchwardens to suffer a second disinterment of the coffin, which had taken place on that day. On Saturday, the 21st, I waited on Mr. Strong, who told me that he had been present at such second disinterment, and that he had then sent for an experienced surgeon of the neighbourhood, who, upon inspection and examination of the corpse, had pronounced it to be that of a man. I was also informed, on that day, the 21st, by a principal person of the parish, whose information cannot be suspected, that the parish officers had agreed among themselves that, from my frequent visits and inquiries, I must have an intention of delivering some account of the transaction to the world; and that, therefore, to stop the narrative from going forth, they must invent some story of a surgeon’s inspection on the 4th, and of his declaration that the corpse was that of a woman. From this information it was easy to judge what would be the fate of any personal application to the parish officers, with intent to obtain a restitution of what had been taken from the coffin I, therefore, on Wednesday, the 25th, addressed the following letter to Mr. Strong: —

‘Dear Sir,

‘The reflection of a few moments, after I left you on Saturday, clearly showed me that the probability of the coffin in question being Milton’s was not at all weakened, either by the dates, or the number of persons on the Smiths’ monument; but that it was rather confirmed by the latter circumstance. By the evidence which you told me was given by the surgeon, called in on Tuesday, the 17th, the corpse is that of a male; it is certainly not that of a man of eighty-five; if, therefore, it be one of the earlier buried Smiths, all the later coffins of that family should appear, but not one of them is found. I, then, suppose the monument to have been put there because the flat pillar, after the pulpit was removed, offered a convenient situation for it, and “near this place” to be open, as it is in almost every case where it appears, to very liberal interpretation.

‘It is, therefore, to be believed that the unworthy treatment, on the 4th, was offered to the corpse of Milton. Knowing what I know, I must not be silent. It is a very unpleasant story to relate; but, as it has fallen to my task, I will not shrink from it. I respect nothing in this world more than truth, and the memory of Milton; and to swerve in a tittle from the first would offend the latter. I shall give the plain and simple narrative, as delivered by the parties themselves. If it sit heavy on any of their shoulders, it is a burthen of their own taking up, and their own backs must bear it. They are all, as I find, very fond of deriving honour to themselves from Milton, as their parishioner; perhaps the mode, which I have hinted, is the only one which they have now left themselves of proving an equal desire to do honour to him. If I had thought that, in personally proposing to the parish officers a general search for, and collection of, all the spoils, and to put them, together with the mangled corpse and old coffin, into a new leaden one, I should have been attended to, I would have taken that method; but, when I found such impertinent inventions as setting up a fabulous surgeon to creep in at a window practised, I felt that so low an attempt at derision would ensure that, whatever I should afterwards propose, would be equally derided, and I had then left no other means than to call in the public opinion in aid of my own, and to hope that we should, at length, see the bones of an honest man, and the first scholar and poet our country can boast, restored to their sepulchre.

‘The narrative will appear, I believe, either to-morrow or on Friday; whenever it does, your withers are unwrung, and Mr. Cole has shown himself an upright churchwarden.

‘I cannot conclude without returning you many thanks for your great civilities, and am, &c.’

The corpse was found entirely mutilated by those who disinterred it on the 17th; almost all the ribs, the lower jaw, and one of the hands gone. Of all those who saw the body on Wednesday, the 4th, and on Thursday, the 5th, there is not one person who discovered a single hair of any other colour than light brown, although both Mr. Laming and Mr. Ellis lifted up the head, and although the considerable quantity of hair which Mr. Taylor took was from the top of the head, and that which Ellis took was from behind it; yet, from the accounts of those who saw it on the 17th, it appears that the hair on the back of the head was found of dark brown, nearly approaching to black, although all the front hair remaining was of the same light brown as that taken on the 4th. It does not belong to me either to account for or to prove the fact.

On Wednesday, September the 1st, I waited on Mr. Dyson, who was the gentleman sent for on the 17th, to examine the corpse. I asked him simply, whether, from what had then appeared before him, he judged it to be male or female? His answer was that, having examined the pelvis and the skull, he judged the corpse to be that of a man. I asked what was the shape of the head? He said that the forehead was high and erect, though the top of the head was flat; and added that the skull was of that shape and flatness at the top which, differing from those of blacks, is observed to be common and almost peculiar to persons of very comprehensive intellects. I am a stranger to this sort of knowledge, but the opinion is a strong confirmation that, from all the premises before him, he judged the head to be that of Milton. On a paper, which he showed me, enclosing a bit of the hair, he had written ‘Milton’s hair.’

Mr. Dyson is a surgeon, who received his professional education under the late Dr. Hunter, is in partnership with Mr. Price, in Fore Street, where the church stands, is of easy access, and his affability can be exceeded only by his skill in an extensive line of practice.

Mr. Taylor, too, who is a surgeon of considerable practice and eminence in his county, judged the corpse, on the 4th, to be that of a male.

A man, also, who has for many years acted as grave-digger in that parish, and who was present on the 17th, decided, upon first sight of the skull, that it was male; with as little hesitation, he pronounced another, which had been thrown out of the ground in digging, to be that of a woman. Decisions obviously the result of practical, rather than of scientific knowledge; for, being asked his reasons, he could give none, but that observation had taught him to distinguish such subjects. Yet this latter sort of evidence is not to be too hastily rejected; it may not be understood by everybody, but to anyone acquainted with those who are eminently skilled in judging of the genuineness of ancient coins, it will be perfectly intelligible. In that difficult and useful art, the eye of a proficient decides at once; a novice, however, who should inquire for the reasons of such decision, would seldom receive a further answer than that the decision itself is the result of experience and observation, and that the eye can be instructed only by long familiarity with the subject; yet all numismatic knowledge rests upon this sort of judgment.

After these evidences, what proofs are there, or what probable presumptions, that the corpse is that of a woman?

It was necessary to relate these facts, not only as they belonged to the subject, but lest, from the reports and papers above mentioned, I might, otherwise, seem to have given either an unfaithful or a partial statement of the evidences before me; whereas now it will clearly be seen what facts appeared on the first disinterment, which preceded, and what are to be attributed to the second, which succeeded the date of the narrative.

I have now added every circumstance which has hitherto come to my knowledge relative to this extraordinary transaction, and conclude with this declaration, that I should be very glad if any person would, from facts, give me reason to believe that the corpse in question is rather that of Elizabeth Smith, whose name I know only from her monument, than that of John Milton.

P. N.’

‘8th of September, 1790.’

THE TRUE STORY OF EUGENE ARAM

The only knowledge which very many people possess of the life and crime of Eugene Aram has been derived from the popular romance bearing his name, written by the late Lord Lytton. And this nobleman, influenced by his individual bias, has so woven fiction with a small modicum of fact, as to render the story, as a history of a celebrated crime, totally unreliable. Stripped of the gloss Lord Lytton has given it, and revealed in its bare nakedness, it shows Eugene Aram in a very different light from the solitary scholar, surrounded by books, with high, romantic aspirations and noble thoughts, winning the love of a pure and lovely girl; it shows us instead a poor country school-master, clever, but self-taught, married to a common woman, whose very faith he doubted, struggling with poverty, and heavily weighed down with several children; it paints him as a man whose companions were sordid and dishonest, whilst he himself was a liar, a thief, and a murderer, a selfish man who scrupled not to leave wife and children to shift for themselves, a man untrustworthy in his relations of life.

Eugenius, or Eugene Aram was born in the year 1704,23 at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale, Yorkshire, and his father was a gardener, as he says, of great abilities in botany, and an excellent draughtsman, who served Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, and, afterwards, Sir Edward Blackett, of Newby, and Sir John Ingilby, of Ripley. When he was five or six years of age, the family removed to Bondgate, near Ripon, his father having purchased a little property there. Here he was sent to school, and was taught in a purely elementary manner to be capable of reading the New Testament, and this was all the education his parents gave him, with the exception of about a month’s schooling some long time afterwards with the Rev. Mr. Alcock of Burnsal.

When about thirteen or fourteen, he joined his father at Newby, till the death of Sir Edward Blackett, and, his father having several books on mathematics, and the boy being of a studious turn of mind, he mastered their contents, and laid the foundation of his future scholarship. When about sixteen years of age, he went to London to be in the counting-house of Mr. Christopher Blackett as bookkeeper; but he had not been there more than a year or two when he caught the small-pox, and, on his recovery, went home into Yorkshire. His native air soon restored him to health, and he studied hard at poetry, history, and antiquities. He thus fitted himself for keeping a school, which he opened in Netherdale, and continued there for many years teaching and studying. There he married, as he says, ‘unfortunately enough for me, for the misconduct of the wife which that place afforded me has procured for me this place, this prosecution, this infamy, and this sentence.’