Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/478

 472

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JUNE 10, me.

M.D., of Plymouth and Mr. Tripe, surgeon at Ashburton. I give two extracts fron several pages which are printed in th Philosophical Transactions at the reference given above :

Extract of a Letter from Dr. Huxham to Dr. Stack

dated Plymouth, June 29, 1150. " I think the inclosed account is very extra ordinary. You may depend upon it, that it if altogether true. Mr. Tripe is a very ingenious and observing surgeon at Ashburton near Staver ton. Besides, I have had it from several othe: persons of great probitv and honour." P. 253 (Bead July 5, 1750.)

" Simon Worth Esq. ; whose corps this is, died at Madrid, and was sent home in the manner described, and so buried. His wife's coffin, who was buried in the same vault two years before and two of his children about 11 years after (as appears by the register) were quite rotten. Th oaken coffin, pitch-cloth, and water, seem greatly to have contributed to the preservation of this body. His coffin was found very sound.

I am, Sir, Your very affectionate

obliged humble servant.

May 21, 1751." J - HUXHAM.

P. 256

In Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes,' vol. ii. pp. 685-96, there is printed a correspondence between the Rev. W. Cole and Dr. A. C. Ducarel. On p. 696 there is a long paragraph which gives details of this exhumation, although there is some discrepancv as to the date.

Kirkpatrick's pamphlet goes on with its narrative as far as it affects the exhumations at St. Martin's, Westminster :

" And here, as well to corroborate the preceding History from Staverton, as to make it probable, that the Pitch-Cloth was not the grand Anti- putrescent in that Instance, we shall insert a .Relation, given to five members of the Medical Committee (by the present Grave-digger of St. Martin's, Westminster,) of the Condition of some Bodies interred there in the last Century ; which have been seen, and whose Preservation can be attested by many Witnesses of undoubted Veracity and Repute, now living in Westminster. Mr. Ogle, a very creditable and worthy Inhabitant, who had been Church-Warden, who saw those Bodies, and took off some green Worsted, which connected the great Toes of one of them, was also present, and confirmed the Grave-digger's Account. " About fourteen Years ago John Leigh, the Grave-digger belonging to the Parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, broke up the Ground before the Door of the Work-house in the Church- yard, which had not been broke up before in his Memory, tho' his Father and himself, who is now pretty aged, and lives in the said Church-yard, have been the Parish Grave-diggers 53 Years. He then and there found three entire Coffins, which were made of Firr, the two large ones clampt with iron Clamps, as Chests. and Boxes sometimes are. In one of the Coffins was a fat broad-faced Man, greatly resembling the Pictures

of King Henry the Eighth, the Body perfect and soft, seeming like one just dead. The Lid of the Coffin had been glewed together length -ways, and was pressed down by the Weight of the Earth upon his Nose, which was impaired a little by it. His Beard was about half an Inch long, the Winding- Sheet the Body was wrapt in was a Crape Winding- Sheet, tied with black Ribbons, and the Thumbs and Toes were tied with the like. It appeared by the Date on the Lid of the Coffin, he had been then dead seventy-two years. The Date was com- posed with small Nails, as were also the Figures of an Hour Glass, a Death's Head and Cross-Bones- In the second Coffin was found, in the same entire- State, the Body of a Woman, in a white Crape- Winding-Sheet, which looked like a Corpse just dead, but which, by the Date on the Coffin, had been interred sixty-four Years. The third Coffin contained a male Child, appearing as perfect and beautiful as Wax Work, with the Eyes open and clear, but no Date could be dis- covered on thie Coffin ; tho' it must have been, interred a long Time, that Ground not having been broke up before, in this Grave-digger's, nor in his Father's Memory. In either the Man's or Woman's Coffin was found a dry Nosegay of Flowers, or a * Winter Nosegay, as he termed it, in part composed of Bay Leaves, and which appeared like a Bunch of Leaves and Flowers, that had lain among Linen about a Year. Mr. Leigh concluded by saying, there was a large Number of Inhabitants now living in St. Martin's- Parish, who saw those Bodies, and that the Coffins are at this Time entire in the public Parish Grave f tho' the Bodies were greatly altered within twelve- Hours after they were first exposed. He says they were interred in a dry gravelly Soil, at the Depth of about 18 Feet, tho' Mr. Ogle thinks it might be some Feet less." P. 25.

A. L. HUMPHREYS. 187 Piccadilly, W.

Was not Sir Thomas Browne the irst to notice and analyse the substance called adipocere ? In ' Urn Burial ' he gives the following account of it :

" In a hydropical body, ten years buried in the churchyard, we met with a fat concretion, where iquor of the body had coagulated large lumps of fat into the consistence of the hardest Castile soap,, whereof part remained with us."
 * he nitre of the earth and the salt and lixivious

In the very interesting study by MB.. HUMPHREYS (ante, pp. 91, 113) there is nothing on King Arthur. His body was

bund A.D. 1177, as is related by Giraldus Cambrensis, by the author of the ' Eulogium Historiarum' (ii. 363), and in the ' Poly-

hronicon ' of Ralph Higden, a monk of

" * This Appearance reflects a considerable robability on our Conjecture of the Causes hat might concur to the Preservation of the Sody at Staverton; and not the less for our aaking that Conjecture, before we had the least ntimation of the imputrid State of these Bodies t St. Martin's."