Eighteenth Century Waifs. Ashton John
back to its original station; but was no otherwise closed than by the lid, where it had been cut and reversed, being bent down again. Mr. Ascough, the clerk, was from home the greater part of that day, and Mrs. Hoppey, the sexton, was from home the whole day. Elizabeth Grant, the grave-digger, who is servant to Mrs. Hoppey, therefore now took possession of the coffin; and, as its situation under the common-councilmen’s pew would not admit of its being seen without the help of a candle, she kept a tinder-box in the excavation, and, when any persons came, struck a light, and conducted them under the pew, where, by reversing the part of the lid which had been cut, she exhibited the body, at first for sixpence, and afterwards for threepence and twopence each person. The workers in the church kept the doors locked to all those who would not pay the price of a pot of beer for entrance, and many, to avoid that payment, got in at a window at the west end of the church, near to Mr. Ascough’s counting-house.
I went on Saturday, the 7th, to Mr. Laming’s house, to request a lock of the hair; but, not meeting with Mr. Taylor at home, went again on Monday, the 9th, when Mr. Taylor gave me part of what hair he had reserved for himself. Hawkesworth having informed me, on the Saturday, that Mr. Ellis, the player, had taken some hair, and that he had seen him take a rib-bone, and carry it away in paper under his coat, I went from Mr. Laming’s on Monday to Mr. Ellis, who told me that he had paid 6d. to Elizabeth Grant for seeing the body; and that he had lifted up the head, and taken from the sludge under it a small quantity of hair, with which was a piece of the shroud, and, adhering to the hair, a bit of the skin of the skull, of about the size of a shilling. He then put them all into my hands, with the rib-bone, which appeared to be one of the upper ribs. The piece of the shroud was of coarse linen. The hair which he had taken was short; a small part of it he had washed, and the remainder was in the clotted state in which he had taken it. He told me that he had tried to reach down as low as the hands of the corpse, but had not been able to effect it. The washed hair corresponded exactly with that in my possession, and which I had just received from Mr. Taylor. Ellis is a very ingenious worker in hair, and he said that, thinking it would be of great advantage to him to possess a quantity of Milton’s hair, he had returned to the church on Thursday, and had made his endeavours to get access a second time to the body; but had been refused admittance. Hawkesworth took a tooth, and broke a bit off the coffin; of which I was informed by Mr. Ascough. I purchased them both of Hawkesworth, on Saturday the 7th, for 2s.; and he told me that, when he took the tooth out, there were but two more remaining; one of which was afterwards taken by another of Mr. Ascough’s men. And Ellis informed me that, at the time when he was there, on Wednesday, the teeth were all gone; but the overseers say they think that all the teeth were not taken out of the coffin, though displaced from the jaws, but that some of them must have fallen among the other bones, as they very readily came out, after the first were drawn. Haslib, son of William Haslib, of Jewin Street, undertaker, took one of the small bones, which I purchased of him, on Monday, the 9th, for 2s.
With respect to the identity of the person; anyone must be a skeptic against violent presumptions to entertain a doubt of its being that of Milton. The parish traditions of the spot; the age of the coffin – none other found in the ground which can at all contest with it, or render it suspicious —Poole’s tradition that those who had conversed with his father about Milton’s person always described him to have been thin, with long hair; the entry in the register-book that Milton died of consumption, are all strong confirmations, with the size of the coffin, of the identity of the person. If it be objected that, against the pillar where the pulpit formerly stood, and immediately over the common-councilmen’s pew, is a monument to the family of Smith, which shows that ‘near that place’ were buried, in 1653, Richard Smith, aged 17; in 1655, John Smith, aged 32; and in 1664, Elizabeth Smith, the mother, aged 64; and in 1675, Richard Smith, the father, aged 85; it may be answered that, if the coffin in question be one of these, the others should be there also. The corpse is certainly not that of a man of 85; and, if it be supposed one of the first named males of the Smith family, certainly the two later coffins should appear; but none such were found, nor could that monument have been erected until many years after the death of the last person mentioned in the inscription; and it was then placed there, as it expresses, not by any of the family, but at the expense of friends. The flatness of the pillar, after the pulpit had been removed, offered an advantageous situation for it; and ‘near this place,’ upon a mural monument, will always admit of a liberal construction. Holmes, who is much respected in that parish, and very ingenious and intelligent in his business, says that a leaden coffin, when the inner wooden-case is perished, must, from pressure and its own weight, shrink in breadth, and that, therefore, more than the present admeasurement of this coffin across the shoulders must have been its original breadth. There is evidence, also, that it was incurvated, both on the top and at the sides, at the time when it was discovered. But the strongest of all confirmations is the hair, both in its length and colour. Behold Faithorne’s quarto-print of Milton taken ad vivum in 1760, five years before Milton’s death. Observe the short locks growing towards the forehead, and the long ones flowing from the same place down the sides of the face. The whole quantity of hair which Mr. Taylor took was from the forehead, and all taken at one grasp. I measured on Monday morning, the 9th, that lock of it which he had given to Mr. Laming, six inches and a half by a rule; and the lock of it which he gave to me, taken at the same time, and from the same place, measures only two inches and a half. In the reign of Charles II. how few, besides Milton, wore their own hair! Wood says Milton had light-brown hair, the very description of that which we possess; and, what may seem extraordinary, it is yet so strong that Mr. Laming, to cleanse it from its clotted state, let the cistern-cock run on it for near a minute, and then rubbed it between his fingers without injury.
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