Part 5

It being in the contemplation of some persons to bestow a considerable sum of money in erecting a monument, in the parish church of _St. Giles_, Cripplegate, to the memory of _Milton_, and the particular spot of his interment in that church having for many years past been ascertained only by tradition, several of the principal parishioners have, at their meetings, frequently expressed a wish that his coffin should be dug for, that incontestable evidence of its exact situation might be established, before the said monument should be erected. The entry, among the burials, in the register-book, 12th of November, 1674, is ‘_John Milton_, Gentleman, consumption, _chancell_.’ The church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, was built in 1030, was burnt down (except the steeple) and rebuilt in 1545; was repaired in 1682; and again in 1710. In the repair of 1782, an alteration took place in the disposition of the inside of the church; the pulpit was removed from the second pillar, against which it stood, north of the chancel, to the south side of the present chancel, which was then formed, and pews were built over the old chancel. The tradition has always been that _Milton_ was buried in the chancel, under the clerk’s desk; but the circumstance of the alteration in the church, not having, of late years, been attended to, the clerk, sexton, and other officers of the parish have misguided inquirers, by showing the spot under the clerk’s desk, in the present chancel, as the place of _Milton’s_ interment. I have twice, at different periods, been shown that spot as the place where _Milton_ lay. Even Mr. _Baskerville_, who died a few years ago, and who had requested, in his will, to be buried by _Milton_, was deposited in the above-mentioned spot of the present chancel, in pious intention of compliance with his request. The church is now, August, 1790, under a general repair, by contract, for £1,350, and Mr. _Strong_, Mr. _Cole_, and other parishioners, having very prudently judged that the search would be made with much less inconvenience to the parish at this time, when the church is under repair, than at any period after the said repair should be completed, Mr. _Cole_, in the last days of July, ordered the workmen to dig in search of the coffin. Mr. _Ascough_, his father, and grandfather, have been parish clerks of _St. Giles_ for upwards of ninety years past. His grandfather, who died in February, 1759-60, aged eighty-four, used often to say that _Milton_ had been buried under the clerk’s desk in the chancel. John _Poole_, aged seventy, used to hear his father talk of Milton’s person, from those who had seen him; and also, that he lay under the common-councilmen’s pew. The common-councilmen’s pew is built over that very part of the old chancel, where the former clerk’s desk stood. These traditions in the parish reported to Mr. _Strong_ and Mr. _Cole_ readily directed them to dig from the present chancel, northwards, towards the pillar, against which the former pulpit and desk had stood. On Tuesday afternoon, August 3rd, notice was brought to Messrs. _Strong_ and _Cole_ that the coffin was discovered. They went immediately to the church, and, by help of a candle, proceeded under the common-councilmen’s pew to the place where the coffin lay. It was in a chalky soil, and directly over a wooden coffin, supposed to be that of _Milton’s_ father; tradition having always reported that _Milton_ was buried next to his father. The registry of the father of _Milton_, among the burials, in the parish-book, is ‘_John Melton_, Gentleman, 15th of March, 1646-7.’ In digging through the whole space from the present chancel, where the ground was opened, to the situation of the former clerk’s desk, there was not found any other coffin, which could raise the smallest doubt of this being _Milton’s_. The two oldest found in the ground had inscriptions, which Mr. _Strong_ copied; they were of as late dates as 1727 and 1739. When he and Mr. _Cole_ had examined the coffin, they ordered water and a brush to be brought, that they might wash it, in search of an inscription, or initials, or date; but, upon its being carefully cleansed, none was found.

The following particulars were given me in writing by Mr. _Strong_, and they contain the admeasurement of the coffin, as taken by him, with a rule. ‘A leaden coffin, found under the common-councilmen’s pew, on the north side of the chancel, nearly under the place where the old pulpit and clerk’s desk stood. The coffin appeared to be old, much corroded, and without any inscription or plate upon it. It was, in length, five feet ten inches, and in width, at the broadest part, over the shoulders, one foot four inches.’ Conjecture naturally pointed out, both to Mr. _Strong_ and Mr. _Cole_, that, by moving the leaden coffin, there would be a great chance of finding some inscription on the wooden one underneath; but, with a just and laudable piety, they disdained to disturb the sacred ashes, after a requiem of one hundred and sixteen years; and having satisfied their curiosity, and ascertained the fact, which was the subject of it, Mr. _Cole_ ordered the ground to be closed. This was on the afternoon of Tuesday, August the 3rd; and, when I waited on Mr. _Strong_, on Saturday morning, the 7th, he informed me that the coffin had been found on the Tuesday, had been examined, washed, and measured by him and Mr. _Cole_; but that the ground had been immediately closed, when they left the church;--not doubting that Mr. _Cole’s_ order had been punctually obeyed. But the direct contrary appears to have been the fact.

On Tuesday evening, the 3rd, Mr. _Cole_, Messrs. _Laming_ and _Taylor_, _Holmes_, &c., had a _merry meeting_, as Mr. _Cole_ expresses himself, at Fountain’s house; the conversation there turned upon _Milton’s_ coffin having been discovered; and, in the course of the evening, several of those present expressing a desire to see it, Mr. _Cole_ assented that, if the ground was not already closed, the closing of it should be deferred until they should have satisfied their curiosity. Between eight and nine on Wednesday morning, the 4th, the two overseers (_Laming_ and _Fountain_) and Mr. _Taylor_, went to the house of _Ascough_, the clerk, which leads into the church-yard, and asked for _Holmes_; they then went with _Holmes_ into the church, and pulled the coffin, which lay deep in the ground, from its original station to the edge of the excavation, into day-light. Mr. _Laming_ told me that, to assist in thus removing it, he put his hand into a corroded hole, which he saw in the lead, at the coffin foot. When they had thus removed it, the overseers asked _Holmes_ if he could open it, that they might see the body. _Holmes_ immediately fetched a mallet and a chisel, and cut open the top of the coffin, slantwise from the head, as low as the breast; so that the top, being doubled backward, they could see the corpse; he cut it open also at the foot. Upon first view of the body, it appeared perfect, and completely enveloped in the shroud, which was of many folds; the ribs standing up regularly. When they disturbed the shroud, the ribs fell. Mr. _Fountain_ told me that he pulled hard at the teeth, which resisted, until some one hit them a knock with a stone, when they easily came out. There were but five in the upper jaw, which were all perfectly sound and white, and all taken by Mr. _Fountain_; he gave one of them to Mr. _Laming_; Mr. _Laming_ also took one from the lower jaw; and Mr. _Taylor_ took two from it. Mr. _Laming_ told me that he had, at one time, a mind to bring away the whole under-jaw, with the teeth in it; he had it in his hand, but tossed it back again. Also that he lifted up the head, and saw a great quantity of hair, which lay straight and even behind the head, and in the state of hair which had been combed and tied together before interment; but it was wet, the coffin having considerable corroded holes, both at the head and foot, and a great part of the water with which it had been washed on the Tuesday afternoon having run into it. The overseers and Mr. _Taylor_ went away soon afterwards, and Messrs. _Laming_ and _Taylor_ went home to get scissors to cut off some of the hair: they returned about ten, when Mr. _Laming_ poked his stick against the head, and brought some of the hair over the forehead; but, as they saw the scissors were not necessary, Mr. _Taylor_ took up the hair, as it lay on the forehead, and carried it home. The water, which had got into the coffin on the Tuesday afternoon, had made a sludge at the bottom of it, emitting a nauseous smell, and which occasioned Mr. _Laming_ to use his stick to procure the hair, and not to lift up the head a second time. Mr. _Laming_ also took out one of the leg-bones, but threw it in again. _Holmes_ went out of church, whilst Messrs. _Laming_, _Taylor_, and _Fountain_ were there the first time, and he returned when the two former were come the second time. When Messrs. _Laming_ and _Taylor_ had finally quitted the church, the coffin was removed from the edge of the excavation 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 6^d. 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 2^s.; 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 2^s.

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 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 affluence[20]--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]