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[Illustration:

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 717.      SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1877.      PRICE 1½_d._]




BURIAL ECCENTRICITIES.


In all times and countries there have been queer notions about
burial. We here offer to our readers a few instances of this kind of
eccentricity.

Mr Wilkinson, one of the founders of the iron manufacture in Great
Britain, loved iron so well that he resolved to carry it to the grave
with him. He had himself buried in his garden in an iron coffin, over
which was an iron tomb of twenty tons' weight. In order to make all
right and secure, he caused the coffin and tomb to be constructed
while he was yet alive; he delighted to shew them to his friends and
visitors--possibly more to his pleasure than theirs. But there were
sundry little tribulations to encounter. When he died, it was found
that the coffin was too small; he was temporarily laid in the ground
while a new one was made; when buried, it was decided that the coffin
was too near the surface, and it was therefore transferred to a cavity
dug in a rock; lastly, when the estate was sold many years afterwards,
the family directed the coffin to be transferred to the churchyard.
Thus Mr Wilkinson had the exceptional honour of being buried three or
four times over. Mr Smiles tells us that, in 1862, a man was living who
had assisted at all these interments. Mr Wilkinson was quite pleased
to make presents of iron coffins to any friends who wished to possess
such mementos of death and iron. In a granite county such as Cornwall,
it is not surprising to read that the Rev. John Pomeroy, of St Kew, was
buried in a granite coffin which he had caused to be made.

Some persons have had a singular taste for providing their coffins
long beforehand, and keeping them as objects pleasant to look at, or
morally profitable as reminders of the fate of all, or useful for
everyday purposes until the last and solemn use supervenes. A slater
in Fifeshire, about forty years ago, made his own coffin, decorated it
with shells, and displayed it among other fancy shell-work in a room
he called his grotto. Another North Briton, a cartwright, made his own
coffin, and used it for a long time to hold his working tools; it
was filled with sliding shelves, and the lid turned upon hinges. It
is said that many instances are met with in Scotland of working men
constructing their own coffins 'in leisure hours.' Alderman Jones of
Gloucester, about the close of the seventeenth century, had his coffin
and his monument constructed beforehand; not liking the shape of the
nose carved on his effigy on the latter, he had a new one cut--just in
time, for he died immediately after it was finished. One John Wheatley
of Nottingham bought a coffin, and filled it with clove cordial; but he
brought himself into bad repute by getting drunk too frequently, for
his coffin became to him a sort of dram-shop. A young navy surgeon, who
accompanied the Duke of Clarence (afterwards King William IV.) when he
first went to sea as a royal middy, rose in after-life to an important
position at Portsmouth; he had a favourite boat converted into a
coffin, with the stern-piece fixed at its head, and kept it under his
bed for many years. A married couple in Prussia provided themselves
with coffins beforehand, and kept them in a stable, where they were
utilised as cupboards for the reception of various kinds of food;
but the final appropriation of the coffins was marked by a singular
_contre-temps_. The man died; the widow packed the contents of both
coffins into one; while the body was deposited in the other. By some
mishap, the coffin full of eatables was lowered into the grave. Next
day the widow opening the lid of the (supposed) cupboard, was scared at
finding the dead body of her husband. Of course the interment had to be
done all over again, with an interchange of coffins.

The custom of being buried in an erect position has been frequently
carried out. Ben Jonson was buried upright in Westminster Abbey,
a circumstance which gave occasion for the following lines in the
_Ingoldsby Legends_:

    Even rare Ben Jonson, that famous wight,
    I am told is interred there bolt upright,
    In just such a posture, beneath his bust,
    As Tray used to sit in to beg for a crust.

Military heroes have in more cases than one been buried by their men
in upright positions on the battle-field, sometimes lance or spear
in hand. One such was found at the Curragh of Kildare; on opening
an earthen tumulus, the skeleton of an old Irish chieftain was seen
upright, with a barbed spear in or near one hand.

It is of course quite easy to bury in an upright posture, by setting up
the coffin on end; but where, as in many recorded instances, the body
is placed in sitting posture, coffins were of necessity inadmissible.
When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa opened the tomb of Charlemagne at
Aix-la-Chapelle, he found the body of the great man seated on a kind of
throne, as if alive, clad in imperial robes, bearing his sceptre in one
hand and a copy of the Bible on his knees. At Shoreditch churchyard,
some years ago, a tomb could be seen from the high-road, placed there
by a quack doctor named Dr John Gardiner. Or rather it was a high
head-stone, with an inscription denoting that the inclosed spot was his
'last and best bedroom;' he had the tomb and the inscription prepared
some years before his death, and was (so rumour stated) buried in a
sitting posture; but on this last point the evidence is not clear.

Some folks have been buried with a mere apology for a coffin. Such was
the fate of Mrs Fisher Dilke, during the time of the Commonwealth. Her
husband, Mr Dilke, did not seem to regard her remains as deserving of
a very high expenditure. He caused a coffin to be made from boards
which lined his barn. He bargained with a sexton to make a grave in the
churchyard for one groat; two groats cheaper than if it had been in
the church. He invited eight neighbours to act as bearers, for whom he
provided three twopenny cakes and a bottle of claret. He read a