14 PROFESSOR OWEN CH. i. 



kinds of architecture, from the square Roman tower 

 and baronial portcullised gateway and keep of the 

 early Plantagenets, to the fortress built in the 

 time of. Elizabeth, and to those more modern 

 imitations erected according to the exigencies of 

 a model prison. The old square tower, with walls 

 of exceeding thickness — Hadrian's Tower it 

 was called — was divided by four or five storeys 

 into as 'many spacious but low-roofed apartments, 

 which were accessible by a spiral stone staircase 

 lodged in a corner turret ; the top room of all, 

 being the highest and most airy, was used as the 

 hospital for the gaol. Here indeed we exercised 

 privileges, which the less favoured surgeons 

 pupils of the town could only hope to enjoy in 

 their metropolitan career at the hospitals. The 

 inquests held over all the unfortunates who by 

 natural death are liberated from prison gave 

 us the opportunities of becoming early initiated 

 in practical anatomy. I eagerly embraced this 

 opportunity of initiation, to which I looked for- 

 ward not without feelings of awe, such as might 

 well mingle with the scientific aspirations of a 

 youth of sixteen but three weeks emancipated 

 from the old-fashioned school, where super- 

 naturalism had always flourished. In my school 

 days no youthful sceptic had ever ventured 

 a doubt as to the raising of the devil by the 

 process of muttering the Lord's Prayer backwards. 

 The influence of a score of school myths of a 



