1857-59 RE-INTERMENT OF JOHN HUNTER 79 



Professor Owen was greatly interested in this 

 discovery, and Mr. Bompas, in his ■ Life of 

 Frank Buckland,' gives the following extract from 

 Buckland's diary, February 23 : — ■ 



' Down into the vaults . . . again with Pro- 

 fessor Owen, who expressed himself much pleased. 

 I wish I could have made a sketch of him, with 

 his hand on the coffin, looking thoughtfully at it. 

 It would have made an excellent subject.' 



Owen himself, who had just attended a Levee 

 on that day, thus alludes to the incident : — 



' After resuming ordinary costume, I went 

 with Frank Buckland to the vaults beneath St. 

 Martin's Church, which are now being emptied, 

 to see the coffin of John Hunter, which was 

 found in a corner of one of them. It was in good 

 preservation, and I have written to Dean Milman 

 about getting it into St. Paul's. But such a 

 scene! A score of Irish labourers hauling along 

 the coffins, higgledy-piggledy, from one dark 

 recess to the other. The sexton, to show the 

 conscience of undertakers, pointed to one large 

 coffin, supposed to have included a leaden one, 

 but never had. Putting his foot upon it, he 

 pressed it down and drew back the top and one 

 side, exposing to view the black shrivelled 



remains of the " Hon. Lady ." A mask of 



the features had been taken by a mass of the 

 chrysalises of the Dermestes, or darkling-beetles, 

 an inch thick. Faugh ! I quitted the scene, 



