The same
offer was made to Sir Joseph forty years ago, which he also
refused." What a charming specimen was Banks of the genus Tory!
But after all it is a comfort to think that on this occasion he was
right: for while this head was undoubtedly that which did duty for
the Protector at Tyburn, and was afterwards fixed on the top of
Westminster Hall, it was almost certainly not that of Oliver
Cromwell: whose remains probably still lie crumbling into dust in
their unknown grave on Naseby Field. {21a}
I give one more example of robbing the grave of an illustrious man,
through the superstition of many and the cupidity of one.
Swedenborg was buried in the vault of the Swedish Church in Prince's
Square, on April 5, 1772. In 1790, in order to determine a question
raised in debate, viz., whether Swedenborg were really dead and
buried, his wooden coffin was opened, and the leaden one was sawn
across the breast. A few days after, a party of Swedenborgians
visited the vault. "Various relics" (says White: Life of
Swedenborg, 2nd ed., 1868, p. 675) "were carried off: Dr. Spurgin
told me he possessed the cartilage of an ear. Exposed to the air,
the flesh quickly fell to dust, and a skeleton was all that remained
for subsequent visitors. {21b} At a funeral in 1817, Granholm, an
officer in the Swedish Navy, seeing the lid of Swedenborg's coffin
loose, abstracted the skull, and hawked it about amongst London
Swedenborgians, but none would buy.
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