Milton's Tomb Desecrated, Exhibited; Bone, Teeth Taken

1904

There are probably many, even among the subscribers to Milton's statue — which, as just arranged, is to be unveiled on November 2 — who will be surprised to hear that the body of the great poet was once on view at a charge of threepence a head within a few yards from the site chosen for this splendid tribute to his memory, says the Westminister Gazette.

It was in 1790, after a little carousal, that two overseers and a carpenter entered the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where Milton lay buried, and, having discovered the leaden coffin which contained his body, put open its top with a mallet and chisel. "When they disturbed the shroud," Neve says, when telling the story of the ghoulish deed, "the ribs fell. Mr. Fountain confessed that he pulled hard at the teeth, which resisted until some one hit them with a stone. Fountain secured all the fine teeth in the upper jaw, and generously gave one to one of his accomplices. Altogether the scoundrels stole a rib bone, ten teeth and several handfuls of hair; and, to crown the diabolical business, the female gravedigger afterward exhibited the body to any one willing to pay threepence for the spectacle."

The Human Nose is An Apologetic Pimple

1902--

The Human Nose

The human nose is an apologetic pimple compared with the magnificent organ of the horse or dog. Our sense of smell is, when contrasted with our sight and hearing, singularly undiscriminating.

We can arrange sounds into series; we know E is between D and F; we appreciate octaves and harmonies. Similarly we can put the colors into order, decide upon the amount of blue in a purple and get almost to emotion at the sight of a white star in the blue of a summer twilight or of the amber sunlight glinting between the blades of glass.

But this serial arrangement, this sorting and selective choice, is entirely beyond our rudimentary senses of smell. To us the idea of the scent of the violet being a rich harmony or the suggestion that the frying of onions is a discord or that patchouli and the new mown bay are pleasant things in different times and keys sounds utter nonsense. Our noses are entirely too dull to effect the analysis necessary before scents can be distinguished as complex and sorted and recombined so as to be made aesthetic pleasure. — London Globe.



Strong Monosyllables

Instructors in the art of literary composition usually condemn a string of monosyllables, but in the well known hymn "Lead, Kindly Light," written by a master of the English language, you may could thirty consecutive words of one syllable only. They offend neither the eye nor the ear.

Milton often uses a series of monosyllables. In the second book of "Paradise Lost" we have

The fiend
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare,
With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way
And swims or sinks or wades or creeps or flies.

Such lines are not uncommon in the book:

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death.

And again:

Of neither sea nor shore nor air nor fire. — Notes and Queries.

--The Marion Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, February 27, 1902, page 7.