Note 3 — SIR THOMAS BROWNE

In the course of repairs, "in August, 1840, his coffin was broken open by a pickaxe; the bones were found in good preservation, the fine auburn hair had not lost its freshness." It is painful to relate that the cranium was removed and placed in the pathological museum of the Norwich Hospital, labeled as "the gift of" some person (name not recalled), whose own cranium is probably an object of interest solely to its present proprietor. "Who knows the fate of his own bones? ... We insult not over their ashes," says Sir Thomas. The curator of the museum feels that he has a clever joke on the dead man, when with a grin he points to a label bearing these words from the 'Hydriotaphia':--"To be knaved out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking-bowls, and our bones turned into pipes to delight and sport our enemies, are tragical abominations escaped in burning burials."