Note 15 — Last Words of Distinguished Men and Women.
Reading edition
Upon the 14th of February, in the 30th year of Queen Mary, was Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, brought to the stake, where he first thrust his right hand into the fire (with which he had before subscribed a recantation) till it first, and then his whole body was consumed; but what was most remarkable, his heart remained whole, and was not once touched by the fire.—Baker's Chron. p. 463.
We have the same story about the heart of Zuinglius. Three days after it had been cast into the fire to be burned to ashes some friends found it untouched by the flames.—Melch. Adam. Vit. p. 37.
"Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson in his book 'The Real Shelley' writes: 'All the world knows how Shelley's torn and disfigured corpse was reduced to ashes and a few fragments of bone (with the exception of the heart that would not be burnt) on the pyre;' and probably, since Trelawny, shortly after the poet's death, reported that 'his heart remained entire,' his statement has been unhesitatingly accepted. I have, however, reason for thinking that the story does not rest on trustworthy evidence.
"When a body is burnt the part which longest resists the action of the fire after the base of the skull and one or two of the most solid portions of bone, is the liver. The heart, being hollow and smaller, is easily destroyed: but the liver, a moist and solid mass, repels intense heat, and ultimately deposits an ash of pure carbon, which no continued burning or increase of temperature can further change. In the cemetery of Milan where I have seen human cremations completely carried out in seventy minutes by Signor Venini's reverberatory furnace, the best method known, I also learned that the liver, perhaps from its containing this element of carbon, can endure for a considerable time even that concentrated whirlwind of fire, and remain almost intact after the heart has totally disappeared. Moreover, in Shelley's case the liver would have been saturated with sea-water, and thereby rendered still more incombustible. It is extremely improbable that Byron, Leigh Hunt, or Trelawny knew enough anatomy to identify accurately the charred substance they took to be the heart, and it is more likely, owing to the thin edge of the liver being consumed, and its size consequently being much reduced, that they mistook the shrunken remains of the one organ for the whole of the other.
"From observing the Milanese cremations alluded to I think it barely possible that the human heart is ever capable of withstanding fire for more than a brief period; but since Mr. J. A. Symonds asserts, to my surprise, that Shelley's heart was given by Leigh Hunt to Mrs. Shelley, and is now at Boscombe, the seat of the present baronet, it would be easy for some competent anatomist to determine the question I have raised.
"In any case, the hero-worshipping and sentimental tourists who go in crowds to that lovely spot beneath the pyramid of Caius Cestius to mourn over Shelley's untimely fate have been strangely deceived for more than sixty years in believing that beneath the marble graven with the touching words 'Cor Cordium' lies the flame proof heart of their favorite poet."—Bicknell.