G. Willis gratefully acknowledges the various interestingdocuments and letters he has received. He is anxiousthat it should be perfectly understood that he is not theauthor of any statement, representation, or opinion, thatmay appear in his "Current Notes," which are merely selectionsfrom communications made to him in the course ofhis business, and which appear to him to merit attention.Every statement therefore is open to correction or discussion,and the writers of the several paragraphs should beconsidered as alone responsible for their assertions. Althoughmany notes have hitherto appeared anonymously,or with initial letters, yet wherever a serious contradictionis involved, G. Willis trusts that his Correspondents willfeel the necessity of allowing him to make use of theirnames when properly required.
Sir,—The late discovery of the remains of a humanbody in a complete state of preservation, in St. Stephen'sChapel, has induced me to send you a brief notice ofseveral similar occurrences recorded by our early chroniclersand historians. Bede relates that eleven yearsafter the death of St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne,the monks took up his body, expecting to see it reducedto ashes, but found, "all the body whole, as if it hadbeen alive, and the joints pliable more like one asleepthan a dead person; besides all the vestments the bodyhad on were wonderful for their freshness and glossness."We learn from William of Malmesbury that the bodywas again found incorrupt 415 years afterwards at Durham,and publicly shewn. Lingard gives an interestingaccount of the event, taken "from a memoir written atthe time by an eye-witness," in all probability Simeon,the Durham historian. From this narrative it appearsthat when the monks removed the masonry of the tomb,"they beheld a large and ponderous chest, which hadbeen entirely covered with leather, and strongly securedwith nails and plates of iron. To separate the top fromthe sides required their utmost exertion, and within itthey discovered a second chest, of dimensions more proportionateto the human body. It was of black oak,carved with figures of animals and flowers, and wrappedin a coarse linen cloth, which had previously been dippedin melted wax, to exclude the air and damp." By thedirection of Turgot, the prior, "they conveyed the smallerchest from behind the altar to a more convenient place,in the middle of the choir, unrolled the cloth, and withtrembling hands forced open the lid. Instead of the remainsof the Saint, they found a copy of the Gospelslying on a second lid, which had not been fastened withnails, but rested on three transverse bars of wood. Bythe help of two iron rings, fixed at the extremities, itwas easily removed, and disclosed the body apparentlyentire, lying on its right side, on a pallet of silk. Atthe sight they gazed on each other in silent astonishment,and then retiring a few paces, fell prostrate on thefloor, and repeated, in a low tone, the seven penitentialpsalms. After this preparation, they approached thecoffin, and three of the