The Sun.
London, England, 1826-09-05 00:00:00

PHRENOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF

POPE'S SKULL.

(From the lEraminer. )

A cast from the skull of . the Bard of Twickenham is
now selling in London, taken, it is said, from the real
skull recently dug up in Twickenham church. The ac-
count in circulation is, that the Vicar having permitted
the corpse of some. person to. be buried in the church,
though already full, the grave-diggers, a few weeks since,
broke up the spot where the remains of Pope were lying,
when a very deep coffin was found, and the skull of the
poet taken out of it;—by whose per Mission or order, we
do not. hear; but, as the story goes, the skull was re-
moved, and is now in the possession Of the Vicar. This
alleged fact is, however, doubted by some of the good
people of Twickenham, who will not believe that the Rev.
Gentleman would set the " sacrilegious" example of rob-
bing the church, even if he entertained no respect for the
well-known Ntishes of the Bard, that be might be saved
from bad company, and allowed to repose unmolested :
" Heroes and Kings, your distance keep :
" In peace let one poor Poet sleep."
—There are not wanting persons who cry out " shame"
on the whole transaction ; and one individual declared,
that such a scandal would never have occurred, if " the
gentleman (meaning the immortal Bard) had left any rela-
tives in the parish." This sort of indignation will not,
perhaps, be felt by all; and, indeed, it is a question,
whether Pope himself, who used his head with such ad-
vantage while living, would have felt any particular grief
had he been aware that his skull would have been" turned
to good account" when he was dead. Whatever the pos-
sessor of the relic may do, the Phrenologist at least will
" make much of it 2!

In consequence of the report of this discovery, eight
celebrated phrenologists started off in eight different
post-chaises from London, where they arrived pre-
cisely at the same moment, when the jostling among
them to see which should lay hands on the skull first,
was, as our Reporter says, truly ridiculous. The fol-
lowing, as nearly as we can give it, was the account of
their examination, which in a few days will be pub-
lished in a pamphlet form by Mr. Murray :
" On an accurate, inspection of the cranium (which
like that of Professor Porson's, was unusually thick),
we discovered just beside the temples the organ of
music strongly developed ; we immediately referred to
the Poet's works which we had brought with us, when
we pitched, as if by inspiration, on that splendid pas-
sage in his " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, beginning
with " By music minds an equal temper know,' which
was evidently written in consequence of the full deve-
lopeinent of that organ.

On the summit ,of the cranium, and just under the
top of the wig, we discovered the bump of veneration;
an organ miraculously developed in the Bard's noble
hymn—

" Father of all, in every age,
In every clime *clued."
We then passed our hands on towards the occiput,
when we found them rub violently againsj, the organ
of theft. This puzzled us at first ;• Pop 6, we hear,
having. been no footpad,--until ou4" friend Doctor
luckily discovered that he had been• muck .ad-
dieted to literary larcenies ; and had drawn largely, and
without acknowledgement, on the classics of Greece
and Rome. On continuing our researches towards the
neck, we found the skull unusually thickened, a fact
perceptible only in gentlemen who have been hanged ;
this also puzzled us not a little: resolved, however, not
to despair, we adopted a new theory of Doctor Gall's,
namely, that there is a strong organ, called the bump
of tippling, perceptible in adults, and increasing in
size and. substance towards age, which has hitherto
been erroneously called philoprogenitiveness. This
organ, on reference to the Poet's works, we found
happily exemplified in that celebrated exhortation of
his " Drink deep."—(Vide his Essay on Criticism.)
The organ of combativeness was also prodigiously full,
so full indeed that under other circumstances its pro-
prietor could easily have knocked down an ox ;whereas
his combativeness, taking a literary turn, led only to
the perpetration of the " Dunciad." After all,
there is nothing like. phrenology ! ! In pursuing our
researches still further, we discovered the organ of. ema-
tiveness in a high state of developement ; a fact which
we found fully borne out, when on referring. to Mr.
BoWles's edition we saw, that " the Twickenham
Bard" had been notorious for his penchant for Lady
M. W. Montague, and the Miss Mounts ; in conse-
quence of which
.aforesaid emotiveness he had indited
currente calamo," the far-famed Eloisa to Abelard,
as well as the translation of Ovid's glowing Sappho
to Phaon. After all, we again repeat our assurance
that as far as truth, downright incontrovertible truth
is concerned, "there is nothing like phrenology ln

At this stage of the examination, adds our reporter,
a monstrous scuffling was heard on the stairs lead-
ing to the study of the clergyman in whose house
this inquiry was going forward, and presently
in came the Twickenham sexton, accompanied 'by
the Parish Clerk, who had just found out
that the skull in question was no other than the skull
of an unhappy gentleman named Muggins, who had
died some forty years since, in consequence of a slight
accident he had met with on the gallows. . '1
somewhat pozed our phrenologists ; but as your genuine
men
of science arc not easily disconcerted, they per-
sisted in their declaration, that all was just as it should
h_ e, and declared one and all, upon their honours, that
for down
right honest truth there was nothing like
:at ? aceidents
; you l tiiw
phrenology 1 Ido not think they are far wrong, I
must confess, notwithstanding this trifling blunder ;hut
what
o
i est errare," as the poet says.
will happen, Sic.—

._ . -•1,-i ._ . . _
a • last,
A CHAPTRR. OF AcCIDENTS.—On `Tuesday
Abraham Preston, a married man, and John Newman, his ap-
prentice,
about 19 years of age,
were both killed, while at work
iii a pit at the Gibbet Lane
celliery, tons
elliery, by upwards of thirty to
weight of coal suddenly giving way and falling upon them ; and 1
on Thursday, Edward Turner, a collier, was killed by a like ac-
cident at Tipton New Church Colliery; on Tneaday morning, as
Joh Sirnkin, a boy about 18 years old, was endeavouring to hook
the dog hook to the skip dot
the mouth of a pit at Derision Col-
liery, lie fell backwards down the shaft,
Wail so dreadfully injured, both his arms and thighs being broken
and his head badly fractured, he .survived for three hours after, when death closed his sufferings. On- Monday, Mary Brookes, a
and notwithstanding he
girl between eleven and twelve years of age, servant to Mr. Buck-
nail, of the , Quarter-house,' on the Compton_roed, fell into •a pit
which is a few yards from the back door; and was drowned lie•
fore the accident was discovered. Inquisitions on the bodies of
the unfortunate persons have been held before H. Smith, Esq.
Coroner, anti verdicts of Accidental Death returned,-..-Stafford
Advertiser.