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    them , too intense , too painful to be endured . But the emotions of veneration , and even of tender affection , are not incompatible with the power of beholding , with a sensation allied to pleasure , a faithful and vivid likeness of life . Those who had the deepest personal regard for Mr Bentham , after the subsidence of the first painful feeling , have witnessed the present embodiment of his person , features , and expression , with the most entire satisfaction ; as a work of art it is admirable ; as an idiosyncratic likeness it has been seldom equalled .

    Mr Bentham was perfectly aware that difficulty and even obloquy might attend a compliance with the directions he gave concerning the disposal of his body . He therefore chose three friends , whose firmness he believed to be equal to the task , and asked them if their affection for him would enable them to brave such consequences . They engaged to follow his directions to the letter , and they have been faithful to their pledge . We do not know how better to describe the manner in which

    the first part of this duty was performed by the medical friend to whom the care of his body after death was specially confided , than by transcribing the account of it given in the number of the ' Repository ' for July 1832 , by an eye-witness ( W . J . Fox ) : — " None who were present can ever forget that impressive scene . The room * is small and circular , with no window but a central skylight , and

    capable of containing about three hundred persons . It was filled , with the exception of a class of medical students and some eminent members of that profession , by friends , disciples , and admirers of the deceased philosopher , comprising many men celebrated for literary talent , scientific research , and political activity . The corpse was on the table in the middle of the room , directly under the light , clothed in a night dress , with only the head and hands exposed . There was no rigidity in the

    features , but an expression of placid dignity and benevolence . This was at times rendered almost vital by the reflection of the lightning playing over them ; for a storm arose just as the lecturer commenced , and the profound silence in which he was listened to , was broken , and only broken , by loud peals of thunder , which continued to roll at intervals throughout the delivery of his most appropriate and often affecting address . With the

    feelings which touch the heart in the contemplation of departed greatness , and in the presence of death , there mingled a sense of the power which that lifeless body seemed to be exercising in the conquest of prejudice for the public good , thus co-operating with the triumphs of the spirit by which it had been animated . It was a worthy close of the personal career of the great philanthropist and philosopher . Never did corpse 6 f hero on the battle field ' with his martial cloak around him / or funeral obsequies chanted by stoled and mitred priests in gothic aisles , excite

    sucfy emotions as the stern simplicity of that hour in which the principle of Utility triumphed over the imagination and the h ^ art . " , i * * The L * cturc * roomof the Webb street School of Anatomy .

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    Ift Memoranda of Bentham .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/20/