The life of Richard Owen

Front matter

**.

THE LIFE

OF

Preface

Sir Richard Owen's careful habit of preserving every paper or letter that came to his hands has rendered the task of preparing his ' Life * more difficult perhaps than it would otherwise have been. Of his own letters, written chiefly to his wife and sisters, no less than 1,200 remain; while of the voluminous correspondence he received during his long life more than 15,000 letters had been preserved.

Besides all these, both he and his wife were in the habit of keeping diaries. His own journal is of a more or less disconnected character ; while that of his wife, which includes the years 1834 to 1873, is a full record not only of the important facts but also of the trivial details of their joint lives. It will, therefore, be readily understood that my chief difficulty has been to compress the biography within reasonable limits.

His general character stands out clearly, I venture to think, from the material which has been utilised ; and, although from our relative ages it is impossible that I could have a personal knowledge of his private life until his later years, I can but repeat the unfailing testimony of his friends in regard to his charm of manner, his genial courtesy, and his kindness of heart. All this and a great deal more I have seen for myself

I gladly take this opportunity of expressing my sincere gratitude to the Right Hon. T. H. Huxley for the kind and generous contribution he has made to this book, showing Professor Owen's position in the* history of anatomical science.

I have to thank Mr. C. Davies Sherborn for carefully examining Sir Richard's correspondence, for editing or revising the various scientific portions of the work, and for lending me much assistance throughout.

PREFACE [9]

I wish also to express my best thanks to Mr. John Murray for many suggestions and revisions, and for the interest he has taken in the work.

It only remains for me ta acknowledge my indebtedness to Lady White Cooper, Sir William Flower, Professor Jeffrey Bell, Dr. Pearson Langshaw, and others, for valuable information which has done much to enhance the interest of the biography, and to Dr. Henry Woodward and the Rev. H. N. Hutchinson for the illustrations of some extinct animals, the reconstruction of which occupied so large a part of Professor Owen's life.

RICHARD OWEN.

Sheen Lodge, Richmond Park : October 1894.

Contents

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME

CHAPTER I 1804-24 Parentage— Childhood— Youth

PAGE I

CHAPTER n

1824-33

Edinburgh University — Prosector to Abernethy in London — M.R.C.S. and Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Collection at the College of Surgeons, 1826 — Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at St. Bartholomevi^'s, 1828 — Catalogue of the Hunterian Museum, 1830-34 — Introduction to Cuvier — Visit to Paris, 1831 — ' Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus,' 1832 26

CHAPTER HI

1833-36

Eton in 1833 — Professor of Comparative Anatomy at St. Bartholomew's, 1834— F.R.S., 1834 — Marriage to Caroline Clift, 1835- Early Married Life 69

CHAPTER IV 1837-38

PAGE

Hunterian Professor and Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the College of Surgeons, 1837 — His Courses of Lectures — Birth of his Son, October 6, 1837 — The British Association at Newcastle, 1838 — Visit to Germany, 1838 — Death of his Mother, November 1838 . . . .105

CHAPTER V 1839-40

Foundation of the Microscopical Society — Reconstruction of the 'Dinornis' — Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, 1839 — First Part of the Report on British Fossil Reptiles read before the British Association at Birmingham, 1839 — Part I. of the 'Odontography' completed, 1840 143

CHAPTER VI 1841-42

Hunterian Lectures — Progress with 'Odontography' — British Association at Plymouth, 1841 — Report on British Fossil Mammalia, 1842-43 — Public Dinner in his Honour at Lancaster, 1842 — Offer of a Civil List Pension, 1842 . 179

CHAPTER VII

1843-44

Further Evidence of the Existence of the ' Dinornis' — Second Series of Hunterian Lectures commenced — Member of the Commission of Inquiry into the Health of Towns, 1843-46 — The British Association at York, 1843 — Member of the Literary Club, 1844 — Lecture on the 'Dinornis' at the Royal Institution, 1844 207

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME [13]

CHAPTER Vni 1845

PAGE

Owen's Opinion of the 'Vestiges of Creation' — His Descriptive Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia — Election to ' The Club'— Refusal of the Offer of Knighthood— Visit to Turner, the Painter — Meeting of the Italian Naturalists at Naples 248

CHAPTER IX

1846-47

Owen's Proposal of a National Collection of Fossil and Recent Comparative Anatomy — The British Association at Southampton, 1846, and at Oxford, 1847 — Literary Work— The Rajah of Sarawak at ' The Club,' 1847— Member of the Commission of Sewers — Foundation of the Palseontological Society, 1848 272

CHAPTER X 1 848-49

' The Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton,' 1848 — The Cuming Shell Collection — The Great Sea Serpent — Emerson and Guizot — Literary Work and Lectures—Death of Mr. and Mrs. Clift, 1849— Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte— Member of the Commission on Smithfield Market 309

CHAPTER XI

1850-51

The Megatherium — Preparations for the Great Exhibition of 1 85 1— The Smithfield Commission— Additions to the Zoological Gardens — Juror of Awards at the Exhibition- Visit to Parisat the Invitation of the President of the

French Republic — Article on Lyell's Works in the ' Quarterly Review,' October 1851— The Copley Gold Medal — ' Chevalier de I'Ordre Royal pour le M^rite ' — Sheen Lodge, 1851 351

CHAPTER XII

1852-54

Delight in Country Life — Hunterian Lectures, 1852 — Landseer, Mulready, Fanny Kemble, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens — Love of Fishing — Dinner in the Iguanodon, 1853 — Literary and Scientific Work, 1854 . 382

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN VOL. I .

Portrait from an Oil Painting by H. W. Pickersgill Frontispiece

Megatherium americanum, Cuvier . . Tofacep. 190

Portrait from a Daguerreotype taken about

The House in Thurnham Street, Lancaster, where

Owen was Born page 6

The Gateway, Lancaster Castle 13

Femur of a Moa 145

DiNORNIS (PACHYORNIS) ELEPHANTOPUS, OWEN . . 150

Sheen Lodge, Richmond Park 383

CHAPTER I

1804-24

Parentage — Childhood — Youth

Richard Owen, younger son of Richard Owen, formerly of Fulmer Place, Bucks, was born at Lancaster on July 20, 1804. His grandfather, William Owen, married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Eskrigge. This Richard Eskrigge was High Sheriff of Bucks in 1741, and was the owner of Fulmer Place. In an old Family Prayer Book, dated 17 13, with a frontispiece portrait of Queen Anne, and further ' adorn'd,' as the title-page has it, ' with 50 historical cuts,' there are the following entries in Richard Eskrigge's handwriting : —

' Richard Owen, son of William Owen (who was free of the Fishmongers' Company) and of Elizabeth Owen. The said Richard was born in the parish of St. Matthew, Friday Street, December 5, 1754, and baptized the Sunday following. The sponsors were Richard and Elizabeth

VOL. I. B

Eskrigge and Mr. Beresford (Cashier in the Bank of England).

' Elizabeth Owen died December 5, 1754.

' Elizabeth, wife of Richard Eskrigge, died July 16, 1756. They were both buried in Wanstead parish, in Essex, in the vault of Elizabeth Froysell, my wife's mother. Ann Froysell and Ann Eskrigge, her niece, are buried in the same place.'

Then in Sir Richard Owen's handwriting a few explanatory remarks are added. ' The above entries,' he writes, ' are in the handwriting of my great-grandfather, Richard Eskrigge, of Fulmer Place, Fulmer, Bucks, and relate to the birth of his grandson and heir, my father, Richard Owen. My father's mother died soon after his birth, and he was brought up by his grandfather Eskrigge, and his education was directed by the executors or trustees after Richard Eskrigge's demise.'

The following table makes the relationship clearer : —

Robert Eskrigge of Eskrigge

Richard Eskrigge = Elizabeth Froysell (of Fulmer Place), High Sheriff of Bucks, 1 741

Elizabeth Eskrigge = William Owen (died the year after her marriage)

Richard Owen = Catherine Longworth inherited Fulmer Place

{nde Parrin) Sir Richard Owen, K.C.B.

l8o4-24 THE PROFESSOR'S MOTHER 3

There is also an entry in the handwriting of Sir Richard Owen's father. ' Richard and Catherine Owen were married at Preston, November 8, 1792, by the Rev. H. Shuttleworth.'

The Professor's mother was of French extraction. She was of a Huguenpt family of the name of Parrin, who came over from Provence at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Besides being a woman of great refinement and intelligence she was an accompHshed musician, for her father had supported himself by the profession of music, and she inherited his talent. In appearance she was a handsome, Spanish-looking woman, with dark eyes and hair. Owen himself was never tired of speaking of his mother's charm of manner, and of all that he owed to her early training and example. His father was a complete contrast. Tall, stout, and ruddy, his general appearance bore a strong resemblance to the face and figure popularly supposed to belong to the typical John Bull. Nor was his character unlike — bluff, burly, obstinate, and perhaps not particularly brilliant, he was yet possessed of sound common-sense.

Honest and sincere himself, Richard Owen the elder expected all with whom he had dealings to be the same, and never quite recovered from the effects of a certain business transaction which took place between Napoleon I. and himself. He had already made a considerable fortune as a West India merchant, and at the beginning of the present century contracted for the supplies of the French troops at St. Dominique, but Napoleon I. afterwards repudiated all English debts. Talleyrand, however, represented to him that Mr. Owen's contract had been most faithfully carried out, and that he was deserving of some return at least. Napoleon thereupon gave orders that the estates which he had confiscated from the Bishop of Deux-Ponts should be offered to Mr. Owen as payment.

Before giving an answer Mr. Owen consulted his wife. She was strongly of opinion that, as the title to the estates was so insecure, the best thing to be done was to accept them, and then sell them for anything they would fetch. The place was accordingly sold, and without much difficulty, for the position was a beautiful one and the land productive. It so happens that the title to these lands has never been disputed, and the descendants of the original purchaser occupy them to this day.

A letter from St. Bartholomew, dated July 30, 1807, to ' Kitty,' from her husband, contains the following statement :-^

' Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. Warswick, dated June 3, advising me that they had received i ,684/. 9^-. 2d. for the lands in France taken for the French bills. This is a heavy loss, but I am glad on your account that there is that sum in

1804-24 RICHARD OWEN GOES TO SCHOOL 5

the bank, as you may now call there for what you want with more confidence.'

The loss which this transaction entailed on Richard Owen evidently preyed upon his mind. Two years afterwards he died.

In 1808, a year before hi§ death, he wrote again to his wife from St. Kitt's. In this letter he refers to his losses, but, what is more important, he adds : ' I am glad to know James ^ and Richard come on so well with their studies and are so attentive.' In October 1809 Richard Owen died at the age of fifty-four, according to an entry in a little old note-book, tied up with a faded pink ribbon, and headed ' Kitty Parrin's M emorandum-book. '

The next entry in this little note-book is that of the death of Mrs. Owen's eldest son : —

'April 22, 1827. — My eldest boy, James Hawkins Owen, died at Demerara of yellow fever, and was buried there.'

Long before that date Mrs. Owen was living with her six children in a house in Thurnham Street, at' the corner of Dalton Square, Lancaster, and this old house is still in existence. After some preparatory instruction from an old Quaker lady, Richard Owen, at the mature age of six, was sent to the Lancaster Grammar School to join his elder brother, James, by the advice of his godfather, the Rev. Joseph Rowley,

1 Professor Owen's elder brother.

CH. I.

who was curate of the parish as well as headmaster of the school. There is nothing to be seen of the old school now, except perhaps the dated stone which used to be over the porchway.

r

■r

«. • ^ -.1

THE HOUSE IN THURNHAM STREET, LANCASTER, WHERE OWEN WAS BORN

The New Grammar School was built in a different part of the town. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, who was Owen's fellow-townsman, also received his education there, and another schoolfellow, who was in the same class

1804-24 PARSON ROWLEY 7

as Owen's elder brother, was Higgin, late Bishop of Derry.

Richard Owen always spoke affectionately of Mr. Rowley, or Parson Rowley as he was called, and was also on good terms with two of the other masters of the school, the Revs. E. Morland and J. Beetham. How he got on with his other tutors is not so certain. One of them stigmatised him as ' lazy and impudent,' and prophesied that he would come to a bad end. This gentleman gave instruction in caligraphy, but in spite of his dismal predictions he managed to teach Owen to write a remarkably clear and neat hand, which hardly varied till within a few years of his death.

Between twelve and two o'clock the boys left school for dinner. It so happened that the gardens belonging to Mrs. Owen and to Mr. Rowley adjoined each other, and on one occasion the carpenter, Whewell's father, was engaged in repairing the division fence. Mr. Rowley was walking in his garden before school began again, and there met young Whewell, who was assisting his father in his work. In the course of conversation Mr. Rowley, who had evidently been putting a few professional questions to the boy, was struck with the real intelligence of his answers, and the evident knowledge of mathematics which he displayed. He told Whewell's father that he thought his son ought to be sent to the Grammar School. The elder Whewell, who was a man of much good sense, objected to the expense of such a proceeding, and the loss of his son's assistance. But Mr. Rowley, being of an exceedingly practical as well as generous nature, offered to bear the expense of books and fees himself. Young Whewell therefore joined the school. Considerably Owen's senior, he had been at the school some little time when the latter entered.

At that time Owen did not apparently exhibit any marked fondness for study. He would speak feelingly of a day which recurred at regular intervals, known as ' Black Monday,' when the misdemeanours of the week, which were allowed to accumulate until they reached a hideous climax, were expiated by the infliction of the extreme penalty of the law. It was remarked that the pains and penalties had somehow or other increased since Whewell's advent to the school, and it was acutely surmised that his precocious relish for mathematics and study in general had considerably raised the standard of work. This was felt to be too much. • Whewell was a big strong fellow, but Owen, deeming that there was safety in numbers and a big brother, was loud in his taunting expressions of disgust. Whewell thought it high time to administer a reproof to one so much his junior both in school standing and age, and upon the big brother, James Owen,

1804-24 'WEDDING MONEY' 9

thinking fit to interfere, Whewell proceeded to administer to him a couple of black eyes. A remark of Owen's mother is preserved, to the effect that she thought it most ungrateful of ' that boy Whewell' .to have 'blacked her eldest son's eyes so shockingly.' But the yqunger Owen and Whewell became the best of friends, and their friendly intercourse existed without a break until Whewell's death in 1866.

Richard Owen remained at the school long enough to be one of the first six boys. Among the privileges at that time attached to those favoured seniors was a curious institution known as the ' wedding money.' Whenever a wedding took place at the Parish Church, these six boys, if they were in attendance, could claim a fee. It seems that in pre- Reformation times the six seniors were called upon to fill some minor office in the Church — that probably of acolytes — during the wedding ceremony, and, although the duties had lapsed, the fees continued. This fee apparently varied — sometimes it would only be a shilling or half a crown between them, but it occasionally rose in the case of county families to the substantial sum of a couple of guineas. On one occasion a farmer Was about to be married, but, as he was anxious to have something for his money, he refused to part with a single penny until one of the young ' gents ' would ' gie him a homily.' The boys were somewhat dumbfounded.

and were beginning to think they had better let the question of fees pass and go off empty handed, when Owen, displaying a considerable share of ready assurance, stepped forward and coolly began from the Latin Grammar, ' Propria quae maribus tribuuntur mascula dicas,' &c. That was quite enough. The farmer handed over his fee with great satisfaction, and Owen achieved a cheap reputation amongst those who were present as the classical scholar of the school.

' At this period of his life,' so his last surviving sister would relate, ' Richard was very small and slight and exceedingly mischievous, and he hardly grew at all till he was sixteen.' His family were evidently apprehensive — like Mrs. Wilfer's mamma — that it would end by his being a 'small man.' But he soon began to make up for his early want of stature, and when he left the Grammar School he was already a big awkward lad.

At the age of fourteen Richard Owen had given no signs of a taste for the work to which his life was afterwards devoted. Part of a manuscript treatise on Heraldry still exists, which he wrote about this time, as well as an elaborately painted coat of arms of the Owen and Eskrigge family, with ' R.O. del., 1818,' in the corner. He thus alludes to this work of art : ' My earliest hobby was Heraldry, and a friend of my mother's, by name Miss Taylor, who was sister of the then l8o4-24 APPRENTICED TO LEONARD DICKSON ii

Garter King of Arms, promised me a place in Heralds' College.' In a footnote he added manyyears after : ' Which luckily I did not get, Garter dying before I was of age for such office.'

Soon after leaving school he was apprenticed to ' Leonard Dickson, of Lancaster, Surgeon and Apothecary,' as his indenture, dated August 1 1 , 1820, shows. According to the terms of this document he was to be provided by his mother with ' meat, drink, washing and lodging, and also decent and suitable cloathes and wearing apparel,' and his master was on his part to teach him the ' arts, businesses, professions, and mysteries of a surgeon apothecary and man midwife, with every circumstance relating thereto.'

Mr. Dickson died two years after, and Richard Owen was ' assigned, transferred, and turned over ' by the executors to Joseph Seed for the term of five years, the indenture of this transfer bearing the date of June 19, 1822. The following year Mr. Seed accepted a post as Surgeon in the Royal Navy,^ and Owen was again transferred, by an indenture dated Decem-

^ It is probably from this to sea, sir.? You might just

circumstance that the idea of as well go to the devil.' The

Owen's entering the Navy ori- Professor once assured the

ginated. The story has been writer that this story, though

extensively quoted and elabo- ingenious, had no foundation

rated into an anecdote in which in fact. Abernethy says to Owen, ' Going ber 13, 1823, to James Stockdale Harrison, ' Surgeon and Apothecary.'

There is appended to the indenture to Seed a certificate in Joseph Seed's handwriting which reads as follows :

' Mr. Richard Owen became my pupil in consequence of the death of Mr. Dixon [jr?V],the gentleman to whom he was an apprentice. From the circumstance of myself being called upon by the Service to which I belong, I had him transferred to my respected friend Mr. J. Harrison, of this town.

' Mr. Owen's general conduct during the time he was with me has my highest commendation, and at all times I shall be happy to bear testimony to his most deserving merit, as well as to his respectability.

'J. Seed, ' Surgeon Royal Navy.'

Lancaster, January 10, 1827.

During Richard Owen's apprenticeship at Lancaster, two adventures befell him which he often related. They are given in his own words ; ' but they necessarily suffer by the change from spoken to written language. They lose his own indescribable manner of telling a good story, especially when relating his own experiences,

' The substance of these to Hood's Magazine, vol. ii., two ghost stories was contri- 1844, p. 442, and vol. iii., 1845, buted by the Professor himself p. 294.

1804-24

THE COUNTY GAOL which only those who may have heard him will be able to recall in reading the two following accounts of himself : —

' It happened during the probationary period

THE GATEWAY, LANCASTER CASTLE

of my apprenticeship* — we preferred to call ourselves " pupils," by the way — to the worthy country surgeon. He stood high in the estimation of the good townsfolk, and was, moreover, surgeon to the County Gaol. .This imposing pile included all

* His first, under Mr. Dickson.

kinds of architecture, from the square Roman tower and baronial portculHsed gateway and keep of the early Plantagenets, to the fortress built in the time of Elizabeth, and to those more modern imitations erected according to the exigencies of a model prison. The old square tower, with walls of exceeding thickness — Hadrian's Tower it was called — was divided by four or five storeys into as many spacious but low-roofed apartments, which were accessible by a spiral stone staircase lodged in a corner turret ; the top room of all, being the highest and most airy, was used as the hospital for the gaol. Here indeed we exercised privileges, which the less favoured surgeon's pupils of the town could only hope to enjoy in their metropolitan career at the hospitals. The inquests held over all the unfortunates who by natural death are liberated from prison gave us the opportunities of becoming early initiated in practical anatomy. I eagerly embraced this opportunity of initiation, to which I looked forward not without feelings of awe, such as might well mingle with the scientific aspirations of a youth of sixteen but three weeks emancipated from the old-fashioned school, where supernaturalism had always flourished. In my school days no youthful sceptic had ever ventured a doubt as to the raising of the devil by the process of muttering the Lord's Prayer backwards. The influence of a score of school myths of a

1804-24 POST-MORTEMS 15

ghostly character, and the natural awe which the human corpse inspires, especially in the youthful mind, damped considerably, I must confess, my ardour for the acquisition of a knowledge of internal structure, when, the sheet having been withdrawn from the pale, cold, collapsed features of the deceased, the half-opened eyes seemed to deprecate what then struck me forcibly as being a desecration of the sanctity of the dead. It was in vain that my elder fellow-pupil drew my attention to the various pathological signs in the thoracic viscera on which our master learnedly descanted ; my gaze would still turn to the pale cold features, and the glassy staring eyeballs. He had been a young man, imprisoned for a term, and carried off by a rapid consumption. His was the first case that I had attended, and I had taken medicine to him in the hospital. Another prisoner, somewhat older, had died the day after, and his body was examined the same day. These /t'5'/- mortcTn dissections were performed in the middle room of the old tower, where the prison clothes were also washed. I must say I quitted the scene with both appetite and ardour for science somewhat damped.

' A few fever cases had broken out in the gaol, and I was charged to visit one that had reached a critical height late in the evening, with medicines to be administered if certain symptoms were present. On this errand I set out about nine o'clock.

i6 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. i

It was late in November, and a storm was rising, obscuring the light of a full moon, which now and then burst from between the clouds, I entered the gloomy arch of the old gateway tower, let fall the ponderous knocker, and, having been reconnoitred through a small grating, was admitted. The old turnkey, being apprised of my business, offered to accompany the "young doctor" — in which title I already rejoiced — to the hospital tower. But as my seniors were accustomed to dispense with this attendance I thought it infra dig. to require it ; he might actually think / was afraid of going to the top of the old tower alone ; so, having obtained the keys and a lantern, I proceeded to the tower without him.

' The storm seemed to be increasing in violence, and the clouds were scurrying along in black masses as I crossed the spacious courtyard. The door of the turret I had to ascend was in a distant and gloomy corner of the yard. I set down the lamp, to turn with both hands the heavy key in the stiff and creaking lock. When at length the door yielded to a push, I was met by such a gust as if all the winds of heaven were escaping from temporary confinement in that old tower. I stood for a, moment with my back against the open door. The strange combination of howls, screams, and whistlings that smote my ear at the same time startled me, at first, with the idea that some human voices in the staircase were mingling with the sounds produced by the rushing of the wind. The lantern had swung open with the effort of my push and the light was extinguished. As the sounds died away I recognised that most melancholy and strangely articulate howling to which I had often in the daytime listened in the circular turret, which received, like a colossal organ-pipe, the currents of air that vibrated as they rushed in through four or five arrow-slits in its thick walls. The effect that a storm produced, blowing strongly from the sea, which was not very far distant, as it beat upon the walls of the old tower and played through this gigantic -^olian apparatus, is quite inconceivable.

' When I had somewhat collected my thoughts, my first idea was to return to the gateway for a light ; but reflection whispered " No ; they'll think you were afraid to pass the corpse room in the dark ; besides, they might say you couldn't miss your way up the narrow spiral staircase." So, shutting the heavy gate again, and locking it — the rule of the gaol being to lock every door that you passed through — I proceeded to mount the long succession of stone stairs. The loneliness of my position then struck coldly upon me, especially when the winds, after a moment's silence, began again their dismal concert of moans, screams, and howls, through those arrow-slit apertures by which air and light were admitted to the stairturret. In the murkiest gloom I began my ascent, and, arriving at the first grating, groped

VOL. I. y , c i8 PROFESSOR OWEN CH. i.

out the keyhole, unlocked the iron door and passed through. This door I did not lock after me, but left wide open. I tried to whistle as I proceeded ; but it seemed a mockery to attempt to make any sound heard amid the indescribable crescendos and diminuendos which filled that dismal access to the abodes of sickness and death. And as I slowly proceeded my mind became suddenly and at once occupied — filled to the exclusion of every other idea — with the scene I had witnessed for the first time that morning. It came upon me so suddenly and distinctly that I involuntarily stopped : the picture of the whole procedure, with those features that had most appalled me, rose in hard outline before my mind's eye, and I tried again to reason and shake it off. " Men must be dissected," I said to myself; but I wished I had never witnessed those pallid collapsed features. I then believed in ghosts, and three or four of the best authenticated cases vividly recurred to me, and, as these thoughts passed through my mind, every step I took was rapidly bringing me nearer the entry of that cold and dreary chamber, where — but I wasn't going to think of that any more. 1 had unlocked the second iron grating, which crossed the staircase, and, having passed the dreaded chamber, was hastening on, when a slight gleam of light from above made me raise my head, and I saw at the next turn

1804-24 A FREEZING HORROR 19