The last example I shall adduce is that of Ben Jonson's skull. On
this Lieut.-Colonel Cunningham thus writes:

"In my boyhood I was familiar with the Abbey, and well remember the
'pavement square of blew marble, 14 inches square, with O Rare Ben
Jonson,' which marked the poet's grave. When Buckland was Dean, the
spot had to be disturbed for the coffin of Sir Robert Wilson, and
the Dean sent his son Frank, now so well known as an agreeable
writer on Natural History, to see whether he could observe anything
to confirm, or otherwise, the tradition about Jonson being buried in
a standing posture. The workmen, he tells us, 'found a coffin very
much decayed, which from the appearance of the remains must have
originally been placed in the upright position. The skull found
among these remains, Spice, the gravedigger, gave me as that of Ben
Jonson, and I took it at once into the Dean's study. We examined it
together, and then going into the Abbey carefully returned it to the
earth.' In 1859, when John Hunter's coffin was removed to the
Abbey, the same spot had to be dug up, and Mr. Frank Buckland again
secured the skull of Jonson, placing it at the last moment on the
coffin of the great surgeon. So far, so good; but not long
afterwards, a statement appeared in the 'Times' that the skull of
Ben Jonson was in the possession of a blind gentleman at Stratford-
upon-Avon. Hereupon Mr. Buckland made further inquiries, and calmly
tells us that he has convinced himself that the skull which he had
taken such care of on two occasions, [such care as not so much as to
measure or sketch it!] was not Jonson's skull at all; that a Mr.
Ryde had anticipated him both times in removing and replacing the
genuine article, [!] and that the Warwickshire claimant [!] was a
third skull which Mr. Ryde observed had been purloined from the
grave on the second opening. Mr. Buckland is a scientific