Dion remarks, while speaking of Trajan--_he that lies in a golden urn, eminently above the earth, is not likely to rest in peace_. The same thing may be affirmed of him, who has raised himself, eminently above his peers, wherever he may lie. During the Roman Catholic rage for relics, the graves were ransacked, and numberless sinners, to supply the demand, were dug up for saints. Sooner or later, the finger of curiosity, under some plausible pretext, will lift the coffin lid; or the foot of political sacrilege will trample upon the ashes of him, whom a former generation had delighted to honor; or the motiveless spirit of mischief will violate the sanctity of the tomb. When Charles I. was buried, in the same vault with Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, a soldier, as Wood relates, in his Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. iv. p. 39, Lond. 1820, attempted to steal a royal bone, which was afterwards found upon his person, and, which he said, upon examination, he had designed, for a handle to his knife. John Milton died, according to the respective accounts of Mitford, Johnson, and Hayley, on the 8th--about the 10th--or on the 15th of November, 1674. He was buried, in the chancel of St. Giles, Cripplegate. In the London Monthly Magazine, for August, 1833, there appeared an extract from the diary of General Murray, giving a particular account of the desecration of Milton's remains. The account was given to General Murray, at a dinner party, Aug. 23, 1790, by Mr. Thornton, who received it, from an eye-witness of the transaction. The church of St. Giles requiring repairs, the occasion was thought a proper one, to place a monument, over the body of Milton. Messieurs Strong, Cole, and others, of that parish, sought for, and discovered, the leaden coffin, the outer coffin of wood having mouldered away. Having settled the question of identity, these persons replaced the coffin, and ordered the workmen to fill up the grave. The execution of this order was postponed, for several days. In the interim, some of the parish, whose names are given, by General Murray, having dined together, and become partially drunk, resolved to examine the body; and proceeded, with lights, to the church. With a mallet and chisel, they cut open the coffin, rolled back the lead, and gazed upon the bones of John Milton! General Murray's diary shall relate the residue of a proceeding, which might call the rouge to the cheeks of a Vandal:--