Alas, poor Yorick. Near to this Place Lies the body of The Reverend LAURENCE STERNE. Dyed September 13, 1768, Aged 53 years. Ah! Molliter, ossa quiescant. If a sound head, warm heart and breast humane, Unsully’d worth, and soul without a stain, If mental powers could ever justly claim The well-won tribute of immortal fame, Sterne was the Man who, with gigantic stride, Mow’d down luxuriant follies far and wide. Yet, what though keenest knowledge of mankind, Unseal’d to him the springs that move the mind, What did it boot him? Ridicul’d, abus’d, By foes insulted, and by prudes accus’d. In his, mild reader, view thy future fate, Like him despise what ’twere a sin to hate. This monumental stone was erected to the memory of the deceased by two _Brother Masons_, for, although he did not live to be a member of their _Society_, yet all his incomparable performances evidently prove him to have acted by _Rule_ and _Square_; they rejoice in this opportunity of perpetuating his high and unapproachable character to after ages. W. & S. If we analyze the above, and search out the truth of it, we find that Sterne died on March 18th, and was buried in the cemetery on March 22nd, being followed to the grave by only two persons, his publisher, Becket, and Mr. Salt, of the India House. It is, and was, currently believed that two nights after his burial his body was exhumed by the body-snatchers, or “Resurrection Men,” as they were called, and by them sold to M. Collignon, Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge: and the story goes on to show, how among the scientific people the Professor invited to witness his demonstration, there was one who had been personally acquainted with Sterne, and who fainted with horror at the sight of his corpse being thus anatomized. That this story is true is more than probable--exhumation being rife--so much so, that in the _St. James’s Chronicle_, Nov. 24-26, 1767, it is thus recorded of this very Cemetery: “The Burying-Ground in Oxford Road, belonging to the Parish of St. George’s, Hanover Square, having been lately robbed of several dead Bodies, a Watch was placed there, attended by a large Mastiff Dog, notwithstanding which, on Sunday last, some Villains found Means to steal out another dead Body, and carried off the very Dog.” Ann Radcliffe, the novelist, who died in 1823, was also buried here. The old chapel is now pulled down, and a new and much handsomer one erected in its place; whilst the cemetery has been levelled, planted, pathed, and seated, in accordance with modern taste. Continuing our walk, we come to dread Tyburn, with its fatal tree of which it was written:--