He was also a mark for many of those questions, serious and absurd alike, which are presented for solution to men of science. A firm of undertakers asked him how much they ought to charge for embalming Mr Beckford; a grave Oriental from the Turkish Embassy submitted to his examination the bowl of a tobacco-pipe which he believed to have been made out of the beak of a Phœnix; his opinion was sought by the Home Office on the window-tax, and by Charles Dickens on the publicity of executions; his microscopical skill was brought to bear on the so-called contemporary annotations of Shakespeare; and he demolished one of the many sea-serpents in which a marvel-loving public from time to time believes. He showed very conclusively that it was probably a large seal. His letter to the _Times_ on the subject excited a good deal of attention, and Prince Albert dubbed him ‘the serpent-killer.’ He was also to a certain extent responsible for the models of extinct animals in the gardens of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, and was rewarded for his trouble by a dinner in the spacious carcase of the Iguanodon. In 1856—it is said, through the influence of Lord Macaulay—Owen was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Natural History at the British Museum, with a salary of £800 a year. The new officer was to stand towards the collections of natural history in the same relation that the librarian did towards the books and antiquities, and to be directly responsible, as he was, to the trustees. Great advantages were expected to result from this new departure, and Owen was warmly congratulated. Professor Sedgwick wrote: ‘I trust that your move to the British Museum is for your happiness. If God spare your health, it will be a grand move for the benefit of British science. An _Imperator_ was sadly wanted in that vast establishment’ (ii. 19). With Lord Macaulay, anxiety for Owen himself had been paramount: ‘I am extremely desirous that something should be done for Owen. I hardly know him to speak to. His pursuits are not mine; but his fame is spread over Europe. He is an honour to our country, and it is painful to me to think that a man of his merit should be approaching old age amidst anxieties and distresses. He told me that eight hundred a year, without a house in the Museum, would be opulence to him’ (ii. 15).