In the year 1678, was erected the animated statue of Charles I., at Charing Cross. The parliament, in Cromwell’s time ordered it to be sold, and broken to pieces; but the brazier who purchased it dug a hole in his garden, and buried it unmutilated, producing to his masters several pieces of brass which he told them were parts of the statue; and in the true spirit of trade, he cast a number of handles of knives and forks, offering them for sale as composed of the brass of the statue; they were eagerly sought for, and purchased by the loyalists, from affection for their murdered monarch. When the second Charles was restored, the statue was brought forth from its place of concealment, and eagerly purchased at a great profit to the brazier. A superstition now forgotten, was long credited, that sepulchral lamps have burned for several hundred years, and that they would have continued burning, perhaps for ever, had they not been broken by the accidental digging into the tombs by husbandmen and others; few have declared themselves to have been _eye-witnesses_ of the fact, but many learned and ingenious authors give abundance of instances on the report of others. The origin of these lamps seems to have been with the Egyptians, who, through a firm belief of the metempsychosis, endeavoured to procure a perpetuity to the body itself, by balsams or embalming, and security to it afterwards, by lodging it in pyramids or catacombs: so also they endeavoured to animate the defunct by perpetual fire, the essence of which answered to the nature of the soul in their opinion: for with them fire was the symbol of an incorruptible, immortal, and divine nature. The soul was to be lighted by its lamp when it wandered according to its option, and thus safely return to its old quarters. One of the most remarkable of the sepulchral lamps has thus been described as found in the tomb of Pallas. In the year 1501, a countryman, digging deep into the earth, near Rome, discovered a tomb of stone, wherein lay a body, so tall, that being raised erect, it overtopped the walls of the city, and was as entire as if newly buried, having a very large wound on the breast, and a lamp burning at the head, which could neither be extinguished by wind nor water; so that they were obliged to perforate the bottom of the lamp, and by that means put out the flame. This was said to be the body of Pallas, slain by Turnus; the lamp is said to have burned two thousand five hundred and eleven years; and perhaps would have continued to burn to the end of the world, had it not been broken, and the liquid spilt!