The Court of Cacus; Or, The Story of Burke and Hare — John Shaqi
The Court of Cacus; Or, The Story of Burke and HareLeighton, Alexander
History
The Court of Cacus; Or, The Story of Burke and Hare
Leighton, Alexander
Body snatching; Burke, William, 1792-1829; Hare, William, 1792?-1870?
As connected with the continued spoliation of this unfortunate little
Golgotha, a story was current out of which was formed a mock heroic
imitation of the 17th book of the "Iliad." It seemed that an old beggar of
the name of Sandy M'Nab, who used to be known in Edinburgh as a cripple
ballad singer, had died of almost pure old age in the Infirmary, and was,
in due time, consigned to that rest of which, as a peripatetic minstrel,
he had enjoyed so small a portion in this world. Yet how little one knows
of the fate to which he may be destined! Who could have supposed that
Sandy M'Nab, about whom nobody cared more than to give him an occasional
penny, and who was left to die in an hospital, would become as famous,
within a limited space, as Patroclus. It seemed that Cullen and some
others had, according to their custom, appropriated the body of the
minstrel, so far as to have it safely deposited in the box, and that box
carefully placed below the window waiting for the application of the rope,
whereby it was to be drawn to the upper regions; but in the meantime, some
three or four of Monro's Trojans, jealous of the Greeks, had got over the
wall with the same intention that had fired their opponents. Though the
night was dark, with only an occasional glimpse of a shy moon, who got
herself veiled every now and then, as if ashamed of those deeds of man
enacted under her light, the collegians soon ascertained that their envied
minstrel had been exhumed, yea, that that body, which once contained a
spirit all but cosmopolitan, was cribbed and confined in Cullen's
insatiable box. The discovery inflamed an original intention of mere
body-snatching into an emprise of stratagetic war against their
professional foes; and straightway they commenced to remove the box to the
other side of the yard, with a view to getting it hoisted over the wall.
But the work had scarcely commenced, when the watchful enemy, who, in
fact, all the time were busily undoing the rope in the hall above,
observed the stratagem below; and issuing forth, some three or four of
them, under the influence of something more like chivalry than the
stealing of bodies, they commenced an attack upon the intruders, which was
met by a stout resistance. The box had been removed to nearly the middle
of the yard, and round the sacred centre where lay the dead Patroclus,
the battle raged with a fierceness not unworthy of the old and immortal
conflict. At one time Sandy was in possession of the Barclayens, at
another in that of the Monroites; so that the old quotation, which was
subsequently incorporated in heroics, was perhaps never, in all time, so
applicable,--"_Danai Trojanique cadaver manus commiserunt_." Taken and
retaken, and guarded with menaces, the inner contest was, meanwhile,
illustrated by hand-to-hand fights over the swelling tumuli, perhaps not
less glorious in their small way than many which have involved the fate of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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