e _v_. Maule.[233] This was made up to me
by hearing an excellent opinion from Lord Corehouse, with a curious
discussion _in apicibus juris._ I disappointed Graham[234] of a sitting
for my picture.

I went to the Council of the Royal Society, which was convened at my
request, to consider whether we ought to hear a paper on anatomical
subjects read by Mr. Knox, whose name has of late been deeply implicated
in a criminal prosecution against certain wretches, who had murdered
many persons and sold their bodies to professors of the anatomical
science. Some thought that our declining to receive the paper would be a
declaration unfavourable to Dr. Knox. I think hearing it before Mr. Knox
has made any defence (as he is stated to have in view) would be an
intimation of our preference of the cause of science to those of
morality and common humanity. Mr. Knox's friends undertook to deal with
him about suffering the paper to be omitted for the present, while
_adhuc coram judice lis est_.[235]

_January_ 16.--Nothing on the roll to-day, so I did not go to the
Parliament House, but fagged at my desk till two.

Dr. Ross called to relieve me of a corn, which, though my lameness
needs no addition, had tormented me vilely. I again met the Royal
Society Council. Dr. Knox consents to withdraw his paper, or rather
suffers the reading to be postponed. There is some great error in the
law on the subject. If it was left to itself many bodies would be
imported from France and Ireland, and doubtless many would be found in
our hospitals for the service of the anatomical science. But the total
and severe exclusion of foreign supplies of this kind raises the price
of the "subjects," as they are called technically, to such a height,
that wretches are found willing to break into "the bloody house of
life,"[236] merely to supply the anatomists' table. The law which, as a
deeper sentence on the guilt of murder, declares that the body of the
convicted criminal should be given up to anatomy, is certainly not
without effect, for criminals have been known to shrink from that part
of the sentence which seems to affect them more than the doom of death
itself, with all its terrors here and hereafter. On the other hand,
while this idea of the infamy attending the exposition of the person is
thus recognised by the law, it is impossible to adopt regulations which
would effectually prevent such horrid crimes as the murder of vagrant
wretches who can be snatch