d of shadows. Doubtless the archaeologist had no qualms whatever, and
slept soundly in the belief that by his 'researches' he had wrought great
things for mankind; but when he encountered the chieftain it is unlikely
that they would see eye to eye. 'Happy are they who deal so with men in
this world that they are not afraid to meet them in the next,' and
happier still are they who deal so reverently with the earthly memorials
of the dead, that there may be many to speak in their favour when they
approach the Great Tribunal.

[Illustration: THE HALL OF THE KNIGHTS]

This particular form of irreverence, however, has been a byword
throughout all the ages; civilisation and education have done little to
check it, possibly because the romantic spirit which forbids such crimes
is born, not made. King Arthur's bones were dug up in the twelfth
century. 'Mummie is become Merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharoah
is sold for balsoms,' wrote Sir Thomas Browne five hundred years later.
In 1788 the massive stone coffin which held the remains of our
illustrious King Alfred was discovered facing the High Altar at Hyde
Abbey, Winchester, whither they had been translated in 1110. The coffin
was broken in pieces, the bones found in it were scattered, and the lead
enveloping the remains was sold by the workmen. A stone from the wrecked
tomb, bearing the name AELFRED, was carried off to Cumberland as a curio.
Hyde Abbey was razed to make way for a county Bridewell. 'At almost every
stroke of the mattock,' relates an eye-witness, 'some antient sepulchre
or other was violated.' Examples of such desecrations can be multiplied
without number. The Great Alaric was wise indeed when he had the course
of a river changed so that his bones, when lying at the bottom of it,
might never be disturbed.

Our ancient laws dealt sternly with this matter. 'If any man shall dig up
a body that has already been buried,' ruled Henry the First, 'he shall be
WARGUS,' that is, banished from his district as a rogue. 'Malice
provoketh not to dig up tombes and graves,' wrote an unknown Elizabethan
scholar, commenting on this; 'and though it should, yet religion doth now
restraine it, by reason it is counted sacriledge to violate anythinge in
churches or churchyards. Covetousness made some to dig up the dead,
because ornaments, jewels, or money, were in times past buried with many;
but now that custome seasing, no man for desire of gaine is invited to
commit this