wn body to the public good. He knew that
this determination would inflict pain on many of his dearest friends. An
example of this character, emanating from a person so talented, so
influential, and so esteemed, is calculated to operate a most beneficial
effect on the public mind, and I cannot refrain from considering the
dissection of the body now before us as an important era in the progress
of anatomy, as it is one of the first that in this country has been
employed for the purposes of science, under the direct sanction of the
individual expressed during his lifetime; he also knew that obstacles
would probably be offered to its fulfilment, but with an indifference to
personal feeling rarely witnessed, he took effectual means to carry his
resolution into effect. And thus, gentlemen, did the last act of this
illustrious man's existence accord with that leading principle of his
well-spent life--the desire to promote the universal happiness and welfare
of mankind."

Bentham's skeleton, clothed in his usual attire, is now in University
College, London.

Messenger Monsey, the eccentric physician to the Chelsea Hospital, was
exceedingly anxious that his body should be examined after death. He
obtained a promise from Mr. Forster, of Union Court, that he would
perform this service for him. So anxious was Monsey for the _post mortem_
to be carried out, that in May, 1787, he wrote to Cruikshank, the
anatomist, as follows:

"Mr. Foster (_sic_) a Surgeon in Union Court, Broad Street, has been
so good as to promise to open my Carcass and see what is the matter
with my Heart, Arteries, Kidnies, &c. He is gone to Norwich and may
not return before I am [dead]. Will you be so good as to let me send
it to you, or if he comes will you like to be present at the
dissection. I am now very ill and hardly see to scrawl this & feel as
if I should live two days, the sooner the better. I am, tho' unknown
to you

"Your respectfull humble Servant
"MESSR. MONSEY."

Monsey lived until December 20th, 1788; his wishes were duly carried out
by Mr. Forster, at Guy's Hospital, in the presence of the students.

Ninety-nine gentlemen of Dublin signed a document, in which the wish was
expressed that their bodies, instead of being interred, should be devoted
by their surviving friends "to the more rational, benevolent, and
honourable purpose of explaining the structure, functions and diseases of
the h