d the sound of
weeping at my pillow, and the voice of the nurse say, 'He is dead.' I
cannot describe what I felt at these words. I exerted my utmost power to
stir myself, but I could not move even an eyelid. My father drew his hand
over my face and closed my eyelids. The world was then darkened, but I
could still hear, and feel and suffer. For three days a number of friends
called to see me. I heard them in low accents speak of what I was, and
more than one touched me with his finger. The coffin was then procured,
and I was laid in it. I felt the coffin lifted and borne away. I heard and
felt it placed in the hearse; it halted, and the coffin was taken out. I
felt myself carried on the shoulders of men; I heard the cords of the
coffin moved. I felt it swing as dependent by them. It was lowered and
rested upon the bottom of the grave. Dreadful was the effort I then made
to exert the power of action, but my whole frame was immovable. The sound
of the rattling mould as it covered me, was far more tremendous than
thunder. This also ceased, and all was silent. This is death, thought I,
and soon the worms will be crawling about my flesh. In the contemplation
of this hideous thought, I heard a low sound in the earth over me, and I
fancied that the worms and reptiles were coming. The sound continued to
grow louder and nearer. Can it be possible, thought I, that my friends
suspect that they have buried me too soon? The hope was truly like
bursting through the gloom of death. The sound ceased. They dragged me out
of the coffin by the head, and carried me swiftly away. When borne to
some distance, I was thrown down like a clod, and by the interchange of
one or two brief sentences, I discovered that I was in the hands of two of
those robbers, who live by plundering the grave, and selling the bodies of
parents, and children, and friends. Being rudely stripped of my shroud, I
was placed naked on a table. In a short time I heard by the bustle in the
room that the doctors and students were assembling. When all was ready the
Demonstrator took his knife, and pierced my bosom. I felt a dreadful
crackling, as it were, throughout my whole frame; a convulsive shudder
instantly followed, and a shriek of horror rose from all present. The ice
of death was broken up; my trance was ended. The utmost exertions were
made to restore me, and in the course of an hour I was in full possession
of all my faculties.

"STEPHENSON, PRINTER, GATESHEAD."