"As to the antiquity of Tyburn, it is no older than the year 1529; before that time, the place of execution was in _Rotten Row_ in _Old Street_. As for the etymology of the word _Tyburn_, some will have it proceed from the words _tye_ and _burn_, alluding to the manner of executing traitors at that place; others believe it took its name from a small river or brook once running near it, and called by the Romans Tyburnia. Whether the first or second is the truest, the querist may judge as he thinks fit."
A readable volume might be compiled from these "NOTES AND QUERIES," which amused our grandfathers; and the works I have indicated will afford much curious matter in etymology, folk-lore, topography, &c., to the modern antiquary.
The following curious account was given to me by Mr. Fitz-Simons, an Irish gentleman, upwards of eighty years of age, with whom I became acquainted when resident with my family at Toulouse, in September, 1840; he having resided in that city for many years as a teacher of the French and English languages, and had attended the late Sir William Follett in the former capacity there in 1817. He said,--
"I was a prisoner in Paris, in the convent of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jaques, during part of the revolution. In the year 1793 or 1794, the body of King James II. of England was in one of the chapels there, where it had been deposited some time, under the expectation that it would one day be sent to England for interment in Westminster Abbey. It had never been buried. The body was in a wooden coffin, inclosed in a leaden one; and that again inclosed in a second wooden one, covered with black velvet. That while I was so a prisoner, the sans-culottes broke open the coffins to get at the lead to cast into bullets. The body lay exposed nearly a whole day. It was swaddled like a mummy, bound tight with garters. The sans-culottes took out the body, which had been embalmed. There was a strong smell of vinegar and camphor. The corpse was beautiful and perfect. The hands and nails were very fine, I moved and bent every finger. I never saw so fine a set of teeth in my life. A young lady, a fellow prisoner, wished much to have a tooth; I tried to get one out for her, but could not, they were so firmly fixed. The feet also were very beautiful. The face and cheeks were just as if he were alive. I rolled his eyes: the eye-balls were perfectly firm under my finger. The French and English prisoners { 244} gave money to the sans-culottes for showing the body. They said he was a good sans-culotte, and they were going to put him into a hole in the public churchyard like other sans-culottes; and he was carried away, but where the body was thrown I never heard. King George IV. tried all in his power to get tidings of the body, but could not. Around the chapel were several wax moulds of the face hung up, made probably at the time of the king's death, and the corpse was very like them. The body had been originally kept at the palace of St. Germain, from whence it was brought to the convent of the Benedictines. Mr. Porter, the prior, was a prisoner at the time in his own convent."