London - The Parnassian (Page 36)

NB! · London · Museums · Heritage · People

For a long time, Bentham's mummified head was kept in the same display case as the philosopher's body, but it was then removed from exhibition and taken to storage, where it is examined for preservation a couple of times a year

London · Museums · Science · Mores · People

The celebrated English philosopher, thinker, sociologist, jurist and plain eccentric Jeremy Bentham bequeathed his body to be mummified

The celebrated English philosopher, thinker, sociologist, jurist and plain eccentric Jeremy Bentham bequeathed his body to be mummified. In the first place, he had been fascinated by mummification since his youth; in the second, he was an atheist; besides which, he possessed a fine sense of humour and was convinced

NB! · London · Mores · Education · People

The body of the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) is kept at University College London, seated in the pose in which the scholar liked to sit

A miniature black coffin with a carved bone lid, and an open coffin with a bone skeleton against red lining.

NB! · Art · London · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Miniature early 19th century coffin with skeleton sold at Sotheby's for £3,000

At Sotheby's this 15-centimetre memento mori souvenir from the kit of an early nineteenth-century English soldier sold for £3,000. A thoroughly disagreeable trinket, but there is no disputing about historical tastes..

London · Mores · Society

Why English women were burned while men were quartered for the same crimes

In medieval and early modern England the laws were harsh, and judicial practice spared a great many people. Right up to the end of the eighteenth century, and in some cases the middle of the nineteenth, men and women were sentenced to death for crimes that were serious, to be

Books · London · Mores · Humour

Euphemisms for genitals and sexual intercourse in Shakespeare's works

Shakespeare's texts contain a good many winged phrases, metaphors and euphemisms that are sometimes far from easy to decipher. But once you know the Bard's habitual devices, ticklish sexual particulars are discovered behind the absurd constructions. Thus with the phrase "charged chamber" Shakespeare denoted

The East · London · Mores · Nature

George Pigot's cheetahs from India at the Duke of Cumberland's hunting show in Windsor

In 1764 cheetahs were brought to England from India; they miraculously survived the long voyage and became part of the collection of foreign curiosities of George Pigot, the former Governor of Madras, who had returned to the island. On the way to London the predators stopped as guests of the

Aristocracy · Architecture · Books · London · Monarchies · Mores

Charles II's glass sundial at Whitehall and its destruction by the Earl of Rochester

In a book on Whitehall, one of the loveliest palaces in Europe and, in its day, the largest in the world, I came upon a description of a whimsical toy belonging to the merry King Charles II. In the centre of the Privy Garden at Whitehall stood a unique sundial.

NB! · Geography · Maps · London · Pop Culture · Humour

A map of London on a kid glove, so that fashionable ladies might easily find their way home

A map of London on a leather glove, so that fashionable ladies might easily find their way home. 1851. These days maps could be printed for them on condoms, for instance

NB! · Art · London · Monarchies · People · Humour

this little hamster in a frock, with a curious trinket at his neck, is the future King Charles II of England (1630-1685), who will order the remains of Cromwell and his associates to be dug up and quartered

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A necklace of the teeth of stags slain by Prince Albert, presented to Queen Victoria

NB! · London · Monarchies · Observations · Humour