The students were thus pacified, but it was far otherwise with the city mob. There had been a restlessness throughout Edinburgh all day, and it was threatened that unless the public were admitted to view the corpse an attack would be made on the college, and the remains of the murderer taken out and torn to pieces. The manner in which the students had gained their end was quite after the mind of the discontents, and in their case it was, owing to greater numbers, likely to be more quickly successful. The magistrates were in a quandary, but they came to the conclusion that it would be better to have a public view, and in this way endeavour to allay the tumultuous spirit that was abroad. Accordingly, they sent out scouts among the crowds that thronged the streets to intimate their decision, and by this means the people were induced to return home.

Those who witnessed the scene at the College of Edinburgh on Friday, the 30th January, 1829, would never readily forget it. The magistrates and the university authorities had made the most elaborate preparations for exhibiting the body of Burke. It was placed naked on a black marble table in the anatomical theatre, and a through passage was arranged for the accommodation of the visitors. The upper part of the skull, which had been sawn off for the purposes of the lecturer on the preceding day, was replaced, and to the uninitiated it was unlikely that what was apparently a slight scar would be much noticed. “The spectacle,” says Leighton, who saw it, “was sufficiently ghastly to gratify the most epicurean appetite for horrors. There was as yet no sign of corruption, so that the death pallor, as it contrasted with the black marble table, showed strongly to the inquiring and often revolting eye; but the face had become more blue, and the shaved head, with marks of blood not entirely wiped off, rather gave effect to the grin into which the features had settled at the moment of death. However inviting to lovers of this kind of the picturesque the broad chest that had lain with deadly pressure on so many victims—the large thighs and round calves, indicating so much power—it was the face, embodying a petrified scowl, and the wide-staring eyes, so fixed and spectre-like, to which the attention was chiefly directed.” It was to see this sight that the people crowded the streets of the Old Town of Edinburgh, and made it appear as if the occasion were one of general holiday. The doors of the anatomy theatre were thrown open at ten o’clock in the forenoon, and from that hour until dusk the crowd streamed through the narrow passage in front of the body at the rate, it was calculated, of sixty per minute, so that the total number who viewed it in this way was about twenty-five thousand. The crowd was composed for the most part of men, though some seven or eight women pressed in among the rest, but they were roughly handled by the male spectators, and had their clothing torn. Notwithstanding this extraordinary number there were still many who did not obtain admittance, and in the hope that the exhibition would be continued on the Saturday, many returned to the college next day, but to their great disappointment they were refused admission. This was Burke’s last appearance.

An informant of Leighton gives the following interesting notice of the subsequent treatment of the body of the murderer:—“After this exhibition Burke was cut up and put in pickle for the lecture-table. He was cut up in quarters, or rather portions, and salted, and, with a strange aptness of poetical justice, put into barrels. At that time an early acquaintance and school-fellow was assistant to the professor, and with him I frequently visited the dissecting-room, when calling on him at his apartments in the College. He is now a physician in the Carse of Gowrie. He shewed me Burke’s remains, and gave me the skin of his neck and of the right arm. These I had tanned—the neck brown, and the arm white. The white was as pure as white kid, but as thick as white sheepskin; and the brown was like brown tanned sheepskin. It was curious that the mark of the rope remained on the leather after being tanned. Of that neck-leather I had a tobacco-doss made; and on the white leather of the right arm I got Johnston to print the portraits of Burke and his wife, and Hare, which I gave to the noted antiquarian and collector of curiosities, Mr. Fraser, jeweller, and it was in one of his cases for many years, may be still, if he is alive.”

Burke’s body was thus destroyed, but the qualities which were denoted by the developments of his head gave rise to an excited discussion between phrenologists and their opponents. Combe, the apostle of phrenology, and Sir William Hamilton, the metaphysician, with their followers, waged a terrible war of words over the conclusions to be drawn from the measurements of Burke’s head. This is not the place to renew the discussion, but in view of the importance of the question, an estimate of the phrenological development of Burke, published at the time, may be quoted. The account reads thus:—

Phrenological Development of Burke.

Measurement. INCHES.
Circumference of the Head, 22·1
From the occipital spine to lower Individuality, 7·7
From the ear to lower Individuality, 5·
From ditto to the centre of Philoprogenitiveness, 4·8
From ditto to Firmness, 5·4
From ditto to Benevolence, 5·7
From ditto to Veneration, 5·5
From ditto to Conscientiousness, 5·
From Destructiveness to Destructiveness, 6·125
From Cautiousness to Cautiousness, 5·3
From Ideality to Ideality, 4·6
From Acquisitiveness to Acquisitiveness, 5·8
From Secretiveness to Secretiveness, 5·7
From Combativeness to Combativeness, 5·5

Development.

“Amativeness, very large. Philoprogenitiveness, full. Concentrativeness, deficient. Adhesiveness, full. Combativeness, large. Destructiveness, very large. Constructiveness, moderate. Acquisitiveness, large. Secretiveness, large. Self-esteem, rather large. Love of approbation, rather large. Cautiousness, rather large. Benevolence, large. Veneration, large. Hope, small. Ideality, small. Conscientiousness, rather large. Firmness, large. Individuality, upper, moderate. Do., lower, full. Form, full. Size, do. Weight, do. Colour, do. Locality, do. Order, do. Time, deficient. Number, full. Tune, moderate. Language, full. Comparison, full. Causality, rather large. Wit, deficient. Imitation, full.

“The above report, it may be necessary to observe, was taken a few hours after the execution. In consequence of the body having been thrown on its back, the integuments, not only at the back of the head and neck, but at the posterial lateral parts of the head, were at the time extremely congested; for in all cases of death by hanging, the blood remaining uncoagulated, invariably gravitates to those parts which are in the most depending position. Hence, there was a distension in this case over many of the most important organs, which gave, for example, Amativeness, Combativeness, Destructiveness, &c., an appearance of size which never existed during life, and, on the other hand, made many of the moral and intellectual organs seem in contrast relatively less than they would otherwise have appeared. In this state, a cast of the head was taken by Mr. Joseph; but although for phrenological purposes it may do very well, yet no measurement, either from the head itself in that condition, or a cast taken from it, can afford us any fair criterion of the development of the brain itself. We know that this objection applies to the busts of all the murderers which adorn the chief pillars of the phrenological system; and in no case is it more obvious than in the present.

“Our able professor, Dr. Monro, gave a demonstration of the brain to a crowded audience on Thursday morning [the day before the public exhibition of the body]; and we have, from the best authority, been given to understand it presented nothing unusual in its appearance. We have heard it asserted that the lateral lobes were enormously developed, but having made enquiry on this subject, we do not find they were more developed than is usual. As no measurement of the brain itself was taken, all reports on this subject must be unsatisfactory; nor could the evidence of a eye-witness in such a matter prove sufficient to be admitted as proof either in favour of or against phrenology.