Size of the original etching, 13⅞ × 9⅜ inches
Besides Seymour Haden’s signal achievements as etcher and as surgeon, and his zeal as an angler, he, like some other good men, had a special hobby which he rode for years, and which he often ventilated in the London Times. His theory was that no corpse should be buried in a solid wooden coffin, but that it should be inclosed in a loose wicker case, where the earth could come in direct contact with the dead body. He contended that such contact would very quickly turn “earth to earth.” One of his demonstrations was practised on the dead body of a large old sow that died in his farm-yard. (The animal’s name, I remember, was Mary Jane.) Sir Seymour had Mary Jane buried in the garden, in a shallow grave, and he had a covering of not more than three inches of earth laid over her. Then every visitor to Woodcote Manor had to visit the grave and to use his olfactory organs over it. I myself had to do this on two occasions and I must say that I detected no foul odor whatever.
For more than twenty years I enjoyed a peculiar privilege in connection with Woodcote Manor. The old couple, used to the stir and bustle of London, where they had “troops of friends,” sometimes found themselves somewhat lonely in the solitude of Hampshire, and so it happened that for more than twenty years I was given carte blanche to invite to Woodcote any person I pleased. I was very particular as to the persons whom I thus invited; but the people so invited were charmed with their visit, whether it lasted for three days or for two weeks, and the English know very well how to make a guest comfortable.
In the park at Woodcote Manor there is an etched tablet, nailed to the trunk of an ancient hawthorn-tree. It reads:
A loyal friend through weal and woe,
At last, stern death o’ertakes him:
Here sleeps my loving, wise old crow,
Till Gabriel’s trumpet wakes him.
I wrote this epitaph at Lady Seymour Haden’s request. She gave to my dear old pet crow a resting-place when he died. That crow was more like a friend than a pet. On Atlantic steamers he would fly about among the sea-gulls, and in London I used to open the windows and he flew where he pleased, but I was always sure that he would come back to me.
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