Burial
Lambert's corpse rapidly began to putrefy. There was no question of his body being returned to Leicester, and so on 22 June, it was placed inside an elm coffin, 6 feet 4 inches long, 4 feet 4 inches wide and 2 feet 4 inches deep (193 cm × 132 cm × 71 cm), built on wheels to allow it to be moved. The coffin was so large that to wheel it out of the inn and to the newly opened burial ground at the rear of St Martin's Church, the window and wall of his apartment were demolished. A suitably sized grave had been dug, with a sloping approach to avoid the need to lower the coffin from above, but on 23 June, it nonetheless took almost half an hour for twenty men to pull Lambert's enormous coffin into the grave.
Lambert's friends paid for a large gravestone, inscribed:
In Remembrance of that Prodigy in Nature.
DANIEL LAMBERT.
a Native of Leicester:
who was possessed of an exalted and convivial Mind
and in personal Greatness had no Competitor
He measured three Feet one Inch round the Leg
nine Feet four Inches round the Body
and weighed
Fifty two Stone eleven Pounds!
He departed this Life on the 21st of June 1809
Aged 39 years
As a Testimony of Respect this Stone is erected by his Friends in Leicester
Read more about this topic: Daniel Lambert
Famous quotes containing the word burial:
“On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
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While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,”
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“How shall my animal
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Endure burial under the spelling wall....”
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“I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,
And, turning from my nursery window, drew
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—William Cowper (1731–1800)