ARTICLE IV.

PHRENOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT OF WILLIAM BURK, EXECUTED FOR MURDER AT EDINBURGH, ON 28TH JANUARY, 1829, AND ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WILLIAM HARE, HIS ACCOMPLICE.

Read to the Phrenological Society, 5th February, 1829.

THE recollection of the horrors which used to harrow up our youthful minds in perusing the story of Blue-Beard, had waxed faint in most of us as we advanced in life, from the belief that they were pure fictions of imagination, which could never be realized in actual existence, when the murders of Burk and Hare suddenly exhibited to us cruelty surpassing that of the bloody hero of the fairy-tale, and a deliberate, calculating selfishness far exceeding even his imagined atrocities. The public mind was carried away by a whirlwind of astonishment and abhorrence. Day after day, and week after week, the press literally groaned under a weight of excited feeling; its industry was intense to collect details, and its eloquence fervid in giving expression to the emotions which they elicited. Burk appeared as a monster without prototype, and, we may hope, will long remain without a parallel. At length he has expiated his crimes on the scaffold; but still the emotions excited by his crimes and his punishment continue to rage like a tempest, which we may hope has attained its maximum, but which has made little progress in abatement. Reason has scarcely yet returned sufficiently to the public mind to enable it to look calmly on the subject; and, accordingly, an eloquent declamation on the monstrous atrocities of this wretched criminal would be more palatable to the general taste than an account which should nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

Phrenology, however, like every other system of natural truth, is an unbending science. It does not accommodate its responses to the varying prejudices of men, but gives them impartially, according to what it finds in the brain. After the whole facts of any particular case have become known, and the transactions have been tried at the bar of reason, its decisions have been acquiesced in as sound by intelligent and unbiassed inquirers, who sought only after truth. In the case of Thurtell, for instance, it was first asserted that Phrenology was overturned, because he had no Destructiveness. The publication of the cast refuted this objection by showing a large organ of Destructiveness. It was next objected that Phrenology was overturned because Thurtell had a large Benevolence. To this it was replied, that Thurtell in his life had manifested great kindness and even generosity of disposition; bestowing, as one example, his last half-sovereign on an individual more wretched than himself; and that the correct statement was, that Thurtell's large Benevolence had not proved adequate to restrain his larger Destructiveness, excited as the latter was, and neutralized as the former was, by the swindling transactions at play which he conceived Weare to have practised upon him. This answer was not admitted by the public at the time as sufficient; they held that, unless Thurtell's head had been all composed of Destructiveness and of nothing else, Phrenology was refuted. But this was the mere waywardness of ignorant prejudice. At the present time, no sensible man, who peruses the unequivocal testimonies of Thurtell having manifested the kindlier feelings of our nature, as well as the fiercer traits of it, will say that Phrenology is refuted, because organs for both sets of feelings were found developed in his brain.

Time is doing its part with Phrenology as with every thing else. The public mind has now become more familiarized with it, and, from perceiving it steadily advancing and extending after countless predictions of its downfal, is disposed

to view it with diminished aversion, and a larger portion of reason and impartiality is brought to the consideration of its evidence. After these preliminary observations, we enter on an examination of the character and development of Burk, without experiencing either difficulty or hesitation.

There are two classes of criminals,-those who are habitually violent, and those who are tolerably virtuous till excited by temptation. Bellingham was habitually fierce, passionate, and unreasonable, and in his head Destructiveness is very large, and Benevolence and Intellect small. M'Kean, who murdered the Lanark carrier, was for a long time a tolerably respectable man,—a leading member of a dissenting congregation, and much attached to his wife. His head presents great Combativeness and Destructiveness, with considerable Benevolence. Tardy, the Spanish pirate, whose murders, for number, coolness, and deliberation, approached somewhat near to Burk's, possessed a calm exterior, and had conducted himself with some degree of propriety during several years of his life; and the same combination of large Combativeness and Destructiveness, with some portion of Benevolence, occurs also in him. It is a principle of philosophy, which holds equally in mental as in physical science, that ex nihilo nihil fit, or that something never comes out of nothing. If, then, Burk was intensely selfish, a correct exposition of his character must exhibit the selfish principles strong in his nature; if he was atrociously murderous, the element of Destructiveness must appear; but if Burk actually manifested also some portion of attachment, of kindness, and of honesty, the elements of these better feelings must likewise have existed in his mind. To discover the real character of this extraordinary man, let us attend briefly to his history.

"William Burk, whose crimes have condemned him to an ig

This account is taken from a history of Burk and his associates, published by Thomas Ireland, junior. It contains the following statement prefixed to the Life of Burk :

"nominious death on the scaffold, describes himself, in his judicial "declaration, emitted before the Sheriff-substitute of Edinburgh"shire, in relation to the cause for which he was tried, as being thirty-six years of age. He was born in the parish of Orrey, near Strabane, county of Tyrone, in Ireland, about the year 1792. "His parents were poor, but industrious and respectable in their "station, which was that of cottiers, occupying, like the most of the peasantry of Ireland, a small piece of ground. The Irish are re"markable for the avidity with which they seek education for their "children, under circumstances in which it is not easily attain"able. The parents of Burk seem to have been actuated by this "laudable desire, as both William and his brother Constantine "must have received the elements of what, in their condition, may "be called a good education, and superior to what usually falls to the "lot of children in their rank in Ireland. He was educated in the "Roman Catholic faith, which he has ever since nominally adhered Ito, though with little observance of its doctrines or ceremonies. "He is by no means, however, a person of the brutal ignorance or stupid indifference that his callously continuing in a course of unparalleled wickedness, apparently without compunction, would betoken. He has sinned deeply, but it has not been altogether against knowledge, as he could at times put on a semblance of "devotion; and during the fits of hypocrisy, or, it may be, starts of "better feeling, before he became so miserably depraved, his conver"sation was that of a mau by uo means ignorant of the truths of "Christianity, and such even as to lead some to imagine him se"riously concerned about his eternal salvation. During one of "these temporary ebullitions about five years ago, he became an at"tendant on a prayer-meeting held on the Sabbath evenings in the "Grassmarket. He was for some time remarked as one of its " most regular and intelligent members. He never omitted one of "its meetings, and expressed much regret when it was discon"tinued. As a Catholic, he was considered wonderfully free from "prejudice, frankly entering into discussions upon the doctrines of "his church, or those of other sects, with whose tenets he showed "some acquaintance.

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"He read the Scriptures, particularly the New Testament, and "other religious books, and discussed their merits. On a Sabbath especially, though he never attended a place of worship, he was

"We can pledge ourselves that every circumstance that is here narrated has been obtained from such sources as to leave no doubt of its authenticity. It will be seen, that, while this memoir is a great deal fuller than any one that has appeared, it is also dissimilar in many particulars to the disjointed fragments that have been from time to time published. How these have been obtained we cannot say; but we can aver, that this account has been received from sources which may be relied on, and much of it from the unhappy man himself; indeed, so much as to entitle us to say that it is almost his own account."

seldom to be seen without a Bible, or some book of devotion, in " his hands."

When at school, he was distinguished as an apt scholar, a cleanly, active, good-looking boy; and though his parents were strict Catholics, he was taken into the service of a Presbyterian clergyman, in whose house he resided for a considerable time. He was recommended by the minister to a gentleman in Strabane, in whose employment he remained for several years.

Here, then, is evidence of Burk having in his youth pos sessed some intellectual acuteness, and having been active, cleanly, and well-behaved for a considerable number of years; or, in other words, at this period of his life he manifested intellect and moral sentiment.

He subsequently tried the trade of a baker, at which he continued only for five months. He thereafter became a linen-weaver; but soon got disgusted with the close application that was essential to earn a livelihood at that poorlypaid, irksome employment, and he enlisted in the Donegal militia. He was selected by an officer as his servant, and we are told that he demeaned himself with fidelity and propriety. While in the army, he married a woman in Ballinha, in the county of Mayo; and, after seven years' service, the regiment was disbanded, and he went home to his wife. He shortly afterwards obtained the situation af groom and body-servant to a gentleman in that vicinity, with whom he remained three years.

"Burk was remarked to be of a very social and agreeable dis"position, with a great turn for raillery and jocularity, and, what "from his after-proceedings could scarcely have been supposed, was distinguished not only as a man of peculiarly quiet and in"offensive manners, but even as evincing a great degree of hu"manity."

"He states, that while in Ireland, his mind was under the in"fluence of religious impressions, and that he was accustomed to "read his catechism and his prayer-book, and to attend to his "duties."

Again the observation presents itself, that Burk, during