A reward of two hundred and fifty dollars, offered more than
three-quarters of a century ago, for the discovery of the identity of the
author of "Lines on a Skeleton" was as unsuccessful in attaining its
object as had been the search made by the literary world of Great Britain,
and it now seems scarcely likely that the person who wrote this remarkable
poem will ever be known as its author.
The story of the finding of the manuscript is to the effect that in the
year 1820 an attendant in the Museum of the Royal College of Physicians
and Surgeons, in London, came upon a couple of sheets of paper lying near
a human skeleton. Glancing at the sheets, he saw that they contained
verses. The ink with which they had been written was scarcely dry, and the
idea occurred to the finder that they might have been penned by some
official of the institution. Accordingly he took the sheets to one of his
superiors, and in the course of the next few days the manuscript passed
through the hands of several well-known medical men who were wont to visit
the college. One of these gentlemen copied the verses and sent them to the
_Morning Chronicle_, which promptly printed them.
The poem made a marked impression on the public mind, and earnest efforts
were made by several prominent literary people to discover the identity of
the author.