 is called Spontaneous Combustion has been denied since the
death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend MR. LEWES (quite mistaken, as he soon
found, in supposing the thing to have been abandoned by all authorities)
published some ingenious letters to me at the time when that event was
chronicled, arguing that Spontaneous Combustion could not possibly be. I have no
need to observe that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers, and
that before I wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject.
There are about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of the
Countess Cornelia de Bandi Cesenate, was minutely investigated and described by
Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona, otherwise distinguished in letters,
who published an account of it at Verona, in 1731, which he afterwards
republished at Rome. The appearances beyond all rational doubt observed in that
case, are the appearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous
instance happened at Rheims, six years earlier; and the historian in that case
is LE CAT, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by France. The subject was
a woman, whose husband was ignorantly convicted of having murdered her; but, on
solemn appeal to a higher court, he was acquitted, because it was shown upon the
evidence that she had died the death to which this name of Spontaneous
Combustion is given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts,
and that general reference to the authorities which will be found at page 31,
vol. ii.,2 the recorded opinions and experiences of distinguished medical
professors, French, English, and Scotch, in more modern days; contenting myself
with observing, that I shall not abandon the facts until there shall have been a
considerable Spontaneous Combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences
are usually received.
    In Bleak House, I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar
things.

                                   Chapter I

 

                                  In Chancery

London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in
Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as
if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not
be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an
elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots,
making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown
snow-flakes - gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.
Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses
