relic

[…] let him not ask our pardon;

The nature of his great offence is dead,

And deeper than oblivion we do bury

The incensing relics of it […]

[…] the imperfect light entering by their narrow casements showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory.

Why ſhould onely I,

Of all the other Princes of the World,

Be caſ’d-vp, like a holy Relique?