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Photographic

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NO i

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/ l^\L WE OPEN Shakespeare's Gi^ave?

'^ J- NO.

seP^

POP^

15Y

THOS. D. KING,

(Member of the Montreal Shakespeare Club)

a?0 TIEIE QXJESTIOnST iPTJT B^Z"

MR. J. PARKER NORRIS,
IN THE JULY NUMBER OF THE " MANHATTAN."

PniNTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY.

Montreal :

J. Thbo. RoBiHSON, Printer, 52 St. Francois Xavier Street.

Septembeh, 1884.

"'«u^ip lillHf»P<"WlP»HHiJ.-l«PU"JUi

.• * • ; • .

• .;.••••.• • • ••
• • .'^ ; ♦..

.; '.

Sh/LL we open SH/KESPEARE'S Gl^AVE?

NO.

^S^ EEI=L-2-

liY

THOS. D. KING,

(Member of the Montreal Shakespeare Club)

TO TZ^E Q-CJESTIOIST I=TJT B"Z"

MR. J. PARKER NORRIS,

m TEE JULY NUMBER OF THE "MANHATTAN."

PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY.

Montreal :

J. TiiKO. RoKiNSON, Printer, 52 St. Fraucoia Xavicr Street.
Septemueh, 1884.

SHULLWEOPEN SHMESPESRE'S GROTE?

3sro.

All that was mortal of Shakespeare rests in the
Chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon.
His body was deposited there on the 2oth of April,
1616.

Over his grave is a Hat stone bearing this in-
scription : —

" Good friend for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dif^g the dust enclosed lieare :
Bleste be the man that spares thes stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones." ^

There is a religious solicitude in the lines. There
is a feeling about them to which all classes of
Christians are more or less alive ; and although
they are not savoured with the genius of the author
of The Temi)est, yet, in the hihtorical play of King
John, Arthur, after he leaps from the walls of the
Castle, exclaims : —

" me ! ray uncle's spirit is in these stones,
Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones ! "

Though it has been doubted whether Shakes-
peare either wrote or dictated these lines — by some
called a "doggrel epitaph" — yet the injunction

which the lines convoy has been hitherto obeyed.
The advocates for the opening of the grave have no
doubt in the matter, as is shown by their in<(uisitive-
ness and anxiousness to recover Shakespeare's skull ;
therefore it is " passing strange " that Mr. Norris
should officiously insinuate that the opposition of
the^ Mayor and Corporation of Stratford to '• the
project of examining the tomb " of the Poet arose
from their knowledge that the tomb had been
already opened ana the skull stolen.

It is useless to discuss the " why and wherefore "
of the " lame and halting verses," they are signifi-
cant enough to warrant us in believing that they
are the express will, not only of Shakespeare, hini-
self, but of his wife and f.imily, and being so, the
injunction or adjuration ought to be, and must be
respected.

The adjuration is in accord with Shakespeare's
sympathies and affinities— respect and vcjieration
for the dead, and for the rites of Christian burial—
in accord with his writings, which treat not only
religion but all things human with the purest spirit
of reverence — writings, in which there is " no
severity but for vice, no slavery but for baseness,
no unforgiveness but for calculating wickedness.^"

Mr. Norris suggests that the adjuration was
placed over the grave by some member of the Poet's
family to prevent the removal of his body to the
old Charnel house— a most ghastly and repulsive
chamber contiguous to the Chancel of Holy Trinity
Church. But as the Poet was buried within the

precincts of the nltar, it is not probable that such a
fear was entertained by his family, or that his ciiap-
less sknll wonld be knocked about by the spade of a
gravedigger, and irreverently jovvled to the gronnd
as if it were " Cain's jaw-bone that did the first
murder."

Is it possible that the adjuration arose from the
apprehension that the Puritans, wiio were at the
time fast rising into power, and made dramatic
representations the special olyect of their indigna-
tion, may in their fanaticism ritle the grave of the
actor and playwright, who with his fellow-servants
to the Rt.-Hon. the Lord Cliamberlain, had to
petition the Lords of the Privy Council, in 1596, in
order that they might be allowed to repair, enlarge
and improve the Blackfriars Theatre " to make the
same more convenient for the entertainment of the
auditories coining thereto ?"^

The icono>^.lastic spirit, then latent, broke out in
1G42, when Richard Culmer (Blue Dick) " rattled
down proud Becket's glassie bones," by destroying
a part of the great window of the north transept of
Canterbury Cathedral, the gift of Edward IV. and
his Queen, in the centre of which was Becket him-
self at full length, robed and mitred. The iconoclast
narrowly escaped martyrdom at the hands of a
" malignant fellow-townsman, who threw a stone
with so good a will that if Saint Richard Culmer
had not ducked, he might have laid his own bones
among the rubbish."

The remembrance of Culmer's narrow escape

from martyrdom will, I l.ope, act as a deterrent to
any intending desecnitor of the Poet's grave, even
If he 18 utterly indillerent to the inscribed maledic-
tion.

No matter who wrote or suggested the adjura-
tion, " For Jesus' sake forbeare," it has been for
nearly three bundled years religiously respected
and regarded, and I most fervently hope; in common
with thousands of leaders and students of the works
of Shakespeare, that his bones may not be disturbed
before Time dissolves the Stratford monument.

Could the anathema, " Curst be he that moves
my bones," be as sudden in effect as the " mandrake's
groan,"* he must be a very bold man that would
either counsel or attempt the exhumation of the
Poet's bones.

Last year Dr. Ingleby addressed a pamphlet to
the Mayor and individual members of the Corpora-
tion of Stratford-on-Avon, advocating the opening
of Shakespeare's grave, which is said to be well
written, ably considered and favourably concluded ;
yet, despite these three qualifications, it raised such
storms of indignation, torrents of hard speeches
vehement letters, and whirlwinds of passionate
invective throughout England, that I should have
thought no one would have been hardy enough to
again renew the question

"Shall we open Shakespeare's Grave?
The proposal was styled " a desecration both
useless and indecent; and revolting to a truly reve-

rent mind ;"— " nn atrocious design ;" — " an out-
rageous act of sacrilege suggested by a depraved
mind ;" — '* an impious and odious proposal and
wanton act of vandalism;"— "an act insane in itself,
and to indulge even at the best an idle and prurient
curiosity ;" — an impudent and wanton act of van-
dalism ;" — *' a desecration of that sacred spot deai- to
the heart of every human being in any way con-
nected or acquainted with the revered Poet."

No man " was never so bethump'd with words"
as Dr. Ingleby. Letters from all parts of Great
Britain, from Denmark, Canada, and other distant
places were sent to the Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon
reprehending the proposition. In consequence of
these earnest expressions of opinion, a meeting of
the Town Council of Stratford was held in the month
of October, 1883, when the subject, despite some
strong expressions against Dr. Ingleby, was tem-
perately discussed, and the following resolution was
unanimously adopted : — " That a record be made
upon the minutes of this meeting of the most entire
and emphatic disapproval of this Corporation to any
proposition or project for interfering in any way
with, or disturbance of, the grave, tombstone, and
monument of Shakej^peare in the Chancel of Holy
Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon."

I copy an extract from a somewhat tangled
speech by Mr. Alderman Gibbs upon the occasion
as it not only gives a partial answer to the cui, hono
of the question, but it insinuates that there was
something in Dr. Ingleby' s desire to get temporary

possessior. of Shakespeare's skull more potent, yet
covert, than a laudable curiosity for " testing the
Droeshout print and every one of the half-dozen
portraits-in-oil which pass as presentments of Shakes-
peare's face at different periods of his life."

* * * * " It was strange that many having the
advantage of intellect and knowledge could, for che
sake of gain, and to gratify their morbid curiosity
reconcile their consciences to their attempts to set
afloat projects of false theory which in their heart
of hearts they really despised. As in this case
which I consider one in point,— to exhume the
remains of Shakespeare, which could not possibly
add to our knowledge, or serve any good purpose,
or solve any problem as to the sort of man our
Shakespeare was For it is quite clear to all physi-
ologists or phrenologists that the brain of a Shakes-
peare must be enclosed in the skull of a fully
developed-man, the structure of whose whole head
must be similar to that shown by the bust in the
chancel, erected so soon after his death, and with
which most of the so-called portraits were in keep-
ing, showing the high forehead; it being quite
cc-tam that the development of a man's head to
write as our Shakespeare did must have a full
forehead. A low-browed man never portrayed all
the workings, passions, and foibles of our natures,
nor possessed such a brilliant imagination as our
immortal bard. Then to exhume Shakespeare's
remains was simply to see the formation of his skull
divested of the flesh, the absurdity of which pro-

ceeding must be quite clear to all rational and
honest people, whose opinion, if pronounced, must
be either that the project covered some sinister
design, or it savoured of the wasteful folly of idiots.
PhotograpJis of Shalcespeare s ahull loould, doubilesa,
have a large sale all over the loorld."^

The Saturday Review, London, September 8th,
1883, said, in reference to Dr. Ingleby's proposal :

" We object to it because, by the nature of the
human mind, feelings of reverence and affection
gather round the last resting places of those whose
words or deeds have made them leaders and bene-
factors of mankind. It is of much more importance
that these feelings should be respected than
that the claims of a trivial and purposeless
curiosity should be gratified. To attain some end
of serious importance, no one would object to the
exhumation of any body so long as it was done
decently and in order. But that, to gain the idle
object of Dr. Ingleby's search, the last prayer of
one to whom jvery cultivated Englishman owes a
personal debt of gratitude should be wantonly
rejected is a wholly different matter. It would
needlessly disgust and offend thousands of people ;
it would bring deserved opprobium on the country
in the eyes of other nations ; and it would go far to
stimulate the vice of morbid and impertinent
curiosity, which needs no encouragement, but
rather every check that can be applied to it."

The London Daily News, Sept, 1st, 1883, said :—
" There is absolutely no excuse for the proposal.

For the bust in question was erected within ten
years of his death, and must be an immeasureablj
better guide to his personal appearance than the
skull of the Poet who has been dead more than two
centuries and a half. But Shakespeare's insight
into the follies of mankind is shown, if he did
indeed write the inscription for his tomb, to have
been no more confined than were his other gifts to
the circumstances of his own age."

It was with pleasure I read the opinions of the
Saturday Revieio and the Daili/ News, as I had
written two letters upon the subject to the Montreal
Herald prior to seeing those papers ; in my first, I
said: — It is to be fervently hoped that such a
sacrilege is not seriously entertained— anv man
who can be guilty of such an act ought to receive
the most exemplary and condign punishment— I
raise my voice against the contemplated act, and
against the rifling the graves of any of the great
men who have adorned their country's name,
whether as poets, statesmen, philosophers and
warriors, for if those we reverently bury should
hereafter have their bodies exhumed by ill-con-
ditioned clergymen or unfeeling churchwardens, let
our monuments in future be '' The Maws of Kites.' "

In my second, I said:— I cannot think that
such men as the authors ot the Brid(jwater Treatises
on the power and wisdom of God in the creation ;
or such men as Davy, Faraday, and Dalton, Tyn-
dall, Spencer, and Huxley would attach any
importance to the examination of Shakespeare's

skull for the sake of anatomically comparing its
configuration with the skulls of other men who have
been the flower and glory of our race.

The idea was not original as far as Dr. Ingleby
is concerned. In the Shakespeare Tercentenary
Number of Chamber's Journal published April 23rd
1864, page 20, there occurs this passage :— * * * *
" persons have not been wanting to assert that in
the interests of science, physical and mwal, the relics
of the great Shakespeare ought to be subjected to a
thorough examination." Eight years ago Mr. J.
Parker Norris of Philadelphia, U.S., whose contribu-
tions to and knowledge of Shakesperian Literature
are wide and thorough, and whose veneration and
admiration for the Poet's writings are generally
admitted, suggested the advisibility of opening
Shakespeare's grave and reverently examining his
remains. The suggestion was the means whereby
its author had opprobious epithets heaped upon his
head, and got well abused and jeered at by the
critics who wen' opposed to what they thought
would be an act of desecration. In this thought his
critics are not peculiar. As I have neither seen nor
read Mr. Norris" first suggestion, nor the criticisms
of his opponents, who are charged with losing sight
of the real merits of the suggestion or proposal, I
must pass both by, and confine myself to a few
remarks upon the second suggestion " Shall we
open Shakespeare's Grave " ? which appeared in
the July number of The Manhattan.

Mr. Norris opens his argument with some doubt
as to the ultimate end and result of his and Dr.
Ingleby's pleadings for the exhumation of the Poet's
bones ; and expresses the hope that *' the advancement
of scientific accuracy may yet conquer mere sentiment."

There is an ambiquity in the sentence which 1
have italicized. Are we to understand by the term
"scie7iiifi.c accuracy" that the knowledge of phren-
ology, physiognomy, physiology, pathology and
natural philosophy will be enhanced if we found in
Shakespeari.'s grave a skull with an unequalled
altitude of forehead, a globe-like cranium,

" the front of Jove himself" ;

or, a skull with a combination of forms and general
proportions rarely seen in living man ; or a skull in
contour and measurement agreeing either with the
Kesselstadt Death-Mask, or the Stratford Bust ; or
if we found the body entire, dressed at all points,
cap-a-pie, "in his habit as he lived" ?

Such a discovery may conquer and ought to
conquer mere sentiment, if mere sentiment is to be
confounded with that false, lachrymose, snivelling
sentiment which is so much the fashion with those
who delight in the " virtuous oratory " of a Joseph
Surface. But, I emphatically ask, would those wlio
have conscientious scruples about the adjuration, and
consider that the rilling of Shakespeare's grave
would be a sacrilegious act, and regard the " For
Jesus' sake forbeare" as the dying testament,— the
last wish of the Poet— be satisfied to relinquish

their sentiment — a sentiment, resulting from their
cap<acity to feel, and produced from the liveliness of
their affections, and their feelings of reverence for
the last resting place of " the unquestionable legis-
lator of modern literary art " — for the hope that his
skull would furnish positive evidence of the Strat-
ford Bust being a true and faithful effigy? I do
not think so. Those possessed with such sentiments
have faith in the bust being like Shakespeare, they
accept it as an authentic likeness, I could as
readily imagine a pious Jevv of the Tribe of Levi
searching for the grave of Moses, and if found,
exhuming the body to satisfy himself whether the
immortal and incomparable master piece of Michael
Angelo, on the tomb of Julius II, is a correct
interpretation of the great Law Giver, who first
proclaimed the equality of man before the Law.

" Thou shalt not " ; being equally binding upon
Kings, Prophets, Warriors, and Priests, Dives and
Lazarus.

The adjuration, with its anathema, on the grave
stone — Shakespeare's Thou shalt not; being equally
binding upon all conditions of Englishmen and their
descendants from one generation to another.

I consider the adjuration a solemn injunction, as
much so as the Poet's last will and testament rela-
tive to the disposition of his property. The adjura-
tion is, as it were, the dying speech of the Poet, it
is as much a commandment to Shakespeare's posterity
as that of Joseph to his people, when he said : —

■t=^

" God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up
my bones from hence."

I ask Mr. Norris :— Was it a sentiment that caused
the Children of Israel to take the bones of the
Patriarch out of Egypt to bury them in Schechem ?
Was it a sentiment that made Joseph regard Jacob's
behest to bury him in the land of Canaan ? The
bones of Joseph were considered as a sacred deposit
by the Children of Israel. In like manner, the
bones of Shakespeare have been considered as a
sacred deposit by the English people during three
centuries.

Is it only a sentiment that has kept them from
being dishonoured? No,— it is veneration. That
kind of veneration which is " extorted from men
with a kindly violence " for the memory of all those
who have shed a lustre upon their country's honour
and fame.

From the adjuration we are forced to believe
that Shakespeare did not wish to have his bones
disturbed by the rude hands of man, but that he
did wish that they should remain in the Chancel of
Holy Trinity Church till the great globe itself shall
dissolve.

The Pope in 1542 could give permission to the
Bishop of Bayeux to open the narrow tomb in the
Church of St. Stephen, Caen, where the body of
William the Conqueror was laid, dressed in his
royal robes, but without a coffin ;— George IV., when
Prince Regent, in 1813, could order Sir Henry
Halford to open the grave of Charles I., and, with

questionable taste, could be present with a number
of noblemen at the exhumation, and allow the head
of the martyr-King to be held up to view; and could
permit at the same time the examination of the
remains of Henry VIII. ; and, again, in 1817, could
suffer the opening of the tomb of Mary, a daughter
of Edward IV., upon which occasion the irreverent
relic hunters and curiosity mongers slyly took away
some curly hair from the skull, even while it was
crumbling into dust; but, I have no doubt that
Queen Victoria and the Archbishop of Canterbury
will not give permission, under any pretext, to any
" scientist," or any sentimentalist to open Shakes-
peare's grave.

With these wanton openings of Royal graves in
St. George's Chapel, Windsor, public sentiment had
no voice; but it has been vociferaut, as I have
already shown, against the opening of the grave of
Shakespeare, because the majority of the intellectual
people of England do not believe it will, to use the
words of the Stratford Alderman— " add to our
Knowledge,*' or serve any good purpose, or solve
any problem as to the sort of man our Shakespeare
was."

What had public opinion to do with the opening
of the vault which contained the remains of
Schiller ': Nothing. Goethe, whose intimacy with,
and profound friendship for Schiller is well known,
(the latter giving a stimulus to their literary ac-
tivity ), and whose dying thoughts, though incoherent,
were connected with Schiller, desired to place the

!i:

remains of his brother dramatist in a sarcophagus,
a more honourable sepulclire than a vault common
to the remains of others. The careful examination
of Schiller's bones and skull was secondary, and
perhaps more from curiosity than from reverential
sentiment.

The opening of the grave of Ben Jonson was the
result of accident, not of deliberation. It was at-
tended with no good result, as " Mr. Buckland was
convinced that the skull which he had taken such
care of was not Ben Jonson's at all."

The opening of the grave of Burns in 1815 was
for the purpose of raising his coffin from its original
resting place that it might be deposited in a Mauso-
leum erected by public subscription ; and we are
informed that the instant the workmen inserted a
shell beneath the original coffin the head separated
from the body, and the whole of the remains with
the exception of the bones crumbled into dust. The
opening of the grave for a second time in 18o4 was
in obedience to a well-honoured custom from the
time when Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah
in the cave of Machpelah. Neither public senti-
ment nor scientific accuracy had anything to do with
the opening of the graves of Ben Jonson and Robert
Burns.

True it is, that at the opening of the Mausoleum
for the interment of the body of Mrs. Burns, it was
resolved by some citizens of Dumfries, — with the
consent of the Poet's relatives — to obtain a cast of
the skull of Burns, which was successfully done. The

only advantage or gain to Science being the pro-
jection by Mr. George Combe, a " vaticinator upon
heads," of a phrenological chart showing the develop-
ment of the thirty-five organs from Amativeness to
Causality; and the proving that the portrait of
Burns, by Nasmyth, was, though flattering, an
imaginative one— the force of truth sacrificed for
prettiness.

Mr. Norris, perhaps, from prudential reasons,
omitted to mention the disinterment of the body of
John Hampden, the patriot, nearly two centuries
after his death, as Lord Nugent, who was about to
write the biography of Hampden, after examining
the body, in a letter on the subject to xMr. Murray,
says :— " I did see, in 1828, while the pavement of
the Chancel of Hampden Church was undergoing
repair, a skeleton, which I have many reasons for
believing was not John Hampden's, but that of some
gentleman or lady who probably died a quiet death
in bed, certainly with no wound in the wrist."^

I think that the results from the disinterment
of tlie bodies of celebrated historical and literary
personages, and the additions to science accruing
therefrom, are not sufficient to warrant the opening
of Shakespeare's grave for the sake of analyzing the
Poet's skull, even supposing that the authorized
custodians of the grave should relent, and give per-
mission to Dr. Ingleby to carry out his proposal.

My conviction is that the skull, if found in a
comparative state of preservation, would crumble
into dust before accurate drawings could be made of

ill

it, and the vexed question of the Poet's portraiture
be determined.

Mr. Norris says much can be said as to the prob-
ability of finding anything but dust in Shakespeare's
grave, and assumes that because the Poet and his
family were persons of importance, their bouies
being laid immediately in front of the rail separat-
ing the altar from the remainder of the chancel,
that the Poet was buried in an hermetically-sealed
leaden coffin and placed in a regular brick or stone
vault, properly cemented. Here, again, is conjecture

Homething as hypothetical as the current stories

of the Poet's life and death, of which we know com-
paratively nothing, though every muniment room,
every public and private library in Great Britain
has been almost microscopically examined to get
materials for his biography. His last words are not
recorded, his dying wishes are unknown.

Of the solemnities and ceremonies attendant
upon his funeral we are ignorant ; there may have
been " no hatchment o'er his bones, no noble rite
nor formal ostentation ;"— My Lords Southampton,
Pembroke, and Leicester may not have sent their
equerries or representatives to attend his solemn
obsequies, in company with those of Sir Knights
Raleigh, Lucy, and Clopton ; but the Mayor and
Corporation may have walked in state from New
Place, passing the Chapel of the Guild and the
Grammar School, and thence through the Lime
Avenue or pleached alley leading to the northern
entrance of Holy Trinity Church ; Drayton, Jonson,

and Donne, Heminges, Condoll, and Burbago may
have been pall-bearers; Corbet, the witty Poet-
Bishop of Oxford, may have pronounced the funeral
oration; and Daniel the Master of the King's
Revels may have sent either the Childreu °)f
Windsor, or the Children of Paul's to sing a requiem
in the chancel, which was hung with black, and
adorned with a banner of arms and a coat of arms
in gold ; the coffin covered with a " herse cloth " of
black velvet and a cross of crimson velvet down to
the ground. Or, which is more probable, the Poet's
body was placed in an ordinary wooden coffin and
borne upon the shoulders of, or carried on a litter
by six stout yeomen, followed by his affectionate
wife, his family, relations, and his loving neighbours
to the Church, where it was consigned to the grave
with no other ceremony than the reading of that
most beautiful, sublime, and solemn Liturgy, The
Order for the Burial of the Dead in the Book of
Common Prayer, according to the use of the Church
of England— the chief mourner's comfort being that
Heaven would take his soul, and that one, who had
in his writings meted out judgment and righteous-
ness to his fellow men with a terrible impartiality,
would assuredly take part in the resurrection to
eternal life.

When we consider that Shakespeare died from
virulent fever, and somewhat suddenly ; and only
forty-eight hours, perhaps less, intervened his death
and burial, there would have been no time for any
funereal preparations beyond those of a simple

charftcter ; there would have heen no time to get a
leaden-cofhn or the Huitable materialH i'or one, thai
is lead of sufficient subHtance or thickness, from the
neighbouring borough of Worcester or Wai'wick or
Coventry, as it is very doubtful whether such
material was purchasable in the year 1G16 at Strat-
ford, or that there was a plumber or artificer therein
capable of making a leaden coffin at a few hours
notice. For we must take into consideration the
mode of home travelling and the conveyance of
goods at the time, pillions,^ pad-nags, and pack-
horses, coaches being only used by the nobility and
landed-gentry ; the condition of the roads, the time
occupied in a journey from London to Oxford from
Oxford to Coventry or Warwick ; the condition of
the people in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.
History informs us that " the greatest part of our
buildings in the cities and good towns of England
consisteth only of timber, cast over with thick clay
to keep out the wind." London, in the reign of
James, was almost entirely built of wood. The
houses of the nobility and wealthy landed-proprie-
tors, lords of the manor, throughout the city and
country were built of brick and stone ; these were
the exceptions — lead would not be in demand at
Stratford for cisterns, roofings, parapets, porticos,
dairies and other purposes to which it is now
applied. As the probability is that thick sheet lead
was not obtainable on the 24th day of April, 1616,
in Stratford, the probability, also, is that the body of
the Poet was placed in a wooden coffin, not imper-
vious to the air; and it is also probable, very

probiibie, there being no crypt to the Church of Holy
Trinity, the grave wuh dug out of the soil upoti
wliich the floor of the chancel is laid. If the Poet
was thus buried, the request or adjuration: *' for-
beare to digg tlie dust encloased hcaro " obtains a
force which would be lost if his body had been
"encloased" in a leaden-coffin hermetically sealed,
and consigned to such a durable habitation for the
dead, as a sepulchre hewn out of stone, or a brick-
vaulted chamber. — The absence of a vault may
account for his wife not occupying with him the
same tomb.

Mr. Norris cites the case of Schiller, who was
buried in the year 1805, and his body exhumed in
1826, when his bones and skull were carefully
examined; the presumption being that the ttesh
had been consumed; the ''emperors for diet"
having destroyed the body. After eight years burial
(case of Peter Mawer, exhumed at Boston,) Dr.
Taylor found a body in fragments, the soft parts
being loosely adherent to the bones—the features
were entirely destroyed and the bones of a dark
colour. (Tlie body in this case had been buried in
a damp grave, and the coffin had water in it, which
contained animal matter, together with ammonic
sulphate and phosphate.)^"

It is usually supposed that in an ordinary grave
a body becomes skeletonized in about ten years.
Admitting this to be substantially accurate, there
are not a few cases where, on the one hand, all the
soft parts have been destroyed in a far less time,

and, on the other hand, where they have been pre-
served for a much longer period.

I have cited the case of Peter Mawer to show
Shakesper^re's knoAvledge of the time ordinarily
taken in the decomposition of the human body.
Graves situated in low ground — as in a valley— and
in a damp swampy soil promote the process of
putrefaction in the bodies interred in them. The
course of the River Avon is generally through flat
meadows in the immediate neighbourhood of Strat-
ford, and its banks or boundaries being very little
above the surface of the river, are often overflowed
like the banks of the Thames near Runnymede.
The earth in the churchyard of Holy Trinity is not
of a dry gravelly nature, but the reverse, a cold
wet lias land.

During the plague which desolated Stratford in
1564, the Church yard (God's acre) of Holy Trinity
must have been pressed for room to contain the
bodies of those who died during that awful visitation.
To make room lor the bodies of those buried during
the second and third acts of his progress through
life, the Poet may have witnessed the exhumation of
some of those buried during the plague, and been satis-
fied that their skulls, as the grave digger threw them
from their " pit of clay," were in many instances
chapless ; and I can fancy Shakespeare moralizing,
as he looked on, after Hamlet's lashiou :— To what
base uses we may return ! Why may not imagination
trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it
stopping a beer-barrel? or the dust of Imperious

CcTBsar " stopping a hole to keep the wind away "?
or " patching a wall to expel the winter's flaw ?"

If it were even probable to find the Poet's
bones intact would there not be something ignoble
in taking his skull from the coffin and placing it in
position,— posing it after the manner of a photo-
grapher, with the altar cloth for a background, to
get the light to fall upon it at the proper angle of
incidence— which no sooner done, when lo ! the
skull crumbles into du.t before the camera is proper-
ly adjusted t

Does Mr. Norris imagine that the skull of
Shakespeare will be found in such a durable con-
dition that he will be enabled to measure with
scientific accuracy the angles both of the facial line,
and of the line intermediate between the cranium
and the face, by poising it upon a perpendicular rod,
and passing the point through the foramen magnum
into the interior of the skull, so that the upper part
of the cranium will rest on the point : and by
shifting the skull till the rod is exactly betwixt the
condyles of the occipital bone, and in the centre of
the foramen magnum, that he will procure a facial
line which has reference to the whole form and
proportion of the head ? "

Stands it within the prospect of belief that the
skull will be found in such a condition that a plaster
mould of it may be taken with perfect success?
True, that such an operation was performed with
the skull of Raphael, but then his coffin was
hermetically sealed, and immediately after sepul-
ture, ivalled iu.^^

•n'

Mr. Norris, wlio has lately been mucli exercising
his mind upon the various portraits of Shakespeare,
and doing a good service by completing the work
commenced by James Boaden in 1824, followed by
Abraham Wivell in 1827, continued by J. Hain
Friswell in 1861, and William Page in 1876, has
not, I hope, allowed his enthusiasm to affect or
afflict his judgment. I can sympathise with his
bewilderment in trying to solve the question : " Are
any of the so-called portraits of Shakespeare authen-
tic?" I would much rather see him in company
with Mr. J. 0. Halliwell-Phillipps than in the com-
pany. of Dr. C. M. Ingleby. The one considering
that the forehead and the formation of the liead of
the Stratford Bust should alone be decisive evidences
in favour of its authenticity ; and that thee is, in
truth, a convincing and a mental likeness in it that
grows upon us by contemplation and makes us un-
willing to accept any other resemblance. — The
other characterizing the bust as " coarse and clownish,
suggesting to the beholder a countryman crunching
a sour apple, or struck with amazement at some
unpleasant spectacle ; — an unintentional caricature."

I have had in my library for the past twenty-six
years a mask of Shakespeare, taken direct from the
Stratford Bust, witii which 1 am so familiar that I
regard it with as much affection as 1 do the portraits
of dear friends. The question never occurs to my
mind whether it is or is not an authentic portraiture ;
I admit that there is nothing delicate in its execu-
tion, and that in refinement, expression, character

and meditation it will not compare Avith the beauti-
ful statue of Sir Isaac Newton by Roiibilliac in the
ante-cliapel of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and that
it lacks the feeling of the monnmontal works of
Rysbrack preserved in many of our English Churches;
yet, with all its deficiencies as a work of art, my
imagination supplies them— the contour of the mask
is good— I am satisfied— it gives me pleasure to gaze
on it— No aberration of my mind, or astigmatism of
my vision will liken the mask to the vacuous-full-
moon face of Costard, the clown, or to the quixotic
countenance of Don Adriana de Armado ! "

If I rightly remember, it is Hazlitt who says :—
" An overstrained enthusiasm is more pardonable
with respect to Shakespeare than the want of it;
for our admiration cannot surpass his genius." The
majority of the admirers of the Poet who have seen
and studied the Stratford Bust will, without any
overstrained imagination, rather agree with the
opinion of Mr Phillipps than that of Dr. Ingleby.
Mr, Britton the architect and archaeologist says :—
" The Bust appeals to our eyes and our understand-
ings with all the force of truth. We view it as a
family record ; as a memorial raised by the affection
and esteem of his relatives to keep alive the con-
temporary admiration, and to excite the glow of
enthusiasm in posterity. This invaUiable effigy is
attested by tradition, consecrated In time, and pre-
served in the inviolability of its own simplicity and
sacred station." Chantry the eminent sculptor hud
the greatest faith in its truthfulness. Mr. Northcote,

RA., one of the chief illustrators of Boydell's
Shakespeare, has remarked :-" It is the counte-
nance of a good man, and also the countenance of a
great man, and such as T should conceive Shakes-
peare to have possessed." Mr. Fairholt, F.S.A.,
says : -" I believe the Stratford Bust to be a care-
ful and accurate transcript of our greatest bard. I
am strengthened in my reliance on this bust as the
only portrait of Shakespeare to be implicitely de-
pended on, the more I study its details and contrast
its claims with those of any other presumed like-
ness."

Having the Stratford Bust, fac-siraile casts of its
mask, and accurate drawings and photographs of the
Bust, must it not be a diseased imagination that can
induce any one to believe, nay, even to think that
the skull of Shakespeare will be superior to them
for giving us any trustworthy knowledge of the
Poet's personal appearance when enjoying "the
feast of reason and the flow of soul" with Ben
Jonson and other literary heroes at the Mermaid?
or when writing such plays as Macbeth, Othello,
Lear and Hamlet ?

To such believers and thinkers I commend the
perusal of three engravings or prints taken from
photographs of a cast of the skull of Robert Burns,"
one of which, (No. 2) without writing prof\mely, is
more like the dome of a Saracenic or Byzantine
temple, than the dome of a human temple, contain-
ing the organs of intellect, thought, imagination and
genius.

It is difficult to account for this doubt, this un-
quJetude,this curiousness about the Stratford Bust
by educated men who express no doubt that the
Bust in the British Museum, known as the Townley,
or the Bronze head in the Drugulin collection is a
I'epresentation of Homer; that the Bust in the
Capitoline Museum, Rome, is a "counterfeit present-
ment " of Sophocles ; that the antique statue of
Menander in the Vatican is a faithful image of his
genius; and that the heads of Plato and Aristotle,
drawn from the antique, are very characteristic.^"

I will not inquire whether the Kesselstadt
Death mask is genuine or not; "that most careful
and learned writer. Dr. C. M. Ingleby in his chapter
on the Portraiture of Shakespeare, published in
Part I of his Shakespeare: The Man and the Book
London : 1877, p. 84, says of it :— " I must c.ndidly
say I am not able to spot a single suspicious fact in
the brief history of this most curious relic." '«

We may therefore presume that Dr. Ingleby
believes in the genuineness of the Death Malk.—
Mark what follows :— Mr. Norris in the same paper "
I have just quoted from, says :—" Looking at the
Bust, a faithful rendering of the Death mask, one
sees how strong the likeness is to the Stratford
Bust— let any unprejudiced and competent critic
place this Bust alongside of a gray cast of the Strat-
ford Bust and lie will be struck with the resemblance
between them."

If Dr. Ingleby and Mr. Norris, {arcades amho,)
are mutually agreed that the Kesselstadt Death

Mask is taken from a wax mould of Shakespeare's
face after death, and that it corresponds with the
Stratford Bust ; of what use is their asking permis-
sion to open Shakespeare's grave in order to deter-
mine his portraiture ?

i i

NOTES.

Page 3. —

' On not a few of the stoncain that ancient place of Christian Sepulture—
the Uatacombs, Rome— Anathemas are pronounced against such impious men
as shall dare disturb the sanctity of the Grave.

iMALE PEKEAT LVSEPULTUS
JACEAT NON RESURGAT
CUM JUDA PARTEM HA15EAT
SI QUIS SEPIILCRUM IIUNO VIOLAVERIT.
" May he perish badly, and, deprived of Sepulture,
may he lie dead, and never rise ; may he share
lots with Judas who violates this Sepulchre."
Page 4. —

■' Sec chapter viii, William Shakespeare, by Cardinal Wiseman.
Page 5.—

•' 8ce Colliers Annals of the Stage. Vol. 1, Ed. 1831, pp. 207-300.
Page 6. —

■• Henry VI,, Part II., Act III., Sc. 2.; and Romeo and Juliet; Mr. Furness'
Variorum Edition, p. 231.

Page 0.—

5 Reported in the Slnrl/urd-iijion-Auoii Herald, October Dth, 1883.
Page 1.'). —

"i.e. Science, I presume, according to Locke's dcrniition : '' Tiie skill

of rightly apjilying our own powers and actions for the attainment of things
good and useful."

Page 1 7.—

' See The Book of Days, by Robt. Chambers, Vol. II., p]). 07-99.
Page 20. —

« Queen Elizabeti- often used to ride on state occasions behind the Lord
Chancellor or Lord Chamberlain on a pillion.

I . .

Pago 20.—

9 In HftiTison's Description of England, printed in 1577 we learn " that in
the open champaino countries they are enforced for want of stufife to use
no studs at all, but onlic posts * • * • with here and there a girding, where-
unto they fasten their splints or radels, and then cnst it all over witli claie to
keepe out the wind which otlierwise would annoie them."

Page 21.—

1" See Legal Medicine, by Charles M. Tidy, M.B., F.C.8.E. Wm. Wood & Co.,
New York. 1882.

Page 23.—

" See The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression as connected with
the Fine Arts, by Sir Clias. Hell,, K.ll. Fourth edition, 1847. John Murray,
London. »

'•^ Sec Life of Raphael (llairaclli)), by Quatreuiere Dc Quiucy— David
Uogue, London, 1846, pp. 416-419.

Page 25.—

'« See Sir John Gilbert's illustrations to Love's Labour Lost, Staunton's

Edition vol. 1, pp. 54-57.

Page 26.—

i* See page LVL Appendix. Life of Robert Burns, by P. Ilately Waddell,
published by David Wilson, Glasgow, 1867.

Page 27.—

16 See vols. I and IV, Portraits of the one hundred greatest men of History,
London, Sampson, Low & Co., 1880.

iB-n Tlie r ^th Mask of Shakespeare, February number of Shakcspeariana,
1884, by J. Parker Norris.