The sentiment which affects
survivors in the disposition of their dead, and which is, in one
regard, a superstition, is, in another, a creditable outcome of
our common humanity: namely, the desire to honour the memory of
departed worth, and to guard the “hallowed reliques”
by the erection of a shrine, both as a visible mark of respect
for the dead, and as a place of resort for those pilgrims who may
come to pay him tribute. It is this sentiment which dots
our graveyards with memorial tablets and more ambitious
sculptures, and which still preserves so many of our closed
churchyards from desecration, and our [1a] ancient tombs from
the molestation of careless, curious, or mercenary persons.
But there is another sentiment, not inconsistent with this,
which prompts us, on suitable occasions, to disinter the remains
of great men, and remove them to a more fitting and more
honourable resting-place. The Hôtel des Invalides at
Paris, and the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura at Rome, [1b] are indebted to this sentiment for the
possession of relics which make those edifices the natural resort
of pilgrims as of sight-seers. It were a work of
superfluity to adduce further illustration of the position
that the mere exhumation and reinterment of a great man’s
remains, is commonly held to be, in special cases, a justifiable
proceeding, not a violation of that honourable sentiment of
humanity, which protects and consecrates the depositaries of the
dead. On a late occasion it was not the belief that such a
proceeding is a violation of our more sacred instincts which
hindered the removal to Pennsylvania of the remains of William
Penn; but simply the belief that they had already a more suitable
resting-place in his native land. [2]
There is still another sentiment, honourable in itself and not
inconsistent with those which I have specified, though still more
conditional upon the sufficiency of the reasons conducing to the
act: namely, the desire, by exhumation, to set at rest a
reasonable or important issue respecting the person of the
deceased while he was yet a living man. Accordingly it is
held justifiable to exhume a body recently buried, in order to
discover the cause of death, or to settle a question of disputed
identity: nor is it usually held unjustifiable to exhume a body
long since deceased, in order to find such evidences as time may
not have wholly destroyed, of his personal appearance, including
the size and shape of his head, and the special characteristics
of his living face.
It is too late for the most reverential and scrupulous to
object to this as an invasion of the sanctity of the grave, or a
violation of the rights of the dead or of the feelings of his
family. When a man has been long in the grave, there are
probably no family feelings to be wounded by such an act: and, as for
his rights, if he can be said to have any, we may surely reckon
among them the right of not being supposed to possess such
objectionable personal defects as may have been imputed to him by
the malice of critics or by the incapacity of sculptor or
painter, and which his remains may be sufficiently unchanged to
rebut: in a word we owe him something more than refraining from
disturbing his remains until they are undistinguishable from the
earth in which they lie, a debt which no supposed inviolable
sanctity of the grave ought to prevent us from paying.
It is, I say, too late to raise such an objection, because
exhumation has been performed many times with a perfectly
legitimate object, even in the case of our most illustrious dead,
without protest or objection from the most sensitive
person. As the examples, more or less analogous to that of
Shakespeare, which I am about to adduce, concern great men who
were born and were buried within the limits of our island, I will
preface them by giving the very extraordinary cases of Schiller
and Raphael, which illustrate both classes: those in which the
object of the exhumation was to give the remains a more
honourable sepulture, and those in which it was purely to resolve
certain questions affecting the skull of the deceased. The
following is abridged from Mr. Andrew Hamilton’s narrative,
entitled “The Story of Schiller’s Life,”
published in Macmillan’s Magazine for May, 1863.
“At the time of his death Schiller left his
widow and children almost penniless, and almost friendless
too. The duke and duchess were absent; Goethe lay ill; even
Schiller’s brother-in-law Wolzogen was away from home.
Frau von Wolzogen was with her sister, but seems to have been
equally ill-fitted to bear her share of the load that had fallen
so heavily upon them. Heinrich Voss was the only friend
admitted to the sick-room; and when all was over it was he who
went to the joiner’s, and, knowing the need of economy,
ordered ‘a plain deal coffin.’ It cost ten
shillings of our money.
“In the early part of 1805, one Carl Leberecht Schwabe,
an enthusiastic admirer of Schiller, left Weimar on
business. Returning on Saturday the 11th of May, between
three and four in the afternoon, his first errand was to visit
his betrothed, who lived in the house adjoining that of the
Schillers. She met him in the passage, and told him,
Schiller was two days dead, and that night he was to be
buried. On putting further questions, Schwabe stood aghast
at what he learned. The funeral was to be private and to
take place immediately after midnight, without any religious
rite. Bearers had been hired to carry the remains to the
churchyard, and no one else was to attend.
“Schwabe felt that all this could not go on; but to
prevent it was difficult. There were but eight hours left;
and the arrangements, such as they were, had already been
made. However, he went straight to the house of death, and
requested an interview with Frau von Schiller. She replied,
through the servant, ‘that she was too greatly overwhelmed
by her loss to be able to see or speak to any one; as for the
funeral of her blessed husband, Mr. Schwabe must apply to the
Reverend Oberconsistorialrath Günther, who had kindly
undertaken to see done what was necessary; whatever he might
direct, she would approve of.’ With this message
Schwabe hastened to Günther, and told him, his blood boiled
at the thought that Schiller should be borne to the grave by
hirelings. At first Günther shook his head and said,
‘It was too late; everything was arranged; the bearers were
already ordered.’ Schwabe offered to become
responsible for the payment of the bearers, if they were
dismissed. At length the Oberconsistorialrath inquired who
the gentlemen were who had agreed to bear the coffin.
Schwabe was obliged to acknowledge that he could not at that
moment mention a single name; but he was ready to guarantee his
Hochwürde that in an hour or two he would bring him the
list. On this his Hochwürde consented to countermand
the bearers.
“Schwabe now rushed from house to house, obtaining a
ready assent from all whom he found at home. But as some
were out, he sent round a circular, begging those who would come
to place a mark against their names. He requested them to
meet at his lodgings ‘at half-past twelve o’clock
that night; a light would be placed in the window to guide those
who were not acquainted with the house; they would be kind enough
to be dressed in black; but mourning-hats, crapes and mantles he
had already provided.’ Late in the evening he placed
the list in Günther’s hands. Several appeared to
whom he had not applied; in all about twenty.
“Between midnight and one in the morning the little band
proceeded to Schiller’s house. The coffin was carried
down stairs and placed on the shoulders of the friends in
waiting. No one else was to be seen before the house or in
the streets. It was a moonlight night in May, but clouds
were up. The procession moved through the sleeping city to the
churchyard of St. James. Having arrived there they placed
their burden on the ground at the door of the so-called
Kassengewölbe, where the gravedigger and his
assistants took it up. In this vault, which belonged to the
province of Weimar, it was usual to inter persons of the higher
classes, who possessed no burying-ground of their own, upon
payment of a louis d’or. As Schiller had died
without securing a resting-place for himself and his family,
there could have been no more natural arrangement than to carry
his remains to this vault. It was a grim old building,
standing against the wall of the churchyard, with a steep narrow
roof, and no opening of any kind but the doorway which was filled
up with a grating. The interior was a gloomy space of about
fourteen feet either way. In the centre was a trap-door
which gave access to a hollow space beneath.
“As the gravediggers raised the coffin, the clouds
suddenly parted, and the moon shed her light on all that was
earthly of Schiller. They carried him in: they opened the
trap-door: and let him down by ropes into the darkness.
Then they closed the vault. Nothing was spoken or
sung. The mourners were dispersing, when their attention
was attracted by a tall figure in a mantle, at some distance in
the graveyard, sobbing loudly. No one knew who it was; and
for many years the occurrence remained wrapped in mystery, giving
rise to strange conjectures. But eventually it turned out
to have been Schiller’s brother-in-law Wolzogen, who,
having hurried home on hearing of the death, had arrived after
the procession was already on its way to the churchyard.
“In
the year 1826, Schwabe was Bürgermeister of Weimar.
Now it was the custom of the Landschaftscollegium, or
provincial board under whose jurisdiction this institution was
placed, to clear out the Kassengewölbe from time to
time—whenever it was found to be inconveniently
crowded—and by this means to make way for other deceased
persons and more louis d’or. On such
occasions—when the Landschaftscollegium gave the order
‘aufzuräumen,’ it was the usage to dig a hole in
a corner of the churchyard—then to bring up en masse
the contents of the Kassengewölbe—coffins, whether
entire or in fragments, bones, skulls, and tattered
graveclothes—and finally to shovel the whole heap into the
aforesaid pit. In the month of March Schwabe was dismayed
at hearing that the Landschaftscollegium had decreed a speedy
‘clearing out’ of the Gewölbe. His old
prompt way of acting had not left him; he went at once to his
friend Weyland, the president of the Collegium.
‘Friend Weyland,’ he said, ‘let not the dust of
Schiller be tossed up in the face of heaven and flung into that
hideous hole! Let me at least have a permit to search the
vault; if we find Schiller’s coffin, it shall be reinterred
in a fitting manner in the New Cemetery.’ The
president made no difficulty.
“Schwabe invited several persons who had known the poet,
and amongst others one Rudolph, who had been Schiller’s
servant at the time of his death. On March 13th, at four
o’clock in the afternoon, the party met in the churchyard,
the sexton and his assistants having received orders to be
present with keys, ladders, &c. The vault was opened;
but, before any one entered it, Rudolph and another stated that
the coffin
of the deceased Hofrath von Schiller must be one of the longest
in the place. After this the secretary of the
Landschaftscollegium was requested to read aloud from the records
of the said board the names of such persons as had been interred
shortly before and after the year 1805. This being done,
the gravedigger Bielke remarked that the coffins no longer lay in
the order in which they had originally been placed, but had been
displaced at recent burials. The ladder was then adjusted,
and Schwabe, Coudray the architect, and the gravedigger, were the
first to descend. Some others were asked to draw near, that
they might assist in recognising the coffin. The first
glance brought their hopes very low. The tenants of the
vault were found ‘over, under and alongside of each
other.’ One coffin of unusual length having been
descried underneath the rest, an attempt was made to reach it by
lifting out of the way those that were above it; but the
processes of the tomb were found to have made greater advances
than met the eye. Hardly anything would bear removal, but
fell to pieces at the first touch. Search was made for
plates with inscriptions, but even the metal plates crumbled away
on being fingered, and their inscriptions were utterly
effaced. Two plates only were found with legible
characters, and these were foreign to the purpose. Probably
every one but the Bürgermeister looked on the matter as
hopeless. They reascended the ladder and closed the
vault.
“Meanwhile these strange proceedings in the
Kassengewölbe began to be noised abroad. The
churchyard was a thoroughfare, and many passengers had observed
that something unusual was going on. There were persons
living in Weimar whose near relatives lay in the Gewölbe;
and, though neither they nor the public at large had any
objection to offer to the general ‘clearing out,’
they did raise very strong objections to this mode of
anticipating it. So many pungent things began to be said
about violating the tomb, disturbing the repose of the departed,
&c., that the Bürgermeister perceived the necessity of
going more warily to work in future. He resolved to time
his next visit at an hour when few persons would be likely to
cross the churchyard at that season. Accordingly, two days
later he returned to the Kassengewölbe at seven in the
morning, accompanied only by Coudray and the churchyard
officials.
“Their first task was to raise out of the vault
altogether six coffins, which it was found would bear
removal. By various tokens it was proved that none of these
could be that of which they were in search. There were
several others which could not be removed, but which held
together so long as they were left where they lay. All the
rest were in the direst confusion. Two hours and a half
were spent in subjecting the ghastly heap to a thorough but
fruitless search: not a trace of any kind rewarded their
trouble. Only one conclusion stared Schwabe and Coudray in
the face—their quest was in vain: the remains of Schiller
must be left to oblivion. Again the Gewölbe was
closed, and those who had disturbed its quiet returned
disappointed to their homes. Yet, that very afternoon,
Schwabe went back once more in company with the joiner who twenty
years before had made the coffin: there was a chance that he
might recognise one of those which they had not ventured to
raise. But this glimmer of hope faded like all the
rest. The man remembered very well what sort of coffin he
had made for the Hofrath von Schiller, and he certainly saw
nothing like it here. It had been of the plainest sort, he
believed without even a plate; and in such damp as this it could
have lasted but a few years.
“The fame of this second expedition got abroad like that
of the first, and the comments of the public were louder than
before. Invectives of no measured sort fell on the mayor in
torrents. Not only did society in general take offence, but
a variety of persons in authority, particularly ecclesiastical
dignitaries, began to talk of interfering. Schwabe was
haunted by the idea of the ‘clearing out,’ which was
now close at hand. That dismal hole in the corner of the
churchyard once closed and the turf laid down, the dust of
Schiller would be lost for ever. He determined to
proceed. His position of Bürgermeister put the means
in his power, and this time he was resolved to keep his
secret. To find the skull was now his utmost hope, but for
that he would make a final struggle. The keys were still in
the hands of Bielke the sexton, who, of course, was under his
control. He sent for him, bound him over to silence, and
ordered him to be at the churchyard at midnight on the 19th of
March. In like manner, he summoned three day-labourers whom
he pledged to secrecy, and engaged to meet him at the same place
and at the same hour, but singly and without lanterns.
Attention should not be attracted if he could help it.
“When the night came, he himself, with a trusty servant,
proceeded to the entrance of the Kassengewölbe. The
four men were already there. In darkness they all entered,
raised the trap-door, adjusted the ladder, and descended to the
abode of the dead. Not till then were lanterns lighted; it
was just possible that some late wanderer might, even at that
hour, cross the churchyard. Schwabe seated himself on a
step of the ladder and directed the workmen. Fragments of
broken coffins they piled up in one corner, and bones in
another. Skulls as they were found were placed in a heap by
themselves. The work went on from twelve o’clock till
about three, for three successive nights, at the end of which
time twenty-three skulls had been found. These the
Bürgermeister caused to be put into a sack and carried to
his house, where he himself took them out and placed them in rows
on a table.
“It was hardly done ere he exclaimed, ‘That
must be Schiller’s!’ There was one skull that
differed enormously from all the rest, both in size and in
shape. It was remarkable, too, in another way: alone of all
those on the table it retained an entire set of the finest teeth,
and Schiller’s teeth had been noted for their beauty.
But there were other means of identification at hand.
Schwabe possessed the cast of Schiller’s head, taken after
death by Klauer, and with this he undertook to make a careful
comparison and measurement. The two seemed to him to
correspond, and, of the twenty-two others, not one would bear
juxtaposition with the cast. Unfortunately the lower jaw
was wanting, to obtain which a fourth nocturnal expedition had to
be undertaken. The skull was carried back to the
Gewölbe, and many jaws were tried ere one was found which
fitted, and for beauty of teeth corresponded with, the upper
jaw. When brought home, on the other hand, it refused to fit any
other cranium. One tooth alone was wanting, and this was
said by an old servant of Schiller’s had been extracted at
Jena in his presence.
“Having got thus far, Schwabe invited three of the chief
medical authorities to inspect his discovery. After careful
measurements, they declared that among the twenty-three skulls
there was but one from which the cast could have been
taken. He then invited every person in Weimar and its
neighbourhood, who had been on terms of intimacy with Schiller,
and admitted them to the room one by one. The result was
surprising. Without an exception they pointed to the same
skull as that which must have been the poet’s. The
only remaining chance of mistake seemed to be the possibility of
other skulls having eluded the search, and being yet in the
vault. To put this to rest, Schwabe applied to the
Landschaftscollegium, in whose records was kept a list of all
persons buried in the Kassengewölbe. It was
ascertained that since the last ‘clearing out’ there
had been exactly twenty-three interments. At this stage the
Bürgermeister saw himself in a position to inform the Grand
Duke and Goethe of his search and its success. From both he
received grateful acknowledgments. Goethe unhesitatingly
recognised the head, and laid stress on the peculiar beauty and
evenness of the teeth.
“The new cemetery lay on a gently rising ground on the
south side of the town. Schwabe’s favourite plan was
to deposit what he had found—all that he now ever dreamed
of finding—of his beloved poet on the highest point of the
slope, and to mark the spot by a simple monument, so that travellers at
their first approach might know where the head of Schiller
lay. One forenoon in early spring he led Frau von Wolzogen
and the Chancellor von Müller to the spot. They
approved his plan, and the remaining members of Schiller’s
family—all of whom had left Weimar—signified their
assent. They ‘did not desire,’ as one of
themselves expressed it, ‘to strive against Nature’s
appointment that man’s earthly remains should be reunited
with herself;’ they would prefer that their father’s
dust should rest in the ground rather than anywhere else.
But the Grand Duke and Goethe decided otherwise.
“Dannecker’s colossal bust of Schiller had
recently been acquired for the Grand Ducal library, where it had
been placed on a lofty pedestal opposite the bust of Goethe; and
in this pedestal, which was hollow, it was resolved to deposit
the skull. The consent of the family having been obtained,
the solemnity was delayed till the arrival of Ernst von Schiller,
who could not reach Weimar before autumn. On September the
17th the ceremony took place. A few persons had been
invited, amongst whom, of course, was the
Bürgermeister. Goethe, more suo, dreaded the
agitation and remained at home, but sent his son to represent him
as chief librarian. A cantata having been sung, Ernst von
Schiller, in a short speech, thanked all persons present, but
especially the Bürgermeister, for the love they had shown to
the memory of his father. He then formally delivered his
father’s head into the hands of the younger Goethe, who,
reverently receiving it, thanked his friend in Goethe’s
name, and having dwelt on the affection that had subsisted
between their fathers vowed that the precious relic should
thenceforward be guarded with anxious care. Up to this
moment the skull had been wrapped in a cloth and sealed: the
younger Goethe now made it over to the librarian, Professor
Riemer, to be unpacked and placed in its receptacle. All
present subscribed their names, the pedestal was locked, and the
key carried home to Goethe.
“None doubted that Schiller’s head was now at rest
for many years. But it had already occurred to Goethe, who
had more osteological knowledge than the excellent
Bürgermeister, that, the skull being in their possession, it
would be possible to find the skeleton. A very few days
after the ceremony in the library, he sent to Jena, begging the
Professor of Anatomy, Dr. Schröter, to have the kindness to
spend a day or two at Weimar, and to bring with him, if possible,
a functionary of the Jena Museum, Färber by name, who had at
one time been Schiller’s servant. As soon as they
arrived, Goethe placed the matter in Schröter’s
hands. Again the head was raised from its pillow and
carried back to the dismal Kasselgewölbe, where the bones
still lay in a heap. The chief difficulty was to find the
first vertebra; after that all was easy enough. With some
exceptions, comparatively trifling, Schröter succeeded in
reproducing the skeleton, which then was laid in a new coffin
‘lined with blue merino,’ and would seem (though we
are not distinctly told) to have been deposited in the
library. Professor Schröter’s register of bones
recovered and bones missing has been both preserved and
printed. The skull was restored to its place in the
pedestal. There was another shriek from the public at these
repeated violations of the tomb; and the odd position chosen for
Schiller’s head, apart from his body, called forth, not without
reason, abundant criticism.
“Schwabe’s idea of a monument in the new cemetery
was, after a while, revived by the Grand Duke, Carl August, but
with an important alteration, which was, that on the spot
indicated at the head of the rising ground there should be
erected a common sepulchre for Goethe and Schiller, in which the
latter’s remains should at once be deposited—the
mausoleum to be finally closed only when, in the course of
nature, Goethe should have been laid there too. The idea
was, doubtless, very noble, and found great favour with Goethe
himself, who entering into it commissioned Coudray, the
architect, to sketch the plan of a simple mausoleum, in which the
sarcophagi were to be visible from without. There was some
delay in clearing the ground—a nursery of young trees had
to be removed—so that at Midsummer, 1827, nothing had been
done. It is said that the intrigues of certain persons, who
made a point of opposing Goethe at all times, prevailed so far
with the Grand Duke that he became indifferent about the whole
scheme. Meanwhile it was necessary to provide for the
remains of Schiller. The public voice was loud in
condemning their present location, and in August, 1827, Louis of
Bavaria again appeared as a Deus ex machina to hasten on
the last act. He expressed surprise that the bones of
Germany’s best-beloved should be kept like rare coins, or
other curiosities, in a public museum. In these
circumstances, the Grand Duke wrote Goethe a note, proposing for
his approval that the skull and skeleton of Schiller should be
reunited and ‘provisionally’ deposited in
the vault which the Grand Duke had built for himself and his
house, ‘until Schiller’s family should otherwise
determine.’ No better plan seeming feasible, Goethe
himself gave orders for the construction of a sarcophagus.
On November 17th, 1827, in presence of the younger Goethe,
Coudray and Riemer, the head was finally removed from the
pedestal, and Professor Schröter reconstructed the entire
skeleton in this new and more sumptuous abode, which we are told
was seven feet in length, and bore at its upper end the name
SCHILLER
in letters of cast-iron. That same afternoon Goethe went
himself to the library and expressed his satisfaction with all
that had been done.
“At last, on December 16th, 1827, at half-past five in
the morning, a few persons again met at the same place. The
Grand Duke had desired—for what reason we know not—to
avoid observation; it was Schiller’s fate that his remains
should be carried hither and hither by stealth and in the
night. Some tapers burned around the bier: the recesses of
the hall were in darkness. Not a word was spoken, but those
present bent for an instant in silent prayer, on which the
bearers raised the coffin and carried it away. They walked
along through the park: the night was cold and cloudy: some of
the party had lanterns. When they reached the avenue that
led up to the cemetery, the moon shone out as she had done
twenty-two years before. At the vault itself some other
friends had assembled, amongst whom was the Mayor. Ere the
lid was finally secured, Schwabe placed himself at
the head of the coffin, and recognised the skull to be that which
he had rescued from the Kassengewölbe. The sarcophagus
having then been closed, and a laurel wreath laid on it, formal
possession, in the name of the Grand Duke, was taken by the
Marshal, Freiherr von Spiegel. The key was removed to be
kept in possession of his Excellency, the Geheimrath von Goethe,
as head of the Institutions for Art and Science. This key,
in an envelope, addressed by Goethe, is said to be preserved in
the Grand Ducal Library, where, however, we have no recollection
of having seen it.
“The ‘provisional’ deposition has proved
more permanent than any other. Whoever would see the
resting-place of Goethe and Schiller must descend into the Grand
Ducal vault, where, through a grating, in the twilight beyond he
will catch a glimpse of their sarcophagi.”
The other case of exhumation, and reinterment with funeral
rites, which I deem of sufficient importance to be recorded here,
is that of the great Raphael. In this the motive was not,
as in that of Schiller, to give his bones a worthier
resting-place, nor yet, as in so many other cases, to gratify a
morbid curiosity, but to set at rest a question of disputed
identity. In this respect the case of Raphael has a special
bearing upon the matter in hand. I extract the following
from Mrs. Jameson’s Lives of Italian Painters, ed.
1874, p. 258:
“In the year 1833 there arose among the
antiquarians of Rome a keen dispute concerning a human skull,
which on no evidence whatever, except a long-received tradition,
had been preserved and exhibited in the Academy of St. Luke as
the skull
of Raphael. Some even expressed a doubt as to the exact
place of his sepulchre, though upon this point the contemporary
testimony seemed to leave no room for uncertainty.
“To ascertain the fact, permission was obtained from the
Papal Government, and from the canons of the Church of the
Rotunda (i.e., of the Pantheon), to make some researches;
and on the 14th of September in the same year, after five days
spent in removing the pavement in several places, the remains of
Raphael were discovered in a vault behind the high altar, and
certified as his by indisputable proofs. After being
examined, and a cast made from the skull and [one] from the right
hand, the skeleton was exhibited publicly in a glass case, and
multitudes thronged to the church to look upon it. On the
18th of October, 1833, a second funeral ceremony took
place. The remains were deposited in a pine-wood coffin,
then in a marble sarcophagus, presented by the Pope (Gregory
XVI), and reverently consigned to their former resting-place, in
presence of more than three thousand spectators, including almost
all the artists, the officers of government, and other persons of
the highest rank in Rome.”
This event, as will appear in the sequel, is our best
precedent for not permitting a sentimental respect for departed
greatness to interfere with the respectful examination of a great
man’s remains, wherever such examination may determine a
question to which “universal history is not
indifferent.”
Toland tells us that Milton’s body was, on November 12,
1674, carried “to the Church of S. Giles, near
Cripplegate, where he lies buried in the Chancel; and
where the Piety of his Admirers will shortly erect a Monument
becoming his worth, and the incouragement of Letters in King William’s
Reign.” [19] It appears that his body was laid
next to that of his father. A plain stone only was placed
over the spot; and this, if Aubrey’s account be
trustworthy, was removed in 1679, when the two steps were raised
which lead to the altar. The remains, however, were
undisturbed for nearly sixteen years. On the 4th of August,
1790, according to a small volume written by Philip Neve, Esq.
(of which two editions were published in the same year),
Milton’s coffin was removed, and his remains exhibited to
the public on the 4th and 5th of that month. Mr. George
Steevens, the great editor of Shakespeare, who justly denounced
the indignity intended, not offered, to the great Puritan
poet’s remains by Royalist landsharks, satisfied himself
that the corpse was that of a woman of fewer years than
Milton. Thus did good Providence, or good fortune, defeat
the better half of their nefarious project: and I doubt not their
gains were spent as money is which has been “gotten over
the devil’s back.” Steevens’ assurance
gives us good reason for believing that Mr. Philip Neve’s
indignant protest is only good in the general, and that
Milton’s “hallowed reliques” still “rest
undisturb’d within their peaceful shrine.” I
have adduced this instance to serve as an example of what I
condemn, and should, in any actual case, denounce as strongly as
Mr. Philip Neve or George Steevens. To expose a man’s
remains after any interval for the purpose of treating his memory
with indignity, or of denouncing an unpopular cause which he
espoused, or (worst of all) “to fine his bones,” or make money
by the public exhibition of his dust, deserves unmeasured and
unqualified reprobation, and every prudent measure should be
taken to render such an act impossible.
To take another example of the reprehensible practice of
despoiling the grave of a great enemy: Oliver Cromwell was, as is
proved by the most reliable evidence, namely, that of a
trustworthy eye-witness, buried on the scene of his greatest
achievement, the Field of Naseby. Some Royalist
Philister is said to have discovered, and stolen from its
resting-place, the embalmed head of the great Protector. It
found its way to London towards the end of the last century,
where it was exhibited at No. 5, Mead Court, Old Bond Street. [20] It is said to have been acquired
by Sir Joshua Reynolds in September, 1786, and to be now or late
in the collection of Mr. W. A. Wilkinson, of Beckenham. It
is recorded in one of the Additional Manuscripts in the
British Museum, under date April 21, 1813, that “an offer
was made this morning to bring it to Soho Square, to show it to
Sir Joseph Banks, but he desired to be excused from seeing the
remains of the old villanous Republican, the mention of
whose very name makes his blood boil with indignation.
The same offer was made to Sir Joseph forty years ago, which he
also refused.” What a charming specimen was Banks of
the genus Tory! But after all it is a comfort to think that
on this occasion he was right: for while this head was
undoubtedly that which did duty for the Protector at Tyburn, and
was afterwards fixed on the top of Westminster Hall, it was almost
certainly not that of Oliver Cromwell: whose remains probably
still lie crumbling into dust in their unknown grave on Naseby
Field. [21a]
I give one more example of robbing the grave of an illustrious
man, through the superstition of many and the cupidity of
one. Swedenborg was buried in the vault of the Swedish
Church in Prince’s Square, on April 5, 1772. In 1790,
in order to determine a question raised in debate, viz., whether
Swedenborg were really dead and buried, his wooden coffin was
opened, and the leaden one was sawn across the breast. A
few days after, a party of Swedenborgians visited the
vault. “Various relics” (says White: Life of
Swedenborg, 2nd ed., 1868, p. 675) “were carried off:
Dr. Spurgin told me he possessed the cartilage of an ear.
Exposed to the air, the flesh quickly fell to dust, and a
skeleton was all that remained for subsequent visitors. [21b] At a funeral in 1817, Granholm,
an officer in the Swedish Navy, seeing the lid of
Swedenborg’s coffin loose, abstracted the skull, and hawked
it about amongst London Swedenborgians, but none would buy.
Dr. Wählin, pastor of the Swedish Church, recovered what he
supposed to be the stolen skull, had a cast of it taken, and
placed it in the coffin in 1819. The cast which is
sometimes seen in phrenological collections is obviously not
Swedenborg’s: it is thought to be that of a small female
skull.”
In the latter part of the reign of George III a mausoleum was
built in the Tomb House at Windsor Castle. On its
completion, in the spring of 1813, it was determined to open a
passage of communication with St. George’s Chapel, and in
constructing this an opening was accidentally made in one of the
walls of the vault of Henry VIII, through which the workmen could
see three coffins, one of which was covered with a black velvet
pall. It was known that Henry VIII and Queen Jane Seymour
were buried in this vault, but a question had been raised as to
the place of Charles the First’s interment, through the
statement of Lord Clarendon, that the search made for the late
King’s coffin at Windsor (with a view to its removal to
Westminster Abbey) had proved fruitless. Sir Henry Halford,
in his Account, appended to his Essays and
Orations, 1831, [22] thus describes the
examination of the palled coffin.
“On representing the circumstance to the Prince Regent,
his R. H. perceived at once that a doubtful point in history
might be cleared up by opening this vault; and accordingly
his R. H. ordered an examination to be made on the first
convenient opportunity. This was done on the First of April
last [i.e., 1813], the day after the funeral of the
Duchess of Brunswick, in the presence of his R. H. himself, who
guaranteed thereby the most respectful care and attention to
the remains of the dead, during the enquiry. His R. H.
was accompanied by his R. H. the Duke of Cumberland, Count
Munster, the Dean of Windsor, Benjamin Charles Stevenson, Esq.,
and Sir Henry Halford.”
“The vault was accordingly further opened and explored,
and the palled coffin, which was of lead, and bore the
inscription ‘King Charles, 1648,’ was opened at the
head. A second Charles I, coffin of wood was thus
disclosed, and, through this, the body carefully wrapped up in
cere-cloth, into the folds of which a quantity of unctuous or
greasy matter, mixed with resin, as it seemed, had been melted,
so as to exclude, as effectually as possible, the external
air. The coffin was completely full; and, from the tenacity
of the cere-cloth, great difficulty was experienced in detaching
it successfully from the parts which it enveloped. Wherever
the unctuous matter had insinuated itself, the separation of the
cere-cloth was easy; and when it came off, a correct impression
of the features to which it had been applied was observed in the
unctuous substance. [23] At length the whole
face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of
the skin was dark and discoloured. The forehead and temples
had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the
cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first
moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost
immediately: and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the
reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face
was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in
consequence of the interposition of the unctuous matter between
it and the cere-cloth, was found entire.”
The head was found to be loose, and was once more held up to
view; and after a careful examination of it had been made, and a
sketch taken, and the identity fully established, it was immediately
replaced in the coffin, which was soldered up and restored to the
vault. Of the other two coffins, the larger one had been
battered in about the middle, and the skeleton of Henry VIII,
exhibiting some beard upon the chin, was exposed to view.
The other coffin was left, as it was found, intact. Neither
of these coffins bore any inscription.
In the Appendix to Allan Cunningham’s Life of
Burns [24] we read of an examination of the
poet’s Tomb, made immediately after that life was
published:
“When Burns’ Mausoleum was opened in March, 1834,
to receive the remains of his widow, some residents in Dumfries
obtained the consent of her nearest relative to take a cast from
the cranium of the poet. This was done during the night
between the 31st March and 1st April. Mr. Archibald
Blacklock, surgeon, drew up the following description:
“The cranial bones were perfect in every
respect, if we except a little erosion of their external table,
and firmly held together by their sutures, &c., &c.
Having completed our intention [i.e., of taking a plaster
cast of the skull, washed from every particle of sand, &c.],
the skull, securely closed in a leaden case, was again committed
to the earth, precisely where we found it.—Archd.
Blacklock.’”
The last example I shall adduce is that of Ben Jonson’s
skull. On this Lieut.-Colonel Cunningham thus writes:
“In my boyhood I was familiar with the Abbey, and well
remember the ‘pavement square of blew marble, 14 inches
square, with O Rare Ben Jonson,’ which marked the
poet’s grave. When Buckland was Dean, the spot had to
be disturbed for the coffin of Sir Robert Wilson, and the Dean sent
his son Frank, now so well known as an agreeable writer on
Natural History, to see whether he could observe anything to
confirm, or otherwise, the tradition about Jonson being buried in
a standing posture. The workmen, he tells us, ‘found
a coffin very much decayed, which from the appearance of the
remains must have originally been placed in the upright
position. The skull found among these remains, Spice, the
gravedigger, gave me as that of Ben Jonson, and I took it at once
into the Dean’s study. We examined it together, and
then going into the Abbey carefully returned it to the
earth.’ In 1859, when John Hunter’s coffin was
removed to the Abbey, the same spot had to be dug up, and Mr.
Frank Buckland again secured the skull of Jonson, placing it at
the last moment on the coffin of the great surgeon. So far,
so good; but not long afterwards, a statement appeared in the
‘Times’ that the skull of Ben Jonson was in the
possession of a blind gentleman at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Hereupon Mr. Buckland made further inquiries, and calmly tells us
that he has convinced himself that the skull which he had taken
such care of on two occasions, [such care as not so much as to
measure or sketch it!] was not Jonson’s skull at all; that
a Mr. Ryde had anticipated him both times in removing and
replacing the genuine article, [!] and that the Warwickshire
claimant [!] was a third skull which Mr. Ryde observed had been
purloined from the grave on the second opening. Mr.
Buckland is a scientific naturalist, and an ardent worshipper of
the closest of all observers, John Hunter. Now mark what
satisfies such a man on such an occasion as this. He was
wrong and Mr. Ryde was right, because Mr. Ryde described his
skull as having red hair; and in Aubrey’s Lives
of Eminent Men, ‘I find evidence quite sufficient for
any medical man to come to the conclusion that Ben Jonson’s
hair was in all probability of a red colour, though the fact
is not stated in so many words.’ In so many
words! I think not! Actually all that Aubrey says on
the subject is, ‘He was, or rather had been,
of a cleare and faire skin’! (Lives, ii,
414.) And this, too, in spite of our knowing from his own
pen, and from more than one painting, that his hair was as black
as the raven’s wing! Besides, he was sixty-five years
old when he died, and we may be sure that the few locks he had
left were neither red nor black, but of the hue of the
‘hundred of grey hairs’ which he described as
remaining eighteen years before. Mr. Buckland’s
statement will be found in the Fourth Series of his
Curiosities of Natural History, one of the most
entertaining little volumes with which we are acquainted.”
[26]
In reviewing the various incidents connected with the
foregoing cases of exhumation one is perhaps most struck with the
last two. That an illustrious man of science, and his son,
who at that time must already have been a scientific naturalist,
should have coöperated in so stupendous a blunder as the
mere inspection of Ben Jonson’s skull, without taking so
much as a measurement or drawing of it, would be incredible, but
for the fact that both are dead, and nothing of the sort has come
to light: and it is scarcely less surprising that the
Swedenborgians, who believed themselves to be in possession of their
founder’s skull, should not have left on record some facts
concerning its shape and size.
Before addressing myself to the principal matter of this
essay, namely the question whether we should not attempt to
recover Shakespeare’s skull, I may as well note, that the
remains of the great philosopher, whom so many regard as
Shakespeare’s very self, or else his alter ego, were
not allowed to remain unmolested in their grave in St.
Michael’s Church, St. Albans. Thomas Fuller, in his
Worthies, relates as follows: “Since I have read
that his grave being occasionally opened [!] his scull (the
relique of civil veneration) was by one King, a Doctor of
Physick, made the object of scorn and contempt; but he who then
derided the dead has since become the laughingstock of the
living.” This, being quoted by a correspondent in
Notes and Queries [27a] elicited from Mr.
C. Le Poer Kennedy, of St. Albans, [27b] an account of a
search that had been made for Bacon’s remains, on the
occasion of the interment of the last Lord Verulam.
“A partition wall was pulled down, and the search extended
into the part of the vault immediately under the monument, but no
remains were found.” On the other hand, we have the
record of his express wish to be buried there. I am afraid
the doctor, who is said to have become the laughingstock of the
living, has entirely faded out of men’s minds and
memories.
Among the many protests against the act of exhumation, I
select that of Capel Lofft, as representative of the rest.
He writes—
“It were to be wished that neither superstition,
affectation, idle curiosity, or avarice, were so frequently
invading the silence of the grave. Far from dishonouring
the illustrious dead, it is rather outraging the common condition
of humanity, and last melancholy state in which our present
existence terminates. Dust and ashes have no intelligence
to give, whether beauty, genius, or virtue, informed the animated
clay. A tooth of Homer or Milton will not be distinguished
from one of a common mortal; nor a bone of Alexander acquaint us
with more of his character than one of Bucephalus. Though
the dead be unconcerned, the living are neither benefited nor
improved: decency is violated, and a kind of instinctive sympathy
infringed, which, though it ought not to overpower reason, ought
not without it, and to no purpose, to be superseded.”
Notwithstanding the right feeling shewn in this passage, it is
quite sufficient to condemn Capel Lofft as a
Philister. Let us for a moment examine some of these
very eloquent assertions. Agreeing as I cordially do with
his wish, that neither superstition, affectation, whatever that
may mean, idle curiosity, or avarice, were the motives which
actuate those who molest the relics of the dead, I cannot allow
that neither dust and ashes, bones, nor teeth, have any
intelligence to give us; nor yet that by the reverential scrutiny
of those relics the living can be neither benefited nor
improved. All that depends upon the intelligence of the
scrutineer. Doubtless your Philister would turn over
the skull or the bones, or make hay with the dust, just as Peter
Bell could see nothing in a primrose but a weed in flower.
What message a bone or a weed may have for the man or the race
depends wholly upon the recipient. Your Shakespeare or
Goethe, your Owen or Huxley, would find in it an intelligible
language; while your Capel Lofft would denounce what he found
there as dirt and indecency. How true is the proverb of Syr
Oracle Mar-text: “To the wise all things are
wise.” In the case of Schiller, the skull spoke for
itself, and claimed to be that of Schiller; the bones, like those
in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, aggregated themselves
around their head, and submitted to an accurate articulation; and
the teeth gave their evidence, too, at least the place of one,
which was not in the jaw, bore its testimony to the fact that the
jaw in question was that which Schiller had submitted to
dentistry. In the case of Raphael, the discovery of the
skull disproved the claims of the spurious relic, and arrested a
stupid superstition. [29] Beyond question, the
skull of Shakespeare, might we but discover it in anything like
its condition at the time of its interment, would be of still
greater interest and value. It would at least settle two
disputed points in the Stratford Bust; it would test the
Droeshout print, and every one of the half-dozen
portraits-in-oils which pass as presentments of
Shakespeare’s face at different periods of his life.
Moreover it would pronounce decisively on the pretensions of the
Kesselstadt Death-Mask, and we should know whether that was from
the “flying-mould” after which Gerard Johnson worked,
when he sculptured the Bust. Negative evidence the skull
would assuredly furnish; but there is reason for believing
that it would afford positive evidence in favour of the Bust, one
or other of the portraits, or even of the Death-Mask: and why, I
ask, should not an attempt be made to recover Shakespeare’s
skull? Why should not the authorities of Stratford, to whom
this brochure is inscribed, sanction, or even themselves
undertake, a respectful examination of the grave in which
Shakespeare’s remains are believed to have been buried?
Two grounds have always been assigned for abstention: (1) the
sentiment which disposes men to leave the relics of the dead to
their rest in the tomb: (2) the prohibition contained in the four
lines inscribed upon Shakespeare’s gravestone. With
the former of these I have sufficiently dealt already. As
for the latter; the prohibitory lines, whether they proceeded
from our Poet himself, as Mr. William Page, and many before him,
believed, or from the pen of Ben Jonson, or of an inferior writer
(which is to me the more probable authorship), I am most desirous
to respect them; not that I stand in awe of Shakespeare’s
curse, but because I think they proceeded from a natural and
laudable fear. I have no more doubt that
“moves,” in the quatrain, means
“removes,” than I have that
“stones” means
“gravestones.” The fear which dictated
these curious lines, was, I believe, lest Shakespeare’s
remains should be carried, whither so many of his predecessors in
the churchyard had been carried, to the common charnel-house
hard-by. I do not read in those lines a prohibition against
an examination of the grave, say for purposes of knowledge and
history, but against the despoiling of that grave, to make room
for some
local knight, squire, or squireen, who might have been deemed a
worthier tenant of the Chancel room. Shakespeare’s
body was carried to the grave on Thursday, April 25, 1616 (O.
S.); and, beyond question, his son-in-law, Dr. John Hall, made
all the arrangements, and bore all the expenses. We have no
proof whatever that the grave has remained closed from that time:
on the contrary there is some slight scintilla of proof
that it has been explored; and it would never astonish me to
learn that Shakespeare’s skull had been abstracted!
There may yet be some among us who have a personal interest in
preventing such an exploration, and in thus maintaining the
general belief, that Shakespeare’s relics still rest in the
mould in which they were buried.
Be that as it may: in the year 1796, the supposed grave was
actually broken into, in the course of digging a vault in its
immediate proximity; and not much more than fifty years ago the
slab over the grave, having sunk below the level of the pavement,
was removed, the surface was levelled, and a fresh stone was laid
over the old bed. It is certain, I believe, that the
original stone did not bear the name of Shakespeare, any more
than its successor: but it is not certain that the four lines
appear upon the new stone in exactly the same literal form as
they did upon the old one. [31] I wish I could
add that these two were the only occasions when either grave or
gravestone was meddled with. I am informed, on the
authority of a Free and Accepted Mason, that a Brother-Mason of
his has
explored the grave which purports to be Shakespeare’s, and
that he found nothing in it but dust. The former statement
must be taken cum grano. Granting this, however, the
latter statement will not surprise my valued friend Mr. J. O.
Halliwell-Phillipps, who thinks he sees a reason for the
disappearance of Shakespeare’s
Bones, in the fact that his coffin was buried in the
Chancel mould. [32] If this be all the ground of his
assurance, that nothing but dust would reward the search, I would
say “despair thy charm;” for many corpses so buried
have for many years been preserved in comparative
freshness—corpses which had been treated with no more care
than the body of Shakespeare is believed to have received.
The last case to come to my knowledge, was that of the Birmingham
poet, John Freeth, the father of my old friend John Freeth,
formerly the Clerk (or principal manager) of the Birmingham Canal
Navigations. On the destruction of the burial-place of the
Old Meeting House, in Old Meeting Street, Birmingham, in March,
1882, the coffin of the poet was found in the earth, and on
opening it, the face was almost as fresh, and quite as perfect,
as on the day of the old man’s interment seventy-four years
before: and as to his bones? Does Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps
believe that in a period but little more than double that of the
poet Freeth’s unmolested repose, namely 180 years, all
Shakespeare’s Bones would have
been turned to dust, and become indistinguishable from the mould
in which the coffin lay? To ask this question is to answer
it. A more credulous man, than I know Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps to
be, would hesitate to give an affirmative answer. Depend
upon it, Shakespeare’s skull is in his grave, unchanged; or
it has been abstracted. There may well have been a mistake
as to the exact locality of the grave: for we do not know that
the new gravestone was laid down exactly over the place of the
one that was removed; and the skull may be found in a grave
hard-by. But if, on making a thorough search, no skull be
found, I shall believe that it has been stolen: for, apart from
the fact of its non-discovery, I should almost be disposed to
say, that no superstition, or fear of Shakespeare’s curse,
nor any official precaution and vigilance, could have been a
match for that combination of curiosity, cupidity, and
relic-worship, which has so often prompted and carried out the
exhumation of a great man’s bones. If there were no
other reason for searching Shakespeare’s grave, save the
extinction of an unpleasant but not irrational doubt, I would
forthwith perform the exploration, and if possible obtain
tangible proof that the poet’s skull had not been removed
from its resting-place.
But the exploration, if successful, would have a bearing upon
more material issues. The most opposite judgments have been
passed upon the Bust, both as a work of art and as a copy of
nature. Landor, whose experience of Italian art was
considerable, recorded it as his opinion, that it was the noblest
head ever sculptured; while Mr. Hain Friswell depreciated it,
declaring it to be “rudely cut and heavy, without any
feeling, a mere block”: smooth and round like a boy’s
marble. [33] After some of Mr. Friswell’s
deliverances, I am not disposed to rank his judgment very high;
and I accept Lander’s decision. As to the finish of
the face, Mr. Fairholt’s criticism is an exaggeration,
successfully exposed by Mr. Friswell. My own opinion,
telle quelle, has been already printed. [34] Allowing the bust to have been a
recognisable, if not a staring likeness of the poet, I said and
still say—“How awkward is the ensemble of the
face! What a painful stare, with its goggle eyes and gaping
mouth! The expression of this face has been credited with
humour, bonhommie and jollity. To me
it is decidedly clownish; and is suggestive of a man
crunching a sour apple, or struck with amazement at some
unpleasant spectacle. Yet there is force in the lineaments
of this muscular face.” The large photograph of
the Monument lately issued by the New Shakspere Society,
as well as those more successful issues of Mr. Thrupp’s
studio, fully bears out this judgment. But the head,
as Landor said, is noble. Without accepting the suggestion
that the sculptor had met with an accident to the nose, and had,
in consequence, to lengthen the upper lip, I think it
self-evident that there is some little derangement of natural
proportions in those features; the nose, especially, being
ill-formed and undersized for the rest of the face. If we
had but Shakespeare’s skull before us, most of these
questions would be set at rest for ever.
Among the relics once religiously preserved in the Kesselstadt
collection at Mayence was a plaster mask, having at the back the
year of Shakespeare’s death. This relic had been in
that
collection time out of mind, and seems always to have been
received as a cast from the “flying-mould” of
Shakespeare’s dead face. With this was a small
oil-painting of a man crowned with bays, lying on a state bier;
of which, by the kindness of Mr. J. Parker Norris of
Philadelphia, I am able to give the admirable engraving which
forms the frontispiece to this little volume. On the death
of Count and Canon Francis von Kesselstadt, at Mayence, in 1843,
the family museum was broken up, and its contents
dispersed. No more was seen or heard of either of the two
relics described, till 1847, when the painting was purchased by
an artist named Ludwig Becker; and after some months of
unremitting search he discovered the Death-Mask in a
broker’s shop, and this he bought in 1849. The
purchaser is dead: but both these relics are in the Grand Ducal
Museum at Darmstadt, and belong to its curator, Dr. Ernst Becker,
Ludwig’s brother. I have inspected both with the
keenest interest; and I am of opinion that the painting is not
after the mask. The date, 1637, which it bears, led Dr.
Schaafhausen to think that it was intended for Ben Jonson; a view
to some extent borne out by the portrait of Ben in the Dulwich
Gallery. [35] By others, however, it is
believed to be a fancy portrait of Shakespeare, based upon the
Death-Mask. Now the Bust was believed to have been
sculptured after a death-mask. Is the Becker Mask that from
which Gerard Johnson worked? If so, there must have been a
fatal accident indeed to the nose; for the nose of the mask is a
long and finely arched one: the upper lip is shorter than that of
the bust, and the forehead is more receding.
Of the many alleged portraits of Shakespeare there are but two
whose pedigree stretches back into the seventeenth century, and
is lost in obscurity there. The origin of the vast majority
of the claimants is only too well known, or shrewdly suspected:
these are (1) copies, more or less unfaithful, of older pictures;
(2) idealised portraits, based upon such older ones, or upon the
Bust; (3) genuine portraits of unknown persons, valued for some
slight or imaginary resemblance to the Bust, or to such older
portraits, or for having passed as Shakespeare’s, and thus
offering the means of selling dear what had been bought cheap;
(4) impostures. As I am not writing an essay upon the
portraits, I will merely mention in the order of their importance
the few claimants whose title merits the least consideration.
I.—The Droeshout engraving, prefixed to the first
collective edition of the Poet’s works, published in 1623:
i.e., the print in its early state.
II.—The so-called Janssen portrait (on wood) in the
collection of the Duke of Somerset. This has been traced
back to 1761, when it was purchased by Charles Jennens, Esq., of
Gopsall. Its identity with the portrait which was purchased
for the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon in 1809 is, at least, highly
probable. In 1811 Woodburn published the first engraving
from it, and stated that the picture had belonged to Prince
Rupert, who left it to Mrs. E. S. Howes on his death in
1682. No actual proof of this was given, nor did Woodburn
mention Jennens’ ownership.
III.—The Croker portrait. We have it on the
authority of Boaden that this portrait, which he said was the
property of the Right Hon. J. Wilson Croker, was a replica of the
Janssen. There was a mystery, not in the least cleared up,
concerning these two pictures and their history. I am
unable to ascertain who at present owns the later one.
Collectors of the prints can always distinguish between the
two. The only engraving of the Croker portrait was by R.
Cooper; published January 1, 1824, by G. Smeeton, and is an oval
in a shaded rectangle. All the rest are either from the
Janssen, or from Dunkarton’s engraving of it. [37]
IV.—The Chandos portrait (on wood) in the National
Portrait Gallery at South Kensington. It has been traced
back to 1668, when, on Davenant’s death, it passed to John
Otway: but not in its present or even late condition.
V.—The Lumley portrait, well known through the admirable
chromo-lithograph, by Mr. Vincent Brooks (which is scarcely
distinguishable from the original), and once sold for forty
guineas as the original portrait. It has been traced back
to 1785.
VI.—The Ashbourne portrait.
VII.—The Felton portrait (on wood), traced back to
1792.
VIII.—The Challis portrait (on wood).
IX.—The Hunt portrait: at the Birthplace. This is
not in its original state, and cannot be judged-of apart from a
copy of it in the possession of John Rabone, Esq., of
Birmingham.
Of these III, VI, and VIII have not been satisfactorily traced
back even into the last century.
Beyond question, after the Bust and the Droeshout engraving,
the Janssen portrait has the greatest value. Unfortunately
the Chandos, even if its history be as stated, is of very little
real value: for it has been so often repaired or
“restored,” and is at present in such a dilapidated
condition, that it cannot be relied upon as a portrait.
Moreover it bears but little resemblance to the admirable drawing
from it in its former state, made by Ozias Humphreys in the year
1783. This drawing is an exceedingly fine work of art, to
which even Scriven’s print, good as it is, scarcely does
justice. To compare Humphreys’ drawing, which hangs
in the Birthplace, and is its most valuable portrait, with Samuel
Cousin’s fine mezzotint of the Chandos, engraved forty
years ago, is to be convinced that the existing picture no longer
represents the man—whosoever he may have been—from
whom it was painted. How many questions, affecting the
Bust, the Death-Mask, and these portraits, would be set at rest
by the production of Shakespeare’s skull!
The late Mr. William Page, the American sculptor, whose
interest in testing the identity of the Kesselstadt Death-Mask,
by comparing it with Shakespeare’s skull, was in
1874–5 incomparably greater than that of any other
interested person, comes very near the expression of a
wish for the exhumation of the skull. [39] But he had not
the courage to express that wish, and after the passage which I
am about to quote, abruptly changes the subject. He says,
“The man who wrote the four lines [of epitaph] which have
thus far secured his bones that rest which his epitaph demands,
omitted nothing likely to carry the whole plan into effect.
The authorship of the epitaph cannot be doubted, unless another
man in England had the wit and wisdom to divine the loyal
heart’s core of its people, and touch it in the single
appeal ‘for Jesus sake.’ Nothing else has kept
him out of Westminster [Abbey]. The style of the command
and curse are Shakespearian, and triumphant as any art of
forethought in his plays.” Then follows
on—without even the break of a paragraph—not what
naturally should have followed, and must have been in Mr.
Page’s mind, but a citation of Chantrey and John Bell, as
to the model from which the Bust was made. Possibly it is
due to the omission of a sentence, which once intervened between
the remarks on the remains and those which concern the Bust of
Shakespeare, that we have now two totally different matters in
juxtaposition, and in the same paragraph. In this
Death-Mask Mr. Page saw the reconciliation of the Bust, the
Droeshout print (in its best state), and the Chandos
portrait. I do not meddle with that opinion, or the
evidences upon which it rests. But I have inspected all the
four: I have also seen Mr. Page’s life-size bronze bust,
and wish I had never seen it, or even a photograph of it,
for it destroyed for me a pleasant dream.
But whatever be the value of Mr. Page’s conclusion, or
of his Bust, I have no doubt that the value of his book lies in
those accurate “Dimensions of Shakespeare’s
Mask,” which he took during his six days of free access to
the Grand Ducal Museum. The measurements are on pp.
51–55 of his book, and may eventually be of the greatest
possible use, if the time should ever arrive when
Shakespeare’s skull will be subjected to similar
measurement. For myself, I am disposed to believe that no
mistaken sense of duty on the part of the Stratford authorities
will long be able to prevent that examination, if the skull be
still in existence.
