Mr. Lang’s second fallacy is more important. It is the old logical fallacy of accident, or, as some logicians put it, “of cooked meat.” I had definitely refused to accept as witness against Dugdale’s trustworthiness the evidence of any other tomb which had also been “repaired and beautified.” Now the Clopton tomb has been “repaired and beautified,” and therefore, without some stronger support, it has no convincing power at all. I fear that I made a little confusion by my use of the word “fundamental,” for Mr. Lang seems to have attached a wider meaning to it than I did. If I may take a woman’s simile, I may make it clear. When a woman sends an old dress to be “repaired and beautified,” it may be relined, turned, the worn pieces cut out and replaced, alterations made in design to make up for losses by wear, trimmings laid on to cover seams, and yet after all it would remain the same dress, and her male friends might notice no change in it. But the dressmaker would call it, as to her work, a fundamental change. I saw that it was by some such process that it was possible to harmonize the discrepancies. I did not start wishing to prove any particular point. I did not even want to prove myself right, for I have no prejudices about it, I only wanted to seek for, and to find the truth. None of my opponents have done any original work concerning this matter, and therefore the question stands exactly where it did, i.e. Dugdale’s representation is different from what the tomb is to-day. Why is it so? The two answers are, Dugdale’s representation was incorrect, or, the tomb has been modified.
Since I wrote the paper, I have done a good deal of further work on it. I found the contemporary letters of “the restorers,” 1746-9, published them in the “Pall Mall Gazette,” and have reprinted them now in my Note XIII. I have also gone through all the consecutive history of the Bust. Dugdale himself tells us his method of going through the country, by hundreds, and by rivers, beginning with the Avon. He says that he asked the nearest heirs of the famous individuals whose monuments he had inserted, to co-operate with him, to give him information, and, where possible, to pay the expenses of the plates. At the time he wished Shakespeare’s bust to be prepared, the poet’s daughters, granddaughter, and son-in-law, Thomas Quiney, were still alive, and would be more or less able to criticize. But Mrs. Susanna Hall died in 1649, and her only daughter had married John Barnard who evidently thought little of his father-in-law’s genius.
The tomb has generally been supposed to have been raised by Gerard Johnson, a tombmaker, entered among the lists of the Strangers in London in 1593. But I have lately found a lawsuit which proves that his wife was acting as his widow before 1616. Therefore, if the name be correct, it must have been not his, but that of his son, who succeeded him in his business. It is not quite so clear which of them built Combe’s Monument. John Combe made his will in January 1612-3, leaving £60 for “a convenient tomb.” He died on 10th July 1614. There are traditions that he had been “seeing to” the preparations for his tomb while he was yet alive. He might have fixed his sculptor, and he might have secured the elder Gerard Johnson. The tradition concerning the poet’s satirical suggested epitaph, is the only tradition about the poet which has a respectable antiquity, being referred to in a Diary of Travel in 1636, when a lieutenant and two friends, travelling through some of the county, saw that Shakespeare had a “neat monument” by that time (the first definite allusion to it).
The material of the monuments is worth nothing. I have seen a small piece of Combe’s Monument which has been accidentally broken off, and have been assured on the best of authority that Shakespeare’s is the same, as a little piece of the stone at the back has been left unpainted. It is a peculiarly soft and friable stone for the purpose, variously described as a “soft bluish grey stone,” a “loose freestone,” a “soft whitish grey limestone,” with pillars of marble and ornaments of alabaster.
Given a soft and friable stone, we have to consider probabilities and possibilities, as well as certainties, in duly estimating the story of its struggle for existence. Time works against it with greater odds in his favour than he has in reducing stronger materials.
It may not be quite irrelevant to note, that there was (“Wheler Misc.,” i, p. 124) a peculiar list of charges brought against the Vicar, the Reverend Thomas Wilson, for which “being notorious,” he was suspended for three months from 5th June 1635. Among these charges it was stated that he allowed his maids to dry linen in the chapel, his fowls to roost, his pigs and dogs to couch there, and his children to play at ball and other sports. He himself was said to have “walked about the church in the time of divine service.” In the vestry minutes it is recorded: “The minister’s study over the bone-house to be repaired.” Now, if the children also carried their sports and balls to the Church it might account for many accidents, and the very first items to fall victims to boys and balls would be the legs of the little alabaster angels above Shakespeare’s bust.
We have also to remember that every church ran risks during the civil wars, as they were so frequently used as barracks.
I have found in Add. MS. 28,565, a whole volume of Bills for Damages by the Parliamentary forces in Stratford 1645, from private people[28] which are only representative of many others.
In March 1691 the Chancel was repaired, the contributors being chiefly the descendants of those who had monuments of their ancestors there. The names of most of these are given, but there is no record of any descendants or friends of Shakespeare then, so that it may be supposed the tomb was left in a worse state of repair than the others. (“Wheler Misc.,” iv, p. 99.)
The very fact of the admiration of visitors was a source of danger. Foolishly enthusiastic adorers are known to have chipped pieces from other monuments elsewhere as personal remembrances, and it is quite possible they may have done so here. At any rate, from many combined causes, we have clear testimony from contemporary records, that by 1746 it was “in great ruin and decay.” It is idle to attempt to estimate the degree of ruin, but that it had shocked the sensibilities of the poet’s reverent adorers, is quite clear. The mere wearing off of paint could not have done so, that rather creates an impression of greater antiquity. The details of the events are given in the notes, and their results. One thing must be made clear, that everybody concerned was giving at that time according to his power. The Actors gave their performances, the Committee their time and trouble, the Schoolmaster was honorary secretary, and there were sundry donations. Therefore a close estimate of the purchasing power of money at that time cannot be justly made. It is nearly certain that Mr. John Hall, Limner, and his other unknown coadjutor, who was to prepare the greatly ruined monument to receive his painting, would be doing it at the lowest possible charges. So the amount of work put into the job would probably far exceed the ordinary cost price. Mr. Hall was told to “repair and beautify,” and to let it remain as like as possible to the original.