Shakespeare's Bones / The Proposal to Disinter Them, Considered in Relation to Their Possible Bearing on His Portraiture: Illustrated by Instances of Visits of the Living to the Dead

by C. M. Ingleby

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.