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.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF
THE EXHUMATION QUESTION
AS AFFECTING
SHAKESPEARE’S BONES.
1.—Hawthorne, Nathaniel, in “Recollections of a Gifted Woman,” in Our Old Home (reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1863), records Miss Delia Bacon’s project for exploring Shakespeare’s grave, and the failure of her attempt through the irresolution occasioned by her fear of disappointment.
2.—Norris, J. Parker, in the New York American Bibliopolist, of April, 1876, vol. viii, p. 38, in the section entitled “Shakspearian Gossip” [reprinted in the Philadelphia Press, August 4, 1876], seriously proposes the exhumation of Shakespeare’s remains, and asks, “Is it not worth making an effort to secure ‘the counterfeit presentment’ of him who wrote ‘for all time’? If we could even get a photograph of Shakspeare’s skull it would be a great thing, and would help us to make a better portrait of him than we now possess.” His courageous article is particularly useful for the adduction of cases in which corpses have lain in the grave far longer than that of Shakespeare, and been discovered in a state of comparative perfection. What would one not give to look upon Shakespeare’s dead face!
The letter of “a friend residing near Stratford,” from which he gives a long extract, was from one of my present colleagues in the Shakespeare Trust, viz.:
3.—Timmins, Sam., as quoted in the last recorded article, writes—“Some graves of the Shakspeare date were opened at Church Lawford a few years ago, and the figures, faces, and dresses were perfect, but, of course, in half an hour were mere heaps of dust. Shakspeare’s grave is near the Avon, but doubtless he was buried well (in a leaden coffin probably), and there is scarcely room for a doubt that, with proper precautions, photographs of his face might be taken perfectly. Surely the end does justify the means here. It is not to satisfy mere idle curiosity. It is not mere relic-mongering; it is simply to secure for posterity what we could give—an exact representation of the great poet as he lived and died. Surely this is justifiable, at least it is allowable, in the absence of any authentic portrait. Surely such a duty might be most reverently done. I doubt after all if it will be; but I am very strongly in favour of the trial, and if no remains were found, no harm would be done, the ‘curse’ to the contrary notwithstanding. People who have pet projects about portraits would not like to have all their neat and logical arguments knocked on the head, but where should we all be if no Shakspeare at all were found, but only a bundle of musty old MSS. in Lord Bacon’s ‘fine Roman hand’? After all, I am rather nervous about the result of such an exhumation. But, seriously, I see no reason why it should not be made. A legal friend here long ago suggested (humorously, not professionally of course) that the ‘curse’ might be escaped by employing a woman (‘cursed be he’) and women would compete for the honor!”
4.—Anonymous Article in The Birmingham Daily Mail, of August 23, 1876, headed “Shakspeare’s Carte de Visite.” This is strongly adverse to Mr. Norris’s proposals. The writer inclines to believe that the “friend residing near Stratford” was “a fiction of the Mrs. Harris type,” or “possibly a modest way of evading the praise which would be the meed of the brilliant genius who originated the project”: both very random guesses, and, as it turns out, wide of the mark. The article ends thus: “If Moses had been raised in Massachussetts he would have been wanted to take a camera or some business-cards up Sinai.” For our part, if we shall be so fortunate as to find Shakespeare alive in his grave, we shall of course raise him, and invite him to coöperate in the business of photographing his own shining face. But we are not so sanguine as to expect that miracle, though almost as great wonders have been done by the power of this magician. But where is the “triple curse” with which, according to this authority, “that gravestone is weighted”? Quite another view of the inscription is given by Lord Ronald Gower, infra.
5.—Anonymous Article in the London Daily Telegraph, of August 24, 1876: also strongly adverse to Mr. Norris.
6.—Schaafhausen, Hermann, in the Jahrbuch, or Annual, of the German Shakespeare Society, vol. x, 1875, asks: “Should we be afraid to rely on this evidence [agreement of Mask with known portraits, &c.], there is an easy way of settling the question. We can dig up Shakespeare’s skull, and compare the two. True, this may seem to offend against the letter of the epitaph