As all the world knows, the tomb is a dark slab, lying in the chancel, the inscription turned to the east. No name is given, only the lines here copied from a photograph:
"Good Frend for Jesvs sake forbeare
To DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEAEE:
Blest be ye man v'spares thes stones,
And cvrst be he yl moves mv bones.
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To suppose these lines written by Shakspere himself, seems absurd. They are not, indeed, the only doggrel unjustly fathered upon him. The prostrate figure on a tomb in the east wall of the chancel, representing Shakspere's contemporary and intimate, John-a-Combe, suggests another stanza, even inferior in taste and diction. But we have no room now for such thoughts. Above us, on the left, is the monument of the poet, coloured; not content with "improving" the plays, caused the bust also to be improved by a coating of white paint, how the barbarism was removed in 1861, and the statue restored, is a tale often told. The effigy certainly existed within seven years of Shakspere's death, so that, in all probability, we have a faithful representation of the poet as his contemporaries knew him.