Having offered you an emendation of my own, I cannot miss the opportunity of sending you
another, for which I am indebted to a critical student of Shakspeare, my friend Mr. W. R. Grove, the Queen's Counsel. In All's Well that ends Well, the third scene of the Second Act opens with the following speech from Lafeu:
"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves in a seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."
On reading this passage as thus printed, it will be seen that the two sentences of which it is composed are in direct contradiction to each other; the first asserting that we have philosophers who give a causeless and supernatural character to things ordinary and familiar: the second stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after "familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance. It should be pointed thus:
"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless."
It is singular that none of the editors should have noticed this defect, which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple change, that very happily illustrates the importance of correct punctuation.
R. H. C.
Shakspeare's Skull.—As your publication has been the medium of many valuable comments upon Shakspeare, and interesting matter connected with him, I am induced to solicit information, if you will allow me, on the following subject. I have the Works of Shakspeare, which being in one volume 8vo., I value as being more portable than any other edition. It was published by Sherwood without any date affixed, but probably about 1825. There is a memoir prefixed by Wm. Harvey, Esq., in which, p. xiii., it is stated that while a vault was being made close to Shakspeare's, when Dr. Davenport was rector, a young man perceiving the tomb of Shakspeare open, introduced himself so far within the vault that he could have brought away the skull, but he was deterred from doing so by the anathema inscribed on the monument, of—
"Curs'd be he that moves my bones."
This is given upon the authority of Dr. Nathan Drake's work on Shakspeare, in two vols. 4to. Now in this work much is given which is copied into the memoir, but I do not there find this anecdote, and perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." may supply this deficiency, and state where I may find it. I may be allowed to state, that Pope's skull was similarly stolen and another substituted.