“At last, on December 16th, 1827, at half-past five in the morning, a few persons again met at the same place. The Grand Duke had desired—for what reason we know not—to avoid observation; it was Schiller’s fate that his remains should be carried hither and hither by stealth and in the night. Some tapers burned around the bier: the recesses of the hall were in darkness. Not a word was spoken, but those present bent for an instant in silent prayer, on which the bearers raised the coffin and carried it away. They walked along through the park: the night was cold and cloudy: some of the party had lanterns. When they reached the avenue that led up to the cemetery, the moon shone out as she had done twenty-two years before. At the vault itself some other friends had assembled, amongst whom was the Mayor. Ere the lid was finally secured, Schwabe placed himself at the head of the coffin, and recognised the skull to be that which he had rescued from the Kassengewölbe. The sarcophagus having then been closed, and a laurel wreath laid on it, formal possession, in the name of the Grand Duke, was taken by the Marshal, Freiherr von Spiegel. The key was removed to be kept in possession of his Excellency, the Geheimrath von Goethe, as head of the Institutions for Art and Science. This key, in an envelope, addressed by Goethe, is said to be preserved in the Grand Ducal Library, where, however, we have no recollection of having seen it. “The ‘provisional’ deposition has proved more permanent than any other. Whoever would see the resting-place of Goethe and Schiller must descend into the Grand Ducal vault, where, through a grating, in the twilight beyond he will catch a glimpse of their sarcophagi.” The other case of exhumation, and reinterment with funeral rites, which I deem of sufficient importance to be recorded here, is that of the great Raphael. In this the motive was not, as in that of Schiller, to give his bones a worthier resting-place, nor yet, as in so many other cases, to gratify a morbid curiosity, but to set at rest a question of disputed identity. In this respect the case of Raphael has a special bearing upon the matter in hand. I extract the following from _Mrs. Jameson’s Lives of Italian Painters_, ed. 1874, p. 258: “In the year 1833 there arose among the antiquarians of Rome a keen dispute concerning a human skull, which on no evidence whatever, except a long-received tradition, had been preserved and exhibited in the Academy of St. Luke as the skull of Raphael. Some even expressed a doubt as to the exact place of his sepulchre, though upon this point the contemporary testimony seemed to leave no room for uncertainty.