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 “_re_moves,” than I have that “stones” means “_grave_stones.” 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.