Be that as it may: in the year 1796, the supposed grave was actually broken into, in the course of digging a vault in its immediate proximity; and not much more than fifty years ago the slab over the grave, having sunk below the level of the pavement, was removed, the surface was levelled, and a fresh stone was laid over the old bed. It is certain, I believe, that the original stone did not bear the name of Shakespeare, any more than its successor: but it is not certain that the four lines appear upon the new stone in exactly the same literal form as they did upon the old one. {31} I wish I could add that these two were the only occasions when either grave or gravestone was meddled with. I am informed, on the authority of a Free and Accepted Mason, that a Brother-Mason of his has explored the grave which purports to be Shakespeare’s, and that he found nothing in it but dust. The former statement must be taken _cum grano_. Granting this, however, the latter statement will not surprise my valued friend Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, who thinks he sees a reason for the disappearance of SHAKESPEARE’S BONES, in the fact that his coffin was buried in the Chancel mould. {32} If this be all the ground of his assurance, that nothing but dust would reward the search, I would say “despair thy charm;” for many corpses so buried have for many years been preserved in comparative freshness—corpses which had been treated with no more care than the body of Shakespeare is believed to have received. The last case to come to my knowledge, was that of the Birmingham poet, John Freeth, the father of my old friend John Freeth, formerly the Clerk (or principal manager) of the Birmingham Canal Navigations. On the destruction of the burial-place of the Old Meeting House, in Old Meeting Street, Birmingham, in March, 1882, the coffin of the poet was found in the earth, and on opening it, the face was almost as fresh, and quite as perfect, as on the day of the old man’s interment seventy-four years before: and as to his bones? Does Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps believe that in a period but little more than double that of the poet Freeth’s unmolested repose, namely 180 years, all SHAKESPEARE’S BONES would have been turned to dust, and become indistinguishable from the mould in which the coffin lay? To ask this question is to answer it. A more credulous man, than I know Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps to be, would hesitate to give an affirmative answer. Depend upon it, Shakespeare’s skull is in his grave, unchanged; or it has been abstracted. There may well have been a mistake as to the exact locality of the grave: for we do not know that the new gravestone was laid down exactly over the place of the one that was removed; and the skull may be found in a grave hard-by. But if, on making a thorough search, no skull be found, I shall believe that it has been stolen: for, apart from the fact of its non-discovery, I should almost be disposed to