say, that no superstition, or fear of Shakespeare’s curse, nor any official precaution and vigilance, could have been a match for that combination of curiosity, cupidity, and relic-worship, which has so often prompted and carried out the exhumation of a great man’s bones. If there were no other reason for searching Shakespeare’s grave, save the extinction of an unpleasant but not irrational doubt, I would forthwith perform the exploration, and if possible obtain tangible proof that the poet’s skull had not been removed from its resting-place. But the exploration, if successful, would have a bearing upon more material issues. The most opposite judgments have been passed upon the Bust, both as a work of art and as a copy of nature. Landor, whose experience of Italian art was considerable, recorded it as his opinion, that it was the noblest head ever sculptured; while Mr. Hain Friswell depreciated it, declaring it to be “rudely cut and heavy, without any feeling, a mere block”: smooth and round like a boy’s marble. {33} After some of Mr. Friswell’s deliverances, I am not disposed to rank his judgment very high; and I accept Lander’s decision. As to the finish of the face, Mr. Fairholt’s criticism is an exaggeration, successfully exposed by Mr. Friswell. My own opinion, _telle quelle_, has been already printed. {34} Allowing the bust to have been a recognisable, if not a staring likeness of the poet, I said and still say—“How awkward is the _ensemble_ of the face! What a painful stare, with its goggle eyes and gaping mouth! The expression of this face has been credited with _humour_, _bonhommie_ and _jollity_. To me it is decidedly _clownish_; and is suggestive of a man crunching a sour apple, or struck with amazement at some unpleasant spectacle. Yet there is force in the lineaments of this muscular face.” The large photograph of the Monument lately issued by the _New Shakspere Society_, as well as those more successful issues of Mr. Thrupp’s studio, fully bears out this judgment. But the _head_, as Landor said, is noble. Without accepting the suggestion that the sculptor had met with an accident to the nose, and had, in consequence, to lengthen the upper lip, I think it self-evident that there is some little derangement of natural proportions in those features; the nose, especially, being ill-formed and undersized for the rest of the face. If we had but Shakespeare’s skull before us, most of these questions would be set at rest for ever.