for plates with inscriptions, but even the metal plates crumbled away on being fingered, and their inscriptions were utterly effaced. Two plates only were found with legible characters, and these were foreign to the purpose. Probably every one but the Bürgermeister looked on the matter as hopeless. They reascended the ladder and closed the vault. “Meanwhile these strange proceedings in the Kassengewölbe began to be noised abroad. The churchyard was a thoroughfare, and many passengers had observed that something unusual was going on. There were persons living in Weimar whose near relatives lay in the Gewölbe; and, though neither they nor the public at large had any objection to offer to the general ‘clearing out,’ they did raise very strong objections to this mode of anticipating it. So many pungent things began to be said about violating the tomb, disturbing the repose of the departed, &c., that the Bürgermeister perceived the necessity of going more warily to work in future. He resolved to time his next visit at an hour when few persons would be likely to cross the churchyard at that season. Accordingly, two days later he returned to the Kassengewölbe at seven in the morning, accompanied only by Coudray and the churchyard officials. “Their first task was to raise out of the vault altogether six coffins, which it was found would bear removal. By various tokens it was proved that none of these could be that of which they were in search. There were several others which could not be removed, but which held together so long as they were left where they lay. All the rest were in the direst confusion. Two hours and a half were spent in subjecting the ghastly heap to a thorough but fruitless search: not a trace of any kind rewarded their trouble. Only one conclusion stared Schwabe and Coudray in the face—their quest was in vain: the remains of Schiller must be left to oblivion. Again the Gewölbe was closed, and those who had disturbed its quiet returned disappointed to their homes. Yet, that very afternoon, Schwabe went back once more in company with the joiner who twenty years before had made the coffin: there was a chance that he might recognise one of those which they had not ventured to raise. But this glimmer of hope faded like all the rest. The man remembered very well what sort of coffin he had made for the Hofrath von Schiller, and he certainly saw nothing like it here. It had been of the plainest sort, he believed without even a plate; and in such damp as this it could have lasted but a few years.