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.
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