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 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.
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