ii, p.
63, "The Shakespeare Death-Mask," concludes thus--"But how, may it
be asked, can proof ever be had that this mask is actually that of
Shakespeare? Indeed it can never be proved unless such an
impossibility should occur as that a jury of matrons should
undertake to view the opened grave at Stratford; they at any rate
would not need to fear the curse that is written above his grave--
for it says, 'Cursed be HE (and not SHE), who stirs that sacred
dust.'" This is a 'new version' of the time-honoured line. I note
too that Lord Ronald reproduces the "legal friend's" joke in Mr.
Parker Norris's article. But I do not say he ever saw it.
14.--Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., in his Outlines of the Life of
Shakespeare, 1st edition, 1881, p. 86: 2nd edition, 1882, p. 172:
3rd edition, 1883, p. 233: writes thus--
"The nearest approach to an excavation into the grave of Shakespeare
was made in the summer of the year 1796, in digging a vault in the
immediate locality, when an opening appeared which was presumed to
indicate the commencement of the site of the bard's remains. The
most scrupulous care, however, was taken not to disturb the
neighbouring earth in the slightest degree, the clerk having been
placed there, until the brickwork of the adjoining vault was
completed, to prevent any one making an examination. No relics
whatever were visible through the small opening that thus presented
itself, and as the poet was buried in the ground, not in a vault,
the chancel earth, moreover, formerly absorbing a large degree of
moisture, the great probability is that dust alone remains.
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