SHAKESPEARE’S TOMB

Waikato Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 2768, 7 April 1927, Page 2

SHAKESPEARE’S TOMB

SUGGESTIONS TO OPEN IT. The suggestion that. Shakespeare's grave in Stratlorcl Church should be opened “to satisfy legitimate curiosity about the shape and me of his skull" and to settle once and for all the question whether his bones actually rest here, is made by Mr R. Haines, the writer of an article in the Antiquarian Quarterly. *‘An official examination of the grave is much to be desired," he says. “It .was no desecration to look upon the noble features of our great Plantagcnct king, Edward 1., 500 years after his death. “There was no silly outcry when the coffin of Charles I. was opened, or Napoleon -\s, or when a cast was taken from the cranium of Burns." Mr Ilaincs believes the poet's bones still lie undisturbed in the grave in the chancel of Stratford Church, in spite of the belief of some people that the tomb had been rifled and the skull abstracted. ( The doggerel lines on the tombstone: “Good friend, for Jesus'.sake forebearc To dig the dust enclosed heare. Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, And curst, be he yt moves my bones" were, according to Mr Haines, intended to scare grave-diggers from easting out his bones into the chancel house hard by„ and at least on one occasion prevented the opening of the tomb. “About 1821," writes Mr Haines, “Dr Connolly, a medical practitioner at Stratford, with a friend or two, planned the opening of the tomb in order to examine the 'remains scientifically.

“The party entered the church at the dead of night with the proper tools, but, reading.;the 'curse' on the tombstone, they gave up their purpose. “In .1796, while a vault was being made, adjoining Shakespeare’s grave, part of the earth fell in, leaving a large cavity over the poet's grave. The sexton. and at least one other person looked through the opening, and while the former saw nothing but dust the latter claimed that he had descried a skull."