The Works of William Shakespeare

April 25, when all that was mortal of the great dramatist was consigned to his final resting-place in the beautiful parish-church of his native town. His remains were deposited in the chancel, the selection of the locality for the interment being due to the circumstance of its then being the legal and customary burial-place of the owners of the tithes.

The grave is situated near the northern wall of the chancel, within a few paces of the ancient charnel-house, the arch of the doorway that opened to the latter, with its antique corbels, still remaining. The sepulcher was covered with a slab that bore the following inscription,

GOOD FREND, FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE

TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE;

BLESTE BE THE MAN THAT SPARES THES STONES,
AND CVRST BE HE THAT MOVES MY BONES.

-lines which, according to an early tradition, were selected by the poet himself for his epitaph. There is another early but less probable statement that they were the poet's own composition; but, at all events, it may be safely gathered that they originated in some way from an aversion on his part to the idea of a disturbance of his remains. It should be remembered that the transfer of bones from graves to the charnel-house was then an ordinary practice at Stratford-on-Avon. There has long been a tradition that Shakespeare's feelings on this subject arose from a reflection on the ghastly appearance of that receptacle, which the elder Ireland, writing in the year 1795, describes as then containing "the largest assemblage of human bones" he had ever beheld. But whether this be the truth, or if it were merely the natural wish of a sensitive and thoughtful mind, it is a source of congratulation that the

simple verses should have protected his ashes from sacrilege. 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 neighboring earth in the slightest degree, the clerk having been placed there, until the brickwork of the adjoining vault was completed, to prevent anyone 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. This consideration may tend to discourage an irreverent opinion expressed by some, that it is due to the interests of science to unfold to the world the material abode which once held so great an intellect. It is not many years since a phalanx of troubletombs, lanterns and spades in hand, assembled in the chancel at dead of night, intent on disobeying the solemn injunction that the bones of Shakespeare were not to be disturbed. But the supplicatory lines prevailed. There were some among the number who, at the last moment, refused to incur the warning condemnation, and so the design was happily abandoned.