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 scrupu lous 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. Jonson, Volpone.... 1605 1607 Marston, Chapman, and Jonson, Eastward Hoe.. 1605 1605 Chapman, Bussy d'Ambois.. Tourneur, The Revenger's Tragedy. 1607 Chapman, Conspiracy and Tragedy of Byron... Webster, The White Devil.... Dekker, The Honest Whore. Part II.... Jonson, The Silent Woman. Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster. Jonson, The Alchemist... Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid's Tragedy.. ... ing Pestle.... Field, A Woman is a Weathercock. 1611 1612 Fletcher (and Shakespeare?), The Two Noble A. INDEX OF CHARACTERS AARON, a Moor, beloved by Romeo and Juliet: Act I, sc. i ADAM, servant to Oliver, As You Venus and Adonis Pilgrim; ADRIAN, a lord, The Tempest: Act II, sc. i; Act III, sc. iii; ADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Troilus and Cressida: Act I, and Cleopatra: Act II, sc. ii, Night: Act I, sc. iii; Act II, |