Ever since Miss Bacon made her insane attempt to unearth what is left of Shakespeare’s bodily frame, the thought of doing reverently and openly what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one.  There is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which covers him, he would rest, like Napoleon, like Washington, in a fitting receptacle of marble or porphyry.  In the transfer of his remains the curiosity of men of science and artists would have been gratified, if decay had spared the more durable portions of his material structure.  It was probably not against such a transfer that the lines were written,—­whoever was their author,—­but in the fear that they would be carried to the charnel-house.

“In this charnel-house was contained a vast collection of human bones.  How long they had been deposited there is not easily to be determined; but it is evident, from the immense quantity contained in the vault, it could have been used for no other purpose for many ages.”  “It is probable that from an early contemplation of this dreary spot Shakespeare imbibed that horror of a violation of sepulture which is observable in many parts of his writings.”

The body of Raphael was disinterred in 1833 to settle a question of identity of the remains, and placed in a new coffin of lead, which was deposited in a marble sarcophagus presented by the Pope.  The sarcophagus, with its contents, was replaced in the same spot from which the remains had been taken.  But for the inscription such a transfer of the bones of Shakespeare would have been proposed, and possibly carried out.  Kings and emperors have frequently been treated in this way after death, and the proposition is no more an indignity than was that of the exhumation of the remains of Napoleon, or of Andre, or of the author of “Home, Sweet Home.”  But sentiment, a tender regard for the supposed wishes of the dead poet, and a natural dread of the consequences of violating a dying wish, coupled with the execration of its contemner, are too powerful for the arguments of science and the pleadings of art.  If Shakespeare’s body had been embalmed,—­which there is no reason that I know of to suppose,—­the desire to compare his features with the bust and the portraits would have been much more imperative.  When the body of Charles the First was examined, under the direction of Sir Henry Halford, in the presence of the Regent, afterwards George the Fourth, the face would have been recognized at once by all who were acquainted with Vandyke’s portrait of the monarch, if the lithograph which comes attached to Sir Henry’s memoir is an accurate representation of what they found.  Even the bony framework of the face, as I have had occasion to know, has sometimes a striking likeness to what it was when clothed in its natural features.  As between the first engraved portrait and the bust in the church, the form of the bones of the head and face would probably be decisive.  But the world can afford to live without solving this doubt, and leave his perishing vesture of decay to its repose.