Before addressing myself to the principal matter of this essay,
namely the question whether we should not attempt to recover
Shakespeare's skull, I may as well note, that the remains of the
great philosopher, whom so many regard as Shakespeare's very self,
or else his alter ego, were not allowed to remain unmolested in
their grave in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans. Thomas Fuller, in
his Worthies, relates as follows: "Since I have read that his grave
being occasionally opened [!] his scull (the relique of civil
veneration) was by one King, a Doctor of Physick, made the object of
scorn and contempt; but he who then derided the dead has since
become the laughingstock of the living." This, being quoted by a
correspondent in Notes and Queries {27a} elicited from Mr. C. Le
Poer Kennedy, of St. Albans, {27b} an account of a search that had
been made for Bacon's remains, on the occasion of the interment of
the last Lord Verulam. "A partition wall was pulled down, and the
search extended into the part of the vault immediately under the
monument, but no remains were found." On the other hand, we have
the record of his express wish to be buried there. I am afraid the
doctor, who is said to have become the laughingstock of the living,
has entirely faded out of men's minds and memories.

Among the many protests against the act of exhumation, I select that
of Capel Lofft, as representative of the rest. He writes--

"It were to be wished that neither superstition, affectation, idle
curiosity, or avarice, were so frequently invading the silence of
the grave. Far from dishonouring the illustrious dead, it is rather
outraging the common condition of humanity, and last melancholy
state in which our present existence terminates. Dust and ashes