ask this question is to answer it. A more credulous man, than I
know Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps to be, would hesitate to give an
affirmative answer. Depend upon it, Shakespeare's skull is in his
grave, unchanged; or it has been abstracted. There may well have
been a mistake as to the exact locality of the grave: for we do not
know that the new gravestone was laid down exactly over the place of
the one that was removed; and the skull may be found in a grave
hard-by. But if, on making a thorough search, no skull be found, I
shall believe that it has been stolen: for, apart from the fact of
its non-discovery, I should almost be disposed to say, that no
superstition, or fear of Shakespeare's curse, nor any official
precaution and vigilance, could have been a match for that
combination of curiosity, cupidity, and relic-worship, which has so
often prompted and carried out the exhumation of a great man's
bones. If there were no other reason for searching Shakespeare's
grave, save the extinction of an unpleasant but not irrational
doubt, I would forthwith perform the exploration, and if possible
obtain tangible proof that the poet's skull had not been removed
from its resting-place.

But the exploration, if successful, would have a bearing upon more
material issues. The most opposite judgments have been passed upon
the Bust, both as a work of art and as a copy of nature. Landor,
whose experience of Italian art was considerable, recorded it as his
opinion, that it was the noblest head ever sculptured; while Mr.
Hain Friswell depreciated it, declaring it to be "rudely cut and
heavy, without any feeling, a mere block": smooth and round like a
boy's marble. {33} After some of Mr. Friswell's deliverances, I am
not disposed to rank his judgment very high; and I accept Lander's
decision. As to the finish of the face, Mr. Fairholt's criticism is