undistinguishable from the earth in which they lie, a debt which no
supposed inviolable sanctity of the grave ought to prevent us from
paying.

It is, I say, too late to raise such an objection, because
exhumation has been performed many times with a perfectly legitimate
object, even in the case of our most illustrious dead, without
protest or objection from the most sensitive person. As the
examples, more or less analogous to that of Shakespeare, which I am
about to adduce, concern great men who were born and were buried
within the limits of our island, I will preface them by giving the
very extraordinary cases of Schiller and Raphael, which illustrate
both classes: those in which the object of the exhumation was to
give the remains a more honourable sepulture, and those in which it
was purely to resolve certain questions affecting the skull of the
deceased. The following is abridged from Mr. Andrew Hamilton's
narrative, entitled "The Story of Schiller's Life," published in
Macmillan's Magazine for May, 1863.


"At the time of his death Schiller left his widow and children
almost penniless, and almost friendless too. The duke and duchess
were absent; Goethe lay ill; even Schiller's brother-in-law Wolzogen
was away from home. Frau von Wolzogen was with her sister, but
seems to have been equally ill-fitted to bear her share of the load
that had fallen so heavily upon them. Heinrich Voss was the only
friend admitted to the sick-room; and when all was over it was he
who went to the joiner's, and, knowing the need of economy, ordered
'a plain deal coffin.' It cost ten shillings of our money.