New Britain Herald Newspaper, May 17, 1927, Page 23

The epitaph [Jwhich makes many people quuuheo dis- the sup- posed tomb of Shakespeare Holy Trinity Church of Strat- ford-on-Avon, show- ing in the left fore- ground the tomb in which ) Shakespeare may be buried. On the wall above it is the poet’s buul. The epitaph which has kept the tomb unmolested for over three hundred years is on the slab over the grave called the greatest poet and playwright that the world has produced, is as much a man of mystery as an immortal genius. He died only a little more than three hundred years ago and it would seem that every phase of his busy and event- ful life would be a matter of careful historical record, yet we actually know less about him than about many figures of the most remote antiquity. The date of his biil. i uncertain. Only two portraits of him are regarded as authentic, and all that is definitely known of his life as an Englishman of Elizabethan times can be set down in a few lines. Relics that belonged to him are, as one writer has said, “almost as rare as the remains of the dodo.” Many scholars say that it was not Shakespears but Sir Francis Bacon who wrote all the plays and poems credited to the former. And there is even grave doubt in the minds of some authorities as to whether the tomb in Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-on-Avon, to which pilgrims from all over the world come to pay reverent homage, really holds the bones of Shakespeare. 1t is supposed that he was buried there in 1616, but so much doubt has been cast on the fact, and there have been 50 many suspicions that his remains were subsequently removed, that there have been repeated attempts to open the tomb and find out the truth. But this has never been done for a number of reasons, one of them being the superstitious fear which the epitaph over the tomb inspired in many people. A number of persons who planned to ‘make such an investigation frankly ad- mitted that they were deterred at the last minute by an eerie feeling which came over them when they read the an- cient curse contained in the epitaph. Translated into modern English this epitaph reads: Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here; Blessed be the man that s these stomes, And cursed be he that moves my bones. Although these lines have becn called doggerel and unworthy of the poet, if he wrote them, they have played an im- portant part in keeping his grave in- violate for more than three centuries and thus deepening the mystery that surrounds his life, death and burial. Not all critics, however, consider these verses foolish doggerel, and Washington Irving says, in his Sketch Book, that these lines “have in them something ex- tremely awful, and show that solicitude about the quiet of the grave which seems natural to fine sensibilities and thoughtful minds.” Professor C. R. Haines, the eminent English antiquarian, is now leading a movement to have the supposed tomb opened and a reverent and thorough ex- amination of it made under the proper ¢]acientific auspices. He thinks it nothing leu than the English nation’s plain duty dIto do this in the hope that it will go a long way toward clearing up some of the W ILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, often mystery that obscures Shakespeare. Outlining his plun in a recent issue of the Antiquarian Quarterly, Professor Haines says, “The most authentic re- mains of the poet, namely, his bones, rest still undisturbed (?) in the chancel of Stratford Church. At least we must assume so. “The doggerel lines on the tombstone, intended to scare gravediggers from casting out his bones into the charnel house hard by, have acted as a charm w2 the superstitious, and at least on one oce n revented the opening of the tomb. “About 1821, Dr. Connolly, a medical practitioner at Stratford, with a friend or two, planned the opening of the tomb in order to examine the remains scien- tifically. The party entered the church at the dead of night, with the proper tools, but on reading the ‘curse’ upon the tombstone they gave up their purpose. “Forty years later Miss Delia Bacon, one of the earliest ‘Baconians,’ seems ac- tually to have got a faculty for exploring the grave, expecting to find a manuseript of Bacon in it, but she never carried out her intention. “In 1796, while a vault was being made for a Mr. Robert Davenport adjoining Shakespeare’s grave, part ‘of the side earth fell in, leaving a large cavity into the poet’s grave. The sexton and at least one other person looked through the opening, but while the former saw nothing but dust, the latter descried a skull. In spite of Halliwell-Phillips, the latter account is more likely to be the true one, for the skull and larger bones would almost certainly be in being. “Some think that the grave has been rifled and the poet’s skull extracted. “To set this point at rest, and to sat- isfy our legitimate curiosity as to the shape and size of Shakespeare’s skull, an official examination of the grave is much to be desired. . “Carried out reverently and scien- tifically, an inspection of the remains would be in reality an act of homage to his greatness, as well as of immense in- terest to the whole world. “To call this sacrilege or desecration is & mere misuse of words. It was no desecration to look upon the noble fea- tures of our great Plantagenet King Ed- ward I, 500 years after his death. There was no outery when the coffin of Charles 1 was opened, or Napolean'’s, or when a cast was taken from the cranium of Burns.” Professor Haines’ arguments in favor of opening the tomb are, of course, very convincing to cold-blooded scientists and historians and they are almost unani- mous in the hope that the task will soon be undertaken. But the superstitious minded hold «up their hands in horror at the idea and warn them to beware of the consequences. Even were there not an epitaph over the tomb saying, “Cursed be he that moves my bones,” many intelligent peo- ple think the disturbing of the tomb would be sure to be followed by disaster for those taking part in it. One of the ideas most intimately bound up with the human race from the most primitive times is that the dead Courtyard of an old wheelwright shop at Stratford-on-Avon which is believed to look very much the same as in Shakespeare’s day should rest undisturbed in the places where their friends have laid them. The task of building sepulchers where the dead would be safe from wild beasts and from human ghouls was one of the first to engage the attention of every race of men. Everybody knows what magnificent monuments were erected as a result of the Egyptians’ efforts to provide for their mummies places where they could rest in complete security to the end of time. And there are many who think it wicked and cruel to invade these tombs and scatter far and wide both the mum- mies and the treasures with which their friends surrounded them. Among people not at all supersti- tious in other matters, the belief is wide- spread that Lord Carnavon and a num- ber of his associates were victims of the vengeance the Egyptians pronounced ages ago to any one violating the sanc- tity of their tombs. They think that the untimely deaths of these men was the punishment meted out to them by some mysterious force for daring to open the tomb of King Tut- ahnk-amen and carry away its treasures. As everybody knows, Lord Carnavon was the leader of the expedition that opened and explored the famous tomb. Within a few weeks, and before much of the tomb’s treasures had been brought to light, he feM ill from the sting of an insect and was guickly dead. Carnavon’s death was followed by four other men who were exploring the tombs of Egypt’s departed rulers—three of them scientists of distinction. The first of these was Wolfe Joel, who passed away with mysterious suddenness when he returned to his yacht from a visit to King Tut’s burial place. The next to go was Sir ‘Archibald Douglas Reid, who was about to make X-ray photographs of the mummy case of Tut- ankh-amen when he was stricken with a fatal and unexplained malady. Declared by some au- thorities a gen- uine death mask of Shakespeare, but by others pronounced an ingenious fake produced in Ger- many during the last century The other two victims were French- men—Professor Casanova of the College de France and Dr. Georges Benedite, an able Egyptologist and director of the Egyptian antiquities secnon of the Louvre. The ancient rulers of Egypt took elaborate precautions that their tombs might remain inviolate to the end of time. The entrances were cleverly con- cealed and the interiors were a maze of passages and chambers designed to con- fuse intruders. At the door of some of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings have been found Copyright, 1927, by Johnson Features, lne. S’lxakmearesflnczenflhmfl Why the World Is Urged to Ignore the Epitaph’s Grim Warning and Make an Effort to Find Out If the Tomb in the Old Stratford Church Really Does Contain the Great Poet’s Mouldering Bones The Anne Hathaway cottage and its picturesque garden, whose con- nection with Shakespeare’s life is better established than is the case with many other things inscriptions which, translated, read: “The great god will reward the violator as he deserves.” It would appear that some of those who have disregarded this grim warning have paid for their in- trepidity with their lives. At the time of Dr. Benedite's untimely death, Dr. J. C. Mardrus, the celebrated Oriental scholar and translator of the purest version of the Arabian Nights, said, “The mysterious series of deaths commenced with that of Lord Carnavon . all succumbed to an inexplicable malady. “This is no childish superstition which can be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulder. We must remem- ber that the Egyptians, dur- ing a period of 7,000 years, in order to assure the calm of subterranean existence which was sup- posed to delight their mummies and prevent all attempts to dis- turb their rest, practiced magical rites, the power of which held no doubts for them. “I am abso- lutely convinced that they knew how to concen- trate on and around a mummy certain dynamic powers of which we possess very incomplete no- tions. “Remembering the ark which the Jews dragged along on their flight from Egypt, they had stolen it from an Egyptian temple and it was no other than the ark of the god Amon. Now, according to the Bible’s own version, that ark struck down dead hundreds of priests and Levites who dared to approach it too closely. It must surely have been charged with an accumulation of forces unknown to us to-day.” Of course, it is not generally believed that the “curse” inscribed on the slab over Shakespeare’s grave has the ter- rible potency that has been ascribed to the so-called curse of the Pharaohs, but there are plenty of people who are con- vinced that it would be just as well not to go into the tomb in Stratford Church. ¢ is not recorded that either®Dr. Con- nolly or Miss Bacon suffered any dire consequences because they seriously con- templated opening the forbidden vault. But neither actually got to the task. Most of the English colleagues of Pro- fessor Haines, however, agree with him that the time has arrived when the great poet’s grave should be opened and his skull—if it's there—carefully measured. And those students of literature most actively engaged in the Shakespesrean- Baconian controversy also seem to be bocking the antiquarian in the belief that the exhuming of the Immortal Bard’s remains would go a long way to- ward settling the argument that has been waged since the middle of the nineteenth century. If the skull has the high, full forehead and the unusually large brain cavity that the accepted portraits of the poet depict, the Shakespeareans will be more con- vinced than ever that he should have full credit for the thirty-seven dramas and the poems that have come down as his. And if a very ordinary skull of com- monplace capacity were found the Ba- conians would have added justification for their conviction that Shakespeare was merely the son of a Stratford trades- man who played parts in the Elizabethan theater, with the background of a gram- mar school education that could not possibly equip him to produce the mas- terpieces credited to him. The considerable number of people who believe that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the whole great array of Shakes- pearean dramas and poems argue that he was the only Englishman of Elizabethan times brilliant enough to do such work. He chose to write behind the name of the Stratford player and theatrical man- ager because he was a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth and was afraid that the theme of some of his plays would offend her. That, in a few words, sums up the persistent Baconian theory. On the other side is the great host of Shakespeareans who give the “Bard of Avon” full credit for every line that has come down to us as his. Bacon, they say, able philosopher and writer that he was, could no more have written the things that Shakespeare did than he could have walked across the English Channel. The late Sir Henry Irving, famous for his interpretation of Shakespearean roles, was one of the staunchest defend- ers of the great poet’s name. He says, “When the Baconians can show that Ben Jonson was either a fool or a knave, or that the whole world of players and playwrights at that time was in a conspiracy to palm off on the ages the most astounding cheat in history, they mll be worthy of serious consid- eration.” And after a lifetime of investigation he could not find the least evidence that Bacon was interested in the stage or that he had any knowledge of playwriting. Professor Haines would defy the curse that has supposedly protected the poet’s tomb for more than three centuries, be- cause an examinationiof the skull seems to be the one way to throw new light on the mystery and the doubt that has so long obscured the greatest figure that ever put a pen to paper.