Shakespeares Bones | Page 7

on it, formal possession, in the name of the Grand Duke, was taken by the Marshal, Freiherr von Spiegel. The key was removed to be kept in possession of his Excellency, the Geheimrath von Goethe, as head of the Institutions for Art and Science. This key, in an envelope, addressed by Goethe, is said to be preserved in the Grand Ducal Library, where, however, we have no recollection of having seen it.
The 'provisional' deposition has proved more permanent than any other. Whoever would see the resting-place of Goethe and Schiller must descend into the Grand Ducal vault, where, through a grating, in the twilight beyond he will catch a glimpse of their sarcophagi."
The other case of exhumation, and reinterment with funeral rites, which I deem of sufficient importance to be recorded here, is that of the great Raphael. In this the motive was not, as in that of Schiller, to give his bones a worthier resting-place, nor yet, as in so many other cases, to gratify a morbid curiosity, but to set at rest a question of disputed identity. In this respect the case of Raphael has a special bearing upon the matter in hand. I extract the following from Mrs. Jameson's Lives of Italian Painters, ed. 1874, p. 258:
"In the year 1833 there arose among the antiquarians of Rome a keen dispute concerning a human skull, which on no evidence whatever, except a long-received tradition, had been preserved and exhibited in the Academy of St. Luke as the skull of Raphael. Some even expressed a doubt as to the exact place of his sepulchre, though upon this point the contemporary testimony seemed to leave no room for uncertainty.
"To ascertain the fact, permission was obtained from the Papal Government, and from the canons of the Church of the Rotunda (i.e., of the Pantheon), to make some researches; and on the 14th of September in the same year, after five days spent in removing the pavement in several places, the remains of Raphael were discovered in a vault behind the high altar, and certified as his by indisputable proofs. After being examined, and a cast made from the skull and [one] from the right hand, the skeleton was exhibited publicly in a glass case, and multitudes thronged to the church to look upon it. On the 18th of October, 1833, a second funeral ceremony took place. The remains were deposited in a pine-wood coffin, then in a marble sarcophagus, presented by the Pope (Gregory XVI), and reverently consigned to their former resting-place, in presence of more than three thousand spectators, including almost all the artists, the officers of government, and other persons of the highest rank in Rome."
This event, as will appear in the sequel, is our best precedent for not permitting a sentimental respect for departed greatness to interfere with the respectful examination of a great man's remains, wherever such examination may determine a question to which "universal history is NOT indifferent."
Toland tells us that Milton's body was, on November 12, 1674, carried "to the Church of S. Giles, near Cripplegate, where he lies buried in the Chancel; and where the Piety of his Admirers will shortly erect a Monument becoming his worth, and the incouragement of Letters in King William's Reign." {19} It appears that his body was laid next to that of his father. A plain stone only was placed over the spot; and this, if Aubrey's account be trustworthy, was removed in 1679, when the two steps were raised which lead to the altar. The remains, however, were undisturbed for nearly sixteen years. On the 4th of August, 1790, according to a small volume written by Philip Neve, Esq. (of which two editions were published in the same year), Milton's coffin was removed, and his remains exhibited to the public on the 4th and 5th of that month. Mr. George Steevens, the great editor of Shakespeare, who justly denounced the indignity INTENDED, not offered, to the great Puritan poet's remains by Royalist landsharks, satisfied himself that the corpse was that of a woman of fewer years than Milton. Thus did good Providence, or good fortune, defeat the better half of their nefarious project: and I doubt not their gains were spent as money is which has been "gotten over the devil's back." Steevens' assurance gives us good reason for believing that Mr. Philip Neve's indignant protest is only good in the general, and that Milton's "hallowed reliques" still "rest undisturb'd within their peaceful shrine." I have adduced this instance to serve as an example of what I condemn, and should, in any actual case, denounce as strongly as Mr. Philip Neve or George Steevens. To expose a man's remains after any interval for the purpose of treating his memory with indignity, or of denouncing an unpopular cause