558 g Recent representations from Stratford that the grave is sary for

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No recent inspection of the contents of Shakespeare's tomb
has been made or, if made, the results have not been disclosed, but there are persistent rumors that the grave is empty.
To quote Alden Brooks from his Will Shakspere Factotum and
Agent:
Washington Irving relates that the sexton [at Trinity Churclu
Stratford-on-Avon] told him once as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth had caved in to
leave a vacant space almost like an arch through which one
might have reached into the grave [of Shakespeare], and that
although he, the sexton, had peered into the hole, he had seen
"neither coffin nor bones-nothing but dust."
Recent representations from Stratford that the grave is
probably empty as the result of water seeping in from the
Avon river nearby would serve to confirm the sexton's report,
though it is not likely that fresh water would dissolve away
all the remains of a corpse and a wooden coffin.
Could the death mask have been made surreptiously after
the burial and the body not retumed to the grave? Consider
the circumstances. Trinity Church, lately a monastery chapel,
was actually outside the village limits, isolated with no dwellings nearby. Thus, it would be possible to enter and leave the
church after dark without attracting attention of the villagers.
If the task of grave robbing were to be done by night, especially inside the church, one could not well use torches or
lanterns for illumination without attracting attention, for the
flickering lights would be seen afar off. Light would be necessary for the task of removing and rePlacing the stone,
weighing about a ton, in the floor of the chancel, even more
so for making a plaster cast of Shakespeare's face.
Was there moonlight, one may well ask? In making that
calculation one should remember to use the the date May 2,
'1,6'1.6,
to correct for the nine day difference between the old
and new calendars. It is not perhaps surprising that precisely
on that day there was a full moon which at midnight bathed
the south side of the church from an elevation of about forty
degrees, sending its beams through the expansiv-e windows
to iast a glow on the north wall and floor of the chancel.
This was probably all the light that was required to locate the
gravesite inside the church.
Marlowe (L564-16A7)
A b{ght full moon on the night of the grave robbery is
qore than just a coincidence. Tfiis very same day was ilso
Shakespeare's fifty-third birthday. Could it be thai a student
of the stars and of astrology, as both Marlowe and Sanford
wele known to be, had planned the day and year in advance
so that this would be so?
Assume that it was all planned. Inside the church on the
midnight of April 23, 161,6 (old style) Ben |onson would know
just what had to be done. As a former bricklayer he was familiar with the setting properties of mortar and knew how to
remove and reset a heavy slab of stone. He scraped out the
still soft mortar from around the tombstone and with a tool
reached under one end and lifted it over a bar. With some
difficulty the slab was then rolled aside sufficiently to allow
access to the coffin which was removed. The two men then
rolled the stone back and while Ben Jonson replaced the mortar, Drayton carried the body through the charnel house door
to behind the church where ihere *is better light. Ben ]onson
later followed with the coffin and other debrislrom his labor.
Drayton had already removed Shakespeare's upper garments
and was applying grease to the face and mustache of the
corpse. Drawing water from the river, Jonson mixed a batch
of plaster of Paris which was quickly applied to the face by
both workers, an eerie white mask in th'e moonlight as the
men waited for the plaster to set.
- Shakespea-re's rnustache offered no difficulty in removing
the cast as it had been heavily packed with grea-se but individ-ual hairs were pulled off the face, especiilly from the eyebrows and eyelids. The plaster cast *as caiefully wrapped
and stowed in a woolsack with Shakespeare's clothes.-That
done, the body was put back in its coffin and set adrift in the
river. With a stately, swanlike pace it moved into the stream
and was swept qway.Jonson and Drayton watched with
bowed heads as the body disappeared into the night.
"Farewelf sweet swan of Avon!" said Ben as the two men
picked up their tools and trophies. They walked back to their
inn in the,village and after services foi Shakespeare the next
morning they departed for London. No one would ever learn
their secret. Shakespeare, himself had seen to that.
In London now the principal obstacles to the publication
of the Folio of Marlowe's plays had been removed. Shakespeare was dead and his name could be used with no fear
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that he would interfere. The year was 1616. By 1619 the project
of publishing the plays had reached the stage where the players felt their rights, if not Shakespeare's, were being infringed
upon and it was at this time that the two principal men in
the King's company of players, Heminges and Condell were
taken in. And not without profit to the project. The folio was
to be a monument not only to their fellow actor, William
Shakespeare, but also to all the players who had played in
his plays. Twenty players, not all of them still alive, would
have their names in it. The players were easily prevailed upon
to make a contribution to the erection of a monument to
Shakespeare in Stratford. Not far from the Globe Theatre on
Bankside in Gerard Johnson's shop work on the monument
was already in progress. From the death mask a "face" of
Shakespeare had been cast and placed on a dummy dressed
up in Shakespeare's clothes to serve as the model for the
sculptor. The first step would be to make a alabaster bust of
Shakespeare. The setting for the bust could be as elaborate as
the funds available would allow. Since the setting finally chosen for Shakespeare's bust resembles the one designed by
Gerard fohnson's brother, Nicholas, for the tomb of Roger
Manners, the fifth Earl of Rutland in-1.619, we may assume
that the architectural details of the setting and certainly the
cutting and setting up of the stonework were not completed
until after that date.
With the Shakespeare monument financed, contracted for
and under way, Ben Jonson directed his attention to the other
half of the picture puzzle he was making, an engraving of
Marlowe, alias Sanford, to be used as Shakespeare's portrait
in the Folio. Since, as has been alleged, no portrait of Shakespeare was available, what Shakespeare looked like remained
only a memory and he had not been seen in London for some
six years. No one could be expected to find an artist to produce a portrait of Shakespeare without a model to copy, nor
could anyone object to the substitution of any reasonable likeness. Marlowe's portrait at Penshurst Place would do as well
as any except for the fact that this portrait was of a sitter
equipped with the accoutrements of a gentleman: a ruff., a
rapier and a dagger. Moreover, the sleeves were slashed to
reveal undemeath a shirt of rich white silk. A deformed left
ear had been pierced and decorated with a strange pendant
Christopher Marlotae (L564-1.607 )
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of silk threads. This latter feature might be explained for Marlowe but not for Shakespeare since Marlowe's father was a
shoemaker and it was a custom, at least in Canterbury for
women to wear the silk shoelaces of their affianced shoemaker's apprentice in their ears as a favor. Someone may have
objected that Shakespeare could not have looked like that and
that if the picture were used the name of the author would
have to be changed from plain William Shakespeare to William Shakespeare, gentleman.
The engraver of the Folio portrait of Shakespeare was therefore instructed to omit the above details from his engraving,
which he did. Every vestige of silk was removed and the
sleeves closed up. Having removed the deep ruff, however,
the engraver, Martin Droeshout, apparently untrained in the
proportions of the human body, in perspectivg and in the
use of light and shadow, was unable to reattach the head to
the body. The line of the shoulders gives the impression of
coming to a peak without a neck. For the ruff, following directions, Droeshout substituted a plain boardlike collar which
Shakespeare was known to wear but failed to shade it so that
with an illumination all its owrg it appears to pass completely
through the sitter's neck, the head suspended above it, as it
were, and detached from the body. In fact, all three, the head,
the collar, and the body appeared as three detached objects.
Four copies of the First Folio appeared and survive with this
first or so-called "proo{' version of the engraving. The result
was clearly unsatisfactory and the engraver was prevailed
upon to touch it up. He succeeded in attaching the collar to the
head by shading but he was at a loss to correct the shoulders.
When the Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare is compared
with the so-called Hampton Court portrait of Shakespeare
(actually a portrait of Marlowe at age 34), the points of resemblance leave little doubt that it served as Droeshout's model.
The unique points of resemblance are first, the deliberately
exposed deformed left ear which, incidentally, is also found
in the so-called Grafton and Venice portraits of Shakespeare.
The Venice portrait may have been made when Marlowe age
39, alias |ohn Mathew, returned from Spain to England posing
as a Venetian. Secondly, the style and details of the sitter's
doublet are unique and as close to being identical as one could
expect from Droeshout. The attitude of the face and the posfure are the same, the engraver being somewhat careless of
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the proportions of the body, as noted. The hair style and
length and the hairline above the forehead are also the same
but there is a difference in the beard and mustache. In Droeshout's first proof version of the engraving the eyebrows were
too faint and the face had a very faint beard and mustache
compared to the modest growth of hair in the Hampton Court
portrait. These details were also touched up by Droeshout
who slightly intensified the beard and mustache but did not
produce them to the length in the portrait. Droeshout's version of the face was now closer to the original but the expression of the face remained flat compared to the alert visage
presented by the portrait. The engraving, though it is the only
authenticated likeness of Shakespeare, is rarely displayed as
such for just these reasons. Nevertheless Ben Jonsory as ever
defensive of anything produced by himself or his friends,
made up in praise for what the engraving lacked in quality
in the following verse to the reader:
This Figure, that thou here see'st put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the'graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life.
O, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he hath hit
His face; the print would then surpass
All, that was ever writ in brass.
But since he cannof Reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book. B. I.
Jonson does not praise the quality of the picture but only
represents that the engraver after some strife had gotten
Shakespere's face perfectly. That was essential to Jonson's
purpose which was to provide posterity with unassailable
evidence that this was a true picture of Shakespeare, the author of the book, to be compared with a lifelike bust of Shakespeare, the merchant of Stratford. The invitation to view the
Stratford monument appeared in commendatory verse by Leonard Digges in the same volume, here quoted in part.
TO THE MEMORY
of the deceased author, Master
Christopher Marlowe
(1
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g
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W. Shakespeare
Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works: thy works, by which, outlive
Thy tomb thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monumenf
Here we alive shall view thee still.
Leonard Digges, who also wrote verses for an edition of
Shakespeare's poems in'J,640, went on to predict that Shakespeare would live forever in his book. But it was Ben Jonson
who surpassed himself in a brilliant poem to Shakespare in
the same First Folio as may be seen from the following excerpts.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED,
THE AUTHOR
Mr. William Shakespeare
and
what he left us.
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book, and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such,
As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.
I, therefore will begin. Soul of the Age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive stilf while thy book doth live...
I thought my judgment were of years,
I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
And tell, how far thou did'st our Lyly outshine,
For, if
Or sporting Kydd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latiru and less Greek,
From thence to honor thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring AEschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles to us...
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Triumptu my Britairy thou hast one to show,
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
avoril *hut a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
That so did take Eliza and our James!
Sweet Swan of
The above lines give the impression that Ben Jonson did
not doubt that Shakespeare was the author of the the First
Folio. Jonson clearly distinguishes him from Christopher Marlowe as a great but lesser writer. What are we then to believe
in the face of all the evidence that Marlowe is the author? For
one thing, this is the only time that Ben jonson is known to
have praised Shakespeare. Both in earlier and in later years
he rather damned him with faint praise. We may also suppose
that Jonson wrote these lines with the name Sanford in mind
and, if the name Sanford is substituted for Shakespeare, it can
be done without violence either to the sense or the meter.
Stratford is not mentioned at all though the river Avon is. But
we must remember that Hugh Sanford and Elizabeth his wife
had a house and meadow in Wilton which straddled the river
Avory while Shakespeare's house, New Place in Stratford, was
about 300 yards from another river, also named Avon. So
even in this respect the name Sanford is compatible with jonson's lines. Could it be that in calling him the sweet Swan of
Avon: "...what a sight it were to see thee in our waters yet
appeat...", ]onson remembered the sight of Shakespeare's
body disappearing into the night in the waters of the river?
In addition to the dedicatory verse the First Folio contains
two prose dedications by the actors John Heminges and
Henry Condell. But were they the authors? The first, dedicated to "The Most Noble and incomparable pair of brethrery
William Earl of Pembroke, etc., Lord Chamberlain to the
King's most Excellent Majesty, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery, etc., Gentleman of his Majesty's Bedchamber," is in the
style of Edward Blount's dedication of Marlowe's poem Hero
and Leander in 1598. Many authorities believe Blount, the publisher of the First Folio is the author. The second dedication
"To the great variety of readers,f is in the style of Ben Jonson's
Christopher Marlowe
(1
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introduction to his own play Sejanus, urging the reader to buy
for "that doth best commend a book, the stationer says."
One more dedication in the First Folio should be mentioned. It is signed by the initials t.M. which by some stretch
of imagination might be the initials of John Mathew, alias
Christopher Marlowe, and it invites speculation as to the
cause of Shakespeare's death.
We wondered, Shake-speare, that thou went'st so soon
From the World's Stage to the Grave's tiring room.
We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tells thy spectators that thou went'st but forth
To enter with applause. An actor's art
Can die and live to act a second part.
That's but an exit of mortalify;
This a re-entrance to a plaudity.
In this inoffensive tribute L M. does not call Shakespeare a
writer, instead he has allusions to acting: the stage, the tiring
room, spectators, applause, actor's att, ex7t, entrance and
plaudity. He also fails to state that his "printed worth" would
ensure his immortality, though he speaks of his mortality.
Printed worth might be taken in the sense of "printed prop€ttf", but since the original meaning of "worth" is manure
that interpretation also suggests itself. What I. M. certainly
does say is that in the First Folio Shakespeare comes back
from death to take his last bow.
The First Folio printed thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays:
sixteen comedies, ten histories and ten tragedies. In L664 the
play Pericles was added to the list in the so-called Third Folio
which, however, included six other plays which are certainly
spurious. Yet the play Pericles was registered to the publisher
of the First Folio, Edward Blount, in 1608 so that the omission
could not have been either an oversight or a problem of copyright. It is thought that the play is only partly Shakespeare's
and that there was another author. Blount may have been
aware of this and did not include it for that reason. Pericles is
only one of the problem plays in Shakespeare's canon. Clearly
the author did not have time before his death to prepare the
plays for publication and some of the plays show evidence of
corruptiory botching and the introduction of spurious matter.
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Dryden, writing tn 1763, noted that every page of the extant
editions presented some "solecism in speech or some notorious flaw in sense."
For all its flaws the First Folio justified the faith of its backers, Sidney, Blount, Jaggard, Jonson and the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. These works of Shakespeare are
acclaimed the greatest literature man has produced.