1914] on Some Portraits of Shakespeare and Burns 



35 



The two uational poets come of radically different stocks. In Fig*. 2 

 I have already contrasted Burns' skull with the Bronze Age type. If 

 the projecting occiput of the Scottish skull were pressed forwards 

 and the vault consequently raised, it would fit comfortably within 

 the outline of the Stratford bust (see Fig. 8). 



Fig. 



8. — Profile of the cranial cast of Robert Burns set within a profile of the 

 bust of Wm. Shakespeare. Both are drawn to the same scale. 



The remarkable size of Burns' skull becomes apparent when we 

 contrast it with a skull of ordinary dimensions. In Fig. an 

 instructive comparison is made, the contrasted skulls being examined 

 from behind. Burns' skull is very broad — 155*5 millimetres, as 

 contrasted with 137 millimetres— the width of the skull used for 

 comparison. Its height is less remarkable ; the vault rises 125 

 millimetres above the ear passages. In the skull used for comparison 

 the auricular height is 116 millimetres. From these dimensions, it 

 will be seen that the poet's brain was much above the average size. 

 Using the same formula as was employed in estimating the size of 

 Shakespeare's brain, we find that the capacity of Burns' skull must 



D 2 



