AN 
 
 INQUIRY 
 
 AUTHENTICITY 
 
 OF THE VARIOUS 
 
 PICTURES AND PRINTS 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKSPEARE.
 
 ■ I AH 
 
 INQUIRY 
 
 INTO THE 
 
 AUTHENTICITY 
 
 OF VARIOUS 
 
 PICTURES AND PRINTS, 
 
 WHICH, FROM THE DECEASE OF THE POET TO OUR OWN TIMES, 
 HAVE BEEN OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC 
 
 AS 
 
 PORTRAITS 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKSPEARE: 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A CAREFUL EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH 
 THEY CLAIM TO BE RECEIVED ; 
 
 IJY WHICH THE PRETENDED PORTRAITS HAVE BEEN REJECTED, 
 THE GENUINE CONFIRMED AND ESTABLISHED. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 ACCURATE AND FINISHED ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 BY THE ABLEST ARTISTS, 
 
 FROM SUCH ORIGINALS AS WERE OF INDISPUTABLE 
 AUTHORITY. 
 
 By JAMES BOADEN, Esq. 
 
 We will draw the curtain, and shew you the picture." 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTBUD FOR ROBERT TRIPHOOK, 23, OLD BOND-STREET. 
 1824. 
 
 A'^
 
 B. M'Miliau, I'rintw, 
 Bow Stmt, CovwtGwdeu. 
 
 \a 
 
 J
 
 iNTRODUCTIOlSr. 
 
 The interest excited by our greatest poet 
 extends beyond his writings. Shakspeare's com- 
 mentators have made the most skilful researches 
 to ascertain the incidents of his life. The late 
 Mr. Malone, in particular, was fortunate enough 
 to correct much error on this subject, and to 
 leave the few particulars we have of his family 
 and himself proved by documents, which will 
 hardly now be disputed. Unfortunately the 
 life of the poet by that gentleman was left un- 
 finished — he conducted him only to the period of 
 his quitting Stratford ; and the remaining sec- 
 tioHj which should have been devoted to his 
 appearance in London, is occupied by the essay 
 on the chronology of his dramas. I am little 
 disposed fo blame his editor for not giving that 
 for which he received no materials, but the many 
 conversations which I had the honour and happi- 
 ness to hold with Mr. Malone upon this subject, 
 
 B
 
 2 
 
 (some of which I see he very flatteringly remem- 
 bered) convince me that, though he left no 
 record, he had accumulated much ; and that he 
 could have proceeded to the very end of the 
 poet's existence, and have poured forth at every 
 period, abundance of new fact, or refutation of 
 long established mistake. 
 
 The commentators, while they inquired after 
 the actor and the poet, did not altogether 
 neglect his personal resemblance. But very 
 unfortunately, they conducted the latter inquiry 
 in a way little likely to lead to certainty. They 
 usually worked themselves up to the feeling of 
 partizans rather than that of inquirers, and de- 
 termined to see no marks of authenticity out of 
 the frame of their favourite portrait. But the 
 few pictures, that have any claim to be consi- 
 dered, being already of great age, and having 
 sustained much injury, it becomes a duty in the 
 poet's worshippers, to settle, if possible, the 
 person of their divinity ; and not leave posterity 
 to a wretched indecision, among hundreds of 
 copies and pretended originals, in which the 
 true pictures are debased, and the nation in-
 
 3 
 
 suited, and his admirers look in vain for any 
 traits of their great and amiable poet. 
 
 A reader who rises from the perusal of Shak- 
 speare's writings will be apt, from a fanciful 
 analogy, to invest his person with extraordinary 
 graces ; and his portrait is required to reflect all 
 the intelligence in his works. Experience of 
 nature, it is true, commands us to limit such 
 expectations ; and indeed art must disappoint 
 them even if they were just. Shakspeare has 
 himself told us, with his usual point, that "the 
 will is infinite, and the execution confined ; that 
 the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to 
 limit." 
 
 If we read over the cotemporary allusions to 
 Shakspeare (when the writers were not ob- 
 viously irritated by his success) we find the most 
 cordial assent to his g^reat and amiable charac- 
 ter. He is admirable in the quality he pro- 
 fesses ; he is the wonder of the age for his genius, 
 and THAT was not for an age, " but for all time." 
 As a man of business, he is strictly correct and 
 honourable — as a friend and fellow, as well as a 
 writer, his mind and hand go together; he is 
 B 2
 
 the gentle grace of society, and redeems the 
 profession he adorns, from the galling odium 
 which illiberal prejudice had chained about it. 
 Aubrey, on perhaps good authority, has added 
 something to these pleasing features. He tells 
 us that " he was a handsome well-shaped man, 
 very good company, and of a very ready, and 
 pleasant, and smooth wit." 
 
 Of such a man, therefore, who would not 
 wish to possess an exact resemblance ? Accu- 
 racy in such a matter is every thing. Our wish 
 must be, by the aid of picture, to enjoy him in 
 private life ; to sit with him in the same room ; 
 and, while we have before us the inspirations of 
 hia mind, to catch the characteristic look of his 
 meditation, or perhaps the smile with which he 
 brightened his familiar circle. Happily, I think 
 we do possess satisfaction of this nature. It is 
 the object of these pages to shew, that in very 
 few cases of a similar kind have we likeness 
 more strongly authenticated. Both the pencil 
 and the graver have perpetuated the features of 
 our poet. It is our duty to convey to distant 
 times the pleasure we ourselves enjoy — to relieve
 
 them, while we have the means, from the spu- 
 rious portraits ; to establish and extend the true ; 
 and thus hand down, along with works that are 
 never to die, the express image of him who 
 composed them. 
 
 Of all the follies which expensive triflers com- 
 mit among us, the cruellest is that which is 
 called illustration. The reader knows that I 
 allude to the practice of tearing the portraits 
 from the works of our great authors, to combine 
 them in some fantastic series under a particular 
 reign. The mania is inconceivably violent. 
 Let a man once begin to illustrate a chronicle, 
 a Clarendon, or a catalogue, and a fortune only 
 can purchase the bauble. I would, by some 
 rare, because pleasant, Act of Parliament, com- 
 pel these collectors, to restore such accumulated 
 plunder to the original possessors — 
 
 " So distribution should undo excess, 
 " And each book have enough." 
 
 The first authentic collection of the plays of 
 Shakspeare was printed for Messrs. Heminge 
 and Condell, by Jaggard and Blount, in the
 
 year 1623, though a copy is in existence dated 
 one year earlier; it is a medium folio, printed 
 with two columns on each page, and exhibits 
 the plays, with the simple and natural classifi- 
 cation, under the three heads of Comedies, 
 Histories, and Tragedies : meaning by the 
 middle term, such dramas as had been con- 
 structed from the materials of our English 
 chronicles. 
 
 The copies of this book, called the first folio, 
 are usually found divested of their original title ; 
 and the reason is, not that this page was more 
 liable to injury than any other, for it was suffi- 
 ciently guarded by the leaves preceding it, but 
 that it has been torn out, to afford an illustration 
 to some fanciful assemblage of English portraits. 
 The process then has been, to get the head 
 from the second, third, or fourth impressions of 
 the book, and let this into a spurious title-page 
 printed for such purposes. The original price 
 of the folio 1623 was one pound — the highest 
 price it has ever yet brought at our book-sales 
 is 107 guineas, which the late Mr. Boswell 
 paid for the copy that was Mr. Kemble's. This
 
 book, it is true, had been rendered extremely 
 beautiful, and had in its various stages cost 
 Mr. Kemble nearly three times that sum. It 
 had been purified from all stains by the usual 
 chemical process ; it had then been inlaid into 
 a royal paper, and superbly bound, at first 
 in three volumes, but finally compressed into 
 one. Thus sumptuously equipped, it was de- 
 posited in a neat case with a lock and key ; and 
 except to the truer order of bibliographical an- 
 tiquaries, remains the most precious copy of 
 that folio. The class to which I have alluded, 
 prefer it in the condition of Sir Walter Blunt, 
 perfect in its members, but "stained with the 
 variation of each soil " it may have passed over, 
 from the time it was printed, till it reaches the 
 metropolis from some manor-house in the coun- 
 try, and after being thumbed by several gene- 
 rations, at last settles, new bound, in splendid 
 repose upon the shelf of some library of ostenta- 
 tion. By this explanation, I am naturally led 
 first to consider what is called Martin Droe- 
 shout's print of Shakspeare.
 
 MARTIN DROESHOUT S 
 
 PRINT OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 In the year 1623, Heminge and Condell, 
 two friends and fellows of our poet, published 
 the first complete edition of his plays. On the 
 title-page of their folio is impressed a head of 
 Shakspeare, to which Martin Droeshout the 
 engraver has put his name. It should be 
 looked at in a clear and good impression, in 
 this genuine book ; for as the same plate was 
 used in the succeeding folios, the wear of it 
 during sixty-two years may be supposed to have 
 done injury to the skill, mean as it was, of the 
 engraver; and in also affecting the likeness, 
 time may be said to have done, however extra- 
 ordinary, a solitary injury to Shakspeare. In 
 other words, Droeshout's original copper-plate 
 is made to furnish out a portrait of the poet in 
 the edition of 1623; in that of 1632, in which
 
 10 
 
 it continued very tolerable ; and in the two 
 latter folios of 1664 and 1685, when I confess 
 it to have become, what it has frequently been 
 called, " an abominable libel upon humanity," 
 
 It will readily be granted that, as a work of 
 art, it is by no means skilful, even for that 
 time. They certainly had better artists. Seven 
 years earlier. Chapman's Homer had been pub- 
 lished, with an engraved head of that translator, 
 of the very finest character. It is too well known 
 to our collectors, to demand any particular 
 praise in this place. I can only regret, that 
 the portrait of Shakspeare was not equally for- 
 tunate. Chapman's engraver would have left 
 nothing to desire, unless indeed the Vain wish 
 that Vandyke could have painted one destined 
 to a kindred immortality. 
 
 We all know that mere likeness does not 
 rest upon excellence in art. A great painter in 
 his work has many other points that attract him. 
 He is to compose a picture. He may aim at 
 the expression of the general character, and 
 slight the detail. He may consider too atten- 
 tively grace of position, and turn out of hand
 
 11 
 
 a finished performance, which, when compared 
 with his sitter, is only the "romance of real 
 life." In nearly all families, you find some in- 
 ferior portrait which is there preferred to the 
 finer picture. The one, they will tell you, is 
 reckoned a capital performance of the great 
 master of the time, but the other is the exact 
 resemblance of their relation. In the one you 
 think of the painter, in the other of the sitter. 
 Vulgar art is fitted to satisfy vulgar taste — it 
 besides exaggerates the points in which resem- 
 blance consists. I am not saying that such 
 abortions of art should be preferred — I am only 
 shewing that likeness may be found, where 
 nothing else exists for which the picture is 
 desirable. 
 
 I feel tempted to select one striking instance 
 of the important truth above explained ; and I 
 solicit the indulgence of such as may think it 
 digression, to leave the Dutchman, for Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. The great painter of our 
 country, full of the spirit of Michael Angelo, 
 conceived and executed a sublime portrait of 
 Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse. He used
 
 12 
 
 freely the mij^hty impersonation of the prophet 
 Joel in the Capella Sistina. The subject ex- 
 cited his imagination, and inspiration informs 
 the whole of his composition. But as a likeness 
 of Mrs. Siddons, it confessedly fails. Yet I do 
 not believe that this was intended by the artist 
 — mere identity was lost in the magnificence of 
 his design ; and perhaps from the late Mr. Har- 
 low's picture of her as Queen Katherine, the 
 most correct notion may be acquired of the 
 features and expression of Siddons. When 
 Reynolds modestly inscribed his name upon the 
 hem of her garment, he bestowed greater lon- 
 gevity than he received. 
 
 " The actor only shrinks from Time's award, 
 " Feeble tradition is his memory's gpuard." 
 
 The picture will in distant times astonish those, 
 who never heard of the actress ; and one general 
 impression of unappropriated grandeur will be 
 all the result of this amazing portrait. 
 
 To return at length to Shakspeare and his 
 first engraver. The catalogues tell us that 
 Droeshout engraved, besides the head of our
 
 13 
 
 poet, portraits of John Fox, the martyrolo-* 
 gist ; Richard Elton ; John Howson, Bishop 
 of Durham ; and Lord Mountjoy Blount. That 
 he was also employed upon Haywood's Hierar- 
 chy of Angels, and executed a print of Dido 
 stabbing herself, for Stapylton's octavo Virgil. 
 
 The head of Shakspeare is confessedly infe- 
 rior to some of these works. It has been there- 
 fore supposed that he engraved after a very 
 coarse original, if indeed he did not work from 
 personal recollection, assisted by such hints as 
 might be given by those who desired this em- 
 bellishment for their book. Some ten years 
 ago I was shewn a picture, which appeared to 
 be painted by the very artist who supplied 
 Droeshout with the likeness of Shakspeare. 
 The figure is a half-length. The dress of the 
 person is like that of Shakspeare — the ruff is 
 in form the same. On the left hand, at the top 
 of the canvass, is painted anno 1602, oetat. 25. 
 On the right, in the taste of the Shepheard's 
 Calendar, is this quibbling emblem — Sperandoj 
 Jerendo, vivo, vinco. He wears moreover " a 
 seal-ring, probably of his grandfather's," the
 
 14 
 
 arras on which are plain enough for a herald to 
 interpret. Distance is nothing with such 
 painters. If their subject had a heap of coins 
 before him, you step up to the picture, as you 
 would to the table, and may peruse the evi- 
 dence of many a king's reign. Who this person 
 was I know not, but I owe him my attentions, 
 for thus shewing me the exact manner in 
 which Shakspeare was painted. Here were 
 therefore no volunteer infidelities, as Mr. Stee- 
 vens subsequently asserted, on the part of the 
 engraver — we may rest assured that the en- 
 graving was scrupulously faithful to an indif- 
 ferent original ; I mean indifferent only as to its 
 style of art ; for as to its resemblance, we may 
 be confident it was deemed perfect by those 
 who best knew the man, most regarded and 
 most regretted him. " The stage," in language 
 no less true than complimentary, " despair'd 
 day but for his volume's light." To Heminge 
 and Condell, therefore, it was essential to per- 
 petuate his countenance with his works. 
 Though his hasty but immortal compositions 
 had none of his own care, to that of his fellows
 
 15 
 
 they were every way entitled : they consti- 
 tuted the precious stock of their company — the 
 great possessors, as they were once angrily 
 called, were the true heirs of his inventions, 
 with a remainder indeed, after their right had 
 ceased, that extended to countless generations. 
 
 The complimentary verses of Ben Jonson, 
 fronting this portrait, are too important not to 
 require accurate quotation. 
 
 FROM THE FOLIO 1623. 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 This Fig-ure, that thou here seest put. 
 It was for g-entle Shakespeare cut ; 
 Wherein the Graver had a strife 
 With Nature, to out-doo the life: 
 O, could he but have drawne his wit 
 As well in brasse, as he hath hit 
 His face ; the print would then surpasse 
 All that was ever writ in brasse. 
 But, since he cannot. Reader, looke 
 Not on his Picture, but his Booke. 
 
 B.I. 
 It has been sneeringly said of them, that *' it
 
 16 
 
 is lucky these metrical commendations are not 
 required to be delivered upon oath." It has 
 been also insinuated, and by Mr. Steevens, that 
 Ben Jonson might know little about the art ; 
 care less about the resemblance; and never 
 having compared the engraving with the pic- 
 ture, have rested satisfied with the recollection 
 that the original was a faithful resemblance, and 
 that no doubt the engraver had achieved all 
 that his art could perform. Such was that 
 most ingenious gentleman's opinion in the 
 year 1794. The preceding year he believed 
 there was no picture — the succeeding year he 
 fancied himself to have discovered the absolute 
 original of Droeshout's print. He found many 
 very marked differences between this picture 
 and the print ; but he resolved to conciliate 
 them, no matter how — the engraver was faith- 
 less, and Ben Jonson indifferent. The player 
 editors, who were so deeply indebted to the 
 poet, took an abominable imitation of humanity 
 for his likeness, and were contented to exhibit 
 their hyperion as a satyr to the remotest pos- 
 terity !
 
 17 
 
 But the time is gone by, when so little regard 
 Was paid to the plain and sincere declarations 
 ofJonson. He was neither ignorant of art, nor 
 indifferent to Shakspeare; and I make not the 
 smallest doubt that to him, to Heminge and 
 to Condell, and a whole "tyring room " of ad- 
 mirers, it did appear " a strife of art with 
 nature," to outdo the life ; so perfectly did the 
 print exhibit their great and lamented friend. 
 
 And I should here feel disposed to ask a man, 
 who had really seen a good impression of this 
 print, what he finds there, to induce him so 
 easily to "hunt after new fancies?" To me 
 this portrait exhibits an aspect of calm bene- 
 volence and tender thought; great comprehen- 
 sion, and a kind of mixt feeling, as when 
 melancholy yields to the suggestions of fancy. 
 Such, I well remember, it appeared also to 
 Mr. Kemble, when some years since we exa- 
 mined this subject together*. He pronounced, 
 
 * While these sheets are passing- throug-h the press, I 
 
 am shocked and grieved with the intellig-ence, that my 
 
 excellent friend has departed this life, at an ag-e that 
 
 allowed a reasonable hope of many years of honourable 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 decidedly, that from neither picture nor prints 
 did HE derive any thing so truly characteristic 
 of Shakspeare, as he found in this despised work 
 of Droeshout. 
 
 The dress of the poet I certainly look upon to 
 be a stage habit ; and it is worth while to re- 
 mark, that the hair is strait, and not curled, as 
 it is in the bust at Stratford, and also in the 
 picture called the Chandos, now in the pos- 
 session of His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. 
 Perhaps the following conjecture may not be 
 
 retirement. At no very distant period, I hope to deliver 
 to the public a work, the object of which is to record 
 his progress in the art which he professed, and also to 
 display his personal character as it unfolded itself during- 
 an intimacy of near thirty years. Fortunately the ma- 
 terials before me are at once abundant and authentic. It 
 is my desig-n in this work to pay equal attention to the 
 splendid talents of his sister Mrs. Siddons. I cannot at 
 all hope to do justice to the one, without embracing- the 
 other in my theatrical picture ; and even then the work 
 would be imperfect, did it not notice the concurring*, 
 though not equal merits, of those who acted with these 
 great performers during their ample professional course.
 
 19 
 
 very remote from the fact: Ben Jonson, it is 
 now ascertained, wrote for the Player Editors the 
 Dedication and Preface to his works. He gave 
 his signature to the lines opposed to this por- 
 trait, as well as the splendid address to his 
 memory, then first printed. Shakspeare acted 
 in 1598 in Every Man in his Humour; and 
 the author of that play has rendered it clear, 
 that the part he played was Old Knowell. 
 Perhaps it would be difficult to exhibit any 
 thing more descriptive than this portrait, of 
 the way in which Shakspeare looked the staid, 
 sensible, feeling, and reflecting father, in his 
 young friend's drama. If Shakspeare also was 
 the happy occasion of this play's being acted by 
 the then Lord Chamberlain's servants, it is by 
 no means unlikely that Jonson commemorated 
 his recommendation and his performance, by 
 having his portrait in the character of his old 
 merchant. He might, on the publication of 
 the works of Shakspeare in 1623, allow his 
 picture to be engraved for that edition, and 
 wind up the kindness by a poetical certificate 
 of its perfect resemblance. We owe it to Mr, 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 Gifford that, at this time, a man can fearlessly 
 state any presumed evidence of friendly feeling 
 towards our bard on the part of his great com- 
 petitor; who will not pass in future as the 
 author of an " envious panegyric," w^hen he 
 salutes his memory in terms, which he only 
 knew how to combine, and which the genius 
 of Shakspeare alone could justify. 
 . The above, it may be said, is but conjecture; 
 but it is a very important one, as to the various 
 portraits of the bard ; because, if we are autho- 
 rized to regard the present as the likeness of 
 the actor in a certain character^ that circum- 
 stance will help us to account for some dif- 
 ferences, which unquestionably exist between 
 this head and other resemblances of Shakspeare, 
 which we have grounds also to consider as 
 authentic. 
 
 What may a little confirm the above notion 
 of mine, is the simple fact that, when Marshal 
 afterwards, in 1640, took this print and re- 
 duced it for the spurious edition of his poems 
 then published, he turned the poet out of the 
 stage dress lie wore in the earlier engraving,
 
 21 
 
 and invested him in a mantle and otlier habi- 
 liments, more suited to the work he was en- 
 gaged to embellish. He also surrounded the 
 head with an appropriate glory. Whether he 
 did not sink upon us, some of the expression 
 which beamed from the larger head, is a point 
 fairly submitted to judgment. The sprig of 
 laurel in his hand is a very insipid addition ; 
 unless it was intended to express the poet's 
 readiness to reward any aspiring votary of the 
 muse. 
 
 But if it be thought that this origin of the 
 print too rudely disturbs the settled prejudice 
 against Ben Jonson, and that he must be still 
 deemed not entirely cordial towards Shakspeare, 
 I then consider it not unlikely, that either of 
 his three fellows, remembered in his will, 
 Heminge, Burbage, or Condell, might have 
 had such a memorial of their friend and part- 
 ner; and used it on the present occasion, by 
 submitting it to the graver of Droeshout. 
 Theatrical men too would naturally look to 
 dramatic character ; and if it may be question- 
 able that he represents Old Knowell, it still
 
 22 
 
 may be true, that the dress he wears is theatrical, 
 and the character represented one of similar 
 qualities. 
 
 Let it be remembered in aid of this inference, 
 that tradition has invariably assigned to him, as 
 an actor, characters in the decline of life; and 
 that one of his relatives is reported to have 
 seen him in the part of Old Adam, the faithful 
 follower of Orlando, in that enchanting pastoral 
 comedy, the As You Like It. Here then it 
 may be seen, that Heminge and Condell, with 
 some reason, preferred the picture they did 
 engrave, to the more splendid portrait, which it 
 is highly probable was in the possession of Lord 
 Southampton. But I question, whether they 
 thought the use of that picture attainable by 
 them. With a disregard of the poet's original 
 devotion of his whole labours to that nobleman, 
 they had determined not to dedicate his works 
 in 1623 to Southampton ; but, with an inte- 
 rested view, to inscribe them to the Lord 
 Chamberlain, William Earl of Pembroke, and 
 his brother Philip Earl of Montgomery, Gentle- 
 man of His Majesty's Bed-chamber.
 
 23 
 
 Whether Lord Southampton expressed any 
 displeasure at this preference, we are not told ; 
 it is most probable that he felt it. He no 
 dou})t sent for their book when it appeared in 
 1623 ; revived by an eager perusal, the pleasure 
 he had taken in the original performance of 
 these dramas ; remembered the delightful and 
 grateful servant whom he had lost ; and closed 
 the volume, as to himself, for ever : — for, in the 
 following year, 1624, his military ardour led 
 him to accept a command in the Low Countries : 
 he was seized with a fever, and died at 
 Bergen-op-Zoom on the 10th of November, 
 aged 52, at which period of his life, eight years 
 before, his favourite poet had dropt into the 
 grave. ' ' 
 
 The above allusion to Shakspeare's great 
 patron will, I should hope, be scarcely deemed 
 a diofression. Thouorh their lots in life were 
 different, there was a strong sympathy which 
 united them; and this was merit of the most 
 EXALTED KIND in their respective spheres. 
 Shakspeare must have shed tears of delight, 
 when, indifferent to his own fate, Essex sup-
 
 24 
 
 plicated the favour of his judges towards his 
 unfortunate friend. Southampton had himself 
 largely contributed to the ease and comfort of 
 the poet's retirement. 
 
 I have thus completed what I have to offer 
 as to the head by Droeshout. It has a verifi- 
 cation certainly more direct, than any other. 
 Ben Jonson is express upon its likeness — Shak- 
 speare's friends and partners at the Globe, give 
 this resemblance, in preference to some others, 
 equally attainable. There can be no ground of 
 preference, but greater likeness. If they knew, 
 absolutely, of no other portrait, which I cannot 
 think, the verisimilitude of this is equally un^ 
 disturbed.
 
 THE 
 
 BUST AT STRATFORD UPON AVON. 
 
 In point of time, rather preceding Droe- 
 shout's print, is the bust on our poet's monu- 
 ment at his native Stratford. With the ac- 
 companiments to this effigy of Shakspeare 1 have 
 nothing to do. The death's head, as in this 
 case it indicates only the common dissolution 
 of the frame, is no object of terror; and the 
 two cherubs with the spade and inverted torch, 
 ooly demonstrate the ambition of the artist to 
 display the emblematic stores of his art. In the 
 bust itself we have a deep interest, because it 
 was no doubt erected at the charge of his son- 
 in-law, Dr. Hall, a learned physician ; and it 
 is to be presumed that he would take care it 
 should offer more than a general resemblance to 
 his illustrious relation. 
 
 The bust was coloured ; and though we
 
 26 
 
 should now look upon such a style of art to 
 be barbarous, there is plenty of proof that such 
 a practice was not unknown to the great sculp- 
 tors of antiquity. Tradition conveys to us the 
 knowledge, that the eyes were of a light hazel 
 colour, the hair and beard auburn. The dou- 
 blet in which he was dressed was of scarlet 
 cloth, over which was thrown a loose black 
 ffown without sleeves, such as our students of 
 law wear at dinner in the Middle Temple Hall. 
 Perhaps the scarlet might be chosen for the 
 doublet as it was the regular uniform of the 
 king's comedians, or the whole dress refer to 
 some office in the corporation of Stratford. 
 
 At what precise date the monument was 
 erected is not known — but in the year 1623 we 
 find it thus alluded to by Leonard Digges*, in 
 
 * I find in Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, that Leonard 
 Digg-es was about this time returned from his travels, 
 and a resident in University College, but writing- for the 
 booksellers. Besides his translation of Claudian's Rape 
 of Proserpine, he had published, the year preceding* the 
 appearance of the folio Shakspeare, a romance, from 
 the Spanish of Cespedes, called Gerardo, or the Unfor-
 
 2T 
 
 some verses addressed to the poet's memory, 
 among the few tributes of that sort prefixed 
 to the first folio edition of his plays. 
 
 tunate Spaniard, in two parts, quarto, 1622. His verses 
 to Shakspeare, both those quoted above, and a still 
 long"er poem, mig-ht have been composed at the request 
 of the publishers of our poet's works ; it is, however, 
 possible, that they mig"ht proceed from his genuine ad- 
 miration, and that he mig-ht have g-one from Oxford to 
 Stratford, and there have actually seen the monument to 
 which he alludes. Dig-g-es died, it seems, in 1635, so 
 that the latter poem on Shakspeare, which is prefixed to 
 the spurious edition of his poems in 1640, must have 
 been left behind among his papers in manuscript, if, as 
 I rather incline to think, it had not made its appearance 
 in some collection of verses, anterior to the poems in 1640. 
 It is, however, full of curious matter relating- to the stage 
 and the professors of the drama, and merits our atten- 
 tion, as the declaration of a learned and judicious man 
 with regard to the comparative attraction of Shakspeare. 
 According to Digges, he neither borrowed one phrase 
 from the Greeks, nor imitated the Latins ; neither trans- 
 lated from vulgar languages, nor gleaned from other 
 writers, nor solicited their contributions. He is the 
 great support of the King's Company— the poetasters of
 
 28 
 
 Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellowes g-ive 
 The world thy workes: thy workes, by which outlive 
 Thy tonibe, thy name must: when that stone is I'ent, 
 And time dissolves thy Stratford Monument, 
 Here we alive shall view thee still. This booke. 
 When brasse and marble fade, shall make thee looke 
 Fresh to all ag-es. 
 
 In the term brass, Mr. Digges might allude 
 to the engraving in the folio, certainly upon 
 
 the day are recommended to seek the Bull, or the Cock- 
 pit, or the Fortune, sure as they must be, to be con- 
 demned at the Blackfriars. Indeed Julius Caesar and 
 Othello were the great favourites of those, who would 
 not endure a line of Catiline and Sejanus ; and though 
 the Fox and Alchemist, long intermitted, could not 
 absolutely be quite banished, yet they have scarce, when 
 acted, defrayed the expence of the door-keepers and a 
 sea-coal fire — when, let but FalstafT, and Hal, and Poins, 
 or Benedick and Beatrice, or Malvolio, be announced, 
 and the Cockpit, galleries and boxes, all were filled, 
 and you could with difficulty find a room; such was 
 the popularity of our poet, during the experience of 
 Mr. Digges. — See the Poem itself: Malone's Shakspeare, 
 vol. i. p. 485, ed. 1821.
 
 29 
 
 that metal ; it is however more probable, that 
 he used the term in combination with that of 
 marble, as usually entering into the composition 
 of splendid funereal monuments in that age. 
 The effigies of the deceased were frequently 
 cast in brass, and beautifully finished by hand. 
 
 What injury the bust might have sustained 
 in the hundred years following its erection, 
 cannot be told ; but we do know, that in 1748 
 the monument was repaired, and the colours 
 faithfully restored, by Mr. John Hall, an artist 
 of Stratford. To provide a fund for this pious 
 work, Mr. John Ward, the maternal grand- 
 father of Mrs. Siddons, gave a benefit play at 
 the Town-hall on the 9th day of September, 
 1746. The play selected on this occasion was 
 Othello ; and the Rev. Joseph Greene wrote an 
 address, grounded on the famous prologue by 
 Pope to the tragedy of Cato ; which Mr. Ward 
 had the honour to deliver to an audience pro- 
 perly glorying in their townsman. 
 
 Thus then, by the good sense of a comedian, 
 was the bust revived in all its original attrac- 
 tions ; and in this state it continued till the
 
 30 
 
 year 1793; when, to gratify a perliaps purer 
 taste, the late Mr. Malone recommended the 
 figure to be painted white, as it now appears. 
 On this topic of our inquiry, we are not obliged 
 to rely on inaccurate drawings or fading 
 recollections. The taste and feeling of the 
 late Mr. George Bullock, so well known by his 
 Museum, having a few years back led him to 
 Stratford to complete a perfect fac simile of the 
 poet's person. 
 
 The vicar yielded to the entreaty of this in- 
 genious man, and the bust was once more 
 taken down for the operations of the artist. 
 As I have heard, the cast was taken from it by 
 night; and this awftd labour of love once ac- 
 complished, the figure was replaced, with a 
 security that it should never again be removed 
 from its base, until "Time itself dissolve the 
 Stratford Monument." 
 
 Let us now then examine how the poet is 
 exhibited by this venerable eflfigy, and compare 
 it with the pictures or prints, which are re- 
 ceived among us as authorities for his likeness. 
 The first remark that occurs on viewing this
 
 31 
 
 bust is, that it presents our bard in the act of 
 composition, and in his gayest mood. The 
 vis comica so brightens his countenance, that 
 it is hardly a stretch of fancy, to suppose him 
 in the actual creation of Fal staff himself. Very 
 sure I am, that the figure must long have con- 
 tinued a source of infinite delight to those, who 
 had enjoyed his convivial qualities. Among 
 this circle, it is nearly certain the artist himself 
 was to be reckoned. The performance is not 
 too good for a native sculptor. 
 
 At the time that Mr. Bullock obliged sundry 
 friends with casts from his bust, there was 
 considerable difference of opinion as to the 
 sculptor's talent. I can allow a great deal in 
 the commendations of a new acquisition. Per- 
 haps, at present, the following estimate of its 
 merits may not meet with much opposition. 
 The contour of the head is well given. The 
 lips are very carefully carved ; but the eyes 
 appear to me to be of a very poor character : 
 the curves of the lids have no grace — the eyes 
 themselves have no protecting prominences of 
 bone, and the whole of this important feature is
 
 32 
 
 tame and superllcial. The nose is thin and 
 delicate, like that of the Chandos head; but I 
 am afraid a little curtailed, to allow for an 
 enormous interval between the point of it and 
 the mouth, which is occupied by very solid 
 mustaches, curved and turned up, as objects 
 of some importance in that whiskered age. 
 Yet I must acknowledge, that the distance be- 
 tween the mouth and nose is rather greater than 
 is common, in both the folio head and the 
 Chandos picture. There was perhaps some 
 exaggeration here in the bust : viewed in front, 
 it consequently looks irregular and out of draw- 
 ing — in profile, this disparity is somewhat re- 
 covered. 
 
 From what picture it was taken, we are not 
 informed. It was not from the Chandos head — 
 the costume is totally different. It was not 
 from Droeshout's original, for the same reason ; 
 and for another, assigned in its proper place. 
 It has been suggested, that it might have had 
 the certain model of a mask taken from the face 
 of the deceased ; and on this point, our sculptors 
 express different opinions. However, with all
 
 as 
 
 abatements as to the artist's skill, who was 
 neither a Nollekens nor a Chantrey, he most 
 probably had so many means of right informa- 
 tion, worked so near the bard's time, and was 
 so conscious of the importance of his task, that 
 this must always be regarded as a pleasing and 
 faithful, if not a flattering, resemblance of the 
 great poet. 
 
 It agrees very minutely with the Chandos 
 picture. The nose, a feature liable to the least 
 change, is in both small and delicately formed, 
 and the interval to the upper lip exceeds con- 
 siderably that usually found in English heads. 
 The head in the folio concurs with both in 
 these points, and we may therefore rely with 
 entire confidence that these were in the nature. 
 We have nothing to do with the wild theories 
 of physiognomers. Had Lavaterbeen to design 
 a nose for our poet, it would probably have 
 resembled that of the rival genius of Spain, 
 Cervantes, or of Shakspeare's countryman, and 
 most probably acquaintance, George Chapman, 
 as exhibited in the engraving of William Hole. 
 Our more humble, but not less pleasing task, is 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 to ascertain the truth; and as most theories of 
 the kind alluded to may be made to bend to any 
 single and great anomaly, those who follow a 
 system, in preference to the endless diversities 
 of nature, may think their rule established even 
 by the exception. The mouth has no difference 
 in its character in the picture and the bust, 
 though the action is quite opposite. The former 
 closes and compresses the lips ; the latter opens 
 them freely, as was demanded by the thought- 
 ful gravity of the one portrait, and the amiable 
 pleasantry of the other. When Shakspeare sat 
 to the painter, his face was rather thin and 
 sharp; in his retirement he had gotten into 
 flesh; and it is possible the consequences of 
 too high health closed his existence at an age so 
 premature as 52 years — for there is every reason 
 to believe that his habits in retirement were 
 extremely convivial ; and the hilarity of a com- 
 panion unequalled for facetiousness, is the 
 expression decidedly intended by the sculptor 
 of the bust. 
 
 It is not necessary to say much on the present 
 garb of this figure ; I mean the uniform stone
 
 3o 
 
 colour bestowed upon it by Mr. Malone, It is, 
 in the first place, better suited to the sacred 
 edifice which contains it; a scarlet coat, bright 
 eyes, and rudJy cheeks, add too strongly to an 
 expression ill chosen, for one who was to sit 
 as the guardian of his own ashes. In the second 
 place, by time the monument might have exhi- 
 bited a copious variety of complexions, and 
 doublets of changeable colours. Coxcomb taste 
 would have often innovated, and insipid affecta- 
 tion might have been betrayed into a smile. 
 
 The late Mr. Hayley has given to sculpture 
 the finest, because most appropriate praise : 
 
 Thou first and simplest of the arts, that rose 
 To cheer the world, and lig-hten human woes ! 
 Friend of the mourner! Guardian of the tomb ! 
 
 ESSAY ON SCULPTURE, EPIST. 2d, 
 
 In this view, every thing that unites with 
 the material of the effigy to banish the notion of 
 vital existence and mobility, should be adopted. 
 It is the shocking mockery about it, that dis- 
 gusts us in a wax figure : smiling countenances 
 j\nd cheeks of rggy health, that remain immove- 
 
 d2
 
 36 
 
 able, are a cheat upon our senses. A statue 
 should be a personal resemblance of the being, 
 as accurate as it can be made ; with some eye 
 however to the properties of its substance; so 
 that the expression be rather sober than exhi- 
 lirant ; and the drapery rather quiet than 
 fluttering ; more ample too in its folds, than 
 the flimsy substances of dress commonly exhibit 
 them. The best notion of a figrure that is to 
 preside over a monument, may be drawn (as 
 what indeed that is excellent may not?) from 
 Milton. It is the numbing spell of the great 
 enchanter, that has taken its full effect — the 
 form of the friend we have lost is before us, 
 but a chill and deadly paleness has come upon 
 him ; — he sits, and will for ever sit, 
 
 " In stony fetters, fixt and motionless." 
 
 COMUS. 
 
 I have been the fuller upon this point, because 
 Dr. Drake, the learned and elegant author of 
 a work upon our poet and his times, seems in- 
 clined to advocate a censure upon Mr. Malone 
 for this alteration, which originated in personal
 
 37 
 
 hostility, and produced a pointless epigram or 
 two from those whose frauds he had exposed. 
 Whether a funeral monument should be in 
 colours or not, is a point of taste, and therefore 
 admits of various opinions. But the Doctor 
 has one remark on this bust, which, as it re- 
 lates to our poet's likeness, I cannot leave with- 
 out observation. He says, vol. ii. p. 623, 
 " There is a very close and remarkable simili- 
 tude between the engraving from the Felton 
 Shakspeare, and the bust at Stratford." Again, 
 a little after : " Whether we consider the ge- 
 neral contour of the head, or the particular 
 conformation of the forehead, eyes, nose, or 
 mouth, the resemblance is complete." It is 
 however but candid to add, that Dr. Drake in 
 a note informs us, that these observations rest 
 on " the fidelity of the engraving prefixed to 
 Reed's edition of Shakspeare, 1803." 
 
 Alas ! there are four engravings from this 
 picture, all unlike, more or less, to that, and to 
 each other. Mr. Gilchrist, an acute and able 
 writer also on such subjects, has remarked, 
 that " the late Mr. Steevens failed to communi-
 
 38 
 
 cate to the public his confidence in the integrity 
 of Mr. Felton's picture." What basis Mr. Gil- 
 christ may have had for this observation, will 
 be rather strikingly apparent, when the reader 
 shall have perused the very ample discussion 
 into which I shall be drawn, while examining 
 its former pretensions. In the mean time, 
 having before me a very faithful copy in oil 
 from this picture, I would refer the decision to 
 any eye, accustomed to works of art ; and am 
 confident that it must be pronounced, utterly 
 unlike the bust, in every one of these points of 
 presumed similarity.
 
 THE CHANDOS HEAD. 
 
 PAINTER'S NAME UNKNOWN. 
 
 The progress of this inquiry has now 
 brought us to the third of the received likenesges 
 of our poet, which was formerly in the posses- 
 sion of the late Duke of Chandos. It is a head, 
 painted on canvass, and seemed to Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds to have been left unfinished by the 
 artist. This is the portrait of Shakspeare, which 
 has been so frequently engraved, and to which 
 the fancy of each succeeding engraver has added 
 every conceivable variety of feature, expression, 
 and dress. 
 
 No picture within the last hundred years has 
 been more frequently copied. Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds painted one in 1760 for Bishop Newton, 
 which came into Mr. Malone's possession. A 
 very animated copy of it, I have contemplated 
 with pleasure, among the gifts of Mr. Capell,
 
 40 
 
 the editor of Shakspeare in 1768, in the emaU 
 apartment devoted to his treasures, in the li- 
 brary of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 
 There were many persons, who will not be 
 suspected of wanting the greatest admiration of 
 Sir Joshua, who never considered him to be a 
 faithful copyist. I presume this to have been 
 partly the opinion of my late friend Mr. Malone; 
 for in the year 1783, having himself then seen 
 the original picture, he procured the Duke's 
 permission to have a drawing from it, in cray- 
 ons, executed by a very clever artist, the late 
 Mr. Ozias Humphry ; and the result was a por- 
 trait exhibiting a very material difference in- 
 deed from Sir Joshua's copy in oil. 
 
 Mr. Malone has left the following in his 
 hand-writing, on the back of the drawing by 
 Humphry : 
 
 " This Drawing of Shakspeare was made in Aug-ust 
 1783, by that excellent artist, Mr. Ozias Humphry, from 
 the only original picture extant, which formerly belonged 
 to Sir William Davenant, and is now in the possession of 
 the Duke of Chandos. The painter is unknown. 
 
 " The original having been painted by a very ordinary
 
 41 
 
 hand, having* been at some subsequent period painted 
 over, and being- now in a state of decay, this copy, which 
 is a very faithful one, is in my opinion invaluable. Mr. 
 Humphry thinks that Shakspeare was about the age of 
 forty-three when this portrait was painted; which fixes 
 its probable date to the year 1607. 
 
 (Sig-ned) " Edmond Malone, 
 June 29, 1784. 
 
 " The original picture is twenty-two inches long-, and 
 eig-hteen broad." 
 
 Among various marks of Mr. Malone's kind- 
 ness, of whicli I may reasonably be proud, he 
 allowed me to have copies of both his pictures : 
 the artists who executed them for me, were 
 thoroughly aware of the duty of fidelity, and 
 they are in truth fac similes. I am therefore 
 well prepared to state the difference between 
 them, of which I have already spoken. 
 
 Sir Joshua's copy is characterized by smart- 
 ness and pleasantry; that of Mr. Humphry by 
 thoughtful gravity. As to the place and draw- 
 ing in of the features, the differences are slight, 
 but the effect is what I have described. Whether 
 Sir Joshua, perceiving the picture to be in-
 
 42 
 
 jured and become black from time, had used the 
 freedom to mix something of the expression of the 
 bust with his copy of the picture, I know not ; 
 but certainly he has given to his work a brisk 
 pertness, which is clearly not in the copy made 
 for Mr. Capell, and which I certainly do not be- 
 lieve to have ever been visible in the original. 
 
 It was about the year 1793 that I myself was 
 permitted, with a friend, to examine that vene- 
 rable portrait at Chandos House. We took with 
 us what had been termed a fine copy ; I think by 
 Ramberg ; and found it utterly unlike. Indeed 
 I never saw any thing that resembled it, until 
 my subsequent acquaintance with Mr. Malone 
 shewed me the copy by Humphry, which always 
 hung in his study, and seemed to suggest, by 
 its earnest regard, the subject of so many of 
 our conversations. 
 
 We are now called upon to examine the 
 grounds on which the present picture is to be 
 considered a genuine portrait of the bard. The 
 reader will have seen the firm expression of 
 Mr. Malone's belief. He remained to the last 
 entirely convinced of its authenticity ; and in-
 
 43 
 
 deed it is traceable from Davenant, through 
 various hands, to the possession of His Grace 
 the Duke of Buckingham, who at present num- 
 bers it among the treasures of Stowe. That it 
 should ever have been seriously questioned, 
 might excite some surprise, were it not at the 
 same time added, that the late George Steevens, 
 Esq. was the person by whom it was suspected 
 to be, but on slight grounds, received as a 
 genuine portrait of our author. The wit and 
 ingenuity of that celebrated man, tempted him 
 continually to advocate very singular opinions ; 
 and as he had great skill in the weapons of con- 
 troversy, he could make good battle always, 
 even with an indifferent cause. He undertook 
 to depreciate the present portrait. The means 
 he used were these: If there had been any 
 scandal about the possessors of this picture, 
 such demerit in the owner was made to bear 
 against the picture. Gossip rumour had given 
 out that Davenant was more than Shakspeare's 
 god-son. — What folly therefore to suppose that 
 HE should possess a genuine portrait of the 
 poet, when his lawful daughters had not one !
 
 44 
 
 Mrs. Barry was an actress of acknowledged 
 gallantry; — as she received forty guineas for 
 this picture, "something more animated than 
 canvass might have been included, though not 
 specified, in the bargain." I am afraid the 
 learned Commentator here remembered the fa- 
 mous Dol Tearsheet, another lady of acknow- 
 ledged gallantry, who exclaims to Sir John 
 Falstaff, "'Faith, and I'll canvass thee be- 
 tween a pair of sheets." If the name of one of 
 the possessors have no very sonorous dignity, 
 THAT suggests a ridicule which is immediately 
 applied. Mr. Steevens must have chuckled 
 with triumph, when he found a Keck among 
 them. But this is puny pleasantry — at last, 
 collecting the artillery of his annoyance together, 
 he devotes the whole tribe, like a true Anthro- 
 pophaginian, to become a sacrifice to his hu- 
 mour, and styles our picture the 
 
 "Davenantico-Bettertono-Barryan-Keckian- 
 Nicolsian-Chandosan," 
 
 canvass — forgetting that it could not but be 
 honourable to the parties, to possess the real, or
 
 45 
 
 even supposed likeness of the greatest of our 
 poets. 
 
 This artifice he had in truth practised in a 
 remarkable instance before, on a different oc- 
 casion. Finding it for his purpose to exhibit 
 the text of the first folio of our author, as of 
 questionable accuracy, he thus expresses him- 
 self in the matchless pleasantry of his advertise- 
 ment to the edition of our author's plays pub- 
 lished in 1793: 
 
 " We have sometimes followed the sug'g-estions of a 
 Warburton, a Johnson, a Farmer, or a Tyrwhitt, in pre- 
 ference to the decisions of a Heminge or a Condell, not- 
 withstanding- their choice of readings might have been 
 influenced by associates whose high-sounding names 
 cannot fail to enforce respect, viz. William Ostler, John 
 Shanke, William Sly, and Thomas Poope." 
 
 The reader sees that this weighty criticism 
 has no more solid base to support it, than that 
 he finds these vulgar names in the folio, among 
 the list of the actors who performed in our author's 
 plays. 
 
 Mr. Steevens knew, few men so well, that 
 after the fire of 1613 had probably destroyed 
 
 y
 
 46 
 
 some of the manuscript plays of Shakspeare, 
 along with the Globe theatre, for which they 
 were written, Messrs. Heminge and Condell had 
 published them according to the copies in their 
 possession at their house in the Blackfriars; 
 which they believed to be (bating a few cur- 
 tailments which he might have made or allowed) 
 absolute in their numbers as he conceived them. 
 Mr. Steevens knew, that there was no choice of 
 readings to be influenced by the humble men, 
 whose sounding names " could not it seems fail 
 to enforce respect;" and whom this Editor of 
 Shakspeare devotes to ridicule ; though the mere 
 circumstance of having acted in his plays, 
 ought to have secured for them the unforced 
 respect of every ratio lal admirer of the poet. 
 But this man of wit might have recollected who 
 said of Joshua Barnes, " that he had less Greek 
 than an Athenian cobler;" and whatever were 
 the names of these poor men, they could pro- 
 bably, ALL, have explained allusions, dark even 
 to his own extensive knowledge of English 
 manners; and as to the language of their day, 
 they might have contemptuously smiled at the
 
 47 
 
 extravagant coajectures of the modern sages, 
 whom he so awfully enumerates. 
 
 Such tricks as these have not entirely discre- 
 dited his labours ; but they have naturally 
 enough secured for him the title of the Puck 
 of Commentators. 
 
 All this might have passed, and been perhaps 
 the reigning opinion, but for one unlucky dis- 
 covery, on which the reader will allow me to 
 dwell at some length. Our admirable poet, 
 Dryden, was known to have received a portrait 
 of Shakspeare, as a present from Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller, whom he repaid by a copy of verses 
 written certainly between the years 1683 and 
 1692. From what picture Kneller copied, was 
 not known. But at length Mr. Malone, when 
 occupied on the Life of Dryden, discovered that 
 he copied the head now called the Chandos> 
 and that his work was in the possession of Earl 
 Fitzwilliam at Wentworth Castle. Now Dry- 
 den had seen the original for years together, at 
 the residences of either Davenant or Betterton, 
 or both. He had no doubt often conversed 
 with them as to its authenticity ; and the ac-
 
 48 
 
 count he received, made him earnestly wish to 
 possess a fac simile of the portrait. His friend, 
 Sir Godfrey, therefore, could not have bestowed 
 upon him a gift more valuable. But a few lines 
 from his verses to the painter, best express his 
 delight : 
 
 Shakspeare, thy g-ift, I place before my sight ; 
 With awe I ask his blessing- ere I write ; 
 With reverence look on his majestic face. 
 Proud to be less, but of his g-odlike race. 
 
 Here then we at once step back to the 17th 
 century, instead of being obliged to consider 
 the picture as one that excited no notice till the 
 early part of the 18th. We may be clear also, 
 that Dryden considered himself to be in posses- 
 sion of an unquestionable likeness of Shakspeare. 
 The story of it, therefore, has all the confirma- 
 tion that Dryden's belief could bestow ; and he 
 would not have allowed Kneller, when he de- 
 signed an obligation, to waste his skill in copy- 
 ing any picture, which, being doubtful, would 
 want to him the only value that could be in a 
 copy.
 
 The history of it, rendered tlius credible, 
 follows: It was very probably painted by Bur- 
 bage, the great tragedian, who is known to 
 have handled the pencil. It is said to have 
 been the property of Joseph Taylor, our poet's 
 Hamlet, who dying about the year 1653, at 
 the advanced age of 70, left this picture by will 
 to Davenant. At the death of Davenant, in 
 1663, it was bought by Betterton the actor ; and 
 when he died, Mr. Robert Keck, of the Inner 
 Temple, gave Mrs. Barry the actress 40 guineas 
 for it. From Mr. Keck it passed to Mr. Nicoll 
 of Southo^ate, whose onlv daughter married the 
 Marquis of Caernarvon. 
 
 So much for the transmission of the picture, 
 which is painted on canvass ; and a man must 
 be little conversant with the portraits of 1607, 
 to start an objection, because it was not painted 
 upon wood. I know very well, that some of 
 the smooth painters, about this time, and long 
 after, preferred pannel. for subjects that were 
 to be very highly finished, and seen near. The 
 wood allowed of a thinner and more transparent 
 system. You frequently, in these pictures, see
 
 50 
 
 the absolute grain of tlie wood through a tinted 
 gelatinous substance, merely vehicle, but amaz- 
 ingly brilliant. The absorbent ground of the 
 canvass took the oil entirely from the surface, 
 and left their colours heavy and opaque. Here 
 therefore they were compelled to use great body 
 of colour, and to paint with deeper shadows. 
 The pannel pictures generally have the features 
 little relieved by shadow. To end the question 
 in a word, our palaces and ancient country 
 seats are crowded with portraits painted upon 
 canvass, about this period. 
 
 The earliest engraving from this picture, of 
 decided excellence, is one by Duchange, from 
 a drawing by B. Arlaud. The latter was, I 
 imagine, the son of Jaques Antoine Arlaud, a 
 delightful artist, who came over to this country 
 in J 721, aged 53, and might therefore have a 
 son, who with his name could bring to any 
 work much of his talent. The father was an 
 enthusiast in his art, and I should consider his 
 son to have had a kindred impulse, when he 
 made his drawing from the picture, then in 
 Mr. Keek's possession, in the year 1725. But
 
 51 
 
 finding the original not painted by a great artist, 
 and looking upon himself as perhaps most 
 faithful to the poet when he departed from the 
 painter's drawing, he has considerably altered 
 the features, but preserved the expression of the 
 countenance, with perhaps some heightening. 
 As to the dress, he has considered himself per- 
 fectly at liberty. Instead of the original doub- 
 let, he has exhibited the poet in a slight summer 
 waistcoat, open to the seventh button ; and 
 thrown negligently about his shoulders a sort of 
 camblet cloak with a lining of a lighter colour, 
 and, as it seems to me, of a different material. 
 But the expression of his head atones for all; 
 it is giving to genius a local habitation and a 
 name. Duchange engraved it extremely well 
 in the line manner, and it is, in my judgment, 
 by far the best engraving hitherto from the 
 picture. He reverses the head, as all the en- 
 gravers did, even as low down as Houbraken 
 in 1747; but he has not troubled us with any 
 emblematical additions, in the style of the 
 illustrious heads ; there are neither daggers and 
 masks, nor everlasting oil, nor eagles full- 
 
 e2
 
 52 
 
 summed, nor crowns of laurel or of bays ; but 
 upon a sarcophagus, which on the corners of 
 its slab bears the names in small of the two 
 artists, w^e read, in the fine hand-writing of 
 that period, the expressive and yet simple in- 
 scription — " Mr. William Shakespeare." 
 
 As every thing that relates to Shakspeare is 
 interesting, the reader may desire to hear some- 
 thing about the engraver of his portrait. Gasper 
 Duchange was a native of France, and a mem- 
 ber of the Royal Academy of Arts at Paris. 
 He was a contemporary of the celebrated John 
 Audran, and received his academic honours in 
 the very year that the latter was appointed 
 engraver to the King of France. Mr. Strutt 
 thinks that he was rather a neater engraver 
 than his competitor, and that the etching is not 
 so predominant. As I cannot learn that Du- 
 change was ever in this country, there is this 
 circumstance singular in his print, that Arlaud's 
 drawing was sent over to Paris; and thus the 
 best engraving of the great poet of England was 
 executed in France. 
 
 Mr. Theobald, with his usual good sense,
 
 53 
 
 gave this print as the sole embellishmejit of 
 his octavo edition of our poet's works in 1733: 
 if indeed the list of his subscribers, adorned 
 with all the rank and talent of the country, be 
 not deemed itself a curious and refined embel- 
 lishment. 
 
 There are still a few circumstances relating 
 to the picture, of which some notice should be 
 taken in this examination. There is it seems a 
 tradition, that no original painting of Shak- 
 speare existing, Sir Thomas Clarges caused a 
 portrait to be painted from a young man, who 
 had the good fortune to resemble him. Mr. 
 Malone found this tale to exist upon the asser- 
 tion of a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine 
 for August 1759 ; he observes, that this gentle- 
 man never produced his authority for pronouncing 
 this to be an absolute fact, though repeatedly 
 called upon to do so. StilL however, he has 
 himself told us, that most reports of this kind 
 are an adumbration of some fact ; an indication 
 of something in kind or degree similar or ana- 
 loo^ous. 
 
 Perhaps the truth may be, that the anecdote
 
 54 
 
 is not entirely groundless. Sir Thomas Clarges 
 might wish himself to possess a picture of Shak- 
 speare ; and not being able to discover one, 
 resort to the contrivance mentioned above, 
 placing the folio print, and the living likeness, 
 together before the artist — for it should be re- 
 marked, that no tradition mentions Sir Thomas 
 as having been one of the possessors of the 
 Chandos head. That the writer in the maga- 
 zine never replied to the queries which were 
 put to him, is by no means conclusive, or 
 even presumptive evidence of imposition; and 
 I think Mr. Mai one was too hasty in this 
 inference. The writer of the anecdote might 
 never see the queries. It does not necessarily 
 follow that he took in the magazine. I am 
 quite sure that many curious facts are sent to 
 such repositories, by persons who do not con- 
 stantly read the miscellanies in question. Is it 
 a probable thing, that the writer of the article 
 should invent a story, consistent enough in its 
 data, embracing the name of him who ordered 
 the picture, the manner of its production also, 
 (so likely a report), and this too for no object
 
 65 
 
 but mischief? I therefore, at all events, more 
 charitably conceive, that the tradition had 
 fairly reached him ; that he gave it, as he re- 
 ceived it, to the respectable periodical work of 
 the time; and perhaps at most looked to see 
 that his communication was correctly printed. 
 
 The writer of our anecdote added, that Cor- 
 nelius Jansen was the artist who painted this 
 picture for Sir Thomas Clarges. But as there 
 is abundant proof that Jansen painted the poet 
 in his life-time, we arrive at the certainty of 
 one mistake in the tradition. To which may 
 be added, that the Chandos canvass has not 
 the smallest look of Jansen's manner. He in 
 general painted his heads upon board, and in 
 truth, was an artist only inferior to Vandyke: 
 whereas the reader will have found the Chandos 
 picture to have been painted by an ordinary 
 hand, but to possess unquestioned resemblance 
 to the poet, and to have been very carefully 
 transmitted through the hands of authenticated 
 possessors. 
 
 Davenant, as we learn from his biographers, 
 was born in the year 1606; Shakspcare died when
 
 56 
 
 this his god-son was ten years old. The boy, as 
 we are told, was fond of running out to meet 
 him, when he passed through Oxford. There 
 is therefore a high probability that he remem- 
 bered his person, and was sure of the verisimili- 
 tude of Taylor's picture. He would no doubt 
 frequently express this to both Betterton and 
 Dryden. Betterton accordingly bought the ori- 
 ginal, and Dryden was made happy by Kneller's 
 copy from it. I regret, not for Kneller's sake 
 but ours, that Dryden did not let out more of 
 his mighty spirit, in the verses by which he 
 repaid the painter's kindness. He might have 
 rendered them the vehicle of a discriminated 
 character of Shakspeare, such as should rival 
 that written by himself in such admirable prose ; 
 but I gave, above, all that was of real moment. 
 The other passages are a common-place of pane- 
 gyric, such as he might know Kneller's out- 
 rageous vanity demanded; which no painter 
 ever yet merited ; and which, notwithstanding, 
 the fashionable artist of every age has certainly 
 received. It is amusing moreover to see him 
 cramming upon Kneller, the very drug with
 
 57 
 
 which Ben Jonson had so long before choked 
 the Dutchman Droeshout. Even the rhymes are 
 the same: 
 
 JONSON. 
 Wherein the Graver had a strife 
 With Nature, to outdo the life. 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 Such are thy pieces, imitating- life 
 So near, they almost conquer in the strife.* 
 
 Poetry indeed hardly ever speaks of painting 
 with any exactness of commendation. When, 
 as before quoted, Dryden writes of the ^^ majestic 
 face" of Shakspeare, unquestionably he says of 
 it what the picture, in any usual sense of the 
 word, does not exhibit. When applied to 
 either man or woman, or to lower ranks of 
 
 * Gravity itself must relax into a smile, to find our 
 poet even preceding- Jonson in this allusion: he had 
 published the following couplet in the year 1593 : 
 
 *♦ Look, when a painter would surpass the life, 
 ** His art's with Nature's workmanship at strife." 
 
 VENUS AND ADONIS,
 
 58 
 
 animal nature, majesty always implies an as- 
 pect of command, a visible feeling of superiority. 
 There is nothing of this in the picture. 
 
 But althouD-h it is too characteristic of our 
 poet's amiable and modest nature, to be what 
 Dryden terms majestic, it is nevertheless in- 
 teresting in no common degree, and will be 
 always, I think, the favourite exhibition of Shak- 
 speare. The eyes have great expression, and the 
 compression of the lips indicates the earnest 
 employment of the mind — it is a rare combina- 
 tion of penetration and placid composure. The 
 original picture has become so dark from age, as 
 to have deepened the expression of gravity into 
 sternness ; this may be apparent to those who 
 have been indulged with an impression of the 
 private plate, which has been engraven at the 
 command of the noble possessor of the picture. 
 I therefore, in opposition to Mr. Boswell, strictly 
 adhere to Mr. Humphry's drawing in 1783. 
 Forty years make great changes in a picture, 
 left originally unfinished, of which much of the 
 surface has been cleaned away, and which in 
 its " nighted colour," is certainly but the ghost
 
 59 
 
 of what it once had been. In Mr. Malone's 
 opinion, the drawing of Mr. Ozias Humphry is 
 invaluable. I have fortunately the means of 
 perpetuating the view taken by that artist of 
 this venerable portrait. As not the slightest 
 indication of the dress remains, I cannot counte- 
 nance another invention, in addition to the 
 liberties taken already by the various copyists 
 and engravers. The countenance is clearly 
 made out by the artist, and that is all that we 
 can really ascertain. It was to terminate all 
 delusion upon this subject, that the present 
 work was undertaken.
 
 THE 
 
 PORTRAIT BY ZUCCHERO. 
 
 About the time that I first inspected the 
 Chandos head, or not long after, my old friend 
 Sir William Beechey mentioned to me, that 
 Mr. Cosway had what he termed an original 
 picture by Zucchero, of the poet, and that I 
 had better look at it. Accordingly, soon after, 
 we went to Mr. Cosway's together, and finding 
 him at home, we had the picture taken down ; 
 and those excellent artists agreed, that it was 
 unquestionably a head by Zucchero. It was 
 painted upon pannel, and on the back we read 
 the poet's name, Guglielm: Shakspeare. 
 
 The picture exhibited a youthful poet, leaning 
 with his face upon the right hand ; the head 
 stooped forward, in earnest meditation, with 
 the evidences of composition lying before him. 
 A very coarse mezzotinto from it may still be 
 found among the dealers, which gives but an
 
 61 
 
 imperfect likeness, inasmuch as most of the 
 beauty, and much of the sentiment, are missed 
 by the engraver. Indeed the print is as rude 
 as the picture was delicate and refined. Decent 
 pains were wanting in the very setting out of 
 this print; for the artist, I remember, was bar- 
 barously written down Zucro. 
 
 The age of the person whom Zucchero thus 
 painted, must have been verging upon 30, be- 
 cause the beard is full, dark, and luxuriant; 
 the hair black ; the eyes bright, and full of 
 intelligence. But unfortunately, Zucchero never 
 could have painted Shakspeare. Having ex- 
 hibited some of the pope's officers, with ass's 
 ears, over the gate of the church of St. Luke, 
 the patron of painters, he was compelled to fly 
 to preserve his own : — he went first to Flanders, 
 and in 1574 came to England, where he painted 
 Queen Elizabeth twice, and also Queen Mary 
 of Scotland ; who, for some time after, might 
 be said to be rather rusticated than confined, 
 and in 1583 was very near obtaining her liberty 
 altogether. 
 
 His stay in this country was certainly not
 
 62 
 
 long ; probably five or six years at most. If he 
 left us in 1580, Shakspeare was then only 16 
 years old, and at his native Stratford, paying 
 his court to fair Mistresse Anne Hathaway, 
 and indubitably undistinguished by dramatic 
 talent; though he might have even then culti- 
 vated the Muses, and framed perhaps some of 
 the Sonnets, which he wrote upon the subject 
 of Venus and Adonis, before he fixed on the 
 stanza, in which he finally composed that ela- 
 borate, and, in many respects, most beautiful 
 poem. 
 
 It is said of Zucchero, that he was offended 
 at our religion. There were plenty of Catholics, 
 both open and concealed, to preserve him from 
 the imputation of singularity ; and the great 
 number of our nobility and gentry, who em- 
 ployed him, may shew, that our religion by no 
 means protested against the hand which be- 
 stowed the graces of art. He quitted us, how- 
 ever, before the atrocious murder of Queen 
 Mary violated something more sacred than the 
 prejudice of a zealous Catholic, by outraging 
 the common feelings of humanity.
 
 63 
 
 About a year before Mr. Cos way died, I 
 called upon him, to inspect the picture care- 
 fully again, that I might not be compelled to 
 rely upon an impression made five and twenty 
 years ago. He told me, upon my pointing to 
 its old position in his sitting-room, that he had 
 lent it to a very amiable friend of his, a female 
 artist, who had requested leave to copy it. 
 While we conversed upon other topics, he sent 
 his servant to that lady, with a desire that she 
 would indulge him with it for a few minutes. 
 He was greatly surprised to find that the fair 
 artist had returned it to him a considerable 
 time since ; but it had not been replaced in his 
 parlour, and he in vain tried to conjecture what 
 had become of it. 
 
 This portrait was an oval, life size, most 
 delicately painted, with something peculiar in 
 the oblique, or cat-like position of the eyes. 
 I may add, that it had not the slightest resem- 
 blance to the traditional complexion, and esta- 
 blished features of the great poet of England, 
 Of Torquato Tasso, indeed, it bears more than 
 a slight look ; and struck an accomplished friend
 
 64 
 
 of mine, as indicating all the mingled charac- 
 teristics of genius and passion, that denoted the 
 mighty author of the Gerusalemme Liberata. I 
 feel no difficulty in declaring it to be an Italian 
 portrait ; and it might indeed have been painted 
 for himself or his brother Taddeo: — nor are 
 the indications of poetical composition in this 
 picture at all adverse to such a supposition, 
 for Federigo certainly wrote and published 
 verses: most of the painters of Italy combined 
 very different powers together; were at the 
 same time poets, painters, architects, and mu- 
 sicians; and they shewed that, as the fine 
 arts might be reduced to one common principle, 
 so they might all center in some highly-gifted 
 individuals. The reader, on the subject of this 
 common principle among the elegant arts, may 
 thank me for referring him to the Abbe Bat- 
 teaux's treatise, Les beaux Arts reduits a un 
 meme principe. 
 
 The only point of relation between Zucchero 
 and Shakspeare is, that they both died in the 
 same year, 1616. 
 
 It is proper for me to remark upon the facility
 
 65 
 
 '^'ith which persons inscribe names or dates, or 
 both, upon portraits of unquestionable antiquity. 
 Here we find the name of Shakspeare curiously 
 imprest upon the pannel. But there is some- 
 thing base beyond common crime, in thus 
 catching a sordid profit from the generous en- 
 thusiasm that leads men to honour the mighty 
 dead — 
 
 " And out of their own virtues make the net, 
 " That shall enmesh them all." 
 
 OTHELLO.
 
 SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 BY CORNELIUS JANSEN. 
 
 ANNO 1610, jETAT. 46. 
 
 In the year 1770, the play of King Lear 
 was published by White, in Fleet-street, as a 
 specimen of what the Editor intended with 
 respect to the whole of Shakspeare's works. 
 The plan was exceedingly judicious, and dif- 
 fered from that of Mr. Capell only, by making 
 the collations of the various copies accompany 
 the poet's text, instead of assembling them in 
 volumes of another size, and to be published at 
 a distant time*. 
 
 * To shew how a necessary task may be ridiculed, and 
 what a test of truth this precious ridicule is likely to be, 
 we may instance the treatment of Mr. Jennens. This 
 laborious g-entleman used to spread the various copies, 
 ancient and modern, of our poet's works, in a rather
 
 67 
 
 To the above play of King Lear was prefixed 
 a very delicate mezzotiiito by R. Earlom, from 
 the original portrait of Shakspeare in the pos- 
 session of Charles Jennens, Esq. ofGopsal, in 
 Leicestershire, the ostensible patron, but real 
 editor of the work. That gentleman was firmly 
 convinced of its authenticity. What communi- 
 cation Mr. Jennens made upon the subject of 
 this picture to the critics of his time, I cannot 
 discover: under his print from it, he merely 
 states, that it was painted by Cornelius Jansen, 
 of which indeed even the print exhibited suf- 
 ficient evidence. The late Mr. Steevens, speak- 
 ing of the fortunate possessor of this picture, 
 says, that he " was not disposed to forgive the 
 writer who observed that, being dated in IGlO, 
 it could not have been the work of an artist who 
 
 distant series, and pass himself rapidly from one end of 
 his collection to the other and back again, line by line. 
 Mr. Steevens, I suppose, must have seen him at this 
 brisk collation, for he fastened upon his rival the title of 
 the shuttle-cock Commentator. 
 
 f2
 
 G8 
 
 never saw England till 1618, above a j^ear 
 after our author's death." There were other 
 inferences which he might leave Mr. Jennens 
 to draw — such as this, that if, however, he 
 could be certain of his painter, that certainty 
 was decisive against his poet— or this other, 
 that if still he deemed the head a Shakspeare, 
 Jansen could merely have copied it from some 
 other picture. 
 
 Mr. Steevens was unfortunately a person, who 
 took a very marked delight in ruffling the com- 
 placency of others. Finding in Walpole's 
 Anecdotes of Painting, vol, ii. page 8, the 
 words — " Jansen's first works in England are 
 dated about 1618" (in which, as will be after- 
 wards shewn, Walpole was certainly wrong), he 
 at once assumes the year 1618 to be the date 
 of the painter's arrival in this country, and 
 throws it at the picture in Jennens's possession, 
 to blot out the characteristic proofs of its au- 
 thenticity. However, be it observed, that, having 
 been born in the year 1564, in 1610 our great 
 poet was certainly 46, as this picture expresses 
 him ; and further, that in a slight, but neat
 
 69 
 
 scroll over the head, there are tlie two words 
 UT. MAGUS, wliich very personally indeed 
 apply to Shakspearc. The two words are ex- 
 tracted from the famous Epistle of Horace to 
 Augustus, the First of the Second Book ; the 
 particular passage this : 
 
 llle per extent umfunem mihi posse vidctur 
 
 Ire poeta ; ineum qui pectus inaniter angit, 
 
 Iiritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, 
 
 Ut Magus ; et modo me Tliebis, modo ponit Athcnis, 
 
 No man ever took this "extended range" 
 more securely than Shakspeare; no man ever 
 possessed so ample a controul over the passions; 
 and he transported his hearers, as a magician, 
 over lands and seas, from one kingdom to 
 another, superior to all circumscription or con- 
 fine. Tiiis always was deemed the peculiar 
 characteristic of Shakspeare ; and great as the 
 merits of his contemporaries unquestionably 
 were, had Ben Joiison been to apply this 
 passage of his beloved Horace to some poet 
 of the reign of King Jamc^, he would assur-
 
 70 
 
 ediy, have written the two words In question 
 over the portrait of Shakspeare. 
 
 When Mr. Steevens assumed the year 1618 
 to be that of Jansen's arrival in England, he 
 could not but know that Walpole's book itself 
 exhibited a doubt Wi(ew he arrived. "Accord- 
 ing to Sandrart, he was born in London*, of 
 Flemisii parents ; but Vertue, and the author 
 
 *232. Cornelius Jansonius Londinensis. 
 
 Belg-is propterea annumerari potest, quia Parentes 
 ejus in Belg-ico Hispanico nati fuerant, et ob tumultus 
 saltern bellicos Londinum concesserant, ubi hunc deinde 
 genu6re filium. Hie cum ad artem pictoriam sese appli- 
 cuisset, iconibus potissimum conficiendis operam dedit; 
 unde in servitia Caroli Stuarti Regis Angliae assumtus, 
 Reg-is atquc Reg-inse, totiusque aulse elegantes elabora- 
 bat effigies. Ortis autem inter Regem hunc atque Parla- 
 mentum dissidiis, adeoque in turbas hasce involuta tota 
 Anglia, Jansonius noster una fere cum omnibus celebri 
 oribus artificibus aliis ex Anglia discedebat, translate in 
 Hollandiam turn temporis omni felicitatis genere affluen- 
 tem, domicilio: ibidemque postquam icones confecisset 
 egregias plurimas, landem anno 1665. Amstelodami ex 
 hac miseriarum valle emigravit. — Sandrart. Acadcmiso 
 Picturse Nobilis. Caput xx. p.3M.
 
 71 
 
 of an e«say towards an English school, say it 
 was at Amsterdam, where, the latter asserts, 
 that he resided long ; the former, that he came 
 over young. ^^ Mr. Vertue also pronounced his 
 earliest performances to be his best. It is ex- 
 tremely probable that Sandrart was right in his 
 assertion, and that Jansen, born among us, 
 started as a painter in London ; but, however 
 this may be, if he came over to us, he came 
 over young, for Mr. Malone thus notices the 
 old mistake respecting his arrival : 
 
 " Mr.Walpole has stated that Jansen came into England 
 about the year 1618, (the reader has seen what Mr. Wal- 
 pole really did state) ; but this is a mistake ; for I have 
 a portrait painted by him, dated 1611, which had be- 
 long-ed for more than a century to a family that lived at 
 Chelsea." — Life of Shakspeare, edition 1821, vol. ii. 
 p. 129. 
 
 Here we certainly see him in the practice of his 
 art among us seven years before the assigned 
 date of his arrival ; and we are carried one 
 year farther back by the picture under exami- 
 nation, which has an English character at all 
 events, if it should be contested that it was the
 
 72 
 
 cliaracter of Shakspeare. However, now the 
 objection is removed, that it could be painted 
 by Jansen, I believe on the matter of most 
 moment it will speak for itself. Nothing can 
 more distinctly embody our conceptions of 
 Shakspeare. It is extremely handsome; the 
 forehead elevated and ample; the eyes clear, 
 mild, and benignant; the nose well formed; 
 the mouth closed, the lips slightly compressed ; 
 the hair receding from the forehead, as of one 
 who would become bald ; the beard gracefully 
 disposed, and a very neat laced collar thrown 
 over a dress such as the poet, from his circum- 
 stances, his character, and his connexions, 
 might be supposed to wear. Indeed at this 
 period the players in general were censured for 
 being splendidly drest in silks and satins. 
 There was doubtless no exceeding on the part 
 of Shakspeare ; — he who shews himself in the 
 Sonnets, to have enjoyed the familiar inter- 
 course of Lord Southampton*, would certainly 
 
 * In opposition to the late Editor, I consider the 
 greater number of these short poems to be addressed to
 
 73 
 
 jsit for his portrait in a costume at once simple 
 and eleojant. 
 
 It is not a little curious, that we should 
 possess undoubted proof that Cornelius Jansen 
 was the painter employed by the great patron 
 of Shakspeare. "AtSherburn Castle, in Dor- 
 setshire (says Walpole), is a head of Elizabeth 
 Wriothesley, eldest daughter of Henry Earl of 
 Southampton, and wife of William Lord Spenser ; 
 
 his patron, and that they refer to many interesting- cir- 
 cumstances in his professional life. The Sonnet I now 
 allude to is the 57th. 
 
 Being your slave, what should I do but tend 
 Upon the hours and times of your desire ? 
 I have no precious time at all to spend, 
 Nor services to do, till you require. 
 Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour. 
 Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you. 
 Nor think the bitterness of absence sour. 
 When you have bid your servant once adieu ; 
 Nor dare I question with my jealous thought, 
 Where you may be, or your affairs suppose ; 
 But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought. 
 Save, where you arc, how happy you make those.
 
 74 
 
 her head richly dressed, and a picture in a blue 
 enamelled case at her breast. This picture is 
 well coloured, though not equal to another at 
 the same seat, a half length of her mother, 
 Elizabeth, daughter of John Vernon, wife of 
 Earl Henry. Her clothes are magnificent, and 
 the attire of her head sino-ular — a veil turned 
 quite back. The face and hands are coloured 
 with incomparable lustre, and equal to any 
 thing this master executed." 
 
 With this absolute certainty as to Jansen's 
 being Southampton's painter, I might assume, 
 that it is highly probable he would have em- 
 ployed him to delineate his favourite poet : that 
 this is the picture so painted for that magni- 
 ficent nobleman ; and that it once hung among 
 the illustrious members of his family, in one of 
 his splendid residences, Tichfield, or Beau- 
 lieu, a shining proof of his own genius, taste, 
 and liberality. 1 am unable indeed to prove 
 the transmission of this lovely portrait from the 
 seat of the great Earl to the mansion of the 
 Commentator on Shakspeare. It may, how- 
 ever, have been a part of that collection once
 
 75 
 
 divided between the Dukes of Portland and 
 Beaufort, by one of whom it might have been 
 presented to Mr. Jennens. When he publislied 
 from his picture so beautiful an engraving as 
 that by Earlom, it is greatly to be regretted 
 that he was not more communicative. I can 
 only express my conviction, that it is a picture 
 of the poet; and in my judgment, fully to be 
 relied on. 
 
 I hope that Mr. Jennens did not allow his 
 faith to be shaken in respect of the fine portrait 
 he possessed. Mr. Steevens, in his turn, made 
 his election of a picture, which he considered 
 to be the original of Droeshout's engraving. 
 Could Mr. Jennens have perused the laboured 
 essay in which he endeavoured to impress con- 
 viction, in spite of the very refutation he at the 
 same time produced, he might have said, "here 
 is started among us a new species of advocate; 
 one who demonstrates, that the whole evidence 
 of the case is against his cause ; and that he 
 expects a verdict, from the jury's forgetting all 
 the statement he has made, and listening only 
 to the expression of his wishes at the close of it."
 
 76 
 
 But Mr. Jennens might have requested any 
 persons, wlioni his witty assailant had led to 
 smile at his pretensions, to compare his picture 
 in some important traits with the bust at Strat- 
 ford. He would point to the identity of the 
 forehead, and the placid unbroken sweep of 
 the eye-brows. He would shew that the gene- 
 ral contour is the same — he would notice that 
 the expression is different, only because the 
 painter had the surer taste : — he closed those 
 lips that the sculptor opened. The latter aimed 
 at a particular and casual expression of hilarity ; 
 the former exhibited the general expression of 
 his countenance and his mind. A marked 
 difference to be sure remained in the style of 
 the beard and the mustaches ; in the picture, 
 both are waving and artless; in the monument, 
 the one turns up with a Bobadilian fierceness, 
 and the other, like the fashion of Southampton's 
 beard, courts the form of the dagger, or rather 
 of the spade. The print of Droeshout, differ- 
 ing from both in these particulars, exhibits our 
 poet with a beard clipped close to the chin ; a 
 mode that, while he was an actor, he probably
 
 77 
 
 preferred : the chin, unencumbereLl by its native 
 growth, left the player at liberty to discharge his 
 part, as Bottom has it, " in either your straw- 
 colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your 
 purple-in-grain beard, or your French crown- 
 coloured beard ; your perfect yellow," 
 
 With respect to the picture by Jansen, one 
 point is clear enough — Mr. Jennens seems to 
 have acquired it after the year 1761. This is 
 ascertained by a reference to the very exact 
 catalogue of his pictures at the house in Great 
 Ormond Street, which may be found in a work 
 of the period, called London and its Environs. 
 There we find only Vandergucht's drawing in 
 crayons from the Chandos picture. But in 
 1770, he published, as has been stated, Mr. 
 Earlom's beautiful engraving from his new 
 acquisition. In the regular course of business, 
 the picture, after Earlom had done with it, 
 should have gone to the magnificent residence 
 he had built at Gopsal in Leicestershire, to 
 take the honourable position that had no doubt 
 been assigned to it by Mr. Jennens. I incline 
 to believe that it never reached the gallery of
 
 78 
 
 that fine seat. In 1773 its owner died, and 
 Gopsal became the property of tlie late Penn 
 Asheton Curzon, Esq. who had married the 
 niece of Mr. Jennens. 
 
 Although the utmost reliance can be placed 
 upon the fidelity of Earlom, under Mr. Jennens s 
 anxious inspection, it became desirable to com- 
 pare some proofs of his print, in my possession, 
 with the original picture, to see whether the 
 resemblance could at all be heightened by the 
 present admirable artist. I accordingly wrote 
 to Earl Howe, the noble proprietor of Gopsal, 
 expressing my wish to review the picture, which 
 I did not at all doubt must be there with the 
 rest of the collection. I received an answer 
 from his Lordship, which stated that, unfortu- 
 nately, the only head of Shakspeare in his 
 possession, was the drawing in crayons by Van- 
 dergucht, 'certainly of no great antiquity,' as 
 the Earl observes : he was pleased to add, how 
 happy it would have made him to concur in the 
 object to which I had drawn liis Lordship's 
 attention. 
 
 Thus it is ascertained, that the picture has
 
 79 
 
 wandered fiom its original mansion; and where 
 it is now to be found, and the cause of its alien- 
 ation, will be subjects, I trust, of diligent 
 inquiry. In the mean time, the most perfect 
 engraving i.s supplied from the only accessible 
 authority. It is in truth an object of the high- 
 est importance ; because, however faithful, the 
 other originals of our poet are the work of very 
 indifferent artists. Cornelius Jansen is, in his 
 happiest portraits, only inferior to the hitherto 
 unequalled Vandyke. 
 
 A few words yet remain to be added as to this 
 artist, and the period of his residence among us. 
 The accounts given of him at page 71, admit of 
 easy reconciliation. The author of an essay, Sfc, 
 says he resided long at Amsterdam ; and this is 
 also said by Sandrart. But if he began to paint 
 among us at the lowest date assigned, namely 
 1618, he could not have resided as a painter long 
 in Amsterdam, previous to his coming to this 
 country. It follows, therefore, that the residence 
 in Holland was, as Sandrart describes it, a 
 measure of necessity. He left this place when 
 the civil war frightened from us every thing
 
 like elegance, ami then certainly resided long 
 at Amsterdam, since he did not die till 1665 ; 
 so that he probably passed more than twenty 
 years among the Dutch, after he had quitted 
 us either in disgust or alarm. The real history 
 of Jansen, therefore, seems to be this : Upon 
 the miserable sack of Antwerp by the Spaniards 
 in 1576, his parents took refuge in England, 
 where, some time after, they gave birth to their 
 son Cornelius. Here he grew celebrated for 
 his art, was employed by Southampton, and 
 painted Shakspeare. An honour hardly less 
 was yet reserved for him; for in 1618, Milton's 
 father carried the author of Paradise Lost, then 
 in his tenth year, to sit to the greatest portrait- 
 painter then in England. It may teach us re- 
 liance upon Jansen's fidelity, to find as we do, 
 in the expression of young Milton, that time 
 only developed and expanded the features ; the 
 same characteristics are found in his boyhood 
 and at his maturity.
 
 THE 
 
 FELTON HEAD OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 ARTIST UNKNOWN. 1597. R.N. 
 
 Of this portrait, it may be sufficient celebrity 
 to record, that the late Mr. Steevens held it to 
 be genuine; the original from which both Droe- 
 shout and Marshall engraved, and the only 
 authentic picture of the poet. In the European 
 Magazine for the months of October and De- 
 cember, 1794, that ingenious critic gave to the 
 public the grounds of his belief ; among which 
 most certainly never entered any one circum- 
 stance which had been stated with regard to 
 the picture. On the contrary, he has himself 
 detected all the arts of the dealers, exhibited to 
 contempt the baseless fabric of their visions, 
 and closed with entire reliance upon the authen- 
 ticity of a portrait, which he could not prove 
 to have been in existence so long even as himself. 
 All the known history of it is this: In the 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 catalogue of the fourth exhibition and sale by 
 private contract at the European Museuna, 
 King-street, St. James's-square, 1792, this pic- 
 ture was announced to the public in the follow- 
 ing words : 
 
 No. 359. A curious portrait of Shakespeare, painted in 
 1597. 
 
 On the 31st of May, 1792, Mr. Felton bought 
 it for five guineas; and afterwards, wishing to 
 know where it came from, he requested its 
 history from Mr. Wilson, the conductor of that 
 Museum, who answered him in the following 
 terms : 
 
 To Mr. S. Felton, Drayton, Shropshire. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 The head of Shakspeare was purchased out of an 
 old house, known by the sign of the Boar, in Eastcheap, 
 London, where Shakespeare and his friends used to resort ; 
 and report says, was painted by a player of that time, 
 but whose name I have not been able to learn. 
 
 I am. Sir, with great regard. 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 J. Wilson. 
 
 Sept. 11, 1792.
 
 83 
 
 Here we find it to have been purchased out 
 of an old house, where Shakspeare and his 
 friends used to resort — The Boar's Head, which 
 he had immortalized by the presumed resort of 
 FalstafF and Hal ; but which there is no syllable 
 on record to prove was ever frequented by Shak- 
 speare and his friends. 
 
 On the 11th August, 1794, nearly two years 
 afterwards, Mr. Wilson becomes more commu- 
 nicative to Mr. Steevens, than he had been to 
 the purchaser, and adds to his account of the 
 picture, " that it vras found between four and 
 five years ago, at a broker's shop in the Mino- 
 ries, by a man of fashion, whose name must be 
 concealed," with a part of whose collection of 
 pictures it came for sale to the Museumj at- 
 tended with the story of the broker. There it 
 was exhibited for about three months, seen by 
 Lord Leicester and Lord Orford, but being 
 mutilated, (not however as to the features, re- 
 mark), those discerning noblemen would not 
 purchase it, though they both, we are told, 
 allowed its authenticity. 
 
 The first story seems unaccountably to have 
 g2
 
 84 
 
 forgotten tlie fire of London in 1666, when a 
 strong east wind in a few hours left the whole of 
 Eastcheap a mass of smoking ruins, and the 
 wretched inhabitants could think of saving- 
 nothing but their lives* If therefore such a 
 
 * An extract from Mr. Evelyn's Memoirs, will shew 
 the horrible certainty of the destruction alluded to. 
 
 " 1666. 2 Sept. This fatal night, about ten, began 
 that deplorable fire near Fish Streete, in London. 
 
 " 3. The fire continuing, after dinner I took 
 
 coach with my wife and sonn, and went to the Bank- 
 side in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spec- 
 tacle, the whole Citty in dreadful flames near y« water 
 side; all the houses from the Bridge, all Thames Street, 
 and upwards towa^rds Cheapside, down to the Three 
 Cranes, were now consum'd. 
 
 " The fire having continu'd all this night, (if I may call 
 that night which was light as day for 10 miles round about, 
 after a dreadful manner), when conspiring with a fierce 
 Eastern wind in a very drie season, I went on foote to the 
 same place, and saw the whole South part of y^ Citty 
 burning, from Cheapside to y« Thames, and all along 
 Cornehill, (for it kindPd back against y* wind as well as 
 forward), Totcer Streete, Fenchurch Streete, Gracious 
 Streete, and so along to Bainard's Castle, and was now
 
 S5 
 
 picture hung in the club-room, to out-stare the 
 puritanical wretches of the rebellion, there it 
 must have perished, unless, as Mr. Steevens 
 suggests, it had been alienated before the fire. 
 But it seems it was purchased out of some 
 Boar's Head, ancient or modern; it might have 
 been snatched away prophetically before the 
 fire alluded to, to be replaced in a succeeding 
 house on the same spot. If the old Boar can 
 bear no testimony in its favour, the Commen- 
 tator is desirous to whet up the tusks of his 
 modern representative. 
 
 Accordingly, as though such a miracle were 
 to be expected, or at least not disdained, know- 
 
 taking- hold of St. Paule's Church, to which the scaffolds 
 contributed exceeding-ly. The conflagration was so uni- 
 versal, and the people so astonish'd, that, from the begin- 
 ning-, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly 
 stirr'd to quench it ; so that there was nothing- heard or 
 seene but crying- out and lamentation, running- about like 
 distracted creatures, without at all attempting- to save 
 even their g-oods, such a strang-e consternation there 
 was upon them." — Vol. i. p. 371.
 
 m 
 
 ing that any original house where Shakspeare 
 used to meet his eotemporary wits, could not 
 possibly exist, and thinking himself, the pic- 
 ture to be alienated before the fire, he abso- 
 lutely seems to have imagined it possible, that 
 the Flemish painting might have been brought 
 back to a new house erected on the old site, 
 and sets out on the most forlorn of all expedi- 
 tions, to hunt after the effects of any modern 
 landlords of the new Boar's Head in Eastcheap, 
 A Mr. Sloman had quitted this celebrated 
 public-house in 1767, when all its furniture, 
 which devolved to him from the two immediate 
 predecessors, was sold off. He, however, de- 
 clared his utter ignorance of any picture on the 
 premises, except a coarse daubing of the Gads- 
 hill robbery. Philip Jones of Barnard's Inn, 
 the auctioneer, who had sold off Sloman's 
 effects, was next sought for; but, as a common 
 lot, he had himself been knocked down a few 
 years ago by Death, and the catalogues of his 
 achievements had vanished with him ; other- 
 wise, something like a small or obscure paint- 
 ing, which had escaped Mr. Sloman's recollec-
 
 87 
 
 tion, (an obscure picture of Shakspeare too, who 
 had bestowed the very sign upon his house!), 
 might have been found, lotted with other garret 
 lumber, in one comprehensive, but neglected 
 heap of rubbish. 
 
 But the learned authenticator did not stop 
 here. Mr. Brinn, Sloman's predecessor, had left 
 a widow. After her husband's decease, she 
 had quitted the Cheap, and went into Crooked- 
 lane, commencing business there as a wire- 
 worker. One, who had been her apprentice, 
 (no youth), upon an attempt to wire-draw 
 something from him upon the subject, very in- 
 genuously told them, that his mistress was so 
 particular in her stories, and told them so often, 
 that he could not possibly forget any article that 
 she had communicated as to the Boar's Head — 
 that she often spoke of the painting that repre- 
 sented the robbery at Gads-hill, but never so 
 much as hinted at any other picture in the 
 house ; and if there had been any, he is sure 
 she would not have failed to describe it in her 
 accounts of her former business and place of
 
 88 
 
 abode, which supplied her with materials for 
 conversation to the very end of a long life. 
 
 So much for Mr. Wilson's report as to this 
 picture's having been purchased out of the 
 Boar's Head. Our able refuter of his own 
 evidence, here triumphantly remarks — " A gen- 
 tleman, who for several years past has collected 
 as many pictures of Shakspeare as he could 
 hear of, (in the hope that he might at last pro- 
 cure a genuine one), declares, that the East- 
 cheap legend has accompanied the majority of 
 them, from whatever quarter they were trans- 
 mitted. It is therefore high time that picture- 
 dealers should avail themselves of another story, 
 this being completely worn out. and no longer 
 fit for service." 
 
 It is hardly worth remarking, that to this 
 fanciful region, the Minories, we have been 
 indebted for many curious discoveries in the 
 literary, as well as pictorial world. No wonder, 
 therefore, that this nameless man of fashion 
 should have wandered curiously through its 
 shops, in the search of invaluable matter; and
 
 89 
 
 if Iiis purchases were made with similar vouch- 
 ers for their authenticity, no wonder that two 
 years after he had acquired them, the treasures 
 themselves, in full body, came for sale to the 
 conductor of the European Museum. Let us 
 look a little now at the naked fact. Here is a 
 portrait of Shakspeare, with his name translated 
 into French upon the back of it, with the date 
 of 1597, and the initials R. N. in the hand- 
 writing of Elizabeth's reign ; all this too, plainly 
 legible, for it is stated in the catalogue ; and 
 yet, after three months' exhibition, it brings 
 our man of fashion but five guineas, though 
 Lord Leicester and Lord Orford were con- 
 vinced it was a genuine picture, and its condi- 
 tion only prevented its giving a powerful attrac- 
 tion to their distinguished residences. But it 
 displays, it seems, indubitable marks of its own 
 authenticity. To these therefore we must next 
 direct our attention. 
 
 " This portrait is not painted on canvass, like the 
 Chandos head, but on wood. Little more of it than the 
 entire countenance, and part of the ruff, is left ; for the
 
 90 
 
 pannel having- been split off on one side, the rest was 
 curtailed and adapted to a small frame." 
 
 The Chandos head is devoted in course to 
 every sort of depreciation ; we have accordingly 
 the following note by Mr. Steevens upon the 
 above allusion : 
 
 " A living" artist who was apprentice to Roubiliac, de- 
 clares, that when that eleg-ant statuary undertook to 
 execute the figure of Shakspeare for Mr. Garrick, the 
 Chandos picture was borrowed ; but that it was, even 
 then, reg-arded as a performance of suspicious aspect; 
 though, for want of a more authentic archetype, some 
 few hints were received, or pretended to be received, 
 from it. 
 
 " Roubiliac, towards the close of his life, amused him- 
 self by painting- in oil, thoug-h with little success. Mr. 
 Felton has his poor copy of the Chandos picture, in 
 which our author exhibits the complexion of a Jew, or 
 rather that of a chimney-sweeper in the jaundice." 
 
 Here we learn several very surprising mat- 
 ters — first, that the picture was borrowed for 
 Roubiliac, but that it was then regarded as
 
 91 
 
 a performance of suspicious aspect — second, that 
 some few Jdnts only were received ; or stay, not 
 even so much as that, but, as a compliment to 
 the owner of it, merely pretended to be received. 
 M. Roubiliac, it seems, had really and truly 
 the same feeling toward the picture as Mr. 
 Steevens himself. But mark the end of the 
 business — this very elegant statuary, also about 
 the close of life, handled the pencil; and on 
 what does he employ his attention? why on 
 this very suspicious head of Shakspeare, which 
 furnished at most only a few hints for his statue, 
 or which were rather pretended to be received 
 than actually taken. 
 
 So that an elegant artist despises a picture 
 too much, to use it when he composes his statue 
 of the poet ; and then, to prove how justly he had 
 done so, makes himself a copy of the picture, to 
 keep before him as a record of the actual fea- 
 tures of the poet. There could be no other 
 conceivable motive for his making the copy, 
 which in the usual style becomes an immediate 
 object of the most contemptuous ridicule from 
 Mr. Steevens.
 
 92 
 
 Upon the back of the Felton picture is painted 
 Guil. Shakspeare, 1597. R. N. 
 
 Mr. Steevens, in a note upon this point, thus 
 expresses himself: " It is observable that this 
 hand-writing is of the age of Elizabeth, and 
 that the name of Shakspeare is set down as he 
 himself has spelt it." Indeed ! nay, but we must 
 question this business to know it farther ; for no- 
 thing is surer than that he never had so spelt 
 his name ; and that the Commentators them- 
 selves had helped the forger of the endorsement 
 to this their favourite orthography, which the 
 foreign painter could not take from the poet ; 
 would never himself think of inventing ; and con- 
 sequently, if he wrote it from the title-page of any 
 thing published, the Venus and Adonis, 1593, 
 or the Tarquin and Lucrece in 1594, would 
 have exhibited the London propriety of Shake- 
 speare, and not the Stratford barbarism of 
 Shakspere, or even Shakspeare. And it is not 
 a little curious that Mr. Malone, when exposing 
 the treasures of another nameless man of fashion 
 presented to the world from Norfolk-street, had 
 also to remark, that he had incautiously led the
 
 93 
 
 forger into this very error of exhibiting the 
 poet's name, as he himself had never written it*. 
 The reader sees, therefore, that however it may 
 be now agreed to spell this immortal word in 
 his works, ''we yet hold it not honesty to have 
 it thus set down" on his picture: it unluckily 
 anticipates a decision, erroneously made at 
 last ; since, if there be truth in sight, the poet 
 himself inserted no a in the second syllable of 
 his name, and in London nobody left the letter e 
 out of the first. It really would be a waste of 
 time to go into the endless controversy as to his 
 name ; and I only touch upon it, to prove that 
 
 * See Mr. Malone's Enquiry, p. 121. 
 
 I know of no instances of this orthography in print, far 
 enoug-h back to be deemed authorities, but the two fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 The 4to. King- Lear, 1608, for Nath. Butter, (sign. B.), 
 where it is Shak-speare. 
 
 Ditto. Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634, by John Fletcher 
 and William Shakspeare, Gent. 
 
 The other quartos, the folios, the Sonnets, the Venus 
 and Adonis, and Tarquin and Lucrece, all have the name 
 — Shakespeare. So have all the verses addressed to him.
 
 94 
 
 the endorsement on the picture must be spu- 
 rious. 
 
 Mr. Steevens has well remarked, from Lord 
 Mansfield upon the Douglas cause, that " there 
 are instances in which falshood has been em- 
 ployed in support of a real fact." The resem- 
 blance to Droeshout's print might not be thought 
 evidence enough to prove the picture Shak- 
 peare's, unless his name were written on the 
 back, in imitation of the penmanship of the 
 maiden reign — they therefore determined to 
 "bring a corollary, rather than want a spirit;" 
 and in this attempt " to make assurance double 
 sure," the putters forth of this adventure, risked 
 the destruction of the whole enterprise. At 
 Shakespeare, no one would have started; for 
 who expected a Flemish painter to turn ortho- 
 grapher? But we could not repress our wonder 
 to find the modern innovation adopted in the 
 year 1-597. 
 
 For though the treacherous tapster Thomas 
 Hang-s a new sign out three doors from us. 
 We hold it both a shame and sin. 
 To leave the g-ood old Shake-speare Inn.
 
 95 
 
 With this suspicious docket upon the portrait, 
 let us examine whether it could ever be Droe- 
 shout's original. The forehead is not only dif- 
 ferent in character, but the ablest artists have 
 assured me, that Nature never produced one of 
 such a form, and that the boundary of the skull 
 is shamefully inaccurate: it is a very narrow 
 eg^ in its shape, and if the whole were made 
 out, the skull would want the occipital portion 
 — so that it would be shallow in one sense, 
 however its prodigious frontal pile might s^em 
 to claim for its possessor, powers more than 
 could be rounded in heads of the usual propor- 
 tions. The nose is very different indeed from 
 that exhibited by the engraver. Droeshout has 
 given, like the monument and the Chandos 
 picture, a nose of a truly English character, 
 rather delicate than large, and round at its 
 termination. The picture exhibits this feature 
 somewhat flattened, and squaring into the form 
 of the lozenge or diamond. The mouth is 
 feebler in the picture than the print, and the 
 beard thinner and poorer — more faint and eva- 
 nescent. But the great difference regards the
 
 96 
 
 eyes; which in the picture, and in Trotter's 
 engravings from it, have a painful obHquity, 
 which the print disclaims; the latter too dis- 
 playing the arched bent of brow so admired in 
 that age, while the picture draws it as a hori- 
 zontal line over the left eye, with little ad- 
 vantage to the expression of the face. Indeed, 
 it is in this article of expression generally, that 
 I consider the print so superior to this picture. 
 Where, in the latter, do we find anything beyond 
 a placid insipidity, a poverty of intelligence, 
 and, at most, a barren indifference ? But the 
 print has great comprehension, and tender 
 thought — a smile, rising to render the pensive 
 enchanting, and an indication of both the will 
 and the power to do great things. 
 
 To descend to more trifling matters. Mr. 
 Steevens could not fail to observe, that what was 
 to pass in the picture for a ruff, is the imitation of 
 no substance that ever was worn, in no fashion 
 that ever was invented. It is an obvious inter- 
 polation, after a glance at the print, by one 
 who was no artist, and is like nothing but a 
 small portable pillory about the neck ; a board,
 
 97 
 
 instead of muslin or cambric, scored across, 
 without even understanding the meaning of the 
 points which cross the duplex compartments of 
 the ruff in the engraving. Droeshout's is a part 
 of dress, whose bend follows the figure in its 
 set : that of the picture has no reference to any 
 neck or chest ; it is not a band, it is no ruff; it 
 is, as I have said of it, a disgraceful appendage, 
 and defying a parallel in the art of design. 
 
 Here, therefore, Mr. Steevens had much to 
 do: and he did here, what he ever did upon 
 similar occasions ; he tried the force of his 
 ridicule against obvious propriety. The in- 
 curvation of Droeshout's ruff he thus tries to 
 reprobate : 
 
 " From its pointed corners, resembling the wings of a 
 bat, which are constant indications of mischievous agency, 
 the engraver's ruff would have accorded better with the 
 pursuits of his necromantic countryman, the celebrated 
 Doctor Faustus." 
 
 And this ill-placed derision excited a smile 
 from grave considerate men, and blinded them 
 from the discernment of one mark of imposition. 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 He moreover told iis that, when Marsliall en- 
 graved from this picture, he made the line of the 
 ruff straight, as it is in the picture. I have 
 Marshall's print before me, and most certainly 
 this assertion is not true. The line is curved, 
 though not so boldly as Droeshout's ; for this 
 reason too, that such a curve would not have 
 suited the new habiliments in which he clothed 
 the poet. But he imitated the texture of Droe- 
 shout, together with the radial points crossing 
 the inner division of it; it is ample too in its 
 sweep, and not stubborn and narrow, like the 
 wretched appendage to the picture. " Marshall 
 too," says Mr. Steevens, " when he engraved it, 
 reversed the figure." To be sure he did ; and 
 did he never ask himself, how it happened that 
 Droeshout, on his hypothesis, did not do the 
 same thing? Yes, the picture, and an engrav- 
 ing pretended to be taken from it in 1623, abso- 
 lutely LOOK THE SAME WAY; tlioiigh, cvcn as 
 late as Houbraken's, all the heads were re- 
 versed by the engraver, as a common practice. 
 
 But how did it happen that Marshall, who 
 was a superior engraver, yet did not produce a
 
 99 
 
 more accurate likeness from the picture, if lie 
 copied it? — He could not be suspected of similar 
 volunteer infidelities with those by the Dutch- 
 man. He would have exhibited the conical 
 forehead, the straight eye-brow, the flattened 
 nose, the thin beard of the picture, one would 
 think. Nothing like it. Marshall saw no pic- 
 ture; Droeshout was his original; only that, 
 having reduced it as to size, he was unable, with 
 all his skill, to give a tithe of the expression 
 communicated in the folio by the '' mischievous 
 agency" of the Dutchman. 
 
 What then, I may be asked, do you think of 
 the picture in question? Is it entirely painted 
 from the print? Certainly not ; a painter of skill 
 vt^ould have seen the fine points of the expres- 
 sion, and preserved all that the print conveyed, 
 if he did not even improve them. My opinion 
 is this — people had long been seeking for pic- 
 tures of Shakspeare. Every thing was, during 
 my youth, warranted him, that had a high fore- 
 head, little or no hair, and the slightest look of 
 the known prints of him. I conceive then, that, 
 at last, some fragment of an early portrait did 
 
 h2
 
 100 
 
 occur, with more tlian usual resemblance as to 
 the position of the head, and the costume of the 
 hair. I suppose that this was improved into 
 still closer resemblance; that the ruff was 
 daubed on in the mutilated state of the picture, 
 and the name placed on the back of it in the 
 hand-writing of Elizabeth's reign, and in the 
 modish orthography. A very short time after 
 the appearance of this picture, it was proved, 
 as to our poet's icritings, that bats had indeed 
 been abroad ; and Mr. Steevens became aware 
 of their " mischievous agency." Yet he yielded 
 to the portrait, what he denied to writings under 
 the hand and seal of Shakspeare, and laboured 
 to produce a conviction in others, that the Fel- 
 ton head was genuine, and the only authentic 
 portrait of our great bard. He did more ; he 
 inferred, that all who subscribed to Trotter's 
 engraving from it, were sincere believers; a 
 matter to which I myself can give a decided 
 negative — many subscribed, who only wished 
 it genuine. 
 
 Mr. Boswell, in the advertisement to Mr. 
 Malone's Shakspeare, edition 1821, has the fol-
 
 101 
 
 lowing singular elucidation, as to one sub- 
 scriber: "My venerable friend, the late Mr. 
 Bindley of the Stamp-office, was reluctantly 
 persuaded, by his importunity, to attest his 
 opinion in favour of this picture, which he did 
 in deference to the judgment of one so well ac- 
 quainted with Shakspeare; but happening to 
 glance his eye upon Mr. Steevens's face, he 
 instantly perceived, by the triumph depicted in 
 the peculiar expression of his countenance, that 
 he had been deceived." Mr. Boswell has some- 
 thing still stronger, as to the portrait in question. 
 It is both mysterious and distressing to the 
 admirers of Steevens. Thus he writes at page 
 2T of the advertisement : " There are not, in- 
 deed, wanting, those who suspect that Mr. Stee- 
 vens was better acquainted with the history of 
 its manufacture, and that there was a deeper 
 meaning in his words, when he tells us, * he 
 was instrumental in procuring it,' than he would 
 have wished to be generally understood ; and 
 that the fabricator of the Hardiknutian tablet 
 had been trying his ingenuity upon a more im- 
 portant scale."
 
 102 
 
 I too have lieard various tales of the wanton 
 pleasantries of the ingenious Commentator, in 
 some of which he was decidedly aspersed ; and 
 I am assuredly unwilling to believe, that one 
 who took so much interest in the detection of 
 the forged papers of the poet, could at the very 
 time be guilty of counterfeiting his resemblance. 
 But if still such a thing be possible, then I 
 should think the matter capable of some exte- 
 nuation. I should consider it done, not for the 
 barren object of laughing at credulity, but to 
 afford a reasonable gratification to himself and 
 others; and in this way — Mr. Steevens might 
 have thought, with every body else, that Droe- 
 shout's print coarsely exhibited the genuine 
 Shakspeare : that it was in vain longer to ex- 
 pect the picture to emerge from any seat in the 
 country. If therefore any old head could be so 
 worked upon, as to give somewhat a more refined 
 style to the exhibition of our poet, it might be 
 replacing the truth by the aid of fiction, and at 
 all events present to the public what was cer- 
 tainly like Shakspeare. It is not incurious, that 
 Mr. Steevens should have allowed my friend
 
 103 
 
 Mr. G. Nicol to purchase the head from Mr. Fel- 
 ton at FORTY guineas, rather than secure it at 
 ANY price for himself. He was not much in the 
 habit of weighing money against peculiar gra- 
 tifications; but, in this instance, he chose to 
 retain merely a copy of it, made for him by the 
 late Josiah Boydell, Esq, a man whom to name 
 is praise enough. That artist worked upon it 
 until no discoverable difference remained ; and 
 the fac simile was before Mr. Steevens constantly 
 till he died. Mr. Steevens drew a little him- 
 self, and was much conversant in pictures ; but 
 in such a fabrication as is here spoken of, if he 
 conceived it, and directed the execution, he must 
 have had the aid of some painter in oil. Mr. 
 Fuseli, it appears, pronounced the picture to 
 have been the work of some Flemish hand. 
 
 There is however something of strange coin- 
 cidence in what I have before stated. Mr. 
 Wilson receives in 1792 from a man of fashion, 
 who must not be named, a head of the poet, 
 dated in 1597, and endorsed Guil. Shakspeare. 
 About the same time, were received sundry 
 deeds, letters, and plays of Shakspeare from a
 
 104 
 
 gentleman, who in like manner was not to be 
 named. And they abounded in the hand-writing 
 of Elizabeth's reign, and also exhibited the 
 poet's name with the recent orthography of the 
 Commentators. I do not know that this picture 
 might not have been intended to appear among 
 the infinite possessions of the nameless gentle- 
 man. When I first saw this head at Richard- 
 son's, I found that it had been a good deal 
 rubbed under the eyes ; but that there were no 
 circular cracks upon the surface, which time is 
 sure to produce. There was a splitting of the 
 crust of the picture down the nose, which 
 seemed the operation of heat, rather than age. 
 I remember the difficult task Mr. Boydell de- 
 scribed, when he afterwards, by softening the 
 paint, and pressing with the pallet-knife, suc- 
 ceeded in fixing these warped and dissevered 
 parts to the oak pannel, on which they originally 
 reposed. If it ever originated in the quarter 
 alluded to, it might have been considered as 
 spoiled in the Egyptian operation of the oven, 
 and so have been condemned to the Minories or 
 the Museum.
 
 lOo 
 
 The most careful examination satisfied Mr, 
 Malone, that the Felton picture was a fabri- 
 cation. The same research proved to him 
 the perfect authenticity of that called the Chan- 
 dos. He used smilingly to repeat a truism 
 stated by Mr. Steevens in the year 1793: 
 *' Much respect is due to the authority of por- 
 traits that descend in families from heir to 
 heir ; but little reliance can be placed on them 
 when they are produced for sale (as in the pre- 
 sent instance) by alien hands, almost a century 
 after the death of the person supposed to be 
 represented." 
 
 Would not one imagine, that Steevens had 
 written this passage to establish rather than 
 refute the Chandos picture, and to predict and 
 expose his own fallacy of the following year? 
 It was absolutely in October 1794, that he 
 ventured to write, as to the Felton head, in the 
 following strain: " How far the report on which 
 Mr. Wilson's narratives (respecting the place 
 where this picture was met with, <%c.) were 
 built, can be verified by evidence at present 
 within reach, is quite immaterial, as our great
 
 106 
 
 dramatic author's portrait displays indubitable 
 marks of its own authenticity. Yet by those 
 who allow to possibilities the influence of facts, it 
 may be said that this picture was probably the 
 ornament of a club-room in Eastcheap, round 
 which, other resemblances of contemporary poets 
 and players might have been arranged ; — that 
 the Boar's Head, the scene of Falstaffs jollity, 
 might also have been the favourite tavern of 
 Shakspeare; — that when our author returned 
 over London-bridge from the Globe Theatre, 
 this was a convenient house of entertainment ; 
 and that for many years afterwards, (as the tra- 
 dition of the neighbourhood reports), it was 
 understood to have been a place where the wits 
 and wags of a former age were assembled, and 
 their portraits reposited." 
 
 A club so constituted, would probably have 
 been of the description named by the Spectator 
 everlasting. Who shall say that at the fire of 
 London the president might not have been 
 sitting, surrounded by the gallery of portraits 
 here so easily assembled? Taylor, the water 
 poet, to be sure, v»as in his grave; but some
 
 107 
 
 other ingenious sculler upon the Thames might 
 have recollected the symposium at the Boar's 
 Head, and have rushed in to save the devoted, 
 not to say besotted admirers of Shakspeare. 
 Like another iEneas, he might have recom- 
 mended the precious portraits to the hands of 
 the venerable president, and then borne him 
 triumphantly on his shoulders, through the 
 horrid glare of the conflagration, and the clouds 
 of smoke and dust from the falling ruins, till he 
 reached the purifying waters of the Thames. 
 
 Tu, g-enitor, cape sacra manu, patriosque Penates. 
 Me, bello e tanto digressum et caede recenti, 
 Attrectare nefas ; donee me flumine vivo 
 Abluero. 
 
 VIRGIL, 2 ENEID, V. 717, &C. 
 
 But it is time to be serious. To Mr. Stee- 
 vens it could not but occur, that this gentle 
 speculation had no other tendency than to coun- 
 tenance a fraud, which he had himself suffici- 
 ently exposed ; for the Eastcheap legend it seems 
 accompanied by far the greater number of these 
 genuine pictures, produced from time to time!
 
 108 
 
 But let us a little examine the probabilities, 
 which are allowed by some, it seems, the influ- 
 ence of facts. 1st, "This picture was probably 
 the ornament of a club-room in Eastcheap." 
 This first probability depends so much upon the 
 second, namely, that "the Boar's Head might 
 have been the favourite tavern of Shakspeare," 
 that they must be considered together. 
 
 Now that there was any tavern with the sign 
 of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, in Shakspeare^s 
 time, is itself exceedingly doubtful; for though 
 the old play of Henry Vth told him that there 
 was a tavern in Eastcheap that sold good wine, 
 it said nothing about the sign of it ; and our 
 poet, when he hung up a sign there in his own 
 play, hung up one, with which he was familiar 
 in another place, namely, near the playhouse in 
 Blackfriars. There was a further propriety in 
 the ascription of this sign to a house frequented 
 by Falstaff, namely, that the Boar's Head in 
 Soiithwark was part of the benefaction of Sir 
 John Fastolf to Magdalen College, Oxford ; 
 and this is mentioned by Mr. Steevens himself, 
 in his note ujwn the passage in 1st Part of
 
 109 
 
 Henry IV. But the third probability is personal 
 to the poet, and requires some little examination 
 before it can be allowed the influence of fact. 
 " When our author returned over London-bridge 
 from the Globe Theatre, this was a convenient 
 house of entertainment." Now all this is gra- 
 tuitous assumption. How is he warranted to 
 assign the poet a residence so removed from the 
 scene of his business ? His connexion with the 
 Blackfriars house did not commence till the 
 year 1604: besides, when he did act at the 
 Blackfriars, the Globe was shut ; it was a 
 summer theatre. That he had often visited the 
 Blackfriars, is indeed highly probable. He has 
 satirized the children who acted there, furiously, 
 in his Hamlet ; but there is no proof that he ever 
 resided within the City, while he acted at the 
 Globe. Mr. Malone had the means of proving 
 that Shakspeare's house stood near to the adja- 
 cent Bear Garden, and that he always dwelt 
 there when in London. 
 
 But I have something still to say as to this 
 Boar's Head, and its convenience to Shakspeare. 
 We do know that Shakspeare was member of a
 
 no 
 
 club, but it was not held at the Boar's Head, 
 nor was it in or near Eastcheap. This was the 
 splendid association of wits and scholars and 
 poets, founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and held 
 at the Mermaid in Friday-street. Now Friday- 
 street was exactly opposite to Maid en -lane, in 
 which stood the Globe Theatre, on the South- 
 wark side of the river, and a sculler most 
 probably would appear to Shakspeare infinitely 
 more convenient than the crowded perambulation 
 down the Bank-side to the eastward, the pas- 
 sage over the bridge, and an equally tiresome 
 progress through the City westward to Friday- 
 street. 
 
 Again, if our poet did ever delight himself 
 and others at this Boar's Head, how did it 
 happen, that no Fuller, no Beaumont ever com- 
 memorated the wit combats, if he met with any 
 rival ; or the abundant stream of humour, which 
 could not but flow from one, who had FalstaflT 
 in his heart, and excellent sack before him ; 
 not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit 
 in other men? Any hypothesis more destitute 
 of probability cannot be found ; we must there-
 
 in 
 
 fore by no means allow it to usurp the influence 
 of fact. If the Mermaid, the Apollo, and the 
 Devi!, have had their respective shares of 
 literary celebration, we may rest assured, that 
 the Boar's Head would have found the same 
 kind of fame, had it ever received a similar 
 honour. 
 
 The really decent probability is, that the 
 daubing of the Gad's-hill robbery was coeval 
 with the club, about the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth century. Some merry fellow, with his head 
 full of Falstaff, thought that locality would im- 
 prove the flavour of wine ; and so assembled his 
 friends and neighbours at a house, which he 
 might himself christen the Boar's Head, after 
 Shakspeare's play, and where money might be 
 spent without alarm, that had never been des- 
 tined to the King's Exchequer. In the mean 
 time, the sport at Gad's-hill hung before them, 
 and stimulated any son of mimicry to adopt 
 the action and the voice of Falstafl". The 
 drawer too, we may be sure, was without con- 
 sent of sponsors, eternally called Francis — 
 *^Anon, anon, Sir!" was the formulary of his
 
 112 
 
 reply ; and after tlie capon and the sack, of the 
 bill, a host, who knew his interest, would take 
 especial care, that the charge for bread should 
 be not unfrequently — one halfpenny. 
 
 I have thus, I trust, sufficiently shewn, that 
 neither fact nor probability calls upon us to 
 allow this picture to be a genuine portrait of 
 Shakspeare: that Droeshout has been guilty of 
 no "volunteer infidelities," since his engraving 
 is confirmed in every reasonable degree by 
 Marshall's. It is therefore obvious that, differing 
 essentially from them both in every feature, it 
 can never be the original from which either of 
 them was engraved. The consequence must be, 
 that it was a fabrication, which might be sportive 
 in its conception, but would be delusive in its 
 success. Happily, in nearly all cases of this 
 nature, the ingenuity is never so complete as to 
 baffle the inquiry of criticism ; and the gentle 
 progress of time conducts to the triumph of 
 
 TRUTH.
 
 HEAD, BY W. MARSHALL, 
 
 TO THE POEMS IN 1640. 
 
 The writers of Catalogues are happy persons ; 
 they describe many portraits which cannot be 
 found, and so circumstantially as to lead one to 
 imagine, that once they must have existed. 
 Among these desiderata is to be numbered one 
 of Shakspeare, by that excellent engraver John 
 Payne. Mr. Granger says of it, that the poet 
 is 'represented with a laurel branch in his left 
 hand.' But all my inquiries have never been 
 able to procure a sight of this print; and per- 
 haps it is confounded with that by W. Marshall, 
 which certainly exhibits our poet with this si- 
 nistrous decoration. 
 
 Payne wanted only application to confirm 
 both his fortune and his fame. He had a good 
 deal of the firm and forcible manner of his mas- 
 
 I
 
 114 
 
 ter, Simon Passe, and he executed some heads 
 after Cornelius Jansen, in a style so beyond 
 the common embellishments of his time, that it 
 is greatly indeed to be regretted that his Shak- 
 speare has disappeared, if he really engraved 
 it. I confess I am half-tempted to think it will 
 yet be found, for the reason which I now pro- 
 ceed to assign. 
 
 Whoever is acquainted with the loose and 
 wiry manner of Marshall, witness his bust of 
 Fletcher, and the wretched " bi-forked hill " on 
 which he has grounded it*, cannot but feel 
 that his head of Shakspeare in 1640, is in a 
 manner not his oivn; and indeed a dark and 
 strongly relieved print, instead of the dry, 
 tasteless, colourless thing which he bestowed 
 as a usual sign to Mr. Moseley's editions of the 
 cotemporary poets. I therefore feel almost con- 
 fident, that Marshall here copied the head by 
 John Payne. Indeed, taking the half-length of 
 Elizabeth by Crispin de Passe the father, after 
 whom they all worked, as the model, the head 
 
 * See the folio, 1647.
 
 115 
 
 by Marshall is exactly such a performance as 
 you would expect from that school, where, as is 
 certain, the pupils, though like, are yet inferior 
 to the master. A good deal of their inferiority 
 is produced by their designing their own heads, 
 and conferring upcn them crowns of bays, &c. 
 as to which, the poets might properly enough 
 exclaim with Cowley, 
 
 Had I a wreath of bays about my brow, 
 I should contemn that flourishing- honor now. 
 Condemn it to the^re, and joy to hear 
 It rage and crackle there. 
 
 Nor does Marshall's head of Milton, prefixed 
 to the poems in 1645, partake any more than 
 that of Fletcher, of the better manner of the 
 school of Passe. The poet's displeasure, shrouded 
 in the Greek language, was engraven by Mar- 
 shall himself under his print. This stratagem 
 of the republican poet, might by Sir Hugh 
 Evans have been pronounced ' fery honest knave- 
 ries.' But he speaks plainly enough in the 
 Defensio pro se against Alexander More, who 
 had censured the vanity of exhibiting his effigies 
 
 i2
 
 116 
 
 in the volume of his poems; and argues his 
 indifference, rather than his attention, in allow- 
 ing himself to be so engraved: — infabre scal- 
 PENDUM PERMisi, is his expression*. His head 
 of James Shirley, 1646, is, however, superior 
 to the Milton. The features are better drawn, 
 and there is more smartness and effect in the 
 countenance altogether : the costume of the vest 
 and cloak is as wretched as usual, when Mar- 
 shall was left to himself. The hair is distributed 
 exactly after the style of Milton's. The hand is 
 tolerable, but not to be compared with that of 
 the Shakspeare. 
 
 I therefore look upon Marshall's print of our 
 poet with a respect derived to him from Payne, 
 
 * His expostulation with More is extremely pleasant. 
 "Narcissus nunc sum ; (says he) quia te depingente nolui 
 Cyclops esse ; quia tu effigiem mei dissimillimam, pra- 
 Jixam poematibus vidisti. Eg-o vero si impulsu et ambi- 
 tione Librarii me imperito Scalptori, propterea quod in 
 urbe alius eo belli tempore non erat, infabre scalpendum 
 permisi, id me neg^lexisse potius earn rem arg-uebat, cujus 
 tu mihi nimium cultum objiciis." 
 
 BIRCH, PROSE WORKS, VOL. II. P. 36?.
 
 117 
 
 and shall state kere, what I have to observe upon 
 it, though incidentally it has been mentioned in 
 discussing the Felton picture. It is certainly 
 reduced from the larger performance of Droe- 
 shout, without the slightest reference to the 
 Felton picture for the purpose of correction. 
 Though much smaller, it has more force as 
 well as neatness ; but this is said merely as it 
 is a book embellishment, for the characteristic 
 expression is changed, though the features are 
 preserved. Some liberty has been taken with 
 the beard upon the upper lip; it is darker, and 
 in a thicker mass than he saw it in Droeshout. 
 It is on the whole better drawn, but the tender- 
 ness of the original expression is lost; yet even 
 its antiquated taste in the dress, and the stiff- 
 ness of the attitude, afford a pleasure to the 
 collector — he loves to see the portraits of past 
 times in the ruder sculpture then attained ; and 
 is by no means of opinion, that the grave hu- 
 mility which characterized the subjects of the 
 Tudor Princes, is well exchanged for the catch- 
 ing bravery of the Cavalier of Charles's times. 
 The confident deportment, or the puritanical
 
 118 
 
 sanctity of the seventeenth century, were equally 
 remote from the mild, but solid expression of 
 our ancestors, during the reign of Elizabeth. 
 h is this homogeneous working of the artist 
 with the subject, that constitutes much of the 
 charm about our ancient monuments. We 
 should not endure to see their effigies displaced 
 by the almost theatrical attitude and flutter of 
 drapery, which have been the vice of a later age. 
 Mr. Flaxraan, with the truest feeling of the 
 point to be obtained in such works, has purified 
 the Design of our ancestors, and retained their 
 Piety. Why should I not call him a Greek 
 Christian? 
 
 Marshall has drest up some of the lines of 
 Ben Jonson, and placed them under the portrait, 
 I do not quote them here, because they will be 
 found with the print which is given from the 
 poems, 1640. Upon the whole, I consider the 
 present likeness as approaching closer to the 
 monument at Stratford, than Droeshout's print 
 does. The practice of engravers in that age, is 
 not well understood by us. To see their prints, 
 it might be thought that the pictures were uni-
 
 119 
 
 formly tasteless ; but this by no means followed. 
 The engravers did not seem to feel that the best 
 painters imposed any strict fidelity upon them: 
 they always considered that they could produce 
 something, upon the whole, more decidedly like 
 their subject, than any one painter had been 
 happy enough to supply. Read, for instance, 
 what was the operation as to Marshall's h,ead 
 of Fletcher. The poet was a man of family, 
 and therefore sat, I have no doubt, to a good 
 artist. Yet this is the bookseller Moseley's 
 account of it : 
 
 " This fig-ure of Mr. Fletcher was cut by several ori- 
 ginall pieces, which his friends lent me, but withall they 
 tell me, that his unimitable soule did shine through his 
 countenance in such ayre and spirit, that the Painters 
 confessed it was not easy to expresse him : as much as 
 could be, you have here, and the Graver hath done his 
 part." 
 
 Such is the stationer's address to the reader 
 in the folio of 1647. No doubt Marshall went 
 to work with his usual confidence — he had the 
 original pieces before him, and compounded a
 
 120 
 
 chef d'ceuvre of common-place and bad taste, 
 which Mr. Moseley sanctions with his perfect 
 approbation. Marshall has crowned his poet 
 so as to render the head ludicrous. The heavy 
 and disproportioned bust is placed between two 
 hillocks, with a back-ground of clouds ; a frame, 
 solid as the carvings of our ancient stair-cases* 
 surrounds the portrait, and a scroll, which tells 
 us that Fletcher was the son of the Bishop of 
 London, is gently lifted up by two figures, 
 anxious to be seen, called Tragedy and Comedy, 
 studied from the antique, and yet infinitely more 
 like Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, than the 
 two Muses whom they are intended to represent. 
 All this 'vanity of art,' as Prospero terms it, 
 being bestowed by Marshall, on a smaller scale 
 upon Milton and Shirley and others, I again 
 infer strongly, that nothing could have preserved 
 Shakspeare himself from the Bedlam or Par- 
 nassus of Marshall's allegorical powers, but the 
 circumstance of his being employed to copy the 
 head of the poet by Payne. With many thanks 
 to him, therefore, for his forbearance upon the 
 present occasion, I am happy to put the public
 
 121 
 
 in possession of an imitation, which is abso- 
 lutely perfect, of Marshall's engraving, now one 
 of the rarest prints in England. 
 
 This series of engravings, therefore, is to be 
 held as containing, in this writer's opinion, every 
 thing that on any authority can be called Shak- 
 speare ; and they each of them, alone, possess very 
 strong evidence of authenticity. Droeshout's print 
 is attested by Ben Jonson, and by his partners 
 in the Theatre. The Stratford Monument was 
 erected by his son-in-law. Dr. Hall, and exe- 
 cuted probably by Thomas Stanton, who could 
 not but know his person, and probably had some 
 cast to work from. The Chandos picture is 
 traced up to Taylor, the poet's Hamlet, and was 
 no doubt painted by Burbage. The head by 
 Cornelius Jansen, is marked by that painter 
 decidedly Shakspeare, and every reasonable 
 presumption assures us that it was painted for 
 Lord Southampton. The head by Marshall 
 seems to have been copied by him from a head
 
 122 
 
 b}? Payne, who reduced that by Droeshout, 
 with some variations in the dress and attitude. 
 
 What light these portraits throw upon each 
 other, and thus verify the whole, I have brought 
 most strikingly before the spectator, by shewing 
 the heads as nearly as was practicable, in the 
 same size, and in the same direction. I feel 
 them to be executed in a manner which has not 
 often been equalled, and will never, I believe, 
 be surpassed. The expence has of course been 
 great; but the Publisher would withhold no- 
 thing, where the perfect exhibition of Shak- 
 speare was the object. I have thus contributed 
 my effort, to make our great and amiable poet's 
 person more accurately known among us. Every 
 man whom his wit has exhilarated, his wisdom 
 guided, his passion purified, may look with 
 delight and thankfulness in the countenance of 
 his master and his friend, and find the perfec- 
 tions of his nature residing there in mild and 
 unforced, in clear and unquestionable intelli- 
 gence.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS HEADS. 
 
 Those dreams, that Fantasia 
 
 Takes from the polisht Ivory Port, delude 
 The Dreamer ever, and no truth include. 
 
 chapman's homer, B. 19, ODYSSEY, 
 
 I WAS about to close my subject, I remem- 
 ber, with a very brief enumeration of the spu- 
 rious, or rather falsely ascribed portraits, when 
 the late Mr. Boswell brought a miniature to 
 shew me, with which Sir James Bland Burges 
 had entrusted him. It struck me to have been 
 unquestionably painted by Billiard, and to merit 
 attentive examination. The account given of 
 it by Sir James, is such as was to be expected 
 from his candour and his taste. As no one can 
 more truly appreciate such a possession, so no 
 man could possibly say less to enforce its claim, 
 and no other Poet perhaps so little. I cannot
 
 124 
 
 do better, than transcribe here the letter which 
 Sir James wrote to Mr. Bos well, giving the 
 history of the miniature which he had so for- 
 tunately recovered. 
 
 " Lower Brook-street, 26 June, 1818. 
 
 " DEAR BOSWELL, 
 
 " I send you the history of my portrait of Shak- 
 speare, which I apprehend will leave no reason to doubt 
 of its authenticity. 
 
 " Mr. Somerville of Edstone, near Stratford-upon- 
 Avon, ancestor of Somerville, author of the Chace, &c. 
 lived in habits of intimacy with Shakspeare, particularly 
 after his retirement from the stage*, and had this portrait 
 
 * It has been a very common notion, that our poet 
 passed some years in a state of retirement from all thea- 
 trical business, on his estate at Stratford ; and this notion 
 is embraced in Sir James's letter. But 1 confess there 
 does not appear to me any decisive evidence for such a 
 supposition. The period of positive retirement must 
 have been extremely short, if he could enjoy, or indeed 
 desired to enjoy any such total abstraction from his thea- 
 trical concerns. Let us remember that, so late as March 
 1612-13, with an obvious reference to his business in 
 that quarter, a conveyance is executed to him of a house
 
 125 
 
 painted, which, as you will perceive, was richly set, 
 and was carefully preserved by his descendants, till it 
 
 in the Blackfriers : that not much, if at all prior to this 
 transaction, from the pamphlets recently published, he 
 constructed all the local and picturesque interest of the 
 Tempest : that Twelfth Nig-ht has been, on the authority 
 of Mr. Tyrwhitt, ascribed to a still later period, 1614 ; 
 and that therefore the period of absolute retirement from 
 such concerns, is narrowed to little more than two years. 
 The conveyance by Walker of the house in Blackfriers, 
 describing- him to be of Stratford-upon-Avon, is no indi- 
 cation of retirement — his family constantly resided there, 
 and he himself, occasionally, throug-h life. The pro- 
 bability of his course is fairly enoug-h g-iven in the tra- 
 dition that stated him to have visited his native Stratford 
 every year. The Globe was a summer theatre ; up to 
 the year 1605, therefore, when the King-'s Servants 
 took the private house in the Blackfriers, he probably 
 retired at the close of the season, and at Stratford, in 
 the bosom of his family, in the quiet of a beautiful coun- 
 try, endeared to him by the still vivid recollections of 
 his youth, produced those plays, which indeed bear in 
 them so much pure and rustic sweetness, as to prove the 
 writer copied from actual impressions. 
 
 After the company had possession of the Blackfriers,
 
 126 
 
 came to the liands of his great grandson, the poet, who, 
 dying in 1742, without issue, left his estates to my 
 
 his time would be more engrossed by the concerns of two 
 theatres, and his visits to Stratford consequently shorter. 
 But I think no one point more characteristic of Shak- 
 speare, than the rural tendency of his muse. He abso- 
 lutely luxuriates in the Forest of Arden. No play ever 
 offers the slightest opportunity, that he does not seize it 
 with avidity, and either soothe or enchant us by the 
 images of rustic life. I need not enumerate v/hat every 
 reader's memory will so readily supply. Beaumont and 
 Fletcher have comparatively little of this. Ben Jonson 
 too in his comedies is a town poet : he painted the cha- 
 racters which he saw around him, and is the most exact 
 delineator of the manners of his age. Massinger has 
 absolutely no rustic description, no country characters. 
 It may be said, that his plots being for the most part 
 foreign, the occasions did not occur. To this it may be 
 truly replied, that he would have made the opportunity 
 for a favourite delineation; and that every country, 
 where his scene could be laid, presented the contrasts 
 between refinement and artless nature to which I have 
 alluded. It may be obvious, that here is no intended 
 inculpation of those other great poets on account of this 
 difference of taste. I mean no more than to mark this
 
 127 
 
 graiidfalher, Lord Somerville, and g-ave this miniature 
 to my mother. She valued it very highly, as well for 
 the sake of the donor, as for that of the great genius of 
 
 decided tendency in Shakspeare, and to infer the habit 
 of such residence from the constant prevalence of rural 
 images, and the simple feelings and manners of country 
 people. Nor should I be answered by any reference to 
 the Faithful Shepherdesse of Fletcher, the most beauti- 
 ful of pastorals. I may be allowed to say, that such a 
 reference is not in point. I speak of the actual manners 
 of the country — of our country. The comedy of Fletcher 
 is Arcadian. We have the high priest of Pan, and the 
 transforming virtues of wells and springs — the Satyrs, and 
 the charms and spells of pagan times, or rather no times ; 
 prescriptive scenes, and prescriptive characters. The 
 whole of our delight is in the poetical diction of the 
 piece. The manners are only discriminate as to one 
 passion — love — and this is either chaste or libidinous: 
 and the business of the drama is to purify the characters 
 from all loose affections and uncivil conduct. 
 
 The reader will see why I have made no allusion to 
 the Sad Shepherd of the great master Ben Jonson, nor 
 to the lovely scenes of his masques, the pure wells of 
 undefiled English pastoral. Jonson has the power, but 
 he restrains it to a particular province of the drama.
 
 128 
 
 which it was the representative ; and I well remember 
 that, when I was a boy, its production was not unfre- 
 quently a very acceptable reward of my good behaviour. 
 After my mother's death, I sought in vain for this and 
 some other family relics, and at length had abandoned 
 all hope of ever finding them ; when chance most unex- 
 pectedly restored them to me about ten days ago, in con- 
 sequence of the opening of a bureau which had belonged 
 to my mother, in a private drawer of which, this and the 
 other missing things were found. 
 
 " Believe me to be, 
 
 " Dear Boswell, 
 
 " Yours most truly, 
 
 " J. B. BURGES." 
 
 Nicholas Hilliard was born in 1547, and 
 continued in the practice of his beautiful art 
 among us till a very short period before his 
 death, which happened in January J 619. If 
 Mr. Somerville of Edstone had this portrait of 
 the poet painted after his retirement from the 
 stage, which seems rather to be the inference 
 from Sir James's narrative, the old man painted 
 Shakspeare just before he left town in the 50th 
 year of his age, and when he himself was in his
 
 J 29 
 
 66th. He retained the power of his eye and 
 the steadiness of his hand to the last — a thing 
 not uncommon in the professors of minute de- 
 sign. The great Bartolozzi's letters at 80, were 
 miracles of firm, small, and beautiful penman- 
 ship. 
 
 Upon aiding my recollection of the picture 
 by Mr. Agar's engraving from it, such actually 
 seems to be the age of the person represented. 
 Now out of this grows the only difficulty with 
 me in regard, to its being absolutely Shakspeare. 
 There is one point in the portraits of our author, 
 on which they are all decidedly agreed — viz. 
 that he was bald. Mr. Ozias Humphry consi- 
 dered the Chandos head to have been painted 
 when the poet was about 43 years old. Upon 
 the forehead there is no indication of hair. 
 Jansen's picture was painted three years after 
 this ; it has the same evidence that the hair in 
 front had perished away. Droeshout's print 
 displays to us the same deficiency; and the mo- 
 nument, exhibiting the latest condition of the 
 poet's hair, shews that the baldness had rapidly 
 increased upon him, and that the skull was very 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 nearly unclothed; a scanty measure of curls 
 flowing circularly from a point not far above the 
 ears. 
 
 Now this miniature has a strong tuft of hair 
 growing in front of the forehead, as is indeed 
 very usual with persons who yet are exceedingly 
 bald toward the temples. I think it would be 
 too much to expect from us the surrender of all 
 the absolute authorities to the recently offered 
 candidate. At the same time, unless I greatly 
 mistake the poet's age in Sir James's picture, I 
 cannot reconcile the appearance in question 
 with the other acknowledged portraits : from 
 the other pictures also, I conceive the poet's hair 
 to have been darker than Hilliard has exhibited 
 it. On this last point, from the tendency of all 
 pictures in oil to become brown, no great stress 
 ought to be laid. I regret that some of the 
 finer touches of Hilliard's pencil should have 
 flown ; vvhat remains, as to the drawing in of 
 the features, the harmony of the whole, the 
 shape of the head, and the characteristic look 
 of the sitter, have nothing in them alien to the 
 supposition that this may be Shakspeare. It
 
 131 
 
 Would be merely riuie to ask tor more particu- 
 lars, as to this transmission of the picture, than 
 Sir James has been pleased to give ; but I hope 
 I may without offence express some astonish- 
 ment, that Somervile the poet, a man born 
 almost upon the banks of the Avon, glorying in 
 his countryman, and writing occasionally verses 
 to poets on the subjects of poetry, should have 
 in his possession an authentic portrait of Shak- 
 speare, and never allow it to be engraved ; and 
 see Mr. Pope publishing to the world a head of 
 King James, and calling it Shakspeare, and 
 never shew to him the treasure on which he 
 might so securely have relied. There was at this 
 time, moreover, a stir, rather remarkable as to 
 Shakspeare : Theobald had given his Shakespeare 
 restored, to the infinite annoyance of Pope, and 
 had followed his blow in 1733 by an edition of 
 the poet's works. All this must have reached Mr. 
 Somervile at Edstone, for he did not die till 
 July 1742* ; but he neither said nor wrote (that 
 
 * It is sing-ular, that the time of Somervile's death 
 should be so variously reported. Shenstone says he 
 
 k2
 
 132 
 
 I can find) any thing about his greatest treasure ; 
 though his friend Shenstone would have luxu- 
 riated in the topic, and might have given to the 
 Leasowes, from such a picture, a bust that 
 should surpass in accuracy, and therefore value, 
 every other decoration of the place. From the 
 mere country gentleman this neglect might be 
 expected ; from the justice of peace it might be 
 endured ; but in the author of the Chase it is 
 inconceivable and unaccountable. Surely Rural 
 Sports were never before so engrossing, nor did 
 the Chase ever until then, lead a poet so far 
 from his natural pursuits. 
 
 The possessor of this splendid miniature is 
 thus described and lamented by his friend Shen- 
 stone : 
 
 " Our old friend Somervile is dead ! 1 did not imagine 
 
 died in 1741; Dr. Johnson, on the 14th July, 1743; Sir 
 J. B. Barges, most likely to be accurately informed, tells 
 ns, that event happened in 1742. The fact appears to be, 
 that he died on the 19th July, 1742, for the will was 
 proved on the 3rd September of that year.
 
 133 
 
 I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this ocon- 
 sion — 'Sublatum qumrimus.' I ean now excuse all his 
 foibles ; impute them to ag-e, and to distress of circum- 
 stances : the last of these considerations wrings my very 
 soul to think on. For a man of hig-h spirit, conscious of 
 having- (at least, in one production) g-enerally pleased the 
 world, to be plag-ued and threatened by wretches that 
 are low in every sense ; to be forced to drink himself into 
 pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the 
 mind — is a misery which I can well conceive, because I 
 may, without vanity, esteem myself his equal in point of 
 oeconomy, and consequently ought to have an eye on his 
 misfortunes ; for whatever the world might esteem in 
 poor Somervile, 1 really find, upon critical enquiry, that 
 / loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili- 
 pili-fication of money." — Works, vol.iii. p. 48. 
 
 All this is, however, at a considerable dis- 
 tance from the worthy baronet. For himself, I 
 can recall him easily in his infancy, deriving 
 an enviable gratification from this presented 
 portrait. So genuine a relic could not be kissed 
 without Catholic devotion. Dr. Johnson has 
 told us, that Cowley became irrecoverably a 
 poet, from the delight he took in the perusal of 
 Spenser's Faery Queen ; and Sir James may
 
 134 
 
 have also been devoted to poetry from his in- 
 fant acquaintance with Shakspeare. The great 
 Critic adds — '' Such are the accidents, which, 
 sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes 
 forgotten, produce that particular designation 
 of mind, and propensity for some certain science 
 or employment, which is commonly called Ge- 
 nius." — Life of Cowley, p. 4. 
 
 Among the heads, which their possessors have 
 determined to be Shakspeares, are some painted 
 as low down as the reig-n of Charles the Second. 
 They are to be noticed, from at least the chance 
 that the artists used some true picture in their 
 works of fancy ; or that they had the aid of Na- 
 ture (as in the anecdote of Sir Thomas Clarges) 
 in the face of some individual who mig^ht be 
 known personally to resemble the poet. 
 • The first and best of this class, is the picture 
 painted by Zoust, or, as he himself wrote it, 
 Soest. It is well known to collectors by the 
 niezzotinto of Simon, and is a most accomplished
 
 185 
 
 cavalier exhibition of the great bard. Soest, in 
 1667, writes himself in his 30th year ; so that he 
 was born only one and twenty years after the 
 poet had sunk into the grave. When a dealer 
 is determined upon a speculation, it is useless to 
 call his attention to dates — his answer is ready; 
 and 1 could wish, for the credit of an able man, 
 that it was not to be found in the very words of 
 Peck the antiquary, when he received a portrait, 
 which he absolutely knew not to be Milton — 
 " I'll have a scraping from it at all events, and 
 leave posterity to settle the difference." As in 
 these cases artists seem to "conceive, better 
 than they combine," this head is reported to 
 have given the style of countenance and drapery 
 to the statue of Shakspeare in Poet's Corner. 
 Thus, as Don Quixote says, "the Courtiers 
 bore away the honour of the Tournament," and 
 stampt their gallant impress every where as the 
 SCenuine Shakspeare. 
 
 The return of Charles the Second, secured to 
 the Royalists the enjoyment of what I must call 
 their liberal and grateful propensities. It could 
 be no longer the object of either sneer or censure
 
 136 
 
 to have Shakspeare for a closet companion. 
 Our great bard may be sincerely classed among 
 the zealous Royalists. There are no passages 
 in his works, which can become texts to the 
 savage bawlers of sedition. Political principle, 
 as well as literary taste, would urge a person of 
 condition to seek tbe decoration and the charm 
 of his resemblance. 
 
 The late monarch, Charles the First, was a 
 man of the most refined taste : his pictures sup- 
 plied the cabinets of Europe with some of the 
 choicest specimens of art. A little before his 
 wretched end, he presented to the gentleman of 
 his bed-chamber, his folio of Shakspeare's works, 
 the edition of 1632. It contained evidences of 
 the pleasure he had taken in its perusal. To 
 a Royalist, therefore, Shakspeare, in aid of his 
 genius, had the efficacy that "dying martyrs'' 
 can impart ; and it became a duty, as well as a 
 delight, to reprint his works*, to revive his 
 playst, and bestow upon them all the embel- 
 
 * Printed in 1664. 
 
 t See Davenant's alterations.
 
 137 
 
 lishments that had been learned in a too long 
 residence in other countries. From such a feel- 
 ing, the picture of the poet by Soest clearly 
 originated. Simon's engraving from it was 
 made about the year 1725. 
 
 The statement as to Sir Thomas Clarges, in 
 the Gentleman's Magazine, I have before alluded 
 to, (supra, p. 53). I have no doubt that the 
 anecdote was grounded in fact; and think I 
 see some strong likelihood that the picture by 
 Soest was the very portrait painted for the 
 brother-in-law of Monk. It has just enough of 
 Shakspeare about it, to countenance such a 
 story as is there told. The only mistake was in 
 the painter's name. Jansen it could not be ; he 
 left us on the commencement of the Civil War. 
 Soest, in the year 1667, was an admirable artist, 
 and there is little doubt was the person who 
 executed for him this elegant, though not quite 
 faithful portrait. On the authority of Richard- 
 son, Sir Thomas is said also to have been prin- 
 cipally instrumental in obtaining the indemnity 
 of Milton from the new government. It is de- 
 lightful to commemorate such attentions to the
 
 138 
 
 two greatest poets of our own or any other coun- 
 try. If, therefore, I have restored a consistency 
 and probability to the anecdote rejected by Mr. 
 Malone, it will afford one more reason for not 
 too hastily deciding against the whole of a tra- 
 dition, from one false or discrepant circumstance 
 which it may contain : the error may be cor- 
 rected by some happy combination, and the 
 statement so reformed, may add sometimes very 
 important truth to the liistory of past times. 
 
 Mr. Malone, in the year 1790, thus alludes 
 to the picture by Soest : 
 
 " About the year 17"25, a mezzotinto of Shakspeare 
 was scraped by Simon, said to be done from an orig-inal 
 picture painted by Zoust or Soest, then in the possession 
 of T, Wright, painter, in Covent-garden. The earliest 
 known picture painted by Zoust in Eng-land, was done in 
 1657 ; so that, if he ever painted a picture of Shakspeare, 
 it must have been a copy, it could not however have 
 been made from Davenant's picture, (unless the painter 
 took very great liberties), for the whole air, dress, disposi- 
 tion of the hair, &c. are different. I have lately seen a 
 picture in the possession of — Douglas, Esq. at Ted- 
 dington, near Twickenham, which is, I believe, the very 
 picture from which Simon's mezzotinto was made. It is
 
 139 
 
 on canvass, (about *24 inches by 20), and somewhat 
 smaller than the life." — Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 127. 
 
 Not very long since, the proprietor felt in- 
 clined to sell this picture, if he could obtain 
 100 guineas for it ; and Mr. Sotheby, I remem- 
 ber, put it into one of his catalogues. He dif- 
 fered with Mr. Malone as to its size, calling it 
 a canvass, 20 inches by 16. He adds, " This 
 fine and extremely interesting portrait has been 
 in the possession of the family of the present 
 proprietor for upwards of a century." Now 
 Simon's print expresses, that it is done from a 
 capital picture in the collection of T. Wright, 
 painter, in Covent-garden. But not to bind 
 the auctioneer to reconcile dates, I differ en- 
 tirely with Mr. Malone on this subject, and 
 consider Simon's print to have been taken from 
 another, and very different original. 
 
 Mr. Douglas's picture was for a considerable 
 time in Mr. Triphook's possession, where I fre- 
 quently inspected it; and assuredly its merits 
 must be appreciated without reference to Simon's 
 engraving. The picture was very pleasing and
 
 140 
 
 delicately painted ; but it had none of the free- 
 dom and spirit to be found in the print, which 
 indicates an original not at all inferior to one 
 of the finest heads of Vandyke : and indeed, from 
 that great master, Soest has evidently borrowed 
 the air of the head, and the beautiful dispo- 
 sition of the hair. The real original of Simon's 
 print is probably at the country residence of one 
 of our nobility, and may there be esteemed a 
 genuine picture of the poet. The anecdote 
 which I have combined with it, on what I con- 
 ceive to be reasonable ground, communicates a 
 value to Soest's picture, which before was in 
 great doubt; I mean that, though it never 
 could be painted from Shakspeare, it was cer- 
 tainly painted as him, and unites a most de- 
 cided resemblance of the man, with a very 
 graceful and masterly power of the pencil. 
 
 If I could bring myself to infringe upon the 
 principle laid down, to engrave only such as 
 were considered authentic portraits, this head 
 should accompany the series; because, from 
 whomsoever got, in the general character it has 
 much of Shakspeare ; and no difficulty whatever
 
 141 
 
 is felt by me in asserting, that the sitter must 
 have borne a very peculiar and enviable re- 
 semblance to the great dramatic poet of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The zeal of Sir Thomas Clarges, and the 
 pencil of Soest, having thus supplied us with a 
 cavalier representation of Shakspeare, the be- 
 ginning of the present century called us to an 
 inspection of what may be called, with equal 
 justice, &. puritan exhibition of the poet — 
 
 " Like a mildew'd ear. 
 
 " Blasting- his wholesome brother." 
 
 In Middle Scotland-yard there resided, a few 
 years back, a bookseller, named Machel Stace. 
 Whether his residence was matter of conveni- 
 ence or taste, I know not ; but he was a good 
 deal frequented for the literature of the good old 
 times, and supplied many of the discontented 
 spirits of our own with the republican doctrines 
 and fanatical religion of the rebellion. His 
 visitors might kindle their enthusiasm by a 
 hasty glance at the scene of the great "crown- 
 ing mercy" adjoining, where the last sacrifice,
 
 142 
 
 the head of that gentlemanly monarch, Charles 
 the First, was offered up to the grim idol, a 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 *' And that two-handed engine at the door, 
 
 " Stood ready to smite once, and smite no more." 
 
 In addition to his books, Stace occasionally 
 solicited attention to some fine portraits of the 
 period to which I have so particularly alluded. 
 One of them v.as a likeness of the Protector, by 
 Walker, and eminently characteristic of that 
 successful usurper. The tendency of the saints 
 to this quarter of the town, at length sent in a 
 picture, which suggested to our bookseller a 
 rather prophane attribution ; and the unknown 
 saint was converted into the player Shakspeare. 
 
 The artist, whoever he was, has in some 
 decree imitated the costume and attitude of 
 Soest's picture ; and perhaps the counterfeit, 
 badly drawn as it is, might be taken for the 
 original from which Simon engraved, by one 
 knowing no more of art than Stace did. But in 
 truth, the great artist had nothing whatever to 
 do with it. The head is thrown back, and the
 
 143 
 
 shouUlei's are ungracefully round. The eyes 
 are considerably too large. The hair, instead 
 of the beautiful and picturesque disposition 
 which Soest studied in the works of Rubens 
 and Vandyke, is heavily cumbered into a dark 
 mass ; and the beard is treated in the same 
 tasteless and fanatical style. The doublet, with 
 its countless row of buttons, is the only point of 
 resemblance in the two pictures. But in the 
 faces of these, I had almost said political rivals, 
 may be accurately traced the opposite charac- 
 teristics of the poet and the puritan. 
 
 Stace had it engraved in 181 1 by Robert 
 Cooper, in a very coarse manner, and had the 
 audacity to write under it the name of Shak- 
 speare. But I leave it in this state of utter 
 rejection, to find some other name, which it 
 may not totally disgrace. Hitherto, the fancied 
 portraits of the great poet have been found to 
 follow an acknowledged resemblance of him ; 
 indeed it was a look more or less of the arche- 
 type, that led to the supposition so flattering 
 to the proprietors. But a period was shortly to 
 arrive, when the avarice of the dealer, seconded
 
 144 
 
 by the pencil of the artist, was to deride all 
 such comparison, and unblushingly affirm, heads 
 as dull as utter absence of thought could make 
 them, to be unquestionable originals of fancy's 
 favourite child. I am told, that the great fa- 
 bricator of these impositions is the grandson of 
 an artist of indisputable excellence. I learn too, 
 that misfortune suggested this sad remedy for 
 indigence. For his necessities, if they are not the 
 result of vice, he may be the object of our sym- 
 pathy; but the application that executes a fraud, 
 might produce a genuine work, and it is no 
 light or laughing matter to practise even inge- 
 nious deception. Some pictures of this class, 
 it has been my good or bad fortune to examine : 
 they have taught me a guarded distrust of all 
 portraits without pedigree. It is indeed so 
 unlikely that the modest Shakspeare should 
 have sat often for his picture, that though, as 
 in the case of his friend Ben Jonson, there were 
 to reach us many pictures of him, we yet should 
 find them duplicates of one or two originals, and 
 copies made several years after the poet's death. 
 I should certainly myself disdain to be very
 
 146 
 
 minute in recording the tricks of impostors ; but 
 I have been supplied unexpectedly with a copi- 
 ous detail on this subject, and will therefore 
 devote a few pages to the ludicrous and impu- 
 dent forgeries, which have been purchased at 
 great prices, and probably, false as they are, 
 excite or keep up the enthusiasm for Shak- 
 speare. 
 
 One of the most fortunate, among the acci- 
 dental Shakspeares, was the head bought by 
 Mr. Dunford, a printseller in Great Newport- 
 street, about the end of the year 1814. A 
 writer in a Sunday newspaper had styled this a 
 portrait by Zucchero: it was however most 
 clearly pointed out, that the poet never could 
 have sat to that artist at all, as the reader will 
 have already seen in my examination of Mr. 
 Cosway's picture, which was decidedly a head 
 by Zucchero, to whose manner, Mr. Dunford's 
 picture bears not the slightest resemblance. 
 Mr. Dunford, in a very modest letter to the 
 editor of the Champion, admitted the erroneous
 
 146 
 
 ascription of his picture to Zucchero, which, 
 it appeared, was tlie opinion of a friend, and. 
 never had been his own. Tliis letter was dated 
 the 3d of January, 1815. 
 
 I saw the portrait myself at Mr. Dunford's, 
 and from time to time heard various conjectures, 
 and once a tradition, which was said to have 
 travelled up from Oxford, that in some College 
 or other of that " Mother of famous Wits," it had 
 been a fact well known, that Mark Garrard had 
 at some time or other painted Shakspeare. 
 Now this was decidedly a better guess than the 
 other, and only assumed that, as he might have 
 painted, the poet, he absolutely did paint him; 
 and then that there was every probability this 
 was the very head, about which the story from 
 Oxford so opportunely arrived. 
 
 Garrard's processions of the great Queen are 
 well known to collectors ; and Vertue has ex- 
 patiated upon the uncommon fidelity of even his 
 small portraits, in these ingenious records of 
 the character of past times. Ahead, therefore, 
 life-size, by so faithful an artist, would indeed 
 present our dramatic " father, in his habit as he
 
 147 
 
 liv'd," and the highest satisfaction be derived to 
 us from a source so little questionable. But, in 
 the first place, the Oxford tradition somehow 
 mouldered away; nobody could demonstrate 
 that Garrard was even the painter of the pic- 
 ture ; and the head was decidedly unlike the 
 general expression of Shakspeare ; and at an 
 age when he had certainly a bald front, exhi- 
 bited him with a luxuriant crop of black hair, 
 as low as it ever comes upon elevated fore- 
 heads. 
 
 Mr. Dunford assured the public, in his letter, 
 that he saw in this portrait a likeness to Droe- 
 shout's print. I have compared them carefully, 
 and am afraid the resemblance is of the kind 
 discovered by Fluellen between Macedon and 
 Monmouth. When the imagination embraces 
 a favourite object, it endows it easily with all 
 the merits it desires to find. Althouoh nothing; 
 can be more obvious than the maturity of this 
 portrait, it was deemed young by its admirers, 
 that the hair mio^ht seem reasonable: though 
 the expression was gloomy even to sternness, it 
 was thought perfectly to exhibit the brightest of 
 L 2
 
 148 
 
 the sons of men; and it has I think been bought 
 at a price which far exceeded the sum paid for 
 the folio collection of his immortal productions, 
 when put in the happiest condition by the zeal 
 of Mr. Kemble. 
 
 It was twice engraved, once the size of life, 
 in 1815, by Turner, in mezzotinto; and really 
 that most able artist sunk under so portentous a 
 task: and a second time, the year following, 
 in the line manner, by Sharp, who on a smaller 
 scale has preserved the repulsive character of 
 the original, in a style whose neatness will 
 always command the attention of the connois- 
 seur. But in a word, the head is neither Shak- 
 speare, nor any other poet; it is that of a grave 
 calculating man of the world, shrewd in the 
 perception of his interest, and little subject to 
 the soft or the liberal affections ; the expression 
 of the mouth in particular, is decisive as to the 
 temper of the man. If such a person in an evil 
 hour became a sovereign, his attendants must 
 immediately assume the characteristic of their 
 master, and the court of King Cymbeline would 
 be renewed in all its unhappiness.
 
 149 
 
 You do not meet a man but frowns : our bloods 
 No more obey the heavens than our courtiers ; 
 Still seem as does the kind's. 
 
 A few years have elapsed, since Mr. Brocke- 
 don, a respectable artist, shewed me in his 
 painting-room a rather elaborate performance, 
 in which our poet was delineated upon a losenge, 
 which was borne aloft by an eagle. This, as a 
 work of fancy, I can have no objection to. The 
 apotheosis of a poet, or a saint, for the nonce, 
 converted into one, may be received on its own 
 merits, and find a welcome as a designed tri- 
 bute of affection or reverence for Shakspeare ; 
 but nobody surely can be so ignorant of his 
 character, as to suppose he would himself concur 
 in so vain a mode of delivering his likeness to 
 posterity. After all, our poet in the claws of 
 this allegorical eagle, too ludicrously reminded 
 the spectator of Gulliver in his cabinet, when 
 the same bird, enlarged to the scale of Brob- 
 dingnag, bore him in triumph away from the
 
 160 
 
 tender care oi" Glumdalclilcli. To this high 
 flight of the great fabricator, to whom I have 
 formerly alluded, were appended verses such as 
 the occasion demanded, but which trusted en- 
 tirely to their ortfiography for success, the 
 writer of them having- no knowledg^e whatever 
 of our ancient diction. 
 
 Among the pitiable absurdities which have 
 dishonoured the cause of Shakspeare, the most 
 ridiculous is clearly his exhibition upon the 
 oaken or mahogany lid of a pair of bellows. I 
 presume to call this the "brightest invention" as 
 to him who possessed a muse of fire. "To 
 what base uses may we return." However, 
 some little apology is included in the anecdote 
 which attended the picture, namely, that this 
 utensil had decorated the chamber of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and, under a hasty impatience for 
 warmth, the effigy of the poet might have 
 .sometimes been pressed by her royal hands.
 
 151 
 
 This speculatiori is said to have been once de- 
 tected by a picture cleaner of Paris, who re- 
 moved the high forehead and mustaches, which 
 denoted the poet, and discovered the more ap- 
 propriate mobled head of an old lady. However, 
 the fair decoration of the bellows soon became, 
 as before, a femme couverte; and the restored 
 head of Shakspeare is now in the possession of 
 Mr. Talma, who has bestowed a splendid case 
 upon this imique picture of the Bard, which 
 after all may have a stronger resemblance to 
 Shakspeare, than the Hamlet, the Macbeth, and 
 the Lear of Ducis, bear to the original plays so 
 denominated. I cannot stoop to the insertion 
 of the legends and epistles with which these 
 spurious mummeries are usually attended : they 
 are impudently signed Ben Jonson, or Poins, 
 or Pystolle ; for the knowledge of these fabri- 
 cators is very slender indeed as to the cotempo- 
 raries who might have been expected to honour 
 him. 
 
 But it may not be improper here to remind 
 the dealers in such things, that there is very 
 slender proof of any distinguished attention
 
 152 
 
 shewn by the great Qneen to her dramatic 
 poet. The whole of it is reduced to a tradition, 
 that she was greatly delighted with the charac- 
 ter of Fal staff in the two parts of Henry the 
 Fourth, and commanded the poet to exhibit the 
 Fat Knight in love, which produced the comedy 
 of the Merry Wives of Windsor: but this event 
 occurred late indeed in the life of the Queen : a 
 time of disaffection and treachery, of loneliness 
 and sorrow, had arrived, and she had neither 
 health nor spirits to devote to even refined 
 amusements. 
 
 The MIGHTY SPIRIT of the NORTH, wliom I 
 mention to honour, must be read with some 
 caution by the rising generation. In his per- 
 haps greatest work, Kenilicorth, he has com- 
 mitted grievous anachronisms, which must have 
 proceeded solely from his wish to make the 
 present court of the Queen rich in all the talents 
 of her reign. She is made to address Lord 
 Southampton as the patron of Shakspeare, when 
 that nobleman was a child in arms, and the 
 poet himself acquiring his "small Latin and 
 less Greek " in the grammar-school of Stratford.
 
 153 
 
 8he alludes to his Tempest, which was not 
 produced till ten years after her decease, and 
 recites at length from some of his latest pro- 
 ductions, which were reserved for the subjects 
 of her successor. Perhaps I may wish, that on 
 such an occasion the liberty had not been taken. 
 Romance may fitly supply the private or do- 
 mestic incidents to which History cannot stoop ; 
 but the less invasion she makes upon established 
 chronology the better, because no grounds being 
 afforded for detection, her whole creation then 
 passes upon the fancy, uncorrected by the me- 
 mory. "Rien n'est beau que le vrai.'' 
 
 After the frankness of the preceding remark, 
 I hope I may be allowed to add my feeble 
 tribute of admiration to a genius not equalled 
 since the days of Shakspeare. In the novel to 
 which I have referred, the character of Eliza- 
 beth is exhibited in so bold and masterly a 
 manner, that even the Queen Katherine of 
 Shakspeare is not superior, at her trial, to the 
 daughter of her rival, when overwhelming the 
 perfidy of Leicester by her "lion port" and in- 
 dignant reproaches. I rejoice certainly that so
 
 154 
 
 great and fertile a source of instruction and de- 
 light is reserved for my own times : but I can 
 yet regret, that such a novelist did not exist in 
 the days of Shakspeare ; who, from tales which 
 he could so easily have converted to the purposes 
 of the stage, might have added even new fea- 
 tures to his own vast range of dramatic ex- 
 cellence.
 
 THE POETIC CHARACTER 
 
 OP 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 Having thus laid before my readers the 
 evidence for the authenticity of certain portraits 
 of our great Bard, and by the most perfect 
 engravings made them acquainted with his 
 person, it seems to be only completing the pic- 
 ture, to add the truest portrait that exists of 
 his power as a poet. The verses which follow, 
 have been hitherto but slightly noticed by the 
 critics upon Shakspeare, with the exception of 
 Dr. Drake, who quotes from them incidentally, 
 when describing the peculiar influence of his 
 mind upon our national drama. 
 
 They first appeared in the folio 1632, and are 
 subscribed "The friendly admirer of his En- 
 dowments," I. M.S. It should seem that they 
 were not composed when the collection of Shak- 
 speare's plays first appeared in 162-^, and tliey
 
 156 
 
 may have been written in noble competition 
 with the splendid tribute of Ben Jonson in that 
 volume. The line taken by the latter poet is 
 essentially different from that of the former. 
 Jonson's is a rich and affectionate tribute of 
 praise. The "friendly admirer" gives a graphic 
 delineation of his genius, so copious that no- 
 thing can be added, so exact that nothing can 
 be questioned, diminished, or extended. This 
 too in a vein of poetry often sublime, always 
 fanciful and figurative — elegant in the com- 
 position of its terms, and flowing majestically 
 through verses refined in their cadence, and 
 variable in their pauses : 
 
 Untwisting- all the chains that tye 
 The hidden soul of harmony. 
 
 Whether the original printer of them knew 
 the author, it were now useless to inquire : the 
 editor of the succeeding folio in 1664, exhibits 
 the signature J. M. S. as I think, without mean- 
 ing any correction by the letter substituted, 
 but as supposing them equivalent, and to be 
 indifferently put for each other. A lapse of
 
 157 
 
 two and thirty years was not likely to afford 
 any information on the subject ; — the author 
 and he were most probably of different ages. 
 But this substitution of J. in the signature for I. 
 contributed perhaps to the gross error com- 
 mitted by Mr. Malone, and sanctioned by Mr. 
 Steevens. Mr. Malone says, probably Jasper 
 Mayne, Student. Now Jasper Mayne most 
 certainly had been a student, but at the pub- 
 lication of the folio had his Master's Degree. 
 Mayne, besides, was the author of many com- 
 mendatory poems, but did not shroud himself 
 under initials. I think no instance can be 
 found, after a signature, of an S. in the same 
 character, standing for student or any other 
 designation : — the word would be abbreviated, 
 or printed out in a smaller type, usually Italic, 
 But it were idle to press longer upon this most 
 idle attribution of the verses : Jasper Mayne 
 M^as utterly unequal to their composition. The 
 reader may satisfy himself on this fact, by pe- 
 rusing his eulogies on Fletcher, on Jonson, and 
 on Donne, persons for whom he entertained an
 
 158 
 
 ardent admiration, and in whose praise he ex- 
 hausted Ills very common store of poetical pa- 
 nea^yric : his commendation is vulgar, and his 
 favourite illustration is the varied beverage of 
 conviviality. He becomes mandiin between 
 wine and beer, and flows in such a stream as 
 the following. As well might the vigorous 
 frame of Falconbridge have been expected from 
 old Sir Robert, as this grand production from 
 Mayne. Thus he salutes Dr. Donne: 
 
 Here light your Muse, you that doe only thinke 
 And write, and are just Poets, as you drinke ; 
 In whose weake fancies wit doth ebbe and flow, 
 Just as your reckonings rise, that we may know 
 In your whole carriage of your worke, that here 
 This flash you wrote in wine, and this in beere ; 
 This is to tapp your Muse, which running- long. 
 Writes flat, and takes our eare not half so strong ; 
 Poore suburb wits, who, if you want your cup, 
 Or if a Lord recover, are blowne up. 
 
 doivne's poems, ED. 1650. 
 
 Mayne too was a boy when Shakspeare died ; 
 and I cannot but think that the terms, "friendly
 
 lo9 
 
 admirer of his endowments," imply n personal 
 acquaintance with the poet. 
 
 There are not wanting some coincidences of 
 thought and style, which render it within 
 possibility that Mauston might have written 
 the poem in question. Marston too was, strictly 
 speaking, the cotemporary of Shakspeare, and 
 no doubt was a "friendly admirer" of that 
 master spirit of his age. I am thoroughly 
 aware of the tumid character of his Muse, and 
 entirely agree with Mr. Gilford, in his admi- 
 rable note on the poetical character of Marston 
 in the Poetaster (see his edition of Ben Jon- 
 son's Works). But that exact critic candidly 
 admits, that some of his writings are free from 
 the bloated extravagance stigmatized by Jon- 
 son ; and if the pill administered by Horace had 
 taken full effect, it might have lowered him to 
 the rational temperature of the present poem. 
 But he has deprived me of the pleasure of ascrib- 
 ing it to him, by the verses following, which 
 were his real tribute to Shakspeare:
 
 160 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF M. W. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 We wondred (Shakespeare) that thou went'st so soone 
 
 From the world's stage to the grave's tyring-roome. 
 
 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 dye, and live, to act a second part. 
 
 That's but an exit of mortality ; 
 
 This a re-entrance to a plaudite. 
 
 I. M. 
 
 Perhaps no doubt will exist that Marston 
 wrote this poor stuff, when the following tribute 
 to Dr. Donne is attentively considered : 
 
 HEXASTICHON BIBLIOPOLiE. 
 
 I see in his last preach't and printed booke. 
 
 His picture in a sheet ; in Paul's I looke. 
 
 And see his statue in a sheet of stone. 
 
 And sure his body in the grave hath one : 
 
 Those sheets present him dead, these if you buy. 
 
 You have him living to eternity. 
 
 Jo. Mar. 
 
 His taste led him to the conceited in compo- 
 sition, and miserable conceit is all he has 
 bestowed upon these two great men.
 
 161 
 
 Mr. Godwin, in his Lives of Milton's Nephews, 
 just slightly throws out a query, after highly 
 praising the verses — ^'Is it possibly that I. M. S. 
 should be John Milton, Senior V j The son had 
 sent " an Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke 
 Poet, W. Shakespeare, written in 1630." — Did 
 the father shew himself the superior poet, by 
 transmitting verses at the same time, in a style 
 ''more worthy of his merits, and with more 
 fervent enthusiasm than any succeeding pane- 
 gyrist of Shakspeare has ever reached?" 
 
 I lately conversed with Mr. Godwin upon 
 the subject, and he observed to me, that he 
 had thrown out his query without much revolv- 
 ing it in his mind, and certainly without any 
 reliance upon it: but one conclusion he readily 
 came to, that they were verses, which could only 
 proceed from one long practised in poetical com- 
 position: — no occasional writer ever breathed 
 such strains. I happened to recollect that Mil- 
 ton, the son, had discriminated as to the powers 
 bestowed upon his father and himself; and 
 pointed out to my old friend the following pas- 
 sage in the Latin verses ad patrem. 
 
 M
 
 102 
 
 Nee tu pcTge, precor, sacras conteninere Musas, 
 Nee vanas inopesque puta, quavum ipse peritus 
 Munere, mille sonos numeros componis ad aptos, 
 Blillibus et vocem modulis variare canoram 
 Doctus, Arionii merito sis nominis hgeres. 
 Nunc tibi quid mirum, si me genuisse poetam 
 Contigerit, charo si tarn pvope sang-uine juncti, 
 Cognatas artes, studiumque affine sequamur ? 
 Ipse voiens Phoebus se dispertire duobus. 
 Altera dona mihi, dedit altera dona parenti ; 
 Dividuumque Deum, g-enitorque puerque, tenemus. 
 
 Cowper has given the sense of Milton's lines, 
 but the music of his own is not extraordinary. 
 
 Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight 
 
 The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain 
 
 And useless pow'rs, by whom inspir'd, thyself 
 
 Art skilful to associate verse vvrith airs 
 
 Harmonious, and to give the human voice 
 
 A thousand modulations, heir by right 
 
 Indisputable of Arion's fame. 
 
 Novi^ say, what wonder is it, if a son 
 
 Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoin'd 
 
 In close affinity, we sympathize. 
 
 In social arts, and kindred studies sweet ? 
 
 Such distribution of himself to us 
 
 Was Phoebus^ choice ; thou hast thy gift, and I
 
 10-5 
 
 Mine also, and between us we receive, 
 Father and Son, the whole inspiring- God, 
 
 This quotation seemed to dispose decisively 
 of the pleasing hint Mr. Godwin had thrown 
 out for consideration. Beside that, I think the 
 mode of the subscription as unlike Senior in its 
 third letter as Student. That S, should be the 
 sirname, implies two christian names ; and this 
 itself supposes an unknown poet, equal to the 
 greatest efforts, with a peculiarity so rare in 
 that age as two baptismal names. I just recol- 
 lect one exalted individual in that period, so 
 distinguished — the Lady Venetia Anastasia 
 Digby, Sir Kenelm's wife. The instances are 
 very few indeed : they were noted down in the 
 controversy as to one William Henry Ireland, 
 who was stated to have saved the Swan of 
 Avon from a watery death in the river Thames. 
 (See Mr. Malone's Vindication, and Mr. Chal- 
 mers's Apology). 
 
 Thus, therefore, we have arrived to something 
 like certainty, that I. M. S. is not to be taken for 
 either Jasper Mayne, Student, or John Marston, 
 either Student or vSatirist ; the word Student 
 
 M 2
 
 164 
 
 would have been printed at length, or at least 
 the letters Stud : — 
 
 But Mayne either wrote his name fairly out 
 on these occasions, or his contribution, as in 
 the case of Dr. Donne, is stated to be that of 
 Mr. Mayne, of Christ-church, Oxford. Having 
 thus disposed of the three most likely attribu- 
 tions, I shall keep the reader no longer from the 
 verses themselves, to which I have added a few 
 illustrations, because I look upon the poem to 
 be yet really unconsidered, and in a strain 
 sometimes peculiar, and for the most part un- 
 familiar, though in a few instances it might be 
 supposed to have suggested some of the most 
 sounding lines of modern panegyric.
 
 ON 
 
 WORTHY MASTER SHAKESPEARE, 
 
 AND HIS POEMS. 
 
 A MIND reflecting- ag-es past, whose clear 
 And equal surface can make thing-s appear. 
 Distant a thousand years, and represent 
 Them in their lively colours, just extent: 
 To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates, 
 Rowl back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates 
 Of death and Lethe, where confused lye 
 Great heaps of ruinous mortality : 
 
 (1) A mind reflecting ages past — Or in Shakspearc's own language, 
 " A glass that featur'd them." 
 
 (5) Upon the expression, " outrun hasty time" Mr. Steerens re- 
 minds us of the line of Dr. Johnson : 
 
 •' And panting Time toil'd after him in vain." 
 
 But in Bonduca, Fletcher has given us a closer parallel : 
 
 " I have seen these Britons, whom you magnify, 
 " Run, as they would have outrun Time." 
 
 (8) Great heaps of ruinous mortality — In the Iliad of Homer, by 
 Chapman, we find, 
 
 •' Where ruinous death made prize of every limb."
 
 166 
 
 in that deep dusky dungeon, to discern 
 
 A royal g-host from churls; by art to learn 10 
 
 The physiognomy of shades, and give 
 
 Them sudden birth, wond'ring- how oft they live ; 
 
 What story coldly tells, what poets feign 
 
 At second hand, and picture without brain. 
 
 Senseless and soul-less shews: To give a stage, — 
 
 Ample, and true with life, — voice, action, age. 
 
 As Plato's year, and new scene of the world. 
 
 Them unto us, or us to them liad hurlM : 
 
 (10) ^4 royal ghost from churls — To catch tlie spirit of departed 
 being so perfectly, as to inform the dead with their okl feelings and 
 language, and discriminate all conditions with the exactness of phy- 
 siognomy : to make even kings his subjects in his historical dramas, 
 and raise our ancient sovereigns from their hearse, to act eternally the 
 concluded dream of their ambition. " The grand and louder tone of 
 Clio" seems to have peculiar charms for this poet — he obviously pre- 
 fers the historical plays of our author ; and if he leaves us to regret 
 any thing in his composition, it is, that he has not more fully expatiated 
 upon the wonders of Shakspeare's comedy, 
 
 (1/) As Plato's year — An allusion to that completed revolution, when 
 not only the heavenly bodies would be returned to their primary posi- 
 tions, but similar beings be again produced by identical configurations 
 of the planets. The author might glance at the following passage of 
 Lord Bacon : 
 
 "The vicissitude or mutations in the superior globe are no fit matter 
 for this present argument. It may be, Plato's great year, if the world 
 should last so long, ^tjuld have some efFcctj not in the rcncwitig the
 
 167 
 
 To raise our ancient sovereig-ns from tlieir ht-rse. 
 
 Make kings his subjects ; by exchang-ing- verse *iO 
 
 Enlive their pale trunks, that the present age 
 
 Joys in their joy and trembles at their rage: 
 
 Yet so to temper passion, that our ears 
 
 Take pleasure in their pain, and eyes in tears 
 
 state of like individuals, (for that is the fume of those, that conceive 
 the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon these things 
 below, than indeed they have); but— in gross." — lord bacon's essays, 
 p. 332, ed. 1639. 
 
 (21) Enlive their pale trunks — For enliven. The verb is not very 
 commonly so exhibited, but I find it in that accurate poet Ben Jonson- 
 See his Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlct. 
 
 "What she did here, by great example, well, 
 
 " T'inlive posterity, her fame may tell." 
 
 WORKS, vol. ix. p. .'i5. 
 
 (22) Joys in their joy — Comes upon the modern car, as though 
 remembered in Drydcn, or Dr. Johnson's famous prologue forGarrick's 
 theatre. 
 
 (23) Yet so to temper passion. — That amiable man, Shii'ley, when 
 writing in 1647, his address to the reader for the plays of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, has something in prose extremely like this passage. "Thou 
 shalt meet, almost in every leaf, a soft purling passion, or spring of 
 sorrow, «o powerfully wrought high by the tears of innocence and 
 wronged lovers, it shall persuade thy ryes to irccp into the stream, and 
 yet smile when they contribute to their own ruins."
 
 168 
 
 Both weep and smile; fearful at plots so sad. 
 
 Then laughing- at our fear; abus'd, and glad 
 
 To be abus'd ; affected with that truth 
 
 Which we perceive is false, pleas'd in that ruth 
 
 At which we start, and, by elaborate play, 
 
 Tortur'd and ticki'd ; by a crab-like v/ay 30 
 
 Time past made pastime, and in ugly sort 
 
 Disgorging up his ravin for our sport: 
 
 While the plebeian imp, from lofty throne. 
 
 Creates and rules a world, and works upon 
 Mankind by secret engines ; now to move 
 A chilling pity, then a rigorous love ; 
 To strike up and stroak down, both joy and ire ; 
 To steer the affections ; and by heavenly tire 
 Mold us anew, stoln from ourselves : 
 
 There are in the same address a few more expressions, which seem to 
 echo other passages in this most eloquent poem, e. g. "Finding yourself 
 at last grown insensibly the very same person you read," is in fact, 
 "mold us anew, stol'n from ourselves." So, "Fall on a scerie of love, 
 peruse a scene of manly rage, and you would swear they cannot be 
 cxjnest by the same hands, but both are so excellently wrought, you 
 must confess none but the same hands could work them," has its clear 
 prototype also, and appears in the poem from verse 35 to verse 41 
 inclusive. 
 
 (39) Mold us anew. — Such is the punctuation in the folio 1632. 
 "Stol'n from ourselves" begins a new sentence; and a break after the 
 v/oid oursdren, indicates that the line, and more than tlie line, was
 
 169 
 
 This, — and much more, which cannot be exprest 40 
 But by himself, his tong-ue, and his own breast, — 
 Was Shakespeare's freehold ; which his cunning- brain 
 Improv'd, by favour of the nine-fold train; — 
 The buskin'd muse, the comick queen, the grand 
 And louder tone of Clio, nimble hand 
 
 left imperfect. But with the subaudition we being, (so naturally in- 
 serted), "stol'n from ourselves" conducts the poet's task with dignity 
 and solemnity to its close. And this is the true reason why neither the 
 couplet nor the line were finished : it certainly deceived the printer. 
 
 (44) The buskin d iimse — Perhaps, as Don Quixote has it, since the 
 Muses were Muses, and Apollo Apollo, the tuneful Nine were never 
 so briefly and beautifully enumerated. I shall just name them in the 
 order I think assigned to them by the poet. Melpomene, Thalia, Clio, 
 Erato and Terpsichore, Euterpe, Calliope, Polyhymnia, Urania. 
 
 After the word Calliope, "whose speaking silence daunts," might, 
 as it stood in the original, be thought to refer to that Muse, as the 
 antecedent to the relative whose; I have therefore, for clearness, con- 
 tinued the insertion of Mr. Capell's harmless pronoun, she; because it 
 makes it more obvious that another Muse was intended. The poet, 
 having by punctuation separated Calliope from what followed, reflected 
 the pronoun of the last line upon the former, and avoided a repetition 
 too close perhaps to satisfy his ear. 
 
 (The Muse) "whose speaking silence daunts, 
 
 " And she whose praise the heavenly body chaunts." 
 
 Speaking silence — 
 
 " Siltnce that spoke, and eloquence of eyes." 
 
 pope's homek. steevens.
 
 170 
 
 And nimbler foot of the melodious pair. 
 The silver-voic'd lady, the most fair 
 Calliope, gfje whose speaking silence daunts. 
 And she whose praise the heavenly body chants. 
 
 These jointly woo'd him, envying- one another; 50 
 
 Obey'd by all as spouse, but lov'd as brother ; — 
 And wroug-ht a curious robe, of sable g-rave. 
 Fresh green, and pleasant yellow, red most brave. 
 And constant blue, rich purple, guiltless white. 
 The lowly russet, and the scarlet bright : 
 Branch'd and embroider'd like the painted spring ; 
 Each leaf match'd with a flov^er, and each string 
 Of golden wire, each line of silk • there run 
 Italian works, whose thread the sisters spun ; 
 
 (52) ^ind wrought a curious robe — Fancifully shadowing the various 
 conditions of life, from the splendid purple of majesty, and the martial 
 red, to the guiltless white of maiden innocence, and the lowly russet 
 of the contented villager. 
 
 (59) Italian works — He whose judgment dictated so perfect an 
 estimate of the powers of Shakspeare, could not but mark particularly, 
 in this rich embroidery, the various subjects drawn from Italian 
 sources. The couplet which follows, one might suppose taken from 
 the "Bower of Bliss," or "the Gardens of Armida," or from the 
 very Muse of Paradise to have announced the epic grandeur and sweet- 
 ness of Milton: 
 
 « ' And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choice 
 '♦ Birds of a foreign note and various voice."
 
 171 
 
 And there did sing-, or seem to sing-, the choice 60 
 
 Birds of a foreig-n note and various voice : 
 Here hangs a nossy rock ; there plays a fair 
 Put chiding- fountain, purled : not the air. 
 Nor clouds, nor thunder, but were living- drawn ; 
 Not out of common tiffany or lawn. 
 But fine materials, which the JMuses know. 
 And onh' know the countries where they g-row. 
 Now, when they could no iong-er him enjoy. 
 In mortal g-arments pent, — Death may destroy, 
 Thejf say, his body ; but his verse shall live, ^0 
 
 And more than nature takes our hands shall give : 
 In a less volume, but more strong-ly bouna, 
 Shakespeare shall breath and speak ; with laurel ore wn'd, 
 
 (63) Fountain, purled — That is, as I conceire, ■pourfilc., purfled, 
 purled, edged, or hordercd. Wc are not,' I imagine, to suppose it 
 allied to our modern term purling, ktiiter Jluere, murmurare; because 
 the verb jdays is governed by this fair but chiding fountain. Purled 
 cannot be the pant tense of the verb, in construction with the present 
 tense plays; — it must tliercfore be the past participle; and the poet 
 intended to say, that tlie fountain, and its edge or border, were em- 
 broidered alike in the fine materials known only to the Muses. 
 
 In Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, we have the following passage : "A 
 foot-cloth, and traps of crimson velvet upon velvet, piaiid with gold." 
 
 (66) But fine materials — Perhaps the whole compass of English 
 poetry does not contain a more harmonious couplet than the present. 
 The ear is quite delighted with the full effect of the almost triple rhj'mc, 
 which lingers out its sweetness so unexpectedly.
 
 172 
 
 Which never fades; fed with ambrosiati meat; 
 
 In a well-lined vesture, rich and neat: — 
 
 So with this robe they cloath him, bid him wear it ; 
 
 For time shall never stain, nor envy tear it. 77 
 
 The friendly Admirer of his Endowments, 
 
 /. M. S. 
 
 (74) Ambrositio. meat — Such is this ^vriter's adjective ; not am- 
 brosia/, nor ambrosiac. I may observe, in passing, that we find % 
 great writer of that time, George Chapman, using the same word in 
 his Homer — " ambrosian night." Folio 1616, p. 169. I just recollect 
 that the expression, *' and his own breast," in verse 41, for poetic power, 
 is also illustrated by that poet — 
 
 "and thereat heare the breast 
 " Of the divine muse." 
 
 Page 127. 
 
 Having in the preliminary remarks upon this 
 poem, refused the honour of its composition to 
 either Mayne, or Marston, or the father of Mil- 
 ton, the letters with which it is subscribed do 
 not indicate any other poet of sufficient emi- 
 nence. It by no means escaped me, that Sir 
 John Mennys and James Smith were the joint
 
 173 
 
 authors of a small volume, entitled " Musanmi 
 Deliciae ;" and not having the book in my col- 
 lection, I devoted a few hours at the Museum 
 to an attentive perusal of their sprightly volume. 
 But I found nothing beyond the lighter poetry ; 
 and Mr. Ellis had already given, in his speci- 
 mens, the very lovely trifle of "Oberon's Ap- 
 parel," which placed the writers decidedly in 
 the train of Drayton's Nymphidia, but forbad 
 the slightest suspicion that they could ever 
 arrive at the sustained dignity or peculiar fancy 
 of Shakspeare's "friendly admirer." 
 
 I have already said, that I considered this 
 poem to have been written in noble competition 
 with the verses of Ben Jonson. The competition 
 was not the less noble, that a signature was 
 adopted, which effectually concealed the real 
 author from general knowledge. 
 
 " Such as do good, and blush to find it fame.'\ 
 
 Whether the letters stood for any votive for- 
 mulary, and were the initials of words in the 
 Latin language, is a conjecture which may be 
 submitted to the curious reader, who may in-
 
 174 
 
 dulge his fancy or his taste among the classical 
 combinations of such a nature ; but it is from 
 internal evidence alone, that the real author is 
 to be discovered. Among the cotemporaries of 
 our poet, I considered that no writer shewed 
 more adequate powers than George Chapman, 
 the great translator of Homer and Hesiod : 
 and in the illustrations which I have subjoined 
 to the poem, I have inserted a few parallel 
 passages, without hinting at my ultimate hypo- 
 thesis. I was aware that a more extended 
 adduction of congenial imagery and expression 
 was indispensable, in the endeavour to prove 
 the verses to have been really composed by 
 Chapman. Perhaps the word proof may be 
 improperly chosen, as indicating a certainty, 
 which such disquisitions but rarely attain. I 
 shall be satisfied if I have shewn a high degree 
 of PROBABILITY that he was the concealed au- 
 thor. Perhaps he wished to shun a personal 
 contest with Ben Jonson — their friendship had 
 been occasionally intermitted, and their lives 
 were drawing to a close — it was sufficient for 
 Chapman, if he displayed, in his happiest vein
 
 175 
 
 of composition, the mighty powers of the only 
 poet to whom he really o'.ved any deference. 
 In the cheerless poverty of age, he awaked the 
 sleeping embers of the muse's fire, and contended 
 anonymously for the palm of best celebrating his 
 immortal friend. 
 
 In support of this opinion, we must now 
 examine some of the many indications afforded 
 by Chapman's acknowledged writings. At the 
 very threshold of this search I was struck by a 
 rather whimsical coincidence. In turning over 
 his Homer 1616, among the faults escaped in 
 printing, noted by the poet himself, the very 
 first which he detected in that beautiful volume 
 is thus described: "In the margin, page 176, 
 for pastime read past time,'^ that is, in fact, 
 *time past had been made pastime,' by the 
 printers error. Now in the 31st line of the 
 verses on Shakspeare, we absolutely meet with 
 this singular play upon the words : 
 
 " By a crab-like way, 
 " Time past made pastime." 
 
 I have no fear that this will be thought purely
 
 fanciful, b}^ readers who have much reflected on 
 the doctrine of association, and been accustomed 
 to trace the origin and progress of our ideas. 
 A recollection of this printer's blunder, disco- 
 vered while correcting his Homer, might sup- 
 ply the quibble (for it is a quibble) with which 
 he sported in the composition now before us. 
 This is however but the light missile before the 
 weighty attack. The succeeding quotations, 
 while they furnish parallels to the poem illus- 
 trated, will claim the reader's veneration, as 
 some of the grandest passages in the literature 
 of our country. 
 
 There is nothing more remarkable in our 
 poem, than the noble strain with which it opens 
 — the first eight lines — 
 
 A mind reflecting ag-es past, whose clear 
 And equal surface can make things appear. 
 Distant a thousand years, and represent 
 Them in their lively colours, just extent : 
 To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates, 
 Rowl back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates 
 Of death and Lethe, where confused lye 
 Great heaps of ruinous mortality.
 
 J77 
 
 The reader, I have no doubt, will find the 
 highest gratification in comparing them with 
 what Chapman says of Homer. In fact, they 
 are the very same thoughts, sometimes but 
 little varied even in the expression, and at 
 others coloured only by the epic and dramatic 
 provinces, which he had undertaken to celebrate. 
 Of the mighty father of poetry he thus writes : 
 
 He, at Jove's table set, fils out to us. 
 
 Cups, that repaire age sad and ruinous ; 
 
 And gives it built, of an eternal stand. 
 
 With all his sinewy Odyss6an hand. 
 
 Shifts time and fate, puts death in life's free state; 
 
 And life doth into ages propagate. 
 
 To another noble passage I may fairly refer 
 a corresponding picture in the verses on Shak- 
 speare : 
 
 The nerves of all thing-s hid in nature, lie 
 
 Naked before him ; all their harmony 
 
 Tun'd to his accents ; that in beasts breathe minds. 
 
 Whatfowles, what floods, what earth, what aire, what 
 
 winds, 
 What fires ethereal,- vsrhat the Gods conclude 
 In all their counsels, his Muse makes indude 
 With varied voices, t^iat even rockes have mov'd. 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 This however is, though poetically, yet much 
 subdued, before it is allowed to figure on the 
 garment of the dramatic poet. 
 
 And there did sing, or seem to sing, the choice 
 
 Birds of a foreign note and various voice: 
 
 Here hangs a mossy rock; there plays a fair 
 
 But chiding fountain, purled; not the air, 
 
 Nor clouds nor thunder, but were living drawn; 
 
 Not out of common tiffany or lawn. 
 
 But fine materials, which the Muses know. 
 
 I add one more passage from the same epistle 
 dedicatory, because, though it offer nothing- 
 identical as to the phrase, yet as to the spirit, 
 it seems to proceed from the only Muse capable 
 of the verses to our Bard. 
 
 Truth dwels in gulphs. whose deepes hide shades so rich. 
 
 That night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch. 
 
 More dark than Nature made her; and requires. 
 
 To cleare her tough mists. Heaven's great fire of fires; 
 
 To whom the Sunne it selfe is but a beame. 
 
 The last line might add to the sublimity of 
 the Night Thoughts. 
 
 But while I shew that the writer of the verses
 
 179 
 
 on Shakspeare has used the same topics as Chap- 
 man has selected for the praise of Homer, J am 
 bound to place before the reader the original, 
 which suggested both. Chapman has for the 
 most part translated the following passage in 
 the Ambra of Politian : 
 
 Ille Jo vis mensae accumbens, dat pocula nobis 
 Iliaca porrecta manu, quae triste repellant 
 Annorum senium, vitamque in saecla propag"ent. 
 Ille Deuni vultuSj ille ardua semina laudura 
 Ostentat populis, ac mentis praepete nisu. 
 Pervolitat chaos immensum, coeliim, aequora, terras, 
 Vimque omnem exsinuat rerum, vocesque refundit 
 Quas fera, quas volucris, quas venti, atque aetheris ig-nes, 
 Quas maria, atque amnes, quas dique hominesque loquan- 
 
 tur. 
 Quin nudam virtutem ipsam complexus honores 
 Fastidit vanos, et ineptae praemia famae 
 Despicit exeniptus vulg-o, acjam monte potitus, 
 Ridet anelantem dura ad fastig-ia turbam. 
 
 Opera Ang. Polit. Ven. ap Aid. 1498. 
 
 Signal, e e, V & vi. 
 
 I have a little extended the quotation, for the 
 sake of a becoming close to a most eloquent 
 passage, which contains a fragment often used 
 
 n2
 
 180 
 
 in our panegyrics, with perhaps little remem- 
 brance where it came from — 
 
 Jam monte potitiis, 
 Ridet anelantem dura ad fasligia turbam. 
 
 Upon the death of that elegant Critic, and 
 most amiable man, Mr. Tyrwhitt^ in the copy 
 of the Canterbury Tales which he had presented 
 to Mr. Malone, my late friend wrote the above 
 quotation opposite a very affecting record of 
 his loss*. 
 
 Perhaps I may assume my position to be a 
 little strengthened by the circumstance above 
 mentioned. It is much more likely that the 
 translator of the passage on Homer should have 
 applied some of the topics to his friend Shak- 
 speare, than that a second poet should equally 
 recur to the works of Politian, when delineating 
 the character of a modern bard. This dilemma 
 to be sure is avoided, by supposing that Shak- 
 speare's admirer imitated Chapman ; but the 
 
 * He wrote vestigia in the passage, instead of fastigia, 
 SK) that he certainly did not take it direct from Politian.
 
 181 
 
 " free and heightened style " of the latter was 
 not very easily attained, and I cannot for a 
 moment bring myself to countenance such a 
 supposition. 
 
 There may still be persons, who, from the 
 too frequent quaintness of Chapman, imagine 
 that any series of lines divested of that uncouth 
 companion, cannot be found in him. To such I 
 shall merely present the following exquisite 
 passage of the Hymn to Apollo, translated by 
 Chapman from Homer. Iris acquires the aid 
 of Lucina, and they are thus described on their 
 journey to Delos, for the purpose of giving birth 
 to Apollo : 
 
 And on their way they went, like those two doves 
 That, walking highways, every shadow moves 
 Up from the earth, forc'd with their natural fear. 
 When ent'ring Delos, she that is so dear 
 To dames in labour, made Latona straight 
 Prone to delivery, and to yield the weight 
 Of her dear burthen, with a world of ease. 
 When with her fair hand she a palm did seize. 
 And staying her by it, stuck her tender knees 
 Amidst the soft mead ; that did smile beneath 
 Her sacred labour, and the child did breathe
 
 182 
 
 Tlje ail- in th' instant. All the g-oddesses 
 
 Break in kind tears and shrieks for her quick ease. 
 
 And thee, o archer Phoebus with waves clear 
 
 Wash'd sweetly over, swaddled with sincere 
 
 And spotless swathebands ; and made then to flow 
 
 About thy breast a mantle white as snow; 
 
 Fine, and new made ; and cast a veil of g-old 
 
 Over thy forehead. Nor yet forth did hold 
 
 Thy mother for thy food her g-olden breast : 
 
 But Themis, in supply of it, address'd 
 
 Lovely Ambrosia*. 
 
 Perhaps tlie reader will be reminded here of 
 the "well-lined vesture rich and neat," with 
 which the Muses in the poem clothe their be- 
 loved Shakspeare ; he may also notice that the 
 poet god, and the god of poets, are equally 
 nourished with ambi^osian meat: but he will 
 certainly be reminded of one, who to delicacy, 
 and grace, and harmony, could join the clearest 
 and most expressive terms in the language, and 
 by this passage alone prove himself to be equal 
 to the splendid tribute, which has given rise to 
 the present inquiry. 
 
 * See my friend Sing-er's beautiful edition of the 
 Hymns of Homer, p. 26.
 
 183 
 
 In a work principally directed to tlic person 
 of Shakspeare, I have been led into an illustra- 
 tion of his poetical character. I rejoice that I 
 have been driven for a parallel to what Politian 
 and Chapman have sung so divinely of Homer. 
 I shall be excused for saying something of the 
 person also of the latter poet. The received 
 head is that in the Townley Collection. Casts 
 have been multiplied of this bust, though I 
 know not that it is derived from any authority. 
 It expresses with great truth the condition of 
 blindness, but makes but a slender attempt to 
 represent his genius. I therefore call the at- 
 tention of the public to the following passage, 
 which Chapman has given in the prolegomena 
 of Homer, from which, if 1 do not greatly de- 
 ceive myself, we possess one artist, who could 
 model a figure, worthy to stand by the Moses 
 of Michael Angelo : 
 
 " First what kind of person Homer was, saith Spon- 
 danus, his statue teacheth, which Cedrenus describeth. 
 Then was the Octag-onon at Constantinople consumed 
 with fire, and the bath of Severus that bore the name of 
 Zeuxippus : in which there \va> much varielie of spectacle
 
 184 
 
 and splendor of arts ; the workes of all ag-es being- con- 
 ferred, and preserved there, of marble, rockes, stones, 
 and imag-es of brasse; to which, this onely wanted ; that 
 the soules of the persons they presented were not in 
 them. 
 
 " Amongst these master-pieces, and all-vvit- 
 exceeding workmanships, stood Homer, as he 
 was in his age, thoughtfull and musing: his 
 hands folded beneath his bosome; his beard 
 untriramed, and hanging downe; the haire of 
 his head in like sort thinne on both sides before ; 
 his face with age and cares of the world (as 
 these imagine) wrinkled and austere ; his nose 
 proportioned to his other parts ; his eyes fixt or 
 turned up to his eye browes, like one blind (as 
 it is reported he was), not horn blind, saith 
 Veil. Paterculus, which he that iraagins is 
 blind of all senses. Upon his under coate he 
 was attired with a loose robe ; and at the base 
 beneath his feet, a brazen chaine hung. This 
 was the statue of Homer, which in that con- 
 ilagration perished." 
 
 Such is the truly graphic record of a statue 
 worthy, we may be sure, of the mighty subject.
 
 185 
 
 1 have used the attraction of Shakspeare's name, 
 as a vehicle to recommend such an effort to our 
 native sculptors; and should indeed triumph, 
 were I so fortunate as to elicit a work, which 
 even in degree might compensate so great a 
 loss. 
 
 An author is usually fuller upon the pains 
 than the pleasure of his task. The delight 
 with which Shakspeare inspires his sincere vo- 
 taries, makes " all their labours pleasures." But 
 I have, I confess, indulged a decided partiality 
 (I dare not call it taste) in striving to render 
 Chapman better known among us. Mr. Lamb, 
 in his curious and most valuable work, "The 
 Specimens," had spoken of Chapman in that 
 happy distinctive way, that marks his characters 
 of all the early dramatic poets. What he says 
 of his Homer in particular, is as bold as it is 
 true. But I think he might have extended his 
 commendation so as to assert, what I am sure 
 he will never deny, the amazing harmony and 
 sweetness of Chapman's lighter efforts, and the 
 tender and graceful images that sometimes 
 floated before his fancy. I will not refuse my-
 
 ISfi 
 
 self the pleasure of laying one such passage 
 before my readers ; it is from a very scarce 
 poem, and describes the flight of Andromeda. 
 
 Her most wise mother yet, the sterne intent, 
 Vow'd with her best endeavour to prevent. 
 And tolde her what her father did addresse ; 
 Shee (fearfull) fled into the wildernesse : 
 And to th' instinct of savag-e beasts would yeeld. 
 Before a father that would cease to shield 
 A daughter, so divine and innocent: 
 Her feet were wing'd, and all the search out went, 
 That after her was ordered : but she flew. 
 And burst the winds that did incenst pursue. 
 And with enamoured sig-hes, her parts assaile, 
 Plaide with her haire, and held her by the vaile : 
 From whom shee brake, and did to woods repaire : 
 Still where shee went, her beauties dide the ayre. 
 And with her warme blood, made proud Flora blush : 
 But seeking- shelter in each shadie bush : 
 Beauty like fire comprest, more streng-th receives ; 
 And shee was still seene shining* throug^h the leaves. 
 Hunted from thence, the sunne even burn'd to see. 
 So more then sunne-like a divinity. 
 Blinded her eyes, and all invasion seekes 
 To dance upon the mixture of her cheekes. 
 Which show'd to all, that follow'd after far, 
 As underneath the roimdure of a starre.
 
 187 
 
 The evening" skie is purpled with his beames : 
 
 Her lookes fir'd all thing-s with her love's extreames. 
 
 Her necke a chaine of orient pearle did decke. 
 
 The pearles were faire, but fairer was her necke : 
 
 Her breasts (laid out) show'd all enflamed sig-hts 
 
 Love, lie a sunning-, twixt two Crysolites : 
 
 Her naked wrists showde, as if through the skie, 
 
 A hand were thrust, to sig-ne the Deitie. 
 
 Her hands, the confines, arid dig-estions were 
 
 Of beauties' world ; Love fixt his pillars there. 
 
 Andromeda Liberata, 
 By Georg-€ Chapman. 
 
 Printed for Laurence Lisle, and are to be sold 
 at his shop in St. Paule's Church-yard, 
 at the signe of the Tiger's-head. 1614. 
 
 Gn a matter so purely incidental, I do not 
 chuse to occupy more space ; I therefore close 
 my remarks with the declaration, that George 
 Chapman, in my opinion, was the author of the 
 verses on Shakspeare, subscribed, " The friendly 
 Admirer of his Endowments." As a slight co- 
 incidence, still to be noted, when, in 1594, he 
 dedicated his two hymns to his "tvorthy" 
 friend Master Matthew Roydon, he closes by 
 terming himself, "The true Admirer of his 
 Virtues."
 
 ADDITIONAL REMARKS, 
 
 AS TO THE PORTRAIT BY CORNELIUS JANSEN. 
 
 In the Critical Review for December 1770, 
 the print by Earlom is thus noticed : 
 
 King Lear, 8vo. jyrice Zs. — A mezzotinto of the 
 author, by the ingenious Mr. Earlom, (whose industry 
 and abilities do honour to the rising arts of Great Britain), 
 is placed at the head of it. We should have been glad 
 indeed, to have some better proofs concerning the authen- 
 ticity of the original, than a bare assertion that it was 
 painted by Cornelius Jansen*, and is to be found in a 
 
 * Walpole says, Jansen's first works are dated in 
 England about 1618; this picture bears date in 1610. 
 The only true picture of Shakspeare supposed to be now 
 extant, was painted either by Richard Burbage, or John 
 Taylor the player, the latter of whom left it by will to 
 Davenant, After his death, Betterton bought it; and
 
 189 
 
 private collection, which we are not easily inclined to 
 treat with much respect, especially as we hear it is filled 
 with the performances of one of the most contemptible 
 daubers of the ag-e. 
 
 These kind observations were from the pen 
 of Mr. Steevens himself, who being then en- 
 gaged with Dr. Johnson in preparing the edition 
 of 1773, seized the opportunity, readily afforded 
 to such a writer, of defeating a rival editor. 
 I cannot but lament that he should stoop to this 
 sort of warfare ; but I shall prove immediately, 
 what Mr. Jennens could only suspect, that he 
 actually wrote the review of the new edition of 
 King Lear. Let us look at the sort of pleasantry 
 with which the editor of the obnoxious work is 
 assailed. 
 
 " Though for the service of his author he might have 
 been tempted, like Prince Harry, to have robbed an 
 
 when he died, Mr. Keck of the Temple, gave 40 guineas 
 for it to Mrs. Barry the actress. From him it descended 
 to Mr. NichoU of Southgate, by whose daughter it 
 afterwards came to the present Marquis of Caernarvon, in 
 whose possession we believe it still remains,— iVbfe of 
 the Reviewer.
 
 190 
 
 Exchequer, or fleeced a King's collectors, or even to 
 have stolen with Dumain, an eg-g- out of a cloister; yet 
 he should not with Bardolph have descended to filch a 
 lute-case; with Pistol to murder a poor whore's ruff; or 
 with Falstaff to make a bankrupt of Mrs. Quickly." 
 
 The preceding is a favourite illustration of 
 Mr. Steevens ; and as the life of a review is not 
 unreasonably long, he was perhaps justified in 
 repeating himself more than twenty years after- 
 wards. In the supplement to Richardson's Pro- 
 posals, December 1794, our friend Bardolph 
 again makes his appearance. "The artist," 
 says Mr. Steevens, " who could have filched 
 from Droeshout, like Bardolph, might have 
 * stolen a lute-case, carried it twelve leagues, 
 and sold it for three halfpence.' " 
 
 The writer in the Critical Review, again 
 notices Earlom's print in the month of January 
 following : 
 
 " Concerning this print we will have no controversy ; 
 but we still adhere to our former opinion, that the soul 
 of the mezzotinto is not the soul of Shakspeare. It has 
 been the fate of Shakspeare to have many mistakes com- 
 mitted both about his soul and body: Pope exhibited 
 him under the form of James the First."
 
 191 
 
 Having already considered what respects 
 Jansen's residence in this country, and proved 
 certainly that he might have painted Shak- 
 speare, the preceding extracts furnish little to 
 call for additional remark, unless it be that we 
 gather by implication, that Mr. Steevens be- 
 lieved in 1770 the Chandos Head to be a true 
 picture of the poet. 
 
 But it may be gratifying a reasonable cu- 
 riosity, as the pamphlet is before me, to let 
 the reader see something of the reply made by 
 Mr. Jennens to the Reviewer: the passage 
 which I shall select, touches also upon the 
 picture : 
 
 " There are three sorts of people that these reviewers 
 seem to bear a mortal antipathy to, viz. the old, the 
 fat, and the industrious: from which we have great 
 reason to conclude, that none of them are either old, 
 or fat, or industrious. Young-, unfledg-ed criticks, we 
 think they have sufficiently proved themselves to be ; 
 and criticism in such hands, especially when unaccom- 
 panied by industry, is not likely either to thrive itself, or 
 to fatten its owners. 
 
 " But they think, contrary to all the philosophers that 
 went before them, that ag"e is not the proper period for 
 criticism. It is their opinion that long: experience does
 
 192 
 
 not improve the judg-ment ; that a life spent in study 
 does not ripen the mental abilities; that a man may 
 know more in twenty or thirty years than he can in sixty 
 or seventy; and that those who are acquainted with the 
 first rudiments of learning- only, are better qualified for 
 criticks than those who have g-athered all the fruits of 
 science. 
 
 " Concerning- the authenticity of the picture from 
 which the mezzotinto print of Shakspeare was taken, 
 they have dropt the controversy ; and we are very glad 
 they have so much sense and modesty left, as to find out 
 what impudence and absurdity they have been g-uilty of, 
 in calling- in question a picture they have never seen, and 
 without any provocation abusing- a person whom the 
 g-enerality of the world have thoug-ht fit to esteem an 
 artist that excels in the hig-her branch of painting-, and 
 of whose performances Mr, Jennens has many, though 
 his collection cannot be said to be Jilled with them, (as 
 the Critical Reviewers say they hear), their number 
 being inconsiderable when compared with the whole 
 collection. 
 
 " They say, ' we still adhere to our former opinion, 
 that the soul of the mezzotinto is not the soul of Shak- 
 speare.' Who said it was ? The soul of a picture cannot 
 be the soul of a man ; but a picture may be like a man's 
 soul, when it is made to express those qualities and dis- 
 positions which we discover him by his writings to have 
 been possest of." — Vindication of King Lear.
 
 198 
 
 It is to be regretted that petulant criticism 
 seems to have suppressed what evidence Mr. 
 Jennens could have brought forward — he dis- 
 dained the attack as coarse and ungentlemanly, 
 (as in truth it was), and insolent enough to call 
 for something beyond literary chastisement. I 
 shall merely add the Reviewer's farewell to the 
 proprietor of Gopsal — "Vale, Jennine nosterl 
 literatorum omnium minime princeps!" 
 
 While the engravings for this work were in 
 progress, I was unremitting in my inquiries 
 after the picture, which, as I have stated at 
 page 79, was no longer the ornament of Gopsal. 
 At length I succeeded in tracing it to its present 
 residence: — this portrait of Shakspeare is now 
 the property of His Grace the Duke of Somer- 
 set, and I have understood was a present to him 
 from the late Duke of Hamilton. 
 
 I have unquestionable authority for saying 
 that it came up with a considerable part of the 
 collection from Gopsal, and was bought by
 
 ; 
 
 194 
 
 Woodburn for His Grace the Duke of Hamilton, 
 somewhere about fifteen years back. To ex- 
 patiate upon the absurdity which parted with it 
 from Gopsal, in strong terms, would seem like 
 a regret that it is now in the metropolis ; a 
 feeling that I cannot entertain, since otherwise 
 I might never have had the satisfaction of com- 
 paring it with Earlom's print. 
 
 Although I had not the honour to be known 
 to His Grace, I took the liberty to communicate 
 my wish to inspect the picture, and from the 
 country orders were transmitted to give me 
 every accommodation for that purpose. As it 
 was placed near the top of the room, it was taken 
 carefully down, and put in a proper light for 
 examination. It had been removed from its 
 ancient frame, into one of greater value but less 
 interest. The portrait is on pannel, and at- 
 tention will be required to prevent a splitting 
 of the oak in two places, if my eye have not 
 deceived me. 
 
 It is no made up questionable thing, like so 
 many that are foisted upon us. It is an early 
 picture by Cornelius Jansen, tenderly and
 
 beautifully painted. Timfe seems to have treated 
 it with infinite kindness; for it is quite pure, 
 and exhibits its original surface. The epithet 
 gentle^ which cotemporary fondness attached to 
 the name of Shakspeare, seems to be fully 
 justified by the likeness before us. The ex- 
 pression of the countenance really equals the 
 demand of the fancy; and you feel that every 
 thing was possible to a being so happily con- 
 stituted. 
 
 I had supposed, although I knew Earlom to 
 have been a great mannerist, that with some 
 little allowance for his peculiar style, he would 
 have been kept, by Mr. Jennens's veneration for 
 the poet, in some measure faithful to the pic- 
 ture. But he had been faithless beyond measure; 
 and indeed none of the parts were accurately 
 reduced by him. He had lessened the ampli- 
 tude of the forehead — he had altered the form 
 of the skull — he had falsified the character of 
 the mouth — and though his engraving was still 
 beautiful, and the most agreeable exhibition of 
 the poet, I found it would be absolutely ne- 
 
 o2
 
 196 
 
 cessary to draw the head again, as if lie had 
 never exercised his talents upon it. 
 
 The noble possessor of the picture afforded 
 every facility to the artist for this object ; and 
 Mr. Turner has produced an engraving in con- 
 sequence, which may be considered as giving 
 the genuine character and expression of the 
 picture. Mr. Turner thought, in examining the 
 liberties taken by Mr. Earlom, that he had 
 however judged wisely, in not copying the 
 figured satin of the dress. In the picture, the 
 charm of colour blended the pattern and the 
 ground into one rich mass, and it by no means 
 injured the expression of the head; but in the 
 print, it would have disturbed the grand effect, 
 to have imitated such trivial parts ; he, there- 
 fore, with my entire concurrence, kept the 
 dress dark, that the brilliant effect of the head 
 might be quite undisturbed. 
 
 Comparing it with the other portraits, it 
 certainly most resembles the head by Droeshout 
 in the folio 1623. But, as works of art, the 
 rudeness of the one is as obvious as the refine-
 
 197 
 
 nient of the other. Still as fidelity was equally 
 dear to both the artists, in their very contrasted 
 styles, they alike, though not equally, exhibit 
 the countenance of the poet, and thus illustrate 
 and confirm the representations of each other. 
 
 At the conclusion of this article, I seize the 
 opportunity of expressino^ publicly my respectful 
 acknowledgments to the possessor of this noble 
 portrait ; and am truly happy in laying before 
 the public a most beautiful engraving from the 
 portrait of Shakspeare by Cornelius Jansen, in 
 the collection of His Grace the Duke op 
 Somerset. 
 
 At the close, as I conceived, of my inquiry, 
 my attention was excited by the publication of a 
 small Head of the Poet, from an original picture 
 in the possession of J. W. Croker, Esq. M. P. 
 I sent for the engraving, and found it a very 
 unfaithful and poor attempt indeed, to express 
 the picture by Jansen. The next step, in 
 course, was to see the work from which it 
 professed to be taken. Mr. Croker with the
 
 198 
 
 utmost readiness indulged my curiosity, and 
 agreeably surprised me by the sight of an ab- 
 solute fac simile of the Duke's picture. I see 
 no difference whatever in the execution — the 
 character of course is identical. It should, 
 however, be observed, that although the Duke's 
 picture is on pannel, Mr. Croker's is on can^ 
 vass. I must add to this remark, that the pic- 
 ture on canvass has no date or age painted upon 
 it, and that the portrait is an oval within a 
 square ; in other words, the angles are rounded 
 off. The mode, Mr. Croker tells me, in which 
 the picture was discovered, was singularly re- 
 markable. It was hidden behind a pannel, in 
 one of the houses lately pulled down near the 
 site of Old Suffolk-street, and he purchased it 
 in a state of comparative filth and decay. It 
 has been very judiciously cleaned and lined, 
 but no second pencil has ever been allowed to 
 touch it. This discovery of pictures behind 
 wainscoting is not unusual, particularly in the 
 country. It was once the practice in plastered 
 walls, to insert frames of the same colour, and 
 these formed all the decorations of the pictures.
 
 199 
 
 Subsequently, when it was determinfed to wains- 
 coat an apartment, the picture was often be- 
 come so sallow by time and dirt, as to be 
 hardly visible, and was so deemed not worth 
 the trouble of extraction, and therefore covered 
 along with the wall which inclosed it. An 
 instance of this kind comes positively within my 
 own knowledg-e. 
 
 Had it been possible, I should have pursued 
 the inquiry to the ascertainment of the identical 
 house from which it came, and thus at all 
 events have tried to trace out its ancient pos- 
 sessor. But Mr. Croker could give me no 
 further detail. He received the account with- 
 out suspicion, for the picture was obviously 
 ancient, and from its condition, had as obviously 
 been hidden. He bought it liberally, and has 
 reason to congratulate himself upon the ac- 
 quisition. 
 
 In talking over the subject of Shakspeare's 
 portrait with Mr. Croker, that gentleman very 
 fairly put before me a doubt which he said had 
 frequently entered his mind, whether Shakspeare 
 was a person of sufficient worldly importance to
 
 200 
 
 have his portrait painted in the style of the pic* 
 ture which then hung before us ? As I know 
 such a notion has occurred to many of the poet's 
 fondest admirers, it may be proper to throw 
 what light I am able, upon a point so worthy of 
 investigation. If the high admiration of genius, 
 of itself established the right to such a distinc-^ 
 tion, there can be little room to dispute, that 
 among many of the greatest men of that age, 
 his powers were as justly appreciated, and him- 
 self as highly honoured, as our most ardent 
 love for him could wish to have been the case. 
 Still there is the distressing fact before us, 
 that Spenser, with very striking claims, was 
 neglected and reduced to poverty, and might 
 have wanted at all events a distinguished grave, 
 but for the munificence of that great but erring 
 character, the Earl of Essex*. We have further 
 
 * Edmund Spenser, qui obiit apud diversorium in 
 platea Regia, apud Westmonasterium juxta London, 
 16° die Januarij 1598 (1598-9 of course). Juxtaq: 
 Geffereum Chaucer, in eadem ecclesia supradict : Hono- 
 ratissimi Comitis Essexiae impensis sepelitur. — Henry 
 Capell, 1598. In Mr. Brand' a copy of F. Q. 1596.
 
 2Ul 
 
 to consider, that the profession of an actor was not 
 at that time reputable, and that Shakspeare him- 
 self has complained that his name was injured 
 hy " the quality he professed*." It may there- 
 fore still be requisite to shew the degree of worldly 
 consideration which attached to him, and to 
 prove that very considerable things were sought, 
 and probably acquired, through the medium of his 
 influence with the great personages, his friends 
 and patrons. Now it appears from some papers, 
 which Mr. Malone did not live to work into his 
 biography of the poet, that in the years 1597 and 
 1598, the elder Mr. Richard Quiney was in 
 London, soliciting a renewal and enlargement of 
 the charter, and an exemption for the borough 
 of Stratford from a subsidy granted by par- 
 liament. The plea on which they claimed this 
 exemption, before the Lord Treasurer Burghley, 
 was poverty and distress occasioned by two 
 
 * Thence comes it that my name receives a brand ; 
 And almost thence my nature is subdu'd 
 To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 
 
 SONNET CXi.
 
 202 
 
 recent lires. Upon this and many other topics, 
 Abraham Sturley, on the 24th January, 1597-8, 
 writes a letter from Stratford to Mr. Quiney. 
 I have no business with more of it, than relates 
 to Shakspeare, his circumstances, his influence, 
 and his connexions. The following I copy lite- 
 ratim: 
 
 " This is one special remembrance from ur fathrs mo- 
 tion. It seemeth bi him that o"^ countriman ]Mr Shakspe 
 is willing- to disburse some monej upon some od yarde- 
 land or other att Shottrj or neare about us. He think- 
 eth it a very fitt patterne to move him to deale in the 
 matter of o^ Tithes. Bj the instructions u can g-ive him 
 theareof, & bj the frendes he can make therefore, we 
 thinke it a faire marke for him to shoot at, & not un- 
 possible to hitt. It obteined would advance him in deede, 
 & would do us much good — hoc movere & quantum in te 
 e pmovere, ne neg"lig"as: hoc enim et sibi et nobis 
 maximi erit momenti : hie labor, hoc opus esset eximiac 
 et g-lorisc et laudis sibi." 
 
 Thus we find, that so early as 1597-8, and 
 when, with the exception of Romeo and Juliet, 
 he had (according to Mr. Malone's chronology) 
 written no one of his greatest productions,
 
 20S 
 
 Shakspeare was enabled to purchase land in his 
 own county, and in the opinion of his relations 
 and townsmen, able to make such friends as 
 should very materially benefit his native place, 
 whose interests there can be no doubt he warmly 
 felt and promoted. 
 
 We are next in the letter presented witli a 
 picture of the discontents of the writer's neigh- 
 bours at the excessive dearness of corn, and the 
 popular outcry in consequence against the 
 maltsters. As the narrative is very simple and 
 very natural, I shall throw a little of it into 
 modern orthography, for a purpose, which will 
 appear at the end of the extract. 
 
 " They have assembled log-ether in great numbers, and 
 travelled to Sir Thomas Lucy on Friday last, to com- 
 plain of our maltsters. On Sunday to Sir Fulk Greville 
 and Sir John Conway. There is a meeting- here ex- 
 pected to-morrow: the Lord knoweth to what end it 
 will sort. Thomas West returning from the two Knig-hts 
 of the Woodland, (just mentioned) came home so full, 
 that he said to Mr. Baily that night, he hoped within 
 a week to lead of them iu a halter, meaning the 
 maltsters; and 1 hope, saith Thomas Granams, if God
 
 204 
 
 send my Lord of Essex down shortly, to see them 
 hang-ed on g-ibbets at their own doors*." 
 
 Here we have a glance at one of the friends 
 whom the Poet might be expected to secure 
 towards the object of his townsmen. We have 
 in addition exhibited one of those simple re- 
 liances of the common people upon their fa- 
 vourites, from whom the most decided impos- 
 sibilities are with full confidence expected ; and 
 in the fate of Essex we see the corresponding 
 reliance upon the people, as idly and more 
 mischievously placed. There is a charm how- 
 ever in perusing such familiar correspondence 
 as the above, which is easier felt than described. 
 We view the great men of history operating 
 upon familiar life, and understand and feel 
 more distinctly the ties which united them with 
 the general mass. 
 
 Having thus shewn the early consequence of 
 
 * Mr. Richard Quiney's address in town will complete 
 this amusing- record of the past : — " To his most loveing-e 
 brother Mr. Richard Quiney, at the Bell in Carter Lane> 
 att London, give these."
 
 205 
 
 the Poet, in a worldly sense, there is no diffi- 
 culty in conceiving its progressive increase*, 
 from the decided patronage of King James ; the 
 restoration of Lord Southampton to liberty and 
 the new sovereign's favour ; the rival ardour of 
 the excellent William Earl of Pembroke, who, 
 we are told, was a decided favourer of the poet 
 and his writings ; and indeed from the resplen- 
 dent claims of his own genius upon all who 
 were worthy to follow it, proceeding as he did 
 from one brilliant production to another, and 
 exhibiting one and twenty of his most perfect 
 dramas, within the short space of about thirteen 
 
 YEARS. 
 
 I should therefore find not the slightest dif- 
 ficulty in believing that both Southampton and 
 Pembroke would order Jansen to enrich their 
 respective seats with the most perfect likeness 
 of Shakspeare ; and grateful indeed must have 
 
 * This is proved by his purchase, in the 44th year of 
 the Queen, of 107 acres of arable land, lying- in Old 
 Stratford^ in the county of Warwick, for which he paid 
 to his friends William and John Combe, the very consider- 
 able sum, at that period, of 320/. current English money.
 
 206 
 
 been their consciousness, as the resemblance 
 hung before them, that they had not confined 
 themselves to barren admiration, but had ad- 
 vanced the fortunes of the exalted genius whom 
 they had honoured, yes honoured, with their 
 personal friendship. 
 
 dfini^. 
 
 B. M'Millan, Printer, 
 Bow-slreet, Covfnt-paiden.
 
 JUST PUBLISHED, 
 
 BY ROBERT TRIPHOOK, 
 
 23. Old Bond-Street. 
 
 In One Volume, Quarto, of 600 pages, 
 
 Price 2/. 15s. in Boards, 
 
 FORMING A SUPPLEMENT TO TODD'S EDITION OF 
 
 Johnson's dictionary, 
 
 A GLOSSARY, 
 
 or 
 
 COLLECTION OF WORDS, FHT? ASES, NAMES, AND 
 
 ALLUSIONS TO CUSTOMS, PROVERBS, &c. &c. 
 
 WHICH HAVE BEEN THOUGHT TO REQUIRE ILLUSTRATION 
 
 IN THE 
 
 WORKS OF ENGLISH AUTHORS, 
 
 PAnriCULARLY 
 
 SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 By ROBERT NARES, A. M. F. R. S. F. A. S. 
 
 Archdeacon of Stafford, &c. 
 
 In One Volume, Post Octavo, Price Five Shillings 
 in Boards, 
 
 With a Portrait in Shade, 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 JOSEPH RITSON, ESQ. 
 
 By J. HASLEWOOD. 
 
 Of whom may be had the few remaining Copies of the following 
 Works, by the same Author : 
 
 Ancient Songs, from the time of Henry III. 1vol. •• ^0 16 
 
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 Caledonian Muse, 1 vol. 7 
 
 The same, on fine paper 15 
 
 ©ammer Gurton's Garland! . 1
 
 On the First of March, 
 
 In One Volume, 12mo. with n Portrait, 
 
 BISHOP HALL'S SATIRES. 
 
 THE SATIRES AND OTHER POEMS OF 
 JOSEPH HALL, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP OF NORWICH. 
 
 To which is prefixed, his Life by Himself; 
 
 With Illustrations by the late Rev. THOMAS WARTON, 
 and additional Notes by S. W. SINGER. 
 
 ROBERT TRIPHOOK, 23, OLD BOND-STREET, 
 
 Respectfully informs the Collectors of Old Books, that the FIRST 
 PART of his CATALOGUE for 1824, will be published on the 
 1st of March; and he solicits the favour of the Address of any 
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