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BIBL. PUBL. BASILEENSIS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

T H E reader may observe that, contrary to former usage, no head of Shakspeare is prefixed to the present édition of his plays. The undisguised fact is this. The only portrait of him that even pretends to authenticity, by means of injudicious cleaning, or fome other accident, has become little better than the "shadow of a shade."* The late Sir Joshua Reynolds indeed once suggested, that whatever perfon it was designed for, it might have been left, as it now appears, unfinished. Various copies and plates, however, are faid at different times to have been made fromit; buta regard for truth obliges us to confefs that they are all unlike each other, † and convey no diftinct refemblance of the poor remains of their avowed original, Of the drapery and curling hair exhibited in the

* Such, we think, were the remarks, that occurred to us several years ago, when this portrait was accessible. We wished indeed to have confirmed them by a second view of it; but a late accident in the noble family to which it belongs, has precluded us from that fatisfaction.

+ Vertue's portraits have been over-praised on account of their fidelity; for we have now before us fix different heads of Shakspeare engraved by him, and do not scruple to affert that they have individually a different caft of countenance. Cucullus non facit moncchum. The shape of our author's ear-ring and falling-band may correspond in them all, but where shall we find an equal conformity in his features? Few objects indeed are occafionally more difficult to seize, thanthe lender traits that mark the character of a face; and the eye will often VOL. I.

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excellent engravings of Mr. Vertue, Mr. Hall, and Mr. Knight, the painting does not afford a vestige; nor is there a feature or circumstance on the whole canvas, that can with minute precision be delineated. - We must add, that on very vague and dubious authority this head has hitherto been received as a genuine portrait of our author, who probably left behind him no such memorial of his face. As he was careless of the future state of his works, his folicitude might not have extended to the perpetuation of his looks. Had any portrait of him existed, we may naturally suppose it must have belonged to his family, who (as Mark Antony says of a hair of Cæfar) would

،، have mention'd it within their wills,
"Bequcathing it as a rich legacy
"Unto their issue;"

and were there ground for the report that Shakspeare was the real father of Sir William D'Avenant, and that the picture already spoken of was painted for him, we might be tempted to observe with our author, that the

bastard fon

" Was kinder to his father, than his daughters
"Got 'twixt the natural sheets.

But in fupport of either supposition fufficient evidence has not been produced. The former of

deted the want of them, when the most exact mechanical process cannot decide on the places in which they are omitted. ----Vertue, in short, though a laborious, was a very indifferent draughtsman, and his best copies too often exhibit a general instead of a particular resemblance.

these tales has no better foundation than the vanity of our degener Neoptolemus, (fee Vol. III. p. 344.)* and the latter originates from modern conjecture. The present age will probably allow the vintner's ivy to Sir William, but with equal justice will withhold from him the poet's bays. To his pretenfions of defcent from Shakspeare, one might almost be induced to apply a ludicrous passage uttered by Fielding's Phaeton in the Suds :

66

by all the parish boys I'm flamm'd:

" You the sun's Son, you rascal! you be d--d." About the time when this picture found its way into Mr. Keck's hands,t the verification of portraits was so little attended to, that both the Earl of Oxford, and Mr. Pope, admitted a juvenile one of King James I. as that of Shakspeare.* Among the heads of illustrious persons engraved by Houbraken, are several imaginary ones, beside Ben Jonson's and Otway's; and old Mr. Langford positively afferted that, in the fame collection, the grandfather of Cock the auctioneer had the honour to perfonate the great and amiable Thurloe, secretary of state to Oliver Cromwell.

* Nor does the fame piece of ancient scandal derive much weight from Aubrey's adoption of it. The reader who is acquainted with the writings of this absurd goffip, will scarcely pay more attention to him on the present occafion, than when he gravely affures us that "Anno 1670, not far from Cirencester was an apparition; being demanded. whether a good spirit or a bad? returned no answer, but difappeared with a curious perfume and most melodious twang. Mr. W. Lilly believes it was a fairy." See Aubrey's Mifcellanies, edit. 1784, p. 114. - Aubrey. in short, was a dupe to every wag who chose to pradife on his credulity; and would most certainly have believed the perfon who should have told him that Shakspeare himself was a natural fon of Queen Elizabeth.

Mr. T. Warton has pleasantly observed (fee p. 73. n. 3.) that he "can not suppose Shakspeare to have been the father of a Doctor of Divinity who never laughed;" and to waste no more words on Sir William D'Avenant,-let but our readers survey his heavy, vulgar, unmeaning face, and, if we mistake not, they will as readily conclude that Shakspeare "never holp to make it." So despicable, indeed, is his couns tenance as represented by Faithorne, that it appears to have funk that celebrated engraver beneath many a common artist in the fame line, + See Vol. I. p. 30.

From the price of forty guineas paid for the fupposed portrait of our author to Mrs. Barry, the real value of it should not be inferred. The poffeffion of fomewhat more animated than canvas, might. have been included, though not specified, in a bargain with an actress of acknowledged gallantry.

Yet allowing this to be a mere fanciful infinuation, a rich man does not easily miss what he is ambitious to find. At least he may be perfuaded he has found it, a circumstance which, as far as it

* Much respect is due to the authority of portraits that defcend in families from heir to heir; but little reliance can be placed on them when they are produced for fale (as in the present instance) by alien hands, almost a century after the death of the person supposed to be represented; and then, (as Edmund says in King Lear) "come pat, like the catastrophe of the old comedy." Shakspeare was buried in 1616; and in 1708 the first notice of this picture occurs. Where there is such a chasm in evidence, the validity of it may be not unfairly queftioned, and especially by those who remember a species of fraudulence recorded in Mr. Foote's Taste: “ Clap Lord Dupe's arms on that half-length of Erasmus; I have fold it him as his great grandfather's third brother, for fifty guineas.

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