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death. The face of the bust belongs to the true Warwickshire type of physiognomy, found among the mass of the people. It is broad, and the cheek bones are low; the jaw heavy, and rather massive; the cheeks round, full, fleshy, and flaccid. The upper lip is very long, and the moustache coarsely cut; the tuft on the chin rather thick, and rudely indicated by the tool of the workman. The face has a cheerful, jovial, life-like look in the expression, but the features are not indicative of sensibility or refinement. The head runs up high towards Firmness: it is broad across the perceptive region, and expands towards Acquisitiveness and Ideality-a feature not accurately given in some of the engraved portraits of the monument. Hain Frizwell says "The skull is a mere block, and a phrenologist would be puzzled at its smoothness and roundness. It has no more individuality than a boy's marble!" It is the facial and cranial contour that renders the bust, as a portrait, enigmatical.

The face of a man of great intellectual and moral power generally bears deep traces of thought and feeling in its habitual expressions, form, and texture; while soft, round, undefined fat cheeks, drowsy eyes and expressions, speak of feeble mental powers and slothful habits. These effects arise from the action of the brain on the nerves, which expand themselves on the face and the eye, and where the mind finds its most responsive and sympathetic indicators. When viewed from the floor of the chancel, the fleshy character of the face of the bust predominates. To be able to do it justice, the spectator must be placed in a position where he can examine it in a line before him. It is very evident that the tomb-maker had not the cast from the British Museum to guide him. Mr. Fairholt, F.S.A., says "The whole of the face has been sculptured with singular delicacy and remarkable care, except in one instance, which indeed still more strongly confirms the position now assumed. The eyes are not only badly executed, but are untrue to nature: they are mere eliptical openings, exhibiting none of the delicate curvatures which ought to be expressed; the ciliary cartilages are straight, hard, and unmeaning; and the glands at the corners next to the nose entirely omitted." The inartistic manner of dealing with the eyelids leads him to conclude that the artist followed a good model in other parts of the

face. But, on the other hand, it will be admitted that a cast taken after death could not give that fulness to the upper eyelids here indicated. A form prostrated by fever, and wasted by disease, would give to the eyes a sunken aspect; and if he worked after such a model, the artist has taken great liberties, not only with the eyes, but other parts of the face. The forehead is large, and has, from large Comparison, a preponderance in the upper part; while Causality and Wit are the least indicated. Individuality and other perceptive powers are only moderate in their development.

The openings in the eyes show that they were made on a cast which served as the model for the bust: but I am inclined to think the cast was taken during life, and fron some other living person than the poet, and modelled to harmonise with the recollections of the friends of the bard; especially as it was not made till about the time when the first edition of the plays was published in 1623, and presents several other doubtful features. The tomb-maker was probably required, as is often the case in the present day, to make a mere monumental effigy, possessing a general resemblance, rather than an exact likeness of the departed poet, leaving, as I have said, the details to be carried out by his assistants, sent into the provinces to execute the work.

It was the custom of artists in Shakspere's time to take casts after death from the face and forehead of persons belonging to the nobility. Johnson's model was from a plaster mould; and the fulness of the fleshy parts of the cheeks, the eyes, and the drawn-up nostrils, would all mark themselves on a mould from a living person. The face of the original cast was probably without a moustache, which was very inartistically supplied by the tomb-maker, either in applying his material to the face of his model, or in chiseling it from his fancy. It is rudely cut, and curled up. If taken after death, neither the moustache nor the hair of the head would have retained their curls, as it is necessary to reduce them to a smooth, even surface in taking a cast, as indicated in the case of Sir Thomas Lucy, a sketch of whose profile is given above. They have been added by the artist, to make the bust pleasing, life-like, and "picturesque." The full and heavy appearance of the face and figure lead to the conclusion

that the original would not be able to sustain long and continued mental exertion-would be rather fond of ease and the gratification of the appetites-liable to fits of impulsive good nature and passionate utterance.

The chief value of the bust lies in the illustration of the fact that the head was rather large, and the complexion fair, and that the forehead was expanded at the sides above the temples. The dress was that of the day, and the hair and eyes were coloured in harmony with nature. But the temperament indicated-sanguine lympathetic-was not that of Shakspere.

It is difficult for artists to realise a faithful likeness from mere verbal descriptions of the features. This is especially the case with those who have not become acquainted with the varying forms of the brain, in relation to special tendencies; and is repeatedly illustrated in the works of painters and sculptors of the present day. I have seen four busts of the poet Montgomery, all modelled about the same period of life, yet all different, and only one appears true to nature. On the other hand, any special and prominent feature is liable to a little exaggeration. In 1843, a clever artist brought out a humourous cartoon relating to the movements of the Free Church party in Edinburgh, in which there were several groups, and excellent portraits of well-known literary charactersProfessor Wilson (Christopher North), George Combe, Lord Jeffery, Rev. Robert Montgomery, James Simpson, the Lord Provost, Lord Cunningham, Sheriff Thomson, Lord Murray, Dr. Classon, and others; and while every portrait was an admirable likeness, every prominent feature was exaggerated, and to such an extent that the central figure has repeatedly been declared, by intelligent artists, as merely wanting the collar, the moustache, and the tuft, to make it a Shaks pere!-showing that an exaggerated forehead is the popular ideal of the poet; whereas the chief elements of his power lay in his happy cerebral combinations, and a fine temperament-quality added to keen perceptive faculty.

The Portraits of Shakspere.

Although the portraits of Shakspere are numerous, and a general character of a high forehead and sedate expression prevails throughout, there are differences and con

trasts which are perplexing, both to the artist and the public. As it becomes necessary to make a selection of those which have the best claim to examination, it will reduce the series of portraits to those reputed to be the work of Droeshout; that of Taylor, or Burbage, called the Chandos, and now belonging to the National Portrait Gallery; the Zetland, the Lumley, and the Jansen Portraits. These have formed the materials out of which many pictures have been painted-such as the Warwick, the Felton, and other portraits.

Several of the portraits exhibited differ very much in some essential features; while other elements could not exist together in the same head, or in that of a poet of Shakspere's proclivities. The forms of the head are as various as the physiognomies are perplexing; while the colours of the complexion are equally contradictory. If we are to rely on one artist, then Shakspere had a head enormously enlarged in the coronal region, as in the Felton head; while other portraits indicate the brain deficient in the moral sentiments. According to the painters, the eyes of the poet were, at the same time, black, brown, and blue; his nose, too, in one portrait is Roman, in another Grecian, a third aquiline, a fourth snub, and others are of the composite order. The upper lip in one likeness is very short, in another very long. The hair, moustache, and beard are painted by one as black, another brown, a third reddishbrown, and by others flaxen; and the complexion all shades, from very fair and light to very dark. These opposite attributes reduce the range of view to the elements of form and proportion in the facial contour, the cerebral developments, and the physical conformation of the body. temperament was evidently a combination in which the mental, the nervous, and sanguine predominated, imparting great susceptibility, quickness, and love of action, which were undoubtedly attributes and characteristics of Shakspere's physical tendencies.

The Broeshout Portrait.

The

Next to the bust in the church, the engraved portrait by Droeshout claims our attention. It was prefixed to the first edition of Shakspere's plays, published by Heminge and Condell in 1623, and is believed by Mr. Halliwell to

have been engraved from an original picture. Heminge and Condell were "fellow-players" with Shakspere, and knew him well and intimately. The portrait has the further testimony in its favour in the following lines by Ben Jonson, a friend and companion of the poet, and inscribed on the page opposite to the engraving

The figure thou here see'st put,

It was for gentle Shakspere cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdoe the life;
O, could he but have drawn 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. J.

These lines indicate that the face was represented with some degree of truth and faithfulness. It may, however, be observed, that Droeshout could scarcely have delineated Shakspere from his own knowledge, as the artist was not in England until after the death of the poet. He did not copy the cast from the face now in the British Museum, and probably relied either on Ben Jonson or Burbage for a portrait and description, or he took the Stratford bust for his model. But this is very doubtful, because he was a faithful copyist, and the engraved portrait and the bust are materially different.

It may be observed that the collar is not of the fashion of Shakspere's class at that period. Artists have, until the present century, paid greater attention to the face and costume than to the head. They are, with a few exceptions, even yet less exact and minute in the delineation of the head than the face. Now, the configuration of the head is the best biography of a man of intellect, talent, and character. The Droeshout head appears too high for its breadth, and inclines to a greater resemblance of form seen in Scott than Byron, Canova than Chantry, West than Flaxman, of Wordsworth than Burns. If there is a slight similarity to the general form in the face of the Stratford bust, there are striking differences in particular features. The nose is more prominent, well defined, and finely marked, with a flowing outline, and the nostrils rather

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