Shakespeare in London, revolving the great works he had written or projected, and with his mind somewhat burdened by the cares of his professional life. The last, therefore, is obviously the likeness which ought to accompany his plays, and which his "friends and fellows," Heminge and Condell, preferred to the head upon the "Stratford Monument," of the erection of which they must have been aware. There is one point in which both the engraving and the bust in a degree concur, we mean in the length of the upper lip, although the peculiarity seems exaggerated in the bust. We have no such testimony in favour of the truth of the resemblance of the bust' as the engraving, opposite to which are the following lines, subscribed with the initials of Ben Jonson, and doubtless from his pen. Let the reader bear in mind that Ben Jonson was not a man who could be hired to commend, and that, taking it for granted he was sincere in his praise, he had the most unquestionable means of forming a judgment upon the subject of the likeness between the living man and the dead representation. We give Ben Jonson's testimonial exactly as it stands in the folio of 1623 for it afterwards went through various literal changes. "TO THE READER. "This Figure, that thou here seest put, B. I.' 1 It was originally, like many other monuments of the time, and some in Stratford church, coloured after the life, and so it continued until Malone, in his mistaken zeal for classical taste and severity, and forgetting the practice of the period at which the work was produced, had it painted one uniform stone-colour. He thus exposed himself to much not unmerited ridicule. It was afterwards found impossible to restore the original colours. 2 Besides, we may suppose that Jonson would be careful how he applauded the likeness, when there must have been so many persons living, who could have contradicted him, had the praise not been deserved. Jonson does not speak of the painter, bat of the "graver," who we are inclined to think did full justice to the picture placed in his hands Droeshout was a man of considerable eminence in his branch of art, and has left behind him undoubted proofs of his skill -some of them so much superior to the head of Shakespeare in the folio of 1623, as to lead to the conviction, that the picture from which he worked was a very coarse specimen of art. With this evidence before us, we have not hesitated in having an exact copy of Droeshout's engraving executed for the present edition of the Works of Shakespeare. It is, we believe, the first time it has ever been selected for the purpose since the appearance of the folio of 1623; and, although it may not be recommended by the appearance of so high a style of art as some other imputed resemblances, there is certainly not one which has such undoubted claims to our notice on the grounds of fidelity and authenticity. The fact that Droeshout was required to employ his skill upon a bad picture may tend to confirm our reliance upon the likeness: had there been so many pictures of Shakespeare as some have contended, but as we are far from believing, Heminge and Condell, when they were seeking for an appropriate ornament for the title-page of their folio, would hardly have chosen one which was an unskilful painting, if it had not been a striking resemblance. If only half the pictures said, within the last century, to represent Shakespeare, were in fact from the life, the poet must have possessed a vast stock of patience, if not a larger share of vanity, when he devoted so much time to sitting to the artists of the day; and the player-editors could have found no difficulty in procuring a picture, which had better pretensions to their approval. To us, therefore, the very defects of the engraving, which accompanies the folio of 1623, are a recommendation, since they serve to show that it was both genuine and faithful. Aubrey is the only authority, beyond the inferences that may be drawn from the portraits, for the personal appearance of Shakespeare; and he sums up our great poet's physical and moral endowments in two lines;-"He was a handsome well-shaped man, very good company, and of a very ready, and pleasant, and smooth wit." We have every reason to suppose that this is a correct description of his personal appearance, but we are unable to add to it from any other source, unless indeed we were to rely upon a few equivocal passages in the "Sonnets." Upon this authority it has been supposed by some that he was lame, and certainly the 37th and 89th Sonnets, without allowing for a figurative mode of expression, might be taken to import as much. If we were to consider the words literally, we should imagine that some accident had befallen him, which rendered it impossible that he should continue on the stage, and hence we could easily account for his early retirement from it. We know that such was the case with one of his most famous predecessors, Christopher Marlowe1, but we 1 See the extract from a ballad on Marlowe (p. lxxxix.). This cir have no sufficient reason for believing it was the fact as regards Shakespeare: he is evidently speaking metaphorically in both places, where "lame and "lameness" occur. His social qualities, his good temper, hilarity, vivacity, and what Aubrey calls his "very ready, and pleasant, and smooth wit," (in our author's own words, "pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation,") cannot be doubted, since, besides what may be gathered from his works, we have it from various quarters; and although nothing very good of this kind may have descended to us, we have sufficient to show that he must have been a most welcome visitor in all companies. The epithet “gentle" has been frequently applied to him, twice by Ben Jonson, (in his lines before the engraving, and in his laudatory verses prefixed to the plays in the folio of 1623) and if it be not to be understood precisely in its modern acceptation, we may be sure that one distinguishing feature in his character was general kindliness: he may have been "sharp and sententious," but never needlessly bitter or ill-natured: his wit had no malice for an ingredient. Fuller speaks of the "wit-combats between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson at the convivial meetings at the Mermaid club, established by Sir Walter Raleigh1; and he adds, " which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances: Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention." The simile is well chosen, and it came from a writer who seldom said cumstance, had he known it, would materially have aided the modern sceptick, who argued that Shakespeare and Marlowe were one and the same. 1 Gifford (Ben Jonson's Works, vol. I. p. lxv.) fixes the date of the establishment of this club, at the Mermaid in Friday Street, about 1603, and he adds that "here for many years Ben Jonson repaired with Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a mingled feeling of reverence and respect." Of what passed at these many assemblies Beaumont thus speaks, addressing Ben Jonson : "What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest." The Mitre, in Fleet Street, seems to have been another tavern where the wits and poets of the day hilariously assembled. 2 Worthies. Part iii. p. 126, folio edit. anything ill'. Connected with Ben Jonson's solidity and slowness is a witticism between him and Shakespeare, said to have passed at a tavern. One of the Ashmolean manuscripts (No. 38) contains the following: "Mr. Ben Johnson and Mr. Wm. Shakespeare being merrie at a tavern, Mr. Jonson begins this for his epitaph, Here lies Ben Jonson Who was once one: he gives it to Mr. Shakespeare to make up, who presently writt That, while he liv'd, was a slow thing, It is certainly not of much value, but there is a great difference between the estimate of an extempore joke at the moment of delivery, and the opinion we may form of it long afterwards, when it has been put upon paper, and transmitted to posterity under such names as those of Shakespeare and Jonson. The same excuse, if required, may be made for two other pieces of unpretending pleasantry between the same parties, which we subjoin in a note, because they relate to such men, and have been handed down to us upon something like authority2. 1 Fuller has another simile, on the same page, respecting Shakespeare and his acquirements, which is worth quoting. "He was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur; one is not made, but born a poet. Indeed his learning was very little, so that as Cornish diamonds are not polished by any lapidary, but are pointed and smooth even as they are taken out of the earth, so nature itself was all the art which was used upon him." Of course Fuller is here only referring to Shakespeare's classical acquirements: his "learning" of a different kind, perhaps, exceeded that of all the ancients put together. 2 "Shakespeare was god-father to one of Ben Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in a deepe study, Jonson came to cheere him up, and askt him why he was so melancholy?—No, faith, Ben, (sayes he) not I; but I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolv'd at last.'-'I pr'ythee what?' says he. 'I 'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a douzen of Latten spoones, and thou shalt translate them."" Of course the joke depends upon the pun between Latin, and the mixed metal called latten. The above is from a MS. of Sir R. L'Estrange, who quotes the authority of Dr. Donne. It is inserted in Mr. Thoms's amusing volume, printed for the Camden Society, under the title of "Anecdotes and Traditions." p. 2. The next is from a MS. called "Poetical Characteristics," formerly in the Harleian Collection : "Verses by Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, occasioned by the motto to the Globe theatre-Totus mundus agit histrionem. "Jonson. If but stage-actors all the world displays, Where shall we find spectators of their plays? "Shakespeare. Little, or much of what we see, we do; We are both actors and spectators too." ! VOL. I.-R Of a different character is a production preserved by Dugdale, at the end of his Visitation of Salop, in the Heralds' College: it is an epitaph inscribed upon the tomb of Sir Thomas Stanley, in Tongue church; and Dugdale, whose testimony is unimpeachable, distinctly states that "the following verses were made by William Shakespeare, the late famous tragedian." "Written upon the east end of the tomb. His fame is more perpetual than these stones : "Written on the west end thereof. "Not monumental stone preserves our fame, When all to time's consumption shall be given, Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." With Malone and others, who have quoted them, we feel satisfied of the authenticity of these verses, though we may not perhaps think, as he did, that the last line bears such "strong marks of the hand of Shakespeare'." The coincidence between the line "Nor sky-aspiring pyramids our name," and the passage in Milton's Epitaph upon Shakespeare, prefixed to the folio of 1632, "Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid," seems, as far as we recollect, to have escaped notice. We have thus brought into a consecutive narrative (with as little interruption of its thread as, under the circumstances, and with such disjointed materials, seemed to us 1 The following reaches us in a more questionable shape: it is from a MS. of the time of Charles I., preserved in the Bodleian Library, which contains also poems by Herrick and others. "AN EPITAPH. "When God was pleas'd, the world unwilling yet, And here reposeth. As he lived he died, The saying in him strongly verified, Such life, such death: then, the known truth to tell, He liv'd a godly life, and died as well. Wm. Shakespeare." |