were now dead. Gilbert, however, the brother next younger than William, was still living. His sister Joan had been married [to a Mr. Hart, of Stratford] and was also still living, as were also her husband and several children. His wife also, now fifty-six years old, was still living. His oldest daughter, Susanna, had been married some five years before to an eminent physician of Stratford, Dr. John Hall, and had one child four years old. His youngest daughter, not long after to be married to Thomas Quiney, vintner and wine merchant of Stratford, was still at home. It is not at all unlikely that both daughters, with the sonin-law and the grandchild, all lived together in the Great House, and that the other house belonging to him in the village was occupied by his brother Gilbert, who had looked after the poet's property during his absence in London. When, therefore, the great dramatist retired from the metropolis, crowned with honor and laden with wealth, he was not in the condition of most even successful adventurers, who after a life of distant toil and struggle seek to spend its close among the green fields which had gladdened their eyes in childhood. They return ordinarily too late, when their own faculties Chancel of Stratford Church, of enjoyment are exhausted, and most of the friends of childhood are gone. Shakespeare, in 1612, was still in the prime of life and in the full vigor of his faculties. He had about him a large family circle, and children and children's children were around his hearth-stone. The popular tradition, minute documentary evidence, his whole recorded career, his whole character, go to show that his last days were eminently peaceful and serene. The thought contained in the 146th Sonnet, the nearest approach we have in any of his writings to an expression of his own personal feelings on the subject of religion, might well befit this period of his life, though written some years earlier: Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth. CHAPTER XVI. A SERENE SUNSET-THE PORTRAITS OF SHAKESPEARE. CHAKESPEARE died, after a short illness, April 23, 1616, aged exactly fifty-two. During the quarter of a century that he had been embarked upon the great ocean of metropolitan life, he had no doubt often been fitted to produce disquiet and perturbation. But agivexed and agitated. His profession was one peculiarly tation, while it upturns and dislodges the feeble plant, makes the hardy to send its roots more deeply and firmly into the soil. The soul that is well balanced acquires only additional composure and self-possession from conflict. The conflict of life in which Shakesuccessful as to all external circumstances and relaspeare had been engaged had not only been eminently tions, but had left him calm, contented, and peaceful within. From a meridian of intense activity and splendor, he went, like Chaucer before him, gracefully and composedly to his long repose: son. So fades a summer's cloud away, So sinks the gale when storms are o'er, So dies a wave along the shore. Of the portraits of Shakespeare there are three at least which have good evidence of being taken from life. These are the Stratford bust, the Droeshout engraving, and the oil painting known as the Chandos portrait. The bust was made apparently from a cast of the features taken after death, and was executed soon after that event; how soon we do not know, but certainly before 1623, for it is referred to in the First Folio, published in that year. Shakespeare is buried in the church of Stratford-uponAvon, near the north end of the chancel, and there is a slab over his tomb, with the quaint inscription so often quoted, and said to have been written by Shakespeare himself: Good frend, for Jesus sake forbeare To the right and left of him in the chancel, are the tombs of several other members of his family: his wife, his oldest daughter Susanna, his son-inlaw, Dr. Hall, and Thomas Nash, who married his grand-daughter Elizabeth. On the north wall of the chancel, and facing these tombs, and at an elevation of a little more than five feet, is an ornamental niche or frame-work of stone, containing the bust already mentioned, nearly lifesize and extending down to the middle of the perThe poet is represented sitting, as if in the act of composition, his hands resting on a cushion, one holding a pen, the other a sheet of paper, while his eyes are looking, not at his work, but straight forward towards the spectator. The hands and face are of flesh color, the eyes a light hazel, the hair and beard auburn; the doublet or cloak was scarlet, and covered with a loose black gown without sleeves; the upper part of the cushion was green, the under part crimson, and the tassels gilt. This Stratford bust is of great value, as having been made so early, and as having in all probability been cut from some authentic likeness. As a work of art, however, it is open to obvious criticisms. The skull has the smoothness and roundness of a boy's marble, and about as much individuality of expression. The eyes and eyebrows are unduly contracted, the nose has evidently been shortened by an accident of the chisel, the cheeks are puffy and spiritless, the moustaches are curled up in a manner never found except in some city exquisite, the collar looks like two pieces of block-tin bent over, and finally the expression of the eyes, so far as they have any expression, is simply that of easy, well-conditioned good nature, not overburdened with sense or intellect. In conjunction with this bust should be taken the picture lately discovered, and known as the Stratford portrait. It is the property of the town, and is exhibited among the other curiosities at the Shakespeare House. No one who has seen the bust can look upon the picture without being satisfied at the first glance that the two are connected. But was the picture made from the bust, or the bust from the picture? Stratford people strongly insist on the latter, believing firmly that the picture was taken from life, and was the original of the bust. Critics and scholars outside of Stratford take, for the most part, the opposite view. Whichever theory is true, the picture without doubt is of great value, and is worthily placed for perpetual keeping in the same town with the bust to which it is so closely connected. The Stratford Bust. Next to the Stratford bust, in the matter of authenticity as a portrait of Shakespeare, is the engraving by Martin Droeshout prefixed to the first folio edition of the plays, that of 1623, and generally known as the Droeshout portrait. What portrait was used by him in making this engraving of Shakespeare is entirely a matter of conjecture. The probability is that it was some coarse daub by the actor Burbage, who had some pretensions as a painter, and who would be very likely to make a picture of his distinguished fellow-actor. If such a picture were hanging somewhere about the theatre, nothing would be more natural than for the actors, Heminge and Condell, in bringing out an edition of their friend's plays, to use for the engraving this picture with which they were familiar. All this, however, is pure conjecture. What more concerns us is to know that Ben Jonson has testified in the strongest manner to the correctness of the likeness. His words, printed on the page facing the engraving, are as follows: This Figure, that thou here seest put, O, could he but haue drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His face; the Print would then surpasse That the original from which the engraving was made must have been poor and bald as a work of art.is manifest on the slightest inspection. This, however, is by no means incompatible with its having been a faithful likeness. The work of the engraver corresponds in this respect to the work of the painter. The engraving is to the last degree hard and stiff; it evidently is the work of one whose aim was to make a likeness rather than a work of art. In comparing the face and head thus presented with those of the bust, we observe that while there are great differences, both in detail and in the general impression, it is easy to see the same man underlying both. There is the great distance between the eyes and the amplitude of forehead, so noticeable in all the likenesses. The flesh of the face is not so full and puffy as in the bust. The nose, not chopped off as in the bust, is however as straight as a stick, instead of having that delicate aquiline formation observable in one portrait which I shall show you. The beard is shaven from the chin, but a few hairs are sprouting on the under lip, and there is a very light moustache. The forehead is high and bold, as in all the portraits, and the hair hangs in long, smooth locks over the ears and the back of the head. The costume is evidently some theatrical display put on for the occasion and smacking very much of the stage-tailor. There is a doublet buttoned up to the chin, and a plaited lawn ruff standing out all round in a most uncomfortable and ungraceful position, and apparently stiffened in the edges and elsewhere with wire. One feature, the most noticeable of all, is the projection of the forehead. In all the other likenesses, without exception, the forehead, with its noble expanse, recedes gradually and evenly. But in the Droeshout engraving, the forehead is like some jutting cliff, projecting over, almost overhanging, the brow, in a way that is hardly less than monstrous. This misshapen character of the forehead may without difficulty be accepted, not as a part of the likeness of the poet, but as part of the unskilful etching of the engraver. It certainly looks not unlike a huge goitre transferred from the throat to the brow. Of the painted likenesses of Shakespeare none ranks so high as that known as the Chandos portrait. The history of the picture is tolerably complete. It belonged originally to John Taylor, painter, brother of Joseph Taylor, a player in Shakespeare's company. It was left by will by Taylor to Sir William Davenant. From Davenant it passed in 1668 to John Otway, from him to Betterton the actor, from Betterton to Mrs. Barry, from Mrs. Barry, through two other hands, to the Duke of Chandos, from whom it takes its name. It was finally bought in 1848, at public sale, by the Earl of Ellesmere, and by him presented in 1856 to the Na breadth of forehead, that is to be seen in the Droeshout, though the forehead is still ample and strikingly noble. There is more general softness than in any of the other portraits. The picture is decidedly artistic, and the artist apparently, to some extent, sacrificed literal likeness to artistic effect. The complexion is dark; there is a pinkishness of color about the eyelids; the lips are inclined to be full and sensuous; the ear that is visible is tricked out with a ring; the hair, a dark auburn, that in the Droeshout is plaited and smoothed down, hangs here in easy, unstudied profusion on the sides and back of the head, while most of the lower part of the face is covered with a soft beard of the same color. No lines of deep thought are in the face, no furrows on the brow. There is an equal show of softness, almost of effeminacy, in the costume. The dress, so far as it can be made out, is of black satin, and the collar is of fine plain lawn, folding over easily but simply. The Droeshout Portrait. At the first glance, on looking at the Chandos portrait and then at the Droeshout, one can hardly believe them to be representations of the same person. Yet, on placing them side by side, and deliberately tracing the lines of each, one after the other, the substantial identity of the two is clearly established. In addition to the three portraits which I have named, to wit, the Stratford bust, the Droeshout engraving, and the Chandos painting, there are many others of varying authority and celebrity. Of these I shall mention but two, the Terra-Cotta bust, and the German Death-Mask. In 1845, in tearing down an old tea-warehouse in London, the foundations were laid bare of the famous Duke's theatre, built by Sir William Davenant, in 1662, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Among the curious articles thus brought to light was a beautiful terra-cotta bust, which on examination proved to be beyond question a likeness of Shakespeare, yet having a character of its own quite independent of all the other acknowledged likenesses, and carrying us back to within at least forty-six years from the time of his death. This bust, after having been for some years in possession of its finders, Mr. Clift and his distinguished son-in-law, Prof. Owen, of the British Museum, was finally bought by the Duke of Devonshire, and by him presented to the Garrick Club of London, in whose possession it now is. The work is highly artistic in its style, in the position of the head and person, and in the character and arrangement of the costume. It has the refinement of the Chandos painting without its effeminacy, is more intellectual than the Stratford bust, but not so massive or robust as the Droeshout engraving. It remains to say a few words of the German DeathMask. The history of its discovery, which is somewhat curious, will be given as briefly as possible. Count Francis von Kesselstadt, who died at Mayence, in 1843, the last of his line, had a valuable collection of curiosities and works of art, which had been for several generations in possession of the family, and which at his death were sold at auction in Mayence. Among the articles then sold was a small oil painting, which is known to have been in the possession of the family for more than a century, and which in the family traditions was invariably regarded and spoken. of as a portrait of Shakespeare. It bore indeed an inscription to that effect, Den Traditionen nach, Shakespeare. The picture came, in 1847, into the possession of Ludwig Becker, court painter of Darmstadt, and after his death into the hands of his brother, the present possessor, Dr. Ernest Becker, private secretary of the Princess Alice of Darmstadt. It represents its subject as lying in state after death, on a bier, with a wreath round the head, covering in part the baldness of the crown, and with a candlestick, and the date 1637, dimly seen in the background. From certain peculiarities in its appearance, Mr. Becker and other artists and antiquarians who were consulted, came to the conclusion that it had been painted from a deathmask, and he accordingly set about making inquiries on the subject. He first found that a plaster of Paris cast of some kind had been in the possession of the Kesselstadt family, but that on account of its melancholy appearance, it had received little consideration, and what had become of it no one seemed to know. After two years of fruitless search, he at length, in 1849, found the lost relic in a broker's shop in Mayence, among rags and articles of the meanest description. A comparison of this cast with the picture convinced Mr. Becker, on artistic grounds, that the two were related to each other, and were representations of the same person. On the back of the cast is an inscription, the letters and figures being in the style common two centuries and a half ago, and the inscription having in all respects the appearance of being cotemporary with the cast. An examination of the cast, while in England, by experts at the British Museum, showed that the inscription had been cut at the time the cast was made. A microscopic examination by Prof. Owen showed also that the hairs still adhering in the plaster were human hairs. The inscription on the back of the cast, in deeply cut letters, is as follows: † A° Dм 1616 The cross is the usual mark in such inscriptions to signify "died." The letters A° Dm are the familiar abbreviations for Anno Domini. It is then clearly a cast of some one who died in 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death; it is also, in the opinion of the Beckers, clearly connected with the Kesselstadt picture. This cast, then, of 1616, it is claimed, is the original from which was painted the picture of 1637, which picture is, according to the Kesselstadt tradition, a portrait of Shakespeare, and has in fact a very strong likeness to him. Further, it is known that the Stratford bust, which gives unmistakable evidence of having been produced from a cast, was made in London, by a "tomb-maker," as he is called, by the name of Gerard Johnson, and that this Johnson was a Hollander, a native of Amsterdam. Thus far we have terra firma under our feet. What follows takes us into the region of conjecture. The conjecture is that the tomb-maker, Johnson, having completed the bust, laid aside the cast upon his shelf among piles of similar disused materials, and that some acquaintance of his from the father-land, poking about among the rubbish, saw this striking effigy, and learning its origin begged or bought it, and carried it away with him into Germany, where, in course of time, it found a lodgment in the Kesselstadt family. Such was the theory put forth by Ludwig Becker on bringing the mask and the picture to England, in 1849. Mr. Becker, in 1850, sailed for Melbourne to join an Australian exploring expedition, and left the mask and picture, with the documents relating to them, in charge of Prof. Owen of the British Museum, where, in consequence of Mr. Becker's death in Australia, they remained for several years, and were then returned to the brother, Dr. Ernest Becker, of Darmstadt, in whose possession they now are. 66 Of the opinions expressed in regard to this matter by the many eminent men who investigated the question while the mask was in England, I quote only two, as given me by Prof. Owen. The late Baron Pollock, after examining the mask, and weighing carefully, as a man of his professional habits would do, the evidence by which its claims were supported, said: "If I were called upon to charge a jury in regard to this point, I would instruct them to bring in a verdict for the claimant." Lord Brougham did not seem disposed to go quite so far. He would neither acquit nor condemn, but, like a canny Scot, gave as his verdict, non liquet." The Kesselstadt picture, though its chief value lies in its connection with the mask, is yet not without some curious interest on general grounds. Artists and critics all agree in referring it to the age named in the inscription, 1637. It is in the style of the Vandyke school of art, then prevalent in England, and was, in all probability, the work of some pupil of Vandyke's. Besides the evidence of its age from the style and the date, there are equal testimonies in the costume,-the open work at the seam of the pillow-case, the folds of the white linen sheets, the cut and collar of the shirt, -all pointing to the age of Shakespeare,-nearly all to be seen of almost exactly the same fashion and pattern, at this very day, at Ann Hathaway's cottage, where the old-fashioned bedstead and its furniture are still preserved, just as they were two centuries and a half ago. Another impression, that one can hardly fail to receive from the mask, is the absence of any marked nationality in the features. The same thing is true of the well-known mask of Dante, in Florence; there is nothing Italian about it. So there is nothing distinctively English in this cast which claims to be the deathmask of Shakespeare. It gives us, as do his writings, the idea of a generic man,- a representative of the human race rather than of any distinct nationality. Another characteristic of the mask, equally marked, is the exceeding fineness and delicacy of the lines which make up the countenance. Grimm notices this peculiarity. No one, in fact, can fail to observe it who looks upon the mask. While the mask differs, in one respect or another, The mask or cast creates immediately in the mind of the beholder, even when nothing has been said to him in regard to its claims, the impression that it represents some remarkable man. The experiment has been frequently made, and uniformly with this result. It was exhibited, without a word of explanation, to Herman Grimm, the celebrated art critic of Berlin. "At the very first glance," says Grimm, "I thought to myself that I had never seen a nobler countenance." "What a noble, clean-cut, aquiline nose; what a wonderfully shaped brow! I felt that this must have been a man in whose brain dwelt noble thoughts. I inquired. I was told to look at the reverse of the mask. There, on the edge, cut in figures of the 17th century, stood A. D. 1616. I could think of no one else who had died in this year except one who was born in the year Michael Angelo died,-Shakespeare." from every recognized likeness of Shakespeare, there is no marked feature in any one of them which cannot be found in the mask. The variation in each case being easily explainable by the personal peculiarity, caprice, or unskilfulness of the particular artist. Thus the bust represents a round, full-faced man, decidedly puffy in the cheeks, while in the mask the face is thin and spare, and wears a thoughtful and rather melancholy look. Now it is well known that the flesh after death always falls away, giving this character to the face. So universal is this result that artists, in moulding a bust, or painting a picture, from a death-mask, always make allowance for the falling away of the flesh, and fill it out to the supposed fulness of life, either from conjecture, or from some photograph, or other evidence of the ordinary condition of the face in health. Gerard Johnson, in undertaking to supply this supposed falling off in the flesh, simply overdid the matter, and gave us a portly, jovial Englishman, instead of the thoughtful author of Hamlet and Lear. Underlying the superabundant fulness of flesh, however, the eye can easily trace in the bust all the essential lines of grace and thought to be seen in the mask. The bust, as compared with the mask, is noticeable for the shortness of the nose, and for the extraordinary distance (one and a quarter inches) between the nose and the mouth. John Bell, the sculptor, asserted on anatomical grounds, that the maker of the bust had met with an accident at the point of the nose, and then, instead of doing his work over again, he had cut away enough of the lower part of the nose to give the feature the requisite amount of nostril. The bust certainly has the appearance of having undergone some such manipulation. Another point, in which the mask and the bust differ, is the distance between the eyes, and also between the eyebrows. The unoccupied space in the centre of the forehead, between the beginning of the ridge of hair on one side and the beginning on the other, is larger than I recollect to have seen in any human being. A corresponding width exists between the two eyes, the distance from the centre of one eye to the centre of the other being two and three-quarter inches. This feature gives to the face, as seen in the mask, an amplitude of forehead that is truly majestic, and one, when looking at it, cannot help feeling, that he understands better than he did before, where those great creations of genius came from, that have so long filled him with amazement. The bust-maker, on the contrary, through inadvertence, or possibly mistaking certain accidental irregularities of the plaster for a continuation of the hair, has run the brows more closely together, and then, to maintain consistency, has in like manner brought the eyes more closely together, to make them correspond with the brows. The effect of the narrowing of the forehead is further heightened by the fulness and puffiness of the cheeks already described; and the result of the whole is to give us the impression of a merry, good-natured farmer, instead of the majestic thinker that looks at us from the mask. And yet we can see how, through inadvertence, misconception, and unskilfulness, the one might have grown out of the other. The mask has met with a slight accident, the tip of the nose on one side having crumbled, or having been broken, marring a little the nostril on that side. The features as revealed by the mask have a manly beauty, of the intellectual type, that is very noticeable, and that has called forth spontaneous admiration from all who have looked upon it. There is also an indescribable expression of sadness that no one fails to notice. Mrs. Kemble, on seeing it, burst into tears. Grimm suggests in this connection another idea, namely, that in the first moments after death the disguises of life disappear, and the real character comes out in the countenance. "Though life," he says, "may prove deceptive on this point, not so death. It is as if, in the first moments after death had laid his sovereign and soothing hand upon man, the features reassumed before our eyes, as final imprint, that which they enclosed as the actual gift of creative nature, namely, the very sum and substance of life. Strange resemblances, wonderful confirmations of character, reappear in these first moments after the last moments." Some of the hairs of the moustache, eye-lashes, and beard are seen in the mask, having adhered to the original concave shell and been thence transferred to the convex mask. These hairs, on examination with a glass, are found to be of a reddish brown, or auburn, corresponding in this respect with what we know historically to have been the actual color of Shakespeare's hair. If the mask be what is claimed for it, we have here literally a bit of Shakespeare himself. The eyes are closed, and the left eye shows a slight defect from some cause. The moustache is rather full, and in the shape now frequently worn, the ends hanging down diagonally to the right and left, so as to cover the corners of the mouth. The "tomb-maker," in the Stratford bust, has curled them up in a way which alters the whole expression of the face, giving it a gay and jaunty air. The rest of the beard is shaven, except a small tuft under the chin, of the cut now called an "imperial." The nose is thin, delicate, slightly aquiline, and the profile altogether is extraordinarily beautiful. The boldness of the outline, as one looks at the mask in profile, raises the expectation of a narrow face and head, instead of the broad, commanding face and forehead which meet the eye on turning the mask, and looking at it full in front. The impression which these various likenesses make upon the mind of the observer, especially the impression made by the mask, is that of majesty and force: what a noble face this man had! how worthy of the noble thoughts to which he has given utterance! We feel instinctively like applying to him the words which he has himself put into the mouth of Hamlet, when addressing his father's portrait: See, what a grace was seated on this brow; |