ON THE PORTRAITS OF

ફિ

SHAKESPEARE.

HE four beft authenticated portraits of Shakespeare are-1, the engraving by Droefhout prefixed to the

first folio in 1623; 2, the Stratford buft; 3, the Chandos portrait; 4, the portrait by Cornelius Janffen; and of these there are accurate engravings in the present volume.

1. Droefhout's portrait, attefted by his intimate friend Ben Jonfon, and by his partners and fellow-players Heminge and Condall, and acquiefced in, for anything ever faid to the contrary, by all his contemporaries, must be confidered authen

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tic, although for want of a Gainfborough, Reynolds, or Lawrence, it may be deficient of the character and expreffion which properly belong to it. Opinions are very various as to its quality. Steevens pronounced it a caricature, while Kemble agreed with Boaden in perceiving in it "an afpect of calm benevolence and "tender thought; great comprehenfion, and a kind of mixed feeling, as when melancholy yields "to the fuggeftions of fancy." The coftume is no doubt theatrical, but whether that of Old Knowell in Ben Jonfon's Every Man in his Humour,' or fome other character, can only be gueffed.

2. The bust forming part of the Stratford monument, having been executed under the fuperintendence of Shakespeare's fon-in-law, Dr. Hall, by a fculptor of talent, and set up within a few years of the poet's death,