three ravens' heads erased, a pellet, between four cross crosslets. Second and third, a bucks' head cabossed, surmounted by a cross patee, in the mouth an arrow. Femme, Hall;-quartering SHAKSPEARE. HEERE RESTETH YE. BODY OF THOMAS NASHE, ESQ. HE MAR. ELIZABETH, THE DAVG. & HEIRE OF JOHN HALLE, GENT. HE DIED APRILL 4. A. 1647, AGED 53. Fata manent omnes, hunc non virtute carentem Vt neque devitiis, abstulit atra dies; Abstulit; at referet lux vltima; siste viator, Arms,-On a lozenge,-Hall; impaling, SHAKSPEARE HEERE LYETH YE. BODY OF SVSANNA, WIFE TO JOHN HALL, GENT. YE. DAVGHTER OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, GENT. SHE DECEASED YE. 11TH OF JVLY, AO. 1649, AGED 66. Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, To weepe with her that wept with all? Them up with comforts cordiall. These English verses (preserved by Dugdale,) were many years since purposely obliterated, to make room for another inscription, carved on the same stone, for Richard Watts, of Rhyon Clifford; a person of no relation to the SHAKSPEARE family. AN ACCOUNT OF THE MINIATURE, SUPPOSED TO BE PAINTED BY NICHOLAS HILLIARD, AND ALSO TO BE A PORTRAIT OF SHAKSPEARE. The following is an Extract from Mr. Boaden's "I was about to close my subject, I remember, with a very brief enumeration of the spurious, or rather falsely ascribed portraits, when the late Mr. Boswell, brought a miniature to shew me, with which Sir James Bland Burges had entrusted him. It struck me to have been unquestionably painted by Hilliard, and to merit attentive éxamination. The account given of it by Sir James, is such as was to be expected from his candour and his taste. As no one can more truly appreciate such a possession, so no man could possibly say less to enforce its claim, and no other POET, perhaps, so little. I cannot do better, than transcribe here the letter which Sir James 1 wrote to Mr. Boswell, giving the history of the miniature, which he had so fortunately recovered : "DEAR BOSWELL, "Lower Brook Street, June 26, 1818. "I send you the history of my portrait of Shakspeare, which I apprehend will leave no reason to doubt of its authenticity. "Mr. Somerville, of Edstone, near Stratford-upon-Avon, ancestor of Somerville, author of the Chase, &c. lived in habits of intimacy with Shakspeare, particularly after his retirement from the stage, and had this portrait painted, which, as you will perceive, was richly set, and was carefully preserved by his descendants, till it came to the hands of his great grandson, the poet, who, dying in 1742, without issue, left his estates to my grandfather, Lord Somerville, and gave this miniature to my mother. She valued it very highly, as well for the sake of the donor, as for that of the great genius of which it was the representative; and I well remember, that when I was a boy, its production was not unfrequently a very acceptable reward of my good behaviour. After my mother's death, I sought in vain for this, and some other family relics, and at length had abandoned all hope of ever finding them; when chance, most unexpectedly restored them to me about ten days ago, in consequence of the opening of a bureau which had belonged to my mother, in a private drawer of which, this, and the other missing things were found. "Believe me to be, "Dear Boswell, "Your's, most truly, "J. B. BURges." "Nicholas Hilliard was born in 1547, and continued in the practice of his beautiful art among us till a very short period before his death, which happened in January, 1619. If Mr. Somerville, of Edstone, had this portrait of the poet painted after his retirement from the stage, which seems rather to be the inference of Sir James's narrative,* the old man painted Shakspeare just before he left town, in the fiftieth year of his age, and when he himself was in his sixty-sixth. He retained the power of his eye and the steadyness of his hand to the last-a thing not uncommon in the professors of minute design. The great Bartolozzi's letters at eighty, were miracles of firm, small, and beautiful penmanship." "Upon aiding my recollection of the picture by * From the perusal of Sir James's narrative, I do not consider it implies that the miniature was done after the poet's retirement from the stage, but only that Somerville frequented him more after that time, however, as it is indefinately expressed, this hint may be the means of Mr. Boaden changing his mind altogether in its favour. I have not been so fortunate as this gentleman has in seeing the picture, nor is it of much consequence, as the fidelity with which Mr. Agar engraves portraits, is sufficient to rely on its being exact. As to its resemblance to other portraits of the poet, I am able to see but little, and that is in the nose and eyes, the most material point against it, is, the very light hair on the head and beard, which denotes a period of life above fifty, which I cannot reconcile myself to, as the poet, no doubt, was bald at that age, and this portrait is not.-A. W. Mr. Agar's engraving from it, such actually seems to be the age of the person represented. Now out of this grows the only difficulty with me in regard to its being absolutely Shakspeare. There is one point in the portraits of our author, on which they are all decidedly agreed-viz. that he was bald. Mr. Ozias Humphry considered the Chandos head to have been painted when the poet was about forty-three years old. Upon the forehead there is no indication of hair. Jansen's picture was painted three years after this; it has the same evidence that the hair in front had perished away. Droeshout's print displays to us the same deficiency; and the monument, exhibiting the latest condition of the poet's hair, shews that the baldness had rapidly increased upon him, and that the skull was very nearly unclothed; a scanty measure of curls flowing circularly from a point not far above the ears." "Now this miniature has a strong tuft 'of hair growing in front of the forehead, as is, indeed, very usual with persons who yet are exceedingly bald towards the temples. I think it would be too much to expect from us the surrender of all the absolute authorities to the recently offered candidate. At the same time, unless I greatly mistake the poet's age in Sir James's picture, I cannot reconcile the appearance in question with the other acknowledged portraits; from the other pictures also, I conceive the poet's hair to have |