line of hair that distinguishes the early proof. Now, that proof, so far as I am aware, was first recognised and identified in or about 1864; yet this picture, which, as we know, first came to light in 1846, reproduces it. It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that an able American writer has claimed the Ely Palace portrait as the true Droeshout original. Yet, considering that the head is admittedly at a somewhat different angle from that shown in the print, it is impossible to accept the contention that the engraver copied this portrait, all the while modifying the angle of all the forms he was imitating. The suggestion, artistically considered, is inadmissible. The alternative, therefore, is irresistible, that the picture, if after Martin Droeshout, was painted not from the print in the folio, but from the proof-which in those days perhaps was not so rare. If so, by way of accounting for the younger look and smaller moustache, the year 1603 was cunningly adopted, as against the 1609 of the Droeshout painting and its full moustache. Furthermore, had the engraver worked from the Ely Palace picture he could assuredly not have substituted the very slightly undulating outline on the left of the face next to the eye for the extremely marked indentations of outline that distinguish both the Droeshout print and the Flower portrait. The difference of these outlines is too great to be accounted for by the very slight change in pose. And it is further to be observed that the shape of the mass of hair on the left is identical with that in the print, and has not been modified as in the Flower picture. The painter has contented himself with a revision of the eccentric illumination of the picture, with a correction of the abnormal eyelids and the deformed ear, and-so far as can be seen through the heavy darkened varnish of the coat-of the impossible perspective of the lines of the body-decoration. As regards the last-named particular, it is absurd to suppose that an engraver, working from a properlydrawn coat covering a living man, deliberately altered the lines so as to make it grotesque in its perspective. The picture, therefore, followed, and did not precede the print; but as to the age of it, its condition is such as to make it impossible now to determine.

THE JANSEN, OR SOMERSET, PORtrait.

While the greater number of Shakespeare portraits suffer from lack of pedigree, the so-called "Jansen" has the misfortune to be saddled with three. According to one, it is conjectured that it was painted for Henry, Earl of Southampton, and when the owner's property was divided between the Dukes of Portland and Beaufort

it descended, ultimately, to Mr. Charles Jennens, the eccentric editor of King Lear. The other story is that it belonged to Prince Rupert, on whose death it devolved on his natural daughter, Ruperta, afterwards the wife of Emmanuel Scrope Howe. From their descendants, apparently, it passed into the hands of Mr. Jennens of Gopsal. As not the slightest evidence is offered for the authority of these statements, they may impartially be dismissed. The one solid fact is that the painting first came to light in the possession of Mr. Jennens, who, although directly challenged on the point, evaded, in his public defence, any explanation of the picture's history or any statement as to how it came into his hands. That was before the year 1770, when his King Lear was issued, with Earlom's beautiful little mezzotint as the frontispiece. Boaden would have us believe that when Mr. Jennens died in 1773, Gopsal was inherited, and the picture with it, by Mr. Penn Assheton Curzon who had married Mr. Jennens' niece, and that from him it passed to the Duke of Somerset. On the other hand, Woodburn, a prominent picture-dealer of his day, declared that the dealer Spackman bought it, and about the year 1809 sold it to the elder Woodburn who, as we know, had it engraved by Dunkarton in 1811, after disposing of it to the Duke of Hamilton. From this point its history is clear enough. In the year 1819 the Duke bequeathed it to his son-in-law, the eleventh Duke of Somerset, who married Lady Charlotte Hamilton, and through the twelfth Duke (who always declared it to be the best portrait of Shakespeare in existence) it has descended to his daughter, the Lady Gwendolen Ramsden.

But is it a portrait of Shakespeare at all? It must here be explained that the plate in the present edition is not direct from Earlom's mezzotint, but from Cooper's mezzotint from it. There are considerable differences between these two plates, but not more, perhaps, than between Earlom's and the original. Indeed, not a single engraving after this beautiful picture, except the indifferent little engraving by T. Wright, comes anywhere near the painting in respect of expression and forms; and even that is absurdly deficient in light and shade and artistic presentation. In short, those who have seen engravings only can form little idea of the picture itself, and have no right to judge it. The eyes, far more almond-shaped than in Cooper's engraving, gaze not into ours, but over our right shoulder; the eyebrows are more like shadows, and are not so much on, as under, the supra-orbital ridges. The shape of the nose, with a tendency to aquiline, is severer, and, like the whole face, reveals none of the decisive modelling as indicated by supple

The nostril is more ap

shadows here seen in the photogravure. parent; the lips straighter and more compressed; the moustache and beard are shown rather by hairs than masses of locks, and the hair, like the dress, is practically lost in the background. The scroll and its legend, "Ut magus," does not appear at all in the picture, and never did; that was Earlom's addition.

Now, compare the painting, so different from the engravings. from it, with the authentic portraits. The construction of the face and its proportions differ entirely from the Droeshout line engraving. Although the shape of the skull above the eyes has a fair, but not a close, resemblance to that of the other, the little piercing eyes contrast strangely with the large, open corneæ of the Droeshout. The small upper lids and the large space between lid and eyebrow are the exact contrary to what we find in the print; the nose is far longer and more refined, and differently constructed; the upper lip is shorter, and the whole shape of the face is narrower and more pointed to the chin; while the left side of the face, with its strongly indented outline in the Droeshout, finds no counterpart in the Jansen picture.

Again, it is not possible to set the painting and the bust side by side and contend that they represent the same man, so sharp is the contrast between the extraordinary delicacy and sweetness of face and feature and the elegant shape of the whole head in the Jansen, and the burly plumpness of the other.

Nor, indeed, can we be assured that the portrait is by Jansen at all, although it is in all respects worthy of the master, displaying his best characteristics. The tender handling, the good colour, and the subtly indicated forms, are qualities we associate with Jansen at his best. The high colour of the cheeks melting into the ivory flesh tones, the ruby lips so carefully painted, the incisive drawing of the whole so deftly softened almost into vagueness, the black background; these things we may look for in a fine example of the artist. The inscription on the picture may be genuine or not; that need not affect our judgement or our conclusion. If Jansen were born in London-Londinensis Sandrart, his contemporary, calls himhe would be seventeen years old according to some biographers, according to others twenty. It is scarcely likely, though not of course impossible, that so young a man could paint so unusually accomplished a portrait. As his first-known English pictures are dated two years after Shakespeare's death, the circumstance may be claimed as confirmation that he only arrived from Holland in that year, and consequently he could not have painted the poet. But as it has been pointed out, there is no proof that the portrait is intended for

the poet at all; yet it certainly has all the appearance of a life portrait. On the other hand, allowing that it does represent Shakespeare, it would be difficult, I submit, to resist an argument that the picture may be a posthumous portrait founded on some then existing likeness. The inscription, if genuine, is not against it; for it would only attest that this was how the sitter looked at such and such a date. We know that Jansen occupied himself in making copies as well as originals, and what is more likely than that Leonard Digges employed him to make a picture of the great poet whom he had eulogized with so much reverence and enthusiasm in the First Folio? Remember, on the outbreak of the civil war Jansen-who had also painted the poet's friend Ben Jonson-went to live at Bridge near Barhamdown, by Canterbury, and that there he executed portraits of his neighbours, Sir Dudley Digges, judge and diplomatist, Leonard's brother, and others of the family. The circumstance has not, I believe, been noticed before; but it cannot be doubted that we have here a possible link between Shakespeare and Jansen.

As to the inscription on the picture, I cannot but express my doubt as to one figure at least. At first sight the "46" may be mistaken for "40"; on close examination the impression of suspicion is confirmed, for the "tail" of the 6 looks like an addition, seeming to spring from the o too near the highest point of its curve. I am not the only one who has lately observed this; and the fact naturally shakes belief in the authenticity, or at least the value, of the whole lettering.

The picture as it stands is undoubtedly a very beautiful and challenging portrait of an exceedingly refined head, elegant almost to the point of effeminacy, a delicate type of Jacobean culture. It is the parent of many copies (one of which may be a replica) both in painting and in engraving; but its identity with Shakespeare, it is to be regretted, cannot on any existing ground be regarded as established.

THE D'AVENANT BUST.

In the eyes of those who accept what is known as the "Kesselstadt Death-Mask" as the genuine cast of Shakespeare's face, the D'Avenant bust is regarded as of commanding value and singular interest. The circumstance that these inter-confirmatory objects were both discovered in the year 1849, that both came into the possession of Professor (afterwards Sir Richard) Owen, and that the first public announcement of the discovery of the bust was made,

it appears, in the Westminster Review for October, 1854, in a statement, inaccurate in detail, obtrusively linking the two together, is a triple coincidence that may not imply much. Professor Owen's honesty was above suspicion; but he was curiously opinionated, especially in respect to these "Shakespeare portraits," and we have the evidence of a friend who called to see the bust, which Owen insisted was contemporary, that "Owen was a man not to be contradicted." But this point, on the present occasion, must not be dwelt upon further than for it to be pointed out that there is undoubtedly a certain general resemblance between the two, save for a falling away to be expected in a death-mask, and for a more upright forehead in the bust.

The name by which the bust is known, connecting it with Shakespeare's godson, is loosely applied, based rather on a hope than on proved fact. That the bust was found in the old Duke's Theatre (in Portugal Row), a playhouse which a hundred and eighty years before had been D'Avenant's, is enough in some minds to establish it as his property, and commissioned or at least approved by him. The vicissitudes of the theatre have scarcely been taken into sufficient account. At first a tennis court, it was opened by D'Avenant as a theatre in 1662, and was retained as a playhouse by him (except in the years of the Plague and Fire of London, 1665 and 1666, when it was closed) until 1674, when he left it, and it reverted to its use as a tennis court. In 1695 it was refitted as a theatre, and in 1714 was pulled down, re-built, and devoted to opera and the like. From 1732 it was used for opera, balls, and exhibitions, till in 1756 Giffard re-opened it as a theatre. Later on it became in turn an auction-room, a barracks, and so forth, and when many years later it was taken as a warehouse by the great china firm of Spode and Copeland, only the outer walls remained of the original fabric. In 1848 the College of Surgeons acquired the place for a third Hall for their museum, and when it was being razed, a terra-cotta bust, believed to represent Ben Jonson, was found smashed behind the demolished partition of brick (the Westminster Review declared the partition, with more likelihood, to be of plaster) above (but according to the Duke of Devonshire, 'under') "one of the stage doors." Why there should be more than one stage door, why the bust of Ben Jonson was discovered under one of them (presumably under the projecting arch), and that of Shakespeare should be produced unharmed from 'over' the corresponding one, and, above all, whyif the bust ever belonged to D'Avenant-he, being the Poet's godson and admirer, abandoned the precious sculpture in position.