LIFE PORTRAITS OF SHAKESPEARE.*
NATIONS erect statues to a departed worthy for one of two rea- sons, either to correct their short memories and give to his perishing reputation a duration at least as long as the benefits which he conferred, or else to band down to posterity what were his outward features and presence. Even the National Shake- speare Committee can scarcely expect that they will be able to magnify the fame of our great national poet, and we, therefore, imagine that the Site and Monument Committees, which met ac- cording to advertisement on " the day after the meeting of Parliament," devoted themselves to the second of the two objects specified above. At last the much vexed question of the 1, Life Portraits of William Shakespeare. A History of the various Representations of the Poet, with an examination into their authenticity. ByJ. Hain Friswell Illus- trated by photographs of the most authentic portraits, and with views, ste.,by Caudell Downes and Ce. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston. 1864.
length of Shakespeare's upper lip is to be settled by authority from which there is no appeal, and we shall no longer have to compare the Chandos portrait with the Stratford bust, nor the Droeshout etching with the Jansen portrait. Recorded in stone we shall have the true and living Shakespeare, and future gene- rations as they gaze will bless the Committees and the genius of the Hon. Sees, At a moment like this, therefore, there is a peculiar propriety about the appearance of Mr. Friswell's work, for everything that is worth knowing, we had almost said that can be known, about the various presentations of the poet's face will be found in this beautiful monograph. The author, however, who has made the subject the study almost of a life, and is equally quali- fied to approach it either from its literary or artistic side, gently complains that he has been obliged to omit three-fourths of the materials he lied collected, and that a catalogue of the various engravings of Shakespeare would by itself have filled the volume. Nevertheless, we cannot help thinking that the necessity of selection which has thus been imposed on Mr. Friswell is one which he need not regret. After all, the true questions with re- ference to any likeness are, did Shakespeare sit to the artist, or had the latter known Shakespeare in life; or, again, if painted from materials after the poet's death, is the truth of the likeness guaranteed to us by any one who had known him? All other representations, and their name is legion, are only the fancies of the limners, and the learning which has been lavished on them is, after all, but the learning of demolition. It adds little to our knowledge of Shakespeare's features to know the utter emptiness of the evidence in favour of the authenticity of a waggon-load of pictures.
The only portrait with a genuine pedigree is the famous Chandos Shakespeare. It was the property of Joseph Taylor, an actor and contemporary of the poet. Some have attributed it to Burbage, the actor, others to one John Taylor, a painter to whose pictures it is thought to have some resemblance in point of style. The simple fact is, wo know nothing about the matter. Taylor the actor bequeathed the picture to Sir William Davenant, after whose death it was sold to Betterton, and finally became the property of the nation in March, 1856. This picture is unques- tionably evidence in the case. The bust in Stratford Church is entitled to the second place. It was received by the poet's son- in-law and contemporaries as a fair likeness, and was executed soon after his death. It is also recognized by Leonard Digges in his commendatory verses prefixed to the first folio ; but, Mr. Friswell notwithstanding, ho does not " reckon it of such value that, as a picture of the man, his works only are to be preferred." All Digges says is that Shakespeare's works will be a better preserver of his name than his tomb, and that in them we shall still see the poet living when the tomb is rent-
" And Time dissolves thy Stratford monument,"
which might very well be said by a man who had never seen either bust or poet. Thirdly and lastly, we have the Droeshout etching prefixed to the first folio, and therefore approved by Hemynge and Cundell, Shakespeare's partners. It has also in its favour the well-known commendatory verses of Ben Jenson, who, of course, knew Shakespeare well ; but then, on the other hand, Ben Jonson had a habit of being rather enthusiastic both in praise and blame. Of really authentic evidence of what Shakespeare was like other than this there is absolutely none. The history of all the other pictures which have obtained tempo- rary notoriety is probably the same. Some young painter deter- mines to paint a portrait of the great poet, iu which he is to take
the established type of head, and idealize it into a worthy re- presentation of the greatest of geniuses. It passes, as such pictures do, into the hands of a broker, and is transferred from garret to garret. At last it falls into the hands of some one who sees its capabilities, and an authentic portrait of Shakespeare is announced to mankind. Of positive evidence there is, of course, none, but we are occasionally favoured with a cock-and-bull hypothesis by an auctioneer. Sometimes the affair is less inno- cent. Two great men, Hader add Herder, had at one time quite a reputation for turning the heads of City aldermen and Dutch admirals into portraits of Shakespeare. The fact is you can always have as many original works of the groat masters and authentic likenesses of great men as you want. In the fine arts it is truer even than in trades that demand will always produce supply.
We will give one instance, and a very favourable instance, of
the sort of evidence on which these pictures rest, though that instance shall be, in fact, a cast and note picture. In 1848 the Count von Kesselstadt of Cologne died, and a picture in it col- lection was sold to an antiquary at Mayence, from whom t passed
in 1847 to Mr. Becker. The date on it was 107, and Mr. Becker learning that there had been a plaster cast in the Count's collec- tion, hunted for it and found it in 180 in a broker's shop. It bore the date 1816, or that of the death of Shakespeare. This cast and the picture are now deposited in the British Museum, and the theory respecting them is as follows. A cast of Shake- speare's face was taken at his death and sent up to Gerard John- son, a German, and the sculptor of the Stratford monument. A German nobleman who greatly admired Shakespeare bought the cast of Johnson and had the picture painted from it, and the two came by descent to Count von Kesselstadt. Now with respect to this theory it is all probable enough. If the cast does not resemble the bust, that may be because the sculptor certaiuly aimed at representing the poet as he was in life, and not asemacia- ted by a long illness ; and if there is a certain vagueness about the connection between " a German nobleman" in 1637 and the Cologne Count in 1843 we must not be too exorbitant. But unfortunately conjecture is not proof,- and there does not happen to be one jot of evidence that the sculptor ever sold such a cast, or that he ever received such a cast, or even that such a cast of Shakespeare's face was ever taken.
As to the three authentic portraitures of the poet, shall we say anything ? Did any two men ever agree on the subject? For our own part we say boldly that none of them is Shakespeare, for none of them is the work of an artist. The Stratford bust and Droeshout etching agree pretty well in external features, but they differ in expression. The latter is a bad engraving even for Droeshout, and the eyes do not match, while the face is mindless and blank. The former is utterly without vigour and in- dividuality. It is the fat round face of a good-natured, gossiping town clerk, and the beholder who stumbles over the little squat ' nose and portentously long upper lip can feel little confidence in a sculptor who had an accident with the nose. Yet we do not wonder at the praise which the poet's friends awarded either to the one or the other. A portrait is valueless to a stranger unless it gives the essence of the man—his expression. But with the friends it is quite different. No one expression satisfies them, for they have a hundred fleeting forms of it imprinted in their hearts. What they want is a faithful outline of the countenance, something to guarantee them against the defects of memory, which can, never- theless, in a moment light up the veriest daub with a warmth of feeling that it is not given to mortal pencil to catch or to preserve.
Of the Chandos portrait we must admit that it tries our faith in pedigrees. It is not like either the bust or the etching. The brows and oyes are not unworthy of the poet, but the mouth is sensual and even treacherous. The ear-rings may be accounted for by the supposition of a theatrical costume, but it is a difficulty that the hair is black and wiry. However, the picture has been much damaged, and the authority of Dr. Waagen is in its favour. Thus we have as a means of learning the poet's lineaments only three bad representations, and we must all fill up the outline for ourselves. True, that the question is not what are our a priori notions of what Shakespeare ought to have looked like, but what aid he look like in fact ?—but to that Time has spared us no tolerably satisfactory answer. And we may ask—is it not better that it should be so ? Could any art have given us the face of him who was by choice placid with the placidity of a Stratford burgess, yet often glowing with all the fire of wit and revelry, who was capable of feeling at one time
the perplexities of Hamlet, and at another the agony of Lear ? Take the picture known as the Jansen portrait. It is the one face of Shakespeare we have by a man of genius. It is barely possible that Jansen was contemporary with Shakespeare, and not very probable that he could have seen him. The face is beautiful, but with an ideal beauty. It is refined, it is intellec- tual, but it is pensive, and stamped
" With that severe content Which comes of thought and musing. "
It is, in short, one side of the many-minded poet conceived and delineated by a master hand. As it is, it is the greatest of helps to forming a notion of Shakespeare. Make it the work of a contemporary painted from nature, and it would be a tyranny. It would usurp our minds. It would shut us out equally from the Shakespeare who conceived Falstaff and the Shakespeare who conceived Iago. We do not doubt that fate has been kind to us both in what it has given and refused. Every man can now found on the rude basis of the bust, the picture, and the etching, his own ideal, and it will be worthy of the poet just so far as he has mastered the proportions of the poet's mind. And if any one is too painfully conscious of his own inability to produce anything satisfactory even to himself, why, in that case he can fall back on the Site and Monument Committee, whose authorita- tive ideal will doubtless satisfy all but incurably obstinate and presumptuous minds.
The photographs inserted in this book are simply among the clearest, softest, and most completely free from flaw that we have ever seen. And the work would be almost perfect if Mr. Friswell was not sometimes a little obscure. From his narrative we are not quite certain whether he considers the Taylor who bequeathed the Chandos portrait to Davenant was John the painter or Joseph the actor, and we are equally uncertain whether the Jansen portrait is still the property of the Duke of Hamilton, or in which of his Grace's houses it is to be seen. The fact is Mr. Friswell knows so much on the subject that he does not always allow enough for his reader's ignorance.
Previous page
