was a letter which always accompanied, or was fixed to the back of this picture, but on its being new lined and cleaned some few years ago, the letter was lost. It contained some particulars about the picture.

If the infertion of fo many Portraits should be objected to; let it be remembered, that the proofs even of those few which are generally supposed to be original, are at the best doubtful; and that some one of the commonly rejected Portraits might have been painted ad vivum.

If the reader will turn to that leaf, on which is transcribed the burials of the Shakespeare family, he may not think it improper to affix a Headpiece to such leaf; and it might be an angel or genii, or a weeping child perusing with an afflicted air, that entreating request, which (as Mr. Steevens informs us) is thus uncouthly inscribed on his tombstone. *

Good Frend for Iefus SAKE forbeare
To diGG TE Dust EncloAsed HERE
Blese be TE Man
And curst be He

spares FEs Stones moves my Bones.

Somewhat

* SHAKESPEARE's would have been a fine grave for Cromavell to have trampled on: Close to the poet's tomb, repose the ashes of his favourite daughter Susannah, with this inscription:

'SOMEWHAT of the fame kind of look and attitude might be given, which we fee in a metzotinto, to the memory of Queen Ann, where a cupid is reading the words: Paftora is no more, I do not recollect its title. If the attitude and look of that cupid should not be thought fufficiently expressive, the reader may refer to the two weeping children in the Vignette prefixed to the tenth volume of Lowndes's English Theatre. The face of the foremost boy may express less of anguish. See also two figures in a Vignette to one of the volumes of Lowndes's English Theatre, engraved by Hall, from after Lowe. In the frontispiece to the first volume of the Collection of Drawings by Rogers, is a winged boy, (with a pallet)—and fee the child which is at the bottom of the first study of Corregio, in the second volume of the fame work. See also the weeping child of Cypriani, in his print of the Nymph of Immortality. And fee the devout and tender calmness of two of the heads in Sir Joshua's portrait of a daughter of Lord William Gordon, where she is drawn as in a group of angels.

IN some other part (as at page 215) might be introduced a print of his monument in the Abbey; and another of that at Stratford.

In all the large prints of his monument at Westminster the face is wanting in that serenity which Scheemaker has given him. *

In the print

HERE too sweet Shakespeare, Fancy's fav'rite child,
The marble emulates thy power to please;

With graceful attitude, and aspect mild,
Expressing native dignity and ease.

b

Nor

print by Claud Dubosc, his features resemble those of a ruffian, more than Shakespeare's. He appears to more advantage in the print by Maurer, 1742. There is a very neat fized print of this Monument in the Supplement to the 28th volume of the Universal Magazine.

THE Tomb at Stratford has been so well engraved by Vertue, for the edition of Hanmer, that no better print of this tomb can be defired. I am speaking of the best impressions of this print; and not of the copy engraved by Gravelot for the last edition. I am afraid however that Vertue, (who in his pilgrimage to Stratford did not want true devotion to Shakespeare) has made the Bust much too handsome and pleasing. The Bust itself does not convey near so pleasing a face. * Mr. Gough informs

us

Nor thy unrivall'd magic's potent charm,
Nor tender stories of ill-fated love;
Nor feenes of horror could his rage difarm,
Or the insensate spectre's pity move.

Where were ye graces, where ye tuneful nine,

When Shakespeare's active spirit foar'd away?
Where were ye Virtues when the spark divine,
Forsook its trembling tenement of clay ?

Alas! around his couch attendant all,

Ye saw the stroke the ruthless monfter gave;
Beheld (fad scene!) your darling vot'ry fall,
And weep your inability to save.

* THE following letter is from the Gent's. Mag. for June 1759.

Mr. URBAN,

A doubt of a new kind, and not unworthy of notice, has arifen among fome, whether the old monumental Bust of Shakespeare, in the collegiate church of Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, had any resemblance

us that there is a good cast of this Bust in the poffeffion of Mr. Green, of Lichfield.

OPPOSITE the Commendatory Verses on Shakespeare, might be placed that most pleasing ornament to his memory, designed by R. Cofway, and engraved by Bartolozzi, of Mrs. Abingdon as Thalia. If well coloured, it is beautiful; but the features of the bust might have been altered for

.:

the

:

resemblance of the bard; but I find not this doubt to have taken date before the public regard shewn to his memory, by erecting for him the curious cenotaph in Westminster Abbey: the statue in that honorary monument is really in a noble attitude, and excites an awful admiration in the beholder; the face is venerable, and well expresses that intenseness of ferious thought, which the poet must be supposed to have fometimes had.

The face on the Stratford monument bears very little, if any resemblance, to that at Westminster; the air of it is indeed somewhat thoughtful, but then it seems to arife from a chearfulness of thought, which, I hope, it will be allowed Shakespeare was no stranger to. However this be, as the faces on the two monuments are unlike each other, the admirers of that at Westminster only, will have it, that the country figure differs as much from the likeness of the original, as it does from the face in the Abbey, and fo far endeavour to deprive it of its merit: This is a derogation I can by no means allow of, and that for the following reasons.

Shakespeare died at the age of 53. The unanimous tradition is, that by the uncommon bounty of the then Earl of Southampton, he was enabled to purchase an house and land at Stratford, the place of his nativity; to which place, after quitting the public stage, he retired, and lived chearfully amongst his friends some time before his death. If we confider those circumstances aright, that Shakespeare's difpofition was chearful, and that he died before he could be faid to be an old man, the Stratford figure is no improper representation of him.

The exact time when the country monument was erected is now unknown; but, I presume it was done by his executors, or relations, probably while his features were fresh in every one's memory, and perhaps with the afsistance of an original picture too.

These are no unreasonable suppositions, and which, I think, cannot easily be overthrown, especially when corroborated (as I hope to prove they are) by the following observation not hitherto made, that I know of, by any one.

the better. The best bust of Shakespeare that I know, is that in Mr. Gainsborough's whole length metzotinto of Mr. Garrick, from his fine picture at Stratford. Cypriani's bust too is a fine one.

AND oppofite Mr. Malone's Attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays were written, might be placed the most beautiful and graceful of all Shakespeare's Portraits-namely, that from after Zoust, engraved by Si

mon,

Facing the title page of one of the folio editions of Shakespeare's works, there is an head of him engraved by one Martin Droefhout, a Dutchman, and underneath this cut appear the following lines, written by Ben Jonfon, who perfonally knew, and was familiarly acquainted with our poet.

The figure that thou see'st here put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
In which the graver had a strife
With nature, to out do the life..
O could he but have drawn his wit:
As well in brass as he hath hit
His face, the piece would then furpass
All that was ever writ in brass...
But fince he cannot, &c.

In these verses Ben, plainly asserts that if the engraver could have drawn Shakespeare's wit in brass, as well as he has done his face, the performance would have been preferable to every thing of the kind; a convincing proof how great a likeness he knew there was betwixt the poet and that picture of him..

Now, if we compare this picture with the face on the Stratford monument, there will be found as: great a resemblance as perhaps can well be betwixt a statue and a picture, except that the hair is de scribed rather shorter and streighter on the latter, than on the former; and yet this difference will not, I dare say, be material enough to justify the doubt I have attempted to remove; and, if not, then I hope what I have here advanced will induce those gentlemen, who have not thought so well of the Stratford monument, to have a better opinion of it for the time to come.

Stratford upon Avon, May 30, 1759.

JG.