"With a view also to distinctness and perspicuity of elucidation, the whole has been distributed into three parts or pictures, entitled,-SHAKSPEARE IN STRATFORD;-SHAKSPEARE IN LONDON; SHAKSPEARE IN RETIREMENT ;—which, though inseparably united, as forming but portions of the same story, and harmonized by the same means, have yet, both in subject and execution, a peculiar character to support.

"The first represents our poet in the days of his youth, on the banks of his native Avon, in the midst of rural imagery, occupations, and amusements; in the second, we behold him in the capital of his country, in the centre of rivalry and competition, in the active pursuit of reputation and glory; and in the third, we accompany the venerated bard to the shades of retirement, to the bosom of domestic peace, to the enjoyment of unsullied fame."

Feeling myself precluded from giving any opinion on this production, which could scarcely indeed be divested of partiality, I must beg leave to refer those of my readers, who may wish to ascertain in what manner it has been executed, to the various Reviews mentioned in the note below.*** The year 1817 seems to have been fertile in

* Vide Literary Gazette, Nov. 22nd, and Dec. 13th, 1817.Monthly Magazine, Jan. 1818.-Edinburgh Magazine, Jan. 1818. British Critic, April, 1818.-Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. and Octob. 1818.-Edinburgh Monthly Review, April, 1819. Monthly Review, August, 1819, &c. &c.

Shakspearian literature; for within a few months after the appearance of the volumes just mentioned, came forth Mr. Hazlit's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays," one motive for the production of which, he tells us, was "some little jealousy of the character of the national understanding; for we were piqued that it should be reserved for a foreign critic (Schlegel) to give reasons for the faith which we English have in Shakspeare. Certainly no writer among ourselves has shown either the same enthusiastic admiration of his genius, or the same philosophical acuteness in pointing out his characteristic excellencies."

V.

This is just and liberal praise, nor can the spirit of emulation from which he admits his undertaking to have partly originated, be in any degree blamed. The confession, in fact, is only hazardous to himself, for it immediately throws his labours into a field of dangerous comparison. From the free and unreserved manner, indeed, in which Mr. Hazlitt has spoken of his contemporaries, he has been almost necessarily subjected to much harsh censure; but of the work before us, it may, I think, be justly said that it is written with great taste and feeling, and exhibits, for the most part, a judicious, spirited, and correct analysis of the characters of our great bard. Nor will the enthusiastic admiration with which it abounds, though strongly, and sometimes rather quaintly, expressed, be estimated by any poetical mind as out of place; for, as the ▾ Preface, p. ix.

author has well observed, "it may be said of Shakspeare, that 'those who are not for him are against him:' for indifference is here the height of injustice. We may sometimes, in order to do a great right, do a little wrong.' An overstrained enthusiasm is more pardonable with respect to Shakspeare than the want of it, for our admiration cannot easily his genius."

surpass

" W

Much controversy having arisen amongst the critics and commentators on Shakspeare as to the genuineness of the pictures and prints reputed to be portraits of the bard; and numerous impositions on this head having been practised on the credulity of the public, it became an object of no little interest to ascertain what were the pretensions of those apparently best entitled to notice, by the character of their advocates, and the evidence collected in their favour; a desideratum which has been satisfactorily supplied by Mr. James Boaden, who, in the year 1824, published "An Inquiry into the Authenticity of various Pictures and Prints, which, from the decease of the Poet to our own times, have been offered to the public as Portraits of Shakspeare."

In this volume, which, instead of turning out, as might have been anticipated from its title, a somewhat dry antiquarian discussion, is one of the most entertaining productions to which the fame of Shakspeare has given birth, the ingenious author has brought forward very convincing proofs in

Preface, p. xv.

favour of the authenticity of four representations of the poet, namely, the Print from Martin Droeshout, the Bust at Stratford-upon-Avon,' the

* Mr. Boaden concludes his observations on the head by Droeshout, by observing that "it has a verification certainly more direct than any other. Ben Jonson is express upon its likeness; Shakspeare's friends and partners at the Globe give this resemblance in preference to some OTHERS, equally attainable. There can be no ground of preference, but greater likeness. If they knew, absolutely, of no other portrait, which I cannot think, the verisimilitude of this is equally undisturbed." -Inquiry, p. 24.

The sculptor of this bust, who had hitherto remained unknown, and only an object of conjecture, is at length ascertained by the recent publication of the "Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale." Edited by W. Hamper, Esq., London 1827. In this interesting volume occurs the following entry :

Shakspeares and John Combes Monumts. at Stratford, sup' Avon, made by one Gerard Johnson."

A note informs us that this is taken from a folio MS. left by Dugdale, now in the possession of his representative, and entitled "Certificates returned in April and May 1593, of all the Strangers, Forreiners abiding in London,' where they were borne, and last lived before theyre coming over, what children every of them had, as also what servants and apprentices, Strangers and English, of what Church every of them was, and English people every of them did sett on work."

The Certificate relative to our sculptor, is as follows:

"Garratt Johnson, and Mary his wyffe, housholders; a Hollander, borne at Amsterdam; a Tombe maker; 5 sonnes, aged 22, 11, 10, 6, 4, and 1 daughter aged 14, all borne in England; 26 years resident; a denizen; Englishe Churche; 4 Jurnimen; 2 Prentizes, and 1 Englishman at work; no servant."

Chandos Head, and the Portrait by Cornelius Jansen. The small Head engraved by Marshall for the edition of Shakspeare's Poems of 1640, might, I think, have been spared, as it is evidently a mere reduction from the larger print of Droeshout, and so reduced as to impart to the countenance what the original engraving in no degree warrants, -an air of vulgarity and cunning, features as discordant as possible with our conception of the character of Shakspeare.

Of the four prior heads, it may, in my judgment, be correctly affirmed that, whilst the features in their outline very strongly resemble each other, the predominating expression in each is of a different, though nearly allied cast; the terms tenderness, cheerfulness, intellectuality, and sweetness, being very decidedly applicable to them in the order in which they have been enumerated above; developements of mind and disposition, such as we know from his life and writings formed the character of the man, and which we cannot therefore but conclude, either conjointly or successively, stamped their image on his countenance.

The portrait of Cornelius Jansen is the favourite, and perhaps justly so, of Mr. Boaden, as it seems, of the four resemblances, to make the nearest approach to the combination of qualities I have just mentioned. "The expression of the countenance," he remarks, "really equals the demand of the fancy; and you feel that every thing was possible to a being so happily constituted."*

In short, in the portrait of Droeshout we may be said to