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

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

If the reader will turn to that leaf, on which is tranfcribed the burials of the Shakespeare family, he may not think it improper to affix a Headpiece to fuch leaf; and it might be an angel or genii, or a weeping child perufing 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 Duft EncloAfed HERe
Blese be TE Many spares TEs Stones
And curst be He moves my Bones.

Somewhat

SHAKESPEARE'S would have been a fine grave for Cromwell to have trampled on: poet's tomb, repofe the afhes of his favourite daughter Sufannah, with this infeription:

Witty above her fexe, but that's not all,
Wife to falvation was good Mistress Hall,

Something of Shakefpere was in that, but this
Wholy of him with whom she's now in bliffe:

Then paffenger haft n'ere a teare,

To weep with her that wept with all ;
That wept, yet fet herself to chere
Them up with comfort's cordial.
Her love fhall live, her mercy spread,
When thou h'aft ne're a teare to shed.

Close to the

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 fhould not be thought fufficiently expreffive, 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 exprefs lefs of anguifh. See alfo 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 ftudy of Corregio, in the fecond volume of the fame work. See also the weeping child of Cypriani, in his print of the Nymph of Immortality. And see the devout and tender calmnefs of two of the heads in Sir Joshua's portrait of a daughter of Lord William Gordon, where fhe is drawn as in a group of angels.

IN fome 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 ferenity which Scheemaker has given him.*

In the print

HERE too fweet Shakespeare, Fancy's fav'rite child,

The marble emulates thy power to please ;

With graceful attitude, and afpect mild,
Expreffing native dignity and ease.

b

Nor

print by Claud Dubofc, his features refemble thofe 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 fo 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 impreffions 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 Buft itself does not convey near fo pleafing a face.* Mr. Gough informs

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

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

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

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

The face on the Stratford monument bears very little, if any refemblance, to that at Westminster; the air of it is indeed fomewhat thoughtful, but then it feems 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 reafons.

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 fome time before his death. If we confider thofe 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 reprefentation of him.

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

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

the better. The best buft 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 Zouft, 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.

In these verses Ben, plainly afferts that if the engraver could have drawn Shakespeare's wit in brafs, 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 fcribed rather shorter and streighter on the latter, than on the former; and yet this difference will not, I dare fay, 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 thofe gentlemen, who have not thought fo well of the Stratford monument, to have a better opinion of it for the time to come.

Stratford upon Avon, May 30, 1759.

J: G.