author's likeness was exposed to, may have been numerous, it is still in good preservation. But, as further particulars may be wished for, it should be fubjoined, that in the Catalogue of "The fourth Exhibition and Sale by private Contract at the European Museum, King Street, St. James's Square, 1792," this picture was announced to the publick in the following words : "No. 359. A curious portrait of Shakspeare, painted in 1597." On the 31st of May, 1792, Mr. Felton bought it for five guineas; and afterwards urging some inquiry concerning the place it came from, Mr. Wilson, the conductor of the Museum already mentioned, wrote to him as follows: "To Mr. S. Felton, Drayton, Shropshire. " SIR, "The Head of Shakespeare was purchased out of an old house known by the fign of the Boar in Eastcheap, London, where Shakespeare and his friends used to resort, and report says, was painted by a Player of that time, but whose name I have not been able to learn. " I am, Sir, with great regard, "Sept. 11, 1792." "Your most obedt. servant, "J. Wilfon." The player alluded to was Richard Burbage. A Gentleman who, for several years past, has collected as many pictures of Shakspeare as he could hear of, (in the hope that he might at last procure a genuine one,) declares that the August 11, 1794, Mr. Wilson assured Mr. Steevens, that this portrait was found between four and five years ago at a broker's shop in the Minories, by a man of fashion, whose name must be concealed: that it afterwards came (attended by the Eastcheap story, &c.) with a part of that gentleman's collection of paintings, to be fold at the European Museum, and was exhibited there for about three months, during which time it was seen by Lord Leicester and Lord Orford, who both allowed it to be a genuine picture of Shakspeare, It is natural to suppose that the mutilated state of it prevented either of their Lordships from becoming its purchafer, How far the report on which Mr. Wilfon's nar+ ratives (respecting the place where this picture was met with, &c.) were built, can be verified by evidence at present within reach, is quite immaterial, as our great dramatick author's portrait displays indubitable marks of its own authenticity. It is apparently not the work of an amateur, but of an artift by profeffion; and therefore could hardly have been the production of Burbage, the principal actor of his time, who (though he certainly handled the pencil) must have had insufficient leisure to perfect himself in oil-painting, which was then so little understood and practised by the natives of this kingdom.2 Eastcheap legend has accompanied the majority of them, from whatever quarter they were transmitted. It is therefore high time that picture-dealers should avail themselves of another story, this being completely worn out, and no longer fit for service. 1 * Much confidence, perhaps, ought not to be placed in this remark, as a succetlion of limners now unknown might have pursued their art in England from the time of Hans Holbein to that of Queen Elizabeth. Yet, by those who allow to poffibilities the influence of facts, it may be said that this picture was probably the ornament of a club-room in Eastcheap, round which other resemblances of contemporary poets and players might have been arranged :-that the Boar's Head, the scene of Falstaff's jollity, might also have been the favourite tavern of Shakspeare :that, when our author returned over London Bridge from the Globetheatre, this was a convenient house of entertainment; and that for many years afterwards (as the tradition of the neighbourhood reports) it was understood to have been a place where the wits and wags of a former age were assembled, and their portraits repofited. To such suppositions it may be replied, that Mr. Sloman, who quitted this celebrated publick house in 1767, (when all its furniture, which had devolved to him from his two immediate predeceffors, was fold off,) declared his utter ignorance of any picture on the premises, except a coarse daubing of the Gadshill robbery.3 From hence the following probabilities may be suggested : -first, that if Shakspeare's portrait was ever at the Boar's Head, it had been alienated before the fire of London in 1666, when the original house was burnt;-and, secondly, that the path through which the fame picture has travelled fince, is as little to be determined as the course of a fubterraneous stream. 3 Philip Jones of Barnard's Inn, the auctioneer who fold off Mr. Sloman's effects, has been fought for; but he died a few years ago. Otherwise, as the knights of the hammer are said to preserve the catalogue of every auction, it might have been known whether pictures constituted any part of the Boar's Head furniture; for Mr. Sloman himself could not affirm that there were no small or obscure paintings above stairs in apartments which he had feldom or ever occafion to visit. Mrs. Brinn, the widow of Mr. Sloman's predeceffor, after her husband's decease quitted Eastcheap, took up the trade of a wireworker, and lived in Crooked Lane. She died about ten years ago. One, who had been her apprentice (no youth,) declares the was a very particular woman, was circumftantial in her narratives, and fo often repeated them, that he could not poffibly forget any article she had communicated relative to the plate, furniture, &c. of the Boar's Head:-that the often spoke of the painting that represented the robbery at Gadshill, but never fo much as hinted at any other pictures in the house; and had there been any, he is sure the would not have failed to describe them in her accounts of her former business and place of abode, which supplied her with materials for conversation to the very end of a long life. It may also be remarked, that if such a Portrait had exifted in Eastcheap during the life of the induftrious Vertue, he would most certainly have procured it, instead of having submitted to take his first engraving of our author from a juvenile likeness of James I. and his last from Mr. Keck's unauthenticated purchase out of the dreffing-room of a modern actress. It is obvious, therefore, from the joint depofitions of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Sloman, that an inference disadvantageous to the authenticity of the Boar's Head story must be drawn; for if the portrait in question arrived after a filent progress through obfcurity, at the shop of a broker who, being ignorant of its value, fold it for a few shillings, it must necessarily have been unattended by any history whatever. And if it was purchased at a fale of goods at the Boar's Head, as neither the master of the house, or his two predecessors, had the leaft idea of having possessed such a curiosity, no intelligence could be sent abroad with 4 The four last publicans who kept this tavern are faid to have filled the whole period, from the time of Vertue's inquiries, to the year 1788, when the Boar's Head, having been untenanted for five years, was converted into two dwellings for shopkeepers. it from that quarter. In either case then we may suppose, that the legend relative to the name of its painter,5 and the place where it was found, (notwithstanding both these particulars might be true,) were at hazard appended to the portrait under confideration, as foon as its fimilitude to Shakspeare had been acknowledged, and his name discovered on the back of it. - This circumstance, however, cannot affect the credit of the picture; for (as the late Lord Mansfield observed in the Douglas controversy) "there are instances in which falshood has been employed in support of a real fact, and that it is no uncommon thing for a man to defend a true cause by fabulous pretences." That Shakspeare's family possessed no resemblance of him, there is sufficient reason to believe. Where then was this fashionable and therefore necessary adjunct to his works to be fought for? If any where, in London, the theatre of his fame and fortune, and the only place where painters, at that period, could have expected to thrive by their profeffion. We may suppose too, that the booksellers who employed Droefhout, discovered the object of their research by the direction of Ben Jonson, who in the following lines has borne the most ample teftimony to the verifimilitude of a portrait which will now be recommended, by a more accurate and finished engraving, to the publick notice: 5 The tradition that Burbage painted a likeness of Shakspeare, has been current in the world ever since the appearance of Mr. Granger's Biographical History. • It is not improbable that Ben Jonson furnished the Dedication and Introduction to the first folio, as well as the Commendatory Verses prefixed to it. |