Part One - The Stratford Bust & The Droeshout Engraving

[5] SOME twelve years ago, viz. in June, 1912, by kind permission of the Editor, I published in the National Review an article under title "The Dugdale Engraving of the Stratford Monument." Since that date, however, there has been much further discussion on this question, and on "Shakespeare" portraiture generally, and, in particular, Mr. Marion H. Spielmann, who has the reputation of being a first-rate authority on Shakespearean "Iconography," and who has from time to time contributed to various newspapers and magazines a large number of articles and letters concerning the portraits of Shakespeare (real or supposed), has recently published yet another work on the subject, which is, as he describes it, A Comparative Study of the Droeshout Portrait and the Stratford Monument. [The Title-Page of the First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays. A Comparative Study of the Droeshout Portrait and the Stratford Monument. By M. H. Spielmann. London: Humphrey Milford; Oxford University Press. 1924.]

Now some years since Mr. Spielmann wrote in the Stratford Town Shakespeare (Vol. X, p. 374): "I [6] may say at once that a long and minute study of the portraits of Shakespeare in every medium and material has led me, otherwise hopeful as I was at the outset years ago, no distance at all towards the firm establishment of the reputation of any one of them as a true life portrait." And in the Encyclopædia Britannica (IIth Ed.) he wrote: "Exhaustive study of the sub­ject, extended over a series of years, has brought the present writer to the conclusion—identical with that entertained by leading Shakespearean authorities—that two portraits only can be accepted without question as authentic likenesses." And what are these two portraits? In the first place "the bust" in Stratford Church (which Mr. Spielmann, no doubt with good warrant, but contrary to general usage, speaks of as a "portrait") and the famous "Droeshout engraving."

And to this opinion Mr. Spielmann still adheres. "The mystery that," as he truly says, "veils so much in Shakespeare's genius, life, and work, involves also some aspects of his Iconography. It is probable that of Shakespeare more portraits have been painted, drawn, engraved, and modelled, than of any other uncrowned king of men.... The British Museum, it is true, according to its Catalogue, has only about 200 engraved portraits of the poet. The Grolier Club of New York, at its Tercentenary Exhibition in 1916, did better with about 450, including 50 each of the Bust and the Droeshout Plate. Many of us no doubt could have added scores to these.... And yet, of all these presentments only two portraits of the Poet can be regarded as authentic.... That greatly simplifies the problem. Yet neither is directly a life-portrait." The two "presentments" which can be "regarded as authentic" are the Stratford bust and [7] Martin Droeshout's print on the title-page of the First Folio. [Work cited, pp. 1 and 2.]

The fact is, as I wrote some sixteen years ago, "that just as the utter dearth of information concerning Shakespeare tempted unprincipled men to deceive the public by forgery of documents purporting to supply new facts—such as John Jordan's fabrications, Ireland's wholesale forgeries, and the numerous forgeries promulgated by John Payne Collier—so the absence of any authentic portrait of Shakespeare prompted needy and unprincipled artists to supply the public demand, and their own necessities at the same time, by fabricating likenesses of 'the immortal bard'—all of them, of course, of undoubtedly contemporaneous date!" [The Shakespeare Problem Restated (1908), p. 238. The reader who has not already done so will find it well worth while to consult the chapter "Concerning Mock Originals," in Mr. John Corbin's A New Portrait of Shakespeare (John Lane, 1903), more especially with regard to the methods employed by Messrs. Zincke & Holder in the wholesale manufacture of faked "Shakespeare" portraits.]

Well, we may be sincerely grateful to Mr. Spielmann for having "simplified the problem." We need no longer trouble about "The Chandos Portrait," or "The Janssen Portrait," or "The Felton Portrait," or "The Ely Portrait," or "the hopelessly unauthentic and discredited Kesselstadt Death-Mask," [See work cited, p. 12.] or any other of the hundreds of counterfeit presentments of Shakespeare except the portrait in stone at Stratford and the engraving already alluded to. "For this relief much thanks!"

But now, with reference to the Stratford bust, we come at once to a matter which has given rise to a vast [8] amount of discussion and disputation, and not a little heated language. It is well known that the famous antiquary Sir William Dugdale, in his History of the Antiquities of Warwickshire, gives us a picture of the Stratford monument which is the earliest known presentment of that Mecca-stone of many adoring pilgrims. This work was not published till 1656, but there is good evidence to show that the author prepared it, in the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, about the year 1634, and, unfortunately, the central figure in his picture of the monument differs in face, figure, position, and, in fact, in all respects from the central figure as we now see it at Stratford. It presents us with, the bust of an elderly man, of a somewhat melancholy aspect, and with drooping-moustaches, resting his hands upon a curious oblong cushion.

How are we to account for this extraordinary discrepancy? Mr. Spielmann puts the blame, in the first place, upon the engraver, whoever he may have been, whether Hollar, or, as he thinks more probable, Gaywood, one of Hollar's assistants, and "one of the ill-paid hacks employed by the publishers to engrave on brass or copper plates from sketches supplied to them"(p. 20); and he proceeds to give examples of the "engravers' disloyal indifference to accuracy," as illustrated by Hollar's engraving of the statue of Charles I looking to Whitehall, and also the very inaccurate engravings in Dugdale's work of the Carew and the Clopton monuments.

Now it must be freely admitted that these charges against the engravers of that time are fully justified. They are made good by Mr. Spielmann's illustrations, as they have been made good before. But this is a case where the blame cannot be thrown upon the engraver alone. That either he, or Dugdale himself, [9] was responsible for the faulty details of this engraving of the Stratford monument is, indeed, self-evident. I myself long ago pointed out, for example, that the little sitting figures in Dugdale's print, holding spade and hour-glass, "are placed as no monumental sculptor would be likely to place them." [The Shakespeare Problem Restated, p 247 note.] But this is not a question of details, nor is it a question of mere carelessness on the part of Dugdale and his artist. For the fact is, that the original drawing for the engraving of Shakespeare's bust, as it appears in The Antiquities of Warwickshire, was made by Sir William Dugdale himself, and is still in existence. For this valuable information I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. William F. S. Dugdale, of Merevale Hall, Atherstone, Warwickshire, the present representative of the celebrated antiquary, who, among the papers and manuscripts in his possession, discovered a manuscript book of Sir William Dugdale's—which he kindly allowed me to inspect—containing a number of his original notes and drawings prepared for the work in question. Here he lighted upon the original drawing made for the engraving as it appears in that work, and that this drawing was made by Sir William himself cannot admit of a doubt, being in his private manuscript book, and surrounded, as it is, by notes in his own handwriting. Moreover, although he did not profess to be an artist, Sir William could, at any rate, sketch well heraldically, as can be proved by many drawings in the possession of Mr. W. F. S. Dugdale. It was from this drawing that the artist, whether Hollar or some other, prepared the engraving, which is an exact copy of the sketch except that it corrects it where it is somewhat out of drawing. Over it is written, in Sir William's own handwriting, "In the [10] north wall of the Quire is this monument for William Shakespeare the famous poet," and, in another place, the inscription is written out in full, together with the inscriptions on the tombs of John and Susanna Hall. Above these is written the date, namely July, 1634, showing that it was in this year that these notes were made." [Mr. Spielmann dismisses this important fact, which makes irrelevant most of his remarks on the inaccuracy of the engravers of that period, in the following curt footnote. "It is the fact that the original drawing for this engraving is extant and in the possession of a lineal descendant of Dug­dale, and that the plate departs in details [my italics] from the sketch. Why? One of them, obviously, must be wrong. In truth, both are libels on the original." But both the "original drawing" and "the plate" agree with regard to the central figure, and to say that both are libels on the original merely assumes the point at issue.]

Now Dugdale was himself a Warwickshire man. He was well acquainted with Stratford-on-Avon. He was an admirer of the works of "Shakespeare." He himself made a drawing of the monument for his forthcoming work on The Antiquities of Warwickshire, not caring to leave it to any of the "hacks employed by the publishers." Yet he presents us with a bust of Shakespeare which is absolutely unlike the effigy as it exists today—so preposterously unlike indeed that the absurdity of it would at once have been recognised by any Stratford man, or any of his Warwickshire or other contemporaries familiar with the church at Stratford. [It is sometimes said in support of the authenticity of the bust as it now exists, that the personal appearance of William Shakspere the player (assumed to be the author of the plays), must have been very well known at Stratford, and that no bust would have been set up there that did not bear a personal resemblance to him. But this argument applies with tenfold force to Dugdale's engraving, and the original bust if it was such as that engraving represents—always assuming that the intention WC to erect a bust which should resemble the player, and not some one else!]

[11] Are we not, then, driven to this conclusion, viz. that either the bust has been materially altered since the date of Dugdale's drawing, or the great antiquary must deliberately (but for no reason that can be suggested) have presented his readers with a false picture of it?

It seems impossible to contend, in such a case as this, that the preposterous discrepancy between the present bust and Dugdale's drawing of it is to be explained by the constant "inaccuracy" which Mr. Spielmann attributes to the antiquarian. No man could set himself to draw the Stratford bust as it at present exists and substitute Dugdale's sad-looking figure for the present stone "portrait" of a seemingly well-satisfied and contented man, with the dandified moustache (of which more anon), from mere "inaccuracy."

But, says Mr. Spielmann, On many points on which I have consulted Dugdale—both text and illustrations —I have found him inaccurate on simple matters of fact. Not only does he assert that Combe's monument, close by, is of alabaster, whereas it is of sandstone, but, among other things, he transcribes inaccurately as to spelling the inscriptions on Shakespeare's monument and gravestone, and on the gravestones of the Shakespeare family in the chancel of the church" (p. 4).

Now with regard to the inscription on the gravestone, the fact seems to be that the original inscription was altered at some unknown date when the present inscription was substituted for it. But that is too long a story to be gone into here. As to the inscription on the monument, [12] it may be well to note that the old antiquarian has been charged with inaccuracy in his Latin also, because the inscription under the engraving of the bust commences with the words "Judycio [sic] Pylium." But the words as written in his own handwriting, in his manuscript book, are correctly given, viz. "Judicio Pylium," etc., showing that the inaccuracy was not his but the engraver's. But what about his statement "that Combe's monument is of alabaster whereas it is of sandstone"?

Well, humanum est errare, but it really does not follow that a man is likely to make an absurdly and preposterously false copy of a bust in which he was especially interested, and to have that false copy engraved for all men to laugh at, in a great book upon which he might be said to have staked his reputation, because he has made a few inaccurate statements in a work involving an almost incredible amount of industry and labour, and, in particular, an inaccurate statement with regard to the material used in John Combe's monument.

Let us take Mr. Spielmann's own case, for example. Mr. Spielmann wrote in the Pall Mall Gazette (Dec. 6th, 1910): "When the chronicler avers that the bust, like the recumbent figure of John Combe, hard by Shakespeare's, is of alabaster, whereas they are both of local sandstone, we may hesitate to accept unquestioned his authority on every other point." [Italics mine.] And worse still, in his article on the Portraits of Shakespeare " in the Encyclopedia Britannica (nth Ed.) he repeated this statement, saying that Dugdale—"the accurate Dugdale," as he sarcastically calls him—tells us that Shakespeare's bust is of alabaster, whereas it is of soft stone.

[13] Yet it turns out, upon investigation, that Dugdale nowhere makes the statement attributed to him by the critic, viz. that "Shakespeare's bust is of alabaster!" The "inaccuracy" is, in fact, Mr. Spielmann's! Yet I certainly would not say, on that account, that "we may hesitate to accept unquestioned his authority on every other point," any more than I would say that he is habitually inaccurate in his grammar because he turns the conjunction "than" into a preposition governing the accusative case! ["A much younger man than him of the bust" (p. 26), (my italics) and the same at p. 33.]

With regard to the inaccuracies of the engravings of the Carew and Clopton monuments also—which certainly appear sufficiently ridiculous as they stand in Dugdale's book—there is something to be arid, and it shall be said in the words of a witness whose entire "orthodoxy" on the matter of the "Shakespearean" authorship is beyond suspicion—none other, in fact, than the learned and industrious Mrs. Charlotte Stopes. This lady has also, through the courtesy of Mr. Dugdale of Merevale, inspected "the volume of Sir William Dugdale's Diary which contained his own special drawings for the tombs in Warwickshire Churches," with regard to which she writes as follows: "The greatest 'proof' of Dugdale's inexactitude, so triumphantly brought forward by my opponents [viz., on the matter of the Shakespeare bust], is utterly extinguished by this volume. The drawing of the Carew Clopton monument does not appear in the Diary, which means that the Clopton family, and not Dugdale, was responsible for its drawing and its inaccuracies. He only drew those which had not been sent to him by the families whom he had invited to do so. He evidently thought Shakespeare's monument, though [14] not sent on, specially important, and did it carefully himself. The present Mr. Dugdale thinks, from its position in the volume, and from some notes in the Diary, that it therefore was one of the latest of the drawings before the final publication in 1656." [Shakespeare's Environment, by Mrs. C. C. Stopes (1914), p. 123. A work in which I must honestly own I find more to criticise than to agree with. See my Is there a Shakespeare Problem? (John Lane, 1916), Appendix C.]

Let us, however, frankly admit that there are numerous "inexactitudes" in Dugdale's great book, as, indeed, was only to be expected in a work of such gigantic proportions—I allude not to its actual size, but to the enormous amount of labour involved in its compilation. I repeat, nevertheless, that to find an explanation of the absolute discrepancy between Dugdale's own drawing of the bust and the bust as it at present exists in the church of Stratford-on-Avon, in mere "inaccuracy"—the wretched "seventeenth-century ideas of accuracy," as Mr. Spielmann says—seems to me so repugnant to reason and probability that it can, surely, be accepted by those only who feel they must adopt any theory, however improbable, which may relieve them from the necessity of adopting the unpalatable hypothesis that, at some unknown date, the present bust was substituted for the original as seen and drawn by Dugdale. [It may be worth mentioning that Mrs. Stopes, by way of comparison, carefully examined Dugdale's engraving of Sir Thomas Lucy's monument in Stratford Church, and found it represented the original with substantial accuracy. His "inaccuracy" seems to have been specially reserved for "Shakespeare"!]

With regard to this supposed alteration of the original bust, I will say a word or two presently, but before passing on I would draw special attention to a [15] remarkable feature in the bust as we see it today. Here we see the face of a man wearing a moustache shaven in a very peculiar and very "dandified" style. "In the normal face," as Mr. John Corbin writes, "the hair begins at the base of the nose, often in the very nostrils, and this is notably the case in the Droeshout engraving. In the bust there is a wide and very ugly interval." [A New Portrait of Shakespeare, by John Corbin (John Lane, 1903), p. 28.] And not only is there this interval between the base of the nose and the moustache, but there is a similar "shaven space," as Mr. Spielmann calls it, between the moustache and the upper lip, so that the moustache (which, by the way, is beautifully curled en croc, as the French style it) is very carefully separated both from the nose and the lip. In fact, it meanders elegantly between them.

Now in previous writings Mr. Spielmann had told us that this was merely a "long-prevailing fashion carried to an extreme," and that "certain portraits of other persons show the same thing" [See letter in the Pall Mall Gazette of Feb. 21st, 1912, and article in the Ency. Brit.] He now, however, uses more guarded language. He characterises this style of shaving the moustache as "a fashion said to be not uncommon though by no means general at the time." [Work cited, p. 10.]

But "said" by whom? This Mr. Spielmann fails to tell us. He presents us, however, with an engraving Of "Maurice, Prince d'Orange, 1567-1625," in order "illustrate the fashion of wearing the mustache as in the Shakespeare effigy." [Work cited, Plate 7.]

Now I have long been familiar with an engraving [16] of Maurice, Prince of Orange, showing him with a moustache shaven in somewhat similar fashion to that of the Shakespeare bust—though by no means so carefully curled and dandified—for several such are to be seen in the Prints Department of the British Museum; [Note especially the one bearing the inscription "Henricus Hendius delin. et excudit Hagae Comic 1630."] but the question which I have frequently put, and to which I have never been able to obtain any satisfactory answer, is this: Is there any known print, engraving, or other portrait of an Englishman, before the year 1616, wearing a moustache shaven in this ridiculous style? What evidence is there that it was "not uncommon" in this country at that date? I have gone through a large number of prints and engravings of the period in question at the Museum, but I have never found an Englishman so shaven on the upper lip. And, surely, if Mr. Spielmann had known of any such portrait he would not have gone all the way to Holland for his illustration! Further, I doubt very much whether any Official of the Prints and Engravings Department of the Museum could refer him to such a portrait. [Here, however, I must strictly guard myself. I do not for a moment suggest that any official of the Museum sup­ports my theory in this matter. They neither support it nor oppose it. They say, very naturally, we will put all the materials at your disposal for inspection, and you must make your own researches for yourself.]

 

I am myself under the impression that this peculiar "fashion of wearing the moustache" never obtained among Englishmen until the time of the later Stuarts, and possibly not before the time of Charles II, when it was adopted by some of the Court dandies of that period.

If this hypothesis is correct, how came Shakespeare [17] to be wearing such a moustache in the last few years of his life, or, indeed, at any time, for the matter of that? Are we to suppose that he copied this absurd fashion —and improved upon it—from Maurice, Prince of Orange, whom, so far as I know, he never saw? [He could not have seen him in Holland, since, according to Sir Sidney Lee and other authorities, "Shakespeare" never went out of England.] And mark what a beautifully cut and trimmed and carefully shaped beard Shakespeare is wearing in the Stratford effigy—far more elegantly cut and shaped than that of Maurice, Prince of Orange!—and why are not these things, and especially this moustache, so fashioned, shown anywhere as appurtenant to Shakespeare except in this Stratford bust? How comes it that they are absent in the Droeshout engraving—that only other authentic portrait of "the Immortal Bard"—and in the Flower Portrait, and in the Chandos Portrait, and the Janssen Portrait, and the Felton Portrait, and all the other portraits, in which, although they are not "authentic," the artist must be supposed to have endeavoured to represent a man of the type such as was ascribed to the great poet Shakespeare?

These questions are not frivolous ones. On the contrary they are questions of importance, but I have never yet heard an answer to them, unless it be the answer that the present bust is different from that which was originally placed in the Stratford monument, and is of a later date. [See Note A at p. 51.]

Let us see, then, what can be said for the hypothesis that the Stratford bust was altered, or a new one substituted for the original in the year 1748 or 1749.

There is a very considerable and increasing number of persons, male and female—and good Anglo-Saxons [18] to boot—who love Shakespeare (and by "Shakespeare" I, of course, mean the plays and poems of "Shakespeare") quite as much as, and perhaps considerably more than, Mr. Marion H. Spielmann, but who, for reasons which appear sufficient to them, have abandoned the traditional belief that the author of those plays and poems was, in truth and in fact, William Shakspere, who came from Stratford to London in or about the year 1587, with regard to whom they entertain, for the most part, feelings of sympathy and interest, or it may be, in some cases, of indifference so far as he personally is concerned, but certainly with no feelings of hostility or dislike.

Now these persons Mr. Spielmann thinks it right and proper to characterise as "Shakespeare-haters"! Well, we have all heard of the pugilist who, when asked why he allowed his wife to hit him in the face, replied, "It amuses her, and does not hurt me!" But to describe Shakespeare-lovers as Shakespeare-haters is such an obvious departure from the paths of veracity that I venture to think Mr. Spielmann might be satisfied in future by calling us "fools and fanatics," and so forth, which from long habituation of course we could not object to, and which might, perhaps, as was the case with the pugilist's wife, amuse him, without hurting us.

And, quite apart from the ineptitude of such a childishly silly characterisation, its injustice stands out naked and unashamed; for, incredible as it may seem, in the same class as these so-called "Shakespeare-haters" Mr. Spielmann is constrained to include, so far as this matter is concerned, such an ardent and orthodox worshipper at the Stratfordian shrine as Mrs. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes! For Mrs. Stopes it was who first set this ball rolling, to wit, [19] the theory that the Stratford Bust was altered when the monument was "repaired and beautified"—as it certainly was—in the years 1748-9. [See her able and copiously illustrated article in the Monthly Review of April, 1904, subsequently reprinted in a pamphlet hearing title The True Story of the Stratford Bust (John Murray, 1904).]

Again, I say, therefore, let us see what evidence there is to support Mrs. Stopes's theory that the original Stratford bust was altered, or another substituted for it at some date considerably later than the erection of the monument, and probably in the middle of the eighteenth century; and let us, as lovers of Shakespeare, and "haters" not, certainly, of Shakespeare but of prejudice, misrepresentation, and intolerance, examine that evidence without parti pris and with an impartial mind.

Who erected the Stratford monument, and when, and at whose cost? Nobody knows. The mystery which, as Mr. Spielmann says, surrounds so much of Shakespeare's life and work, extends to this monument also. All we can say is that there must have been some sort of monument to Shakespeare, either existing or, at least, projected, in Stratford Church in 1623 when the First Folio was published, for in his lines to W. Shakespeare, prefixed to that immortal work, Leonard Digges speaks of the poet's " Stratford monument." But the question is: Is the monument, and more especially the bust, as they are now to be seen at Stratford, identical with those that were originally placed there, or was the original altered, and if so, when, and by whom?