Note B

[52] The reader may consult Article XIII of Shakespeare's Environment, by Mrs. C. C. Stopes (G. Bell & Sons, 1914), on "The True Story of the Stratford Bust," and her note at p. 346 concerning "Its Restoration in 1749," where she cites from the Wheler Collection, at Stratford-on-Avon," a number of copies from the MSS. of the Rev. Joseph Greene, Master of the Grammar School." "The series," she tells us, "begins with the account of the reasons for the movement towards restoration." She commences with the following quotation: "As the generous proposals of the proprietors of the two greatest playhouses in the kingdom were kindly accepted and encouraged, in relation to each of them acting a play for the sole purpose of erecting a new monument to the memory of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey, and as the curious original monument and bust of that incomparable poet, erected above the tomb that enshrines his dust in the Church of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, is through length of years and other accidents become much impaired and decayed, an offer has been made by the judicious and much esteemed Mr. John Ward and his company to act one of Shakespeare's plays, vist., Othello; or, The Moor of Venice (in the Town Hall) at Stratford on Tuesday, the ninth of this instant, September, 1746, the receipts arising from which representation are to be solely appropriated to the repairing of the original monument aforesaid." [The italics in the above quotation are mine.]

[59] Mrs. Stopes sums up as follows: "I may now remind my readers that by 1746 the 'curious original' was 'much impaired and decayed,' a decay so serious as to rouse the actively sympathetic feelings of Mr. John Ward towards necessary restoration. The fact is recorded that Mr. John Hall was to have the doing of the work of 'repairing and re-beautifying' or 'the direction' of it. But that 'materials' were to be used."

"My arguments are these. No one would call the present tomb a 'curious' one; but as represented by Dugdale in his Antiquities of Warwick (1651) it is 'curious,' a curiousness which had increased by the process of decay, when Rowe produced it in his Life, 1709. Mr. John Hall, acting in all good faith, after provincial notions of restoration in the eighteenth century, would fill up the gaps, restore what was missing, as he thought it ought to be, and finally repaint it according to the original colours, traces of which he might still be able to see in the hollows of the bust. It would only be giving good value for his money to his churchwardens if he added a cloak, a pen, and manuscript. He could not help changing the expression, from the worn and thoughtful face preserved by Dugdale, to the plumped-out foundation he made in some 'material' convenient for his re-beautifying colours.... I myself consider Dugdale and his draughtsmen wonderfully careful for their period. Those tombs which have not been altered are remarkably faithful representations. See, for instance, the tomb of Sir Thomas Lucy at Charlecote. Now Dugdale was a Warwickshire man, born only a comparatively short distance from Stratford, eleven years before Shakespeare died. He was an admirer of Shakespeare, and knew the bust he engraved. He was in Stratford in attendance [60] on Queen Henrietta Maria when, at the outbreak of the Civil War, she stayed in Shakespeare's house as the guest of his daughter, Mrs. Hall. [This sentence conveys the idea that Mrs. Hall was so kind as to invite the Queen to stay with her at New Place "as her guest"! Sir Sidney Lee writes: "The Queen and her escort reached Stratford on the firth (1643), and Mrs. Hall was compelled to entertain her for three days at New Place." The Queen had "left Newark with an army of 2,000 foot, 1,000 horse, some 100 wagons, and a train of artillery." Lee's Life of Shakespeare, p. 509. To talk of the Queen thus billeting herself, and her entourage, on Mrs. Hall as "no small 'honour " to Shakespeare's daughter, and a "high compliment" paid to her by the Queen of England, as does Sir Richard Barnett, in a letter to The Times of September 12, 1925, is manifestly absurd.] There was every reason to believe that he would be more careful in regard to representing Shakespeare's tomb [sic] (instead of less careful) than he was with others."

"The second edition of Dugdale's Warwickshire was revised, corrected, expanded, the illustrations checked, and added to by Dr. Thomas, who was also a Warwickshire man, residing very near Stratford-­on-Avon. And he produced the representation of the original tomb [sic] from the same unaltered block which Dugdale used. There is, therefore, little reason to doubt that Dugdale was fairly correct both in the face and figure of the 'curious monument,' and that the alterations made in 1748-9, great as they are, did not strike the gentlemen of Stratford-on-Avon as anything worse than 'beautifying.' The dates and verses were left as they were, and the monument, thus strengthened, survives to preserve the memory of the 'Sweet Swan of Avon'!" (See also p. 122 of the same work.) The following letter addressed to me in July, 1913, by Mr. W. L. Goldsworthy, solicitor, from 14 Serjeant's [61] Inn, is, I think, of sufficient interest to be added to this final note, to which I have also added some further comments on the letter by Sir Richard Barnett, M.P., which appeared in The Times of September 12, 1925, as mentioned in the note below.

14, SERJEANT'S INN,
FLEET ST., E.C.
6th July, 1912.

"THE MYSTERY OF SHAKESPEARE'S MONUMENT."

DEAR SIR,—In yesterday's Morning Post Mr. Andrew Lang has an article under the above title in which I notice your name is mentioned. In case you may think of sending a reply I would suggest as an important point for your con­sideration that Mr. Lang omitted to deal with perhaps the most important feature of the revelations unearthed by Mrs. Stopes from the Wheler Collection at Stratford.

This is that the Rev. Mr. Kenwrick, the then Vicar and who may be regarded as perfectly disinterested, contended for two years with the Rev. Joseph Greene, the Master of the Free School, the former insisting upon the extremely important and significant point that John Hall, limner, the person entrusted with the so-called "restoration" in 1748/9, should be tied down by express instructions in writ­ing signed by him, upon due compliance with which his pay was to depend, "that the monument shall BECOME as like as possible to what it was when first erected." Greene strenuously opposed the honest Vicar and ultimately unfor­tunately carried his point, so that no such writing was signed by Hall, and he and Greene were in consequence left to do as they pleased with the monument.

It is quite impossible to believe that Kenwrick would have quarrelled for two years with an important person in his congregation over such a question as the mere restora­tion of a broken finger; and moreover the effect of the work done was to totally destroy the evident allegorical [62] meaning of the original design as given by Dugdale, which was doubtless what Greene desired.

It is extremely likely that the famous Jordan was a pupil of Greene's at the Free School, and he may even have drawn his ideas with regard to forgery from this transaction, and followed the example set by his master. At all events if we may rely upon Dugdale the present monument may be regarded as the first Shakespearian forgery.

Yours faithfully,

W. LANSDON GOLDSWORTHY.
G. G. GREENWOOD, Esq., M.P.

P.S.—It is a curious and sinister fact that Dugdale and the Wheler Collection should have been successfully boy­cotted by all Shakespearians prior to Mrs. Stopes.—W. L. G.

Sir Richard Barnett, in his letter to The Times of September 12, 1925, to which I have already alluded, asks, with reference to William Shakspere the player, "How many of our jeunes premiere today have made their fortunes at 33, and can return to their native town and buy the best house in it?" But does Sir Richard really think that "Will" made his money as an actor? What says Nicholas Rowe, his earliest biographer? "His name is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst those of the other players, before some old plays, but without any particular account of what sort of parts he used to play, and, though I have inquired, I could never meet with any further account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet!" No, it was not as an actor, but as owner of shares in the Globe and the Blackfriars, as a purchaser of land, houses, and tithes, as a moneylender, and, perhaps, as an "honest broker" of plays, and, it may be, as agent for men in high position who [63] wished to preserve anonymity, that William Shakspere (who, as we are told, wrote "for gain, not glory!") raised the money which enabled him to buy New Place and his property in Blackfriars. Then again, asks Sir Richard Barnett, "how did it come that in an age when players were anathema to all right-thinking people [which statement is so far from the truth that it can hardly have been penned seriously] Shakespeare the actor and his wife were buried before the high altar of the glorious collegiate church of the Holy Trinity?" Whereupon Sir Richard himself supplies the answer, viz. that "Shakespeare the capitalist" had bought the tithes of Stratford and two other parishes, and was entitled to burial in the chancel "as lay rector." One is reminded of the old epitaph:

     "Here lies I at the church door,
     Here lies I because I'm poor.
     At the further end the more you pay,
     But here lies I as warm as they!"

William Shakspere's widow was also buried in the chancel of "that glorious church," but not in the same grave as her husband, although we are told she wished to be buried with him. Why was this? Because of that vulgar curse which, so little to his credit, he had ordered to be inscribed upon the stone under which he is supposed to lie (Lee's Life, pp. 486-7). I noted with some amusement that although Sir Sidney Lee, in a letter to The Times of Septem­ber 14, 1925, complimented Sir R. Barnett on his enthusiastic contribution of two days previously, he preserved a judicious silence with regard to the Honourable Member's supposed facts!