this his god-son was ten years old. The boy, as we are told, was fond of running out to meet him, when he passed through Oxford. There is therefore a high probability that he remembered his person, and was sure of the verisimilitude of Taylor's picture. He would no doubt frequently express this to both Betterton and Dryden. Betterton accordingly bought the original, and Dryden was made happy by Kneller's copy from it. I regret, not for Kneller's sake but ours, that Dryden did not let out more of his mighty spirit, in the verses by which he repaid the painter's kindness. He might have rendered them the vehicle of a discriminated character of Shakspeare, such as should rival that written by himself in such admirable prose; but I gave, above, all that was of real moment. The other passages are a common-place of panegyric, such as he might know Kneller's outrageous vanity demanded; which no painter ever yet merited; and which, notwithstanding, the fashionable artist of every age has certainly received. It is amusing moreover to see him cramming upon Kneller, the very drug with

which Ben Jonson had so long before choked the Dutchman Droeshout. Even the rhymes are

the same:

JONSON.

Wherein the Graver had a strife

With Nature, to outdo the life.

DRYDEN.

Such are thy pieces, imitating life

So near, they almost conquer in the strife.*

Poetry indeed hardly ever speaks of painting with any exactness of commendation. When, as before quoted, Dryden writes of the "majestic face" of Shakspeare, unquestionably he says of it what the picture, in any usual sense of the word, does not exhibit. When applied to either man or woman, or to lower ranks of

* Gravity itself must relax into a smile, to find our poet even preceding Jonson in this allusion: he had published the following couplet in the year 1593:

"Look, when a painter would surpass the life,

"His art's with Nature's workmanship at strife.”

VENUS AND ADONIS.

animal nature, majesty always implies an aspect of command, a visible feeling of superiority. There is nothing of this in the picture.

But although it is too characteristic of our poet's amiable and modest nature, to be what Dryden terms majestic, it is nevertheless interesting in no common degree, and will be always, I think, the favourite exhibition of Shakspeare. The eyes have great expression, and the compression of the lips indicates the earnest employment of the mind-it is a rare combination of penetration and placid composure. The original picture has become so dark from age, as to have deepened the expression of gravity into sternness; this may be apparent to those who have been indulged with an impression of the private plate, which has been engraven at the command of the noble possessor of the picture. I therefore, in opposition to Mr. Boswell, strictly adhere to Mr. Humphry's drawing in 1783. Forty years make great changes in a picture, left originally unfinished, of which much of the surface has been cleaned away, and which in its "nighted colour," is certainly but the ghost

of what it once had been. In Mr. Malone's opinion, the drawing of Mr. Ozias Humphry is invaluable. I have fortunately the means of perpetuating the view taken by that artist of this venerable portrait. As not the slightest indication of the dress remains, I cannot countenance another invention, in addition to the liberties taken already by the various copyists and engravers. The countenance is clearly made out by the artist, and that is all that we can really ascertain. It was to terminate all delusion upon this subject, that the present work was undertaken,

THE

PORTRAIT BY ZUCCHERO.

ABOUT the time that I first inspected the Chandos head, or not long after, my old friend Sir William Beechey mentioned to me, that Mr. Cosway had what he termed an original picture by Zucchero, of the poet, and that I had better look at it. Accordingly, soon after, we went to Mr. Cosway's together, and finding him at home, we had the picture taken down ; and those excellent artists agreed, that it was unquestionably a head by Zucchero. It was painted upon pannel, and on the back we read the poet's name, Guglielm: Shakspeare.

The picture exhibited a youthful poet, leaning with his face upon the right hand; the head stooped forward, in earnest meditation, with the evidences of composition lying before him. A very coarse mezzotinto from it may still be found among the dealers, which gives but an