THE CHANDOS HEAD.

PAINTER'S NAME UNKNOWN.

THE progress of this inquiry has now brought us to the third of the received likenesses of our poet, which was formerly in the possession of the late Duke of Chandos. It is a head painted on canvass, and seemed to Sir Joshua Reynolds to have been left unfinished by the artist. This is the portrait of Shakspeare, which has been so frequently engraved, and to which the fancy of each succeeding engraver has added every conceivable variety of feature, expression, and dress.

No picture within the last hundred years has been more frequently copied. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted one in 1760 for Bishop Newton, which came into Mr. Malone's possession. A very animated copy of it, I have contemplated with pleasure, among the gifts of Mr. Capell, the editor of Shakspeare in 1768, in the small apartment devoted to his treasures, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

There were many persons, who will not be suspected of wanting the greatest admiration of Sir Joshua, who never considered him to be a faithful copyist. I presume this to have been partly the opinion of my late friend Mr. Malone; for in the year 1783, having himself