The Bard's pretended biographers have had great difficulty in choosing betwen them. Despite the following quotation from a contemporary eyewitness, they are silent; they may have read it, but they have not dared to quote it:
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"It was about the time of the appearance of "Venus and Adonis," the close of that mythical period during which, according to the biographers, Shakespeare had completed his marvelous education, that Robert Greene (1558-1592) penned this, our only verbal portraiture of him:
"A face like Thersites; [in mythology, an ugly, foul-tounged fellow] his eyes broad and tawney; his hair harsh and curled like a horse's mane -- his lips were the largest size in folio -- the only good part that he had to grace his visage was his nose, and that was conqueror-like, as beaked as an eagle." [from James Phinney Baxter, The Greatest of Literary Problems, 1915]
Now we may consider and admire several busts and a portrait, all executed by artists who never met the fabled Bard of Avon:
On the left we have the Stratford Bust, as shown in Dugdale's Warwickshire in 1656. On the right is the Bust as published by Nicholas Rowe in 1709.This was Shakespeare's Monument, erected shortly before the publication of the 1623 Folio. Thus it remained for many years.
Notice the shadows behind the figure on the right. It seems to be illuminated by two sources of light. Or might there be an invisible wraith casting this enigmatic silouhette?
Students of cryptic alphabets might also count this figure's buttons. Both columns.
On the left is the Bust as shown in Pope's 1725 Edition of Shakespeare's Plays, taken from Vertue's 1720 engraving. It is believed that, because the statue was so decayed, it should be altered in this fashion. On the right we have the Bust as it appears today.
Why was the sack of wool or malt or grain, or whatever, later replaced by a cushion on which Shakespeare appears to be writing? Why was Shakespeare first sculptured as a country tradesman or merchant? Who retreaded the Bard, when and why?
![[Droeshout Engraving]](GIFS/DROUS.JPG)
The 1623 Folio portrait --
Another true likeness?
"It will be seen that the eyes are both drawn as right eyes instead of the normal right and left. This was discovered some years ago by Lord Brian, the eminent Harley Street Neurologist, who pointed out that the angle made by the lids of an eye where they meet nearest the nose is less acute than the angle at the inner half of the upper lid itself is narrower than the outer half.
The nose is out of alignment, as the middle of the upper lip is under one nostril"
To the Editor of THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Sir:
WHAT SHAKESPEARE LOOKED LIKE
Mr. R. Dumont-Smith is not correct in saying that the present monument in the Stratford Parish Church is the one made by Gerard Johnson a few years after his death. The original monument and bust was erected to the memory of Will Shaksper, the retired actor and tradesman, of Stratford, and depicted a thin, hard-faced man with a drooping moustache and a ragged beard, with both hands resting on a bag or sack tied with rope at the four corners. In 1748 "the original monument and bust, through length of years and other accidents, having become much impaired and decayed" (The Rev. J. Greene, Master of Stratford Grammar School, 1746), it was taken down, and in its place was erected the faked monument and bust as it is seen to-day. Will Shaksper, the retired actor and tradesman, has been turned into William Shakespeare, the playwright, and in place of the bag shown in the original monument he has been given a cushion and his right hand now holds a pen, the left hand resting on a sheet of paper. In place of the original bust of the business man with his drooping moustache and ragged beard we now see a stout-faced man with a smirking doll-like face, an upturned moustache and neatly-trimmed beard, holding a pen and a sheet of paper, and which does not resemble the original bust in any way whatsoever.
If your readers will look at the bust as it is to-day you will see an upturned moustache with a space between the moustache and the base of nose and a similar space between the moustache and the upper lip of the mouth; in fact the moustache looks as if it were a false one gummed on. Now we all know that if a man does not shave, the hair of the moustache begins to grow at the base of the nose end continues down to the upper lip of the mouth. A search of the Prints Department of The British Museum has failed to disclose any print or engraving of any Englishman alive in 1616 when Shakspere died wearing a moustache similar to that shown in the present Stratford Bust, and it is not until we come to the days of Charles II that we can find an illustration of a moustache similar to that shown in the Bust, and this style of moustache was of foreign origin and was adopted by Charles II courtiers. If Shaksper ever wore such a moustache, it is very strange that it appears in the Stratford Bust only and no where else, and that there is not a single portrait of Shaksper in existence depicting him wearing such a moustache. This proves conclusively that the present Bust is different from that which was originally placed on the Stratford monument and that it is of a later date, namely 1748 or 1749, when the original monument was discarded and the new monument put up.
Yours faithfully,
EDWARD D. JOHNSON.
Martin Droeshout was 15 years old when Shakespeare died in 1616. James Phinney Baxter, The Greatest of Literary Problems asks this question: How then could Droeshout have managed to produce a portrait for the publishers of the Folio of 1623? [Greene had died in 1592] He was then a young man not quite twenty-two. . .The portrait wanted was of a man at that time obscure, a play actor whose name had been associated with plays in minor roles, and his face forgotten except by a few persons. What could the engraver do? Why, just as all honest engravers then did, go to some one who had known the man, and ask for a description of him; whether his face was long or short, full or thin; nose aquiline or bulbous; eyes large or small, near or far apart, and so on. With such particulars a face could be made to pass muster though it might not look at all like the man.
Steevens, the biographer of the actor, says, "This plate of Droeshout has established his claim to the title of the most abominable imitator of humanity."
