But we will take every one of Mr. Boaden's statements for granted, nevertheless, and draw our opinions, when we venture on any, from the portraits which he has given in his book. At least Mr. Boaden is not a "Baconian," and not a "Raleigh man," and, whenever he finds it necessary to speak of Shakespeare's history, he follows Malone's own version. For convenience, we will change Mr. Boaden's numeration of the "portraits," preserving the designation, however, which he assigns them.
No. 1. William Shakespeare dies in Stratford in 1616. In 1623, appears, on the title-page of Heminges and Condell's first folio of the plays, the portrait by Martin Droeshout. It is an engraving, and, Mr. Boaden believes, a good engraving, of some original picture from which it must have been taken; "for," he says, "there were good engravers in those days; for Chapman's 'Homer' was published in that year, with a very tine engraving of Chapman."
Under this engraving is printed a copy of Jonson's lines, as follows:
TO THE READER.
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife *
With nature to outdo the life:
O, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brasse as he hath hit