FOOTNOTES:
[22] A William Shakespeare “paid 8/ to the Lay Subsidy, Walton super Olde ... Co. Leicester,” 36 Hen. VIII, 133/144.
[23] Since writing above I have found among “Early Indictments,” 650, the account of the death of William Shakespeare, shoemaker of Warwick, by slipping into the Avon. “Coroner’s Inquests.”
[24] I find that reports of the case at issue are to be found in Act Book No. 9, Consistory Court, on 22nd June 1614; 7th July 1614; 15th July 1614; 28th July; 9th September and 23rd September 1614. And in Act Book No. 10 the discussion is again resumed on 6th October 1614.
[25] Mentioned in the poet’s will and the overseer thereof.
[26] Some light is thrown on his position by the Sequestration books of Warwickshire, 1646, Add. M.S. 35098, f. 12. There it is ordered that “the rents payable out of the lands of Mʳ Betham, Mʳ Atwood, Mʳ Hunt; and William Shackspere in Rowington shall be payed since the same was sequestered.” On f. 38, 3rd March 1546-7, it was ordered that “William Shackspere of Rowington shall hould all his lands which is given in by ye oath of John Milburne to be £38 per annum ... for one yeare at £32.” But they were too late. Sequestered for loyalty, he had departed beyond their “orders” by that time.
XIII
THE TRUE STORY OF THE STRATFORD BUST
Our poverty in respect of authenticated likenesses of our great dramatist, makes us the more eager to learn all that we can concerning the only two that have been universally accepted, and even makes us patient in hearing what can be said in favour of others more or less doubtful in their pedigree. Therefore, it is all the more surprising that one authentic rendering, produced by a Warwickshire man, who was eleven years of age when the poet died, should have been entirely ignored by all the numerous writers on “Shakespeare’s Portraits,” especially as it has a most important bearing on the determination of the facial characteristics of the great dramatist. To understand this fully, due consideration must first be given to what are recognized as the “undoubted portraits.”
That which was publicly put forward as the poet’s likeness, and accepted as such by his contemporaries, was the inartistically designed, and coarsely executed engraving of Droeshout, appearing as frontispiece to the First Folio Edition of the Plays, brought out by his fellows, Heminge and Condell, in 1623.
There was no English art at the time worthy of the name, and probably for this reason the people found a double charm in theatrical representations. The actors supplied them with concrete images of the characters whose life-stories interested them, and became to them more closely identified than any historical portraits are to-day with their originals. Artistic taste and judgment were unknown amongst ordinary people, and even literary men, except such as had had special training, could not be held as art-critics of any importance. Hence, we may be justified in considering Ben Jonson’s fulsome praise of Droeshout, in his desire to help the editors, as only possible to him through his deficiency in artistic sense.