Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster
—A lion who dies of an ass’s kick
The wronged great soul of an ancient master.
Whoever the sculptor was who so much improved the figure, it is more than likely he restored the face by the aid of some cement. It is curious that none of the other editions of the eighteenth century reproduce the tomb either as Vertue or Gravelot rendered it. None, indeed, reproduce it at all, until we come to the second edition of Bell’s “Shakespeare,” 1788, into which he introduces the “Life” from Rowe’s second edition of 1714, and in the “Life” the representation of the tombstone according to that edition. It was engraved by Reynold Grignion, and “printed for Bell’s ‘Shakespeare,’ 1st Dec. 1786.” This fact, printed on the plate itself, is important, as Grignion died in 1787, and the book came out in 1788. He rather improved on Rowe’s print, as Bell’s other engravers improved upon the Droeshout and the Marshall copies. Bad as it is, it represents the same figure as Dugdale did, falling into decay. This engraving is the same as that in the British Museum, “Grignion sculps,” so the latter may have been a proof copy.
All later renderings are of the modern type. Then commenced a new series of vicissitudes for the restored bust. Not so very long after the repairs it was taken down from its pedestal, so that Mr. Malone might take a cast from it. More than likely that was the time when some accident removed the tip of the restored nose, which has left the “long upper lip” a marvel to many since the days of Sir Walter Scott. William Henry Ireland, in his “Confessions,” 1805, states that he had been down taking drawings from various tombs in Stratford, and “greatly reprehended the folly of having coloured the face and dress of the bust of Shakespeare, which was intended to beautify it, whereas it would have been much more preferable to have left the stone of the proper colour.” He applied for leave to “take a plaster-cast from the bust as Mr. Malone had done,” but the necessary delay in petitioning the Corporation for permission made him give up the idea. In his drawing of the bust, he makes Shakespeare an eighteenth-century gentleman, moustache turned up, a pen in one hand, paper in the other, and the cushion like a desk. An engraving was made by Mr. William Ward, A.R.A., from a painting by Thomas Phillips, R.A., after a cast taken by Bullock from the bust, and published by Lake on 23rd April 1816, the second centenary after the poet’s decease. This has the cloak, the pen, and the paper.
We are, therefore, in the bust likeness confronted by greater difficulties than the mere obscuring of the truth by paint, such as occurred in the case of the British Museum lions. We have to consider the much more serious question, the degree to which the features and surroundings of the original, deliberately or unconsciously, have been tampered with. It would seem that the sculptor who collaborated with Hall in 1746 was the culprit who deprived us of the original outlines of a memorial so dear, either through ignorance, vanity, or culpable carelessness. He had Dugdale to consult had he so pleased, but he contented himself with Hanmer. The decay must have been serious, and the alteration fundamental, to have so obscured the design. Mr. John Hall, who was responsible for the colouring, was believed to have followed the tints of the original. Be that as it may, Mr. Malone, like Mr. Ireland, disapproved of them, and in order to suit his own taste, and the fashion of his age, he persuaded the Corporation to have it painted white in 1793. One contemporary, however, wrote in the album of Stratford-on-Avon Church the lines:
Stranger, to whom this monument is shewn,
Invoke the Poet’s curse upon Malone
Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste displays
And daubs his tomb-stone as he marred his plays.