Shakespeare's environment

by C. C. Stopes

Any artist or sculptor could inferentially follow their proceedings. Suppose, for the time, that Dugdale had been fairly correct. The first things to have been broken off would be, as I have shown, the alabaster legs of the ridiculous little cherubs. Their trunks would probably be pushed farther back to keep them out of further danger, and would be “restored” in the safer position. By the natural wear and tear of such a soft and friable stone, the bust would have lost outline. This had to be made up somehow to hold the paint, either by skilfully inserted pieces of stone, or by some plastic material. We know that the tip of the nose, the index finger, and part of the thumb had been broken off, and probably many other projections. They had no pattern to go by, except one evolved from memory, judgment, and imagination. No one alive could remember back to the days of the unrepaired bust. They would do their best, they could do no more. Probably the outline of the moustache had been obliterated, and they moulded one after what they thought the best fashion. They would mend the nose, plump out the hollow cheeks, and fill up the eyes. When they reached the attire, they would not see the outline clearly, and, guided by the shoulder ridges, would bring the lines of the doublet straight down (it needed no farther change to make the cloak such as it is to-day). They would probably scrape down the cushion to a more normal level, and, believing that a pen should have been held between the broken finger and thumb, would put one there. Thus there would be a good many little repairs made, as in a lining to the coat of paint. But the result would necessarily be very different from the original.

Perhaps it may not be irrelevant here to refer to a paper among the “Wheler Miscellaneous Papers,” ii, f. 39.[29] It notes “The fixtures; the things left in Mr. Talbot’s house at Stratford-on-Avon, 26th September 1758”: “In ye Hall, Shakespeare’s Head.” “In the other rooms 6 Family Pictures,” “In ye Wildernesse a Stone-Dyal.”

Now, the family portraits might have been Cloptons or Shakespeares, but what was “Shakespeare’s Head”? was it the death mask, a cast of the old Bust, or a model for the new one, then ten years old? Or was it a Bust made in Shakespeare’s life, from which the original was designed? I cannot even suggest an idea about it. But it is significant that it is noted, that in the following year “doubts arose, perhaps not unworthy of notice, whether the original monumental bust had any resemblance to the poet” (see Wivell’s book).

In regard to later vicissitudes of the Bust more is known. It was only in 1793, forty-four years after the repairing, that Malone attacked it. It is said that he had it down to examine; it is certain that he covered up Hall’s painting, by instructing a common house painter to lay over it a thick coating of common white paint. John Britton, F.S.A., writes in 1849: “In Dec. 1814 I incited Mr. George Bullock to make a cast of the monumental bust” ... “through the influence of Dr. Bell Wheler, and the Vicar, Dr. Davenport, he was allowed to take a model”.... “He was much alarmed on taking down the Effigy to find it to be in a decayed and dangerous state, and declared that it would be risking its destruction to remove it again.” Early in the nineteenth century Abraham Wivell made a most careful examination of it, and gave his report in his small volume (published in 1827).

A most important step was taken at the Shakespearean Committee Room, Stratford-upon-Avon, 23rd April 1835, announced thus: “The Shakesperean Club of Stratford-upon-Avon have long beheld with regret, the disfigurement of the Bust and Monument of Shakespeare, and the neglected condition of the interior of the Chancel which contains that monument and his grave.”

Thereafter was “a new Society formed, for the Renovation and Restoration of Shakespeare’s Monument and Bust, and of the Chancel.” Mr. John Britton was Hon. Secretary, and sent out a prospectus. In it he states: “A small and comparatively trifling tomb was raised to the memory of Shakespeare, immediately after his death; but it failed to attract anything like critical or literary notice until the time of Malone,” of whom he gives his free opinion, and the anathematizing lines.

The chief ostensible object of the Society was to repair the monument, also, in order to preserve it, to repair the walls and roof of Chancel, to remove all whitewash, and to restore the colours. The subscriptions invited were limited to £1, but many sent more. The King subscribed £50, the Borough of Stratford the same. Many sent their subscriptions “only for the restoration and preservation of the Monument.” “Mr. Lucy, of Charlecote, for the Chancel £10.” One of the subscribers says that he had lately “purchased a very fine bust of Shakespeare at an auction.” Again comes the query—which one was this, was it Gastrell’s one?

“The cost of restoring Shakespeare’s Monument and the Chancel” was £1,210, 12s. on that occasion. A Bazaar was held for further repairs to the church in 1839; other subscriptions came in, and the whole amount expended amounted to £5,000. Yet they did not take off the white paint then. Mr. Britton says of the work: “Had the building been left a few years longer, it would have ranked among the Classical Monuments of Antiquity.” Mr. Britton wrote to Mr. Hunt that: “Your builder is dilatory, inefficient and embarrassing the progress and character of the Shakespeare works.” Many things can be learned from the correspondence with Mr. Hunt, now preserved in a separate volume in the Birthplace.

Again, in 1861, the bust was treated by Mr. Simon Collins, a picture restorer, “who with a bath of some detergent” removed the white paint. He found under it sufficient traces of the restoring colours of John Hall, to reproduce them again on the old lines. The only person whom I have known to have seen it in both conditions was Professor David Masson, and he said that “he had to confess he preferred it white.” Halliwell Phillipps said in his fourth edition, 1886, “that the 1793 painting was injudicious, but did not altogether obliterate the semblance of an intellectual human being, which is more than can be said of the miserable travesty which now distresses the eye of the pilgrim.” The only really fresh remarks that have been made on it were by Dr. Keith (see “Morning Post” and “Birmingham Post,” 10th April 1914), when he estimated by anthropometric calculation of the shape and size of the skull, from which branch of the human race the poet was likely to have descended.

This was all that I had been able to find before this postscript went to press. Some hard-working student in future may find more, and give us further reasons for making up our minds.