Thierry Badouer, a German goldsmith-jeweller, received from the French court, in 1572, an order for 250,000 crowns' worth of jewels to be distributed as gifts at the approaching marriage of Henri de Navarre with Marguerite de Valois. He faithfully executed his part of the task and brought the jewels with him to Paris, but before he had been able to deliver them to the Royal Treasury they were stolen from him during the confusion of the St. Bartholomew Massacre. Eventually, in the reign of Henri IV, his widow was partly reimbursed for the loss, receiving one-quarter of the amount of her claim. [25] After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and as a result of it, many Protestants and Catholics left France for Hanau, Germany, where to this day they carry on the jeweller's art; and from this beginning Hanau became a jeweller's centre.
[25] Op. cit., p. 289.
The best reproduction of the First Folio of 1623 is the photographic facsimile, made in 1902, of the copy formerly owned by the Duke of Devonshire and now in the possession of Henry E. Huntington, of New York.[26] The original Folio, prepared by the managers of Shakespeare's company, John Heminge and Henry Condell, bears the imprint of Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, the printing house being conducted by William Jaggard and his son Isaac. It is believed that an edition of five hundred copies was issued, at one pound per copy. That the publication was essentially a commercial venture, although it may also have been a labor of love for some of the editors, is brought out clearly and quaintly in the preface addressed to "The great Variety of Readers", and signed by Heminge and Condell. This reads that the book was printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I. Southweeke, and W. Apsley, 1623. The following passage from the preface is well worth quoting, its spirit is so delightfully modern:
The fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities, and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, & you wil stand for your priviledges, wee know: to read, and censure. [27] Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke the Stationer sales. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisdomes, make your license the same and spare not.... But whatever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a Trade, nor make the Jacke go.
[26] "Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, being a reproduction in facsimile of the First Folio Edition of 1623, from the Chatsworth copy in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., with introduction and censure of copies by Sidney Lee". Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1902, XXXV 908 pp. Edition limited to 1000 numbered and signed copies.
[27] Judge.
The chief credit for bringing together the materials for the First Folio, in 1623, is believed to be due to William Jaggard. Some ten years earlier he had acquired the printing-privileges of certain of the quartos. Edward Blount, whose name appears as publisher on the title page with that of Isaac Jaggard, was merely a stationer, so that the actual printing was solely under the charge of the latter, who seems, at this time, to have been entrusted with this department of the business. However, Blount's services may have been valuable since he had better literary taste than the Jaggards possessed.
In spite of certain evident faults of proportion, the portrait of Shakespeare engraved by Martin Droeshout for the title page of the 1623 Folio bears internal evidence of being a fairly good likeness, for the face possesses a marked individuality. There is a belief that it was taken from the so-called "Flower" portrait, now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-upon-Avon, and which is conjectured to have been painted in 1609, at least during Shakespeare's lifetime, possibly by another Martin Droeshout, a Fleming, uncle of the engraver of the same name. This portrait was discovered, painted on a panel at Peckham Rye, bearing the inscription "Will Shakespeare^n, 1609". That it should be the original from which the Droeshout engraving was taken has been doubted, since it appears rather to resemble later states of the plate than earlier ones. While Ben Jonson, who had seen Shakespeare so often, may have been partly moved to bestow undue praise upon the Folio portrait, in the lines he furnished the publishers to be placed immediately facing it, by his wish to say a good word for their publication, he would scarcely have made use of such superlative terms had he not considered it to be at least a fairly good likeness. Jonson's lines have been so often printed that few are unacquainted with them, but as illustrating the above remarks they can be repeated here, in the old spelling and form of the First Folio:
TO THE READER.
This Figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Graver has a strife With Nature, to out-doo the life: O, could he but have drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His face; the Print would then surpasse All, that was ever write in brasse. But, since he cannot, Reader, looke Not on his Picture, but his Booke.
B.I.
A most attractive and instructive exhibition of reproductions of the portraits of Shakespeare, or supposedly of him, was shown at the rooms of the Grolier Club, April 6-29, 1916. The catalogue [28] embraces 436 numbers, illustrating all the principal types. The exhibition also comprised the principal editions of the poet's plays, from the First Folio of 1623 to the great Variorum Edition by Dr. Furness, begun in 1871.