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.
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