tion was granted on the 10th of June 1700, to his fon Charles, who was drowned in the Thames near Windfor in 1704. His younger brother Erafmus fucceeded to the title of Baronet, and died without issue in 1711; but I know not what became of his effects, or where this picture is now to be found. About the year 1728 a mezzotinto of Shakspeare was scraped by Simon, faid to be donefrom an original picture painted by Zouft or Soeft, then in the poffeffion of T. Wright, painter, in Covent-Garden. The earliest known picture painted by Zoust in England, was done in 1657; fo that if he ever painted a picture of Shakspeare, it must have been a copy. It could not however have been made from D'Avenant's picture, (unless the painter took very great liberties) for the whole air, dress, disposition of the hair, &c. are different. I have lately seen a picture in the poffeffion of - Douglas. Efq.at Teddington near Twickenham, which is, I believe, the very picture from which Simon's Mezzotinto was made. It is on canvas, (about 24 inches by 20,) and fomewhat smaller than the life. The earliest print of our poet that appeared, is that in the title-page of the first folio edition of his works, 1623, engraved by Martin Droefhout. On this print the following lines, addreffed TO THE READER, were written by Ben Jonfon: "This figure that thou here seest put, " Not on his picture, but his look." Droeshout engraved also the heads of John Fox the martyrologift, Montjoy Blount, fon of Charles Blount Earl of Devonshire, William Fairfax who fell at the fiege of Frankendale in 1621, and John Howfon, Bishop of Durham. The portrait of Bishop Howfon is at Christ-church, Oxford. By comparing any of these prints (the two latter which are well executed) with the original pictures from whence the engravings were made, a better judgment might be formed of the fidelity of our author's portrait, as exhibited by this engraver, than from Jonfon's affertion, that " in this figure 66 the graver had a ftrife "With nature, to out-do the life;" a compliment which in the books of that age was paid to fo many engravers, that nothing decisive can be inferred from it. It does not appear from what picture this engraving was made: but from the dress, and the singular disposition of the hair, &c. it undoubtedly was engraved from a picture, and probably a very ordinary one. There is no other way of accounting for the great difference between this print of Droeshout's, and his spirited portraits of Fairfax and Bishop Howfon, butby supposing that the picture of Shakspeare from which he copied was a very coarse performance. The next print in point of time is, according to Mr. Walpole, and Mr. Granger, that executed by J. Payne, a scholar of Simon Pass, in 1634: with a laurel branch in the poet's lefthand. A print of Shakspeare by so excellent an engraver as Payne, would probably exhibit a more perfect reprefentation of him than any other of those times: but I much doubt whether any such ever existed. Mr. Granger, I apprehend, has erroneoufly attributed to Payne the head done by Marshall in 1640, (apparently from Droeshout's larger print,) which is prefixed to a fpurious edition of Shakspeare's Poems published in that year. In Marshall's print the poet has a laurel branch in his left hand. Neither Mr. Walpole, nor any of the other great collectors of prints, are poffefsed of, or ever faw, any print of Shakspeare by Payne, as far as I can learn. Two other prints only remain to be mentioned; one engraved by Vertue in 1721, for Mr. Pope's edition of our author's plays in quarto; faid to be engraved from an ori ginal picture in the possession of the Earl of Oxford; and another, a mezzotinto, by Earlom prefixed to an edition of King Lear, in 1770; faid to be done from an original by Cornelius Janfen, in the collection of Charles Jennens, Efq. but, Mr. Granger justly obferves, "as it is dated in 1610, before Janfen was in England, it is highly probable that it was not painted by him, at least, that he did not paint it as a portrait of Shakspeare." Most of the other prints of Shakspeare that have appeared, were copied from fome or other of those which I have mentioned. MALONE. 66 The portrait palmed upon Mr. Pope" (I use the words of the late Mr. Oldys, in a Mf. note to his copy of Langbaine,) " for an original of Shakspeare, from which he had his fine VOL, I. D an plate engraven, is evidently a juvenile portrait of King James I." I am no judge in these matters, but only deliver opinion, which if ill-grounded may be easily overthrown. The portrait, to me at least, has no traits of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. 3 On his grave-ftone underneath is, Good friend, &c.] This epitaph is expressed in the following uncouth mixture of small and capital letters: Good Frend for Iefus SAKE forbeare Blese be TE Man spares T--Es Stones And curst be he that moves my bones.] It is uncertain whether this epitaph was written by Shakspeare himself, or by one of his friends after his death. The imprecation contained in this last line, was perhaps fuggested by an apprehenfion that our authour's remains might share the fame fate with those of the rest of his countrymen, and be added to the immense pile of human bones deposited in the charnelhouse at Stratford. This, however, is mere conjecture; for fimilar execrations are found in many ancient Latin epitaphs. Mr. Steevens has justly mentioned it as a fingular circumftance, that Shakspeare does not appear to have written any verses on his contemporaries, either in praise of the living, or in honour of the dead. I once imagined that he had mentioned Spenfer with kindness in one of his fonnets; but have lately difcovered that the fonnet to which I allude, was written by Richard Barnefield. If, however, the following epitaphs be genuine, (and indeed the latter is much in Shak speare's manner,) he in two instances overcame that modest diffidence, which feems to have fuppofed the elogium of his humble muse of no value. In a Manufcript volume of poems by William Herrick and others, in the hand-writing of the time of Charles I. which is among Rawlinfon's Collections in the Bodleian Library, is the following epitaph, afcribed to our poet. 4 ΑΝ ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ. " When God was pleas'd, the world unwilling yet, " Elias James to nature payd his debt, " And here reposeth; as he liv'd he dyde; 66 The saying in him strongly verefide, "Such life, such death: then, the known truth to tell, "He liv'd a godly life, and dyde as well. WM. SHAKSPEARE." There was formerly a family of the furname of James at Stratford. Anne, the wife of Richard James, was buried there, on the fame day with our poet's widow; and Margaret, the daughter of John James, died there in April 1616. A monumental infcription " of a better leer," and faid to be written by our author, is preferved in a collection of Epitaphs, at the end of the Visitation of Salop, taken by Sir William Dugdale in the year 1664, now remaining in the College of arms, C. 35. fol. 20; a tranfcript of which Sir Ifaac Heard, Garter, Principal King at Arms, has obligingly tranfmitted to me. Among the monuments in Tongue Church in the county of Salop, is one erected in remembrance of Sir Thomas Stanley, knight, who died, as I imagine, about the year 1600. In the Visitation-book it is thus described by Sir William Dugdale: "On the north side of the chancell stands a very ftately tombe, supported with Corinthian columnes. It hath two figures of men in armour, thereon lying, the one below the arches and columnes, and the other above them, and this epitaph upon it. • Thomas Stanley, Knight, second son of Edward Earle of Derby, Lord Stanley and Strange, defcended from the famielie of the Stanleys, married Margaret Vernon, one of the daughters and co-heires of Sir George Vernon of NetherHaddon, in the county of Derby, Knight, by whom he had iffue two fons, Henry and Edward. Henry died an infant; Edward survived, to whom those lordships defcended; and married the lady Lucie Percie, fecond daughter of the Earl of Northumberland: by her he had issue feaven daughters. She and her foure daughters, Arabella, Marie, Alice, and Prifcilla, are interred under a monument in the church of Waltham in the county of Effex. Thomas her fon, died in his infancy, and is buried in the parish church of Winwich in the county of Lancaster. The other three, Petronilla, Frances, and Venesia, are yet living. These following verses were made by WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, the late famous tragedian. " Written upon the east end of this tombe. " Aske who lyes here, but do not weepe; L He had three daughters, of which two lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. Thomas " This stony register is for his bones, " Written upon the west end thereof. "Not monumental stone preserves our fame, " The memory of him for whom this stands, When all to time's consumption shall be given, " Stanley, for whom this stands, shall stand in heaven." The last line of this epitaph, though the worst, bears very strong marks of the hand of Shakspeare. The beginning of the first line, "Afke who lyes here," reminds us of that which we have been just examining: If any man ask, who lies in this tomb," &c. - And in the fifth line we find a thought which our poet has also introduced in King Henry VIII: " Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be! " And, when old time shall lead him to his grave, This epitaph must have been written after the year 1600, for Venetia Stanley, who afterwards was the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby, was born in that year. With a view to afcertain its date more precisely, the churches of Great and Little Waltham have been examined for the monument faid to have been erected to Lady Lucy Stanley and her four daughters, but in vain; for no trace of it remains: nor could the time of their respective deaths be afcertained, the regifters of those parishes being loft. Sir William Dugdale was born in Warwickshire, was bred at the free-fchool of Coventry, and in the year 1625, purchased the manor of Blythe in that county, where he then fettled and afterwards spent a great part of his life: fo that his testimony respecting this epitaph is fufficient to afcertain its authenticity. MALONE. He had three daughters,] In this circumstance Mr. Rowe must have been mif-informed. In the register of Stratford, no mention is made of any daughter of our author's but Sufanna and Judith. He had indeed three children; the two |