1914] on Some Portraits of Shakespeare and Burns 



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features of Shakespeare's forehead, to measure Chantry's bust of Sir 

 Walter Scott in the National Portrait Gallery. I found in that case 

 — and it is so in many others — the sculptor had modelled the head 

 about 10 per cent above the actual dimensions. I think Gerrard 

 Johnson took a similar liberty. 



In Fig. 3 I have taken the skull of a man who lived in Kent 

 during' the Bronze Age — the period which succeeded the Neolithic — 

 and have done, in regard to the dimensions, what I suppose Gerrard 

 Johnson did to Shakespeare's features — enlarged them 10 per cent. 

 It will be seen how accurately the skull — thus enlarged — fits within 

 the Stratford bust. From the accuracy of the fit, we may be certain 



200 



occiput 



Fig. 4. — The crown of Shakespeare's bust from above, with the corresponding 

 outline of a Bronze Age skull inset. The skull has been enlarged 10 per cent. 



that the man who wrought the Stratford Ijust did not portray an 

 imaginary head, but had before him an actual subject or model, and 

 that subject was of the short-headed type. Was it Shakespeare's head 

 which was portrayed ? Mr. Spielmann assures us that the men who 

 paid for the Monument knew Shakespeare's features and were satis- 

 fied with the likeness. They would not be satisfied, we may presume, 

 with a radical alteration in the shape of the head. We cannot 

 suppose that the sculptor gave the poet a typical short head to 

 satisfy those who had paid him for a true likeness. 



It is not only from the side that the Bronze Age skull fits within 

 Shakespeare's bust ; the view is equally good when we view its inset 

 from above and from the front (Figs. 4 and 5). The poet is thus 



