32 



Professor Arthur Keith 



[Feb. 20, 



cent to find the true dimensions of Shakespeare's brain, then the 

 power of the poet's brain must be ascribed to (juahtj rather than 

 quantity. In the reduced scale, the length of the head would be 

 184 millimetres ; width, 14:-> millimetres ; auricular height, 129 

 millimetres ; the brain capacity, 1540 c.c, a rather large brain for a 

 short-headed man. 



I shall deal briefly with Shakespeare's features as represented in 

 the Droeshout portrait. I feel certain that it is a rather crude 

 engraving made from some previous portrait or drawing which was 

 placed at Droeshout's disposal five or six years after Shakespeare's 

 death. Such a portrait as that known as the " Felton," now in the 



Fig. 6. — A free copy of the Droeshout portrait,^compared with an acrocephalic skull. 



possession of Mr. Burdett-Coutts, might well have served as the original 

 from which Droeshout worked. The Droeshout portrait is simply 

 the Felton portrait, with certain marks of age added — loss of hair 

 and bagginess beneath the eyes. The loftiness and the modelUng of 

 the forehead in the Felton and Droeshout portraits suggest an 

 abnormal development of Shakespeare's head. In every race of 

 mankind there occasionally appear individuals Avith remarkably high 

 heads — individuals in whom the vault rises up to form a " toAver," 

 or " sugar-loaf." The condition is due to a maldevelopment in the 

 base of the skull. The front part of the base is prematurely arrested 

 in its growth, with the result that the developing brain, in order to 

 find room, has to raise up the crown into a characteristic sugar-loaf 



