OF THIS EDITION. xix 



bound with a scarf. The other is a portrait by Van So- 

 mer; the same I suppose that Aubrey saw at Gorhambury 

 in 1656; which has become the parent of two separate 

 families ; one wearing a hat with a brim describing a regu- 

 lar curve downwards towards the sides, which sufficiently 

 distinguishes it from Pass's portrait ; the other without 

 any hat ; the composition being in other respects the same. 

 Of both these the originals are at Gorhambury ; and they 

 are both ascribed to Van Somer. But the latter is so very 

 inferior to the former in every quality of art, that unless 

 there be some evidence of the fact more to be relied on 

 than an ordinary family tradition, I shall never be able to 

 believe that it is by the same hand. It seems to me far 

 more probable that at some later period when the fashion of 

 painting people with the head covered had gone out, some 

 one, wishing to have a portrait of Bacon without his hat, 

 employed the nearest artist to make a copy of Van Somer's 

 picture (Van Somer himself died in 1621, two or three 

 years after it was painted, about the time when Bacon was in 

 the Tower) with that alteration ; and that this is the work 

 he produced. That he was not a skilful artist is sufficiently 

 apparent from the execution of those parts which were in- 

 tended to be copies ; the peculiar character and expression 

 of eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth, being entirely missed ; 

 and the whole handling being weak and poor, and without 

 any sense of form. Moreover the hair is of a different 

 texture ; and although we have neither any description nor 

 any drawing of the upper part of Bacon's full-grown head, 

 we know what it was like in his boyhood from two very ad- 

 mirable representations, quite independent of each other and 

 yet exactly agreeing ; and it is plain that such a head could 

 never have grown into a shape at all like that which the 

 painter has invented. 



However, they were both called portraits by Van Somer ; 

 and the first (which is a very good work, as far as the 

 painting goes) was engraved by Houbraken ; the last by 

 Vertue. Unfortunately, these two artists, whose style of 



