xvi PREFACE. 



then became his Grace's property. When his pictures 

 were sold at Stowe, in September, 1848, this portrait 

 was purchased for three hundred and fifty-five guineas 

 by the Earl of Ellesmere, who, in March, 1856, presented 

 it to the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, in 

 whose hands it still remains. 



Notwithstanding this pedigree, the picture has been 

 objected to on the ground that the dark hair and 

 foreign complexion could never have belonged to our 

 essentially English Shakespeare. Those who make this 

 objection, seem to forget entirely the age of the portrait, 

 and the fact that it is painted in oil and on canvas, a 

 circumstance which of itself is quite sufficient, after 

 the lapse of two centuries and a half, to account for 

 the dark tone which now pervades it, to say nothing 

 of the numerous touches and retouches to which it has 

 been subjected at the hands of its various owners. 



Notwithstanding the missing links of evidence, it 

 seems to me that, having traced the picture back to 

 the possession of Shakespeare's godson, we have gone 

 far enough to justify us in accepting it as an authentic 

 portrait in preference to many others. For we cannot 

 suppose that Sir William Davenant would retain in 

 his possession until his death a picture of one with 

 whom he was personally acquainted, unless he con- 

 sidered that it was sufficiently faithful as a likeness to 

 remind him of the original. 



