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. 
