PREFACE. 
xiii 
Jonson knew Shakespeare well, and he says of this 
picture :— 
“ This figure that thou here seest put, 
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; 
Wherein the graver had a strife 
With Nature to outdoo the life. 
O, could he but have drawne his wit 
As well in brasse as he hath hit 
His face, the print would then surpasse 
All that was ever writ in brasse; 
But since he cannot, reader, looke 
Not on his picture, but his booke.” 
As a work of art it is by no means skilful, and is con¬ 
fessedly inferior not only to other engravings of that day, 
but also to other portraits by Martin Droeshout. 
That it bore some likeness to Shakespeare as an actor , 
I do not doubt, but that it resembled him as a private 
individual when off the stage, I cannot bring myself to 
believe. The straight hair and shaven chin which are not 
found in other portraits having good claims to be 
considered authentic, and the unnaturally high forehead, 
which would be caused by the actor’s wearing the wig of 
an old man partially bald, suggest at once that when 
the original portrait was taken, from which Droeshout 
engraved, Shakespeare was dressed as if about to sustain 
a part in which he was thought to excel as an actor. 
Boaden has conjectured that this portrait represents 
Shakespeare in the character of old Knowell, in Ben * 
