Part 10
I had reached this stage when I consulted Dr. Richard Garnett. He reminded me that the little red lions that held the railings on the outer front pavement of the British Museum had been wont to be considered great works of art, but modern critics could not praise them. On their being taken down a few years ago, however, in order to broaden the pavement, one of them was subjected to a severe cleansing process, which proved that it was nothing but the successive coats of paint, liberally applied every three years, which had obscured the art of the original conception. His question therefore was, had Shakespeare’s bust been repainted frequently enough to cause the plump unpoetic appearance it now has. I could not think so, because no amount of painting would alter the position of the arms, the shape of the hands, or throw a mantle over the figure.
I had therefore to have recourse again to engravings, and went through those in the Print-room of the British Museum. There I found a curious engraving in the Slade collection, signed “Grignion sculps,” which support’s Dugdale’s rendering. I then went through every illustrated copy of Shakespeare in the British Museum, a large order for the attendants. Rowe, in his first edition of Shakespeare’s works, 1709, has a very bad representation of the tomb, which conveys the idea of a certain amount of decay in the original. There is absolutely no expression in the face, which is not quite so thin as Dugdale’s, but the figure agrees with the early rendering in all points in which it differs from the modern one. Rowe’s edition of 1714 presents a bad copy of his first edition. In Pope’s edition of 1725, we find a remarkable variation. Vertue did not go to Stratford but to Rowe for his copy. Finding it so very inartistic, he _improved_ the monument, making the little angels light-bearers rather than bearers of spade and hour-glass, and instead of the bust he _gives a composition from the Chandos portrait_, altering the arms and hands, and adding a cloak, pen, paper, and desk. It retains, however, the drooping moustache and slashed sleeves. In Sir Thomas Hanmer’s edition, 1744, Gravelot copies from Vertue the monument and the figure, while he alters the face into what seems to be the original of what is called _The Birthplace Portrait_.
Dr. Thomas in 1730 expanded Dugdale’s “Warwickshire” into two volumes, but used the original block of the tomb unaltered.
Before the middle of the eighteenth century we know that the tomb was “very much decayed.” Mr. John Ward, the grandfather of Mrs. Siddons, was in Stratford in 1746, and gave the whole proceeds of a representation of “Othello” in the Town Hall on 8th September towards the restoration of Shakespeare’s tomb. Orders were given “to beautify” as well as to repair it. We are left altogether in the dark as to the degree of decay and the amount of reconstruction, but that it was considerable seems evident. By 1749 the repairs were completed, and the colours repainted by Mr. John Hall, a limner of Stratford-on-Avon. Probably they worked with the _new_ edition of Shakespeare before them as a guide, depending upon Gravelot and Hanmer of 1744. Alas for the result! We may apply Browning’s words, in another sense than he meant them, to the fate of this honoured memorial:
Wherever a fresco peels and drops, Wherever an outline weakens and wanes, Till the latest life in the painting stops, Stands one whom each fainter pulse-tick pains; One wishful each scrap should clutch its brick Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster --A lion who dies of an ass’s kick The wronged great soul of an ancient master.
Whoever the sculptor was who so much _improved_ the figure, it is more than likely he restored the face by the aid of some cement. It is curious that none of the other editions of the eighteenth century reproduce the tomb either as Vertue or Gravelot rendered it. None, indeed, reproduce it at all, until we come to the second edition of Bell’s “Shakespeare,” 1788, into which he introduces the “Life” from Rowe’s second edition of 1714, and in the “Life” the representation of the tombstone according to that edition. It was engraved by Reynold Grignion, and “printed for Bell’s ‘Shakespeare,’ 1st Dec. 1786.” This fact, printed on the plate itself, is important, as Grignion died in 1787, and the book came out in 1788. He rather improved on Rowe’s print, as Bell’s other engravers improved upon the Droeshout and the Marshall copies. Bad as it is, it represents the same figure as Dugdale did, falling into decay. This engraving is the same as that in the British Museum, “Grignion sculps,” so the latter may have been a proof copy.
All later renderings are of the modern type. Then commenced a new series of vicissitudes for the _restored_ bust. Not so very long after the repairs it was taken down from its pedestal, so that Mr. Malone might take a cast from it. More than likely that was the time when some accident removed the tip of the restored nose, which has left the “long upper lip” a marvel to many since the days of Sir Walter Scott. William Henry Ireland, in his “Confessions,” 1805, states that he had been down taking drawings from various tombs in Stratford, and “greatly reprehended the folly of having coloured the face and dress of the bust of Shakespeare, which was intended to beautify it, whereas it would have been much more preferable to have left the stone of the proper colour.” He applied for leave to “take a plaster-cast from the bust as Mr. Malone had done,” but the necessary delay in petitioning the Corporation for permission made him give up the idea. In his drawing of the bust, he makes Shakespeare an eighteenth-century gentleman, moustache turned up, a pen in one hand, paper in the other, and the cushion like a desk. An engraving was made by Mr. William Ward, A.R.A., from a painting by Thomas Phillips, R.A., after a cast taken by Bullock from the bust, and published by Lake on 23rd April 1816, the second centenary after the poet’s decease. This has the cloak, the pen, and the paper.
We are, therefore, in the bust likeness confronted by greater difficulties than the mere obscuring of the truth by paint, such as occurred in the case of the British Museum lions. We have to consider the much more serious question, the degree to which the features and surroundings of the original, deliberately or unconsciously, have been tampered with. It would seem that the sculptor who collaborated with Hall in 1746 was the culprit who deprived us of the original outlines of a memorial so dear, either through ignorance, vanity, or culpable carelessness. He had Dugdale to consult had he so pleased, but he contented himself with Hanmer. The decay must have been serious, and the alteration fundamental, to have so obscured the design. Mr. John Hall, who was responsible for the colouring, was believed to have followed the tints of the original. Be that as it may, Mr. Malone, like Mr. Ireland, disapproved of them, and in order to suit his own taste, and the fashion of his age, he persuaded the Corporation to have it painted white in 1793. One contemporary, however, wrote in the album of Stratford-on-Avon Church the lines:
Stranger, to whom this monument is shewn, Invoke the Poet’s curse upon Malone Whose meddling zeal his barbarous taste displays And daubs his tomb-stone as he marred his plays.
The bust was repainted in 1861 after the _original_ colouring by the artist who _discovered_ what has been called The Stratford Portrait, still reverently preserved at the birthplace, though it has no claim to authenticity. Its strong resemblance to the bust is of itself suspicious.
We suffer now, therefore, from the combined action of the various improvers and restorers of Gerard Johnson’s clumsy workmanship. Though the crude colours of Hall shocked the sensibilities of Malone, he thought it no sacrilege to have the bust taken down, and submitted to the moulder’s mercenary hands. Several others have been allowed to sin in a similar way. Many have written discourses upon its physiognomy, and based arguments and fancies upon it, unwitting of all these facts.[27] It is comforting to be able to go back to the simple rendering of Dugdale from the original--not a picturesque or poetic rendering, of what was probably a poor representation. But in it there _is_ something biographical, something suggestive; it shows us the tired creator of poems, exhausted from lack of sleep, “Nature’s sweet restorer,” weary of the bustling London life, who had returned, as soon as possible, to seek rest at home among his own people, and met an over-early death in the unhealthy spring-damps of 1616. A happy suggestion of the thoughtful poetic soul, of which the modern restored and adapted representation had deprived us, but only a suggestion. We sadly ask, where is the true likeness of our Shakespeare? and Leonard Digges speaks for us when he says that it is to be found in
Thy works, by which outlive Thy tomb, thy name must, when that stone is rent And Time dissolves thy Stratford Monument, Here we alive shall view thee still, This booke When brasse and marble fade, shall make thee looke Fresh to all ages.
_“Murray’s Monthly Review,” April 1904, and pamphlet reprinted from it, same date._
PS.--When I wrote the above paper I called it “An Uncalendared Presentment of Shakespeare,” as no one had placed the drawing in the lists of credited or discredited likenesses. Dr. Gollancz and Dr. Furnivall altered the title, and the Editor accepted it, though I always thought the new title too aggressive for _my_ meaning. Since in it I first drew attention to the discrepancies between Dugdale’s representation and the present tomb, there have been many heated discussions about it. Sentimentalists did not like the notion that there had been _any_ change in the precious memorial, _critical_ sentimentalists, seeking for some support of their opinion, satisfied themselves that these discrepancies only proved the inexactitudes of Dugdale. Baconians accepted Dugdale eagerly, as they do accept everything that they think can be made to seem derogatory to Shakespeare in any way. Thereby they obscured the whole question, and ignored my work and statements. Good Shakespeareans thought they had demolished me in discrediting the value of Dugdale’s testimony. The two last articles published by Mr. Andrew Lang were on this subject, and it took a large place in the book published since his death, but I have not been allowed to reply to these. Mr. Robertson, who had ignored my “Bacon-Shakespeare Question” in his “Baconian Heresy,” also ignored my article on this subject, and says: “Incidentally by reproducing Dugdale’s version of the Carew Monument in Stratford, and confronting it with a photograph of the actual monument, he has exploded the small mystery built up by Mr. Greenwood, out of the difference between the actual Shakespeare Monument and Dugdale’s representation of it in 1656.” Mr. Greenwood had expressed strong faith in Dugdale’s general correctness, and had quoted Dr. Whitaker to the effect that “his scrupulous accuracy, united with his stubborn integrity, has elevated his ‘Antiquities of Warwickshire’ to the rank of legal evidence.” Mr. Lang in 1912 said: “Mrs. Stopes argues that the monument was entirely reconstructed....” “It is positively certain her opinion is erroneous.” Then he gives as his absolute _proof_, the Carew Monument in Stratford. (For the reversing of the position of the recumbent figures from north to south, we probably have to thank a printer’s accidental reversal of plate.) But Mr. Lang’s argument contains not one, but _two_ logical fallacies. In the first place it claims to _prove_ that because Dugdale was incorrect in one monument he must have been incorrect in all. There may have been special reasons for the carelessness; if any, Dr. Thomas has suggested them in his second edition. And the argument _against_ is no stronger than the argument _for_ Dugdale, in that the Lucy tomb is a fair representation of the present one, and therefore reasoning from it, he might be treated as correct. There were special reasons that Dugdale should have taken extra care with Shakespeare’s tomb, because he mentions the poet in his text as an honour to his native town, and Dugdale knew it well.
Mr. Lang’s second fallacy is more important. It is the old logical fallacy of _accident_, or, as some logicians put it, “of cooked meat.” I had definitely refused to accept as witness against Dugdale’s trustworthiness the evidence of any other tomb which had also been “repaired and beautified.” Now the Clopton tomb has been “repaired and beautified,” and therefore, without some stronger support, it has no convincing power at all. I fear that I made a little confusion by my use of the word “fundamental,” for Mr. Lang seems to have attached a wider meaning to it than I did. If I may take a woman’s simile, I may make it clear. When a woman sends an old dress to be “repaired and beautified,” it may be relined, turned, the worn pieces cut out and replaced, alterations made in design to make up for losses by wear, trimmings laid on to cover seams, and yet after all it would remain _the same dress_, and her male friends might notice no change in it. But the dressmaker would call it, as to her work, a _fundamental_ change. I saw that it was by some such process that it was _possible_ to harmonize the discrepancies. I did not start wishing to prove any particular point. I did not even want to prove myself right, for I have no prejudices about it, I only wanted to seek for, and to find _the truth_. None of my opponents have done any original work concerning this matter, and therefore _the question_ stands exactly where it did, _i.e._ Dugdale’s representation is different from what the tomb is to-day. Why is it so? The two answers are, Dugdale’s representation was incorrect, or, the tomb has been modified.
Since I wrote the paper, I have done a good deal of further work on it. I found the contemporary letters of “the restorers,” 1746-9, published them in the “Pall Mall Gazette,” and have reprinted them now in my Note XIII. I have also gone through all the consecutive _history_ of the Bust. Dugdale himself tells us his method of going through the country, by hundreds, and by rivers, _beginning with the Avon_. He says that he asked the nearest heirs of the famous individuals whose monuments he had inserted, to co-operate with him, to give him information, and, where possible, to pay the expenses of the plates. At the time he wished Shakespeare’s bust to be prepared, the poet’s daughters, granddaughter, and son-in-law, Thomas Quiney, were still alive, and would be more or less able to criticize. But Mrs. Susanna Hall died in 1649, and her only daughter had married John Barnard who evidently thought little of his father-in-law’s genius.
The tomb has generally been supposed to have been raised by Gerard Johnson, a tombmaker, entered among the lists of the Strangers in London in 1593. But I have lately found a lawsuit which proves that his wife was acting as his widow before 1616. Therefore, if the _name_ be correct, it must have been not his, but that of his son, who succeeded him in his business. It is not quite so clear which of them built Combe’s Monument. John Combe made his will in January 1612-3, leaving £60 for “a convenient tomb.” He died on 10th July 1614. There are traditions that he had been “seeing to” the preparations for his tomb while he was yet alive. He might have fixed his sculptor, and he might have secured the elder Gerard Johnson. The tradition concerning the poet’s satirical suggested epitaph, is the only tradition about the poet which has a respectable antiquity, being referred to in a Diary of Travel in 1636, when a lieutenant and two friends, travelling through some of the county, saw that Shakespeare had a “neat monument” by that time (the first definite allusion to it).
The _material_ of the monuments is worth nothing. I have seen a small piece of Combe’s Monument which has been accidentally broken off, and have been assured on the best of authority that Shakespeare’s is the same, as a little piece of the stone at the back has been left unpainted. It is a peculiarly soft and friable stone for the purpose, variously described as a “soft bluish grey stone,” a “loose freestone,” a “soft whitish grey limestone,” with pillars of marble and ornaments of alabaster.
Given a soft and friable stone, we have to consider probabilities and possibilities, as well as certainties, in duly estimating the story of its _struggle for existence_. Time works against it with greater odds in his favour than he has in reducing stronger materials.
It may not be quite irrelevant to note, that there was (“Wheler Misc.,” i, p. 124) a peculiar list of charges brought against the Vicar, the Reverend Thomas Wilson, for which “being notorious,” he was suspended for three months from 5th June 1635. Among these charges it was stated that he allowed his maids to dry linen in the chapel, his fowls to roost, his pigs and dogs to couch there, and his children to play at ball and other sports. He himself was said to have “walked about the church in the time of divine service.” In the vestry minutes it is recorded: “The minister’s study over the bone-house to be repaired.” Now, if the children also carried their sports and balls to the Church it might account for many accidents, and the very first items to fall victims to boys and balls would be the legs of the little alabaster angels above Shakespeare’s bust.
We have also to remember that every church _ran risks_ during the civil wars, as they were so frequently used as barracks.
I have found in Add. MS. 28,565, a whole volume of Bills for Damages by the Parliamentary forces in Stratford 1645, from private people[28] which are only representative of many others.
In March 1691 the Chancel was repaired, the contributors being chiefly the descendants of those who had monuments of their ancestors there. The names of most of these are given, but there is no record of any descendants or friends of Shakespeare then, so that it may be supposed the tomb was left in a worse state of repair than the others. (“Wheler Misc.,” iv, p. 99.)
The very fact of the admiration of visitors was a source of danger. Foolishly enthusiastic adorers are known to have chipped pieces from other monuments elsewhere as personal remembrances, and it is quite possible they may have done so here. At any rate, from many combined causes, we have clear testimony from contemporary records, that by 1746 it was “_in great ruin and decay_.” It is idle to attempt to estimate the degree of ruin, but that it had shocked the sensibilities of the poet’s reverent adorers, is quite clear. The mere wearing off of _paint_ could not have done so, _that_ rather creates an impression of greater antiquity. The details of the events are given in the notes, and their results. One thing must be made clear, that everybody concerned was _giving_ at that time according to his power. The Actors gave their performances, the Committee their time and trouble, the Schoolmaster was honorary secretary, and there were sundry donations. Therefore a close estimate of the purchasing power of money at that time cannot be justly made. It is nearly certain that Mr. John Hall, Limner, and his other unknown coadjutor, who was to prepare the greatly ruined monument to receive his painting, would be doing it at the lowest possible charges. So the amount of work put into the job would probably far exceed the ordinary cost price. Mr. Hall was told to “repair and beautify,” and to let it remain as like as possible to the original.
Any artist or sculptor could inferentially follow their proceedings. _Suppose_, for the time, that Dugdale had been fairly correct. The first things to have been broken off would be, as I have shown, the alabaster legs of the ridiculous little cherubs. Their trunks would probably be pushed farther back to keep them out of further danger, and would be “restored” in the safer position. By the natural wear and tear of such a soft and friable stone, the bust would have _lost outline_. This had to be made up somehow to hold the paint, either by skilfully inserted pieces of stone, or by some plastic material. We know that the tip of the nose, the index finger, and part of the thumb had been broken off, and probably many other projections. They had _no pattern to go by_, except one evolved from memory, judgment, and imagination. No one alive could remember back to the days of the unrepaired bust. They would do their best, they could do no more. Probably the outline of the moustache had been obliterated, and they moulded one after what they thought the best fashion. They would mend the nose, plump out the hollow cheeks, and fill up the eyes. When they reached the attire, they would not see the outline clearly, and, guided by the shoulder ridges, would bring the lines of the doublet straight down (it needed no farther change to make the cloak such as it is to-day). They would probably scrape down the cushion to a more normal level, and, believing that a pen should have been held between the broken finger and thumb, would put one there. Thus there would be a good many little repairs made, as in a _lining to the coat_ of paint. But the result would necessarily be very different from the original.
Perhaps it may not be irrelevant here to refer to a paper among the “Wheler Miscellaneous Papers,” ii, f. 39.[29] It notes “The fixtures; the things left in Mr. Talbot’s house at Stratford-on-Avon, 26th September 1758”: “In ye Hall, _Shakespeare’s Head_.” “In the other rooms 6 Family Pictures,” “In ye Wildernesse a Stone-Dyal.”
Now, the family portraits might have been Cloptons or Shakespeares, but _what_ was “Shakespeare’s Head”? was it the death mask, a cast of the old Bust, or a model for the new one, then ten years old? Or was it a Bust made in Shakespeare’s life, from which the original was designed? I cannot even suggest an idea about it. But it is significant that it is noted, that in the following year “doubts arose, perhaps not unworthy of notice, whether the original monumental bust had any resemblance to the poet” (see Wivell’s book).
In regard to later vicissitudes of the Bust more is known. It was only in 1793, forty-four years after the repairing, that Malone attacked it. It is said that he had it down to examine; it is certain that he covered up Hall’s painting, by instructing a common house painter to lay over it a thick coating of common white paint. John Britton, F.S.A., writes in 1849: “In Dec. 1814 I incited Mr. George Bullock to make a cast of the monumental bust” ... “through the influence of Dr. Bell Wheler, and the Vicar, Dr. Davenport, he was allowed to take a model”.... “He was much alarmed on taking down the Effigy to find it to be in a decayed and dangerous state, and declared that it would be risking its destruction to remove it again.” Early in the nineteenth century Abraham Wivell made a most careful examination of it, and gave his report in his small volume (published in 1827).
A most important step was taken at the Shakespearean Committee Room, Stratford-upon-Avon, 23rd April 1835, announced thus: “The Shakesperean Club of Stratford-upon-Avon have long beheld with regret, the disfigurement of the Bust and Monument of Shakespeare, and the neglected condition of the interior of the Chancel which contains that monument and his grave.”