were reduced to great distress, than to have been bequeathed to him by the person who painted it; in whose custody it is improbable that it should have remained. Sir William D'Avenant appears to have died insolvent. There is no Will of his in the Prerogative-Office; but administration of his effects was granted to John Otway, his principal creditor, in May 1668. After his death, Betterton the actor bought it, probably at a publick sale of his effects. While it was in Betterton's possession, it was engraved by Vandergucht, for Mr. Rowe's edition of Shakspeare, in 1709. Betterton made no will, and died very indigent. He had a large collection of portraits of actors in crayons, which were bought at the sale of his goods, by Bullfinch the Printseller, who sold them to one Mr. Sykes. The portrait of Shakspeare was purchased by Mrs. Barry the actress, who sold it afterwards for forty guineas to Mr. Robert Keck. In 1719, while it was in Mr. Keck's possession, an engraving was made from it by Vertue: a large half-sheet. Mr. Nicoll of Colney-Hatch, Middlesex, marrying the heiress of the Keck family, this picture devolved to him; and while in his possession, it was, in 1747, engraved by Houbraken for Birch's Illustrious Heads. By the marriage of the Duke of Chandos with the daughter of Mr. Nicoll, it became his Grace's property; and by the marriage of the present Marquis of Buckingham with his Grace's daughter, Lady Anne Elizabeth Brydges, it now adorns the Marquis's collection at Stowe.

Sir Godfrey Kneller painted a picture of our author, which he presented to Dryden, but from what picture he copied, I am unable to ascertain, as I have

never seen Kneller's picture. The poet repaid him by an elegant copy of Verses.-See his Poems, vol. ii. p. 231, edit. 1743:

"Shakspeare, thy gift, I place before my sight,
"With awe I ask his blessing as I write;
"With reverence look on his majestick face,
"Proud to be less, but of his godlike race.
"His soul inspires me, while thy praise I write,
"And I like Teucer under Ajax fight:

Bids thee, through me, be bold; with dauntless breast

"Contemn the bad, and emulate the best:

"Like his, thy criticks in the attempt are lost,

"When most they rail, know then, they envy most."

It appears from a circumstance mentioned by Dryden, that these verses were written after the year 1683: probably after Rymer's book had appeared in 1693. Dryden having made no will, and his wife Lady Elizabeth renouncing, administration was granted on the 10th of June, 1700, to his son Charles, who was drowned in the Thames near Windsor in 1704. His younger brother, Erasmus, succeeded to the title of Baronet, and died without issue in 1711. This picture is now in the possession of Earl Fitzwilliam.

About the year 1725 a mezzotinto of Shakspeare was scraped by Simon, said to be done from an original picture painted by Zoust or Soest, then in the possession of T. Wright, painter, in Covent Garden. The earliest known picture painted by Zoust in England, was done in 1657; so that if he ever painted a picture of Shakspeare, it must have been a copy. It could not, however, have been made from D'Avenant's picture (unless the painter took very

great liberties), for the whole air, dress, disposition of the hair, &c. are different. I have seen a picture in the possession of — Douglas, Esq. at Teddington near Twickenham, which is, I believe, the very picture from which Simon's mezzotinto was made. It is on canvas (about 24 inches by 20), and somewhat smaller than the life.

The earliest print of our poet that appeared, is that in the title-page of the first folio edition of his works, 1623, engraved by Martin Droeshout. On this print the following lines, addressed to the reader, were written by Ben Jonson:

"This figure that thou here seest put,
"It was for gentle Shakspeare cut;
"Wherein the graver had a strife
"With nature, to out-do the life.
"O, could he but have drawn his wit

"As well in brass, as he hath hit

"His face, the print would then surpass
"All that was ever writ in brass;
"But since he cannot, reader, look
"Not on his picture, but his book."

Droeshout engraved also the heads of John Fox the martyrologist, Montjoy Blount, son of Charles Blount Earl of Devonshire, William Fairfax, who fell at the siege of Frankendale in 1621, and John Howson, Bishop of Durham. The portrait of Bishop Howson is at Christ Church, Oxford. By comparing any of these prints (the two latter of which are well executed) with the original pictures from whence the engravings were made, a better judgment might be formed of the fidelity of our author's portrait, as ex

hibited by this engraver, than from Jonson's assertion, that" in this figure

a compliment which in the books of that age was paid to so many engravers that nothing decisive can be inferred from it.-It does not appear from what picture this engraving was made; but from the dress, and the singular disposition of the hair, &c. it undoubtedly was engraved from a picture, and probably a very ordinary one. There is no other way of accounting for the great difference between this print of Droeshout's, and his spirited portraits of Fairfax and Bishop Howson, but by supposing that the picture of Shakspeare from which he copied was a very coarse performance.

The next print in point of time is, according to Mr. Walpole and Mr. Granger, that executed by J. Payne, a scholar of Simon Pass, in 1634; with a laurel-branch in the poet's left-hand. A print of Shakspeare by so excellent an engraver as Payne, would probably exhibit a more perfect representation of him than any other of those times; but I much doubt whether any such ever existed. Mr. Granger, I apprehend, has erroneously attributed to Payne the head done by Marshall in 1640 (apparently from Droeshout's larger print), which is prefixed to a spurious edition of Shakspeare's Poems published in that year. In Marshall's print the poet has a laurel branch in his left hand. Neither Mr. Walpole, nor any of the other great collectors of prints, were pos

sessed of, or ever saw, any print of Shakspeare by Payne, as far as I can learn.

Two other prints only remain to be mentioned; one engraved by Vertue in 1721, for Mr. Pope's edition of our author's plays in quarto; said to be engraved from an original picture in the possession of the Earl of Oxford; and another, a mezzotinto, by Earlom, prefixed to an edition of King Lear, in 1770; said to be done from an original by Cornelius Jansen, in the collection of Charles Jennens, Esq.

Most of the other prints of Shakspeare that have appeared, were copied from some or other of those which I have mentioned.

By his will, which appears to have been originally drawn up about two months before his death, Shakspeare left the bulk of his property to his eldest daughter, Susanna Hall. It is given at length in the Appendix, where whatever observations to which its provisions may give rise, will be found appended in the notes: one topick, however, it may be fit to advert to here. It commences with a pious declaration of his religious principles, but affords not the slightest countenance to a notion which has been started, of Shakspeare being a Roman Catholick. To this supposition, I myself may have given some support by

"The portrait palmed upon Mr. Pope," (I use the words of the late Mr. Oldys, in a MS. note to his copy of Langbaine,) "for an original of Shakspeare, from which he had his fine plate engraven, is evidently a juvenile portrait of King James I." I am no judge in these matters, but only deliver an opinion, which if ill-grounded may be easily overthrown. The portrait, to me at least, has no traits of Shakspeare. STEEVENS..