The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-03-17
EDUCATIONAL.
FACE.

Ii England believed ShakeSpeareS
face, cast from his ~just-cooled and
perfect features, lay in a little nook in
Hesse-Darmstadt, do you believe she.
would not pawnherislands rather than
not possess it? While royal
sons and daughters are lowered, and
Jewels remain in the Tower, Shakes
peare's face lies in a foreign land unrez:I
deemed! Oh, the1zpity of itP'-WI
Academy Of Design, NeW York.
In the First Folio edition of Shakes
peare's collected works, published in
1923, Leonard Digges, a well=known
author, makes the first known mention
of the poets bust in the chancel Of
Stratf6rd church. Aletterto Edward
tomb, and states that it's care-taker,
the clerk, who then showed it to the
writer, was about eighty years of age.
The commences of the bust Isl there
fore, satisfactorily demonstrated. Dug
dale, the great Warwickshire anti
quarry, in a work published in 1856 Gt
Is supposed there was an earlier edi-
tion), speaks of Shakespeare and John
COmbe's monuments at StratfOrd-
super-Avon, made by n Gerard
johnson, a 'tomb-maker, who was a
native of Amsterdam, and resided,
when Dugdale wrote, In the city of
London. But an official list of fereign-
ers in London, made at that time,
shows that when Johnson made that
bust he was not IN England. We may
therefore fairly conclude that he
worked either from a portrait or from
a death-mask, or with the aid of both.
The oldest portraits of Shakespeare
exist in the Chandos picture; the en-
craving published with the First Folio,
by Martin Droeshout; and the tomb
efigy. The ChandOs portrait certainly
belonged to Sir William Davenanf,
S~hakespeare's godson, who must have
remembered the poet well enough to
have, discarded anything unlike the
great man whose memory he affec-
tionately treasured. It was copied by
Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1850, and from
that time innumerable other copies
have been made. No two.of these APP,
pear to be alike, although on seeing
the original each would be recognized
at once as a copy of it; and, although
each more or less resembles the bust,
neither suggests itself as the bust's
original. Other old portraits lack evil
dence of authority.
AS to the engraving, there is nothing
in it to indicate that Gerard johnson
worked from it's original. But in each
of the portraits named we recognize
one original, and each resembles the
bust, as the bust resembles in it's turn
the only death-mask in existence ira
d~itionally said to be Shakespeare's
face. The efigy in the church seems
to have always been regarded by artists
as produced from a death-mask.
Where is the mask? We have in
England the tradition, which has been
preserved through generations in
StratfOrd-upOn-AvOn, of it's having
been made from Shakespeare's dead
face. Nothing more!
If johnson made the tomb and bust
and retained the mask, as he probably
would, where should we look for it
but in Holland or Germany? In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
companies of English players per
formed Shakespeare's plays in Ger
many, their usual route being by way
of Holland. Shakespeare was doubt
less very popular and had many ardent
admirers In both these countries.
Turn we now to the Hesse-D armstadt
death-mask. A large photograph of it
is now before me, with it's expression
of patient suffering and quiet resigna-
ton to the inevitable, with all it's no.
bility and refinement of thought and
feeling-a fine face indeed! By gener-
alton after generation of the Kessel-
stadts of Mayence this dead mans face
was carefully and ~reverentially pre-
served, In association with Shakes
peare's glorious name and worldwide
fame. Without such associations,
could SO fragile a thing have been
handed down from generation to gen
GRAFTON?
The Kesselstadt collection was sold
in 1S41, and for a time the whereabouts
of the death-mask was unknown; but
in 1949, it was found by Ludwig
Becker, apartrait-painter of Darmstadt,
in back street in Mayence, in "a
brokers' shop amongst rags and
articles of the meanest description, "
the lost treasure was recovered, and
still remains in the Becker family.
In conclusion, | Am in a position to
affirm that the overwhelming majority
of opinion from all intelligent sources
is in favor of the death-mask, as that
face from which the three portraits.
with admitted claims to authority,
were originally drawn, modelled, or
engraved. l began it's examination
full of doubts some years ago., and am
now as assured of it's g~enuineness as if
/ had been present when7it was cast
a. H WUtI, librarian Shakespeare
HemOriol, an Poet-LOre, Pbitadelphia,
December, 4
THE LANGUAGE OF FORM.
Graphics is a term which, of late
years has been used to designate that