The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-07-01
BUST OF SHAKESPEARE.
rhs Interesting History of the Davenant
Head of the Poet.

rhs Interesting History of the Davenant
Head of the Poet.
When Lincoln's Inn Fields was still
rural suburb, where aristocratic and
wealthy people lived says the st. James
Budget, there stood on the southern
side, or ION the back side of Portugal
Row." close by an old inn called the
Grange, a famous tennis court, together
with one of those great and stately
inns of court from which the name
Of that locality was obtained. Early in
the year 1860, or late in 1853, Sir Will
lam Davenant obtained possession of
the tennis court-then called Gibsons-
converted it into a handsome and roomy
theater, which contemporary, Pepys,
said was the "the finest playhouse that
ever was in England" Over it's two
chief entrances receSseS were made to
accommodate busts, and these, appa-
rently, were those of the managers
godfather, and his predecessor as poet
laureate, Ben Jonson. At that time
many of Shakespeare's younger frien@s
were still alive, and so were old actors
who had been the poets fellow players.
and so was Shakespeare youngest
daughter, and his granddaughter, and
old playgoers who had seen the poet
play. To all of these Shakespeare
bust would be attractive, and many of
them doubtless often paused on their
way past, into or cut of the theater to
look up at it. Presently came the reign
of opera in the Italian style and come
dies in the French style, and Shakes
peare was again neglected. The men
who remembered the mighty poet were
booming very few, the stories that were
told of him were being fast forgotten,
and the buStS over the theaterS were
no longer the objects of interest they
had been. In 1868 Sir William Davenant
died. Sir William had looked his last
upon the beloved bust above the thea
ter door, and after his death we grad
ually hear less and less of Shakespeare
and his works and more of dancing and
singing and coarse buffoonery. If, then,
Shakespeares plays were contemptu-
ously neglected. what wonder is it to
find his personal relics equally disre-
garded? When in TIA the Dukes
theater ceased to be a playhouse and
became barrack, the busts over the
entrance remained. They were portraits
of men unknown; and when probably
about that time) the entrances were
brieked up, they were lost to sight al
together. When the building was de-
serted by the military it became an auc-
tion-roon and warehouse, and after
ward, in 1877, Messrs. Copeland and
house. In 1S45 the old building was re-
moved fer the erection of the College
of Surgeons, and in 1s4S, when it's last
remains were also removed, the long
forgotten terra Gotta busts once more
saw daylight. BEFORE their real value
and Importance were discovered the
workmen had threwn down the bust Of
Jonson and utterly destroyed it. From
this fate the Shakespearean bust was
preserved by Mr.. Cliff, whose daughter
afterward became the wife of the late
Sir Richard Owen, to whom it was be
Queathed, and from whom, thanks to
| the kindness of his son, Rev. Mr.. Owen
of Richmond, and Sir William Flower,
it has now become the most valuable
of the many valuable Shakespearean
relics in the library of the Shakespeare
Memorial at Stratford-on-Avon- There
we may hope its continued existence
will never again be endangered by that
! ignorance and careless indifference
| through which we had so narrow an
escape of losing it altogether