and in its comparative dimensions, especially in the
disproportion between the size of the head and that of the body, this
picture is identical with the Droeshout engraving. Though coarsely and
stiffly drawn, the face is far more skilfully presented than in the
engraving, and the expression of countenance betrays some artistic
sentiment which is absent from the print. Connoisseurs, including Sir
Edward Poynter, Mr. Sidney Colvin, and Mr. Lionel Cust, have almost
unreservedly pronounced the picture to be anterior in date to the
engraving, and they have reached the conclusion that in all probability
Martin Droeshout directly based his work upon the painting. Influences
of an early seventeenth-century Flemish school are plainly discernible in
the picture, and it is just possible that it is the production of an
uncle of the young engraver Martin Droeshout, who bore the same name as
his nephew, and was naturalised in this country on January 25, 1608, when
he was described as a 'painter of Brabant.' Although the history of the
portrait rests on critical conjecture and on no external contemporary
evidence, there seems good ground for regarding it as a portrait of
Shakespeare painted in his lifetime--in the forty-fifth year of his age.
No other pictorial representation of the poet has equally serious claims
to be treated as contemporary with himself, and it therefore presents
features of unique interest. On the death of its owner, Mr. Clements, in
1895, the painting was purchased by Mrs. Charles Flower, and was
presented to the Memorial Picture Gallery at Stratford, where it now
hangs. No attempt at restoration has been made. A photogravure forms
the frontispiece to the present volume. {290}

Of the same type as the Droeshout engraving, although less closely
resembling it than the picture just described, is the 'Ely House'
portrait (now the property of the Birthplace Trustees at Stratford),
which formerly belonged to Thomas Turton, Bishop of Ely, and it is
inscribed 'AE. 39 x. 1603.' {291a} This painting is of high artistic
value. The features are of a far more attractive and intellectual cast
than in either the Droeshout painting or engraving, and the many
differences in detail raise doubts as to whether the person represented
can have been intended for Shakespeare. Experts are of opinion that the
picture was painted early in the seventeenth century.

Early in Charles II's reign Lord Chancellor Clarendon added a por