Garden in 1725, when John Simon engraved it.
Soest was born twenty-one years after Shakespeare's death, and the
portrait is only on fanciful grounds identified with the poet. A chalk
drawing by John Michael Wright, obviously inspired by the Soest portrait,
is the property of Sir Arthur Hodgson of Clopton House, and is on loan at
the Memorial Gallery, Stratford.

Miniatures.

A well-executed miniature by Hilliard, at one time in the possession of
William Somerville the poet, and now the property Of Sir Stafford
Northcote, bart., was engraved by Agar for vol. ii. of the 'Variorum
Shakespeare' of 1821, and in Wivell's 'Inquiry,' 1827. It has little
claim to attention as a portrait of the dramatist. Another miniature
(called the 'Auriol' portrait), of doubtful authenticity, formerly
belonged to Mr. Lumsden Propert, and a third is at Warwick Castle.

The Garrick Club bust.

A bust, said to be of Shakespeare, was discovered in 1845 bricked up in a
wall in Spode and Copeland's china warehouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
The warehouse had been erected on the site of the Duke's Theatre, which
was built by D'Avenant in 1660. The bust, which is of black terra cotta,
and bears traces of Italian workmanship, is believed to have adorned the
proscenium of the Duke's Theatre. It was acquired by the surgeon William
Clift, from whom it passed to Clift's son-in-law, Richard (afterwards Sir
Richard) Owen the naturalist. The latter sold it to the Duke of
Devonshire, who presented it in 1851 to the Garrick Club, after having
two copies made in plaster. One of these copies is now in the
Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford, and from it an engraving has
been made for reproduction in this volume.

Alleged death-mask.

The Kesselstadt death-mask was discovered by Dr. Ludwig Becker, librarian
at the ducal palace at Darmstadt, in a rag-shop at Mayence in 1849. The
features resemble those of an alleged portrait of Shakespeare (dated
1637) which Dr. Becker purchased in 1847. This picture had long been in
the possession of the family of Count Francis von Kesselstadt of Mayence,
who died in 1843. Dr. Becker brought the mask and the picture to England
in 1849, and Richard Owen supported the theory that the mask was taken
from Shakespeare's face after death, and was the foundation of the bust
in Stratford Church. The mask was for a long time in Dr. Becker's
private apartments at the ducal palace, Darmstadt. {296a} T