the style of the Vandyke school of art, then prevalent in England, and was, in all probability, the work of some pupil of Vandyke. It is painted in oil, on parchment, in miniature, and represents a corpse lying in state on a bier, with a wreath of green leaves about the head. Besides the evidence of its age, drawn from the style of

THE DEATH MASK.-FIG. 1.

painting, there are equal testimonies in the costume, the open work at the seam of the pillow-case, the folds of the white linen sheets, the cut and collar of the shirt,-all pointing to the age of Shakespeare,-all to be seen, of exactly the same fashion and pattern, at this very day, at Ann Hathaway's Cottage, across the green fields, a mile away from Stratford, where the oldfashioned bedstead and its furniture are still preserved just as they were three hundred years ago.

The mask, or cast, creates immediately in the beholder, even when nothing has been said to him in regard to its claims, the impression that it represents some remarkable man. The experiment has been frequently made, and uniformly with this result. It was exhibited thus to Herman Grimm, without a word of explanation. "At the very first glance," says Grimm, "I thought to myself that I had never seen a nobler countenance." "What a noble, clean cut, aquiline nose; what a wonderfully shaped brow! I felt that this must have been a man in whose brain dwelt noble thoughts. I inquired. I was told to look at the reverse of the mask. There, on the edge, cut in figures of the 17th century, stood, A. D., 1616. I could think

of no one else who died in this year than one who was born in the year that Michael Angelo died-Shakespeare."

Another impression that one can hardly fail to receive from the mask, is the absence of any marked nationality in the features. The same remark is made of the wellknown mask of Dante, in Florence; there is nothing Italian about it. So there is nothing distinctively English in this cast, which claims to be the Death-Mask of Shakespeare. It gives us, as do his writings, the idea of a generic man, a representative of the human race, rather than of any distinct nationality. That was my own feeling in looking at it, without knowing that any one else had ever entertained the same thought. Prof. Owen, in the conversation we had on the subject, volunteered the same idea, and added that he had heard the same idea expressed by others.

Another character of the mask, equally marked, is the exceeding fineness and delicacy of the lines which make up the countenance. Grimm notices this peculiarity. No one, in fact, can fail to observe it who looks upon the mask.

While the mask differs, in one respect or another, from every recognized likeness of Shakespeare, there is no marked feature in any one of them which cannot be traced to the mask, the variation being easily explainable by the personal peculiarities, caprice or unskillfulness of the particular artist. Thus the bust represents a round,

THE DEATH MASK.--FIG. 2.

full-faced man, decidedly puffy in the cheeks, while in the mask the face is thin and spare, and wears a thoughtful and rather melancholy look. Now, it is well known

that the flesh after death always falls away, giving this character to the face. So universal is this result, that artists, in molding a bust or painting a picture from

THE DEATH MASK.-FIG. 3.

a death-mask, always make allowance for the falling away of the flesh, or fill it out to the supposed fullness of life, either from conjecture or from some photograph, or other evidence of the ordinary condition of the face in health. This was done in the bust

made of the late Prince Albert after his

death. Gerard Johnson, in undertaking to supply the supposed falling off in the flesh, simply over-did the matter, and gave us a rollicking, jolly Englishman instead of the thoughtful author of "Hamlet." Underlying this superabundant fullness of flesh, however, the eye can easily trace all the essential lines of grace and thought to be seen in the mask.

The bust is noticeable for the shortness of the nose, and the extraordinary distance, -one and a quarter inches,-between the nose and the mouth. This enormous length of the upper lip is partially relieved by the moustache. One has, however, only to imagine the moustache removed, to feel what an unsightly face the poet must have had, if this bust represents him truly. The cast and the other likenesses give the usual proportions to this part of the face. John Bell, the sculptor, expressed to Prof. Owen the conjecture, from anatomical reasons, that the maker of the bust had met with an accident at the point of the nose, and so, instead of commencing de novo, and doing all his work over again, had cut away enough of the lower part of

the nose to give the article the requisite amount of nostril. The bust certainly has the appearance of having undergone some such manipulation.

Another point in which the mask and the bust differ is in the distance between the eyes, and also in the distance between the eye-brows. The unoccupied space in the center of the forehead, between the beginning of the ridge of hair on one side and the beginning on the other, is larger than I recollect to have seen in any human being. A corresponding width exists between the two eyes. This feature gives to the face, as seen in the mask, an amplitude of forehead that is truly majestic, and one, in looking at it, cannot help feeling that he understands better than he did before where those great creations of genius came from, that have so long filled him with amazement. The bust-maker, on the contrary, through inadvertence, or mistaking certain accidental irregularities of the plaster for a continuation of the hair, has run the brows almost together, more closely even than in ordinary faces, and, to maintain consistency, has, in like manner, brought the eyes together, to make The them correspond with the brows. effect of the narrowing of the forehead is heightened by the fullness and puffiness of the cheeks already described; and the result of the whole is to give us the impres

The mask has met with a slight accident, injuring one of the features. The tip of the nose on the right side has crumbled, or been broken, marring a little the nostril on that side. The other nostril, however, is whole, and the profile, from whichever side viewed, is without break. With this slight exception, the mask is in a wonderfully complete state of preservation.

There are discolorations in different places, and this gives to the photographs of it a spotted appearance, as though the whole mask were indented and irregular. On the contrary, the surface is, with this one exception, without break. The black spot, in particular, over the right eye-brow, which Mr. Page has taken to be a dent or pit, extending, according to his notion, even to the brain, and showing actual loss of a part of the brain, is no dent at all, but simply a discoloration of the plaster. The surface at this point is, me teste, perfectly smooth and unbroken.

Mr. Page, however, is so confident on this point that he has made the scar a prominent feature in his portrait, and has based the authenticity of the mask upon it. He even thinks that Shakespeare himself refers to an unsightly blemish of this kind, in the beginning of the 112th sonnet:

"Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow."

There is, indeed, upon the mask the evidence of a wound, but it is in another place, and is of quite a different character from Mr. Page's supposed dent. About midway between the arch of the eye-brow and the top of the dome, say two and a half inches back from the eye-brows, is a line two and a half or three inches long. and running in a diagonal direction across the skull. This shows clearly the existence of a wound,—a flesh cut,-which has been sowed up, and has healed. The marks of the suture are plainly visible. In the series of small photographs accompanying Grimm's article, already quoted, this cicatrice does not appear. It is plainly visible, however, in the larger photograph which I brought with me from Darmstadt, and is still more clearly seen in the mask itself.

I may also mention in this connection that the ridge of the nose in the mask has the appearance of having been slightly flattened by something pressing upon it. A

pressure of that kind upon a ridge of plaster would crumble it, not flatten it, in the manner this is done. From this circumstance Mr. Page, has suggested the ingenious theory that the cast originally taken was of wax, which, being soft and yielding, has been flattened at this point by some carelessness in the handling, and that the plaster cast, taken afterwards from the waxen one, has simply "followed copy." This is, of course, only conjecture, but is a conjecture worthy of consideration.

The engraver, in making the cuts which accompany this article, has with commendable fidelity endeavored to show the spots or discolorations which appear upon the mask. But these, as shown in the photographs, and still more as shown in the wood-cuts, give, unfortunately, a very erroneous idea of the condition of the mask itself. With the exception of the slight crumbling at the point of the nose, the surface of the mask is everywhere unbroken and smooth, with no appearance of injury or decay.

The features, as revealed by the mask itself, have a manly beauty, of the intellectual type, that is very noticeable, and that has called forth spontaneous admiration from all who have looked upon it. There is also an indescribable expression of sadness that no one fails to notice. Fanny Kemble, on seeing it, burst into tears. This may be explained, in her case, by her emotional nature, and by the circumstances of her life-long connection with the Shakespearean characters. But others, not given to emotion or to fancy, have noticed the same feature. Even the photographs convey this impression. This expression of the countenance is due, probably, to some extent, to the falling away of the flesh after death.

Grimm suggests, in this connection, another idea that is worthy of consideration, namely, that in the first moments after

death the real character comes out in the countenance. He says: "Though life may prove deceptive on this point, not so death. It is as if, in the first moments after death had laid his sovereign and soothing hand upon man, the features reassumed before our eyes, as final imprint, that which they enclosed as the actual gift of creative nature, namely, the very sum and substance of life. Strange resemblances reappear in these first moments after the last moments, wonderful confirmations of character."

the vanity of claiming to be a son of Shakespeare, and strove in various ways to connect himself with the memory of the dramatist. Davenant received from Taylor, a brother of the Taylor who was one of the actors in Shakespeare's own company, the well known Chandos Portrait, presently to be described. Betterton, a leading actor in Sir William Davenant's Company, in this "Duke's Theater," became afterwards the owner of the Chandos Portrait, showing, on his part also a personal interest in Shakespeare's memory. Furthermore, Shakespeare's Plays were the chief pieces acted by this Company and in the "Duke's Theater." Nothing more natural, therefore, than that the building itself should contain some architectural souvenir of its favorite dramatic celebrity.

In tearing down the warehouse just mentioned, the entire ground plan of the old theater was disclosed. Among other things, an ornamented arched portal was laid bare, which had formed the main entrance into the theater. The workmen,

in battering down the wall on one side of this portal, found among the bricks and plaster that came tumbling down the pieces of a shattered terra cotta bust. Thinking that these might be of some antiquarian value, the workmen called at once the curator of the museum, Mr. William Clift, F. R. S. Mr. Clift and his colleague and son-in-law, Prof. Owen, collected and put together such fragments of the shattered bust as could be found, but were unable to make out a certain likeness to any dramatic celebrity. The nearest conjecture they could make was that the bust was not Shakespeare, but that it might have been intended for Ben Jonson. The fact, however, of there having been a bust of this kind ornamenting side of the portal, naturally suggested to them the probability of there being another bust in the corresponding side, which had not yet been disturbed by the workmen. They proceeded therefore, to examine it, and found, sure enough, on the opposite side, a terra cotta bust in perfect preservation. The bust was carefully removed and cleaned, and became the property of Mr. Clift, and after his death went by inheritance to his son-in-law, Prof. Owen. The latter, after holding it a few years, sold it for three hundred guineas to the Duke of Devonshire, who in turn presented it to the Garrick Club, in whose possession it now is.*

one

The bust has no name or date, no monogram or other indication, either of the sculptor or of the subject. But the resemblance of the features to the best likenesses of Shakespeare, the place of honor assigned it in the theater, the sufficient negative evidence that the fellow bust could not have been Shakespeare, and might have been Ben Jonson, have caused the surviving bust to be generally accepted as a likeness, and if so, a very early likeness of Shakespeare.

I examined this terra cotta bust with some attention, but was not able to take measurements. The impression that it made upon me was the same as that produced by the Death-Mask, except that there was nothing of that air of sadness which so strik

there did not seem to be the same breadth of face, and distance between the eyes.

No print of the terra cotta bust, so far as I am aware, has heretofore been made. The engraving here given is from an original photograph, made at my request, and obtained from the Garrick Club, London, through the mediation of my friend, Mr. W. H. Hurlbert, of the New York World