"From this print, the head of Shakspere, prefixed to our present edition, is engraved; under the original of which are the following commendatory lines:

“This figure, that thou here see'st put,
"It was for gentle Shakspere cut;
"Wherein the graver had a strife
"With nature, to out-doo the life.
"O, could he but have drawn his wit
"As well in brasse, as he hath hit
"His face, the print would then surpasse
"All that was ever writ in brasse ;
"But, since he cannot, reader, looke
"Not on his picture, but his booke."

BEN JONSON.

"This print gives us a truer representation of Shakspere, than several more pompous memorials of him, if the testimony of Ben Jonson may be credited, to whom he was personally known; unless we suppose that poet to have sacrificed his veracity to the turn of thought in his epigram (annexed to it), which is very improbable, as he might have been easily contradicted by several that must have remembered so celebrated a person. The author of a letter from Stratford upon Avon, Gentleman's Magazine, 1759, Vol. XXIX. p. 257, informs us, that this head is as much like his monumental effigy as a print can be."

printed in the

"WILLIAM SHAKSPERE; R. Earlom f. large octavo. mezz. neat. Engraved for a new Edition of Shak

spere's Works."

Uuij

"This

"This print is said to be from an original by Cornelius Jansen, in the collection of C. Jennens, Esq. but, as it is dated in 1610, before Jansen was in England, it is highly probable that it was not painted by him, at least, that he did not paint it as a portrait of Shakspere.”

"WILLIAM SHAKSPERE; his monument at Stratford; under his bust is the following inscription,

"Ingenio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, "Terra tegit, populus mœret, Olympus habet."

"Stay, passenger, why dost thou go so fast? "Read, if thou canst, whom envious death has plac'd "Within this monument; Shakspere, with whom "Quick nature dy'd; whose name doth deck the tomb "Far more than cost; since all that he has writ "Leaves living art but page to serve his wit."

Ob. Anno Domini 1616. Æt. 53.

"Vertue sc. small h. sh."

"His monument is also done in mezz. by Miller."

"WILLIAM SHAKSPERE; his monument in Westminster-Abbey; two prints h. sh."

"In one of these prints, instead of The cloud-capt towers, &c. is the following inscription on a scroll, to which he points with his finger:

"Thus Britain lov'd me, and preserv'd my fame

"Pure from a Barber's or a Benson's name.'

A. POPE.

Thaksperes Monument in Westminster Abbey