A few words yet remain to be added as to this artist, and the period of his residence among us. The accounts given of him at page 48, admit of easy reconciliation. The author of An Essay, &c. says he resided long at Amsterdam; and this is also said by Sandrart. But if he began to paint among us at the lowest date assigned, namely, 1618, he could not have resided as a painter long in Amsterdam, previous to his coming to this country. It follows, therefore, that the residence in Holland was, as Sandrart describes it, a measure of necessity. He left this place when the civil war frightened from us every thing like elegance, and then certainly resided long at Amsterdam, since he did not die till 1665; so that he probably passed more than TWENTY years among the Dutch, after he had quitted us either in disgust or alarm. The real history of Jansen, therefore, seems to be this: Upon the miserable sack of Antwerp by the Spaniards in 1576, his parents took refuge in England, where, some time after, they gave birth to their son Cornelius. Here he grew celebrated for his art, was employed by Southampton, and painted Shakspeare. An honour hardly less was yet reserved for him; for in 1618, Milton's father carried the author of Paradise Lost, then in his tenth year, to sit to the greatest portrait-painter then in England. It may teach us reliance upon Jansen's fidelity, to find as we do, in the expression of young Milton, that time only developed and expanded the features; the same characteristics are found in his boyhood and at his maturity.

THE

FELTON HEAD OF SHAKSPEARE.

ARTIST UNKNOWN. 1597. R. N.

Of this portrait, it may be sufficient celebrity to record, that the late Mr. Steevens held it to be genuine; the original from which both Droeshout and Marshall engraved, and the only authentic picture of the poet. In the European Magazine for the months of October and December, 1794, that ingenious critic gave to the public the grounds of his belief; among which most certainly never entered any one circumstance which had been stated with regard to the picture. On the contrary, he has himself detected all the arts of the dealers, exhibited to contempt the baseless fabric of their visions, and closed with entire reliance upon the authenticity of a portrait, which he could not prove to have been in existence so long even as himself.

All the known history of it is this: In the catalogue of the fourth exhibition and sale by private contract at the European Museum, King-street, St. James's-square, 1792, this picture was announced to the public in the following words:

No. 359. A curious portrait of Shakespeare, painted in 1597.

On the 31st of May, 1792, Mr. Felton bought it for five guineas; and afterwards, wishing to know where it came from, he requested its history from Mr. Wilson, the conductor of that Museum, who answered him in the following terms:

SIR,

To Mr. S. Felton, Drayton, Shropshire.

The Head of Shakspeare was purchased out of an old house, known by the sign of the Boar, in Eastcheap, London, where Shakespeare and his friends used to resort; and report says, was painted by a player of that time, but whose name I have not been able to learn.

I am, Sir, with great regard,

Sept. 11, 1792.

Your most obedient servant,

J. WILSON.

Here we find it to have been purchased out of an old house, where Shakspeare and his friends used to resort-The Boar's Head, which he had immortalized by the presumed resort of Falstaff and Hal; but which there is no syllable on record to prove was ever frequented by Shakspeare and his friends.

On the 11th August, 1794, nearly two years afterwards, Mr. Wilson becomes more communicative to Mr. Steevens, than he had been to the purchaser, and adds to his account of the picture, "that it was found between four and five years ago, at a broker's shop in the Minories, by a man of fashion, whose name must be concealed,"

with a part of whose collection of pictures it came for sale to the Museum, attended with the story of the broker. There it was exhibited for about three months, seen by Lord Leicester and Lord Orford, but being mutilated, (not however as to the features, remark), those discerning noblemen would not purchase it, though they both, we are told, allowed its authenticity.

The first story seems unaccountably to have forgotten the fire of London in 1666, when a strong east wind in a few hours left the whole of Eastcheap a mass of smoking ruins, and the wretched inhabitants could think of saving nothing but their lives*. If there

* An extract from Mr. Evelyn's Memoirs, will shew the horrible certainty of the destruction alluded to.

"1666. 2 Sept. This fatal night, about ten, began that deplorable fire near Fish Streete, in London.

3. The fire continuing, after dinner I took coach with my wife and sonn, and went to the Bank-side in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spectacle, the whole Citty in dreadful flames near ye water side; all the houses from the Bridge, all Thames Street, and upwards towards Cheapside, down to the Three Cranes, were now consum'd.

"The fire having continu'd all this night, (if I may call that night which was light as day for 10 miles round about, after a dreadful manner), when conspiring with a fierce Eastern wind in a very drie season, I went on foote to the same place, and saw the whole South part of ye Citty burning, from Cheapside to ye Thames, and all along Cornehill, (for it kindl'd back against ye wind as well as forward), Tower Streete, Fenchurch Streete, Gracious Streete, and so along to Bainard's Castle, and was now taking hold of St. Paule's Church, to which the scaffolds

fore such a picture hung in the club-room, to out-stare the puritanical wretches of the rebellion, there it must have perished, unless, as Mr. Steevens suggests, it had been alienated before the fire. But it seems it was purchased out of some Boar's Head, ancient or modern; it might have been snatched away prophetically before the fire alluded to, to be replaced in a succeeding house on the same spot. If the old Boar can bear no testimony in its favour, the Commentator is desirous to whet up the tusks of his modern representative.

Accordingly, as though such a miracle were to be expected, or at least not disdained, knowing that any original house where Shakspeare used to meet his cotemporary wits, could not possibly exist, and thinking himself the picture to be alienated before the fire, he absolutely seems to have imagined it possible, that the Flemish painting might have been brought back to a new house erected on the old site, and sets out on the most forlorn of all expeditions, to hunt after the effects of any modern landlords of the new Boar's Head in Eastcheap.

A Mr. Sloman had quitted this celebrated public-house in 1776,

contributed exceedingly. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonish'd, that, from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr'd to quench it; so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them."-Vol. i. p. 371.