Note 37 — SHAKESPEARE’S BONES.

There is no engraving by “Dunbar”: that name was Friswell’s mistake for Dunkarton. Boaden’s “absolute fac-simile” and “no difference whatever,” (Inquiry, 1. p., page 137) are expressions not borne out by the engravings. My old friend, the Rev. Charles Evans, Rector of Solihull, who possesses the almost unrivalled Marsh Collection of Engraved Portraits of Shakespeare, at my request compared Cooper’s engraving of the Croker portrait with those by Dunkarton, Earlom, and Turner, of the Janssen: and he writes: “In the Cooper the face is peaked, the beard more pointed, and the ruff different in the points.” After all, such differences may well be the creation of the engravers. I would fain know where the Croker portrait now is; and also that which belonged to the late Dr. Turton, Bishop of Ely.