Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown by Andrew Lang
page 139 of 246 (56%)
page 139 of 246 (56%)
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"take care, according to his ability, that the monument shall become
as like as possible to what it was when first erected." This appears to have been the idea of Mr. Greene. Another form of words was later adopted, directing Mr. Hall, the painter, "to repair and beautify, or to have the direction of repairing and beautifying, THE ORIGINAL MONUMENT of Shakespeare the poet." Mrs. Stopes infers, justly in my opinion, that Hall "would fill up the gaps, restore what was amissing as he thought it ought to be, and finally repaint it according to the original colours, traces of which he might still be able to see." In his History and Antiquities of Stratford-on-Avon, {182a} Mr. Wheler tells us that this was what Hall did. "In the year 1748 the monument was carefully repaired, and the original colours of the bust, &c., as much as possible preserved by Mr. John Hall, limner, of Stratford." It follows that we see the original monument and bust, but the painting is of 1861, for the bust, says Wheler, was in 1793 "painted in white," to please Malone. It was repainted in 1861. Mrs. Stopes, unluckily, is not content with what Hall was told to do, and what, according to Wheler, he did. She writes: "It would only be giving good value for his money" (12 pounds, 10s.) "to his churchwardens if Hall added (sic) a cloak, a pen, and manuscript." He "could not help changing" the face, and so on. Now it was physically impossible to ADD a cloak, a pen, and manuscript to such a stone bust as Dugdale's man shows; to take away the cushion pressed to the stomach, and to alter the head. Mr. Hall, if he was to give us the present bust, had to make an entirely new bust, and, to give us the present monument in place of that shown in Dugdale's print, had to construct an entirely new monument. Now Hall |
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