the last stroke of his wisdom, or his wit. {189a} Of course there is
no evidence that he wrote the mean and vulgar curse: that he did is
only the pious hope of the Baconians and Anti-Willians.

Into the question of the alleged portraits of Shakespeare I cannot
enter. Ben spoke well of the engraving prefixed to the First Folio,
but Ben, as Mr. Greenwood says, was anxious to give the Folio "a good
send-off." The engraving is choicely bad; we do not know from what
actual portrait, if from any, it was executed. Richard Burbage is
known to have amused himself with the art of design; possibly he
tried his hand on a likeness of his old friend and fellow-actor. If
so, he may have succeeded no better than Mary Stuart's embroiderer,
Oudry, in his copy of the portrait of her Majesty.

That Ben Jonson was painted by Honthorst and others, while
Shakespeare, as far as we know, was not, has nothing to do with the
authorship of the plays. Ben was a scholar, the darling of both
Universities; constantly employed about the Court in arranging
Masques; his learning and his Scottish blood may have led James I to
notice him. Ben, in his later years, was much in society;
fashionable and literary. He was the father of the literary "tribe
of Ben." Thus he naturally sat for his portrait. In the same way
George Buchanan has, and had, nothing like the fame of Knox. But as
a scholar he was of European reputation; haunted the Court as tutor
of his King, and was the "good pen" of the anti-Marian nobles,
Murray, Morton, and the rest. Therefore Buchanan's portrait was
painted, while of Knox we have only a woodcut, done, apparently,
after his death, from descriptions, for Beza's Icones. The Folio
engraving may have no better source. Without much minute research it
is hard to find authentic portraits of Mary Stuart, and, just as in