The Cobbe portrait
Sir, – Katherine Duncan-Jones attempts to revive David Piper’s ill-founded
suggestion of 1964 and 1982 that the Cobbe portrait portrays not William
Shakespeare but Sir Thomas Overbury (March 20). Piper claimed that an “early
inventory” of the Ellenborough collection, sold in 1947, “lists a portrait
of Overbury”; but his reference leads to a list of pictures belonging to the
Delabere family. No portrait of Overbury is recorded in the Ellenborough
collection, and Piper merely footnoted the fact that their portrait was sold
with a traditional identification as Shakespeare.
Duncan-Jones, noting resemblance, suggests that the Cobbe copies the Bodleian
portrait of Overbury. No art historian has made this claim; the different
compositions make it extremely unlikely. The doublets are completely
different, and direct examination reveals a cloak over Overbury’s left
shoulder. Unlike engravers, painters normally copied faithfully. In any
case, perceived resemblance unsupported by documentary evidence is a naive
(though natural) basis for identification. Different people can look alike.
De Critz’s portrait of Sir Walter Cope, for example, bears an uncanny
resemblance to Van Somer’s of James I. Anyhow, Overbury’s nose is more
beaky, his chin jutting, and his neck thicker. Overbury was notorious; it
would be astonishing if none of the numerous versions had come down without
his name.
We do not merely “claim” the Cobbe as the original of four surviving copies;
this has been conclusively demonstrated through independent scientific
investigation. It is not true that we provide “no dates or sources” for the
“long traditions” that the portrait represents Shakespeare; they are
discussed at length in the exhibition guide. The major source of the
tradition is the Janssen (or Folger) portrait, altered early to reduce the
hair, as recorded in a copy of around 1630, which belonged to the first
Marquess of Dorchester (1606–80).
The Folger portrait has been “altered” not “at various times”, only once. When
this alteration – removed in 1988 – was discovered in the 1940s, it was
assumed to have been made to enhance a likeness to the Droeshout engraving.
Our discovery that the alteration was early re-authenticates the Folger as a
genuine portrait of Shakespeare, updated within living memory of him.
The inscription includes an exclamation mark, which, according to
Duncan-Jones, is “highly unusual”. But there is one in, for instance, an
inscription on Thomas Jenner’s 1622 engraving of the family of James I.
Duncan-Jones claims that “the man portrayed . . . appears far too grand and
courtier-like to be Shakespeare”. But “Master William Shakespeare’s” family
had a coat of arms, displayed on his monument and his daughter Susanna’s
seal. From the age of thirty-three he owned a grand house in Stratford,
where he bought 107 acres of land for £320 in 1602, three years later paying
£440 for an interest in the tithes and, in 1613, £140 for the Blackfriars
Gatehouse. His will is that of a wealthy man, his memorial elaborate. His
colleague and collaborator, John Fletcher, was no less splendidly portrayed
in 1620.
Duncan-Jones thinks the man in the picture looks younger than forty-six. But
inscribed ages frequently differ from what appearance might suggest.
Portrait painters flattered. Attempting to deny the portrait’s wide
dissemination, she says “A single 1770 mezzotint of ‘Shakespeare’ derives
from the ‘Folger’ portrait, in its doctored, balder, version, but that seems
to be all”. It is not. The Folger Shakespeare Library owns a copy of the
Staunton portrait, c.1770, and an early nineteenth-century copy after the
mezzotint; a copy on canvas was engraved in 1824; another of about 1763–4
belonged to the Duke of Anhalt; M. H. Spielmann discussed others, most now
untraced, in articles for The Connoisseur in 1910 and 1912. The composition
spawned many engravings during the later eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Even the Chandos Portrait of Shakespeare in the National Portrait
Gallery seems to have generated fewer early copies.
Duncan-Jones waves away our suggestion that the Cobbe portrait was the basis
for Droeshout’s 1623 engraving, where the sitter is only slightly less
richly dressed. Certainly Droeshout appears to have simplified the image,
updated the collar, and given Shakespeare less hair, possibly reflecting his
later appearance. He was keen enough to catch the cast in Shakespeare’s left
eye, not present in the Overbury portrait. But engravers commonly simplified
and updated; the Droeshout was copied for Benson’s 1640 Poems with equally
drastic changes. Compositionally, the 1623 engraving and the Cobbe portrait
match perfectly.
Katherine Duncan-Jones ignores most of the recently unearthed evidence on this
fascinating portrait. Her recycling of flawed twentieth-century arguments
does nothing to diminish our case, based on much earlier evidence, that the
portrait represents Shakespeare.
MARK BROCH, PAUL EDMONDSON, STANLEY WELLS
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shakespeare Centre, Henley Street,
Stratford-upon-Avon.
The Lit & Phil
Sir, – My friend Edmund Smith (Letters, March 20) indicates clearly the core
reasons for the proposed merger between the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Mining Institute: the need to raise
funds to repair and maintain these adjacent buildings and secure the future
of the invaluable institutions which they house. I’ve been a member of the
Lit & Phil for almost twenty years, and I doubt if many people would
oppose the aim Smith describes. What seems to have generated disquiet is the
prospect of the membership losing control of the institution by allowing the
creation of a new, largely non-elected board. Why such a move would be
necessary has not been made clear. If I want to gain the help of experts in
raising funds for my institution, why should such help entail my renouncing
control of my affairs? A properly accountable board for the merged Lit &
Phil and Mining Institute would seem to be the rational way forward, and one
which a majority of members might well support. Otherwise, experience
suggests that it is, to put it mildly, unwise to rely on the good intentions
of those not formally obliged to act according to our wishes.
It has been pointed out to me that the membership is largely inactive in the
affairs of the library. Perhaps the present situation will lead to greater
involvement, but the problems we face certainly do not provide a reason to
remove control from the membership. In the meantime, rumour and anxiety feed
on each other. I believe that a large and idiosyncratic library is a
self-evident good, but we can all think of people working in what Adorno
christened the Culture Industry who might feel differently and who would be
unable to prevent themselves acting on that feeling, given the opportunity
and given the huge potential for “development” offered by two wonderful
buildings in the centre of Newcastle.
SEAN O’BRIEN
School of English, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Maurice Bowra
Sir, – Towards the end of his full and notably courteous review of Leslie
Mitchell’s biography of Maurice Bowra, Anthony Kenny (March 20) draws
attention to some of the book’s failings (though not to its surprising
howlers, which it is also to be hoped will be corrected in the paperback
edition). There is, however, a grievous omission in the book: there is no
mention in the text of Bowra’s Greek Lyric Poetry of 1936 (second edition,
much improved, 1960), which, for all its shortcomings, was a pioneering work
of real importance without parallel in the English language. Hugh
Lloyd-Jones has given a fair, if severe, appreciation of it, and of Bowra’s
classical work as a whole – perhaps most accessible in Blood for the Ghosts,
an outstanding account of Bowra’s career which deserved more than an
indirect reference in Mitchell’s Select Bibliography.
J. H. C. LEACH
159 Southwood Lane, London N6.
Consolations
Sir, – I am inviting suggestions and contributions for a fundraising anthology
of Poems of Consolation for the Chronically Ill and in Pain. The standard is
set by poets who have themselves been seriously ill: e.g., Emily Dickinson’s
“There is a pain – so utter – / It swallows substance up” and Po Chü-i’s “I
have been ill so long that I do not count the days”, as well as poems that
inspire through metaphor (Tomas Tranströmer’s “Tracks” – “2 a.m.: moonlight.
The train has stopped . . . ”) and celebration of life (Mary Oliver’s “Wild
Geese”): JohnAndrewDenny@aol.com
JOHN ANDREW DENNY
Bond’s Pool Cottage, Bond’s Pool, Langport.
Godfrey’s Cordial
Sir, – H. R. Woudhuysen’s piece on the Bonhams sale of material associated
with Benjamin Godfrey Windus (March 20) collides with a curious set of
related circumstances. Windus is mentioned in Ruskin’s Praeterita, and he
inherited the patent for Godfrey’s Cordial, as the reviewer mentions.
Ruskin, alas, did not finish Praeterita, but in various places he left
behind lists of projected chapters. One such list was in a letter to Lady
Simon of January 16, 1887. He writes: “One chapter was to be ‘Count
Godfrey’s Cliff’ but it can’t be, because of Godfrey’s cordial”. He was
obviously sensitive about being associated with a banal quack medicine. It
has never been explained what Count Godfrey’s Cliff was. The answer is that
it was the citadel in Boulogne, occupied by one of the Nine Worthies,
Godfrey of Bouillon. Ruskin celebrates Count Godfrey a number of times in
his writings. The chapter, had it been written, would probably have balanced
another unwritten chapter: “Shakespeare’s Cliff” (in Dover), in which Ruskin
would have given his final summation of the condition of England.
BERNARD RICHARDS
Brasenose College, Oxford.
‘Metroland’
Sir, – For those of your readers with a bibliophilic nature, the art work for
Julian Barnes’s first novel Metroland, as pictured in NB (March 6), was for
the cover of the 1980 edition, made available exclusively to members of
Foyles Book Club. The Jonathan Cape and St Martin’s Press editions published
the same year feature a black dust jacket with the title in silver lettering
reminiscent of the Underground map.
RYAN ROBERTS
Lincoln Land Community College, 5250 Shepherd Road, Springfield, Illinois
62794.
Botched Beckett?
Sir, – I strongly disagree with Jim McCue’s letter (March 20). I consider The
Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929–1940 to be beautifully presented,
meticulously edited and a delight to handle. The letters themselves are set
out in a large font, the notes at the end of each letter in a smaller font.
The volume has two helpful introductions, and fascinating French and German
translators’ prefaces. It provides an intriguing window on to Beckett’s
world. Moreover, it is reasonably priced. Cambridge University Press can be
justly proud.
ROBERT BURGESS
52 Fitzroy Avenue, Kingsgate, Broadstairs.
