Though this volume is already twice as thick as I would have had it, I must add a few words concerning the portraits of Bacon; a subject which has not received the attention which it deserves, and upon which, if picture-dealers and collectors and inheritors of family portraits would take an interest in it, some valuable light might probably be thrown. The portrait in the front of the volume is taken from an old engraving by Simon Pass; which came, (as Mr. Smith of Lisle Street informed me, from whom I bought it some years ago,) out of a broken-up copy of Holland's Baziliologia.1 The original has a border, bearing the words HONORATISS: D. FRANCISCUS BACON EQUES AU: MAG: SIGILL: ANGL: Above are his arms, with the motto MONITI MEBelow the chancellor's bag, on which the left hand rests. These accessories, as being presumably the device of the engraver and not suitable to the modern style which has been preferred for the copy, have been dispensed with; but the inscription underneath has been copied verbatim 2, and enables us to fix the date of the work. Bacon was created Lord Chancellor on the 4th of January, 1617-18, and Baron Verulam on the 12th of the following July; and as it is not to be supposed that his newest title would have been omitted on such an occasion, we may infer with tolerable certainty that the engraving was published during the first half of the year 1618. Below this inscription are engraved in small letters the words "Simon Passæus sculpsit L. Are to be sould by John Sudbury and George Humble at the signe of the white horse in Pope's head Ally." The plate appears to have been used afterwards for a frontispiece to the Sylva Sylvarum, which was published in 1627, the year after Bacon's death. At least I have a copy of the second 'This work was published in 1618; and though one would not expect from the title to find Bacon there, Brunet mentions a copy in the Biblioth. du Roi at Paris “qui, outre les portraits qui composent ordinairement le recueil, renferme encore d'autres portraits du même genre, representants des reines, des princes du sang, et des seigneurs de la cour des Rois Jacques Ier et Charles Ior," &c. The copy in the British Museum has no portrait of Bacon; but as the plates are not numbered, and there is no table of contents, one cannot be sure that any copy is perfect. 2 The righte Honourable Sr Frauncis Bacon knight, Lorde highe Chancellour of Englande and one of his Maties most hon ble privie Counsell. edition of that work (1628) in which the same print is inserted, only with the border and inscription altered; the title which originally surrounded it, together with the Chancellor's bag and the names of the engraver and publishers, being erased; the coat of arms altered; and the words underneath being changed to The right Honble Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount St Alban. Mortuus 9° Aprilis, Anno Dni 1626, Annoq Aetat. 66. It is probable that the rapid demand for the Sylva Sylvarum wore out the plate; for none of the later editions which I have seen contain any portrait at all; and that which was prefixed to the Resuscitatio in 1657, though undoubtedly meant to be a fac-simile of Simon Pass's engraving, has been so much altered in the process of restoration, that I took it for a fresh copy until Mr. Holl showed me that it was only the old plate retouched. The lower part of the face has entirely lost its individuality and physiognomical character; the outline of the right cheek has not been truly followed; that of the nose has lost its shapeliness and delicacy; and the first line-andhalf of the inscription underneath has apparently been erased in order to give the name and titles in Latin. Nevertheless the adoption by Dr. Rawley of this print sufficiently authenticates it as a likeness at that time approved; only the likeness must of course be looked for in the plate as Simon Pass left it, not in restorations or copies. This Mr. Holl has endeavoured faithfully, and in my opinion very successfully, to reproduce; it being understood however that his aim has been to give as exact a resemblance as he could, not of the old engraving (the style of which has little to recommend it), but of the man whom the engraving repre sents. I selected this likeness by preference, partly because original impressions are scarce, and none of the others which I have seen give a tolerable idea of it; whereas the rival portrait by Van Somer is very fairly represented by the engraving in Lodge's collection; but chiefly because I have some reason to suspect that it was made from a painting by Cornelius in Janssen, and some hope that the original is still in existence and that this notice may lead to the discovery of it. Janssen is said to have come over to England in 1618, the year which, as I have said, the engraving must have been published. Bacon did sit for his portrait to somebody (but it may no doubt have been to Van Somer) about that time; at least 337, was "paid to the picture drawer for his Lp's picture," on the 12th of September, 1618. Now I have in my possession an engraving in mezzotinto, purporting to be a portrait of Bacon, representing him in the same position and attitude, and the same dress (only that the figure on the vest is dif ferent), and having a similar oval frame with the same kind of border. In the left-hand corner, where the painter's name is usually given, are the words Cornelius Johnson pincit. The engraver's name is not stated; but there is evidence on the face of the work that he was a poor performer. In all points which require accuracy of eye and hand, and a feeling of the form to be described, it differs much from Pass's work, and is very inferior; but in those which the most unskilful artist need never miss, such as the quantity of face shown, the disposition of the hair, and generally what may be called the composition of the picture, there is no more difference between the two than may be well accounted for by the difficulty which is often found in ascertaining the true outlines of the obscure parts of a dark or damaged picture, or by the alterations which an engraver will often introduce when the size of his plate obliges him to cut off the lower part of the figure. The hat, for instance, which is dark against a dark background, sits differently on the head; sits in fact (in the mezzotint) as it could not possibly have done in nature; and the flap of the brim follows a somewhat different line, though the irregularity is of the same kind; also the light and shadow are differently distributed over the folds of the frill; the fur hangs differently; the figure is cut off too short to admit the VOL. I. Sce a book of accounts preserved in the State Paper Office. a hand; and the ribbon round the neck, the lower part of which is concealed in Pass's print, is changed into a George and Garter. But such varieties as these are of ordinary occurrence in copies of the same picture by different hands ; especially where one copier is attending chiefly to the outlines of the forms without caring to represent the effect of the picture (the practice I think of engravers in Simon Pass's time), and the other is attending to the effect of the picture without caring, or without being able, to preserve the individual details, according to the practice of the popular engravers of the eighteenth century; whereas in two independent and original portraits of the same face the correspondencies which I have mentioned can hardly occur. But however that may be, this mezzotinto appears at least to prove that when it was made there was in existence a portrait which somebody believed to be a portrait of Bacon by Cornelius Johnson,- that is (no doubt) Cornelius Janssen. When it was made becomes therefore an interesting question; and I regret to say that it is a question which I have no data for determining, beyond the fact that it is in mezzotinto (an art of comparatively modern invention); that it was "sold by J. Cooper in James Street Covent Garden ;" and that there was an English engraver called Richard Cooper, who flourished about the year 1763, and among whose engravings a portrait of Francis Bacon Lord Keeper and Chancellor is mentioned as one.2 With reference to this subject of portraits, I may add that the various engravings of Bacon are all (with one exception which I will mention presently) derived directly or through successive copies from one or other of two originals. One is Simon Pass's print; the features of which may be traced through many generations of copies, each less like than its predecessor; though always to be identified by the hat with irregular brim curving upwards towards the sides, and If the original picture really has was not a portrait of Bacon at all. turned out to be a Charles I. this badge, we may conclude, I suppose, that it And I should not be very much surprised if it 2 See Bryan's Painters and Engravers, bound with a scarf. mer; the same I suppose that Aubrey saw at Gorhambury in 1656; which has become the parent of two separate families; one wearing a hat with a brim describing a regu lar curve downwards towards the sides, which sufficiently distinguishes it from Pass's portrait; the other without any hat; the composition being in other respects the same. Of both these the originals are at Gorhambury; and they are both ascribed to Van Somer. But the latter is so very inferior to the former in every quality of art, that unless there be some evidence of the fact more to be relied on than an ordinary family tradition, I shall never be able to believe that it is by the same hand. It seems to me far more probable that at some later period when the fashion of painting people with the head covered had gone out, some one, wishing to have a portrait of Bacon without his hat, employed the nearest artist to make a copy of Van Somer's picture (Van Somer himself died in 1621, two or three years after it was painted, about the time when Bacon was in the Tower) with that alteration; and that this is the work he produced. That he was not a skilful artist is sufficiently apparent from the execution of those parts which were intended to be copies; the peculiar character and expression of eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth, being entirely missed; and the whole handling being weak and poor, and without any sense of form. Moreover the hair is of a different texture; and although we have neither any description nor any drawing of the upper part of Bacon's full-grown head, we know what it was like in his boyhood from two very admirable representations, quite independent of each other and yet exactly agreeing; and it is plain that such a head could never have grown into a shape at all like that which the painter has invented. The other is a portrait by Van So However, they were both called portraits by Van Somer; and the first (which is a very good work, as far as the painting goes) was engraved by Houbraken; the last by Vertue. Unfortunately, these two artists, whose style of |