{39} But he had not the
courage to express that wish, and after the passage which I am about
to quote, abruptly changes the subject. He says, "The man who wrote
the four lines [of epitaph] which have thus far secured his bones
that rest which his epitaph demands, omitted nothing likely to carry
the whole plan into effect. The authorship of the epitaph cannot be
doubted, unless another man in England had the wit and wisdom to
divine the loyal heart's core of its people, and touch it in the
single appeal 'for Jesus sake.' Nothing else has kept him out of
Westminster [Abbey]. The style of the command and curse are
Shakespearian, and triumphant as any art of forethought in his
plays." Then follows on--without even the break of a paragraph--not
what naturally should have followed, and MUST have been in Mr.
Page's mind, but a citation of Chantrey and John Bell, as to the
model from which the Bust was made. Possibly it is due to the
omission of a sentence, which once intervened between the remarks on
the remains and those which concern the Bust of Shakespeare, that we
have now two totally different matters in juxtaposition, and in the
same paragraph. In this Death-Mask Mr. Page saw the reconciliation
of the Bust, the Droeshout print (in its best state), and the
Chandos portrait. I do not meddle with that opinion, or the
evidences upon which it rests.
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