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Page 18
[Footnote 24: Germain Bapst, "Histoire des Joyaux de la Couronne de
France", Paris, 1889, pp. 175, 176, 300, 304.]
Thierry Badouer, a German goldsmith-jeweller, received from the French
court, in 1572, an order for 250,000 crowns' worth of jewels to be
distributed as gifts at the approaching marriage of Henri de Navarre
with Marguerite de Valois. He faithfully executed his part of the task
and brought the jewels with him to Paris, but before he had been able
to deliver them to the Royal Treasury they were stolen from him during
the confusion of the St. Bartholomew Massacre. Eventually, in the
reign of Henri IV, his widow was partly reimbursed for the loss,
receiving one-quarter of the amount of her claim.[25] After the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and as a result of it, many Protestants
and Catholics left France for Hanau, Germany, where to this day they
carry on the jeweller's art; and from this beginning Hanau became a
jeweller's centre.
[Footnote 25: Op. cit., p. 289.]
The best reproduction of the First Folio of 1623 is the photographic
facsimile, made in 1902, of the copy formerly owned by the Duke of
Devonshire and now in the possession of Henry E. Huntington, of New
York.[26] The original Folio, prepared by the managers of
Shakespeare's company, John Heminge and Henry Condell, bears the
imprint of Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, the printing house being
conducted by William Jaggard and his son Isaac. It is believed that an
edition of five hundred copies was issued, at one pound per copy. That
the publication was essentially a commercial venture, although it may
also have been a labor of love for some of the editors, is brought out
clearly and quaintly in the preface addressed to "The great Variety
of Readers", and signed by Heminge and Condell. This reads that the
book was printed at the charges of W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, I.
Southweeke, and W. Apsley, 1623. The following passage from the
preface is well worth quoting, its spirit is so delightfully modern:
The fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities,
and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well!
It is now publique, & you wil stand for your priviledges,
wee know: to read, and censure.[27] Do so, but buy it
first. That doth best commend a Booke the Stationer
sales. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your
wisdomes, make your license the same and spare not.... But
whatever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a
Trade, nor make the Jacke go.
[Footnote 26: "Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, being a
reproduction in facsimile of the First Folio Edition of 1623, from the
Chatsworth copy in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G.,
with introduction and censure of copies by Sidney Lee". Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1902, XXXV 908 pp. Edition limited to 1000 numbered
and signed copies.]
[Footnote 27: Judge.]
The chief credit for bringing together the materials for the First
Folio, in 1623, is believed to be due to William Jaggard. Some ten
years earlier he had acquired the printing-privileges of certain of
the quartos. Edward Blount, whose name appears as publisher on the
title page with that of Isaac Jaggard, was merely a stationer, so that
the actual printing was solely under the charge of the latter, who
seems, at this time, to have been entrusted with this department of
the business. However, Blount's services may have been valuable since
he had better literary taste than the Jaggards possessed.
In spite of certain evident faults of proportion, the portrait of
Shakespeare engraved by Martin Droeshout for the title page of the
1623 Folio bears internal evidence of being a fairly good likeness,
for the face possesses a marked individuality. There is a belief that
it was taken from the so-called "Flower" portrait, now in the
Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-upon-Avon, and which is
conjectured to have been painted in 1609, at least during
Shakespeare's lifetime, possibly by another Martin Droeshout, a
Fleming, uncle of the engraver of the same name. This portrait was
discovered, painted on a panel at Peckham Rye, bearing the inscription
"Will Shakespeare^n, 1609". That it should be the original from which
the Droeshout engraving was taken has been doubted, since it appears
rather to resemble later states of the plate than earlier ones. While
Ben Jonson, who had seen Shakespeare so often, may have been partly
moved to bestow undue praise upon the Folio portrait, in the lines he
furnished the publishers to be placed immediately facing it, by his
wish to say a good word for their publication, he would scarcely have
made use of such superlative terms had he not considered it to be at
least a fairly good likeness. Jonson's lines have been so often
printed that few are unacquainted with them, but as illustrating the
above remarks they can be repeated here, in the old spelling and form
of the First Folio:
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