Page:An Inquiry into the Authenticity of certain Papers and Instruments attributed to Shakspeare.djvu/41

Rh recovered.—Here we have the germ and first principle of the Letter from Elizabeth to Shakspeare, now before us.

late excellent and ever-lamented friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, used to maintain, that even in fancy-pieces no painter should attempt to delineate the human figure without a model before him, however he might deviate from it; for by this means he would always be preserved from running into wildness and extravagance. Though the fabricator of several of these papers (as I have already observed) had in his thoughts, an imaginary archetype which gave birth to his performance, and after which he wrought, yet when he came to the execution, and was obliged actually to exhibit the hand-writing of Queen Elizabeth, Southampton, Heminge, Condell and Lowin, he had no archetype whatsoever: that is, he had never seen any of the hand-writing of Elizabeth, but her sign-manual, (which he has imitated most miserably,) nor the hand-writing of Southampton and the rest at all. Hence in every part of their Letters, &c. (excepting only the Queen’s autograph,) you may observe the wild flutter of fiction; or in