Mr. William Sharp quotes a letter of Joseph Severn, written a day or two after the death of Keats, in which he said to Charles Armitage Brown, “Yesterday a gentleman came to cast the face, hand, and foot” of Keats. And on the 3d of April, 1821, John Taylor wrote to Severn from London for “the mask, hand, and foot.” The later history of these interesting casts I have never been able to learn. The original cast of the life-mask of Keats, made in Haydon’s studio, and very much finer than any of the replicas of it, is in the possession of the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was given by Keats himself to his intimate friend John Hamilton Reynolds, just before Keats went abroad to die. Reynolds bequeathed it to his sister, Miss Charlotte Reynolds, by whom it was presented, with a clear pedigree, to the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery. This cast, with the mask of Cromwell, and a copy of the mask of Dr. Johnson, are, curiously enough, the only life-masks or death-masks in the institution in question. The printed portraits of Johnson are very many. He himself said, once, of the painting by Trotter, “Well, thou art an ugly fellow; but still, I believe thou art like the original.” George Kearsley wrote that “his face was capable of great expression, both in respect to intelligence and mildness, as all those can witness who have seen him in the flow of conversation, or under the influence of grateful feelings;” and Bishop Percy wrote, “Johnson’s countenance, when in good humor, was not disagreeable. His face clear, his complexion good, and his features not ill-formed; many ladies have thought he might not have been unattractive when young.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The original of the mask of Johnson belongs to the Royal Literary Fund, the secretary of which, Mr. A. Llewellyn Roberts, in giving his consent to the reproduction of it here, writes as follows concerning it: “It was taken from a cast after death, under the direction of Dr. Johnson’s medical attendant, Mr. Cruikshanks, who informed his daughter, into whose possession it came, that it was a remarkably correct likeness. Unfortunately there is no record of the artist’s name, but it is alleged that each member of Dr. Johnson’s family had a copy.” This particular copy was given to the Royal Literary Fund by William Hutchins, who lived in Hanover Square. There is no reference to the taking of the mask of Johnson to be found in any of the editions of Boswell’s _Life_ of the great lexicographer.