Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Marshall, William (fl.1630-1650)
MARSHALL, WILLIAM (fl. 1630–1650), the most prolific of the early English engravers, worked throughout the reign of Charles I. He confined himself entirely to the illustration of books, and the portraits and title-pages which he executed for Moseley and other booksellers are extremely numerous. Some of Marshall's plates are engraved with miniature-like delicacy and finish, and have a pleasing effect; but the majority, probably on account of the low rate of remuneration at which he was compelled to work, are coarse and unsatisfactory; the portraits in Fuller's 'Holy State,' 1642, are particularly poor. From the monotony in the style of his ornaments it is concluded that Marshall worked chiefly from his own designs. Among his many portraits, which are valued on account of their scarcity and historical interest, the best are those of John Donne at the age of eighteen (frontispiece to his 'Poems,' 1635); John Milton at the age of twenty-one, with some Greek lines by the poet, in which he sarcastically alludes to the elderly appearance which Marshall has given him ('Juvenile Poems,' 1645); Shakespeare ('Plays,' 1640); Francis Bacon ('Advancement of Learning,' 1640); Charles I on horseback; Sir Thomas Fairfax on horseback, after E. Bower, 1647; Archbishop Ussher; Nathaniel Bernard, S.T.P.; Charles Saltonstall ('Art of Navigation,' 1642); Sir Robert Stapylton (translation of Strada's 'De Bello Belgico,' 1650); Joannes Banfi; and Bathusa Making, governess to Princess Elizabeth. At the Sykes sale Marshall's portrait of William Alexander, earl of Stirling ('Recreation of the Muses,' 1637) fetched twenty guineas, and that of Margaret Smith, lady Herbert (the only impression known), twenty-five guineas. The title-page to Braithwait's 'Arcadian Princess,' 1635, is perhaps the best of his plates of that class, and the emblematical frontispiece to Εἰκών Βασιλικὴ, 1648, the most familiar.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Dodd's Memoirs of English Engravers, in Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 33403.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.195
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 251 | i | 27 | Marshall, William (fl. 1630-1650): for 'Plays' read 'Poems' |