Portrait of William Shakespeare (1564–1616) engraved by the Flemish artist Martin Droeshout (born c. 1570); from the title page to the first folio edition of Shakespeare's works (1623).

Ben Jonson comments on the limited force of this image in his squib printed on the opposite page:

            To the Reader.
This Figure, that thou here seest put,
    It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the Graver had a strife
    with Nature, to out-doo the life:
O, could he but have drawne his wit
    As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face; the Print would then surpasse
    All, that was ever writ in brasse.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
    Not on his Picture, but his Booke.