Bacon is Shake-Speare | Page 9

the other two parties to the documents, the signatures are most beautifully written and are almost absolutely identical in the two deeds.
Look at these two supposititious signatures. To myself it is difficult to imagine that anyone with eyes to see could suppose them to be signatures by the same hand.
[Illustration: The Signatures (so called) of "Shakespeare," which are the best possible reproductions of the originals, and shew that all are written in "lawscript" by skilled penman.]
Note on the so-called "Signatures."
When part of the purchase money is what is commonly called "left on mortgage," the mortgage deed is always dated one day after, but is always signed one moment before, the purchase deed, because the owner will not part with his property before he receives his security.
The Shakespeare purchase deed and the mortgage deed were therefore both signed at the same time, in the same place, with the same pen, and the same ink.
This is evidently true with respect to the signatures of Wm. Johnson and Jno. Jackson, the other parries to both of the deeds.
But as I wrote to the City authorities and the British Museum authorities, it would be impossible to discover a scoundrel who would venture to perjure himself and falsely swear that it was even remotely possible that the two supposed signature of Wm. Shakespeare could have been written at the same time, in the same place, with the same pen, and the same ink, by the same hand.
They are widely different, one having been written by the law clerk of the seller, the other by the law clerk of the purchaser.
According to the law of England, anyone may (by request) attach any person's name to any document, and if that person touch it, any third person may witness it as a signature.
Some years ago by the courtesy of the Corporation of London, the Librarian and the Chairman of the Library Committee carried the Purchase Deed to the British Museum to place it side by side with the Mortgage Deed there.
After they had with myself and the Museum Authorities most carefully examined the two deeds, the Librarian of the City Corporation said to me, there is no reason to suppose that the Corporation deed has upon it the signature of Wm. Shakespeare, and the British Museum Authorities likewise told me that they did not think that the Museum Mortgage Deed had upon it a signature of William Shakespeare.
The more you examine the whole five the more you will be certain, as the writer is, after the most careful study of the Will and of the Deeds, that not one of the five writings is a "signature," or pretends to be a "signature," and that therefore there is a probability, practically amounting to a certainty, that the Stratford Actor could not so much as manage to scrawl his own name.
No! We possess not a scrap of writing, not even an attempt at a signature, [see also Chapter XIV., p. 161] that can be reasonably supposed to be written by the Stratford gentleman.
He is styled "gentle Shakespeare": this does not refer to anything relating to his character or to his manners but it means that possessing a coat of arms he was legally entitled to call himself a "gentleman."
Chapter IV.
Contemporary Allusions to Shackspere.
Shakspeare the Actor purchased New Place at Stratford-on-Avon in 1597 for ��60 and he became a "gentleman" and an esquire when he secured a grant of arms in 1599.
How did the stage "honour" the player who had bought a coat of arms and was able to call himself a "gentleman"?
Three contemporary plays give us scenes illustrating the incident:
1st. Ben Jonson's "Every man out of his humour" which was acted in 1599 the very year of Shakspeare's grant of arms.
2nd. Shakespeare's "As you like it" which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1600, although no copy is known to exist before the folio of 1623.
3rd. "The Return from Parnassus" which was acted at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1601, though not printed till 1606.
In addition to these three plays, there is a fourth evidence of the way in which the Clown who had purchased a coat of arms was regarded, in a pamphlet or tract of which only one copy is known to exist. This tract which can be seen in the Rylands Library, Manchester, used to be in Lord Spencer's library at Althorp, and is reprinted by Halliwell-Phillipps in "Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare," 1889, Vol. I, pages 325-6.
[Illustration: PLATE XV. Bacon's Crest from the Binding of a Presentation Copy of the Novum Organum, 1620.]
To commence with Ben Jonson's "Every man out of his humour." The clown who had purchased a coat of arms is said to be the brother of Sordido (a miser), and is described as an "essential" clown (that is an uneducated rustic),