other adored William-the archer patriot, so sweet to our boyhood days-that brave William Tell, who seemed once to be as firmly fixed in history as the snow-clad Alps and as immortal as the spirit of liberty that dwells among them. But alas! William Tell was a fraud and a lie. If it did, Pope Joan would be restored to the list of Roman pontiffs, and the Protestant Reformation would not have wiped out a lie once so generally believed. Yes, if it did, the reader and I, if then living, would have been educated to fraternize with the Inquisition and would have thought it no crime to force Galileo on his knees to renounce the sublime truths of his scientific creed.

Many persons, without special examination, accept William Shaksper as the author of the plays and poems upon the belief that he was different from all other men in that he possessed supernatural powers; that, without education, application to study and training, he, William Shaksper, was gifted with the faculty of knowing intuitively everything worth knowing in literature, history, science, and art, through the intervention of some superhuman or divine authority. There is an instance recorded in Holy Writ of the very natural surprise of the Jews, when the Carpenter's Son went into the temple and taught the people, causing them to exclaim, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" On that occasion the Jews, not recognizing the God-man, expressed the true view as to a mere man; but there is no instance in the history of the world where a man, without learning and barely able to write his name, was proficient in the arts and sciences and in the knowledge of those governing principles in nature and man's relation to his fellow man which can only be acquired by careful and persistent study.

If to-day in any of our Courts of Justice the question should arise as to the ability of a man named William Shaksper to write thousands upon thousands of pages of manuscript such as only a learned man can write, and a sample of his handwriting, made at the age of forty years, was produced for examination, the facsimile thereof, taken from Malone's "Inquiry," a Shaksperite authority, being as set out at the end of this sentence, any unprejudiced judge or jury of experts would pronounce the signature that of a very illiterate man.

Melland

An experienced and well-read lawyer would put on his spectacles, and after carefully examining the writing would address the court as follows: "Your Honor, this facsimile at first reminded me of what the Scottish advocate, Paulus Pleydell, said to Guy Mannering when the note from Meg Merrilies was put into his hands for examination, 'A vile, miserable scrawl indeed, and the letters are uncial or semiuncial, as somebody calls your large text hand, and in size and perpendicularity resemble the ribs of a roasted pig'; but upon consideration I am inclined to the opinion that I can more truthfully apply to this wretched writing what Dickens said of the note received by Mrs. Tibbs from Mrs. Bloss, 'The writing looks like a skein of thread in a tangle.' It surely shows that Shaksper was an illiterate fellow."

The doctor of divinity or of medicine, examining that signature, would say, "I must admit that this specimen

of handwriting strongly militates against the claim for Shaksper. The letters of the surname are so far apart and so badly formed that they show that the writer was very illiterate and unaccustomed to writing. If what you have shown me is a facsimile of Shaksper's handwriting, he was not scholar enough to write a play of any kind and the world has been imposed upon."

A school teacher or college professor would say, "That is the signature of a man whose education has been grossly neglected. The person whose handwriting is now shown to me can barely write his name."

A business man would say, "I do not want that man as my clerk or bookkeeper or sales agent. His signature shows clearly to me that he lacks education and learning.”

An editor and newspaper reporter would say, "The fellow who made that signature is not fit for article writing or reporting. He is evidently an ignoramus, though he may be smart enough in driving bargains and money making. The man who can not write his name at all, or who can write it with difficulty, may be able to gather in the shekels, but he is not fit for newspaper reporting, essay writing, or editorials."

A county clerk, if called upon to give his opinion, would say, "As the clerk of the courts of my county, I have for several years, both in open court and in my office, witnessed the operation of affixing their signatures to documents by litigants or witnesses, both men and women. When they are putting their names to affidavits, deeds, mortgages, or other papers or instruments required to be signed, I have noticed that those who can hardly write their names take a great deal of time about the transaction, working at the formation of the letters as if it were

a painful and laborious task. Speaking from the standpoint of my experience as clerk, I would say that the man who wrote the original of the facsimile now shown to me labored very much over the making of the signature, and it was all that he could do to write his name. He did not even know how to form the letters of his surname. I should regard him as having been an unlearned man."

Indeed, I would be willing to submit the whole question of authorship to a jury composed of all the living leading writers in behalf of the Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon, not omitting Mr. Sidney Lee, Mr. Hamilton Mabie, and Mr. James Walter, on condition that all other questions are to be eliminated and that they are to give their verdict upon the single issue of the ability of the man who wrote the signatures to the deed, mortgage, and will to write the thirty-seven plays, called the Shakespeare plays, containing over twenty-one thousand words. I feel sure that, divesting themselves of prejudice, after inspecting the signatures and listening to the testimony of disinterested experts in handwriting, and after hearing the arguments of learned advocates who have studied the handwriting, such for instance as William H. Burr and William H. Edwards, their unanimous verdict would be against the title of the man who made those signatures. This important matter of Shaksper's handwriting will be considered more at length in a subsequent chapter.

I will cite here some unassailable and unimpeachable authorities in support of my position that learning is acquired by study and not by inspiration, and I guarantee that the unprejudiced reader will agree with me that the following authorities are more reliable than the dicta of

all the guessing Shakespearean commentators from Malone to Mabie:

"O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in

a book."

-Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 2, 24.

"Ignorance is the curse of God,

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”

-Second Henry VI, iv, 7, 78.

"The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance."

-Tro. and Cressida, ii, 3, 31.

"My years are young,

And fitter is my study and my books."

-First Henry VI, v, 1, 22.

"Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks."

-Love's Labor's Lost, i, 1, 84.

"He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one."

-Henry VIII, iv, 2, 58.

"My father charged you in his will to give me good

education;

You have trained me like a peasant."

-As You Like It, i, 1, 71.

"To you I am bound for life and education."

"She in beauty, education, blood,

-Othello, i, 3, 182.

Holds hand with any princess of the world."

-King John, ii, 1, 493.

"I have those hopes of her good that her education

promises."

-All's Well, i, 1, 46.