of courtesy and gentleness which the Shaksper idolaters audaciously and without warrant lavish upon him, he would certainly have honored his contemporaries with a stanza or two at least of heaven-bred poesy or a few lines of complimentary prose in praise of their occasional efforts to please the public. His admirers claim that he was cheek by jowl with Ben Jonson, Drayton, Beaumont and Fletcher, and all the great writers of that epoch, and yet no man has ever produced one line or one word even from William Shaksper in praise or commendation of the works of any man who was a contemporary. During Shaksper's life, prose and poetical commendations circulated freely among the real poets and dramatists, but William Shaksper praised no one, criticised no one, extended courtesy to no one, and the readers of the works of the great men of that day will look in vain for any written or printed word to show that Shaksper ever wrote a sentence either in commendation or disparagement of anybody. One can understand that if a learned man is saturnine, selfish, and sullen, although he can not escape from them, he may nevertheless despise the courtesies and conventionalities of society or of those in his own profession or occupation; but if he is truthfully credited with gentleness, affability, and the power to appreciate the efforts of his associates, he certainly would have been, in such a case, the very last man to abstain from commending their literary efforts.

If one man wrote the Shakespeare plays and poems, that man, whoever he was, must have had literary associates and friends; he must have been more or less acquainted with the noble and learned men and women of that period; he must have been at least in touch with

such of his accomplished fellow men as were engaged in the same pursuits in life, or with those whom he looked up to as the encouragers and patrons of his literary efforts. Such a brilliant and learned writer could not shut himself up from society and avoid all communion with his fellow men.

Hence it is a circumstance measurably tending to weaken the Shaksper claim to authorship that nowhere in all the history or the literature of the time in which he lived can be found any commendatory epistle either in prose or verse addressed by him to any poet or prose writer of the period. If such a written or printed commendation could be found, and if Shaksper had been a man of letters competent to write a play, the fact of such a commendatory letter written by him would be an irresistible argument in his favor. On the other hand, the fact that no such commendatory letter exists in manuscript or book form is a very strong argument against the ability of Shaksper to write a play at all.

It is, of course, clear to the student of English literature, and especially to those who have waded through the guesses and hypotheses of Shaksper's idolaters that during his lifetime no writer addressed any commendatory verses or prose writings to accompany any book or publication authorized by him. If any comedy, tragedy, history, or book on any special or miscellaneous subject can be found issued in Shaksper's lifetime by his authorization, with any words therein of commendation of Shaksper from any poet or prose writer of the time, it would be hailed with delight by the reading public as confirmatory of the disputed Shaksper claim, and it would be the very best evidence of Shaksper's ability to write

a play or poem. That none such can be found after the exhaustive search of several centuries is a presumption at least against that ability.

In this connection what Emerson said about the failure of the great men of that era to find out such a person as Shaksper is worthy of consideration.

"If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, Shakespeare's time should be capable of recognizing it. Sir Henry Wotton was born four years after Shakespeare, and died twenty-three years after him, and I find among his correspondents and acquaintances the following persons: Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip Sidney, the Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abraham Cowley, Bellarmine, Charles Cotton, John Pym, John Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius with all of whom exists some token of his having communicated, without enumerating many others whom doubtless he (Wotton) saw-Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, Beaumont, Massinger, two Herberts, Marlowe, Chapman, and the rest. Since the constellation of great men who appeared in Greece in the time of Pericles, there was never any such society; yet their genius failed them to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's mask was impenetrable."

CHAPTER VI.

SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY.

Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me
From my own library with volumes that

I prize above my dukedom."

-The Tempest, i, 2.

A literary man, and especially one who is credited by the admiring public with the authorship of the histories, comedies, and tragedies which the literary world so much. esteems, could not transact business, either literary or otherwise, without writing letters to his friends, gentle or simple, admirers, kinsmen, tradesmen, patrons, fellows of his craft or publishers. In Shaksper's time, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Michael Drayton, John Webster, John Marston, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, and others wrote to one another and to friends, acquaintances, and patrons, and their epistles and writings have been found; even Dekker's letters from the debtors' prison have been preserved. But in the case of Shaksper, the most persistent and careful search for any writing, epistolary or otherwise, from his pen or pencil, has been unavailing. Letters have been manufactured in order to minister to the cravings of hungry admirers and devotees, but a genuine letter from William Shaksper has never been discovered; and as will be shown hereafter, none can be discovered, for the evidence based on his signatures shows that he could not write a letter.

Diligent search has evolved one letter, and only one, to him, an exact copy of which is as follows:

"Loveinge contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with xxx.11. vppon Mr. Bushells and my securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me. Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, and I have especiall cawse. Yow shall ffrende me muche in helping me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke God, and muche wuiet my Mynde, which wolde nott be indebted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatche of my buysenes. Yow shall nether loase creddytt nor monney by me, the Lorde wyllinge; and now butt perswade yowrselfe soe, as I hope, and yow shall nott need to feare, butt, with all heartie thanckfulleness, I wyll holde my tyme, and content yowr ffrende, and yf we bargaine farther, yow shall be the pai-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hastene to an ende, and soe I committ this (to) yowr care and hope of yowr helpe. I fear I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste. The Lorde be with yow and with vs all, Amen! ffrom the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25 October, 1598.

Yowrs in all kyndenes,

Ryc. Quyney. To my loveinge good ffrend and contreymann Mr. Wm. Shackespere deliver thees."

This letter tends to show that Shaksper, like the ignorant Henslowe, was a money-lender, and it throws no light whatever upon his literary ability. No man can be a great writer without having friends to correspond with. He can not escape from letter-writing. Some of his correspondence, however trivial, will be found in some