No. 8-The Bodleian's Autograph (x 3) William Shakspeare No. 9 The Bertholomeus Autograph* * This facsimile departs from the original in numerous details owing to unauthorized liberties taken by the engraver. 4 became possessed of it, is not known: but it is very certain that previous to the year 1780, Mr. Patteson used to exhibit the volume to his friends as a curiosity, on account of the autograph,” which, he goes on to say, " challenges and defies suspicion, and has already passed the ordeal of numerous competent examiners, all of whom have, without a single doubt, expressed their conviction of its genuineness." At the recommendation, no doubt, of Sir Frederic, the trustees of the British Museum purchased the precious volume in June 1838 from the bookseller Pickering who had acquired it the previous month, May 14, when it was sold (for £100) at auction at Evans's of Pall Mall. It was then placed on exhibition as a unique Shakspere relic-a book which had unquestionably been read by him and drawn upon considerably for material in the composition of The Tempest. But by 1872 belief in the authenticity of the signature had gradually grown so weak that—on the instruction of Sir Edward M. Thompson, the then Director-the Museum authorities withdrew it from public view. Since its purchase opinion concerning it has, for no apparent reason, fluctuated, some scholars (Bohn, Knight, W. C. Hazlitt, Gollancz,) thinking it genuine and others (Lee, Rolfe, Mabie, Wallace,) being undecided about it. Lately, Sir Edward M. Thompson, the distinguished English paleographer, has maintained on grounds which I shall 5 his Name, in " Archaeologia," vol. 27, pp. 113-123. This essay, dated "Jan. 11, 1837," was reprinted in pamphlet form later in the year and again in 1838. Unfortunately Sir Frederic's finely engraved facsimile of the signature was so unfaithful to the original in certain of its details that it has misled almost all who have examined it. Cf. facs. No. 2. For an even worse facsimile cf. W. C. Hazlitt's Shakespear, 1902, p. 74. It is probably worth pointing out that in such a study as this in which we are now engaged, properly prepared photographic facsimiles are every bit as good as-and from several viewpoints even better than the original writings. For proofs of this statement the reader is referred to Chapter IV of Mr. Osborn's Questioned Documents. With traced facsimiles the matter is wholly different. Line cuts have to be checked up by comparison with photographs or good half-tones made from photographs. 4 ... Sir Sidney Lee (A Life of William Shakespeare, 1916, p. 518) makes the frequently quoted, but erroneous statement, that "Sir Frederick purchased the book... of Patteson's son for £140 in 1837." Mr. R. F. Sharp, the present keeper of the Printed Books at the British Museum, who has kindly given me the above account, writes me: "We do not appear to have a record of the amount the Museum paid for the book." Two Pretended Autographs of Shakespeare, The Library, July 1917, pp. 193-217. 5 4 prove to be as unsatisfactory and insufficient as they are erroneous -that this signature is an " undoubted forgery." In the following pages Sir Edward's arguments will be analysed and considered and the signature will be studied by the method of the modern handwriting expert. Those who have been accustomed to hear it said that Shakspere's handwriting was an "illiterate scrawl" or that his signatures were so badly written that they have to be "deciphered" and that even expert paleographers cannot tell just how the great poet spelled his name, may be surprised to be told that Shakspere's penmanship may justly be characterized as both easily legible and artistic. It is a fact which has but seldom been recognised that, judged by his unquestioned autographs, Shakspere wrote an exceptionally neat, clear, simple, legible, and fine, though somewhat careless, hand. To those who do not know the Elizabethan script or who are not sufficiently familiar with it and think of it in terms of our script, any ordinary Elizabethan manuscript seems to be a jumble of fantastic, distorted, illegible characters. Owing to the many wretched facsimiles of Shakspere's autographs published in Baconian and other "anti-Stratfordian" literature, and even in the writings of some of the orthodox, and the quarrels of Shakspere scholars as to the orthography of the poet's name, Shakspere's reputation as a penman had to suffer. Had these writers confined their attention to the signatures and not tried to prove their respective theories by them, there never would have been any question about the quality of Shakspere's penmanship. (The theory that the poet suffered from writer's cramp during the last three years of his life is disposed of in my essay on the Thomas Moore problem, Studies in Philology, p. 148.) III Notwithstanding the regrettable blot in the W, there is no disputing the fact that "Guildhall" (cf. facs. No. 3) is a beautiful and neatly written signature. Each letter is clear and distinct. For illustrations showing the formal, prescribed, Elizabethan calligraphy the reader is referred to my previously mentioned essay, in Studies in Philology, April 1925, pp. 133 ff. For the Elizabethan alphabet, as it was taught in Shakspere's day, cf. facs. no. 15, which reproduces the "Secretarie Alphabet depicted in de Beau Chesne's A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of hands (London, 1581). The only detail about which there has been a difference of opinion is whether the surname is "Shaksper" or "Shakspere." As this surname looks now it is unquestionably "Shakspe" with a flourish over the e and something indeterminate (which some take for an old English r) after the e and at the very edge of the label. Though my present purpose does not warrant my going into this question at greater length now, I may express the conviction-which a microscopic examination of the signature would, I am sure, confirm that the last letter or letters of this surname were cut away prior to the label's attachment to the document of which it is a part.7 66 Though almost all who have discussed these signatures have been impressed by the striking dissimilarity between "British Museum" (cf. facs. No. 4) and "Guildhall," it had not occurred to any one of them that the printed and dotted appearance of the former was due solely to the fact that the insufficiently cured and greasy parchment-as often happens-refused to take the ink, compelling the scrivener to "print" his name. This signature reads quite clearly Wm Shakspe" and has a "flourish" over the last letter. The only question here is whether this "flourish " is an a, as some have contended and as some engravers have depicted it, or whether it is merely an indeterminate flourish to indicate abbreviation, or whether it is a variety of the medieval cursive mark of abbreviation for re. There is plenty of opportunity here for quarrelling. To one who has no theories to maintain it is evident that the writer of "British Museum "" was a skilled penman, knew how to overcome the difficulty offered by the parchment, wrote a mixed English and Italian script, was content to write as much of his name as would carry him to the margin of the label, and indicated the omission of some letters by a flourish. 8 Two of the three will-signatures show palpable evidences of tremor and partial loss of control of the writing hand. Knowing It must be borne in mind that some of the documents bearing Shakspere's signature, including this one, had been in private hands till almost the middle of the nineteenth century. It may be well to state here that writing on properly prepared parchment, which takes the ink without difficulty, does not differ in any way from writing on paper. Two of Shakspere's unquestioned signatures, "Guildhall" and "British Museum," as may be recalled, are on parchment. that the testator died within a month of the date of the execution of his will and that the rough draft of the will (instead of an engrossed copy) was made to do duty as the official testament, it is wholly reasonable to assume that the testator was sick, perhaps propped up in bed, when he signed the three pages of the will. In what order the three signatures were written cannot be determined with any degree of certainty and is of no consequence, though the probabilities are that the one on the third page ("T3") was written first, then the one on the first page, and finally the one on the second page. That the signature at the foot of the first sheet (cf. facs. No. 5) was "William Shakspere" is certain from the facsimiles of it made by Steevens (in Malone's presence) in 1776, and by Chalmers twenty years later. The given name is still clearly visible, except as to the first minim of the W. Of the surname, written almost at the very bottom of the sheet, only the final re and approximately the upper halves of the first seven letters remain. Cf. facss. 6 and 7. (How inaccurate a tracing usually is, is strikingly shown by the early facsimiles of this signature; how utterly unjust and worthless a traced facsimile may be is nowhere better shown than in Sir George Greenwood's Shakspere's Signatures and " Sir Thomas Moore," 1924, p. 44. Bohn's and Knight's facsimiles of "T1" also misrepresent the original.) A comparison of the poor remainders of this signature with the tracings of it made almost one hundred and fifty years ago leaves not the slightest room for doubt that before the devastating influences of time had wrought havoc with it, this was a fine and firmly executed, though deliberate, autograph. There is not the slightest indication of tremor or faltering in it anywhere. The second will-signature (cf. facs. No. 11) has been variously read as to "the momentous question " of whether Shakspere spelled his surname with an e after the k and an a before the r. As to the e after the k there is no question: it is not there. As to the a it is hardly disputable that what some have thought to be an a (or a representative of it) is really the base curve of the lower half of the h in the word "the" in the line above the signature. The only letter in this surname that is not in accordance with the prescribed form of the letter (and might pass for an o, an i, or a modern r) is the huddled character after the p, which could have been intended for nothing but an e. |