The third signature ("T3")-cf. facs. No. 12-is beautifully written up to the terminal part of the old English e after the p. Whether the shaky, ill-formed final characters following this e are to be read as are (as I too think they should be read), as ar, or as re followed by a straggling final stroke, will always be a matter of opinion, owing to the facts that one variety of old English a (when poorly made and joined to a succeeding small letter) bears some resemblance to the modern German (old English) script r, that the left-shouldered r (when it is not carefully made) closely resembles an Italian e or Greek epsilon, and that the final zigzag upstroke may very well be a poorly made old English e. The words. "By me," preceding the signature, leave nothing to be desired as to neatness, clearness, firmness, precision, and legibility; that they were written by the testator is proved beyond the possibility of doubt by the fact that the writing agrees with that of the signatures in alignment, rhythm, size, shading, pen pressure, slant, spacing, proportions, and pen position. The nervous haste and distortion apparent in the last few letters of this signature testify eloquently to the testator's impatience and desire to complete what was evidently a trying task. Having recovered a measure of poise and confidence, he proceeded to sign the other two pages.

9

Though the Shakspere signature (cf. facs. No. 10) on the deposition to the Bellott vs. Mountjoy lawsuit bears out the evidence offered by the other signatures, especially that attached to the conveyance and the words "By me William Shaksp" on the third page of the will, that the immortal bard was a skilled and facile penman, there is good warrant for the dispute about how this signature is to be read. But it is important to bear in mind that the uncertainty is not due to bad penmanship-Queen Elizabeth at times wrote a much poorer hand and yet prided herself on her exquisite calligraphy-but to the fact that Shakspere chose to curtail his surname by employing a (gracefully) flourished character after the (slightly blotted) k instead of writing his name out in full. Now, this letter is very much like the f-shaped Italian

For a detailed and authoritative discussion of these technical terms and of the technique of the scientific study of an individual's handwriting peculiarities, the reader is referred to Mr. Albert S. Osborn's Questioned Documents (Rochester, 1910) and The Problem of Proof, especially as exemplified in Disputed Documents (N. Y., 1922).

s that Shakspere employed in some of his other signatures, and the surname may therefore be read "Shaks." But this flourished final character may equally well be regarded as the standard Elizabethan per-symbol, differing from the conventional symbol only in that its head is a little larger and slightly more angular, and justifying the reading of the surname as " Shakper." It might plausibly be maintained by those acquainted with the "tricks" often perpetrated in signatures, especially by Elizabethan penmen, that in this instance Shakspere made use of a unique flourished stroke combining both the Italian long s and the standard old English per-symbol, making the surname "Shaksper" or "Shakspere." 10 That this is a wellwritten signature is proved not only by its appearance but by the fact that Baconians and other anti-Stratfordians insist-without the slightest particle of justification-on attributing it to the clerk who wrote the deposition or to one of the witnesses. Those who, being familiar with Elizabethan calligraphy, understand handwriting, and take the time to make a comparative study of this signature with the other five, can have no doubt whatsoever that these six autographs all emanate from the same hand, and may be employed as the standard by which to test the genuineness or authenticity of any writing purporting to have been written by Shakspere's hand.

IV

Turning our attention to the signature in the Montaigne (cf. facss. 1 and 13), we note that it is located on the lower half of a page measuring approximately 7 x 114 inches, begins 214 inches from the left margin, runs progressively upward, and terminates 134 inches from the right margin; the lowest point of the name (the tip of the first stem of the W) is 334 inches from the bottom of the page, and the highest point of the final e is 4 5/8 inches from the bottom; the small letters (illm) of the baptismal name are written on a level corresponding to about the middle of the final loop of the W (414 inches from the bottom).11

10 It was in all probability with the advent of banking and checking accounts that persons' signatures tended to become as stereotyped as they are to-day.

11 The fly-leaf bearing this signature as well as some other writing attributed to Shakspere has been excellently facsimiled in Mr. Francis P. Gervais' book, Shakespeare not Bacon, London, 1901.

The pictorial impression made by "Montaigne" is one of unquestionable genuineness; there is about it that naturalness, boldness, abandon, freedom, directness, straightforwardness, which one associates with genuineness. The writing strokes have the smoothness, directness, uniformity and continuity of genuineness. There is no sign of the hesitation, deliberation, doubt, patching, mending, or drawing which we associate with forgery and which are so strikingly and unequivocally apparent in the abbreviated “signature" in the Bodleian Library's copy of the 1502 edition of Ovid's Metamorphosis (cf. facs. No. 8). The "Montaigne " not only looks genuine but does not even remotely suggest that it might have been modelled on or copied from another signature; it is sufficiently unlike the known genuine signatures not to be an imitation of them, and yet it is sufficiently like them to give an impression of genuineness. There are none of those suspicious and unnatural joinings, unusual stops, artificial shadings, concern about imperfections resulting from failure of the writing movements to register, and fear of introducing new features, which characterize a forgery. And it must be especially noted that the shading-one of the most significant elements in any writing-has the smoothness and directness that are infallible characteristics of genuineness. In speed, movement, pen pressure, and line quality, there is that uniformity and normalcy throughout which are never found in forged writing. Of course, this does not prove this "autograph " a genuine Shakspere signature; it proves only that it is not a copy or a tracing of any of the known signatures.12

It is not impossible, it might be contended, that some person who was acquainted with the mode of writing employed by skilled and cultured Elizabethans might have playfully and without any evil intention happened to write the name of William Shaksper on the fly-leaf of an old book, very much as some one scribbled the poet's name and the titles of some of his plays on the first page of the

12 J. T. Smith and C. R. Haines have objected to this signature on the ground that Shakspere was wont to spell his surname with an a in the second syllable; but, as a matter of fact, such an a occurs only, if at all, in "T3." As to the spelling of our poet's surname by his printers and his contemporaries cf. a short paper by the present writer, Was 'Shakspere' 'Shake-speare'? in "The Dial" (Chicago), May 11, 1916, vol. 60, pp.