In the year 1909 Mr. George Hookham in the January number of the National Review sums up practically all that is really known of the life of William Shakspeare of Stratford as follows:— 'We only know that he was born at Stratford, of illiterate parents— (we do not know that he went to school there)—that, when 18-1/2 years old, he married Anne Hathaway (who was eight years his senior, and who bore him a child six months after marriage); that he had in all three children by her (whom with their mother he left, and went to London, having apparently done his best to desert her before marriage);—that in London he became an actor with an interest in a theatre, and was reputed to be the writer of plays;—that he purchased property in Stratford, to which town he returned;—engaged in purchases and sales and law-suits (of no biographical interest except as indicating his money-making and litigious temperament); helped his father in an application for coat armour (to be obtained by false pretences); promoted the enclosure of common lands at Stratford (after being guaranteed against personal loss); made his will—and died at the age of 52, without a book in his possession, and leaving nothing to his wife but his second best bed, and this by an afterthought. No record of friendship with anyone more cultured than his fellow actors. No letter,—only two contemporary reports of his conversation, one with regard to the commons enclosure as above, and the other in circumstances not to be recited unnecessarily. In a word we know his parentage, birth, marriage, fatherhood, occupation, his wealth and his chief ambition, his will and his death, and absolutely nothing else; his death being received with unbroken and ominous silence by the literary world, not even Ben Jonson who seven years later glorified the plays in excelsis, expending so much as a quatrain on his memory.' [Illustration: Plate III. The Stratford Monument, From Dugdale's Warwickshire, 1656.] [Illustration: Plate IV. The Stratford Monument as it appears at the present time.] To this statement by Mr. George Hookham I would add that we know W. Shakspeare was christened 26th April 1564, that his Will which commences "In the name of god Amen! I Willim Shackspeare, of Stratford upon Avon, in the countie of warr gent in perfect health and memorie, god be praysed," was dated 25th (January altered to) March 1616, and it was proved 22nd June 1616, Shakspeare having died 23rd April 1616, four weeks after the date of the Will. We also know that a monument was erected to him in Stratford Church. And because L. Digges, in his lines in the Shakespeare folio of 1623 says "When Time dissolves thy Stratford Moniment,"[1] it is supposed that the monument must have been put up before 1623. But we should remember that as Mrs. Stopes (who is by no means a Baconian) pointed out in the Monthly Review of April 1904, the original monument was not like the present monument which shews a man with a pen in his hand; but was the very different monument which will be found depicted in Sir William Dugdale's "Antiquities of Warwickshire," published in 1656. The bust taken from this is shewn on Plate 5, Page 14, and the whole monument on Plate 3, Page 8. [Illustration: Plate V. The Stratford Bust, from Dugdale's Warwickshire. Published 1656.] The figure bears no resemblance to the usually accepted likeness of Shakspeare. It hugs a sack of wool, or a pocket of hops to its belly and does not hold a pen in its hand. In Plate 6, Page 15, is shewn the bust from the monument as it exists at the present time, with the great pen in the right hand and a sheet of paper under the left hand. The whole monument is shewn on Plate 4, Page 9. [Illustration: Plate VI. The Stratford Bust as it appears at the present time.] The face seems copied from the mask of the so-called portrait in the 1623 folio, which is shewn in Plate 8. [Illustration: Plate VIII. Full size Facsimile of part of the Title Page of the 1623 Shakespeare folio] It is desirable to look at that picture very carefully, because every student ought to know that the portrait in the title-page of the first folio edition of the plays published in 1623, which was drawn by Martin Droeshout, is cunningly composed of two left arms and a mask. Martin Droeshout, its designer, was, as Mr. Sidney Lee tells us, but 15 years of age when Shakspeare died. He is not likely therefore ever to have seen the actor of Stratford, yet this is the "Authentic," that is the "Authorised" portrait of Shakspeare, although there is no question—there can be no possible question—that in fact it is a cunningly drawn cryptographic picture, shewing two left arms and a mask. The back of the left arm which does duty for the right arm is shewn in Plate 10, Page 26. [Illustration: Plate X. The Back of the Left Arm, from Plate VIII] Every tailor will admit that this is not and cannot be the front of the right arm, but is, without possibility of doubt, the back of the left arm. [Illustration: Plate XI. The Front of the Left Arm, from Plate VIII] [Illustration: (not included in list of plates) The Front of Left Arm. From Plate VIII. The Back of Left Arm From Plate VIII. Arranged Tailor fashion, shoulder to shoulder, as in the Gentleman's Tailor Magazine, April, 1911] Plate 11 shews the front of the left arm, and you at once perceive that you are no longer looking at the back of the coat but at the front of the coat. [Illustration: Plate XII. The [Mask] Head, from the [so-called] Portrait, by Droeshout, in the 1623 Folio] Now in Plate 12, Page 32, you see the mask, especially note that the ear is a mask ear and stands out curiously; note also how distinct the line shewing the edge of the mask appears. Perhaps the reader will perceive this more clearly if he turns the page upside down. [Illustration: Plate XIII. Sir Nicholas Bacon, from the Painting by Zucchero] Plate 13, Page 33, depicts a real face, that of Sir Nicholas Bacon, eldest son of the Lord Keeper, from a contemporary portrait by Zucchero, lately in the Duke of Fife's Collection. This shews by contrast the difference between the portrait of a living man, and the drawing of a lifeless mask with the double line from ear to chin. Again examine Plates 8, Pages 20, 21, the complete portrait in the folio. The reader having seen the separate portions, will, I trust, be able now to perceive that this portrait is correctly characterised as cunningly composed of two left arms and a mask. While examining this portrait, the reader should study the lines that describe it in the Shakespeare folio of 1623, a facsimile of which is here inserted. To the Reader. This Figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Grauer had a strife with Nature, to out-doo the life: O, could he but haue drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His face; the Print would then surpasse All, that was euer writ in brasse. But, since he cannot, Reader, looke Not on his Picture, but his Booke. B.I. Plate IX. VERSES ASCRIBED TO BEN JONSON, FROM THE 1623 FOLIO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS. B.I. call the ridiculous dummy a "portrait" but describes it as the "Figure put for" (that is "instead of") and as "the Print," and as "his Picture"; he likewise most clearly tells us to "looke not on his (ridiculous) Picture, but (only) his Booke." It seems, therefore, evident that he knew the secret of Bacon's authorship and intended to inform those capable of understanding that the graver had done out the life when he writes, "Out-doo the life." In the New English Dictionary, edited by Sir J.A.H. Murray, there are upwards of six hundred words beginning with "Out," and every one of them, with scarcely a single exception, requires, in order to be fully understood, to be read reversed. Out-law does not mean outside of the law, but lawed out by a legal process. "Out-doo" was used only in the sense of "do out"; thus, in the "Cursor Mundi," written centuries before the days of Elizabeth, we read that Adam was out done [of Paradise]; and in Drayton's "Barons' Wars," published in 1603, we find in Book V. s. li. "That he his foe not able to withstand, Was ta'en in battle and his eyes out-done." The graver has indeed done out the life so cleverly that for hundreds of years learned pedants and others have thought that the figure represented a real man, and altogether failed to perceive that it was a mere stuffed dummy clothed in an impossible coat, cunningly composed of the front of the left arm buttoned on to the back of the same left arm, as to form a double left armed apology for a man. Moreover, this dummy is surmounted by a hideous staring mask, furnished with an imaginary ear, utterly unlike anything human, because, instead of being hollowed in, it is rounded out something like the rounded outside of a shoe-horn, in order to form a cup which would cover and conceal any real ear that might be behind it. Perhaps the reader will more fully understand the full meaning of B.I.'s lines if I paraphrase them as follows:— To the Reader. The dummy that thou seest set here, Was put instead of Shake-a-speare; Wherein the Graver had a strife To extinguish all of Nature's life; O, could he but have drawn his mind As well as he's concealed behind His face; the Print would then surpasse All, that was ever writ in brasse. But since he cannot, do not looke On his mas'd Picture, but his Booke. Do out appears in the name of the little instrument something like a pair of snuffer which was formerly used to extinguish the candles and called a "Doute." Therefore I have correctly substituted "extinguished" for "out-doo." At the beginning I have substituted "dummy" for "figure" because we are told that the figure is "put for" (that is, put instead of) Shakespeare. In modern English we frequently describe a chairman who is a mere dummy as a figurehead. Then "wit" in these lines means absolutely the same as "mind," which I have used in its place because I think it refers to the fact that upon the miniature of Bacon in his 18th year, which was painted by Hilliard in 1578, we read:—"Si tabula daretur digna animum mallem." This line is believed to have been written at the time by the artist, and was translated in "Spedding":—"If one could but paint his mind." In March, 1911, the Tailor and Cutter newspaper stated that the Figure, put for Shakepeare in the 1623 folio, was undoubtedly clothed in an impossible coat, composed of the back and the front of the same left arm. And in the following April the Gentleman's Tailor Magazine, under the heading of a "Problem for the Trade," shews the two halves of the coat as printed on page 28a, and says: "It is passing strange that something like three centuries should have been allowed to elapse before the tailors' handiwork should have been appealed to in this particular manner." "The special point is that in what is known as the authentic portrait of William Shakespeare, which appears in the celebrated first folio edition, published in 1623, a remarkable sartorial puzzle is apparent." "The tunic, coat, or whatever the garment may have been called at the time, is so strangely illustrated that the right-hand side of the forepart is obviously the left-hand side of the backpart; and so gives a harlequin appearance to the figure, which it is not unnatural to assume was intentional, and done with express object and purpose." "Anyhow, it is pretty safe to say that if a Referendum of the trade was taken on the question whether the two illustrations shown above represent the foreparts of the same garments, the polling would give an unanimous vote in the negative." "It is outside the province of a trade journal to dogmatise on such a subject; but when such a glaring incongruity as these illustrations show is brought into court, it is only natural that the tailor should have something to say; or, at any rate, to think about." This one simple fact which can neither be disputed nor explained away, viz., that the "Figure" put upon the title-page of the First Folio of the Plays in 1623 to represent Shakespeare, is a doubly left-armed and stuffed dummy, surmounted by a ridiculous putty-faced mask, disposes once and for all of any idea that the mighty Plays were written by the illiterate clown of Stratford-upon-Avon. "He hath hit his face" It is thought that hit means hid as in Chaucer's Squiere's Tale, line 512 etc. "Right as a serpent hit him under floures Til he may seen his tyme for to byte" If indeed "hit" be intended to be read as "hid" then these ten lines are no longer the cryptic puzzle which they have hitherto been considered to be, but in conjunction with the portrait, they clearly reveal the true facts, that the real author is writing left-handedly, that means secretly, in shadow, with his face hidden behind a mask or pseudonym. We should also notice "out-doo" is spelled with a hyphen. In the language of to-day and still more in that of the time of Shakespeare all, or nearly all, words beginning with out may be read reversed, out-bar is bar out, out-bud is bud out, out-crop is crop out, out-fit is fit out, and so on through the alphabet. If therefore we may read "out-doo the life" as "doo out the life" meaning "shut out the real face of the living man" we perceive that here also we are told "that the real face is hidden." The description, with the head line "To the Reader" and the signature "B.I.," forms twelve lines, the words of which can be turned into numerous significant anagrams, etc., to which, however, no allusion is made in the present work. But our readers will find that if all the letters are counted (the two v.v.'s in line nine being counted as four letters) they will amount to the number 287. In subsequent chapters a good deal is said about this number, but here we only desire to say that we are "informed" that the "Great Author" intended to reveal himself 287 years after 1623, the date when the First Folio was published, that is in the present year, 1910, when very numerous tongues will be loosened. Examine once more the original Stratford Bust, Plate 5, Page 14, and the present Stratford Bust, Plate 6, Page 15, with the large pen in the right hand. If the Stratford actor were indeed the author of the plays it was most appropriate that he should have a pen in his hand. But in the original monument as shewn in Plate 3, Page 8, the figure hugs a sack of wool or a pocket of hops or may be a cushion. For about 120 years, this continued to be the Stratford effigy and shewed nothing that could in any way connect the man portrayed, with literary work. I believe that this was not accidental. I think that everybody in Stratford must have known that William "Shackspeare" could not write so much as his own name, for I assert that we possess nothing which can by any reasonable possibility be deemed to be his signature. [Illustration: Decorative Chapter Heading]
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