IN 1898 the Shakespeare myth was mortally wounded by the curious collection of "may have beens," "might have beens," "could have beens," "should have beens," "must have beens," etc., collected in Sir Sidney Lee's supposititious life of William Shakespeare. In 1910 it was killed by the Cambridge History of English Literature, edited by Dr. Ward, Master of Peterhouse, and Mr. Waller, also of Peterhouse, for in Volume V., pages 165-6-7, we read: "We are not quite sure of the identity of Shakespeare's father; we are by no means certain of the identity of his wife.... We do not know whether he ever went to school.. . . No biography of Shakespeare, therefore, which deserves any confidence has ever been constructed without a large infusion of the tell-tale words 'apparently,' 'probably,' 'there can be little doubt,' and no small infusion of the still more tell-tale 'perhaps,' 'it would be natural,' 'according to what was usual at the time,' and so forth... John Shakespeare married Mary Arden, an heiress of a good yeomanry family, but as to whose connection with a more distinguished one of the same name there remains much room for doubt."

I should add that no letter addressed to Shakespeare exists excepting one asking for a loan of £30; and that no contemporary letter referring to him has been discovered excepting three which are about money.

In 1910 appeared my own book, "Bacon is Shakespeare," which, placed in every library in the world, has carried everywhere the news of the decease of the myth.

In 1911 Mark Twain's book, "Is Shakespeare dead?" which had been published in 1909 in England, was included in the Tauchnitz collection, and therefore likewise carries the news of the decease of the myth all over the earth. Mark Twain describes Shakespeare as just a "Tar Baby," and says: "About him you can find out nothing. Nothing of any importance. Nothing worth the trouble of stowing away in your memory. Nothing that even remotely indicates that he was ever anything more than a distinctly commonplace person... a small trader in a small village that did not regard him as a person of any consequence, and had forgotten all about him before he was cold in his grave.... * We can go to the records and find out the life-history of every renowned racehorse of modern times—but not Shakespeare's! There are many reasons why, and they have been furnished in cartloads (of guess and conjecture). . . but there is one that is worth all the rest of the reasons put together, and is abundantly sufficient all by itself—he hadn't any history to tell. There is no way of getting round that deadly fact. And no sane way has yet been discovered of getting round its formidable significance."

The Shakespeare myth is now destroyed. Does any educated person of intelligence still believe in the "Tar Baby," the illiterate clown of Stratford, who was totally unable to write a single letter of his own name, and of whom we are told, if we understand what we are told, that he could not read a line of print. No book was found in his house, and neither of his daughters could either read or write.

There exists no "portrait" of Shakespeare. The significant fact that the Figure put for Shakespeare in the 1623 Folio of the plays consists of a doubly left-handed dummy is alone sufficient to dispose of the Shakespeare myth. I have printed in various newspapers all over the world about a million copies of articles demonstrating this fact, which none can successfully dispute.

In modern times Percy Bysshe Shelley—one of England's greatest poets (who knew nothing about the Shakespeare controversy)—wrote as follows: "Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect. It is a strain, which distends and then bursts the circumference of the reader's mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy." This statement by Shelley, taken in conjunction with the testimony of "The Great Assises holden in Parnassus," 1645, and the words of Thomas Randolf, 1640, and of Bacon's friends George Herbert and John Davies, together with the contemporary evidence of Stowe in 1615, are sufficient to dispose, once and for all, of the absurd contention that is sometimes put forth that Bacon did not possess sufficient poetical ability to have written his own greatest work, the Immortal Plays.

Lord Palmerston said that he rejoiced to see the reintegration of Italy, the unveiling of the mystery of China, and the explosion of the Shakespeare illusions. Lord Houghton, the father of the present Marquis of Crewe, said that he agreed with Lord Palmerston. John Bright said any man that believed that William Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet," or "Lear," was a fool. Prince Bismarck said in 1892: "He could not understand how it were possible that a man, however gifted with the intuitions of genius, could have written what was attributed to Shakespeare unless he had been in touch with the great affairs of State, behind the scenes of political life, and also intimate with all the social courtesies and refinements of thought which in Shakespeare's time were only to be met with in the highest circles."

The "Tempest" is over, the false crown of the Island (the Stage) has been torn from the head of the dummy that appeared to wear it. It seems difficult to imagine that people possessed of ordinary intelligence can any longer continue to believe that the most learned of all the literary works in the world was written by the most unlearned of men, William Shakespeare of Stratford, who never seems even to have attempted to write a single letter of his own name. It has been proved that the six so-called signatures of Shakespeare were written by various law clerks, and it is now admitted that there exist no other writings which can even be supposed to be from his pen.

E. D-L.