Produced by David Widger. *BACON AND SHAKSPERE* _By_ *William Henry Burr* _PROOF THAT WILLIAM SHAKSPERE COULD NOT WRITE_ _BACON IDENTIFIED AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO_ _1886_ CONTENTS PROOF THAT SHAKSPERE COULD NOT WRITE NO TRUE LIKENESS OF SHAKSPERE THE SONNETS OF SHAKSPERE BACON IDENTIFIED AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO AS THE CONCEALED POET IGNOTO BACON AND SHAKSPERE A CHRONOGRAPH A CHRONOGRAPHIC PARALLEL QUEEN ELIZABETH’S “YOUNG LORD KEEPER.” FROM BUST. [3] PROOF THAT SHAKSPERE COULD NOT WRITE No handwriting of Shakspere has ever been discovered except five autographs. In March 1613, when he was nearly 49 years old, he signed his name to a mortgage, and again to a deed relative to the same transaction. Three years later he subscribed his name to three briefs or sheets of his will. The five facsimiles are here reproduced: They are all such signatures as an illiterate person, unaccustomed to write, would be likely to scrawl; and [4] they are so different that an acquaintance with one is little help to the recognition of another. In the first signature he writes Wm. for William. The second and third autographs have William written above Shakspere. Who but an illiterate person would sign his name thus? In the last two signatures (being told perhaps that his name ought to be written on one line) he puts William before Shakspere; but the fourth William reads Willin. See now how differently each letter is formed in the name Shakspere, beginning with the initial: Did anybody ever write the first letter of his name so differently? After four attempts to form a capital S he succeeds tolerably well the fifth time. The second S, though of singular shape, appears to have been a customary one as early as 1598. (See examples of that year below.) Shakspere’s first attempt to form the crooked letter is a failure, but the second passably good. So again in 1616, when he has a different form to copy, his first attempt is futile, the second is passable, and the third quite successful. But in attempting the next letter he makes it worse every time: With the letter a he is more successful, making it legible three times out of five: [5] But the attempt to form a k is a signal failure: With the long s he succeeds best the first time, and worst the second and third: The letter p is legible the first time, but grows worse and worse to the last: It seems as if in the first attempt to sign his name in 1613 he thought it was complete when he made it end with sp e; but being reminded that it lacked a letter or two he undertook to add one by putting an a over the e thus: The next time, which was probably the same day,(1) he seems to have written his name Shaksper, though the terminal letters are uncertain: The third time he gets it more like Shakspoze: