Some years ago by the courtesy of the Corporation of London, the Librarian and the Chairman of the Library Committee carried the Purchase Deed to the British Museum to place it side by side with the Mortgage Deed there. After they had with myself and the Museum Authorities most carefully examined the two deeds, the Librarian of the City Corporation said to me, there is no reason to suppose that the Corporation deed has upon it the signature of Wm. Shakespeare, and the British Museum Authorities likewise told me that they did not think that the Museum Mortgage Deed had upon it a signature of William Shakespeare. The more you examine the whole five the more you will be certain, as the writer is, after the most careful study of the Will and of the Deeds, that not one of the five writings is a "signature," or pretends to be a "signature," and that therefore there is a probability, practically amounting to a certainty, that the Stratford Actor could not so much as manage to scrawl his own name. No! We possess not a scrap of writing, not even an attempt at a signature, [see also Chapter XIV., p. 161] that can be reasonably supposed to be written by the Stratford _gentleman_. He is styled "gentle Shakespeare": this does not refer to anything relating to his character or to his manners but it means that possessing a coat of arms he was legally entitled to call himself a "gentleman." Chapter IV. Contemporary Allusions to Shackspere. Shakspeare the Actor purchased New Place at Stratford-on-Avon in 1597 for L60 and he became a "gentleman" and an esquire when he secured a grant of arms in 1599. How did the stage "honour" the player who had bought a coat of arms and was able to call himself a "gentleman"? Three contemporary plays give us scenes illustrating the incident: 1st. Ben Jonson's "Every man out of his humour" which was acted in 1599 the very year of Shakspeare's grant of arms. 2nd. Shakespeare's "As you like it" which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1600, although no copy is known to exist before the folio of 1623. 3rd. "The Return from Parnassus" which was acted at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1601, though not printed till 1606. In addition to these three plays, there is a fourth evidence of the way in which the Clown who had purchased a coat of arms was regarded, in a pamphlet or tract of which only one copy is known to exist. This tract which can be seen in the Rylands Library, Manchester, used to be in Lord Spencer's library at Althorp, and is reprinted by Halliwell-Phillipps in "Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare," 1889, Vol. I, pages 325-6. [Illustration: PLATE XV. Bacon's Crest from the Binding of a Presentation Copy of the Novum Organum, 1620.]