It is exceedingly important and informing to remember that Shakespeare's
name never appeared upon any play until he had been permanently
sent away from London, and that his wealth was simply the
money--£1,000--given to him in order to induce him to incur the risk
entailed by allowing his name to appear upon the plays. Such risk was
by no means inconsiderable, because Queen Elizabeth was determined to
punish the author of Richard the Second, a play which greatly incensed
her; she is reported to have said, "Seest thou not that I am Richard the
Second?" There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever earned so much as
ten shillings in any one week while he lived in London.
At Stratford, Shakespeare sold corn, malt, etc., and lent small sums of
money, and indeed, was nothing more than a petty tradesman, a fact of
which we are quite clearly informed in "The Great Assises holden at
Parnassus," printed in 1645, where Bacon is put as "Chancellor of
Parnassus," i.e., greatest of the world's poets, and Shakespeare appears
as "the writer of weekly accounts." This means that the only literature
for which Shakespeare was responsible consisted of his small tradesman's
accounts sent out weekly by his clerk; because, as will be shewn
presently, <b>Shakespeare was totally unable to write a single letter of
his own name.</b>
Let us now return to the Folio of Shakespeare's plays, published in
1623. On the title page appears a large half-length figure drawn by
Martin Droeshout, which is known as the Authentic (i.e., the authorised)
portrait of Shakespeare. Martin Droeshout, I should perhaps mention, is
scarcely likely to have ever seen Shakespeare, as he was only 15 years
of age when Shakespeare died. On the cover of this pamphlet will be
found a reduced facsimile of the title page of the Folio of 1623. It is
almost inconceivable that people with eyes to see should have looked
at this so-called portrait for 287 years without perceiving that it
consists of a ridiculous, "putty-faced mask," fixed upon a stuffed dummy
clothed in a trick coat. *
* Note.--This stuffed dummy is surmounted by a mask with an
ear attached to it not in the least resembling any possible
human ear, because, instead of being hollowed, it is rounded
out something like the back side of a shoehorn, so as to
form a sort of cup to cover and conceal any real ear that
might be behind it.
The "Tailor and Cutter" newspaper, in its issue of 9th March, 1911,
stated that the figure, put for Shakespeare, 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," prints
the two halves of the coat put tailor fashion, shoulder to shoulder, as
shewn here on page 2, and says:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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