There is hardly more than one portrait that may be supposed to show the poet as he was. This was discovered by Mr. Edgar Flower in 1892; it is painted on an elm panel, with "Wm. Shakespeare, 1609," in the left-hand corner. Several leading authorities have agreed that it may be the original from which Martin Droeshout engraved his half-length portrait for the folio of 1623, a likeness that was accepted as satisfactory by Ben Jonson, though it was clearly a second-hand work, because the engraver was no more than fifteen when Shakespeare died. The portrait is now in the Memorial Gallery at Stratford. Dr. Sidney Lee, in his fascinating "Life of William Shakespeare," a work that has run into many editions, tells us that upwards of sixty portraits of Shakespeare have been offered to the National Gallery since 1856, and that not one of these has been shown to be authentic. How fortunate, then, that the deeds and signatures quite beyond suspicion have told the world so much about the business side of the poet's life. Just as the forgery of portraits has been of common occurrence, so the forgery of deeds has been a source of amusement, if not of profit, to many; but happily there is always a strong critical faculty waiting to deal with startling discoveries, and those that survive the sifting of the keen intellects that examine them may be accepted in perfect good faith. We have the safe material upon which to base the conclusion that the poet left Stratford penniless, or well-nigh penniless, in 1585; that after eleven years of hard work in London, in the course of which he probably paid brief visits to his home, travelling by way of Oxford and stopping at the Crown Inn, he returned to restore the family fortunes and build up his own estate. We know that he bought the best house in the town, that he planted an orchard, developed his gardens, and made extensive purchase of farm-lands, some years before he could hope to settle down in comfort to their enjoyment. It may be that the knowledge that the new home was ready for him helped to put a period to the London labours. He did not give any sign of appreciating the full significance of his own work, or appear to know that he had made a position that placed him side by side with Geoffrey Chaucer in merit, and still higher in world renown. He never pushed the advantages that a connection at Court and the favour of King James might have given him--he was only too pleased to retire, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," while he was yet on the sunny side of fifty. Man of affairs sufficiently to seek the law-courts on the smallest provocation, idealist to the extent of preferring a simple country life to all the glamour of London, a man seemingly endowed with all the ambitions of the most sober and unimaginative middle class--truly he presents strange and baffling contrasts.