It should be borne in mind that clerks and sextons were not the only ignorant people in and about Stratford. There were some that had a grievance, or thought they had, which parish clerks and sextons had not. We have reference to the poor debtors, who regarded Shakspere of Stratford as a grasping usurer, hard upon poor people in his power, so the curse inscribed slab was placed over Shakspere’s grave as a shield to protect his ashes from those who would not hesitate to invade the tomb of one whose memory had become hateful to them. If in pressing his claim the money lender elects to be a tormentor, his name will be execrated while living and a hateful memory when dead. One thing is evidenced by the maledictory epitaph; that the one who wrote it was afraid the tomb might be violated by the removal of the bones to the charnel house. Who were they that would most likely invade Shakspere’s tomb? Obviously those, we repeat, who regarded him as a hard-hearted man, who pressed poor debtors with all the rigor of the law to enforce the payment of petty sums; the man who had shown himself supremely selfish in an attempt to enclose the Stratford common field; the man who would be made “a gentleman” by misrepresentation, fraud and falsehood. The foregoing facts, and the legal and municipal evidence bound up in dusty records, a bogus coat-of-arms, and a rude epitaph, tell the true story of the life of William Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon. There is no record of any pretended living likeness of Shakspere better representing him than the Stratford bust. This bust is erected on the north side of the chancel of Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-on-Avon. On the floor of the chancel in front of the monument are the graves of Shakspere and his family. We have no means of ascertaining when the monument and bust were erected. The first folio edition of his reputed works was published in 1623. It contained words from Leonard Diggs prefatory lines “and time dissolves thy Stratford moniment,” monument being used interchangeably with tomb; but these words do not prove that the bust was set up before 1623. His image was rudely cut, sensual and clownish in appearance.