"
As a matter of fact, not a single scrap of evidence, contemporary or
otherwise, exists to show that Shakspere, the householder of
Stratford-on-Avon, wrote the plays or anything else; indeed, the writer
thinks that he has conclusively proved that this child of illiterate
parents and father of an illiterate child was himself so illiterate that
he was never able to write so much as his own name. But Mr. Sidney Lee
seems prepared to accept _anything_ as "contemporary evidence," for on
pages 276-7 (1898 edition) of his "Life of Shakespeare" he writes
"Before 1623 an elaborate monument, by a London sculptor of Dutch birth,
Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of
the parish church. It includes a half-length bust, depicting the
dramatist on the point of writing. The fingers of the right hand are
disposed as if holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a quarto
sheet of paper."
As a matter of fact, the _present_ Stratford monument was not put up
till about one hundred and twenty years _after_ Shakspeare's death. The
original monument, see Plate 3 on Page 8, was a very different monument,
and the figure, as I have shewn in Plate 5, instead of holding a pen in
its hand, rests its two hands on a wool-sack or cushion.
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