Many poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that has
died THIS poor; the others all left literary remains behind. Also a
book. Maybe two.
If Shakespeare had owned a dog--but we not go into that: we know he would
have mentioned it in his will. If a good dog, Susanna would have got it;
if an inferior one his wife would have got a downer interest in it. I
wish he had had a dog, just so we could see how painstakingly he would
have divided that dog among the family, in his careful business way.
He signed the will in three places.
In earlier years he signed two other official documents.
These five signatures still exist.
There are NO OTHER SPECIMENS OF HIS PENMANSHIP IN EXISTENCE. Not a line.
Was he prejudiced against the art? His granddaughter, whom he loved, was
eight years old when he died, yet she had had no teaching, he left no
provision for her education, although he was rich, and in her mature
womanhood she couldn't write and couldn't tell her husband's manuscript
from anybody else's--she thought it was Shakespeare's.
When Shakespeare died in Stratford, IT WAS NOT AN EVENT. It made no more
stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theater-actor would
have made. Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting poems,
no eulogies, no national tears--there was merely silence, and nothing
more.
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