THE SHAKESPEAREAN MYTH
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
By Appleton Morgan
Author Of "The Law Of Literature,"
"Notes To Best's Principles Of Evidence," Etc., Etc
Original
Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves;
Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves;
Sic vos non vobis melliflcatus apes;
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.
—P. Virgil. Maro
Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co
1881
TO D. T. MORGAN, ESQ.,
OF WHIP'S CROSS, WALTHAMSTOW, ESSEX, ENGLAND.
My Dear Sir:
I do not know your opinion on the matter treated in these pages. Very possibly you will disagree with every line of my Brief. But it gives me pleasure to connect my name with yours on this page, and to subscribe myself
Very faithfully, your kinsman,
APPLETON MORGAN.
October, 1881.
CONTENTS
PART II. THE APPEAL TO HISTORY.
PART III. THE JONSONIAN TESTIMONY.
PART IV. EXTRA SHAKESPEAREAN THEORIES: THE DELIA BACON THEORY.
PART VI. THE NEW THEORY—THE SONNETS—CONCLUSION.
PREFACE.
M. Guizot, in his History of England, states the Shakespearean problem in a few words, when he says: "Let us finally mention the great comedian, the great tragedian, the great philosopher, the great poet, who was in his lifetime butcher's apprentice, poacher, actor, theatrical manager, and whose name is William Shakespeare. In twenty years, amid the duties of his profession, the care of mounting his pieces, of instructing his actors, he composed the thirty-two tragedies and comedies, in verse and prose, rich with an incomparable knowledge of human nature, and an unequaled power of imagination, terrible and comic by turns, profound and delicate, homely and touching, responding to every emotion of the soul, divining all that was beyond the range of his experience and for ever remaining the treasure of the age—all this being accomplished, Shakespeare left the theater and