N 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps 
 
 New Lamps or old?
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Jfcto Damps or ©lb ? 
 
 A FEW ADDITIONAL WORDS 
 
 ;% 
 
 THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION 
 
 Respecting the E and the A 
 
 IN THE NAME OF 
 
 ©xtr Rational dramatist. 
 
 It is said that his surname was Quixada or Quesada, for, in this 
 particular, the authors who have mentioned the subject do not agree. 
 There are, however, very probable reasons for conjecturing that he was 
 called Quixana. But this is of little importance to our story. Let it 
 suffice that, in narrating, we do not swerve a jot from the truth. — The 
 Life and Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mane ha. 
 
 BRIGHTON : 
 Printed ky Messrs. Fleet and Bishop. 
 
 1880.
 
 £icb fCamps or (Dlb? 
 
 A FEW ADDITIONAL WORDS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION 
 
 Respecting the E and the A 
 
 IN THE NAME OF 
 
 ©xtr Rational dramatist. 
 
 It is said that his surname was Quixada or Quesada, for, in this 
 particular, the authors who have mentioned the subject do not agree. 
 Ihere are, however, very probable reasons for conjecturing that he was 
 called Quixana. But this is of little importance to our story. Let it 
 suffice that, in narrating, we do not swerve a jot from the truth. — The 
 Life and Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mane ha. 
 
 BRIGHTON : 
 Printed by Messrs. Fleet and Bishop. 
 
 1880.
 
 r. 
 
 : 
 
 A FEW WORDS, &c. 
 
 A few weeks ago, under the impression that 
 it would be as well, if it were possible, that 
 there should be uniformity in the printed 
 orthography of the name of our national 
 dramatist, I ventured to issue a little ten- 
 tative pamphlet on the subject. The ques- 
 tion was obviously an excessively trivial one 
 in itself, and the idea of its discussion, 
 had it referred to any but the greatest 
 of England's sons, would have been posi- 
 tively ludicrous. No one would have imagined 
 that such an enquiry could have raised 
 the smallest of storms in the minutest 
 of teapots. Nevertheless, the few pages al- 
 luded to created in their way quite a little 
 hubbub. Besides an excellent leading article 
 in one of the prominent London dailies, there 
 were a score of other notices showing the in- 
 terest a resuscitation of an old difficulty had 
 excited. One writer, indeed, in a letter in the 
 Daily News of December the 20th, was posi- 
 tively stimulated to compare the reluctance to 
 adopt the shorter form of the poet's name with 
 the fearful obstruction of " Toryism " to every- 
 thing that is correct and proper. From the ex- 
 pressions used by the individual in question it 
 may be inferred that, in his opinion, the Tories, 
 having done their best to prevent the intro- 
 duction of Free Trade and the Reform Bill, are 
 now completing their iniquities by spelling the 
 
 »o
 
 name of the great dramatist in the way in 
 which he himself printed it in the first editions 
 of his own poems ; that the vagabonds who 
 write Shakespeare are bucolic and pig-headed 
 Conservatives, and that the angels who prefer 
 Shakspere are advanced and enlightened Radi- 
 cals. As if to crown this edifice of bluster, in 
 another journal I was personally battered 
 merely because I had had the audacity to ad- 
 vocate the retention of the e and the a. When 
 Bedreddin Hassan was told that his life was to 
 be forfeited for omitting to add pepper to the 
 cream-tart, he could hardly have been more 
 astonished than myself at this funny display 
 of gratuitous irritability. 
 
 In contrast to those who take such a vital 
 interest in the suppression of the e and the a 
 that they allow their little feelings to run away 
 with them in the face of opposition, there are 
 others who ridicule the idea of the matter being 
 worth discussion at all. The latter view is well 
 put in the Echo of December the 4th in allusion 
 to my pamphlet, — " he adopts Shakespeare, 
 with which nobody can quarrel ; — indeed, no- 
 body would quarrel with him if he spelt the 
 name backwards ; — it is of more importance to 
 read Shakespeare's works, and, above all, to 
 understand and profit by them, than to give 
 reasons for putting in or leaving out an x in his 
 name." Certainly, for ourselves and to our-
 
 selves the immortal text is all-sufficient, and the 
 elucidation of that text is the only really good 
 use of Shakespearian criticism, but surely there 
 is a respect due to the memory of the greatest 
 name in our literature. It is not courteous to 
 that memory to speak as if it were of no sort 
 of consequence whether we alluded to the great 
 poet as William Shakespeare or as Tony 
 Lumpkin. With due deference, therefore, to 
 the opinion of our reverberating contemporary, 
 I shall endeavour to follow the lead of my 
 adverse critics in treating the subject as one of 
 the most serious and weighty enquiries of the 
 present day, as, in short, the great problem of 
 all, the momentous question whether we are to 
 discard or retain the e and the a in the spelling 
 of the name of our national dramatist. My 
 chief fear is that the enquiry into this important 
 mystery may not be approached with the com- 
 plete solemnity due to an investigation of such 
 paramount gravity ; but it shall at all events be 
 treated fairly and dispassionately. 
 
 Previously to opening a discussion of this 
 kind it may be well to observe that, in treating 
 a subject which involves a consideration of 
 the usages of a remote age, it is essentially 
 necessary to eliminate from our minds any 
 influence exercised by the knowledge of those 
 of our own. This is especially necessary in 
 the present instance. In these days a person's
 
 signature is, in nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 cases out of a thousand, absolute evidence of 
 the acknowledged orthography of his own name 
 and of that of his family. In Shakespeare's 
 time, a person's signature, in a corresponding 
 number of cases, was no evidence at all of the 
 correct orthography of his own name or of that 
 of his relatives. 
 
 The truth of this latter position can be 
 demonstrated by hundreds of illustrations. 
 Colonel Chester, one of the best living au- 
 thorities in such matters, after mentioning the 
 numerous instances he had met with of capri- 
 cious forms of early signatures of the same 
 name in the University books at Oxford, writes, 
 — " my experience among other records has 
 been the same, and I should as soon doubt the 
 existence of Hollingbury Copse as the position 
 you assume, that there was no settled ortho- 
 graphy of surnames in the time of Shake- 
 speare." But although the fact is acknowledged 
 by all who have carefully examined the subject, 
 a few examples'* should be given for the sake of 
 the many who have had no opportunity of 
 doing so. Thus, Lord Robert Dudley's sig- 
 nature was Dudley or Duddeley, and his wife's, 
 Duddley. Allen, the actor, signed his name at 
 
 * It should be mentioned that some of these examples are 
 also given in my former pamphlet.
 
 various times, Alleyn, Aleyn, Allin, and Allen, 
 while his wife's signature appears as Alleyne. 
 Henslowe's autographs are in the forms of 
 Hensley, Henslow, and Henslowe. Samuel 
 Rowley signed himself Rouley, Rowley, and 
 Rowleye. Burbage sometimes wrote Burbadg 
 while his brother signed himself Burbadge. 
 One of the poet's sons-in-law wrote himself 
 Ouyney, Ouyneye, and Conoy, while his brother, 
 the curate, signed, Ouiney. His other son-in- 
 law, Dr, Hall, signed himself Hawle and Hall. 
 Alderman Sturley, of Stratford-on-Avon, signed 
 his name sometimes in that form and some- 
 times, Strelly, both forms being used in letters 
 written to the same person in the same year, 
 1 598. Sir Walter Raleigh signed both Rauley 
 and Ralegh, and Sir Philip Sidney both Sydney 
 and Sidney. An actor contemporary with Shake- 
 speare wrote himself Downton, Dowten and 
 Dowton. The signature of a sixteenth century 
 earl was Shrewsbury, that of his wife Shrowes- 
 bury. Different members of the Trevelyan 
 family sign themselves, Trevelyan, Trevilian, 
 Trevillian, Trevylyan, Trevelian, Trevylian. 
 Richard Hathaway sometimes so wrote his 
 name and sometimes Hathway. Thomas 
 Nash, who married the poet's grand-daughter, 
 signed himself both Nash and Nashe. Simon 
 Trap, curate of Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote his 
 name Trapp and Trappe. In a manuscript
 
 8 
 
 pedigree of 1613 at the Herald's College a 
 gentleman signs his name Payne, his nephew's 
 signature on the same day in the same manu- 
 script being Pain. Shakespeare's parents could 
 not write at all, and the only signatures of any 
 of their children known to exist are those of 
 the poet, and that of his brother Gilbert, 
 the latter signing his name Shakespere, that 
 is, with the important central e. These in- 
 stances will suffice for the demonstration of the 
 main position, that in former days there was no 
 established nominal orthography. As Sam 
 Weller observed, "it all depended upon the 
 taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord," and it 
 would be difficult to state the usage of Shake- 
 speare's time in more forcible language. It is 
 curious that there are still to be found lingering 
 traces of the old uncertainty. My old friend, Mr. 
 Joseph Clarke, F.S. A., of the Roos, tells me of a 
 small tradesman in the country whose signature 
 was capriciously either Travers or Travis. Upon 
 his father, an old man, being asked which was the 
 correct form, he replied that "one way was as good 
 as the other." Professor Baynes furnishes me with 
 a still more curious example in that of a Somer- 
 setshire gardener who writes his name Nipcote, 
 his brother, Nitcote, while other members of 
 the family use such variations as Nepcot and 
 Netcot. 
 It is obvious then, even to the typical school-
 
 boy, that it would be unreasonable to attempt 
 to follow individual signatures in the modern 
 orthography of names of the Shakespearean 
 period. If we were to do so, we should write 
 Lord Dudley and Lady Duddley, Lord Shrews- 
 bury and Lady Shrowesbury, Thomas Ouyney 
 and the Rev. George Quiney, Mr. Allen and 
 Mrs. Alleyne, Mr. Payne and his nephew Mr. 
 Pain, Alderman Sturley in one month and 
 Alderman Strelly in the next, Dr. Hall at one 
 period of his life and Dr. Hawle at another. 
 When mentioning the great dramatist we should 
 be at liberty to write his name in two or three 
 ways, but. not in the form used by his brother 
 Gilbert Shakespere, and in alluding to another 
 great poet we could write Milton, but his second 
 daughter must be introduced as a Millton. 
 Hey wood the epigrammatist would become 
 Heywod, Lords Leicester and Warwick must 
 appear as Leycester and Warwyke, Herrick 
 would be Hearick, Nichols would be trans- 
 formed into Nycowlles, and so on to any num- 
 ber of similar inconvenient variations. 
 
 It is simply casual ingenuity which suggests 
 the deflection of caprice into ignorance under 
 the accusation that Shakespeare, and those 
 numerous contemporaries who varied their 
 signatures, did not know how to spell their own 
 names. Well, they didn't, for the simple reason 
 that names in those days had not been subjected
 
 10 
 
 to any rules of orthography, that the attain- 
 ment of what we should call orthographical 
 accuracy was at that time impossible, and it is 
 obviously improper to sneer at them for in- 
 dulging in a fanciful practice then as common 
 with the learned as with the illiterate. One of 
 the most accomplished scholars of the sixteenth 
 century signed himself either Ascham or Ask- 
 ham, and it might of course be said that he did 
 not know how to write his own name, but it 
 would be fairer to observe that there was in 
 those days no established orthography, no 
 method of spelling sanctioned by usage or 
 authority either in surnames or Christian 
 names, or in the English language generally. 
 We have already seen that there was none 
 in surnames, and as to Christian names the 
 varieties are equally perplexing. Shakespeare's 
 friend and neighbour, Mr. Shawe, spelt his 
 in the following very extraordinary number 
 of ways, — Julyus, Julius, Julie, Julyne, Jule, 
 Julines, Julynes, July, Julye, Julyius and 
 Julyles. As for orthography in language either 
 in books or manuscripts of the Shakespearean 
 period all who are familiar with such matters 
 know that the same word is frequently spelt in 
 half-a-dozen various forms in a single page. 
 
 The choice of the pronunciation of Shake- 
 speare's name is of course a question independent 
 of the form in which it should be printed. The
 
 II 
 
 general instinct seems to be adverse to the 
 ancient orthoepy of Shaxpere, and the main 
 reason against the prudence of adopting the 
 short form is that it might encourage the name 
 to be so spoken. There can be little doubt 
 that the poet was generally called Shaxpere or 
 Shaxper in the provinces, but certainly not 
 always. In the earliest known document re- 
 specting any member of the poet's family, one 
 which refers to property at Snitterheld near 
 Stratford-on-Avon, the name of his grandfather 
 is given as Shakespere, showing the first syllable 
 to be long, and in the local manuscripts in which 
 his father is continually mentioned, the name of 
 the latter is variously written, Shakspeyr, Shax- 
 spere, Shacksper, Shakspere,Shakyspere, Shake- 
 spere, Shaxpeare, Shakspeir, Shakysper, Shax- 
 pere, Shakspeare, Shackespere, Schackspere, 
 Shakspeyre, Shaksper, and Shakespeare, without 
 the slightest notion of uniformity. The tran- 
 scriber of the parish register is the most consis- 
 tent, the majority of entries in that record being 
 Shakspere, but even there we have also the 
 forms of Shakspeer, Shaxspere, and Shakspeare. 
 The poets intimate friends had clearly no notion 
 that they were to spell his name in any par- 
 ticular fashion. Richard Ouiney in 1598 ad- 
 dressed his celebrated letter " to my loveinge 
 good frend and countreyman Mr. Win. Shacke- 
 spere," Alderman Sturley speaks of him in
 
 12 
 
 the same year as Mr. Shaksper. The great dra- 
 matist's kinsman and solicitor, Thomas Greene, 
 wrote his client's name Shakspear, Shakspeare, 
 and Shakspurre, and Mrs. and Mr. Hall, the 
 poet's daughter and son-in-law, who must have 
 known the correct orthography, had there been 
 any settled form at the time, spell the name 
 Shakspeare in the monumental inscription to 
 him while it is Shakespeare in that to his wife. 
 Can anything more clearly show that nominal 
 spelling was in those days a simple matter of 
 chance or fancy ? 
 
 There were occasional and rare exceptions, 
 the most notable and illustrative being that of 
 " rare Ben," who, although he apparently did 
 not take the trouble to remonstrate with those 
 friends who wrote and printed his name Johnson, 
 appears, judging from the dozens of his signa- 
 tures in existence, to have invariably written 
 Jonson. This was probably to distinguish it 
 from the commoner name, and, to the best of my 
 belief, although I have not had the opportunity 
 of verifying the fact, the shorter form is used in 
 all his own printed dedicatory epistles. If Shake- 
 speare's case were at all similar, if we had pos- 
 sessed numerous examples of his uniform sig- 
 nature* at various periods of life, and if the name 
 
 * But this in itself would go for very little. A celebrated earl 
 invariably signed himself Leycester, yet no writer, treating of 
 the Elizabethan period, would consider it necessary to introduce 
 that antiquated orthography,
 
 
 in his dedications had appeared in the same 
 form, then there would have been of course an 
 end of the matter. But the facts do not bear 
 out an important similarity. In those deeply 
 interesting epistles to Lord Southampton, the 
 only letters of the great dramatist known to 
 exist, attached to the only works we can confi- 
 dently believe to have been issued with his sanc- 
 tion, there the name appears in its full propor- 
 tions with both the e and the a. These dedica- 
 tions are to my mind absolutely conclusive of 
 the general question. 
 
 There is no good pretence for raising a doubt 
 of the generally acknowledged fact that these 
 poems were issued under Shakespeare's imme- 
 diate authority. The personal character of the 
 dedications might alone suffice to indicate that 
 this was the case. Not only was there no 
 theatrical management to interfere with the 
 copyright, as was the case with respect to most 
 if not all of his plays, and no symptoms of the 
 bookselling special interest in either of the pub- 
 lications, but both of them were printed, as Mr. 
 Payne Collier* was the first to point out, by a 
 native of Stratford-on-Avon and the son of one 
 of John Shakespeare's intimate friends. Every 
 circumstance, indeed, connected with the pub- 
 
 * This mention of my old friend's name gives me the oppor- 
 tunity of observing that, although, as it has been recently stated,
 
 14 
 
 lication of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece 
 tends to show that they were printed under 
 the author's sanction. 
 
 Under any circumstances, it is evident that 
 Shakespeare had a voice in the matter with the 
 printer or publisher when he proceeded to dedi- 
 cate a second work to the same nobleman. Can 
 any one believe that, if the great dramatist had 
 really cared to have his name spelt without the 
 e and the a, he would have permitted the longer 
 form to remain in the second dedication ? Is it 
 not clear that, whatever phases his signature 
 may have assumed, he either wished, or, at the 
 very least, tacitly admitted that he did not dis- 
 like his name appearing as Shakespeare in his 
 own printed works ? Another piece of corrob- 
 orative evidence is at the end of a poem which 
 he contributed to Chester's Loves Martyr, 1601, 
 and which could hardly have been inserted 
 without his direct sanction. As if to place the 
 
 I was the founder of the old Shakespeare Society, yet it was 
 entirely owing to Mr. Collier's influence and active co-operation 
 that the Society was ever established. Under his judicious and 
 genial management every variety of Shakesperean opinion re- 
 ceived friendly attention, the Society, during the thirteen years 
 (1841 to 1853) of its existence, doing good and useful work 
 quietly and amicably. Alas that it was not resuscitated on its 
 original basis of common-sense criticism when my late dear 
 friend, Howard Staunton, so ardently desired and had practically 
 commenced its revival in 1872 ! Let me here gratefully add 
 how much I personally owed in early life to Mr. Collier's kind 
 and unselfish encouragement.
 
 'Threnos. 
 
 Eautie,Truth,and Rarhic, 
 Grace in all /implkitie, 
 Here endofdejn cinders lie, 
 
 JD eath is now the P/jcenix neft, 
 And the Turtles loyall breft, 
 To eternitie doth red. 
 
 Leauing no poileritle* 
 T was not their innrrmtie, 
 It was married Chaffilie. 
 
 Truthmay feeroe,but cannot be, 
 Beautie bragge^buttis not fhe, 
 Truth and Beautie buried be. 
 
 To this vrnelet thofe repair^ 
 That are either true orfaire, 
 ¥ot thele dead Birds,%Jr a prayer.
 
 i6 
 
 matter beyond all doubt, his name is there 
 printed with both the disputed letters and with 
 a hyphen. See the annexed facsimile of the 
 conclusion of this poem. The printed literature 
 of Shakespeare's time is all but unanimous in 
 the adoption of the longer orthography, and in 
 it there are very few instances indeed of the 
 omission of either the e or the a, while there 
 are numerous examples of the occurrence of the 
 full name with a hyphen, as in the poem just 
 mentioned. It is, in fact, exceedingly curious 
 that one form of a name of such easy variation 
 should have been so generally adopted in print 
 at a time when there was great laxity in such 
 matters in printed books as well as in writings. 
 Thus, in the interesting collection, England's 
 Parnassus, 1600, while the name of one poet is 
 spelt in four different ways, — Achilley, Achelly, 
 Achellye, Achely, — and rare Ben's appears both 
 as Johnson and Jhonson, that of the great 
 dramatist is uniformly printed Shakespeare in 
 upwards of forty instances in that small volume. 
 I will now proceed to a consideration of the poet's 
 five acknowledged signatures, the only examples 
 of undoubted authenticity known to exist. 
 
 1. Indenture of Bargain to Shakespeare 
 of a house in Blackfriars, 10 March, 1613,* 
 
 * The original indenture of conveyance to Shakespeare, dated 
 on the same day, is in my possession, and one of my choicest 
 treasures. This deed, that which was enrolled in Chancery, is
 
 17 
 
 the original deed being now in the Guildhall 
 Library. Here the signature is unquestionably 
 Shakspere, reading the contraction as er t and 
 considering that which follows the e as a mere 
 flourish. Sir F. Madden, indeed, reads the last 
 syllable per and thinks that the contraction is 
 for the final e. The same result follows from 
 either theory, but the latter one would, I fancy, 
 be more likely to be correct if it had referred to 
 a document of an earlier date. The former is 
 confirmed by what is apparently a very careful 
 facsimile made by the elder Ireland soon after 
 the discovery of the indenture, his original 
 tracing being now in my possession. 
 
 2. Mortgage Deed of the same house, dated 
 ii March, 1613, now in the British Museum. 
 Here again we have a contracted form, the only 
 written letters of the second syllable being sfte, 
 but the mark of contraction is different from 
 that in the previous deed, it appearing in this 
 one as if it were an a in the published facsimile 
 of 1 790, and u in recent copies, in either case 
 implying, to judge from the usual meaning of 
 abbreviations of the time, that an a was one of 
 the letters of what was intended. The contrac- 
 tion is also clearly given as an a in Malone's 
 
 in fine and perfect condition, with the original official note of 
 enrollment on the outside. It is endorsed, — Walker et Shake- 
 speare et a/.
 
 i8 
 
 original tracing made in the year 1784, and 
 although he afterwards thought " that what was 
 supposed to be that letter was only a mark of 
 abbreviation with a turn or curl at the first 
 part of it, which gave it the appearance of a 
 letter," this latter notion was a mere con- 
 jecture hazarded without the advantage of 
 another reference to the original (Inquiry, 
 1796, pp. 1 18-120), and is an opinion which 
 will not stand the test of a close examination. 
 Many years ago, the original deed now in the 
 Museum was kindly brought to my house by its 
 then owner, Mr. Troward, and my late valued 
 friend, Mr. Fairholt, took the greatest pains on 
 that occasion to make an accurate tracing of the 
 poet's signature. The engraving from that 
 facsimile may be seen in my folio edition of 
 Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 209, and there the con- 
 traction is more like a than ?i, encouraging a 
 suspicion that the top part of the former letter 
 has been obliterated by the handling of the 
 deed during the long period that has elapsed 
 since the autograph was first traced by Malone. 
 Whether there is a probability in this suggestion 
 might perhaps be decided by the use of a 
 microscope ; but, at all events, the form of 
 Shakspere cannot in this instance be admitted 
 with anything like certainty. 
 
 The exact interpretation of this second auto- 
 graph is, however, of little moment in our en-
 
 19 
 
 quiry, for, as it has been well observed, " the 
 contractions exhibited by these two signatures 
 neutralize their evidence," and Shakespeare 
 clearly intended by using those contractions 
 that his name should be included within the 
 narrow limits of the seal-labels. There are 
 then, as absolute evidences of the poet's usage 
 in his signatures, merely the three appended to 
 the will, and these must be examined in 
 detail, — 
 
 i. The first is now extremely indistinct, 
 having suffered from the wear and tear of the 
 manuscript. That it was originally Shakspere 
 may be safely concluded from the facsimile 
 made by Steevens in 1776, Dr. Farmer also 
 personally examined the document when it was 
 in a more perfect state, and he confirms this 
 reading in a manuscript note of his in my pos- 
 session. 
 
 2. There is more doubt about the second one, 
 the space between the p and the r apparently 
 indicating the original presence of two letters, 
 which were read ea by Dr. Farmer, but, judg- 
 ing from the best facsimiles, and without a new 
 inspection of the original, it is my conviction 
 that here we should read Shakspere, the minute 
 blank between the e and the r being occasioned 
 by the intervention of the loop of a letter hang- 
 ing from the body of the will. Here again the 
 microscope might be of use.
 
 20 
 
 3- In the last autograph the second syllable 
 appears to be spear e in all the facsimiles, as it 
 does in that of Steevens made in the year 1776, 
 and then so accepted by Malone. The latter 
 writer, indeed, afterwards changed his opinion, 
 not, however, from a second examination of the 
 original, but merely because an anonymous 
 correspondent was of opinion that " though 
 there was a superfluous stroke when the poet 
 came to write the letter r in his last signature, 
 probably from the tremor of his hand, there was 
 no a discoverable in that syllable," Inquiry, 
 1796, p. 1 18. The notion of the tremor of the 
 hand is simply gratuitous, the will having been 
 executed more than a month before the death of 
 the poet, and there being no evidence that 
 he was then invalided. Be this as it may, 
 the correspondent's surmise cannot invalidate 
 the authority of Steevens's own tracing, in 
 the original of which, still preserved, the 
 letter a is clearly exhibited, the accu- 
 racy of the facsimile being ratified by 
 the following note, — G. Steevens delineavit 
 accurante et testante Edmondo Malme, 1776. 
 That there are two letters between the p and 
 the r seems beyond a reasonable doubt, and a 
 writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 
 1789, reads speere, but surely the formation of 
 the writing supports our first interpretation. 
 But what about the first syllable of the auto-
 
 21 
 
 graph ? A distinguished scholar has just 
 pointed out to me — and it is, as in the case of 
 the management of the egg by Columbus, most 
 singularly curious so obvious a fact should 
 have escaped the notice of all others — that the 
 character following the letter k is the then well- 
 known and accepted contraction for es. There 
 cannot be a doubt on this point, and there- 
 fore the poet's last signature appears in his own 
 selected literary form of Shakespeare. 
 
 M alone expatiates on the " very extraordinary 
 circumstance that a man should write his name 
 twice one way, and once another, on the same 
 paper," Inquiry, p. 117; but it is not certain 
 that the three signatures were written on the 
 same day. At that period, the two first would 
 not necessarily require the attendance of wit- 
 nesses, and might have been added when the 
 will was first copied ready for signing in January, 
 or at any time between then and Lady Day.* 
 On a careful examination it will be seen that the 
 last signature differs somewhat in formation from 
 the others, especially in that of the capital letter 
 W. But even supposing that all the signatures 
 were attached to the will on the same day, a 
 
 * There was so much laxity in such matters excepting in the 
 presence of witnesses at the final signature, it is not at all 
 unlikely that the day of the later month is incorrect. At all 
 events it is singular that the will should be executed on the very 
 same day of March on which it was originally dated in January*
 
 22 
 
 variation in their forms would not be more 
 extraordinary than that of Walter Roche, the 
 poet's schoolmaster, signing his name twice in 
 different ways on the same day in the same 
 document, or than Margaret Trevelyan at a later 
 period writtng her own name and that of her 
 husband with different spellings in the very same 
 li nC) — « Margaret Trevelyan, for her husband 
 Georee Trevelian." Sir William Brown, who 
 signed indiscriminately in at least three different 
 ways, spells his name Browne in a letter to Lord 
 Sidney, May 24th, 1604, and Broune in another 
 letter written on the very next day to the same 
 nobleman. A little more research would no doubt 
 produce many other like examples, although 
 the extraordinary laxity formerly displayed by 
 nearly every one in the orthography of sur- 
 names scarcely requires more confirmatory 
 evidence. This is, in fact, the whole gist of 
 the matter, that the forms of autographs were 
 in those days no reliable guides for an uniform 
 printed usage, and, as I ventured to say in my 
 other pamphlet, " to follow signatures would 
 revolutionize the whole system of early nominal 
 orthography, and lead to preposterous results." 
 
 Now, in conclusion, with a flourish of mag- 
 nanimity. If it be possible that any student, 
 after perusing the above luminous exposition, 
 can wish to discard the e and the a, he has my 
 solemn assurance that I shall not have the
 
 23 
 
 slightest inclination either to roar him down or 
 quarrel with him on that account. On the con- 
 trary, if such an individual appear and will favour 
 me with a visit, he shall be received with all the 
 attention due to a rara avis at my primitive and 
 ornithological bungalow. Although my library 
 is small it includes some of the choicest Shake- 
 spearean rarities in the world, and there is also 
 an unrivalled collection of drawings and engrav- 
 ings illustrative of the life of the great dramatist. 
 A mere glance over the latter will occupy a 
 summer's day. And the feast of reason shall 
 be irrigated by the flow of port, claret, or 
 madeira, and by what is not now to be seen 
 every day of the week, really old sherry. If, 
 unfortunately, he has forsworn racy potations 
 and not discovered that good sherris-sack 
 " ascends into the brain and dries there all the 
 foolish, and dull, and crudy vapours which en- 
 viron it," then are there our deep chalk wells 
 yielding an inexhaustible supply of the pure 
 aqueous element as bright and sparkling as the 
 waves and atmosphere of Brighton herself. 
 
 J. O. HALLIWELL-PHILLI1TS. 
 
 Hollingbury Copse, 
 Brighton. 
 
 January, 1880.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-20m-7,'61(Cl437s4)444 

 
 H15 
 
 old? 
 
 Phillipps - 
 New lamps or 
 
 PR 
 
 2901 
 
 HIS 
 
 AA 000 369 437 
 
 J