THE SHAKESPEAREAN MYTH WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE BY APPLETON MORGAN, A.M., LL.B. AUTHOR OF "SHAKESPEARE IN FACT AND IN CRITICISM," DIGESTA SHAKES OF THE "BANKSIDE SHAKESPEARE," ETC., ETC Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves: THIRD EDITION CINCINNATI ROBERT CLARKE & CO ΤΟ D. T. MORGAN, ESQ., OF WHIP'S CROSS, WALTHAMSTOW, ESSEX, ENGLAND. My Dear Sir: these pages. I do not know your opinion on the matter treated in 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, OCTOBER, 1881. APPLETON MORGAN. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. WHEN, four years ago, I prepared the first edition of this work, I had very little idea that its appearance was to be considered a personal affront to the memory of William Shakespeare, or that I was myself to be accused of heterodoxy-rank disloyaltythreatened with active adverse operation of the Stratford curse, etc. Being familiar with the difficulty (to which the more honest commentators confessed) of believing, from internal evidence, that but one single hand wrote the Plays and Poems, I supposed myself only doing Shakespeare students a service by grouping the external evidence thereto for them as well. To be sure, the book presented an extreme view of the circumstantial case against Shakespeare, but there seemed to be no other plan of making the discussion valuable. One can hardly be expected to argue heroically in support of a conceded presumption, and I certainly did not propose to myself a re-writing of the stereotype Essay on Shakespeare, which—like Major-General Stanley's military knowledge-accrued |