The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1898-06-03
SHAkESPEARE'S MALADY.
impossible to Determine the Extent or
Character of His Illness.

impossible to Determine the Extent or
Character of His Illness.
Mr.. J. F. Nisbet, in an ingenious ar
ticle. argues that the most likely cause
of Shakespeare early and sudden with
drawal from the scenes of his labors and
literary interests was i'll health " He
declares that his assumption will be
fonnd TO be Sin sinister accord with the
known facts.
Shakespeare did not belong to a
healthy stock He was one of a family
of eight, of whom seven, including him
self, attained an average age OF II
wears, the one long lived member being
his sister Joan. With all the insanitary
conditions of life i'll those days this is an
exceptionally low average, only eXpllca-
ble on the assumption that Shakespeare,
like so many men Of genius sprang
from stock physically unsOund.
LAS to the cause of his death, the only
information extant is the lannon's entry
in the diary of Rev. John Ward OF
Stratford, who wrote in 1868: Shakes
peare, Drayton and Ben JOnson had
merrie meeting and it seems drank too
hard, for Shakespeare died Of feavour
there contracted. Strange to say, this
obviously spiteful piece of gossip has
been accepted by all the biographers
down to the present time. Medical sci
ence, however, rejects it. There is no
fever properly so called which can be
contracted by drinking, and Shakes
peare's death, moreover, occurred 212
months after the 'merrie meeting.
''Halliwell- Phillips supposes the
fever to have been typhus or typhoid,
but in order to sustain this hypothesis
he is obliged to tamper with the date OF
the signing of the poets will on his
deathbed. The dangerous seizure which
caused the draft will to be signed, as 1t
had stood for months in the lawyer
hand, took place on March %, the orig
inal word January being struck out and
March written in.
"But the patient did not die for four
weeks and day, which is not the usual
course of typhus or typhoid fever, ano
for Halliwell- Phillips suggestion that
the melancholy gathering at New Place
hammered later than the 25th of March,
the day of the month in the draft being
left unchanged by oversight, there Il
no warrant whatever.
1.-THE fever hypothesis being mad
missible, of what, then, did Shakespeare
die? There are facts from which plau
sible inference on this point may bt
drawn. According to Hemynge and Con
dell, the poet must in his prime have
written with great ease, since there wa
scarce a blot in his papers. But all hi
questionable signatures that remain arr
shaky enough to denote some sort O
paralysis. The early Florio signature
authentic or not, is free from this de
: feet, but III the signature appended t.
9 the lease i'll 1913 the shaklness OF tn
! hand is evident. In the signatures to tn
= will a month before his death it is sucl
that the name is hardly legible
Another fact demonstrating thu
probability of some affection Of the nerv
ous system is that in debating the draf
will drawn up by his lawyer III January
t 1916. Shakespeare failed to remembe
0 the Christian name of his nephew
o Thomas Hart, which accordingly remain
Q blank to this day-a verltable overslgh
g this. And failure of memory, togethe
J. with the unsteadiness of the hand, is,
r need not add, the frequent precursor
a fatal paralytic or apoplectic attack. S
k far from passing the 81 years Of his IT
% tirement in pleasant intercourse wit
the gentlemen of the neighborhood' {
d Stratford, therefore, Shakespeare, fee
d justified in inferring, was a martyr
n i'll health, the victim of some sort
nervous complaint, which betrayed i
l. self in his handwriting before his d'
parture from London. "-London Acat
I: envy.