Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-06-04
SHAKESPEARE'S MALADY.
impossible to Determine the Extent or
Character of His Illncss.

impossible to Determine tho Extene OF
Character of His Illness.
Mr.. j. +. Nisbet. in an ingenious ar
ticle. argues thai the most likely Cause
of Shakespeare carly and sudden With
draw;.l from the scancsof his labors and
literary interests was i'll health" He
declares that his assumption will DO
found to be Sin sinister accord with the
known facts.
Shakespeare did not belong to q
healthy stock. He was one of Il family
of eight, of whom seven, including HIM
self, attained an average age OF 81
wears, the one long lived member being
his sister Joan With all the insmitary
conditions OF life i'll those days this is: an
exceptionally low average, only explica-
bic on the assumption that Shakespeare,
like so many men of genius, spranS
from stock physically -unsound.
las to the cause of his death, the only
information cxt;nt is the famous entry
in the diary of Rev. John Ward OF
Stratford, who wrote i'll 1868: Shakes
pcare, Drayton and Ben Jonson had u
merrie meeting and it seems drank too
hard, for Shakespeare died of Il feavour
there contracted Strange TO say, this
obviously spiteiul piece of gossip has
been accepted by all the biographers
down to the present time. Medical sci
encc. however, rejects it. There is no
fever properly so called which can be
contracted by drinking, and Shakes
peare's death, moreover, occurred 21a
months after the 'merrie meeting.
'Halliwell-Ph Phillips supposcs tho
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
deathhed. The dangerous seizure which
caused the draft will to be signed, as it
had stood for months i'll the lawyer s
hand, took place on March 20, the orig
inul word .lanuary being struck out and
March written III.
''But the patient did not die for four
weeks and Il day, which is not the usual
course of typhus or typhoid fever, and
for Halliwell-Phillipps' suggestion that
the melancholy gathering at New Place
happened later Cham the 25th OF March,
the day of the month in the draft being
left unchanged by oversight, there Is
lilo warrant whatever.
The fever hypothesis being mad
MISSILE, of what, then, did Shakespeare
die: There are facts from which plau-
sible inference on this point may be
drawn. According TO Hemyngc and Con-
dell. the poet must in his prime have
written with great ease, since there was
scarce a blot III his papers But all his
questionable signatures that remain are
shaky enough to denote some sort of
paralysis. The early Florio signature,
authentic or not, is free from this de-
feet, but III the signature appended TO
the lease in 1913 the shaldncss OF the
hand is evident. In the signatures to tho
will q month before his death it is such
that the name is hardly legiblc.
Another fact demonstrating the
probability of some affection Of the nerv-
Gus system is that i'll debating the draft
will drawn up By his lawyer i'll January,
1916, Shakespeare failed to remember
the Christian name of his nephew,
Thomas Hart. whichaccordingly remains
blank to this dav---a vcrirable oversight
this. And failure of memory together
with the unsteasliness of the hand, is, J.
need not add the frequent precursor of
a fatal paralytic or apoplectic attack. So
far from passing the 3l4 years OF his re-
tirement in pleasant intercourse with
the gentlemen of the neighborhood' of
Stratford, therefore. Shakespeare, l feel
justified in inferTing, v;ls a martyr to
i'll health, the victim of some sort of
nervous complaint. which betrayed it
self in his Handwriting before his de
parture from London. n-LondQn Acad-
envy.