The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-06-13
Noted Authority Disagrees With DR..
Wallace in Certain ldenti6ca-
ton of the Poet

a name. No! the only concession
am disposed to make to DR.. Wallace
is land as I have always insisted on
1t myself for forty years I make the
concession all the more gratefully
that Shakespeare. whoever he was.
was a nan like other men, who from
small beginnings grew very rich for
those days. lived to purchase the
grandest mansion in his native town.
from which as a lad he was obliged
by poverty actually to flee the bailln.
And / for one should not be
ashamed to confess that the great
dramat!st loses no one whit Of his
glory In my eyes because he amassed
n fortune and lived in the largest
and stateliest house in Stratford. ]
once contributed to THE SUNDAY Sun
my protests against the S~tratford-on-
Avon authorities, who exhibit to zap
ing thousands in Henley street a few
~rubbishy relies Of Shakespeare-his
alleged SWITCHBOARD. a broken down
chair or w and so on! Why, even
IL relics at all, they are relics that
Shakespeare himself would have de-
stroyed as "reminiscences Of his days
Of squalor and obscurity!
IF we are to go on pilgrimages to
his birthplace, let us gaze on the
vestiges Of his manhood and his pros
perity! His pages are purple with
courts and kings and queens and noble
lords and stately danes. Shake
speare himself was Of the English
rank Of gentleman and. as We shall
see, so signed himself, and the Herald's
College justified him in so signing
himself! I know what you will say.
But for my part. while l am no whit
behind DR.. Wallace in his appetite for
facts, there are some things that. like
Hdmlct's book, are better left-'words.
words, Words You remember the
point. When Polonius asked Prince
Hamlet IL he found consolation in
what he was reading the Prince re-
piled. NO. l find here that old men
have gray beards, &c. All Of which
though I most powerfully and po-
tently believe, yet I hold II not wisdom
to have thus set down.
And similarly. although DR.. Wallace
Is probably right in all his statements
Of fact. I hold 1t no judicious to give
our Baconian friends another argu-
ment by insisting too strongly that
because a william Shakespeare brewed
ale. or specialized in the tithes, or
bought and sold real estate. or executed
leases, or was fined or brought law
suits TO recover moneys withheld from
him for malt delivered 1t is impossible
that that particular Shakespeare
could have been our dramatist.
DIR. Wallace's discoveries In the
London Public Records office have
filled all Of us with admiration Of his
labors and his results. We are all
grateful for everything that he has
done. All ] am saying Is that l don't
see anything impossible in our ancient
beliefs that possibly the dramatist sold
malt and began lawsuits to recover
its price or was interested in brewing
ale (by far the most respectable OF
trades in England to-day and the one
at which the greatest fortunes are
amassed: beyond the dreams OF
avarice,' as Or. johnson said OF the
great brewer Thrale, the predecessor
OF the Bass OF our day.. The great
Flower Brewery in Stratford-on-
Avon to-day adjoins the Shakespeare
precincts on Henley street. and many
generations OF Messrs. Flowers, fathers
and sons, have been Mayors OF STRAIT
ford-on-Avon.
"As to william the dramatlst having
been a soldier or anything else. may
beg you to remember that a lord.y
percentage Of the volumes in our
Shakespeare libraries consist OF dis
cussion Of just this exact set Of ques-
tons; namely, was Shakespeare a SOL
der? was Shakespeare a lawyer?
was Shakespeare a brewer. a butcher,
a courtier, a 'servitour' at the theatre
door? n speculator-anything indi-
Gated by anything that one finds in
the mouth Of n n OF his eight
hundred characters, no " OF whom
speak or act or think alike?
Nay, more: it is one OF the argu-
ments OF those terrible people the
Baconians that II Is impossible to find
in all Elizabethan or Jacobean Eng
land any n man except Bacon who
was interested in so many phases OF
life "a are dealt with so finally in the
plays. So you see why ] am sure
that it is just as we'll not to declare
too peremptorily that IT is impossi-
bic that his or that William Shake
speare could not have been the Will
lam Shakespeare we are looking for
because Of his or that i~mprobability
or discrepancy OF vocation!
THE only exception myself am in
clined to make Is that ! do believe
that the william Shakespeare who in
vested in (that is, farmed) the tithes
was the dramatist. For that william
Shakespeare was buried in the chan
Gel Of the Collegiate Church, and he
could only have been buried there.