Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-08-14
HENRY WATTERSON
ON SHAKESPEARE
Confides in Letter That His Guess
is Christopher Marlowc Wrote
Plays.

Henry Watterson's guess is that
Christopher Marlowc wrote Shakespeare
plays. lie conhdes this in a letter TO
Reedy's Mirror, prompted by reveiw
in that periodical Of J. Thomas Loonevs
book identifying" the author as the Earl
Of Oxford An article about the book was
written by John Corbin for The New
York Times Book Review and Magazine
of June 81
Writing from Mansfield q" his home
at Jeffcrsontown, KY, MIR Watterson
SAYS
THE debate over the authorship Of
the Shakespeare plays is both confused
and confusing. II proves nothing. That
William Shakespeare Of Stratford-on-
Avon did not write them could by no
reasonable conjecture have written them
ought To be and is clear to intelligent,
unbiased minds But his name upon the
title page asniredlv 10 conceal the au-
thor OF the plays, establishes a claim
not easy % upset on the one hand and
opens vista Of varied though uncon-
ylncing speculation on the other
The plav-actors 10 n man are com
mitted 20 tho Shakespeare end of it. He
was n play-actor. That had given per
manency and momentum 10 the myth
The multiplicity of claimants has kept
II going One theory refutes another
theory, so that the general reader is
left IN n maze Of contradictory chatter
My own gttess-we can only guess
has always been that Christopher Mar
lowe wrote the plays lie is the only
dramatIsts Of that period whose known
production can be called 'Shakespear-
can II Is Of record that he was baptized
the 26th of February, 1864, at Canterbury,
where he was born, and gwen out that
he was killed in a tavern brawl at Dept
ford June /, 1893. Suppose he was not
killed that II was the other fallow
that he Marlowe-was spirited out Of
England 70 the Continent, and we have
an answer 10 several queries, 1t explains
why, rcgufee I ON justice, he could
not appear as the author Of any more
PLAYS, how and why his friend Shake
spcarc. one Of the managers Of the Globe
Theatre. had need 10 protect MS con-
ccalment while producing his PLAYS
and it accounts for the story and color
OF those Of the plays which are located
in Italy and France.
Doubtless sweet VIII was an en-
gaging fellow. But that likewise proves
nothing The three, and only three,
signatures extant are those Of a rustic
His last will and testament is that
of a rustic. II is preposterous, incon-
ceivable, that between the years 1886,
when he went up 20 London and held
horses IN the alley back Of the theatre,
and 1910, when he returned 10 Stratford.
a comparatively rich man, he could
have written Hamlet and Macbeth
and 'Othello. the comedies and poems
which stand in his name
But who did actually write them will
never be known.
My guess, however, is Christopher
Marlowe.
Henry Watterson."
Commenting editorially on the letter,
William Marion Reedv, editor OF The
Mirror, who thinks Shakespeare himself
wrote the plays, observes: let me say
right here that the opinion of Henry
Watterson as to the authorship of Shake
speare has more weight with me than
that of any of the men who have written
books TO prove that Shakespeare was
some one else than Shakespeare. For
this reason: That the person competent
to Judge the personality of the author
of the plays is person representing IN
his own character the qualities that have
endeared Shakespeare TO us The opinion
that counts is the opinion Of poet, OF a
man of universal sympathy, one with the
native grave to wear gallant plume,
one conspicuous for the blending OF in
tellect with emotion which transfgures
life and all things in ia person alive
to the pageantry of character working in
events and gifted with understanding Of
the diversity, divine and diaboheal, Of
human nature Mr. Watterson is the
kind of man today who might have sat
in his youth for the Chandon portrait
of Shakespeare, who would have been
fit friend to Essex and Southampton and
might have heard with rare Ben the
chimes at midnight. F"
MIR Looney refers TO Marlowe in his
book as of IA calihre to write the TRACE
dies of Shakespeare, but makes out what
he regards as a circumstantial case for
his new candidate.