So far as anybody actually
knows and can prove, Shakespeare
of
Stratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.
So far as any one knows,
he received only one letter
during his life.
So far as any one knows and can prove,
Shakespeare of Stratford wrote only one poem during
his life. This one is authentic. He did
write that one—a fact which stands undisputed;
he wrote the whole of it; he wrote the whole of it
out of his own head. He commanded that this work
of art be engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed.
There it abides to this day. This is it:
Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
And curst be he yt moves my bones.
In the list as above set down will be found every
positively known fact of Shakespeare’s
life, lean and meager as the invoice is. Beyond
these details we know not A thing about
him. All the rest of his vast history, as furnished
by the biographers, is built up, course upon course,
of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures—an
Eiffel Tower of artificialities rising sky-high from
a very flat and very thin foundation of inconsequential
facts.
Conjectures
The historians “suppose” that Shakespeare
attended the Free School in Stratford from the time
he was seven years old till he was thirteen.
There is no evidence in existence that he ever
went to school at all.
The historians “infer” that he got his
Latin in that school—the school which they
“suppose” he attended.
They “suppose” his father’s declining
fortunes made it necessary for him to leave the school
they supposed he attended, and get to work and help
support his parents and their ten children. But
there is no evidence that he ever entered or returned
from the school they suppose he attended.
They “suppose” he assisted his father
in the butchering business; and that, being only a
boy, he didn’t have to do full-grown butchering,
but only slaughtering calves. Also, that whenever
he killed a calf he made a high-flown speech over
it. This supposition rests upon the testimony
of a man who wasn’t there at the time; a man
who got it from a man who could have been there, but
did not say whether he was nor not; and neither of
them thought to mention it for decades, and decades,
and decades, and two more decades after Shakespeare’s
death (until old age and mental decay had refreshed
and vivified their memories). They hadn’t
two facts in stock about the long-dead distinguished
citizen, but only just the one: he slaughtered
calves and broke into oratory while he was at it.
Curious. They had only one fact, yet the distinguished
