Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown, page 110 by Andrew Lang
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s--the Folio of 1623. Ben did not weave the amazing tissue of involved and contradictory falsities attributed to him by Baconians. Beaumont died in the same year as Shakspere, who died in the depths of the country, weary of London. Has Mr. Greenwood found obituary poems dropped on the grave of the famous Beaumont? Did Fletcher, did Jonson, produce one melodious tear for the loss of their friend; in Fletcher's case his constant partner? No? Were the poets, then, aware that Beaumont was a humbug, whose poems and plays were written by Bacon? {174a}
I am not to discuss Shakespeare's Will, the "second-best bed," and so forth. But as Shakespeare's Will says not a word about his books, it is decided by Mr. Greenwood that he had no books. Mr. Greenwood is a lawyer; so was my late friend Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., of White Staunton, who remarks that Shakespeare bequeathed "all the rest of my goods, chattels, leases, &c., to my son-in-law, John Hall, gent." (He really WAS a "gent." with authentic coat-armour.)
It is with Mr. Elton's opinion, not with my ignorance, that Mr. Greenwood must argue in proof of the view that "goods" are necessarily exclusive of books, for Mr. Elton takes it as a quite natural fact that Shakespeare's books passed, with his other goods, to Mr. Hall, and thence to a Mr. Nash, to whom Mr. Hall left "my study of books" {175a} (library). I only give this as a lawyer's opinion.
There is in the Bodleian an Aldine Ovid, "with Shakespeare's" signature (merely Wm. She.), and a note, "This little volume of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will Shakespeare's." I do not know that the signature (like that on Florio's Montaigne, in the British Museum) has been detected as a forgery; nor do I know that Shakespeare's not specially mentioning his books proves that he had none. Lawyers appear to differ as to this inference: both Mr. Elton and Mr. Greenwood seem equally confident. {175b} But if it were perfectly natural that the actor, Shakspere, should have no books, t