Page:1909. Is Shakespeare Dead? From My Autobiography.djvu/62

IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD? actor; and in '94 a "regular" and properly and officially listed member of that (in those days) lightly-valued and not much respected profession.

Right soon thereafter he became a stockholder in two theatres, and manager of them. Thenceforward he was a busy and flourishing business man, and was raking in money with both hands for twenty years. Then in a noble frenzy of poetic inspiration he wrote his one poem—his only poem, his darling—and laid him down and died:

He was probably dead when he wrote it. Still, this is only conjecture. We have only circumstantial evidence. Internal evidence. 48