Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/189

 us. vi. AUG. 24, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Cet immeuble porte le No. 17 de la rue de La Cité- derriére. Un poste de police y a été ´tabli il y a quelques années."

(In Read, vol. ii. p. 276, is a picture of the gallery of this house.) Among the illus- trations of this section of 'La Vie de Societé,' --reproductions of portraits and objets d'art inherited by the authors from Wilhelm de Sévery, Gibbon's adopted son--is one of a water-colour drawing by Louis Dor of the pavilion built in the garden of La Grotte by the historian. T. F. DWIGHT. La Tour de Peilz, Vaud.

QUARLES FAMILY (11 S. vi. 70). In The East Anglian, vol. iii. (O.S.), 1869, is a full account of the Quarles family, which gives the information desired by C. G. The third wife of Sir Robert Quarles was Mary, dau. of Henry Parvish, merchant, of London and Leyton, co. Essex. They were married at Leyton, 6 May, 1617, and had three children: (1) Gabriel of Camwell Hall, co. Herts, d. 1650 ; (2) William of Sleaford, co. Lincoln, born c. 1620, married Ann Vernon, widow, 1642; (3) Elizabeth, mar- ried to John Symonds, of co. Lincoln and Great Yeldham, co. Essex. She was his first wife, and died, s.p., 13 Dec., 1666. John Symonds died 29 Feb., 1692, aged 74. Both were buried at Great Yeldham. R. FREEMAN BUIXEN. Bow Library, E.

SHAKESPEARE'S SIGNATURES (11 S. v. 490; vi. 72). There can be no question of the indisputable fact that we possess nothing which can be supposed to have been written by Shakespeare. All the so-called signatures are written in law script by skilled law clerks.

The first in the order of date--11 May, 1612--although the last discovered, is preserved in the Record Office, London, where we find "Wilm Shaxpr" attached to certain answers to interrogatories in a petty lawsuit in which "William Shake- speare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, Gentleman," was concerned. Any clerk in that office will now agree that this was written by the law clerk who wrote the body of the inter- rogatories. And any one acquainted with law procedure will know that if William Shakespeare could have written anything, he certainly would have been obliged to sign in full, and would not have been per- mitted to shorten his name to "Shaxpr," even if it were conceivable that any man who could write would have desired so to do.

Next in order of date is the purchase deed at Guildhall, dated 10 March, 1613, and the mortgage on the same property, dated 11 March, 1613. When a part of the purchase money is left upon mortgage, the mortgage deed is always dated a day after, but always signed a moment before the purchase deed, because the seller will not part with his property before he receives both the cash and the mortgage deed. These two documents were, therefore, signed at the same moment, in the same place. This is evidently the case with the other parties to the deeds, Wm. Johnson and Jo. Jackson; but the writing put for Shake- speare's name differs as widely as possible in the two documents, one being in the handwriting of an old man, the other in the handwriting of a young man. It is not even remotely possible that both of the supposed signatures of William Shake- speare could have been written in the same place, at the same time, with the same pen, by the same hand. If these had been signa- tures, they certainly must have been so written.

There only remain the three so-called "signatures" attached to the will dated 25 March, 1616. I am prepared to swear, from a most careful personal examination of the will with the strongest glasses in the brightest light, that all these are written by the law clerk who wrote the will. This is confirmed by Magdalene Thumm-Kintzel in an article that appeared in the Leipzig magazine Der Menschenkenner in January, 1909. In this publication photo reproduc- tions of certain letters in the body of the will and in the so-called signatures are placed side by side, and the evidence is irresistible that they are by the same hand. As a matter of fact, the will, the so-called Shakespeare signatures, and the supposed signatures of the witnesses other than himself, are all written in "law script" by Francis Collyns, the Warwickshire solicitor, who added his own name as a witness in a neat, modern-looking hand. The statement "Witness my hand" fully satisfied by the testator dabbing his fist on the will, and the attestation clause is " Witness to the publishing [not to the signing] hereof."

All the so-called signatures are in "law script." In answer to my inquiry, Dr. Courtney Kenny, the distinguished law lecturer of Cambridge, told me that he never remembered to have seen a "signa- ture" by a private party in law script. As a matter of fact, law script was only