Page:The Review of English Studies Vol 1.djvu/52



book on Shakespeare’s Hand in the Play of Sir Thomas More has found so much favour with experts and the general public alike that it may almost appear impossible to invalidate the arguments piled up in it by some of the greatest authorities living for Shakespeare’s authorship of the so-called “insurrection-scene.” Still it will not perhaps be useless to show that there are some points of view from which the interesting building erected in this book looks less weather-proof than it appears if looked at with the eyes of the architects. For reasons which are not far to seek, the question of the identity of the pen which wrote the sheets concerned, with that from which the six signatures originated, must be ruled out in this investigation. However, it cannot be left unsaid, that these chapters too contain some material that is far from convincing to the unprejudiced reader. When Sir E. Maunde Thompson states the extraordinary similarity of the a in signature No. 1 to certain a’s in the manuscript (especially the “pointed projection or spur from the lower end of the back of the letter”), he will certainly not be contradicted, but it cannot be overlooked, on the other hand, that the two letters h and s are in all cases hopelessly and absolutely dissimilar in signatures and manuscript. (The reproduction of the h of signature No. 5 on plate v does not by any means give a right impression, as is easily to be seen on plate i. A little better is the h of signature No. 1, but in reality—as plate i shows—this letter too appears different in the facsimile, it being much more pointed and showing almost an acute angle; also, if less so, the h of No. 2, whereas the h’s of the manuscript are remarkable for their curves.) The difference between the s’s needs no