Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare

Citation and Examination of
William Shakspeare

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Shakspeare
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Title: Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare
Author: Walter Savage Landor

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5112] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 30,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CITATION
ETC. OF W. SHAKSPEARE ***

Transcribed from the 1891 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

CITATION AND EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
EUSEBY TREEN JOSEPH CARNABY AND SILAS GOUGH
CLERK BEFORE THE WORSHIPFUL SIR THOMAS LUCY
KNIGHT TOUCHING DEER-STEELING On the Nineteenth Day of
September in the Year of Grace 1582 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED
FROM ORIGINAL PAPERS

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

"It was an ancestor of my husband who BROUGHT OUT the famous
Shakspeare."
These words were really spoken, and were repeated in conversation as
most ridiculous. Certainly such was very far from the lady's intention;
and who knows to what extent they are true?
The frolic of Shakspeare in deer-stealing was the cause of his Hegira;
and his connection with players in London was the cause of his writing
plays. Had he remained in his native town, his ambition had never been
excited by the applause of the intellectual, the popular, and the
powerful, which, after all, was hardly sufficient to excite it. He wrote
from the same motive as he acted,--to earn his daily bread. He felt his

own powers; but he cared little for making them felt by others more
than served his wants.
The malignant may doubt, or pretend to doubt, the authenticity of the
Examination here published. Let us, who are not malignant, be cautious
of adding anything to the noisome mass of incredulity that surrounds us;
let us avoid the crying sin of our age, in which the "Memoirs of a
Parish Clerk," edited as they were by a pious and learned dignitary of
the Established Church, are questioned in regard to their genuineness;
and even the privileges of Parliament are inadequate to cover from the
foulest imputation--the imputation of having exercised his inventive
faculties--the elegant and accomplished editor of Eugene Aram's
apprehension, trial, and defence.
Indeed, there is little of real history, excepting in romances. Some of
these are strictly true to nature; while histories in general give a
distorted view of her, and rarely a faithful record either of momentous
or of common events.
Examinations taken from the mouth are surely the most trustworthy.
Whoever doubts it may be convinced by Ephraim Barnett.
The Editor is confident he can give no offence to any person who may
happen to bear the name of Lucy. The family of Sir Thomas became
extinct nearly half a century ago, and the estates descended to the Rev.
Mr. John Hammond, of Jesus College, in Oxford, a respectable Welsh
curate, between whom and him there existed at his birth eighteen prior
claimants. He took the name of Lucy.
The reader will form to himself, from this "Examination of
Shakspeare," more favourable opinion of Sir Thomas than is left upon
his mind by the dramatist in the character of Justice Shallow. The
knight, indeed, is here exhibited in all his pride of birth and station, in
all his pride of theologian and poet; he is led by the nose, while he
believes that nobody can move him, and shows some other weaknesses,
which the least attentive observer will discover; but he is not without a
little kindness at the bottom of the heart,- -a heart too contracted to hold
much, or to let what it holds ebulliate very freely. But, upon the whole,
we neither can utterly hate nor utterly despise him. Ungainly as he is. -
Circum praecordia ludit.
The author of the "Imaginary Conversations" seems, in his "Boccacio
and