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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I The Stratfordian View Ex rtthtt-d: nthil fit: - -:: .: r::::: -. /-'.y-- ..- .- In spite of the efforts of orthodox Stratfordians to belittle the investigations that have been made into the question of the authorship of the Shakespeare dramas; perhaps indeed because of the very manner they have chosen to adopt, the number of Britons and Americans, to say nothing of the non-English speaking nationalities, who do not believe that William Shakspere of Stratford produced the literature with which he is credited is steadily on the increase. Outside the ranks of those who have deeply committed themselves in print it is indeed difficult nowadays to find any one in the enjoyment of a full and assured faith. At the same time the resort of the faithful few to contemptuous expressions in speaking of opponents is clearly indicative of uneasiness even amongst the most orthodox litterateurs. The unfortunate cryptogram of Ignatius Donnelly, whilst tending to bring the enquiry into disrepute with minds disposed to serious research, has been unable altogether to nullify the effects of the negative criticism with which his work opens. The supplementing of this by writers of the calibre of Lord Penzance, Judge Webb, Sir George Greenwood, and Professor Lefranc has raised the problem to a level which will not permit of its being airily dismissed without thereby reflecting adversely on the capacity andjudgment of the controversialists who would thus persist in giving artifice instead of argument. That, however, is their concern. The common sense of the rank and file of Shakespeare students, when unhampered by past committals, leads irresistibly towards the rejection of the old idea of authorship; and only the doctors of the ancient literary cult hang in the rear.