932f A 417 PREFACE AN attempt is here made to throw some new light, at least for those who are not already Shakespearian scholars, upon the still vexed question of the authorship of the plays and poems which bear Shakespeare's name. In the first place, it has seemed to me that the Baconian argument from the legal knowledge shown in the plays is of slight weight, but that heretofore it has not been adequately met. Accordingly I have endeavored with some elaboration to make it plain that this legal knowledge was not extraordinary, or such as to imply that the author was educated as a lawyer, or even as a lawyer's clerk. In addition to dealing with this rather technical phase of the general subject, I have sought from the plays themselves and from other sources to bring together materials which have a bearing upon the question of authorship, and some of which, though familiar enough of themselves, have not been sufficiently considered in this special aspect. The writer of the plays showed an intimate M758108 |