Note 271 — XVI—THE CLOSE OF LIFE

The clumsy entry runs: ‘Sept. Mr. Shakespeare tellyng J. Greene that I was not able to beare the encloseing of Welcombe.’ J. Greene is to be distinguished from Thomas Greene, the writer of the diary. The entry therefore implies that Shakespeare told J. Greene that the writer of the diary, Thomas Greene, was not able to bear the enclosure. Those who represent Shakespeare as a champion of popular rights have to read the ‘I’ in ‘I was not able’ as ‘he.’ Were that the correct reading, Shakespeare would be rightly credited with telling J. Greene that he disliked the enclosure; but palæographers only recognise the reading ‘I.’ Cf. Shakespeare and the Enclosure of Common Fields at Welcombe, a facsimile of Greene’s diary, now at the Birthplace, Stratford, with a transcript by Mr. E. J. L. Scott, edited by Dr. C. M. Inglehy, 1885.