Note 1291 — Chapter XV

Though I shall not innovate in a work of this kind, not particularly relating to Shakspeare, I must observe, that Sir Frederic Madden has offered very specious reasons (in the Archæologia, vol. xxvi.), for believing that the poet and his family spelt their name Shakspere, and that there are, at least, no exceptions in his own autographs, as has commonly been supposed. A copy of Florio’s translation of Montaigne, a book which he had certainly read (see Malone’s note on Tempest, act ii. scene 1), has been lately discovered with the name W. Shakspere clearly written in it, and there seems no reason to doubt that it is a genuine signature. This book has, very properly, been placed in the British Museum, among the choice κειμηλια of that repository.