ABSTRACT
On 20 May 2015, the editors of Country Life magazine boldly trumpeted historian Dr Mark Griffiths’s claim to have found a new Shakespeare portrait in a sixteenth-century book on gardening. The case rested mainly on the interpretation of the rebus on the plinth below the figure alleged to be Shakespeare, a puzzle that has since been given a more economical treatment as a printer’s mark. Not only did they judge incorrectly that this idea would float, but the boat has now been launched into even deeper water, with Dr Griffiths’s further ‘discovery’ of a new Shakespeare playlet. This is presented under the rather appropriate title ‘A Country Controversy’.
