ABSTRACT
The contents of this chapter are not offered as proof of the Stratford actor’s authorship of the Shakespearean plays. To provide such proof is not a matter with which I am concerned in this study. My purpose is to demonstrate the inadequacy of the theorists’ cases, and one way of doing this is to show that evidence of exactly the same nature as they produce on behalf of their various candidates can also be produced for William Shakspere. It is such evidence that I have collected here. If it were actually put forward in defence of his authorship there is none of it I should regard as absolutely conclusive, and some that I should reject for the reasons I have rejected the same kind of thing when put forward by the theorists. I must ask my readers to bear this in mind throughout the chapter since, for purposes of comparison, I must argue each point as strongly as the theorists do.
