But there are more of these various spellings. All the records of Shakspere’s lifetime have been hunted up and printed. From these documents, consisting of deeds, bills of complaint, letters, poems, plays, etc.,— most of which especially concerned either the father or son or both—we extract the following spellings, giving; the dates:
Shakspere 1558, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’66, ’69, ’71, ’79, 80, ’83, ’85, ’90, ’96, 1616, ’17. (John Shakspere and all his offspring so registered, except Richard Shaks peer, baptized 1574.)
Shakespere 1575, ’79, ’96, ’97, ’98, ’99,1602, ’04, ’06, ’08, ’09, ’10, ’11, ’13.
Shackspere 1579, (Deed. “Joannis Shaxpere -j-.”) 1608.
Shagsper 1582, (Marriage bond—twice so written.)
Shake-scene 1592, (Greene, the playwright, in derision.)
Shakespeare 1593-1594, (Poems,) 1596, ’98, 1603, ’05, ’13, (and all Plays from 1598 to 1623.)
Shaksper 1596, ’98, 1613, (Signature,) 1616.
Shackesper 1598, (Letter from Quiney to Shakspere.)
Shakspeare 1601, ’03, ’07, ’12, ’13, ’14, 1623.
Shaxberd 1604, ’05, (Dramatist, Whitehall.)
Scliackspeare 1612, ’14, (Complaint and agreement.) Shaksp; 1613, (Signature.)
Shaxper 1616, (“Bell and pall for Mr. Shaxpers dawghter, viii. d.”)
If we divide the name between the s and p we have the following variations of each part:
Shaks, Shakes, Shakys, Shacks, Shackes, Schacks, Shags, Shax, Shex; per, pere, peer, pear, peare, peyr, phear, berd, pj, p ....
Shakspere’s daughter Judith in 1611 witnessed two instruments by making her mark. And his other
daughter Susanna in 1642 disputed the unmistakable handwriting of her deceased husband in such a manner as to betray her illiteracy.
Mr. C. F. Gunther, of Chicago, claims to have obtained a copy of the Shakspere Folio of 1632, (i.e., the second Folio,) containing the author’s autograph pasted on a fly-leaf, underneath which is written:
“The works of William Shakespeare. Born in April, 1564, and died in April, 1616. John Ward.”
And on the same fly-leaf is pasted a letter from Charles Godwin, of Bath, dated February 16, 1839, to Dr. Charles Severn, of London, who was then editing “The Diary of the Rev. John Ward, A. M.,” Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon from 1648 to 1679.
The book is said to have been owned by a Mormon, and is supposed to have been brought from England by an emigrant to Utah. Aside from the impossibility of such an autograph escaping from England to the wilds of America and remaining undiscovered so many years, the fac-simile in the Chicago _Current_ of May 23, 1885, betrays most certain evidence of fraud. Compare it with the five genuine scrawls of Shakspere. It is so exact a copy of the last signature to the will as to indicate that it was traced therefrom.